For an appropriate end to these discursive sentences, let me add this poetic morsel in my own vein. Mr. Butler of Philadelphia was quite right in his judgment of my indoles: I "write by impulse on occasion." Here is a very recent instance in point. I had lately visited Mr. Barraud's painted-window works near Seven Dials, and when I told Mr. Herbert Rix, our Assistant-Secretary, of what you may read below, he exhorted me to put it into verse, which I did impromptu, and sent it to him: now thus first printed:—

"I saw the artist in a colour-shop Staining some bits of glass variously shaped To map the painted window of a church, And marvelled that the tintings all seemed wrong; Red, green, and brown should have been interchanged To show the colours right. Why did he use His brush so carelessly, my folly asked. 'Wait for the fire,—the fire will make all right, The reds and greens and browns will change again, Fusing harmoniously,' so Knowledge spake; And thus a thought of wisdom came to me Touching the truth, how kindly curative Must be the pains and cares and griefs of life, For that the furnace of adversity, Melts to its proper good each seeming ill. Again, I noticed how the artist chose Not clear good glass, whether of plate or crown, But common-looking stuff, bubbled and flawed, As if selected for its blemishes Rather than for transparent purity. 'Why not choose better glass to paint upon?' To this he answered, 'Wouldn't do at all. My faces mustn't look lifeless and dull, But, as instinct with motion, light and life, Not in enamelled uniformity: The sunshine cannot sparkle where all's smooth; I choose the most imperfect panes to make A perfect, vigorous picture.'—Then I learnt How wonderfully Providence is pleased To cause all evil things to help the good; Nay, deeper, to ordain that good itself Can scarcely be discerned without the harm Of some companion-ill; even as gold Is useless unalloyed; and Very Light Unshadowed kills, as unapproachable; And absolute unmitigated good Alone is Godhead. Every creature here (In this our human trial-world at least) Is full of faults and spots and blemishes, If only to set off his better self, His talents, graces, excellent good gifts, Burnt in the fire to brighter excellence And fused harmonious into perfect man."

I have often thought that our Great Teacher's parables were true pictures of things around Him; He painted from living models, "impulsively and on occasion." The prodigal son, the unjust judge, the rich fool, the camel unladen to pass the narrow tunnel of the needle's eye, the lost sheep, the found piece of money and the like,—all were real incidents made use of by His wisdom, who spake as never man spake, and did all things well.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

PERSONATION.

It has several times happened to me, as doubtless to others of my brethren, to find that I have been personated, certainly to my considerable discredit. Take these instances. When at Brighton, a fellow had the effrontery to collect money in my name, and I suppose he somewhat resembled me, as I heard more than once that I had been seen here and there, where I undoubtedly was not, and proved an alibi. At Bignor, where I went to see some Roman pavements on the property of a Sussex yeoman of my name (very possibly a German cousin) the owner received me with more than suspicion when I said who I was,—because "the true Martin Tupper had been his guest for a week, and brought him a book he had written," and one of mine then was lying on the table! But I soon made it clear that he had been deceived, and that the real Simon Pure was now before him. Divers other cases might be mentioned; however, perhaps the most curious is this, and I extract the whole statement from one of my scrap-books now before me. It is headed "An anecdote to account for certain slanders," the date being August 1865:—

"I have heard it seriously asserted of me that I am a great pugilist! and very far in conduct and manners from what one might expect, and so forth. Now it has just come to my knowledge that a sporting publican and dog-fancier, who called his public-house in the Waterloo Road 'The Greyhound' (my crest), and has my name over the lintel, has claimed to be the author, and is supposed to be myself! Mr. Payne (my publisher) told me about the 'pugilist,' and said he had heard it in the clubs that I was a match for Sayers,—as I conclude my sporting namesake is." In America, too, I found that my double lived at Hardwick, Worcester Co., N.Y., and that another Martin hailed from Buffalo. So, like poor Edgar Poe, who had to suffer from the machinations of a profligate brother, who gave Edgar's name whenever he got into a scrape, I may have sometimes been credited with the sins of strangers. No one is free from this sort of calumny. We all have heard of Sheridan's wicked witticism, in that when taken up in Pall Mall for drunkenness, he gave his name Wilberforce; and it is said that he got drunk on purpose to say so! My venerable friend, Thomas Cooper, the pious and eloquent old Chartist, has been similarly confused with Robert Cooper, the atheist, lecturer; not but that Thomas had once been an atheist too. In this connection, here is a curiously complicated case of alibi, which I abstract verbatim from one of my Archive-books.

"On Sunday, the 17th of September 1848, I was all the afternoon and evening at my house on Furze Hill, Brighton, quietly reading and teaching my children, &c. Next day the 'Rev. J.C. Richmond (an American friend) called with me on the Rev. Mr. Vaughan, and in the course of conversation the latter said to me in a good-natured tone of rebuke: 'Some of my congregation tell me they saw you yesterday afternoon smoking a cigar in a fly on the Marine Parade.' I had hardly time to deny the soft impeachment, which I might well have done with emphasis, as a loather of cigars, and as little as possible a traveller on Sundays, when Richmond broke out with 'That's impossible; for I saw him myself in Shoreham Church (five miles distant), and noticed that he went away in the middle of the sermon, as I supposed, to get home to Mrs. Tupper.' Mr. Richmond says he could have made oath that I had been there, and that he told several persons after church that I 'had heard part of the sermon in the afternoon.' So, upon human and trustworthy evidence, I could have been proved to have been in three places at once."

My fetch similarly once rescued a young lady from death on Snowdon: at least a stranger in company once came up to me, to thank me for my prowess in having stopped his daughter's pony, which had run away down, the mountain!—in vain I denied it:—and he addressed me by my name, too! Somebody must have given him my card by accident.

And let me here allude (if I can without indelicacy) to another sort of personation of more financial importance to myself. Lately, I have seen some not very refined nor considerate paragraphs in American papers (Mr. Bok, a Brooklyn editor, has told me that more than four hundred repeated them) to the effect that in the battle of life I had—truly enough—suffered reverses, and needed material help from my many professing friends. Moreover I have heard it stated that some sort of collection was volunteered for me. Well, this may have been the case or not; but anyhow the fact is (and it should be announced to those who may have given—and wonder at no acknowledgment of their kindness having come from me) that to this hour I have received nothing from America (except a few dollars sent by one lady, and some more from a Transatlantic relative), either on account of my so-called testimonial, or these more recent paragraphs. The annoyance in my own mind, and in the suspicion of some others round me, is the awkward fancy that sundry small collections may have been intercepted. Possibly some other Martin Tupper has the spoil.

Another sort of dishonest personation whereto we are all liable, whether authors or not, is the having imputed to us divers forged or garbled sentiments, even in the immutability of print, I have now before me a Boston copy of my first Proverbial published by one Joseph Dowe in 1840, which, though stated to be "from the London edition," designedly omits all allusion to the Trinity, even my whole essay thereon, for Mr. Dowe as a Unitarian chose to make me one! Also, I have seen my name attached to verses I never wrote, and have been claimed both by Swedenborgians and Freemasons as a brother, while Jesuitry has otherwise traduced me. Artists also as well as authors are similarly misrepresented; my son-in-law, Clayton Adams, for instance, tells me that his name has been added to landscapes he never painted, and that they sold by auction at high prices. Modern society should punish such cheateries severely.



CHAPTER XXIX.

HOSPITALITIES—FARNHAM, ETC.

Amongst other memorabilia in no particular order, let me set down a few visits, longer than a mere call, to sundry persons and places of note. As these, for instance. Annually during many years I used to be a guest from Thursday to Monday at Farnham Castle, when the good Bishop's venison was in season. Of course, at such a table I constantly met celebrities, but a mere list of their names would be tedious, and any public record of private hospitalities I hold to be improper. No doubt the kindly and courtly Bishop Sumner held high festival like an ancient Baron, at such a rate (for those were golden times from renewed leases for the see) as no successor with a less unlimited income could well afford. The grandeur of Farnham Castle died with him: and my good friend from boyhood, Bishop Harold Browne, must not be blamed if with less than half his means he cannot compete with him.

I was enabled to gratify Bishop Sumner in a way that touched his heart, as thus. A cousin of mine, De Lara Tupper of Rio Janeiro, a rich merchant prince there, sent me, as a present for my Albury greenhouse, two large bales of orchids, which, however, were practically useless to me, as I had not that expensive luxury, a regular orchid-house. But I knew that the dear Bishop had, and that orchid-growing was his special hobby: accordingly all were transferred to Farnham, and I need not say how gratefully accepted, as many roots proved to be most rare, and some specimens quite unique. The good man gave me, en revanche, a splendid Horace, in white vellum beautifully illustrated, and inscribed by him "Gratiarum actio," now near me in a bookcase. The same South American cousin sent me also a box of pines, oranges, and shaddocks just when Garibaldi was our visitor at Princes Gate,—and I had the gratification of giving many to him, not only because he mainly lived upon fruit, but also because some of the said fruit came from the farm he and his first wife, the well-beloved Anita, had once owned in South America. Later on, Gladstone invited me to meet the hero at a reception in Carlton Gardens, where I took note of Garibaldi, with his hostess on his arm, as he walked in his simple red shirt, through a bowing lane of feathered fashionables, whom he greeted right and left as if he had been always used to such London high life. On that occasion I had the honour of standing between Palmerston and Lord John Russell, who kindly conversed with me, as also did the chief guest, specially thanking me for those pines and oranges.

Parham.

Another notable visit of some days, was one to Parham, the ancient—and haunted—seat of my old friend both at Charterhouse and at Christ Church, Robert Curzon, afterwards Lord de la Zouche, the great collector of Armenian and other missals and manuscripts. With him (alas! no more amongst us, and his son has dropped the "de la") I spent a joyful and instructive time: out of doors we fished in the lake and rode about the park among the antlered deer,—three heads and horns whereof are now in our glass-porch entrance at Albury; indoors, there was the splendid gallery of family armour from feudal days,—several suits of which Curzon told me he had tried to wear on some occasion, but couldn't; most were too small for him, though by no means a tall man; and those which he could struggle into were too heavy. Then there was the interminable companion gallery of full-length portraits, some of whom, probably the wicked ancestors, walked! and I'm sure that when I slept in a tapestried chamber under that gallery, I did hear footsteps—could it be, horrible fancy! in procession? When I told Curzon this, he answered that he had often heard them himself, from boyhood, but that familiarity bred contempt: he said also, with a twinkle in his eye, that there was a room which was usually set apart for new-married couples, as such would probably not be so much startled as lonely maids and bachelors might be, at the whispered conversations across the bed! Moreover, evil wings (possibly owls or bats, looking after glow-worm candles) occasionally flapped at the casements. But Curzon was a humorist as well as inventive. Perhaps one secret as to ghosts at Parham lay in the fact that in the old thick walls were concealed staircases and "priests' chambers," which possibly might be of use, even now, to vagrant lovers (like Mr. Pickwick at Ipswich), or perhaps sleep-walkers,—or burglarious, thieves. Anyhow, I liked to lock my bedroom door there,—as indeed I do generally elsewhere, if lock and key are in good agreement; for once I couldn't get out without the surgical operation of a carpenter, having too securely locked myself in. This shall not happen twice, if I can help it. Curzon's great glory, however, was his library, full of rarities: he showed me, amongst other MSS., his unique purple parchments, with gold letter types, being (if I remember rightly) Constantine's own copy of the New Testament; and, to pass by other curios, some tiny Elzevirs uncut: imagine his horror when I volunteered to cut these open for him!—their chief and priceless wonder being that no eye has ever seen, nor ever can see, the insides of those virgin pages! I know there is such a rabies as bibliomania,—and I have myself, at Albury, a "breeches" Bible, which belonged to a maternal ancestor, a Faulkner, of course valued beyond its worth as a readable volume; and I might name many other instances; but to esteem a book chiefly because it has never been cut open, did strike my ignorance as an abnormal fatuity. Curzon was one of our Aristotelians, as before mentioned.

Other Visits.

I am also mindful of a very pleasant week spent long ago at Shenstone's Leasowes, a beautiful estate near Birmingham, now being dug up for coal even as Hamilton is, where in those days some good friends of mine resided, of whom (now departed like so many others) I have most kindly recollections. The hostess, a charming and intelligent lady of the old school, wearing her own white ringlets, used to have many talks with me about Emanuel Swedenborg, a half-inspired genius whom she much favoured; the host, a genial county magnate, did his best to enable me to catch trout where Shenstone used to sing about them, and tried to interest me in farm improvements: but my chief memory of those days is this. Whilst I was there, a splendid testimonial in silver arrived in a fly from Birmingham, well guarded by a couple of police against possible roughs, the result of a zealous gathering from his political supporters; and that Testimonial, "little Testy" as I called it, was a source of care and dilemma to everybody; for care, it was immediately locked away for fear of burglars; and as to dilemma, the white elephant was too tall for the centre of a table, and too short to stand upon the floor. It seemed closely to illustrate to my mind that wise text about a man's life and his possessions. The cheerful spirit of the mansion and its inmates seemed quite subdued by this unwelcome acquisition. When at the Leasowes, I produced some suitable poems which were very kindly received: here is one of them, hitherto unprinted.

An Impromptu Sonnet.

Ticked of at the Leasowes, Aug. 24, 1857, as per order.

"And so you claim a verse of me, good friend, As from the inspiration of the place; Well then,—from pastoral trash may taste defend Your pleasant Leasowes, and the human race! The Gentle Shepherd's day has had an end, Nor even could melodious Shenstone here (False and inflated, we must all allow), Excite one glowing thought or pensive tear Unless indeed of wrath or pity now: Yet dearly can I love these tumbling hills With roughly wooded winding glens between, Set with clear trout pools link'd by gurgling rills And all so natural and calm and green, That served to enervate your Poetaster But only strengthen now their Iron Master."

I will also record a hospitable sojourn in old days at Northwood Park, the splendid abode of Isle-of-Wight Ward (grandfather to my school and college friend Ward of the Aristotle class and Oxonian persecution), where I once spent a week in my father's time: and similarly a visit at Lord Spencer's perfect villa near Ryde: and at other pleasant homes, made to me frequently welcome, the chief being Wotton, the classic mansion of one of my oldest friends.

Also long ago,—see a former page,—I purposely dismissed with only a word our lengthened visits in my father's day at Inveraray Castle with the old Duke of Argyll, and Holkar Hall with Lord George Cavendish, as private domesticities,—whilst a casual other few as at Ardgowan, Rozelle, Herriard, Losely, and the like, gratefully on my memory, shall be thus briefly recorded here: Ardgowan is the magnificent abode of my friend Sir Michael Shaw-Stewart, after whose grandmother as my sponsor I am named Farquhar; Rozelle, the hospitable mansion of Captain Hamilton, where I sojourned many days, meeting the elite of Ayr, and among them the aged niece of Burns in the poet's own country; Herriard House, my old school-friend Frank Ellis's heritage under his name of Jervoise, and Losely—"of the manuscripts," where I have often visited my late excellent friend James More Molyneux.

Of course, like everybody else who may be lifted a trifle above the crowd, I have experienced, almost annually, the splendid hospitalities of the Mansion House and most of the City Companies: may they long continue, and not be spunged away by Radical meanness! all classes are united and gratified thereby, for the poorest get the luxurious leavings, and the feasts are paid for by benefactors long departed from the scenes of their successful merchandise. All that seeming prodigality and luxury have good uses. But I will mention (of course without the hint of a name or place) one only instance of excessive splendour, quite needless and to my mind vulgar. A great magnate (not a royalty, I need hardly say) invited four guests to dine with his home party; the four were my father and mother, my brother Dan and myself, humble guests enough; and yet behind each of twelve chairs stood a gorgeous flunkey in powder and bright livery, with my lord's gentleman superadded in undertaker's evening trim, while the Earl himself wore his star and garter! Of course too the buffet and the table were loaded, with resplendent plate. That, scene of ostentation has been on the gray matter of my brain ever since young manhood, and I relieve myself now of the reminiscence for the first and last time. In another page I speak of Prince Astor's pure gold service when I dined with him at New. York; and I have grateful memory of the almost palatial splendour wherewith a rich publisher entertained his guest at his castle under Arthur's Seat; but in every case (and I might name others) my heart's aspiration has been, "Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me." Mr. Vanderbilt was not happy with his millions; neither probably is poor Jack without a shot in his locker.



CHAPTER XXX.

SOCIAL AND RURAL.

In such a record of personals as this, it is fortunate both for the author and his readers if he has never been one of those literary lions who are merely histrionic creatures of society. It is a privilege not to have to reproduce the common small-talk of ball-rooms and garden-parties, nor to be obliged to make the most, after a semi-libellous fashion, of after-dinner scandals, or gossip in the smoking-room. Not having heard them he cannot well report racy anecdotes, whereof sundry memoirs have been too full. In the happier condition of a partial anchoritism I have escaped clubs, London seasons, and country mansion gaieties; as a youth and to middle manhood a stammerer, I would not willingly court the humiliations of chattering society, and thereafter, up to to-day, a domestic country gentleman of literary pursuits, I have avoided (as far as possible) fashionable gatherings of every sort, social, theological, or political. Not that I abjure—it is far otherwise—any kind of genial intercourse with my fellows; a few friends are my delight, but I never would belong to a club, though sometimes specially tempted by indulgence as to terms (more than once having been offered a free and immediate entry), nor to any society or charity that expected of me personal publicity or active service,—albeit, once, and once only, I had to figure as a reluctant chairman at Exeter Hall. Privacy has ever been my preference; whence it will clearly be inferred how much I have had to sacrifice in the way of self-denial when forced by circumstances to enact the "old man eloquent" before assembled hundreds, sometimes thousands, as a public reader. People who have made themselves acquainted with my "Proverbial Philosophy" may remember that my Essay on Speaking contrasts the misery of the man who cannot speak with the happiness of the emancipated orator, and I have experienced them both; whilst it may be seen in what I have written about silence and seclusion how cordially and perhaps foolishly, as "wearing my heart on my sleeve," I have shown that I greatly love to be alone, especially in what I am known to call "holy silence;" in fact, as ill-nature may like to put it, I prefer my own quiet company to that disturbed by the talk of other people. So much, then, as to one cause for the scantiness in this self-memoir of expected spicy anecdotes and perilous revelations. Not but that I could make considerable mischief, and perhaps help my publisher in sales, if I chose to make the most of the many celebrities, both American and English, with whom I have had intercourse both at Albury and elsewhere. My humble hospitalities and the constant welcome I have given to strangers, have been like their author, proverbial; but that is no reason why our converse, free and frank as private fellowship commands, should be produced in print; naturally the host was ever generous, and the guest—equally, of course—appreciative.

Perhaps though, not quite always: and I am tempted here to say just one unpleasant word about the only one of my many American guests, hospitably, nay almost affectionately treated, who wrote home to his wife too disparagingly of his entertainer, his son having afterwards had the bad taste to publish those letters in his father's Life. One comfort, however, is that in "The Memoirs of Nathaniel Hawthorne," that not very amiable genius praises no one of his English hosts (except, indeed, a perhaps too open-handed London one), and that he was not known (any more than Fenimore Cooper, whom years ago I found a rude customer in New York) for a superabundance of good nature. When at Albury, Hawthorne seemed to us superlatively envious: of our old house for having more than seven gables; of its owner for a seemingly affluent independence, as well as authorial fame; even of his friends when driven by him to visit beautiful and hospitable Wotton; and in every word and gesture openly entering his republican and ascetic protest against the aristocratic old country; even to protesting, when we drove by a new weather-boarded cottage, "Ha, that's the sort of house I prefer to see; it's like one of ours at home." That we did not take to each other is no wonder. This, then, is my answer to the unkindly remarks against me in print of one who has shown manifestly a flash of genius in "The Scarlet Letter;" but, so far as I know, it was well-nigh a solitary one.

One further curious illustration of an uncongenial guest is this: Alexander Smith wrote a "Life Drama," full of sparkling poetic gems, which at once made him popular, apparently with justice enough. I asked him down to Albury, made much of him, praised warmly sundry morceaux of his (which I had marked in my copy), and to my astonishment received the brusque reply, "O, you like those, do you? I shall alter them in next edition:" as I found afterwards he did. He was a common-looking man, with a rough manner, and a squint. As he seemed upset,—though why I could not guess,—I tried in other ways to please him; as, by a ramble in the woods and a drive in the waggonette: but all would not do,—his day came to an end as gloomily as it began. Long after, I stumbled upon the reason. I had then for the first time read Bailey's "Festus," and found some passages therein very similar to Alexander's; thereafter, other little bits from some other poets (I think Tennyson was one) struck me. Little wonder, then, that I heard no more of Smith,—who clearly had thought himself found out,—and so received my first ignorance of his plagiaristic tendency as if I had known all about it: and years after Aytoun had (as I was told) avenged justice by that cleverest of spasmodic poetries, "Firmilian, by Percy Jones"—a burlesque on Alexander Smith, and a book which the world has too willingly let die. Let no one, however, after all this, fancy that I am unaware of Alexander Smith's true merit. He very neatly fitted into his mosaic word-pictures the titbits he had culled in his commonplace-book out of many poets, and so utilised them. A self-made and self-taught man, "elbow to elbow," as he told me, "with Jack, Tom, and Harry in a workshop," as a designer of patterns, he had well and wisely made the most of his scant opportunities of culture, and it is only a pity that he did not allude to something of this in a preface.

It is not for me to recall here much about the inevitable hospitalities of an old country house, to which a not unkindly host often invited English and foreign friends, whom something to do with authorship had made celebrities. Do I not pleasantly remember the jolly haymaking, when old Jerdan, calling out, "More hay, more hay!" covered Grace Greenwood with a haycock overturned, and had greeted a sculptor guest appropriately and wittily enough with "Here we are, Durham, all mustered!" the "we" being besides others, Camilla Toulmin, George Godwin, and Francis Bennoch? Do I not remember how much surprised we were at the melodies whereof an old piano was capable when touched by Otto Goldsmidt? Can I forget, also, how marvellously a young Canadian, Joseph Macdougall, of Ottawa, extemporised on the same piano as only a genius can (Mr. Assher was another), and sent me afterwards, as a memory, a vast volume of American photographs, whereof he had munificently prepaid the enormous sum of L6, 18s. for postage? And was not our village stirred to its depths by the visit to Albury House of two black gentlemen and a blue,—all in evening dress?

It was President Roberts of Monrovia, attended by his secretary and chief minister; for they came cordially to return thanks to one who had helped a little in slave emancipation, under the influences of Elliott Cresson, Dr. Hodgkin Garrison, and others,—and, moreover, had given a gold medal for African literature, biennially to be competed for by emancipated slaves;—whereof I have heard very little, since (by the volunteered assistance of Mr. Taylor, the seal engraver) I gave it many years ago: the medal was as large as a crown piece. President Benson, also of Liberia, a magnificent ebon specimen of humanity, visited me with his staff, not long before his lamented death—it was said, by murder.

Let me add now a word of kindly memory for some good friends long gone to a better world, but once welcome guests at Albury. There was Benjamin Nightingale, the enthusiastic antiquary; there was his fidus Achates, Akerman, secretary to the Numismatic, whom I greatly pleased by enabling him to catch a trout near my carriage gate; there was Chief Baron Pollok, head of the Noviomagians: the eloquent Edwards Lester of America, whose speech at a Literary Fund dinner to which I had treated him was hailed by Hallam, Dickens, and others on the spot as the speech of the Society: and the Warrens of Troy, N.Y., about whose casual visit this singular thing happened. For the first and only time in life I had had the strange luck to catch at Netley Pond three perch of nearly a pound each, and a fine trout of about two: I little knew then the final cause thereof: in those days we could not easily get fish in the country, unless indeed we caught it: now my eminent Transatlantic stranger friends came on a Friday, and proved to be Roman Catholics: could any piscatorial luck have been more timely?

When a few days after I told of my sport to a neighbour (it was Captain Russell of the Cleveland family), a great angler, he, of course, without imputation of my veracity, hinted that he wished I might have such luck again, as he would then come and dine with me. I answered at once, "Come to-morrow, and see what I may have caught." He did,—and I produced from the same old mill-head a three-pound trout,—to his astonishment, as it had been my own to have caught it. I have never had such luck before or since, though always a zealous angler in an unprofessional way.

Let me not forget here also the beautiful "Albury Waltz," composed in my drawing-room by Miss Armstrong, and published—it must be twenty years ago now—by Robert Cocks, New Burlington Street: wherein by request I originated the idea of song words for the dancers. This singing as you danced has been often done since, but I suppose no one then thought of it but myself since King David. I need say little more about Albury visitors:—for many years there were plenty of them,—but if one put down a tenth part of what even the faithless memory of old age still retains, there would be no end to such inexhaustible recordings.

And here is an Alburian anecdote which may amuse, as illustrative of the mental calibre of some of those myriads of untutored rustics whom our partisan governors have made politically equal with the wisest in the land. Three young friends came to spend a day with us, and for fun brought in their pockets the absurd noses popular at Epsom races. We came upon some turf-diggers, and my visitors mounted their masks to mystify them. The clodpoles looked scared and very quiet, till I went up to one of them who knew me,—of course I was in my natural physiognomy,—and I said to him, "My friend, these are foreigners:" and the poor ignoramus staring at those portentous noses said seriously, "Ees, I sees they be." Clearly he thought all "furriners" were so featured.

Another specimen of agricultural intelligence is this: A labourer in my field one day said to me, "Master, please to tell me where Jerusalem is, because me and my mates have been disputing about it, and I says as its in Ireland, because the Romans goes there!" He meant the Roman Catholics! and he might have heard also that St. John's Pat-mos was in fact an Irish bog, Pat's-moss: many of our legislative constituency being found to believe that.

But not only is the common labourer thus dense: take these two instances of country guests at my table. One whom I had asked to meet two Americans told me of his disappointment at not finding them—red men! And another (this time a provincial parson) wanted me to expostulate with my friend Hatchard (afterwards Bishop of Mauritius) because he meditated in his philanthropy giving a drinking fountain to Guildford. "Only think, a drinking fountain! surely you cannot approve?" The poor man supposed it was one of those pumping apparatuses for spirits presided over by barmaids! It is manifest that the schoolmaster was not so much abroad a few years ago as he has been since board schools have arisen.

Amongst other specialities of ancient Albury House, which has 1561 on a weathercock and 1701 on a kitchen wing, is the same peculiarity which Tennyson told me at Farringford vexes him in his own less ancient dwelling,—and which Pindar of old declared to be the privilege of poets. We are, and have been for generations, a very house-hive of bees: the whole front of two gables has them under its oak floors and panelled walls throughout,—and when guests sleep in certain rooms they have to be forewarned that the groans at midnight are not those of perturbed spirits, but the hum and bustle of multitudinous bees. We cannot drive them away, nor destroy them utterly,—as often has been attempted; and if we did, the worry would be only worsened, as in that case hornets would come and succeed to the sweet heritage of bee-dom. When the stuccoed front of our house was demolished, to show the oaken pattern (but it had to be re-roughcast to keep out the weather), there were pailsful of honey carried off by the labourers, of course not without wounds and strife: but in ordinary times it is a strange fact that our bees never sting their hosts; be careful only to remain quiet, and there is no war between man and bee. Two years ago a great comb was built outside an eaveboard, probably because there was no room for more comb inside. It is curious that it should have survived two hard winters. Is not all this apposite, as suited (let Pindar and Tennyson bear witness) to a poet's home?

In this zoological connection (for bees are zoa) let me record that there is a legend of a fox having been killed in our drawing-room (on the ground-floor with French windows) during some tenancy in my absence,—only fancy the havoc of such a strife! but all had been cleared up before our return. Also, it is memorable (and I saw it myself) that a hard-pressed stag from Sir Gilbert Heathcote's hunt took refuge in our harness-room,—to the extreme horror of a gardener's boy, who thought it was a mad donkey,—and no wonder, for as those brave barbarian sportsmen get the antlers sawn off for fear of wounds to themselves or their nobler dogs, the poor scared creature with its uncrowned head and loppity ears is very donkey-like.

Let me give another like homely anecdote of past days.

We are all now so wrapt in security as country dwellers, guarded by the rural police everywhere, that the following ludicrous incident may seem hardly worth a word; but in the good old days, when poor Jack was such a highway brigand that my nurses feared to take the children off the premises, and when burglars were not infrequent callers at remote residences, what happened long ago, on a certain dark winter's night, at Albury, may amuse. Long after all had gone to bed, we heard with trepidation stealthy steps crunching the snow round the house, and something that now and then touched the ground-floor doors and windows, as if quietly trying to get in: at last it fumbled at the ancient hanging handle of the outside kitchen-door! Now was the time for Paterfamilias to show his pluck, in the universal scare; so, armed cap-a-pied, with candles held in the rear by the terrified household, he valorously drew the bolts and flung open the heavy oaken door,—to greet—his children's donkey, escaped somehow from its stable, and trying to get indoors that cold night for warmth. Laugh as we might, and as you may, the test of courage was all the same; and if this donkey story is pounced upon by some critic or comic as a weak link in my chain of autobiography, I only hope he will behave as bravely if a real ruffian tries his doors and windows by night; by no means an improbable hypothesis in these days of communistic radicalism.

The old house itself may deserve a word. It came to me as a—shall I say?—matrimony, from my mother; if patrimony means from a father, why not matrimony from a mother? her great-uncle, Anthony Devis, having bought it in 1780. He was a remarkable man in his way and before his age; a good landscape painter (as Pilkington avouches), a collector of pictures and curiosities,—mostly sold by executors at his death, aged eighty-nine, though a full gallery remains at Albury; a carver too, and a constructor of cabinets,—whereof two fine specimens (inlaid with brecciated jaspers, and made of ebony and cedar from his own turning-lathe) decorate our large drawing-room; and the oldest folk in our village still remember the good old gentleman who always had gingerbread in his pockets for them as children, and who was known by them as the "man mushroom," seeing he was the first who ever had an umbrella in the place! There was, however, another and a better reason for this name, inasmuch as he built for himself an outer painting-room on a hilltop near which he called Mushroom Hall, because it was just like one (as a picture in our drawing-room testifies), being a circular turret surmounted by a flat broad dome, with overshadowing eaves all round. This strange summer-house has long vanished.

Anthony came of a good old stock paternally, as the civic archives of Preston, in Lancashire, testify; and his mother was Ann Blackburne, of Marrick Abbey, Yorkshire,—the title-deeds whereof, old slip parchments and maps from Henry II. to Henry VIII., I found in a chest at Albury, and years after transmitted them to Lord Beaumont, the present owner; albeit, as a boy, I had been allowed to cut off the seals and paste them in a copy-book! All these deeds, and the history thereof, I had printed in Nichols's Antiquariana.

* * * * *

The prominent feature of our village, so far as religion is concerned, has for nearly fifty years been the fact of its being the headquarters of the party originated by Edward Irving,—a full history whereof, impartially and ably written by Mr. Miller of Bicester (whose hospitality I have enjoyed for some days at Kineton), will be found at Kegan Paul's, if any wish to read it. I have always lived on kindly terms with my neighbours, though not quite of their faith; excellent are many of them, and I am glad to number such among my friends, specially as on neither side we meddle with each other's peculiar opinions. I have known nearly all their twelve apostles, men of mark and learning (especially John Tudor, a great Hebraist, and who was skilled even in Sanscrit and the arrow-headed characters), and eleven of them are among the dead, one only surviving in a vigorous old age to meet (may it be so) the Lord at His coming.



CHAPTER XXXI.

AMERICAN BALLADS.

My American Ballads, perhaps after "Proverbial Philosophy," the chief cause of my Transatlantic popularities, had their origin at Albury. The first of these and the most famous, as it induced several friendly replies from American poets, was one whereof this below is the first stanza. I wrote it in 1850, and read it after dinner to four visitors from over the Atlantic to their great delectation, and of course they sent MS. copies all over the States. It begins—

To Brother Jonathan.

"Ho! brother, I'm a Britisher, A chip of heart of oak, That wouldn't warp or swerve or stir From what I thought or spoke; And you—a blunt and honest man, Straightforward, kind, and true, I tell you, brother Jonathan, That you're a Briton too!"

I would copy more here, but as the whole ballad (equally with the two just following) is printed in my Miscellaneous Poems and still extant at Paternoster Square, I refer my reader thereto if he wants more of it. The next of note was one headed "Ye Thirty Noble Nations," and is remarkable for this strange fact, viz., that I composed about the half of those eighteen eight-line stanzas in a semi-slumber. I was as I thought asleep, but I got out of bed and pencilled the ballad (or most of it, for I added and amended afterwards) straight off, and went to bed again, of course to sleep profoundly; when I got up next morning and found the MS. on my table, it seemed like a dream, but it wasn't. Those who are curious may look out this piece of "quasi inspiration" in that poem-book aforesaid. But here is the opening verse for those who cannot get the volume in bulk:—

"Ye thirty noble Nations Confederate in one, That keep your starry stations Around the Western sun,— I have a glorious mission, And must obey the call, A claim!—and a petition! To set before you all."

The claim being love for Mother Britain; the petition for freedom to the slave. It was published in 1851.

A third is chiefly noticeable for this. America had since my last address to her as "Thirty Nations" added three more States; and I was challenged to include them: which I did as thus; here are three of the Stanzas in proof:—

"Giant aggregate of Nations, Glorious Whole of glorious Parts, Unto endless generations Live United, hands and hearts! Be it storm or summer weather, Peaceful calm, or battle jar, Stand in beauteous strength together, Sister States, as Now ye are!

"Charmed with your commingled beauty England sends the signal round, 'Every man must do his duty' To redeem from bonds the bound! Then indeed your banner's brightness Shining clear from every star Shall proclaim your joint uprightness, Sister States, as Now ye are!

"So a peerless constellation May those stars together blaze! Three and ten-times threefold Nation Go ahead in power and praise! Like the many-breasted goddess Throned on her Ephesian car, Be—one heart in many bodies, Sister States, as Now ye are!"

There are also several other like balladisms, and sundry sonnets, all of which I had from time to time to greet my American audiences withal. And thus before I paid my visits over there, the land was salted with ore and the water enriched with ground-bait, so that when the poetaster appeared he was welcomed by every class as a promoter of International Kindliness.



CHAPTER XXXII.

AMERICAN VISITS.

A vast volume is before me containing my first American journal, which I sent over piecemeal in letters and newspaper clippings to Albury, where my wife and daughters arranged them and kept them safely, till on my return after three months travel I pasted them duly into this big book. If I were to record a tithe of the myriad memorabilia there entered, the present volume now in progress would not afford space even for a tithe of that: and after all, the result would only appear as a record of numerous private hospitalities (which I object to making public), of sundry well-appreciated kindnesses, compliments, and tokens of honour from stranger friends in many cities, and the numerous incidents that a tourist visitor ordinarily experiences; most of which, although paragraphed in a gossiping fashion through hundreds of the 3000 American papers, are not worth recording here. In fact, I look at this enormous volume with despair,—the more so that there is its other equally bulky brother about my second visit,—and so intend to give only some samples of both. The world is too full of books, and does not call out for another American Journal. The main social interest of my two visits consisted in the contrast shown between the one in 1851 and that in 1876, just a quarter of a century after; between in fact the extreme drinking habits of one generation and the extreme temperance of another: mainly due, amongst other causes, to the overflowing prosperities of the middle of this century and the comparative adversities of its declining years. "Jeshurun once waxed fat, and kicked,"—but since then he has become one of the "lean kine:" wines and spirits were formerly in abundance as well as hard dollars, but have now been replaced by the cheaper water and discredited paper. Moreover, such shrewd and caustic writers as the Trollopes and Dixon and Charles Dickens have done great good service to their sensible and sensitive American brothers,—who, far from resenting strictures which for the moment stung, took the best advantage of their utterance in self-improvement. My first visit was hospitably redolent of all manner of seductive drinks,—wherein, however, I was (as they thought) too temperate; my second was as hospitably plentiful so far as eating went, but iced water (wherein I was temperate too) appeared solitarily for the universal beverage: though even in the most teetotal homes this English guest was always generously allowed his port or Madeira or even his whisky if he wished it. Temperance was a fashion, a furore, on my second visit, as its opposite had been on my first: and on each occasion, I persisted in a middle course, the golden mean,—which I know to be proverbially a wisdom though not at present universally so accepted.

It is hopeless for me to look through the multitudinous large quarto pages of my first diary and its letters, comments, paragraphs, &c.; they are only too full of compliments and kindnesses from friends in many instances passed away: and I will simply record two or three of the more public hospitalities which greeted me.

One of these was a grand dinner with the Maryland Historical Society at Baltimore, May 13, 1851, my late friend Mr. Kennedy in the chair as president, while Sir Henry Bulwer and myself supported him right and left, some hundreds of other guests also being present. Of course all was very well done, luxuriously and magnificently; but perhaps the best thing I can do (if my reader's patience and my present tired penmanship will approve it) is to extract from a newspaper, the Baltimore Clipper of the above date, a precis of my speech on the occasion. Some distinguished gentleman having proposed my health,—"This brought to his feet Mr. Tupper, who, having expressed his thanks in an appropriate manner, and acknowledged his superior gratitude to the Author of all good, alluded to that international loving-kindness which he avowed to be one main errand of his life; and he very happily brought in Horace's prophetical description of England and America in their relation of mother and child, 'O matre pulchra filia pulchrior.' He followed by relating some striking incidents of the good feeling which pervades the old country in favour of her illustrious offspring. One we cannot fail to give was that the Royal Naval School at Greenwich had inserted his well-known ballad 'To Brother Jonathan' in a collection published for the use of the Royal Navy. The speaker then paid an eloquent compliment to the literature of America—her poets, statesmen, historians, and divines. He rejoiced that 'Insular America and Continental England' were so intimately and inseparably intermingled in the authorial productions of the human mind, as well as bound together by the strongest ties of nature and religion, of lineage, laws, and language. Adverting to the wise piety of such associations as the one before him, he exhorted to keep together the records of the past, that they may sanctify the present and be an encouragement to good and a warning against evil for the future. He commented severely upon the vandal act of the British troops under General Ross in burning the national archives at Washington. In this connection he introduced the beautiful lines from Milton:—

'Lift not thy spear against the Muse's bower; The great Emathian conqueror bid spare The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower Went to the ground.'

In conclusion, Mr. Tupper related an interesting fact, which in his mind suggested what should be to Americans a pleasing idea—possibly a discovery—as to the origin of the national flag. On making a pilgrimage just lately to Mount Vernon, he was forcibly struck by the circumstance that the ancient family coat-of-arms of the illustrious Washington consisted of three stars in the upper portion of the shield, and three stripes below; the crest represented an eagle's head, and the motto was singularly appropriate to American history, 'Exitus acta probat.' Mr. Tupper said he could not but consider this a most interesting coincidence. He thought the world might well congratulate America upon being the Geographical Apotheosis of that great unspotted character, who, while he yet lived, was prospectively her typical impersonation. The three stars by a more than tenfold increase have expanded into thirty-three; the glorious Issue has abundantly vindicated every antecedent fact; and your whole emergent eagle, fully plumed, is now long risen from its eyrie and soars sublimely to the sun in heaven." I may venture as an end to all this to quote a bit from my home letter. "At 6 o'clock, and thereafter till 12, I was the honoured guest at the enclosed splendid banquet. Our English ambassador sat on one side of the chairman and I on the other; the newspaper will save me all the trouble of a long account; but it was altogether one of the best triumphs I have ever achieved: see the papers. My dinner was very light, terrapin soup, pate de foie gras aux truffes, and sweetbread: with a deluge of iced water, and very little wine. My two speeches raised whirlwinds of applause, and took the company by storm. It was a most important opportunity for me, and, by God's help, I met it manfully. All the principal people of Maryland were there, besides our own minister; with Lady Bulwer in a side room and that nice young fellow Lytton; and there were many other distinguished strangers. You should have heard the shouts and cheers which greeted the points of my speech, and the after congratulations crowded about me. I begin to feel that if I had had common chances I should have been an orator. When I kindle up, my steam-horse goes off, and carries all his audience with him. While I was speaking, the people moved up en masse, and they gave me three cheers upstanding when I had done."

* * * * *

Another memorable event was a grand dinner given to Washington Irving and myself, as chief guests amongst others, by Prince Astor at his palatial residence in New York. As for the profusion of gold plate, glittering glass, innumerable yellow wax-candles in ormolu chandeliers, and general exhibition of splendid and luxurious extravagance, and all manner of costly wines and rarest gourmandise, I never have seen its like before or since; and more than this (if I may state the fact without much imputation of vaingloriousness), the intellectual treat was, to my amour propre at least, of a still more exquisite character, when our host protested to his company in a generous and genial speech that, if he could make the exchange, he would give all his wealth for half the literary glory of Washington Irving and Martin Tupper! We whispered to each other we heartily wished he could. I strangely missed visiting Irving at his own home, though urgently invited to it; but somehow other pressing engagements hindered, and so it was not to be.

On the same day with the Astorian dinner, Mr. Davis, a man of high social position, had urged me to dine with him, but I could not come as engaged till the evening. Now he, a local poet himself, had asked me in divers stanzas of fair rhyme; and so, not willing either to beat him in versification or to let him beat me, I made this epigrammatic reply in dog-Latin, which was taken to be rather 'cute:—

"Certes, amice Davis, Ibo quocunque mavis, Sed princeps Astor primo Me rapuit ad prandium; Cum me relinquit, imo In me videbis handyum."

This skit was well appreciated. I met at his house divers celebrities, as indeed I did at many other splendid mansions, especially at the Mayor's, Mr. Kingsland: I hear he is the third personage in rank in the United States, and he lives with the grandeur of our London Lord Mayor. I went with him on the 22d of March 1851 to one of the most magnificent affairs I ever attended. Here is an extract from my home-letter journal of same date:—

"Mr. Kingsland, the Mayor, came early to invite me to a grand day, being the inauguration of the Croton Waterworks. Went off with him at 10 from the City Hall in a carriage and four followed by forty new omnibuses and four, some with six horses, and caparisoned with coloured feathers and little flags, besides a number of private carriages; a gay procession, nearly a mile long, containing all the legislature and magnates of New York State and of the city—several hundreds." They visited in turn divers public institutions, and at most of them I had to speak or to recite my ballads, especially at a Blind Asylum, where, after an address from a blind lady (the name was Crosby), "at the request of the Governor of the State and the Mayor, I answered on the spur of the moment in a speech and a stave that took the room by storm," &c. &c. And so on for other institutions, and to the opening of the Croton Aqueduct. But there is no end to this sort of vainglorious recording. As Willis says in his Home Journal at the time, "Mr. Tupper is among us, feeling his way through the wilderness of his laurels, and realising his share of Emerson's 'banyan' similitude,—the roots that have passed under the sea and come up on this side of the Atlantic rather smothering him with their thriftiness in republican soil." I suppose by thriftiness he meant thrivingness.

My first acquaintance with N.P. Willis arose in this, way. He had (as I have mentioned before) been in the habit of quoting month after month in his own paper passages from my "Proverbial Philosophy," believing that book to be an obscure survival of the Shakespearean era, and that its author had been dead some three centuries. When he came to town, I called upon him at his lodging near Golden Square, walking in plainly "sans tambour et trompette" but simply announcing the then young-looking author as his old Proverbialist! I never saw a man look so astonished in my life; he turned pale, and vowed that he wouldn't believe that this youth could be his long-departed prophet; however, I soon convinced him that I was myself, and carried him off to dine in Burlington Street. Afterwards we improved into a friendship till he went the way of all flesh in Heaven's good time.

Perhaps another notable matter to record is that President Fillmore invited me to meet his Cabinet at dinner in the White House, and that I there "met and conversed immensely with Daniel Webster, a colossal unhappy beetle-browed dark-angel-looking sort of man, with a depth for good and evil in his eye unfathomable; also with Home Secretary Corwen, a coarse but clever man, who had been a waggon-driver; and with Graham, Secretary of the Navy, and with Conrad, Secretary at War, both gentlemen and having lofty foreheads; and with many more, including above all the excellent President," &c. &c. It was no small honour to meet such men on equal terms.

If I allowed myself to quote more from my first visit to America, it could only amount to variations of the same theme,—the great kindness of all around me to one, however humble, who had shown himself their friend both by tongue and pen. My books and my ballads had made the way to their affections, and so the author thereof reaped their love.

A little before my departure on this first visit this notable matter happened, and I will relate it in an extract from my last letter homeward.

"The happy thought occurred to me to call on Barnum, as I had brought him a parcel from Brettell; and, through him, to leave a card of respect for Jenny Lind. Barnum received me most graciously, and favoured me with two tickets for Jenny's concert to-night, whereof more anon. Meanwhile I thought of sending to Jenny, through Barnum, a pretty little copy of 'Proverbial Philosophy,' with a pretty little note,—whereof also more anon. Called on Edwards by good providence, and found that J.C. Richmond had misled me—he isn't to be married till next week. A nice visit to Major Kingsland and his good wife:—I find that my oratory has gone everywhere, and has made quite a sensation. Think of my stammering tongue having achieved such triumphs.—I do hope you get the papers I send. A card at Lester's, Union Hotel, as to Mary M. Chase.—Dined.—A full feast of reason with George Copway, the Redman chief, a gentleman, an author, and a right good fellow. Meeting also Gordon Bennett, the great New York Heraldist, who sat next me at dinner, when we had plenty of pleasant talk together; also Squier, the celebrated American Layard, who has discovered so much of Indian archaeology, a small, good-looking, mustachioed, energetic man: also Tuckerman, the amiable poet: also Willis, a good sort of man, just now much calumniated for having shown up English society in his books,—but a kindly and a clever every way. Mrs. Willis called and carried off Willis, and I took Tuckerman under my wing to the monster concert at Castle Garden. The immense circular building, full of heads (it holds 8000!) and lighted by 'cressets' of gas, put me in mind of Martin's illustration of Satan's Throne in Milton! The concert, as per programme, was a cold and dull affair enough,—though Lind did terrible heights and depths in the Italian execution line,—but after the concert came this beautiful episode. Barnum hunted me out from the two or three acres of faces,—because the fair and melodious Jenny had expressed to him an urgent wish to see me. When I got to her boudoir, where Barnum introduced me, I really thought she would have cried outright,—as feeling herself a stranger in a foreign land, and in the presence of an old unseen book-friend; for it seems,—as she told me in beautiful slightly broken English,—that my poor dear 'Proverbial Philosophy,'—which I never thought she had seen till I gave it to her,—has been to her 'such a comfort, such a comfort, many days;' and she was 'so glad, so ver glad,' to see me,—and she looked so unhappy,—though the immense hall was still echoing with those tumults of applause,—and she clasped my hand so often, and would hardly let it go, and made me sit and talk with her, for I was 'her friend,' and really seemed like a child clinging to its elder brother. I was quite sorry to leave her,—and when, putting aside all idle musical compliments, I tried to cheer her by the thought,—how nobly and generously for many good purposes she was using the melodious gift of God to her, poor Jenny only looked up devoutly, and shook her head, and sighed, and seemed unhappy. However, it was time to go, so with another hearty shake-hands, and 'my love to dear England,' Jenny Lind and I took leave. This testimony as to my book's good use for comfort,—she will 'read more now she sees me,'—is very pleasing,—it is much to do poor Jenny good, who does good to so many others. I think I've forgotten to say that great old Webster, the Secretary of State, avows that he 'always after hard work refreshes his mind' with that book: and—I might fill volumes with the same sort of thing. God has blessed my writings to millions of the human race! And from prince to peasant good has been done through this hand, incalculable.—God alone be praised."



CHAPTER XXXIII.

SECOND AMERICAN VISIT.

After the long interval of five-and-twenty years, filled up with many more such volumes and fly-leaves, I called again by pressing invitation on my American constituency, and found them as warm and generous and hospitable as before. This time I was six months a guest among them,—literally so, for I found myself passed on from home to home, and almost never took my bed at an hotel. The chief feature of this visit was that I posed everywhere as a public "reader from my own works," and met with generally good success, in spite of the terrific winter weather manfully encountered half the time. Everybody knows what extremities of cold are endured both in the North-Eastern States and in Canada. At Baltimore I have seen the snow piled almost man-high on each side of the middle lane dug for the tramway,—in New York men skated to their offices; at Ottawa the thermometer was 25 deg. below zero, and at Montreal it was everywhere deep snow (glorious for sleighing), icicles yard long outside the windows,—and of course smaller audiences to a frozen-up lecturer. Yet many came nevertheless, and I am pleased to remember among them good Bishop Oxenden and his family. In spite, then, of positively Arctic influences, as I had to do it, I did it bravely; and sent home needful dollars, and came back with a pocket full too. All this is surely part of an author's lifework; so I am writing appositely.

Among notabilia of this second visit, which was crowded like the former with abundance of private hospitality and of public honours,—I may record these briefly. Dr. Talmage, my kind and liberal host for two lengthened visits, gave a grand reception on October 26, 1876, to William Cullen Bryant and myself, which was attended by Peter Cooper, Judges Neilson and Reynolds, Mayor Schroeder, Professors Crittenden and Eaton, with some hundred more; the chief features of the evening being Bryant's poetical recitations and mine. On another occasion I read my Proverbial Essay on Immortality at the Tabernacle before 7000 people at Dr. Talmage's special request: and of course at Chickering Hall, the Brooklyn Theatre, and other places I had to give Readings to large audiences. The Lotos Club and other genial hosts gave me complimentary dinners. Mr. Hulbert, the well-known editor, made a partie carree (only four of us to consume some of the rarest delicacies) for Lord Rosebery, Mr. Barnum and myself: and in fact my journal overflows with elaborate hospitalities. It was the Centennial Year, and at Philadelphia I found abundant welcome, especially as an inmate of the genial homes of Mr. Roberts, the eminent Dr. Levis, the excellent Mrs. Fisher, and of Mr. Pettit, the clever artist who painted my portrait complimentarily. Of course I did the Great Exhibition thoroughly, and was quite surprised at its splendour and extent; I think that the thirty-three States were represented by no fewer than 180 ornamental edifices full of special products and treasures. At Niagara I stayed twice for a week each, with the kindest of hosts, the Rev. Mr. Fessenden and his good wife, and saw the great cataract in all the magnificence of winter as well as autumn. Also at the pleasant homes, of Mr. Lister in Hamilton, at Toronto, Kingston, and above all Montreal, my new but old book friends were full of liberal greetings, and everywhere I had to exhibit myself as a Reader from my own works; a specialty not common, as combining both author and orator. At Toronto, the ministers, Mr.—now Sir John—Macdonald, and Dr.—now Sir Charles—Tupper were my principal welcomers; and I dined then with the Cabinet, as in 1851 I had with Lord Elgin's in (I think) the same hall. At Ottawa I found myself full of friends, and visited Lord Dufferin. At Montreal the wealthy merchant, Mr. Mackay of Kildonan (since departed and gone up higher), was my generous host: and there in one of the hardest winters known I often made acquaintance with the splendid gallop of his sleighs, all furs and colour and delightful excitement: on one occasion having nearly had nose and ears frost-bitten till my neighbour with his fur gloves and snow rubbed life into them again. With Dr. Dawson of M'Gill University I had plenty of geological talk, especially about the new found Eozoa of the St. Lawrence stratum,—and with his clever son, and my cousin, Professor Selwyn. Thereafter I went south, the welcome guest of other cousins, the Vaughan-Tuppers of Brooklyn, among my most hospitable friends over there: and we routed out all about our family in America, as recorded for ten generations in Freeman's "History of Massachusetts." And I feasted at Mr. Trocke's on trout from "Tupper Lake" in the Adirondacks,—the name coming from an ancestor, not as after me, though sometimes thought so; and I met with many points both of family and of authorial interest. Then I was entertained by the New England Society, which, amongst abounding luxuries, still produces as a characteristic dish the frugal pork and beans of Puritan times. And the Century and other Clubs made me free of them. And of course Longfellow, Bryant, Fields, Biglow, O.W. Holmes, and many others, opened their houses and hearts to me. And I met and dined in company with General Grant and all sorts of other celebrities,—and so did all I hoped to do. Going south, Brantz Mayer at Baltimore, my cousin the Rev. Dr. Tupper (Bishop of the Baptists), and many others are memorable. Stay, I will give a casual extract from my home-letter, No. 39, of my second visit, giving several names.

"Jan. 18, 1877, evening. Took an oyster tea at Brantz Mayer's, and read to a party several things by request, especially as to the souls of animals. Judge Bond called for me there in his carriage, and took me (as invited by the President) to a great assemblage of Baltimore magnates (inaugurating the John Hopkins University), where I had casually quite an ovation, meeting literally hundreds of friends: I cannot pretend to remember many names, but these will remind me of others: General McClellan, General Ellicott (cousin to our Bishop), Carroll, the State Governor, no end of professors, among them Sylvester, who knew my brother Arthur at the Athenaeum, plenty of judges, presidents of institutions, doctors, journalists, lawyers, and many fine figure-heads of elderly magnates; each and all knew me as an early book friend, and I had quite to hold a court for two hours, receiving each as introduced, and having to say something pretty to him. Mr. Weld (of Lulworth), married to a rich Baltimorean, takes to me monstrously, and with Mr. President Gilman is going to manage a Reading here for me on my return from the South. He took me after the great event to the Maryland Club (making me a member for a month), and we had a glass of wine together, meeting again several of the bigwigs migrated like ourselves for something better than iced-water! for the odd thing is that, although the eating luxuries were profuse at this grand banquet,—whole salmons, bolsters of truffled turkey, oysters in every form, and plenty of terrapines, canvas-back ducks, and other costly comestibles,—not a drop of anything but water (except indeed tea and coffee) was to be had, the excuse being that at least some of the party would be sure to take too much; so all are mulcted for a few as usual." But my American journals are full of that sort of thing, and this honest extract may serve as a sample. I never guessed how crowded up by popularities a poor author may be till I had crossed the Atlantic and reaped the kindness of Greater Britain.

After all this, I went down South,—where I have seen brilliant humming-birds flying about, some two or three days after I had waded through deep snow northwards; my chief host, and a right worthy one, being a good cousin, S.Y. Tupper, President of the Chamber of Commerce at Charleston, S.C. With him and his I had what is called over there a good time, and indited several poetical pieces under his hospitable roof, in particular "Temperance" (see a former page). Also I wrote there another stave of mine which caused great discussion in the States, because I, reputed a Liberian and Emancipator, was supposed to have recanted and turned to be South instead of North; but I was only just and true, according to my lights. Here is the peccant stave, only to be found in Charleston and other American papers of February 1877, therefore will I give it here:—

To the South.

"The world has misjudged you, mistrusted, maligned you, And should be quick to make honest amends; Let me then speak of you just as I find you, Humbly and heartily, cousins and friends! Let us remember your wrongs and your trials, Slander'd and plunder'd and crush'd to the dust, Draining adversity's bitterest vials, Patient in courage and strong in good trust.

"You fought for Liberty, rather than Slavery! Well might you wish to be quit of that ill, But you were sold by political knavery, Meshed in diplomacy's spider-like skill: And you rejoice to see Slavery banished, While the free servant works well as before, Confident, though many fortunes have vanished, Soon to recover all—rich as before!

"Doubtless, there had been some hardships and cruelties, Cases exceptional, evil and rare, But to tell truth—and truly the jewel 'tis— Kindliness ruled, as a rule, everywhere! Servants, if slaves, were your wealth and inheritance, Born with your children, and grown on your ground, And it was quite as much interest as merit hence Still to make friends of dependents all round.

"Yes, it is slander to say you oppressed them; Does a man squander the price of his pelf? Was it not often that he who possessed them Rather was owned by his servants himself? Caring for all, as in health so in sicknesses, He was their father, their patriarch chief; Age's infirmities, infancy's weaknesses Leaning on him for repose and relief.

"When you went forth in your pluck and your bravery, Selling for freedom both fortunes and lives, Where was that prophesied outburst of slavery Wreaking revenge on your children and wives? Nowhere! you left all to servile safe keeping, And this was faithful and true to your trust; Master and servant thus mutually reaping Double reward of the good and the just?

"Generous Southerners! I who address you Shared with too many belief in your sins; But I recant it,—thus, let me confess you, Knowledge is victor and every way wins: For I have seen, I have heard, and am sure of it, You have been slandered and suffering long, Paying all Slavery's cost, and the cure of it,— And the great world shall repent of its wrong."

I need not say what a riot that honest bit of verse raised among the enthusiasts on both sides. I spoke from what I saw, and soon had reason to corroborate my judgment: for I next paid a visit on my old Brook Green school-friend, Middleton, at his burnt and ruined mansion near Summerville: once a wealthy and benevolent patriarch, surrounded by a negro population who adored him, all being children of the soil, and not one slave having been sold by him or his ancestors for 200 years. According to him, that violent emancipation was ruin all round: in his own case a great farm of happy dependants was destroyed, the inhabitants all dead through disease and starvation, a vast estate once well tilled reverted to marsh and jungle, and himself and his reduced to utter poverty,—all mainly because Mrs. Beecher Stowe had exaggerated isolated facts as if they were general, and because North and South quarrelled about politics and protection. Mrs. Stowe, I hear, has learnt wisdom, as I did,—and now like me does justice to both sides. There is no end to extracts from my journals, if I choose to make them; but I think I will transcribe four stanzas which I gave to Williams Middleton in February 1877, on my departure, as they bring together past and present:—

"Ancient schoolmate at Brook Green Half a century ago (Nay, the years that roll between Count some fifty-eight or so),— Oh, the scenes 'twixt Now and Then, Life in all its grief and joys,— Meeting Now as aged men Since the Then that saw us boys!

"There's a charm, a magic strange, Thus to recognise once more, Changeless in the midst of change Mind and spirit as of yore; Even face and form discerned Easily and greeted well, While our hearts together burned At school-tales we had to tell.

"Mostly dead, forgotten, gone,— Few old Railtonites of fame (Here and there we noted one), Yet we find ourselves the same! Sons of either hemisphere We can never stand apart, With to me Columbia dear And my England in your heart.

"You, of good old English stock,— I—some kindred of mine own Pound themselves on Plymouth Rock, Five times fifty years agone; So, I come at sixty-six, All across the Atlantic main, With my kith and kin to mix, And to greet you once again!"

I may here record that, accompanied by Middleton, I watched at an alligator's hole with a rifle, but the beast would not come out, perhaps luckily for me, if I missed a stomach shot; that I was prevented from bringing down a carrion vulture, it being illegal to kill those useful scavengers; that I caught some dear little green tree frogs; that I noted how the rice-fields had become a poisonous marsh; that I noticed the extensive strata of guano and fossil bone pits, securing some large dragon's teeth, and with them sundry flint arrow-heads, suggestive of man's antiquity; that I lamented over the desolation of my friend's mansion and estate, and in particular to have seen how outrageously the Federals had destroyed his family-mausoleum, scattering the sacred relics of his ancestors all round and about. This was simply because he had been a Confederate magnate, and had owned patriarchally a multitude of slaves, born on the spot through two centuries. He and his kind brother, the Admiral,—my friendly host at Washington,—have joined the majority elsewhere; but I heard from him and others down South the truth about American slavery.

For remainder rapid notice. Paul Hayne the poet is remembered well; and the fine old great-grandmother with eighty-six descendants of my name; and thereafter came the inauguration of President Hayes, an account whereof I wrote to the English papers; and hospitalities at the White House, and records of plenty more Readings and receptions; and all about Edgar Poe at Baltimore, and my acquaintance with Henry Ward Beecher, and my final New York hospitalities, and my pamphlet "America Revisited," written on board the return steamer the Batavia,—and so an end hurriedly.

This was my last farewell to my million friends, published in Bryant's paper;—

Valete!

"A last Farewell—O many friends! I leave your love with saddened heart; And so my grateful spirit sends This answering love before we part: I thank you tenderly each one, I praise your goodness, dear to tell, And, well-remembered when I'm gone, Alike will yearn on you as well.

"A last Farewell—O my few foes! I fear'd you not, by mouth or pen, But to the battle bravely rose, A man to fight his fight with men: And though the gauntlet I have run You shall not say he fail'd or fell, Truly recording when I'm gone, He fought and won his victories well.

"My last Farewell—O brothers both! No foes at all, but friends all round; Albeit now homeward, little loth, To dear old England I am bound— Accept this short and simple prayer (A cheerful verse, no parting knell), To every one and everywhere My thankful blessing, and Farewell!"



CHAPTER XXXIV.

ENGLISH AND SCOTCH READINGS.

I have another vast volume before me, recounting my English and Scotch Reading Tours, with full details of innumerable home kindnesses and hospitalities, from Ventnor in the South to Peterhead in the North, which I need not particularise. I gave twenty-one "Readings from my own Works" southward, in a dozen towns with a regular entrepreneur, who was my avant courier everywhere, making all arrangements, placarding, advertising, hiring halls, engaging reporters, and the like; when all was ready, I used to come forward, as the General does at a review,—and then succeeded the sham-fight and division of the spoils of war—if any; for, to say truth, our partnership did not prove lucrative, so we parted with mutual esteem, and I resolved to accomplish all the rest of my projected tour alone; a great effort and a successful one, for I "orated" all through Scotland, from Ayr to Peterhead (far north of Aberdeen), often to very large audiences (as at Glasgow, where the number was said to be three thousand) and always to fair ones, the Scotch being much more given to literature than the West of England. I could give innumerable anecdotes of the splendid as well as kindly welcome I received from great and small,—for as I now had no attending agent I was all the more eagerly treated as a solitary guest,—and I found myself handed on from one rich host to another all through the land, with numerous book friends everywhere ready and willing to make all arrangements freely at each town and city. So the tour paid better every way, albeit the toil and excitement of being always to the front, either on platforms or at dinner-parties, was excessive though not exhausting. It is astonishing what one can do if one tries, and if the sympathy of friends and a really good success are at hand to cheer one. I wish there was space here to say more about all this; but the great book before me would print up into several volumes. I will only, add, as below, an interesting extract from this diary, just before I had parted with my worthy agent aforesaid:—"He has told me some curious anecdotes about eminent artistes whom he has chaperoned, e.g. Thackeray came to Clifton to give four readings on the Georges; the first reading had only three auditors, the second not one; so Thackeray went away. Bellew is uncertain; sometimes having empty benches, sometimes overflowing ones, according to the programme, whether serious or laughable. Tom Hood gave a lecture on Humour, which was so dull that the audience left him. Miss Glyn Dallas often reads 'Cleopatra,' magnificently too, to empty benches. Sims Reeves draws a vast audience, but sometimes at the last moment refuses to sing (probably paying forfeit) because he is always afraid of something giving way in his throat. Dickens, though with crowded audiences, was not liked, nor nearly so good as Mr.—— expected: he carried about with him a sort of show-box, set round with lights and covered with purple cloth, in the midst of which he appeared in full evening costume with bouquet in button-hole, and, as Mr.—— said, 'very stiff.' Mr.—— has just engaged Madame Lemmens Sherrington and six others for sixty-three concerts at a cost of L4000, for he says that good music—after low humour—is the best thing to pay. May his spirited speculation prosper!" Thus much for my quotation of Mr.—— 's experiences.

It may interest a reader if I give, quite at haphazard, a list of one of my readings: "Welcome; Adventure; Yesterday, To-day, and To-morrow; All's for the Best; Energy; Success; Warmth; Be True; Of Love; The Lost Arctic; The Way of the World; Cheerfulness." All these may be found in my Miscellaneous Poems and "Proverbial Philosophy." I varied the programme—of about an hour and a half each (sometimes two)—frequently through my fifty readings on this side of the Atlantic, as well as through my hundred over there. How strange that the stammerer should have so become the orator!—I thank God for this.

Before a final end to this brief record of my home-readings, I will add another page of short extracts from this diary: "Though I continually read for nearly two hours at a stretch (and that sometimes twice a day too) I take no intervals, and hardly anything but a sip of water. Energy and electrical effort are stimulants enough." "I always exert myself quite as much for few as for many; perhaps more so." "No one ever can read well or hold his audience if he doesn't feel what he reads." "Some of the clergy are no great friends of mine; one told me to-day that 'perpetual dearly beloved brethren had spoilt him for eloquence, and he didn't care to hear mine.'" This was at Salisbury, in a coffee-room. "Cathedral towns are always dullest and least sympathetic with lecturing laymen; for example, at Bristol, Salisbury, Worcester, Gloster, and the like. Are the clerics jealous of lay spouters? Dissenting ministers and Presbyterians seem far more genial." "I travelled about fifteen hundred miles by rail, besides coaches and carriages. My aggregate of paying hearers was about sixteen thousand, the bulk being old book-likers. The gain was nearly four times as much as the cost, good hospitality having been the rule." "I read publicly (private readings additional, as often asked after dinners, &c.) twenty-nine proverbial essays and thirty-eight poems; repeated according to popularity by request to two hundred." I only do not name some of my generous Scotch and English hosts for fear of seeming to have forgotten others by omission; and the list is too lengthy for full insertion; as also is the long story of my adventures and experiences in the hospitable North.

Miscellaneous Poems.

Before dismissing thus curtly, my great Scottish exploit (which, by the way, anticipated by three years my second American visit, but I would not disjoin that from my first) I ought to give some account of the publication of my Miscellaneous Poems by Gall & Inglis at Edinburgh, and of some few of the hospitalities connected therewith, though not revealing domesticities, as against my wholesome rule.

An odd thing happened to me at Mr. Inglis's dinner-table, where I met several literary celebrities. I had just read, and was loud in my praises of a then anonymous work, "Primeval Man Unveiled," and I asked my neighbour, an aged man, if he knew that extraordinary book? Whereupon the whole table saluted the questioner with a loud guffaw; for I was speaking to its author, whom I had innocently so bepraised. However, my mistake was easily forgiven, as may be imagined. I found that the said author was Mr. Inglis's near relative, Mr. Gall,—so my new publisher and I were immediately en rapport.

There are two simultaneous editions of this book of my poetry—one called the Redlined and the other the Landscape; the first on thick paper, and with eight steel engravings, the latter having every page decorated in colours with beautiful borderings of scenery. The volume contains about one-half or less of all the mass of lyrics I have written, some of the pieces having been in earlier books of my poetry, as Ballads and Poems, Cithara, Lyrics of the Heart and Mind, Hactenus, A Thousand Lines, &c. &c.; and they date, though not printed in systematic order, from my fifteenth year to beyond my sixtieth. Fly-leaf lyrics have been continually growing ever since now to my seventy-sixth.

Here are a few further random, extracts from my Scotch diary:—"Arbroath, Sunday, Nov. 2, 1873.—What a comfort it is for once to feel utterly unknown; for even my luggage has only a monogram, and here at the White Hart I am No. 15, and a commercial gent to all appearance: really, it is quite a relief to be some one else than Martin Tupper."

"Read J.S. Mill's autobiography; poor wretch! from his cradle brought up as an atheist by a renegade father, he can have been hardly more responsible for his no faith than a born idiot. However, in these infidel last times, and with our very broad-church and no-church teachings, a man has only to be utterly godless (so he be moral) to make himself a name for pure reason. I'd sooner be the most unenlightened Christian than such a false philosopher. Let a Goldsmith say of me, 'No very great wit, he believed in a God,' for I refuse to deny one, like the Psalmist's fool." "I throw myself so into my readings, that I almost forget my audience, till their cheering, as it were, wakes me up,—and I feel every word I say: if I didn't, that word would fall dead. There is a magnetism in earnestness,—an electric power; I am in a way full of it when reciting, and I am aware of it flowing through the mass of my audience." "It was a touching thing to me to hear the aged Mr. B—— conduct his family worship, singing like an old Covenanter the harmonious Puritan dirgy hymn, reading the Bible most devoutly, and praying (as only Presbyterians can pray) from the heart and not from a formal liturgy, earnestly and eloquently; he prayed also for me and mine, and I thank God and him for it." "My host at Ayr drove me in his waggonette to see the mausoleum at Hamilton Palace, with its wonderful bronze doors after Ghiberti, and its inlaid marble floor, much of which is of real verd antique in small pieces. Then we went down among the dead men, and inspected the coffins of nearly all the Dukes of Hamilton. It is an outrage to have expended so much (L100,000) on this senseless mausoleum, and to have left close by and within sight of the great Grecian palace those filthy crowded streets of poverty and disease—the wretched town of Hamilton—as a contrast to profuse extravagance. The last Duke, the very Lord Douglas who was in the same class with me at Christ Church, and is supposed to have personated me in Tom Quad, has a very graceful temple of Vesta all to himself, with his bust in the middle: his father lies, of all heathenish absurdities, in a real antique Egyptian sarcophagus, into which it is said he was fitted by internal scoopings, the Duke being taller than its former tenant, the Pharaoh. All this done, we drove through some rugged parts of the High Park, to see magnificent oaks, much like some at Albury, in hopes of coming upon the famous wild cattle, grey, with black feet, ears, tail, and nose, and stated to be untameable. To our great satisfaction we did see a herd of thirty-four feeding quietly enough; had we been walking instead of driving we might have fared poorly as hunted ones: though I confess I saw at first no fierceness in the lot of them; but when the herd sighted us, and began ominously to commence encircling our gig, under the guidance of a terrible bull, we turned and fled, as the discreeter part of wisdom; Captain Hamilton, my host, telling me that if they charged us we must jump out and swarm up a tree! I was glad to be out of such a fearful escapade as that." "As to diversities in the Scotch Church, after seeing many clerical specimens of each kind, I judge that (generally) the Established Scotch gives itself the superior airs of the Established English; the Frees are the most intellectual; the U.P.s most pious; the Scottish Episcopal getting excessively high; and some other varieties growing far too broad and pantheistic. I don't wonder to hear Papists say that Protestantism is breaking up; no two parsons are agreed on all points, some on none."