The tragedy at the "Silent Pool" and the Auto-da-fe are perhaps the most dramatic scenes in the book,—as the Robin Hood gathering in Combe Valley is the most picturesque.

* * * * *

I quote a few particulars from one of my diaries. "This book tended to clear my brain of sundry fancies and pictures, as only the writing of another book could do that. Its seed is truly recorded in the first chapter as to the two stone coffins still in the chancel of St. Martha's. I began the book on November 26, 1857, and finished it in exactly eight weeks, on January 21, 1858, reading for the work included. In two months more it was printed by Hurst & Blackett. I intended it for one full volume, but the publishers preferred to issue it in two scant ones; it has since been reproduced by Lasham, Guildford, in one vol., at one-and-sixpence; it was 14s. I consulted and partially read for it (as I wanted accurate pictures of John's reign in England) the histories of Tyrrell, Hollingshed, Hume, Poole, Markland, Thomson's Magna Charta, James's Philip Augustus, Milman's Latin Christianity, Hallam's Middle Ages, Maimbourg's Lives of the Popes, Ranke's Life of Innocent III., Maitland on the Dark Ages, Ritson's Life of Robin Hood, Salmon's, Bray's, and Brayley's Surrey, Tupper's and Duncan's Guernsey, besides the British and National and other Encyclopaedias and Dictionaries as required. It was a work of hard and quick and fervid labour, not an idle piece of mere brain-spinning, and it may be depended on for archaeological accuracy in every detail. More than thirty localities in our beautiful county Surrey are painted in the book; of other parts of England twelve; of France and Italy twelve; there are more than twenty historical characters honestly (as I judge) depicted; and some fifteen ideal ones fairly enough invented as accessories: I preferred Stephan to the commoner Stephen, for etymological and archaeological reasons: it is clearly nearer the Greek, and is spelt so in ancient records."

King Alfred's own Poems.

One of the rarest of the books I have written (if any bibliomaniac of some future age desires to collect them) must always be "King Alfred's Poems, now first turned into English metres;" for the little volume was privately printed by Dr. Allen Giles, the edition being only of 250 copies, which soon vanished, a few of them bearing Hall & Virtue's name on a new title, and being dated 1850,—the majority hailing from the private press aforesaid. I constructed it purposely for the "Jubilee Edition of the Works of King Alfred," learning as well as I could (by the help of Dr. Bosworth's Dictionary and a Grammar) in a few weeks a little Anglo-Saxon,—and I confess considerably assisted by Mr. Fox's prose translation of Boethius. There are thirty-one poems in all, some being of Alfred's own, but the major part rendered by the wise king out of Latin into the language of his own people to help their teaching. I turned it into English verse in thirty-one different metres, each being as nearly as I could manage in the rhythm of the original: there were no rhymes in those days; alliteration was the only sort of jingle: in the judgment of Mr. Fox and some other Anglo-Saxon critics my version was fairly close, and for the poetical part of my own production at least nothing is of the slipshod order of half rhymes or alternate prose and verse—too common, especially in our hymnology—but honest double rhyming throughout. Without transcribing the little volume I could not give a true idea of it: but here shall come three or four samples:—

"Lo, I sang cheerily In my bright days,— But now all wearily Chaunt I my lays,— Sorrowing tearfully, Saddest of men, Can I sing cheerfully As I could then?" &c. &c.

Here is a verse of another:—

"O Thou that art Maker of heaven and earth, Who steerest the stars, and hast given them birth, For ever thou reignest upon Thy high throne, And turnest all swiftly the heavenly zone," &c.

Yet another:—

"What is a man the better, A man of worldly mould, Though he be gainful getter Of richest gems and gold, With every kind well filled Of goods in ripe array, And though for him be tilled A thousand fields a day?" &c.

Again:—

"I have wings like a bird, and more swiftly can fly Far over this earth to the roof of the sky, And now must I feather thy fancies, O mind, To leave the mid earth and its earthlings behind," &c.

And for a last word:—

"Thus quoth Alfred—'If thou growest old And hast no pleasure, spite of weal and gold, And goest weak,—then thank thy Lord for this, That He hath sent thee hitherto much bliss, For life and light and pleasures past away; And say thou, Come and welcome, come what may.'"

These are little bits taken casually: to each of the poems I have added suitable comment in prose. Mr. Bohn in his well-known series has added my verse to Mr. Fox's prose Boethius.

The Anglo-Saxon preface to that volume commences thus: "Alfred, King, was the translator of this book: and from book-Latin turned it into Old English, as it is now done. Awhile he put word for word; awhile sense for sense. He learned this book, and translated it for his own people, and turned it into song, as it is now done." His Old English song, that is, Anglo-Saxon alliteration, is all now modernised in this curious little book of English metres. It was well praised by many critics; but at present is out of the market. When I am "translated" myself, all these old works of mine will rise again in a voluminous complete edition.

* * * * *

"The Alfred Jubilee," on that great king's thousandth year, 1848, is one of the exploits of my literary life, undertaken and accomplished by Mr. Evelyn, the brothers Brereton, Dr. Giles, and myself in the year 1848, chiefly at Wantage, where Alfred was born. We arranged meetings and banquets in several places, notably Liverpool, where Mr. Bramwell Moore, the mayor, gave a great feast in commemoration, a medal was struck, the Jubilee edition of King Alfred's works was at least begun at Dr. Giles's private printing-press, whilst at Wantage itself 20,000 people collected from all parts for old English games, speeches, appropriate songs, such as "To-day is the day of a thousand years" from my pen, collections for a local school and college as a lasting memorial, and—to please the commonalty—a gorgeous procession and an ox roasted whole, with gilded horns and ribbons,—the huge carcase turned like a hare on a gigantic spit by help of a steam-engine before a furnace of two tons of blazing coal; and that ox was consumed after a most barbaric Abyssinian fashion in the open air. My Anglo-Saxon Magazine came out strong on the occasion,—but it is obsolete now; and I care not to use up space in reprinting patriotic indignation: for let me state that, considered as a national commemoration of the Great King, the chief founder of our liberties, this Wantage jubilee was all but a failure; the British lion slumbered, and it was flogging a dead horse to try to wake him up; very few of the magnates responded to our appeal: but we did our best, nevertheless, as independent Englishmen, and locally achieved a fair success.

If I went into the whole story with anecdotical detail, I should weary my reader: let me only reproduce my song at the grand Liverpool banquet, by way of ending cheerily.

The Day of a Thousand Years.

"To-day is the day of a thousand years! Bless it, O brothers, with heart-thrilling cheers! Alfred for ever!—to-day was He born, Day-star of England, to herald her morn, That, everywhere breaking and brightening soon, Sheds on us now the full sunshine of noon, And fills us with blessing in Church and in State, Children of Alfred, the Good and the Great! Chorus—Hail to his Jubilee Day, The Day of a thousand years.

"Anglo-Saxons!—in love are we met, To honour a Name we can never forget! Father, and Founder, and King of a race That reigns and rejoices in every place,— Root of a tree that o'ershadows the earth, First of a Family blest from his birth, Blest in this stem of their strength and their state, Alfred the Wise, and the Good, and the Great! Chorus,—Hail to his Jubilee Day, The Day of a thousand years!

"Children of Alfred, from every clime Your glory shall live to the deathday of Time! Hereafter in bliss still ever expand O'er measureless realms of the Heavenly Land! For you, like him, serve God and your Race, And gratefully look on the birthday of Grace: Then honour to Alfred! with heart-stirring cheers! To-day is the Day of a thousand years! Chorus,—Hail to his Jubilee Day, The Day of a thousand years!"

This song was set to excellent music, and went well, especially in the chorus. Several Americans were of our company, in particular, Richmond, a literary friend of mine. At the dinner I had to make a principal speech, and my cousin Gaspard of the Artillery (now General) answered for the Army.



CHAPTER XVIII.

SHAKESPEARE COMMEMORATION.

On the three-hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare at Stratford-on-Avon I contributed an ode, to be found in my extant book of poems. Among the notabilia of the feastings and celebration, I remember how Lord Houghton raised a great laugh by his pretended indignation when the glee singers greeted the guests at dinner as "Ye spotted snakes with double tongue!"—Doubtless it was a Shakespearean old English piece of music,—but stupidly enough selected for a complimentary greeting. My ode was well received, but I'll say no more of that, as it can speak for itself. Lord Leigh made us all very welcome at his splendid Palladian mansion, and there I met Lord Carlisle, then Viceroy of Ireland, who kindly told me that as he had known my father, and knew me, and my son was then in Ireland (he was a captain in the 29th Regiment), he would put him on his staff, as a third generation of the name. I am not sure if this happened, for my son soon was sent elsewhere; and he has long since gone to the Better Land. But Lord Carlisle's kindness was all the same. At the ball I remember Lord Carlisle's diamonds hanging like a string of glass chandelier drops at his button-hole with a Shakespeare favour, and jingling perilously for chippings as he danced: for size those half-dozen Koh-i-noors must be—foolishly—invaluable.

At Stratford Church, either then or some while after, I strangely was the means of saving Shakespeare's own baptismal font from destruction, as thus: the church had been "restored,"—i.e., all its best patina was polished away; and among the "improvements," I noticed a brand new font. "Where is the old one?" "O sir, the mason who supplied the new one took it away." So I called and found this font—quite sacred in Shakespearean eyes as where their idol had been christened—lying broken in a corner of the yard. Then off I went to the rector, I think it was a Mr. Granville, expostulating; and (to make the matter short) with some difficulty I got the font mended and put back again, as it certainly never should have been removed. I have since been to Stratford, and find that they use the new font, and have put the old one in a corner of the nave.

An odd thing happened to me in the church, where at the vestry I had just signed my name as other visitors did. An American, utterly unknown to me as I to him, came eagerly up to me as I was inspecting that unsatisfactory bust and inscription about Shakespeare, and said, "Come and see what I've found,—Martin Tupper's autograph,—he must be somewhere near, for he has just signed: do tell, is he here?" I rather thought he might be. "I've wished to see him ever since I was a small boy. Do you know him, sir?" Well, yes, a little. "Show him to me, sir, won't you? I'd give ten dollars for his autograph." After a word or two more, my good nature gave him the precious signature without the dollars,—and I shan't easily forget his frantic joy, showing the document to all around him, whilst I escaped.

Besides a Pindaric Ode to Shakespeare, to be found in my Miscellaneous Poems, wherein many of his characters are touched upon, I wrote the following sonnet, now out of print:—

The Stratford Jubilee.

"Went not thy spirit gladly with us then, Most genial Shakespeare!—wast thou not with us Who throng'd to honour thee and love thee thus, A few among thy subject fellow-men? Yea,—let me truly think it; for thy heart (Though now long since the free-made citizen Of brighter cities where we trust thou art) Was one, in its great whole and every part, With human sympathies: we seem to die, But verily live; we grow, improve, expand, When Death transplants us to that Happier Land; Therefore, sweet Shakespeare, came thy spirit nigh, Cordial with Man, and grateful to High Heaven For all our love to thy dear memory given."



CHAPTER XIX.

TRANSLATIONS AND PAMPHLETS.

The best of my unpublished MSS. of any size or consequence is perhaps my translation of Book Alpha of the Iliad, quite literal and in its original metre of hexameters: hitherto I have failed to find a publisher kind enough to lose by it; for there are already at least twelve English versions of Homer unread, perhaps unreadable. Still, some day I don't despair to gain an enterprising Sosius; for my literal and hexametrical translation is almost what Carthusians used to call "a crib," and perhaps some day the School Board or their organ, Mr. Joseph Hughes's Practical Teacher, may adopt my version. Its origin and history is this: finding winter evenings in the country wearisome to my homeflock, I used to read to them profusely and discursively. Amongst other books, a literary daughter suggested Pope's Homer; which, as I read, after a little while, I found to be so very free and incorrect a translation (if my memory served me rightly) that I resolved to see what I could do by reading from the original Greek in its own (English) metre. I soon found it quite easy to be both terse and literal; and having rhythm only to care for without the tag of rhyme, I soon pleased my hearers and in some sort myself, reading "off the reel" directly from the Greek into the English.

This version is still unblotted by printer's ink: if any compositor pleases he is welcome to work on the copy; which I can supply gratis: only I do not promise to do more than I have done, Book Alpha. Life is too short for such literary playwork.

Here followeth a sample: quite literal: line for line, almost word for word: my translation renders Homer exactly. I choose the short bit where Thetis pleads with Jove for her irate son, because I am sure Tennyson must have had this passage in his mind when he drew his word-picture of Vivien with Merlin.

"But now at length the twelfth morn from the first had arrived; and returning Came to Olympus together the glorious band of immortals, Zeus the great king at their head. And Thetis, remembering the cravings Of her own son, and his claims, uprose to the surface of ocean, And through the air flew swift to high heaven, ascending Olympus. There she found sitting alone on the loftiest peak of the mountain All-seeing Zeus, son of Kronos, apart from the other celestials. So she sat closely beside him, embracing his knees with her left hand, While with her right she handled his beard, and tenderly stroked it, Whispering thus her prayer to Zeus, the great king, son of Kronos," &c. &c.

Let that suffice with a caetera desunt.

I need not say that I have written innumerable other, translated pieces, from earliest days of school exercises to these present. There is scarcely a classic I have not so tampered with: and (though a poor modern linguist) I have touched—with dictionary and other help, a few bits of Petrarch, Dante, &c.; examples whereof may be seen in my "Modern Pyramid," as already mentioned.

Sundry Pamphlets.

My several publications in pamphlet shape may ask for a page or two,—the chief perhaps (and therefore I begin with it) being my "Hymn for All Nations" in thirty languages, issued at the time of the first great exhibition in 1851, due to a letter I wrote to the Bishop of London on November 22, 1850, urging such a universal psalm. Mr. Brettell, a printer, issued this curiosity of typography: for it has all the strange types which the Bible Society could lend; and several other, versions than the fifty published (some being duplicated) are in a great volume before me, unprinted because neither England, nor Germany, nor America could supply types for sundry out-of-the-way languages contributed by missionaries in the four quarters of the world. My hymn was "a simple psalm, so constructed as scarcely to exclude a truth, or to offend a prejudice; with special reference to the great event of this year, and yet so ordered that it can never be out of season." "This polyglot hymn at the lowest estimate is a philological curiosity: so many minds, with such diversity in similitude rendering literally into all the languages of the earth one plain psalm, a world-wide call to man to render thanks to God." Dr. Wesley and several others contributed the music, and the best scholars of all lands did the literature: the mere printing of so many languages was pronounced a marvel in its way; and I have a bookful of notices, of course laudatory, where it was not possible to find fault with so small a piece of literature. It may be well to give the hymn admission here, as the booklet is excessively scarce.

The title goes—"A Hymn for all Nations," 1851, translated into thirty languages (upwards of fifty versions).

"Glorious God! on Thee we call, Father, Friend, and Judge of all; Holy Saviour, heavenly King, Homage to Thy throne we bring!

"In the wonders all around Ever is Thy Spirit found, And of each good thing we see All the good is born of Thee!

"Thine the beauteous skill that lurks Everywhere in Nature's works— Thine is Art, with all its worth, Thine each masterpiece on earth!

"Yea,—and, foremost in the van, Springs from Thee the Mind of Man; On its light, for this is Thine, Shed abroad the love divine!

"Lo, our God! Thy children here From all realms are gathered near, Wisely gathered, gathering still,— For 'peace on earth, towards men goodwill!'

"May we, with fraternal mind, Bless our brothers of mankind! May we, through redeeming love, Be the blest of God above!"

Beside this, I give from memory a list of others of the pamphlet sort, perhaps imperfect:—

1. "The Desecrated Church," relating to ancient Albury,—whereof this matter is remarkable; I had protested against its demolition to Bishop Sumner, and used the expression in my letter that the man who was doing the wrong of changing the old church in his park for a new one elsewhere would "lay the foundation in his first-born and in his youngest son set up its gates" (Josh. vi. 26); and the two sons of the lord of the manor died in succession as seemingly was foretold.

2. "A Voice from the Cloister," whereof I have spoken before.

3. "A Prophetic Ode,"—happily hindered from proving true, only because the Rifle movement drove away those vultures, Louis Napoleon's hungry colonels, from our unprotected shores. There are also in the poem some curious thoughts about the Arctic Circle, its magnetic heat, and possible habitability; also others about thought-reading and the like; all this being long in advance of the age, for that ode was published by Bosworth in 1852. Also, I anticipated then as now—

"To fly as a bird in the air Despot man doth dare! His humbling cumbersome body at length Light as the lark upsprings, Buoyed by tamed explosive strength And steel-ribbed albatross wings!"

With plenty of other curious matter. That ode is extinct, but will revive.

4. So also with "A Creed, &c.," which bears the imprint of Simpkin & Marshall, and the date 1870. Its chief peculiarities are summed up in the concluding lines:—

"So then, in brief, my creed is truly this; Conscience is our chief seed of woe or bliss; God who made all things is to all things Love, Balancing wrongs below by rights above; Evil seemed needful that the good be shown, And Good was swift that Evil to atone; While creatures, link'd together, each with each, Of one great Whole in changeful sequence teach, Life-presence everywhere sublimely vast And endless for the future as the past."

For I believe in some future life for the lower animals as well as for their unworthier lord; and in the immortality of all creation. Some other poems and hymns also are in this pamphlet.

5. My "Fifty Protestant Ballads," published, by Ridgeway, will be mentioned hereafter.

6. "Ten Letters on the Female Martyrs of the Reformation," published by the Protestant Mission.

7 and 8. "Hactenus" and "A Thousand Lines," most whereof are in my "Cithara" and Miscellaneous Poems.

9. A pamphlet about Canada, and its closer union to us by dint of imperialism and honours, dated several years before these have come to pass.

10. Sundry shorter pamphlets on Rhyme, Model Colonisation, Druidism, Household Servants, My Newspaper, Easter Island, False Schooling, &c. &c. Not to mention some serial letters long ago in the Times about the Coronation, Ireland, and divers other topics. Every author writes to the Times.

11. As a matter of course I have written both with my name and without it (according to editorial rule) in many magazines and reviews, from the Quarterly of Lockhart's time to the Rock of this, not to count numerous reviews of books passim, besides innumerable fly-leaves, essayettes, sermonettes, &c. &c., in the Rock and elsewhere.

12. I was editor for about two years of an extinct three-monthly, the Anglo-Saxon: in one of which I wrote nine articles, as the contributions received were inappropriate. I never worked harder in my life; but the magazine failed, the chief reason being that the monied man who kept it alive insisted upon acceptance when rejection was inevitable.

13. Some printed letters of mine on Grammar, issued in small pamphlet form at the Practical Teacher office; and sundry others unpublished, called "Talks about Science," still in MS.

14. "America Revisited," a lecture, in three numbers, of Golden Hours.

15. Separate bundles of ballads in pamphlet form about Australia, New Zealand, Church Abuses, The War, &c. &c.

Besides possibly some other like booklets forgotten.



CHAPTER XX.

PATERFAMILIAS, GUERNSEY, MONA.

When I returned in the autumn of 1855 from my principal continental tour, wherein for three months I had conducted my whole family of eleven (servants inclusive) all through the usual route of French and Swiss travel,—I committed my journal to Hatchard, who forthwith published it; but not to any signal success,—for it was anonymous, which was a mistake: however, I did not care to make public by name all the daily details of my homeflock pilgrimage. The pretty little book with its fine print of the Pass of Gondo as a frontispiece, nevertheless made its way, and has been inserted in Mr. Gregory's list of guide-books as a convenience if not a necessity to travellers on the same roads, though in these days of little practical use: indeed, wherever we stopped, I contrived to exhaust, on the spot all that was to be seen or done, with the advantages of personal inspection, and therefore of graphic and true description. The book has been praised for its interest and includes divers accidents, happily surmounted, divers exploits in the milder form of Alpine climbing (as the Mauvais Pas, which I touch experimentally at the end of Life's Lessons, in "Proverbial Philosophy," Series IV.), divers grand sights, as the Great Exhibition, close to which we lived for some weeks in the Champs Elysees, and many pleasant incidents, as greetings with friends, old and new, and other usual memorabilia. Among these let me mention the honest kindliness of Courier Pierre,—always called Pere by my children, with whom he was a great favourite—the more readily because he has long gone to "the bourne whence no traveller returns," so he needs no recommendation from his late employer. This, then, I say is memorable. At Lucerne, as my remittance from Herries failed to reach me, I seemed obliged to make a stop and to return; but Pierre objected, saying it was "great pity not to pass the Simplon and see Milan,—and, if Monsieur would permit him, he could lend whatever was needful, and could be paid again." Certainly I said this was very kind, and so I borrowed at his solicitation:—it was L100, as I find by the journal; our travel was costing us L40 a week. Well, to recount briefly, when, after having placed in our repertoire Bellinzona, Como, Milan, &c. &c., I found myself at Geneva, and with remittances awaiting me, my first act was to place in Pierre's hands L105,—and when he counted the notes, he said, "Sare, there is one five-pound too many."—"Of course, my worthy Pierre, I hope you will accept that as interest."—"Non, Monsieur, pardon; I could not, I always bring money to help my families:"—and he would not. Now, if that was not a model courier, worthy to be commemorated thus,—well, I hope there are some others of his brethren on the office-books of Bury Street, St. James's, who are equally duteous and disinterested. "Some people are heroes to their valets; my worthy help is a hero to me:" so saith my journal. Here's another extract, after two slight earthquakes at Brieg, and Turtman (Turris Magna);—"Again a bad accident. One of our spirited wheelers got his hind leg over the pole in going down a hill: at once there was a chaos of fallen horses and entangled harness, and but for the screw machine drag locking both hind-wheels we must have been upset and smashed,—as it was, the scrambling and kicking at first was frightful; but Paterfamilias dragged the younger children out into the road, and other help was nigh at hand, and the providential calm that comes over fallen horses after their initiatory struggle was at hand too, and in due time matters were righted: that those two fiery stallions did not kick everything to pieces, and that all four steeds did not gallop us to destruction, was due, under Providence, to the skill and courage of our good Pierre and the patient Muscatelli."—Railways have since superseded all this peril, and cost, and care: and trains now go through the Simplon, instead of "good horses, six to the heavy carriage, four to the light one," pulling us steadily and slowly over it: thus losing the splendid scenery climaxed by the Devil's Bridge: but let moderns be thankful. "Paterfamilias's Diary" has long been out of print, and its author is glad that he made at the time a full record of the happy past, and recommends its perusal to any one who can find a copy anywhere. My friend, the late Major Hely, who claimed an Irish peerage, was very fond of this "Diary," and thought it "the best book of travels he had ever read."

Guernsey.

Guernsey is another of the spots where your author has lived and written, though neither long nor much. He comes, as is well known, of an ancient Sarnian family, as mentioned before. As to any writings of mine about insular matters while sojourning there occasionally, they are confined to some druidical verses about certain cromlechs, a few other poems, as one given below—"A Night-Sail in the Race of Alderney,"—and in chief that in which I "Raised the Haro," which saved the most picturesque part of Castle Cornet from destruction by some artillery engineer. Here is the poem, supposing some may wish to see it: especially as it does not appear in my only extant volume of poems, Gall & Inglis. It occurs (I think solely) in Hall & Virtue's extinct edition of my Ballads and Poems, 1853, and is there headed "'The Clameur de Haro,' an old Norman appeal to the Sovereign, 1850":—

"Haro, Haro! a l'aide, mon Prince! A loyal people calls; Bring out Duke Rollo's Norman lance To stay destruction's fell advance Against the Castle walls: Haro, Haro! a l'aide, ma Reine! Thy duteous children not in vain Plead for old Cornet yet again, To spare it, ere it falls!

"What? shall Earl Rodolph's sturdy strength, After six hundred years, at length Be recklessly laid low? His grey machicolated tower Torn down within one outraged hour By worse than Vandals' ruthless power?— Haro! a l'aide, Haro!

"Nine years old Cornet for the throne Against rebellion stood alone— And honoured still shall stand, For heroism so sublime, A relic of the olden time, Renowned in Guernsey prose and rhyme, The glory of her land!

"Ay,—let your science scheme and plan With better skill than so; Touch not this dear old barbican, Nor dare to lay it low!

"On Vazon's ill-protected bay Build and blow up, as best ye may, And do your worst to scare away Some visionary foe,— But, if in brute and blundering power You tear down Rodolph's granite tower, Defeat and scorn and shame that hour Shall whelm you like an arrowy shower— Haro! a l'aide, Haro!"

When my antiquarian cousin Ferdinand, the historian of "Sarnia" and our "Family Records," saw these lines, he positively made serious objection—while generally approving them—against my saying "six hundred years," whereas, according to him, it was only five hundred and ninety-three! he actually wanted me to alter it, or at all events insert "almost,"—so difficult is it to reconcile literal accuracy with poetical rhyme and rhythm. I seem to remember that he wrote to the local papers about this. However, it is some consolation to know that these heartfelt verses forced the War Office to spare Castle Cornet: the Norman appeal by Haro being a privilege of Channel-Islanders to bring their grievances direct to the Queen in council. As I have continually the honour "Monstrari digito praetereuntium" in the role of a "Fidicen," I suppose that poetries in such a self-record as this are not positive bores—they can always be skipped if they are—so I will even give here a cheerful bit of rhyme which I jotted down at midnight on the deck of a yacht in a half-gale off Cherbourg, when going with a deputation from Guernsey to meet the French President in 1850:—

A Night-Sail in the Race of Alderney.

I.

"Sprinkled thick with shining studs Stretches wide the tent of heaven, Blue, begemmed with golden buds,— Calm, and bright, and deep, and clear, Glory's hollow hemisphere Arch'd above these frothing floods Right and left asunder riven, As our cutter madly scuds, By the fitful breezes driven, When exultingly she sweeps Like a dolphin through the deeps, And from wave to wave she leaps Rolling in this yeasty leaven,— Ragingly that never sleeps, Like the wicked unforgiven!

II.

"Midnight, soft and fair above, Midnight, fierce and dark beneath,— All on high the smile of love, All below the frown of death: Waves that whirl in angry spite With a phosphorescent light Gleaming ghastly on the night,— Like the pallid sneer of Doom, So malicious, cold, and white, Luring to this watery tomb, Where in fury and in fright Winds and waves together fight Hideously amid the gloom,— As our cutter gladly sends, Dipping deep her sheeted boom Madly to the boiling sea, Lighted in these furious floods By that blaze of brilliant studs, Glistening down like glory-buds On the Race of Alderney!"

A few more words as to my Sarnian literaria. Victor Hugo, when resident in Guernsey, had greatly offended my cousin (the chief of our clan) by stealing for his hired abode the title of our ancestral mansion, Haute Ville House: and so, when I called on him, the equally offended Frenchman would not see me, though I was indulged with a sight of the bric-a-brac wherewith he had filled his residence, albeit deprived of access to its inmate. Hugo was not popular among the sixties at that time. Since then, Mr. Sullivan of Jersey published on his decease some splendid stanzas in French, which by request I versified in English: so that our spirits are now manifestly en rapport.

I wrote also (as I am reminded) an ode on the consecration of St. Anne's, Alderney, when I accompanied the Bishop to the ceremony: and some memorable stanzas about the decent expediency of the Bailiff and Jurats being robed for official uniform, since ornamentally adopted; but before I wrote they wore mean and undistinguished "mufti."

I had also much to do on behalf of my friend Durham, the sculptor, in the matter of his bronze statue to Prince Albert,—advocating it both in prose and verse, and being instrumental in getting royal permission to take a duplicate of the great work now at South Kensington. My cousin the Bailiff, the late Sir Stafford Carey, dated his knighthood from the inauguration of the statue, now one of the chief ornaments of St. Peter's Port,—the other being the Victoria Tower, also a Sarnian exploit.

Isle of Man.

Under such a title as this, "My Life as an Author," that author being chiefly known for his poetry, though he has also written plenty of prose, it is (as I have indeed just said) not to be reasonably objected that the volume is spotted with small poems. Still, I must do it, if I wish to illustrate by verse, or other extracts from my writings (published or unprinted), certain places where the said author has had his temporary habitat: now one of these is the Isle of Man,—where I and mine made a long summer stay at Castle Mona. The chief literary productions of mine in that modern Trinacria, whose heraldic emblem, like that of ancient Sicily, is the Three legs of Three promontories, are some antiquarian pieces, principally one on the sepulchral mound of Orry the Dane:—

"In fifty keels and five Rushed over the pirate swarm, Hornets out of the northern hive, Hawks on the wings of the storm; Blood upon talons and beak, Blood from their helms to their heels, Blood on the hand and blood on the cheek,— In five and fifty keels!

"O fierce and terrible horde That shout about Orry the Dane, Clanging the shield and clashing the sword To the roar of the storm-tost main! And hard on the shore they drive Ploughing through shingle and sand,— And high and dry those fifty and five Are haul'd in line upon land.

"And ho! for the torch straightway, In honour of Odin and Thor,— And the blazing night is as bright as the day As a gift to the gods of war; For down to the melting sand And over each flaring mast Those fifty and five they have burnt as they stand To the tune of the surf and the blast!

"A ruthless, desperate crowd, They trample the shingle at Lhane, And hungry for slaughter they clamour aloud For the Viking, for Orry the Dane! And swift has he flown at the foe— For the clustering clans are here,— But light is the club and weak is the bow To the Norseman sword and spear:

"And—woe to the patriot Manx, The right overthrown by the wrong,— For the sword hews hard at the staggering ranks, And the spear drives deep and strong: And Orry the Dane stands proud King of the bloodstained field, Lifted on high by the shouldering crowd On the battered boss of his shield!

"Yet, though such a man of blood, So terribly fierce and fell, King Orry the Dane had come hither for good, And governed the clans right well; Freedom and laws and right, He sowed the good seed all round— And built up high in the people's sight Their famous Tynwald Mound;

"And elders twenty and four He set for the House of Keys, And all was order from shore to shore In the fairest Isle of the Seas: Though he came a destroyer, I wist He remained as a ruler to save, And yonder he sleeps in the roadside kist They call King Orry's Grave."

It was at Castle Mona that I first met Walter Montgomery, who read these very lines to great effect at one of his Recitations, and thereafter produced at Manchester my play of "Alfred." He was, amongst other accomplishments, a capital horseman, and when he galloped over the sands on his white horse, he would jump benches with their sitters, calling out "Don't stir, we shall clear you!" It would have required no small coolness and courage to have abided his charge, and though I saw him do this once, I question if he was allowed to repeat the exploit.

In Douglas was also my artist-friend Corbould, visiting at the romantic place of his relatives the Wilsons, who had to show numerous paintings and relics of John Martin, with whom in old days I had pleasant acquaintance at Chelsea and elsewhere. I remember that on one occasion when I asked him which picture of his own he considered his chef-d'oeuvre I was astonished at his reply, "Sardanapalus's death,—and therein his jewels." Martin's Chelsea garden had its walls frescoed by him to look like views and avenues,—certainly effective, but rather in the style of Grimaldi's garden made gay by artificial flowers and Aladdin's gems, a la mode Cockayne. At Bishop's Court too we had a very friendly reception from Bishop Powys, and in fact everywhere as usual your confessor found a cordial author's welcome in Mona.



CHAPTER XXI.

NEVER GIVE UP, AND SOME OTHER BALLADS.

Sundry of my short lyrics have gained a great popularity: in particular "Never give up," whereof there are extant—or were—no fewer than eight musical settings. Of this ballad, three stanzas, I have a strange story to tell. When I went to Philadelphia, on my first American tour in 1851, I was taken everywhere to see everything; amongst others to Dr. Kirkland's vast institute for the insane: let me first state that he was not previously told of my coming visit. When I went over the various wards of the convalescents, I noticed that on each door was a printed placard with my "Never give up" upon it in full. Naturally I thought it was done so out of compliment. But on inquiry, Dr. Kirkland didn't know who the author was, and little suspected it was myself. He had seen the verses, anonymous, in a newspaper, and judging them a good moral dose of hopefulness even for the half insane, placed them on every door to excellent effect. When to his astonishment he found the unknown author before him, greatly pleased, he asked if I would allow the patients to thank me; of course I complied, and soon was surrounded by kneeling and weeping and kissing folks, grateful for the good hope my verses had helped them to. And twenty-five years after, in 1876, I, again without notice, visited Dr. Kirkland at the same place, scarcely expecting to find him still living, and certainly not thinking that I should see my old ballad on the doors. But, when the happy doctor, looking not an hour older, though it was a quarter of a century, took me round to see his convalescents, behold the same words greeted me in large print,—and probably are there still: the only change being that my name appears at foot. I gave them a two hours' reading in their handsome theatre, and I never had a more intensely attentive audience than those three hundred lunatics. The ballad runs thus,—if any wish to see it, as for the first time:—

"Never give up! it is wiser and better Always to hope than once to despair; Fling off the load of Doubt's heavy fetter And break the dark spell of tyrannical care: Never give up! or the burden may sink you,— Providence kindly has mingled the cup, And, in all trials or troubles, bethink you The watchword of life must be Never give up!

"Never give up! there are chances and changes Helping the hopeful a hundred to one, And through the chaos High Wisdom arranges Ever success, if you'll only hope on: Never give up! for the wisest is boldest, Knowing that Providence mingles the cup, And of all maxims the best as the oldest Is the true watchword of Never give up!

"Never give up! though the grapeshot may rattle Or the full thunderbolt over you burst, Stand like a rock,—and the storm or the battle Little shall harm you, though doing their worst: Never give up!—if Adversity presses, Providence wisely has mingled the cup, And the best counsel in all your distresses Is the stout watchword of Never give up!"

I can quite feel what a moral tonic and spiritual stimulant these sentiments would be to many among the thousand patients under Dr. Kirkland's care.

I recollect also now, that once when I read at Weston-super-Mare, with Lord Cavan in the chair, a military man among the audience, on hearing me recite "Never give up," came forward and shook hands, showing me out of his pocket-book a soiled newspaper cutting of the poem without my name, saying that it had cheered him all through the Crimea, and that he had always wished to find out the author. Of course we coalesced right heartily. Some other such anecdotes might be added, but this is enough.

* * * * *

Year by year, for more than a dozen, I have given a harvest hymn to the jubilant agriculturists: they have usually attained the honour of a musical setting, and been sung all over the land in many churches. Perhaps the best of them is one for which Bishop Samuel Wilberforce wrote to "thank me cordially for a real Christian hymn with the true ring in it." There are, or were, many musical settings thereof, the best being one of a German composer.

"O Nation, Christian Nation Lift high the hymn of praise! The God of our salvation Is love in all His ways; He blesseth us, and feedeth Every creature of His hand, To succour him that needeth And to gladden all the land.

"Rejoice, ye happy people, And peal the changing chime From every belfried steeple In symphony sublime: Let cottage and let palace Be thankful and rejoice, And woods and hills and valleys Re-echo the glad voice!

"From glen, and plain, and city Let gracious incense rise; The Lord of life and pity Hath heard His creatures' cries: And where in fierce oppression Stalk'd fever, fear, and dearth, He pours a triple blessing To fill and fatten earth!

"Gaze round in deep emotion; The rich and ripened grain Is like a golden ocean Becalm'd upon the plain; And we who late were weepers, Lest judgment should destroy, Now sing, because the reapers Are come again with joy!

"O praise the Hand that giveth, And giveth evermore, To every soul that liveth Abundance flowing o'er! For every soul He filleth With manna from above, And over all distilleth The unction of His love.

"Then gather, Christians, gather, To praise with heart and voice The good Almighty Father Who biddeth you rejoice: For He hath turned the sadness Of His children into mirth, And we will sing with gladness The harvest-home of Earth."

My "Song of Seventy," published more than forty years ago, has been exceedingly popular; and I here make this extract from an early archive-book respecting it:—"Dr. Stanley, Bishop of Norwich, was so pleased with this said 'Song of Seventy' that he posted off to Hatchards' forthwith (after seeing it quoted anonymously in the Athenaeum) to inquire the author's name." It was published in "One Thousand Lines." I composed it during a solitary walk near Hurstperpoint, Sussex, in 1845, near about when I wrote "Never give up."

* * * * *

Of my several ballads upon Gordon (I think there were nine of them) I will here enshrine one, printed in the newspapers of May 1884, and perhaps worthiest to be saved from evanescence:—

"If England had but spoken With Wellesley's lion roar, Or flung out Nelson's token Of duty as of yore, We should not now, too late, too late, Be saddened day by day, Dreading to hear of Gordon's fate, The victim of delay.

"He felt in isolation 'Civis Romanus sum,' And trusted his great nation Right sure that help would come: Could he have dreamt that British power Which placed him at his post, In peril's long-expected hour Would leave him to be lost?

"He lives alone for others,— Himself he scorns to save, And ev'n with savage brothers Will share their bloody grave! Woe! woe to us! should England's glory, To our rulers' blame, Close gallant Gordon's wondrous story, England! in thy shame."

This was half prophetic at the time, and we all have grieved for England's Christian hero ever since.

* * * * *

When Lord Shaftesbury's lamented death lately touched the national heart, I felt as others did and uttered this sentiment accordingly:—

The Good Earl.

"Grieve not for him, as those who mourn the dead; He lives! Ascended from that dying bed, Clad in an incense-cloud of human love, His happy spirit met the blest above; And as his feet entered the golden door, With him flew in loud blessings of the poor; While in a thrilling chorus from below— Millions of children, saved by him from woe, With their sweet voices joined the seraphim Who thronged in raptured haste to welcome him!

"For God had given him grace, and place, and power To bless the destitute from hour to hour; And from a child to fourscore years and four, All knew and lov'd the Helper of the poor, O coal-pit woman-slave! O factory child! O famished beggar-boy with hunger wild! O rescued outcast, torn from sin and shame! Ye know your friend—by myriads bless his name! We need not utter it—The Good, The Great, These are his titles in that Blest Estate."

I was much touched and pleased with this little anecdote to the purpose. Speaking casually to a bright-looking boy of the Shoeblack Brigade about Lord Shaftesbury (the boy didn't know me from Adam), to find out how far he felt for his lost friend, with tears in his eyes he quoted to my astonishment part of the above, and told me that he and many of his mates knew it by heart, having seen it in some paper. I never said who wrote it (probably he wouldn't have believed me if I had) but left him happy with some pears.

Perhaps I may here add (and all this has been part of "My Life as an Author") a couple of stanzas I wrote, (but never have published till now) on another worthy specimen of humanity, mourned in death by our highest:—

In Memoriam J.B.

"Simple, pious, honest man, Child of heaven while son of earth, We would praise, for praise we can, Thy good service, thy great worth; Through long years of prosperous place In the sunshine of the Crown, With man's favour and God's grace Humbly, bravely, walked John Brown.

"Faithful to the Blameless Prince, Faithful to the Widowed Queen, Loved,—as oft before and since Truth and zeal have ever been,— His no pedigree of pride, His no name of old renown, Yet in honour lived and died Nature's nobleman, John Brown."

Also, I will here give, as it appears nowhere else, a few lines to a dying brother, for the sake of recording his hopeful last three words:—

Dear Brother Dan's Latest Whisper.

"'Life unto life!' This was the whispered word That from my dying brother's lips I heard Faintly and feebly uttered, in the strife Of Nature's agony,—'Life—unto—life!' Yea, brother! for thou livest; death is dead, And life rejoiceth unto life instead; No sins, no cares, no sorrows, and no pains,— But deep delights, unutterable gains, Now are thy portion in that higher sphere, The heritage of God's own children here Who loved their Lord awhile on earth, and now Live to Him evermore in love—as thou!"

And in this connection I will print here a psychological poem of mine, not to be found in any other of my books:—

Memory.

I.

"When the soul passes Eternity's portal, In that Hereafter of Being Elsewhere, When this poor earthworm becomes an Immortal, Risen to Life Incorruptible There; If in some semblance of spirit and feature, Still to be recognised one and the same, Not in its entity quite a new creature, But as a growth of the world whence it came,—

II.

"Oh, what a river of gladness or sadness Then must gush out from quick memory's well, Infinite ecstasy, uttermost madness, As the quick conscience greets Heaven—or Hell! Whilst he reviews old scenes and past travels, Grained in himself and engraved on his soul, As the knit robe of his timework unravels And his whole life is unmeshed to its goal.

III.

"Yea, for within him, far more than without him, Works ever following, evil or good, Happiness, misery, circling about him, Plant a man's foot in the soil where he stood: If he was sensual, sordid, and cruel, Sensual, cruel, and base let him be, If he have guarded his soul as a jewel, Holy and happy and blessed be he!

IV.

"For that the seeds both of Hell and of Heaven Darnel or wheat-corn, crowd memory's mart, And though all sin be repented, forgiven, Yet recollections must live in the heart: Still resurrected each moment's each action Comes up for conscience to judge it again, Joy unto peace or remorse to distraction, Growing to infinite pleasure or pain.

V.

"Thy many sins were the ruin of others, Though the chief sinner's own guilt may be waived: What! shall the doom of those sisters and brothers Not be a sorrow to thee that art saved? Can utter selfishness be God's Nirwana, Blest—with our brethren of blessing bereft? Must not His Heaven seem poorer and vainer, Where one is taken and others are left?

VI.

"Oh, there is hope in His mercy for ever— Yea, for the worst, after ages of woe, Till on this side of the uttermost Never, Even the devils His mercy may know! Punished and purified, Justice and Reason Well would rejoice if the Judge on His throne Grant His salvation to all in full season, Ruling, in bliss, all His works as His own.

VII.

"Every creature, redeemed and recovered Through the One sacrifice offered for all, Where sin and death so fatally hovered, Mercy triumphant in full o'er the fall! Thus shall old memories harmonise sweetly With the grand heavenly anthem above, As this sad life that was shattered so fleetly, Then is made whole in the Infinite Love."

It may count as one of my heresies in an orthodox theological sense, but I certainly cling to the great idea of Eternal Hope; and, after any amount of retributive punishment for purifying the "lost" soul, I look for ultimate salvation to all God's creatures. This short and partial trial-scene of ours is not enough to make an end with: we begin here and progress for ever elsewhere. Evil must die out, and good must survive alone for ever.



CHAPTER XXII.

PROTESTANT BALLADS.

Among my many fly-leaves, scattered by thousands from time to time in handbills or in newspapers all over the world, those in which I have praised Protestantism and denounced the dishonesty of our ecclesiastic traitors have earned me the highest meed both of glory and shame from partisan opponents. Ever since in my boyhood, under the ministerial teaching of my rector, the celebrated Hugh M'Neile, at Albury for many years, I closed with the Evangelical religion of the good old Low Church type, I have by my life and writings excited against me the theological hatred of High Church, and Broad Church, and No Church, and especially of the Romanizers amongst our Established clergy. Sundry religious newspapers and other periodicals, whose names I will not blazon by recording, have systematically attacked and slandered me from early manhood to this hour, and have diligently kept up my notoriety or fame (it was stupid enough of them from their point of view) by quips and cranks, as well as by more serious onslaughts, about which I am very pachydermatous, albeit there are pasted down in my archive-books all the paragraphs that have reached me. But, even as in hydraulics, the harder you screw the greater the force, so with my combative nature, the more I am attacked the more obstinately I resist. Hence the multitude and variety of my polemical lucubrations,—mostly of a fragmentary character as Sibylline leaves: some, however, appear in my "Ballads and Poems" (among them a famous "Down with foreign priestcraft," circulated by thousands in the Midlands by an unknown enthusiast),—and Ridgeway of Piccadilly has published in pamphlet form my "Fifty Protestant Ballads and Directorium," which originally appeared in the Daily News, and The Rock: I have certainly written as many more, and among these one which I will here reproduce as now very scarce, and lately of some national importance: seeing that it was sent by my friend Admiral Bedford Pim to every member of the two Houses of Legislature on the Bradlaugh occasion, and was stated to have turned the tide of battle in that celebrated case.

"So Help Me, God!"

"'So help me, God!' my heart at every turn Of life's wide wilderness implores Thee still To give all good, to rescue from all ill, And grant me grace Thy presence to discern.

"'So help me, God!' I would not move a yard Without my hand in Thine to be my guide, Thy love to bless, Thy bounty to provide, Thy fostering wing spread over me to guard.

"'So help me, God!' the motto of my life, In every varied phase of chance and change, So that nought happens here of sad or strange But 'peace' is written on each frown of strife.

"For Thou dost help the man that honoureth Thee! Ay, and Thy Christian-Israel of this land That hitherto hath recognised Thy hand, How blest above the nations still are we!

"Yet now our Senate schemes to spurn aside (On false pretence of liberal brotherhood) The Heavenly Father of our earthly good, Because one atheist hath his God denied!

"What, shall this wrong be done? Must all of us Groan under coming judgment for the sin Of welcoming avowed blasphemers in To vote with rulers who misgovern thus?

"So help us, God! it shall not: England's might Stands in religion practised and profest; For so alone by blessing is she blest, Christian and Protestant in life and light."

To gratify an eminent friend who wished not to exclude Jews and Mahometans from an open profession of godliness as they viewed the question, I altered, in subsequent reprints, the last line, "Christian and Protestant in life and light," to "Loving and fearing God in faith and light:" though personally my sturdy Orangeism inclined to the original. I will in this place give a remarkable extract in a letter to me from Gladstone, to whom my faithfulness had appealed, exhorting him, as I often have done, to be on the right side: we know how he quoted Lucretius on the wrong: against which I wrote a strong protest in the Times. I like not to show private letters,—but this is manifestly a public one. He says: ... "I thank you for your note, and I can assure you that I believe the promoters of the Affirmation Bill to be already on the side you wish me to take, and its opponents to be engaged in doing (unwittingly) serious injury to religious belief." It is strange to see how much intellectual subtlety combined with interested partisanship can be self-deceived, even in a man who believes himself and is thought by others thoroughly conscientious.

Amongst other of my recent notorious ballads of the polemic sort, I ought to name a famous couple—"The Nun's Appeal," and "Open the Convents"—which were written at the request of Lord Alfred Churchill, and given to Edith O'Gorman, the Escaped Nun (otherwise the excellent and eloquent Mrs. Auffray), to aid her Protestant Lectures everywhere: she has circulated them over the three kingdoms, and is now doing the like in Australia and New Zealand.

In reply to some excellent members of the Romish Church, who have publicly accused me of maligning holy women and sacred retreats, my obvious answer is that I contend against the evil side both of nunneries and monkeries, whilst I may fairly admit some good to be found in both. My real protest is for liberty both to mind and body, and against coercion of any kind, material or spiritual. Given perfect freedom, I would not meddle with any one's honest convictions: "to a nunnery go" if thou wilt; only let the resolve be revocable, not a doom for ever.



CHAPTER XXIII.

PLAYS.

One of my latest publications is that of my "Trilogy of Plays," with twelve dramatic scenes,—issued by Allen & Co., of Waterloo Place. The first of the three, "Alfred," was put upon the stage at Manchester by that ill-starred genius, Walter Montgomery, who was bringing it out also at the Haymarket, a very short time before his lamentable death. He was fond of the play and splendidly impersonated the hero-king, in the opening scene having trained his own white horse to gallop riderless across the stage when Alfred was supposed to have been defeated by the Danes. The vision in act ii. scene i. was thrillingly effective; and the whole five acts went very well from beginning to end, the audience being preternaturally quiet,—which disconcerted me until my theatrical mentor praised the silence of that vast crowd, as the best possible sign of success: they were held enthralled as one man till the end came, and then came thunder. Not thinking of what was expected of me in the way of thanks for the ovation their concluding cheers assailed me with, I got out of the theatre as quick as I could, and was half way to my hotel when two or three excited supers rushed after me with a "Good God, Mr. Tupper, come back, come back, or the place will be torn down!" so of course I hurried to the front—to encounter a tumult of applause; although I must have looked rather ridiculous too, crossing the stage in my American cloak and brandishing an umbrella! However, no one but myself seemed to notice the incongruity, and as I had humbly obeyed the people's will, they generously condoned my first transgression. I ought to record that my heroine Bertha was charmingly acted by Miss Henrietta Hodgson, now Mrs. Labouchere, who will quite recollect her early triumph in Martin Tupper's first play. My best compliments and kindly remembrance I here venture to offer to her.

The second play, "Raleigh," is very differently constructed; for whereas the time of action in "Alfred" was three days,—that of "Raleigh" was sixty years: in fact with the former I dramatised a single conquest, with the latter the varied battles of a long life. I have several times read all my plays before audiences at my readings, and know the points that tell. In "Raleigh" the introduction of Shakespeare, the cloak incident, the trial scene, Elizabeth's death, and the terrible climax of the noble victim's execution on the stage, seemed chiefly to interest and excite the audience.

I wrote "Washington" principally to please my many friends in America, whither I was going for a second time; but it rather damped me to find, when at Philadelphia during its Grand Exhibition, and was giving "Readings out of my own Works" through the Star Company, that my entrepreneur stoutly objected to my proposal to read this new play of mine, with the remark,—"No, sir, our people are tired of George Washington,—he's quite played out: give us anything else of yours you like." As he was my financial provider, and paid well, of course I had to acquiesce.

Perhaps the most interesting thing in the play was the account of my discovery of Washington's heraldry: here is part of the passage; the whole being too long to quote: one asks "Coat-of-arms?—what was this coat-of-arms?" and Franklin answers,—

"I'll tell you, friends, I've searched it out and known it for myself, When late in England there, at Herald's College And found the Washingtons of Wessyngton In county Durham and of Sulgrave Manor, County Northampton, bore upon their shield Three stars atop, two stripes across the field Gules—that is red—on white, and for the crest An eagle's head upspringing to the light, It's motto, Latin, "Issue proveth acts." The architraves at Sulgrave testify, And sundry painted windows in the hall At Wessyngton, this was their family coat. They took it to their new Virginian home: And at Mount Vernon I myself have noted An old cast-iron scutcheoned chimney-back Charged with that heraldry."

In my first American Journal will be found more about this discovery of mine—in 1851—then quite new even to Americans. Here in London, Mr. Tuffley of Chelsea and Northampton has popularised the original coat-of-arms with a view to ornamental jewellery for our Transatlantic cousins.

Among my twelve dramatic scenes, the most appropriate to mention in this volume of personalia, are the two which detail certain perilous matters affecting the lives of two ancient ancestors, the one on my mother's side, the other on my father's. The latter records the historic incident whereby John Tupper saved the Channel Islands for William and Mary (receiving from them a gold collar and medal, now in our heraldry) and enabling Admiral Russell to win his naval victory at La Hogue. The former shows how nearly an Arthur Devis at Preston paid the penalty of death owing to his strange resemblance to Charles Edward the Young Pretender, for whom the savage Government of the time offered a reward of L30,000 to any one who could catch him alive or dead. My mother's ancestor was thus very nearly murdered in 1745 for his good looks, as a life-sized portrait at Albury, and an ivory miniature here at Norwood, help to prove. If any wish to know more about these matters, I dare say that Messrs. Allen aforesaid have one copy left: if not, consult Mudie, that virtuous philanthropist who benefits the reading public at the cost of the private author.



CHAPTER XXIV.

ANTIQUARIANA.

My most literary antiquarianism was an article I wrote for the Quarterly Review on Coins, accepted by Lockhart and inserted in one of the Nos. for 1843; he protested that "I could not be the Proverbial Philosopher, as my looks were too like David's,—it must be my father."—No, I replied, it is my father's son. However, when he read and approved my Coin article, he began to be convinced. I give here his letter to me on his acceptance:—

"Sir,—I am at present terribly overburdened with MSS., and know not whether I can send a proof of your paper for some weeks; but I like it much, and it shall be put into type as soon as I can manage. I assure you I am greatly pleased, and sincerely your obliged

"J.G. Lockhart.

"Sussex Place, February 16, 1843."

I expostulated with him as to divers omissions for space' sake, and for some unauthorised alterations; but editors are nothing if not autocratic, as we all know. My article (I find it noted) was written on the numismatic works of Cardwell and of Akerman, and took me ten days in its composition, I tried Lockhart with a second article on "Ancient Gems," but it failed to please. I never had an interview with him but once, and then he seemed to me brusque and cynical at first, warming a little afterwards. I have written also on Druidism; and the mystery of Easter Island, which I take to be the remains of a submerged Pacific continent, with its deified statues on the top of an extinct volcano. And I have flung my pen into many other melees of discussion both old and new; for it may be stated as a feature in my literary life that I have had, one after another, all the ologies on my brain, and have personally made small collections of minerals, fossils, insects, and the like: special hobbies having been agates picked up in my rambles on every beach from Yarmouth to Sidmouth, and coins at Roman stations wherever I found them; besides a host of numismatic treasures bought at Sotheby's auction-room, but long since sold again, as well as sundry Egyptian and other antiquities. In particular, the Roman discoveries at Farley Heath in the neighbourhood of Albury were mainly due to my juvenile antiquarianism, when as a student along with Harold Browne (now Bishop of Winchester) we used to search for coins there, and found one happy day a Gallienus: all which I recorded years after in a now scarce booklet, "Farley Heath, and its Roman Remains," published, with illustrations, by Andrews, Guildford. Ultimately the finds of coin (from Nero to Honorius), some being rare and finely patinated, as well as several small bronzes, and old British money, were given by Mr. Drummond (who as lord of the manor employed labourers in the search for many months) to the British Museum, where they fill a niche near the prehistoric room.

Some of our finds were very curious, e.g., we were digging in the black mould of the burnt huts round the wall-foundations (all above ground of said hectagonal wall having since been ruthlessly utilised by parochial economists in making a road across the heath), and found amongst other spoil a little green bronze ring,—which I placed on the finger of our guest of the day, Mrs. Barclay of Bury Hill: oddly enough it had six angles exactly like one of gold she wore as her wedding-guard. Again; we had picked up some pieces of pottery decorated with human finger-tips,—just as modern cooks do with pie-crust; a son of mine said, perhaps we shall find a dog's foot on some tile,—and just as he said it, up came from the spade precisely what he was guessing at, the large footprint of dog or wolf stamped fifteen centuries ago on the unbaked clay. Again; I was leaving for an hour a labourer in whose industry and honesty I had not the fullest faith. So in order to employ him in my absence, I set him to dig up an old thorn bush and told him to give me when I returned the piece of money he would find under it. To my concealed but his own manifest astonishment, he gave me when I came back a worn large brass of Nero, saying with a scared face, "However could you tell it was there, sir?" I looked wise, and said nothing.

Among the rarest copper coins was one of Carausius (our English Carew), with two heads on it symbolling the ambition of our native usurper to assert empire over East as well as West, and among more treasure-trove was a unique gold coin of Veric,—the Bericus of Tacitus; as also the rare contents of a subterranean potter's oven, preserved to our day, and yielding several whole vases. Mr. Akerman of numismatic fame told me that out of Rome itself he did not know a richer site for old-world curiosities than Farley; in the course of years we found more than 1200 coins, besides Samian ware, and plenty of common pottery, as well as bronze ornaments, enamelled fibulae, weapons of war, household implements, &c., both of the old British and the Roman, the Anglo-Saxon, and more recent periods; Farley having been a praetorian station on the Ikenild highway. This is quite a relevant episode of my literary antiquariana. As also is another respecting "My Mummy Wheat," a record of which found its way into print and made a stir many years ago. It grew from seeds given to me by Mr. Pettigrew out of an Amenti vase taken from a mummy pit by Sir Gardiner Wilkinson, and very carefully resuscitated by myself in garden-pots filled with well-sifted mould at Albury; it proved to be a new and prolific species of the semi-bearded Talavera kind, and a longest ear of 8-1/2 inches in length (engraved in an agricultural journal) was sent by me to Prince Albert, then a zealous British farmer.

Here I will add a very interesting letter to me on the subject from Faraday, the original being pasted among my autographs. It will be seen that he excuses having published my letter to him, and refuses to be called Doctor:—

"Royal Institution, June 11, 1842.

"My dear Sir,—Your note was a very pleasant event in my day of yesterday, and I thank you heartily for it, and rejoice with you at the success of the crop. It so happened that yesterday evening was the last of our meetings, and I had to speak in the lecture-room. The subject was Lithotint: but I placed the one ear in the library under a glass case, and after my first subject was over read the principal part of your letter—all that related to the wheat: and the information was received with great interest by about 700 persons. Our President, Lord Prudhoe, was in the chair, and greatly desirous of knowing the age of the wheat. You know he is learned in Egyptian matters, and was anxious about the label or inscription accompanying the corn. I hope I have not done wrong, but I rather fear your letter will be published, or at least the wheat part, for a gentleman asked me whether he might copy it, and I instantly gave him leave, but found that he was connected with the press, the Literary Gazette. I hope you will not object since without thought on my part the matter has gone thus far. The news is so good and valuable that I do not wonder at the desire to have it,—Ever your obliged servant,

"M. Faraday.

"M.F. Tupper, Esq., &c. &c. &c.

"P.S.—I am happy to say that I am plain Mr. Faraday, and if I have my wish shall keep so.—M.F."

An early volume of my so-called "Critica Egotistica" has many letters and printed communications on this subject: but as not being a recognised agriculturist myself, I did not wish it called by my name,—so it is only known in the markets (chiefly I have heard in Essex) as "Mummy Wheat." Talking of declined honours in nomenclature, I may here mention that a new beetle, found by Vernon Wollaston and urged by him to be named after the utterly "unsharded" me (who had however gratified that distinguished entomologist by my poem on Beetles) was respectfully refused the prefix of my name, as scarcely knowing a lepidopt from a coleopt. Ne sutor ultra crepidam. If honour is to be given, let it be deserved.



CHAPTER XXV.

HONOURS—INVENTIONS.

Authorship reaps honour in these latter days quite as much as it did in the classic times of Augustus with Virgil and Horace for his intimates, and of Petrarch crowned at the Capitol laureate of all Italy during the vacancy of a popedom in the Vatican. Not but that, with or without any titular distinction, authorship is practically the most noticeable rank amongst us. Many will pass by a duke who would have stopped and waited to have looked at a Darwin when he was in this lower sphere; and I am quite sure that the grand presence of Alfred Tennyson would attract more affectionate homage than that of any other ennobled magnate in the land. As to his title, I was glad that his good taste and wisdom elected to be called by his own honourable patronymic rather than haply Farringford or Hazlemere: how can great names consent to be eclipsed in such obscure signatures as Wantage or Esher, Hindlip or Glossop, Dalling or Grimsthorpe? One gets quite at a loss to know who's who.

My letter to the Times of December 19, 1883, headed "Literary Honours," in praise of Tennyson's elevation to the House of Lords, and showing how in every age all nations except our own have given honours to authors, literally "from China to Peru," elicited plenty both of approval and of censure from journals of many denominations. As a matter inevitable when Baron Tennyson was gazetted, the less euphonious Tupper was stigmatised in the papers as desiring to be a Baron too,—at all events, the Echo said so, and the Globe good-humouredly observed that "he deserved the coronet." They little knew that in the summer of 1863 (as paragraphs in my tenth volume of "Archives" are now before me to show) the same derided scribe was seriously announced as "about to be raised to the peerage" all over England and America: see two available and respectable proofs in the British Controversialist (Houlston & Wright) for July 1863, p. 79,—and Bryant's Evening Post for September 17, 1863. I name these, as the reverse of comic papers,—and publishing what they supposed true, as in fact was told me by the editors when inquired of. At the time I repudiated the false rumour openly;—with all the greater readiness, inasmuch as I dispute both the justice of hereditary honour and the wisdom of hereditary legislation; to say less of the "res angusta domi" which, in our Mammonite time and clime, obliges money to support rank, even if, as in sundry late cases of raising to the peerage, it does not purchase it.

It is fair also to state as a fact, that when my father for the second time refused his baronetcy, I, as eldest son, gave the casting vote against myself, not to impoverish my four younger brothers,—all now gone before me to the better world,—and that, for reasons mentioned above, I certainly could not take it now. Let this suffice as my reply to some recent sneers and strictures.

As for letters of the alphabet attached to one's name, almost any one nowadays may have any amount of them by paying fees or subscriptions; in particular, America has given me many honorary diplomas. And for the matter of gold medals, who can covet them, when even the creators of baking-powder and sewing-machines are surfeited therewith. My poor Prussian medal looks small in comparison. And then, as for knighthood, that ancient honour has been lately so abused that vanity itself could scarcely desire it, and even modesty now might hesitate in its acceptance.

Albeit I have thus spoken only incidentally and with seeming carelessness about my Prussian medal, I am reminded that it will interest readers if I here extract the Chevalier Buensen's letter to me on the occasion. It runs thus in its integrity:—

"4 Carlton Terrace, 26th September 1844.

"My Dear Sir,—I owe you many apologies for not having answered earlier your letter of the 2d of August. The fact is that since that time I have been travelling all over England with the Prince of Prussia. As to your work, I laid it myself before the King, who perused it with great pleasure, when I was at Berlin. I am now charged by His Majesty not only to express to you his thanks for having thought of him in sending him a book replete with so much Christian wisdom and experience, but also to present to you, in his Royal name, the gold medal for science and literature, as a particular sign of regard. The medal will be delivered to you, or a person authorised by you, at the office of the Prussian Legation, any morning from 11 to 1 o'clock, Sunday of course excepted.

"Allow me to avail myself of this opportunity to renew to you my own thanks and the expression of my high regard, and believe me, yours sincerely,

"Buensen.

"M.F. Tupper, Esq."

Accordingly, I called myself and received the medal from the Chevalier, with whom afterwards I had half-an-hour's talk, chiefly about German history, in which by good fortune I was fairly posted, perhaps with a prescience that the ambassador might allude to it.

* * * * *

An author, if he be a good man and a clever, worthy of his high vocation, already walks self-ennobled, circled by an aureola of spiritual glory such as no king can give, nor even all-devouring time, "edax rerum," can take away. He really gains nothing by a title—no, not even Tennyson; as in the next world, so in this, "his works do follow him," and the "Well done, good and faithful" from this lower world which he has served is but the prelude of his welcome to that higher world wherein he hears the same "good and faithful" from the mouth of his Redeemer.

Inventions.

It may be worth a page if I record here sundry inventions of mine, surely bits of authorship, which I found out for myself but did not patent, though others did. As thus:—

1. A simple and cheap safety horse-shoe,—secured by steel studs inserted into the ordinary soft iron shoes.

2. Glass screw-tops to bottles.

3. Steam-vessels with the wheels inside; in fact, a double boat or catamaran, with the machinery amid-ships.

4. The introduction of coca-leaf to allay hunger, and to be as useful here as in Chili.

5. A pen to carry its own ink.

6. The colouring of photographs on the back.

7. Combined vulcanite and steel sheathing.

There were also some other small matters wherein authorial energy busied itself. But although I had models made of some, and wrote about others, no good results accrued to me. 1. As for the horse-shoes, blacksmiths did not want to lose custom by steel saving the iron. 2. For the glass-stoppers, I had against me all the cork trade, and the wine-merchants too, who recork old wines. 3. The steamers were never tried on a large scale, and models are pronounced deceptive. 4. The coca loses most of its virtues when in a dried state. 5. The pen (I had it made in silver, a long hollow handle ending with a conical point) either grew clogged if the ink was too thick, or emitted blots when too thin. 6. An establishment in Leicester Square has since worked on this idea. 7. I also troubled the Ordnance Office, and had an interview with Sidney Herbert about two more futile inventions! one a composite cannon missile of quoits tied together: another of a thick vulcanite sheathing for ships, over either wood or iron. I have letters on these to and from the office. Briefly, I did not gain fortune as an inventor: though I urged my horse-shoe at least as a valuable thought, and one worth a trial, to save our poor horses on asphalte pavements and in hard frosts. It is a losing game to attempt to force an invention: so many vested interests oppose, and so many are the competitors: moreover, some one always rushes into the pool of Bethesda before you.

I thought also that there might as well be "essence of tea," as well as of coffee; but nothing came of it. Also amongst other of my addled eggs of invention, I may mention that in my chemistry days as a youth I suggested to a scientific neighbour, Dr. Kerrison, that glass might be rendered less fragile by being mixed in the casting with some chemical compound of lead,—much as now has come out in the patent toughened glass. Also we initiated mild experiments about an imitation of volcanic forces in melting pounded stone into moulds,—as recently done by Mr. Lindsay Bucknall with slag:—but unluckily we found that the manufacture of basalt was beyond our small furnace power: I fancied that apparently carved pinnacles and gurgoyles might be cast in stone; and though beyond Dr. Kerrison and myself, perhaps it may still be done by the hot-blast melting up crushed granite.

* * * * *

Among these small matters of an author's natural inventiveness, I will preserve here a few of the literary class: e.g., (1.) I claim to have discovered the etymology of Punch, which Mark Antony Lower in his Patronymica says is "a name the origin of which is in total obscurity." Now, I found it out thus,—when at Haverfordwest in 1858 I saw over the mantel of the hostelry, perhaps there still, a map of the Roman earthwork called locally Punch Castle; and considering how that the neighbouring hills are named Precelly (Procella, storm) as often drawing down the rain-clouds,—that Caer Leon is Castrum Legionis, and that there is a Roman bridge over the little river there still styled Ultra Pontem—I decided at once that Pontii Castellum was the true name for Punch Castle. Of course, Pontius Pilate and Judas appear in the mediaeval puppet-plays as Punch and Judy,—while Toby refers to Tobit's dog, in a happy confusion of names and dates. The Pontius of the Castle was Prater of the Second Legion. (2.) Similarly, I found out the origin of "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall," &c., to refer to the death of William the Conqueror (L'homme qui dompte), who was ruptured in leaping a burnt wall at Rouen; being very stout,—"he had a great fall," and burst asunder like Iscariot, while "all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't set Humpty Dumpty up again." We must remember that the wise Fools of those days dared not call magnates by their real names,—nor utter facts openly: so accordingly (3) they turned Edward Longshanks into "Daddy Longlegs,"—and (4) sang about King John's raid upon the monks, and the consequent famine to the poor, in "Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie," &c.,—the key to this interpretation being "a dainty dish to set before the king," John being a notorious glutton. My friends at Ledbury Manor, where there is a gallery full of my uncle Arthur's Indian pictures, will remember how I expounded all this to them some years ago. In this connection of literary discovery, let me here give my exposition of the mystic number in Revelations, 666,—which, "more meo" I printed thus on a very scarce fly-leaf, as one of my Protestant Ballads not in any book:—

"Here is wisdom—Let him that hath understanding count the number of the Beast—for it is the number of a Man—and his number is six hundred threescore and six."—Rev. xiii. 18.

"Count up the sum of Greek numeral letters 'Kakoi Episkopoi'—bishops all ill; Strangely I note that those mystical fetters Bind in their number this mystery still— Six hundred threescore and six is the total, Spelling the number and name of a man, Chief of bad bishops and lies sacerdotal, That of all wickedness stands in the van.

"Antichrist! what? can a feeble old creature, Pope though they style him, be rank'd in his place As the Goliath in fashion and feature Warring gigantic with God and His grace? Is he so great—to be dreaded, abhorred, Single antagonist, braving God's wrath, Bearing foul Babylon's seal on his forehead, Chosen Triumvir with Sin and with Death?

"Yea; the presumption of priestly succession Make the all one a whole Popedom of Time, So that each head for his hour of possession Wears the tiara of ages of crime: Rome is infallible, Rome is eternal, Rome is unchangeable, cruel, and strong, Leagued with the legions of darkness infernal, Crushing all right and upholding all wrong."

Note.—The value of the Greek letters, as numerals, in the two words above, is as follows:—The three kappas = 60, the three omicrons = 210, the three iotas = 30, the two pis = 160, the one sigma = 200, the one epsilon = 5, and the one alpha = 1; in all exactly making 666. This is "a private interpretation" of the writer's own discovery, not to be found elsewhere, and quite as convincing as Lateinos and the inscription on St. Peter's.

My friend Evelyn contributed to the perfection of the discovery. It was he who suggested Kakoi to Episcopoi, to make up the number. There are also some who say that our eccentric Premier's name sums up ominously to the same three sixes.



CHAPTER XXVI.

COURTLY AND MUSICAL.

My several royal poems, some twenty in number, may deserve a short and special notice; though it is far from my intention to detail any gracious condescensions of a private nature. I may however state, as a curiosity of literature, that the 35th of my "Three Hundred Sonnets," published by Virtue in 1860, is headed "India's Empress," written certainly twenty years before such a title was thought of, even by Lord Beaconsfield in his pupa phase of D'Israeli. As very few have the volume, long out of print, I will here produce that fortunate prophecy; the "way chaotic" is the Sepoy Mutiny:—

"Our Empress Queen!—Victoria's name of glory Added as England's grace to Hindostan: O climax to this age's wondrous story, Full of new hope to India, and to Man In heathendom's dark places! For the light Of our Jerusalem shall now shine there Brighter than ever since the world began:— Yet by a way chaotic, drear and gory Travelled this blessing; as a martyr might Wrestling to heaven through tortures unaware: Our Empress Queen! for thee thy people's pray'r All round the globe to God ascends united, That He may strengthen thee no guilt to spare Nor leave one act of goodness unrequited."

Another such curiosity of literature may this be considered: namely, that the same versifier who in his youth fifty years ago saw the coronation from a gallery seat in Westminster Abbey, overlooking the central space, and wrote a well-known ode on the occasion, to be found in his Miscellaneous Poems, is still in full force and loyalty, and ready to supply one for his Queen's jubilee,—whereof words for music will be found anon. Human life has not many such completed cycles to celebrate, albeit I have lately had a golden wedding; alas! in a short month after, closed by the good wife's sudden death: "So soon trod sorrow on the heels of joy!" But I will not speak of that affliction here and now: my present errand is more cheerful.

With reference, then, to the many verses of mine which I have reason to hope are honoured by preservation in royal albums, I wish only to say that if some few have appeared among my other poetries in print, they shall not be repeated here: though I may record that whatever I have sent from time to time have been graciously acknowledged, and that I have heretofore met with palatial welcomes.

Perhaps I may say a word or two about my having for the best part of half a century occasionally made my duteous bow at Court; which I thought it right to do whenever some poetic offering of mine had been received; in particular at the Princess Royal's marriage, when Prince Albert specially invited me to Buckingham Palace, presenting me kindly to the heir of Prussia, and bidding, "Wales come and shake hands with Mr. Tupper" (my genial Prince will recollect it); and above all adding the honour of personal conversation with Her Majesty.

Of these thus briefly: also I might record (but I forbear) similar condescensions at Frogmore; as also with reference to my little Masques of the Seasons, and the Nations—wherein Corbould was pictorially so efficient, and Miss Hildyard so helpful in the costumes—both at Osborne and at Windsor. In gracious recognition of these Her Majesty gave me Winterhalter's engravings of all the royal children, now at Albury, as well as some gifts to my daughters. The Masques will be found among my published poems.

At Court I frequently met Lord Houghton, known to me in ancient days as Monckton Milnes; and I remember that we especially came together from sympathy as to critical castigation, Blackwood or some other Scotch reviewer having fallen foul of both of us, then young poets (and therefore to be hounded down by Professor Wilson), in an article pasted in an early volume of Archives, spitefully disparaging "Farquhar Tupper and Monckton Milnes."

Until these days every one wore the antiquated Queen Anne Court suit, now superseded by modern garments, perhaps more convenient but certainly not so picturesque. Bagwig and flowered waistcoat, and hanging cast-steel rapier, and silken calves and buckled shoes,—and above all the abundant real point lace (upon which Lord Houghton more than once has commented with me as to the comparative superiority of his or mine,—both being of ancestral dinginess, and only to be washed in coffee)—these are ill exchanged for boots and trousers and straight black sword, and everything of grace and beauty diligently tailored away. When I last attended at St. James's in honour of Prince Albert Victor's first reception, I was, among twelve hundred, one of only three units who paid our respects in the stately fashions of Good Queen Anne: and I was glad to be complimented on my social courage as almost alone in those antiquated garments, and on my profusion of snow-white hair so suitably suggestive of the powdered polls of our ancestors. I remember my father in powder.

On this last occasion it was, as I have said, especially to pay my respects to the young Prince at his first levee: both he and his father with great kindness cordially shaking hands with the author of the following stanzas. The young Prince stood between his father and his kinsman, the Duke of Cambridge.

"Albert Victor! words of blessing Bright with omens of the best, Truly one such names possessing Shall be throned among the blest; Albert,—sainted now and glorious, Long time in his heavenly rest; Victor,—everyway victorious Like our Empress east and west!

"Prince! to-day the Court bears witness How, thy Royal Sire beside, With due graciousness and fitness, Dignity devoid of pride, Thou (thy gallant kinsman near thee) Dost with homage far and wide, And the praise of all to cheer thee, Humbly meet that glittering tide!

"Prince, accept an old man's greeting, Now some threescore and fifteen, Who can testify how fleeting Life and all its joys have been: I have known thy Grandsire's favour, And thy Parents' grace have seen; And I note the same sweet savour In the Grandson of my Queen!"

As this is the Jubilee year, and I may not live to its completion,—for who can depend upon an hour?—I will here produce what has just occurred to my patriotism as a suitable ode on the great occasion. If short, it is all the better for music, and I humbly recommend its adoption as libretto to some chief musical composer.

Victoria's Jubilee: for Music.

I.

(Major forte.)

"Rejoice, O Land! Imperial Realm, rejoice! Wherever round the world Our standard floats unfurl'd, Let every heart exult in music's voice! Be glad, O grateful England, Triumphant shout and sing, Land! As from each belfried steeple The clanging joy-bells sound, Let all our happy people The wandering world around, Rejoice with the joy this jubilee brings, Circling the globe as with seraphim wings!"

II.

(Minor piano.)

"Lo, the wondrous story, Praise all praise above! Fifty years of glory, Fifty years of love! Chastened by much sadness, Mid the dark of death, But illumed with gladness By the sun of faith: What a life, O Nations, What a reign is seen In the consummations Crowning Britain's Queen!"

III.

(Finale.—Crescendo.)

"Riches of Earth, and Graces of Heaven, God in His love hath abundantly given, More by a year than seven times seven, Blessing our Empress, the Queen! Secrets of Science, and marvels of Art, Health of the home, and wealth of the mart, All that is best for the mind and the heart, Crowded around her are seen. Honour, Religion, and Plenty are hers, Peace, and all heavenly messengers, While loyalty every spirit upstirs To shout aloud, God save the Queen!"

Here the words end, as brevity is wisdom. But the music, as a majestic finale, might include touches of Rule Britannia, Luther's Hymn, and the National Anthem.

I have asked my friend Mr. Manns if he will set my words to music, but his modesty declines, as he professes to be mainly a conductor rather than a composer; and he recommends me to apply to some more famous musician, as perhaps Sullivan, or Macfarren, or haply Count Gleichen. All I can say is, nothing would be more gratifying to my muse than for either of those great names to adapt my poetry to his melody.

Suitably enough, I may here insert a page as to my own musical idiosyncrasy as a bit of author-life.

* * * * *

Keble is said to have had no ear for a tune, however perfect as to rhyme and rhythm; and there are those who suppose my tympanum to be similarly deficient, though I persistently dispute it. Living (when at Norwood) within constant free hearing of the best music in the world, at the Crystal Palace, I ought to be musical, if not always so accredited; but I do penitentially confess to occasional weariness in over long repeated symphonies, where the sweet little motif is always trying to get out but is cruelly driven back,—in the endlessness of fugues, and what seems to my offended ear the useless waste of tone and power in extreme instrumentation, and in divers other disinclinings I cannot but acknowledge as to what is called classical music. Accordingly, no one can accuse me of being fanatico per la musica; albeit I am transported too by (for example) Handel's largo in G, by the Prayer in Mose in Egitto, the Lost Chord, Rossini's Tell, Weber's Freischutz and Oberon, Tannhauser, Semiramide, and all manner of marches, choruses, ballads, and national airs. In fact, I really do like music, especially if tuneful and melodious, in spite of Wagner's apothegm, but some symphonies might be better if curtailed,—except only Schubert's,—but then his best is the Unfinished, and so the shortest. In my youth I learnt the double flageolet, and could play it fairly.

All this (wherein I am but the honest spokesman for many who do not like to confess as much) is introductory in my authorial capacity to this short poem, not long since pencilled in the concert-room and given to Mr. Manns as soon as clearly written. I insert it here very much to give pleasure to one who so continually ministers to the pleasure of thousands; and I hope some day soon to greet him Sir August, as he well deserves a knighthood.

A Music Lesson.

"Marvellous orchestra! concert of heaven, Mingling more notes than the musical seven, Harmonious discords of treble and base In strange combinations of guilt and of grace— O whose is the ear that can hear you aright, And note the dark providence mixt with the light? Where, where is the eye that is swift to discern This lesson in music the dull ear should learn,— That all, from the seraphim harping on high Down, down to the lowest, fit chords can supply To the paean of praises in every tone, With thunders and melodies circling the Throne!

"We are each a brief note in that wonderful hymn, And to us its Oneness is hazy and dim; We hear the few sounds from the viol we play, But all the full chorus floats far and away: Our poor little pipe of an instant is drown'd In the glorious rush of that ocean of sound; The player hears nothing beyond his own bars, Whilst all that grand symphony reaches the stars: Yet, though our piping seems but little worth It adds to the Anthem Creation pours forth, And, whether we know it or not, we can give Not a note more or less in the life that we live.

"Ah me! we are nothing—or little at best— But duty with greatness the least can invest: One note on the flute or the trumpet may seem A poor petty work for ambition's fond dream,— But what if that note be a need-be to blend And quicken the score from beginning to end? To show forth the mind of the Master, who guides With baton unerring Time's mixture of tides, The good with the evil, the blessing and bane, The Amazon rushing far into the main, Until, from this skill'd combination of notes, Bound earth to the heavens His overture floats!"



CHAPTER XXVII.

F.R.S.

A page or two about my connection with the Royal Society may have some small interest. When my father (who had long been a Fellow) died in 1844, I wished to give to the Society his marble bust by Behnes as a memorial of honour to him; but my mother preferred to keep it, as was natural. Meanwhile, however, some of my father's friends, and in particular his old patron, Lord Melbourne, then recently elected, put me up as a candidate, and as I find recorded in my Archive-book, vol. ii., my certificate "was signed by Argyll, Bristol, Henry Hallam, Thomas Brande, Dr. Paris, P.B.C.S., Sir C.M. Clarke, and Sir Benjamin Brodie: in due time I was elected, and on the 8th of May 1845 was admitted by Lord Northampton." At my election occurred this very strange and characteristic incident. There was only one ball against me among twenty-seven for me in the ballot-box; the meetings were then held at Somerset House, the Society on a less numerous scale than at present, and the elections easier and more frequent. When the President announced the result, up jumped Lord Melbourne, begging pardon for his mistake in having dropped his ball into the wrong hole!—an amusing instance of the laissez-faire carelessness habitual to that good-humoured Minister.

As I have now been more than forty years a Fellow, I ought to be ashamed to confess that I never contributed a Paper to its learned Proceedings; all of which as they come to me I give appropriately enough to the famous Wotton Library, belonging to my excellent friend Evelyn, heir and successor to the celebrated John Evelyn of the Sylva, one of the Society's founders. That I have seldom even read them is also a pitiful truth; for the mysterious nomenclature of modern chemistry, the incomprehensibility (to my ignorance) of the higher mathematics, the hopeless profundity of treatises on the tides, dynamics, electricity, and microscopic anatomicals, are, I am free to avow, worse to me than "heathen Greek," nay (for I can in some sort tackle that), more difficult than the clay tablets of Assyria or a papyrus of Rameses II. So I must confess to being an idle drone among the working bees.

Only thrice have I ventured to ask questions of consequence, scarcely yet answered by the pundits. One regards Spectrum Analysis: How can we be sure that the lines indicative of gases and other elements are not mainly due to the emanations from our own globe, swathed as it is by more than forty miles of an atmosphere impregnated by its own salts and acids in aerial solution? May we not be deducing false conclusions as to the varying lights of stars and nebulae, if all the while to our vision they are as it were clouded by our own smoke? Telescopes have to pierce so thick a stratum of earth's aura and ether that it is expectable they, would show us only our own composites in those of other worlds. The spectra are varied, I know, but so may be our wrappings of atmosphere from one night to another. Let this ignorant query suffice about Dr. Huggins' great discovery.

Again, I certainly (after some knowledge of strange facts) could have wished that Mr. Crookes's philosophical spiritualism had met with a more patient hearing than Dr. Carpenter or Mr. Huxley offered at the time; and that Faraday's clumsy mechanical refutation of table-turning had not been considered so conclusive. For there really are "more things in heaven and earth, Horatio," &c., than even your omniscience is aware of; and without pinning faith on Madame Blavatsky, or Mr. Hume, or any other wonder-worker from America or Thibet, there doubtless are petty miracles in what is called spiritualism (possibly some form of electricity) that demand more scrutiny than our materialists will have the patience to vouchsafe: I for one believe in human testimony even as to the miraculous.

For a third and last inquiry: justly indignant at the horrors of Continental vivisection, and especially in our own humane England at Dr. Ferrier's red-hot wires thrust into live monkeys' brains, I have often vainly asked cui bono such terrible cruelty? The highest authorities are at variance with each other as to the practical utility in human therapeutics of experiments upon agonised brutes; but all must be agreed that, so far as morals are concerned, vivisection only hardens the heart and sears the feelings and conscience of doctors who may surround the dying-bed of our dearest, and very possibly make capital of peculiar symptoms in their patient, by experiments transferred from dogs and rabbits to himself! Single votes are useless against the annual list of selected candidates, or I for one would have at all inconvenience testified both at Oxford and in the Royal Society against the election of a certain Professor whose glory lies in vivisection.