As for social hospitalities, I found them either splendid or kindly—or both—everywhere; and will only name Captain Hamilton of Rozelle, Sir Michael Shaw Stewart of Ardgowan, Mr. Boyd of Glasgow, Mr. Gall and Mr. Nelson of Edinburgh, Mr. Arthur of Paisley, and such other millionaire hosts as James Baird, William Dickson, and the like, as among my wealthiest and kindest welcomers.

Of course, when a guest for a week at Rozelle, I paid due homage to Burns in his own territory; visiting his natal cottage, his funeral cenotaph, Alloway Kirk, the Auld Brig, &c. &c.—all these in company with the millionaire iron-master and most enthusiastic admirer of Tam-o'-Shanter, Mr. James Baird. When he took me to his magnificent castle hard by, he said to me "Ye're vera welcome to ma hoose,"—and I entered to inspect his gallery of pictures: among them I noticed, with surprise at such an incongruous subject for a painting, an ugly red factory in course of building, and a man on a ladder leaning against it, with a hod on his shoulder. To my inquiry about this, he replied, "Yon's mysel',—I'm proud to say; that's what I was, and this is what I am." He had made, while yet a workman, some discovery about cold blast or hot blast (I don't know which) and gained enormous wealth thereby. He is the man who gave half a million of money to the Scotch Established Church.



CHAPTER XXXV.

ELECTRICS.

I have something of interest to say about the first laying of the electric telegraph across the Atlantic. Sir Culling Eardley invited a number of savants, among them Wheatstone and Morse, and others, both English and American, to a great feast inaugurating the completion of the cable: and I, amongst other outsiders, had the honour of being asked. I had written, and after dinner I read, the verses following, which had the good and great effect of originating the first message (see the seventh stanza) which was adopted by acclamation and sent off at once; being only preceded, for courtesy-sake, by a short friendly greeting from Queen to President, and President to Queen. The heading runs in my book as "The Atlantic Telegraph."

"World! what a wonder is this, Grandly and simply sublime,— All the Atlantic abyss Leapt in a nothing of time! Even the steeds of the sun Half a day panting behind, In the flat race that is run, Won by a flash of the mind!

"Lo! on this sensitive, link— It is one link, not a chain— Man with his brother can think Spanning the breadth of the main,— Man to his brother can speak Swift as the bolt from a cloud, And where its thunders were weak There his least whisper is loud!

"Yea; for as Providence wills, Now doth intelligent man Conquer material ills, Wrestling them down as he can,— And lay one weak little coil Under the width of the waves, Distance and Time are his spoil, Fetter'd as Caliban slaves!

"Ariel?—right through the sea We can fly swift as in air; Puck?—forty minutes shall be Sloth to the bow that we bear: Here is Earth's girdle indeed, Just a thought-circlet of fire,— Delicate Ariel freed Sings, as she flies, on a wire!

"Courage, O servants of light, For you are safe to succeed; Lo! you are helping the Right, And shall be blest in your deed. Lo! you shall bind in one band, Joining the nations as one, Brethren of every land, Blessing them under the sun!

"This is Earth's pulse of high health Thrilling with vigour and heat, Brotherhood, wisdom and wealth, Throbbing in every beat; But you must watch in good sooth Lest to false fever it swerve,— Touch it with tenderest truth As the world's exquisite nerve!

"Let the first message across— High-hearted Commerce, give heed— Not be of profit or loss, But one electric indeed: Praise to the Giver be given, For that He giveth man skill, Glory to God in the Heaven! 'Peace upon earth, and goodwill!'"

Another Electric poem of mine called "The First Message," also in Gall's edition, was sent over by telegraph to America. What a miserable muddle, by the way, those meddlesome revisers have made of The Angel's Message;—preferring a dubious sigma to a comma, they have utterly spoilt that sublime trilogy by making "Peace upon earth, goodwill towards men," read "Peace upon earth among men in whom he is well pleased." How clumsy and how ungrammatical, in whom! The whole dear Bible has been terribly damaged by their 36,000 needless alterations in the New Testament (not 100 having been really necessary), and I know not how many more myriads in the Old, but happily their Version falls dead, and will soon be as forgotten as Dr. Conquest's "Bible with 20,000 emendations," whereof I now possess a somewhat scarce copy in the library at Albury. I have less than no patience with those principally clerical revisers; albeit for their chairman, Dr. Ellicott, I retain a pleasant memory from Orkney recollections in old days.

* * * * *

But this is a digression, wrung from me by my righteous wrath against those who have done their worst to spoil for us The Angel's Message, the first word uttered by the telegraphic wire under the sea.

Returning to the subject of Electrics I have something of interest to say which will be news to my readers. One day when casually dipping into Addison's Spectator at Albury, I made the following discovery which I recorded in the newspapers at the time, and give the extract now fully as thus:—

In the 241st No. of Addison's Spectator, bearing date Thursday, December 6th, 1711, and as signed "C." (one of the letters of the mystic Clio), by the great Joseph Addison himself, occurs the following remarkable anticipation of our presumably most modern discovery. Those who have access to the London edition of the Spectator of 1841, published by J.J. Chidley, 123 Aldersgate Street, can verify the verbatim faithfulness of the following extract from page 274:—

"Strada, in one of his Prolusions (Lib. II. prol. 6), gives an account of a chimerical correspondence between two friends by the help of a certain loadstone, which had such virtue in it, that if it touched two several needles, when one of the needles so touched began to move, the other, though at never so great a distance, moved at the same time, and in the same manner. He tells us that the two friends, being each of them possessed of one of those needles, made a kind of dial-plate, inscribing it with four-and-twenty letters, in the same manner as the hours of the day are marked upon the ordinary dial-plate. They then fixed one of the needles on each of these plates in such a manner that it could move round without impediment, so as to touch any of the four-and-twenty letters.

"Upon their separating from one another into distant countries, they agreed to withdraw themselves punctually into their closets at a certain hour of the day, and to converse with one another by means of this their invention.

"Accordingly, when they were some hundred miles asunder, each of them shut himself up in his closet at the time appointed, and immediately cast his eye upon his dial-plate. If he had a mind to write anything to his friend, he directed his needle to every letter that formed the words which he had occasion for, making a little pause at the end of every word or sentence, to avoid confusion.

"The friend in the meanwhile saw his own sympathetic needle moving of itself to every letter which that of his correspondent pointed at. By this means they talked together across a whole continent, and conveyed their thoughts to one another in an instant over cities or mountains, seas or deserts.

"If Monsieur Scudery, or any other writer of romance, had introduced a necromancer, who is generally in the train of a knight-errant, making a present to two lovers of a couple of these above-mentioned needles, the reader would not have been a little pleased to have seen them corresponding with one another when they were guarded by spies and watchers, or separated by castles and adventures.

"In the meanwhile, if ever this invention should be revived or put in practice, I would propose that upon the lover's dial-plate there should be written not only the four-and-twenty letters, but several entire words which have always a place in passionate epistles, as flames, darts, die, language, absence, Cupid, heart, eyes, hang, drown, and the like. This would very much abridge the lover's pains in this way of writing a letter, as it would enable him to express the most useful and significant words with a single touch of the needle.—C."

Thus far Addison, a hundred and seventy years ago, and Strada (whoever he may be, for ordinary biographical dictionaries ignore him), perhaps fifty before him, and the two unknown experimentalists, perhaps twenty beyond that, making in all two hundred and forty or fifty years ago as the date of electrical invention: whereof we see no further mention in the Spectator. But is it not also among the "Century of the Marquis of Worcester's Inventions"?—as is possible; the scarce volume is not near me for reference. Let the curious reader who can, turn to it and see. Meanwhile, how strangely Addison and Strada have anticipated the dial-plate, and the needles, and the letters, and the short forms for common words, all so familiar to our telegraphists. Verily there is nothing new under the sun.

* * * * *

Extract from my Archive-book, No. 8. Date October 15, 1856.

"I was again an electric guest, this time at the Great Albion dinner (Liverpool) to Mr. Morse, whom I had met at Erith and in America. A day or two afterwards I sent him a letter of invitation to Albury, enclosing the sonnet below; and not knowing his London address I posted it to my brother Charles in London for him to read and forward. Lucky enough that I did so, for Mr. Morse had just sailed for America: so Charles had both prose and poetry telegraphed to him in New York,—and the Company would not charge any money for it! This is perhaps the only time a sonnet ever travelled by telegraph, and certainly the only time it ever so travelled gratis."

Here it is, for which I had a very complimentary and grateful note from "Samuel F.B. Morse, as an ardent admirer," &c. As never in print till now, I trust it will be acceptable to my readers. Mr. Morse's published speech was religiously high-minded and true-hearted, as indicated in the sonnet.

To Professor Morse, in pleasant memory of October 10, 1856, at the Albion.

"A good and generous spirit ruled the hour; Old jealousies were drowned in brotherhood, Philanthropy rejoiced that skill and power, Servants to science, compass all men's good; And over all Religion's banner stood, Upheld by thee, true Patriarch of the plan Which in two hemispheres was schemed to shower Mercies from God on universal man. Yes, this electric chain from East to West More than mere metal, more than Mammon can, Binds us together kinsmen, in the best As most affectionate and frankest bond, Brethren at one, and looking far beyond The world in an electric union blest."



CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE RIFLE: A PATRIOTIC PROPHECY.

There is an extinct pamphlet, now before me, published by Routledge in 1860, entitled "The Rifle Movement Foreshown in Prose and Verse from 1848 to the Present Time,"—from my pen,—which proves that, in conjunction with my friend Evelyn and a few others, I may justly claim to have originated that cheap defence of England, at Albury, more than a dozen years before it was thought of anywhere by any one else. Take the trouble to read the following longish extract from the fifth edition of the above, and please not to omit the leash of ballads wherewith it ends.

"And now, next, about this Rifle pamphlet. Every page carries its date honestly, and several very curiously. In some of the editions there appears a rifle ballad of mine, written in 1845, and published in 1846 (in the first issue of my Ballads and Poems—Hall & Virtue) with the strange title "Rise Britannia, a Stirring Song for Patriots in the Year 1860:" an anticipation by fourteen years of the actual date of the Rifle Movement. In all the editions, the papers on 'Cheap Security' (being Talks between Naaman Muff (a Quaker), Till (a commercial gent), Dolt (a philanthropist), Funker (an ordinary unwarlike paterfamilias), and a certain Tom Wydeawake (patriotic but peculiar)) contain detailed allusions, though written several years before any definite existence, to the National Rifle Association, and to exactly such annual prize gatherings of riflemen as those at Wimbledon Common and Brighton Downs, and this latest at Blackheath. The discouragements of Tom Wydeawake and his few compeers were remarkable. He himself might fairly have claimed the honours of origination, discussed some two or three years ago, but he left them to others—Sic vos non vobis, &c."

"Without mentioning names, several—since distinguished as prominent in Rifledom—were once, to my certain knowledge, and still to be evidenced by their extant letters, bitterly opposed to the whole movement,—and I cannot conclude these remarks better or more appositely than by adding here, with real dates, the three following ballads, which tell their own tale briefly and suggestively." I print them here, as they are now to be found nowhere else.

The first, published in newspapers during June 1859 (following several others of a like character, with my name or without it), was the origin of the Volunteers' motto—being headed

Defence not Defiance.

"Nearer the muttering thunders roll, Blacker and heavier frowns the sky,— Yet our dauntless English soul Faces the storm with a steady eye; Hands are strong where hearts are stout; Our rifles are ready—look out!

"No one wishes the storm to roll here— No one cares such a devil to raise,— And in brotherhood, not in fear, Only for peace an Englishman prays,— Yet he may shout in the midst of the rout, Our rifles are ready—look out!

"Keep to your own, like an honest man, And here's our hand, and here's our heart, Let the world see how wisely you can Play to the end a right neighbourly part,— But if mischief is creeping about, Our rifles are ready—look out!

"No defiance is on our lips, Nothing but kindliness greets you here; Still, in the storm our dolphin ships Round the Eddystone dart and steer,— And on shore—no doubt, no doubt— Our rifles are ready—look out!

"Not Defiance, but only Defence, Hold we forth for humanity's sake,— And, with the help of Omnipotence, We shall stand when the mountains quake: Only in Him our hearts are stout; Our rifles are ready—look out!"

A Rhyme for Albury Club.

"A rhyme for the Club, for the brave little Club That stoutly went forward when others held back, And, reckless of many a sneer and a snub, Steer'd manfully straight upon Duty's own tack,— Though quarrelsome peacemongers did their small worst, In spite of their tongues and in spite of their teeth, We stood up for England among the few first, With rifles and targets on Surrey Blackheath!

"Time was when Tom Wydeawake, ten years agone, Toil'd to arouse dull old Britain betimes, By example—he shouldered his rifle alone, By precept—he showered his letters and rhymes,— With bullets he peppered old Sherborne's hillside, With ballads and articles worried the Press,— The more he was sneer'd at, the stronger he tried, And would not be satisfied short of Success.

"And now is his Fancy the front of the van, And England an archer, as in the past years, And stout middle age carries arms like a man, And all the young fellows are smart Volunteers: And Herbert, and Elcho, and Spencer, and Hay, And Mildmay, and all the best names in the land On a national scale achieve grandly to-day What Wydeawake schemed with his brave little band!

"Then cheers for the Queen! for the Club! and the Corps! For Grantley, and Evelyn, and Sidmouth, and all; With Franklin, and Mangles, and six dozen more, The first to spring forth at Britannia's call! And long may we live with all peaceably here— For olive, not laurel, is Glory's true wreath— But if the wolf comes, he had better keep clear Of a Club of crack shots upon Surrey Blackheath!"

July 1860.

And the third is a small record of our Easter Monday's Review, 1864, alluding to the present universality of the Rifle Movement contrasted with its originally small beginnings on the same spot.

Surrey Blackheath.

"Surrey Blackheath! old scene of beginnings Humble enough some dozen years back, Gather to-day's rich harvest of winnings, Sprung of that sowing in Memory's track; Reap your revenges in honour and pleasure;— Thousands of riflemen arm'd to the teeth— Crowds by ten thousands, in holiday leisure, Throng the wild beauties of Surrey Blackheath!

"We were the first our rifles to shoulder, First to wake England (though voted a bore); First in this nation who roused her, and told her She must go arm'd to be safe, as of yore! Those were the days before corps and their drilling, When the true patriot was check'd with a snub,— So, on Blackheath, devotedly willing, Stood your first riflemen—Albury Club!

"Yes, we stood here, in spite of their coldness, Duty's first marksmen—whate'er should betide,— Conquering Success—the sure fruit of boldness— World-witnessed now by this field-day of pride! And though they laugh'd at Tom Wydeawake's fancies, Olives and laurels combine in his wreath; For, the world's peace—in England's and France's— Sprung of that sowing on Surrey Blackheath!"

March 5, 1864.

Lord Lovelace will remember how much he opposed our rifle-club,—as in those days illegal, and so the Lord-Lieutenant of Surrey might not sanction it: but now his Lordship is our leading volunteer. Besides the three ballads above, I wrote seven others which rang round the land, and some of them, as "Hurrah for the Rifle," and "In days long ago when old England was young," have been sung at Wimbledon and other gatherings.

It may be worth while, seeing the ballads are hopelessly out of print, if I here transcribe a few stanzas from divers other staves I penned in the early days of Rifledom. First, from "Rise, Britannia," before mentioned, which was "written and printed in 1846, and then headed, by a strange anticipation, a stirring song for patriots in the year 1860:" reproduced in my now extinct "Cithara," in 1863: I wrote it to be sung to the tune of "Wha wouldna fecht for Charlie:" even as afterwards I adapted my "In days long ago when old England was young" to "The roast-beef of old England," published with my own illustration by Cocks & Co.:—

"Rise! ye gallant youth of Britain, Gather to your country's call, On your hearts her name is written, Rise to help her, one and all! Cast away each feud and faction, Brood not over wrong nor ill, Rouse your virtues into action, For we love our country still, Hail, Britannia! hail, Britannia! Raise that thrilling shout once more, Rise, Britannia! rule, Britannia! Conqueror over sea and shore!"

After three stanzas which I will omit, the last is

"Rise then, patriots I name endearing,— Flock from Scotland's moors and dales, From the green glad fields of Erin, From the mountain homes of Wales,— Rise! for sister England calls you, Rise! our commonweal to serve, Rise! while now the song enthrals you Thrilling every vein and nerve,— Hail, Britannia! hail, Britannia! Conquer, as thou didst of yore; Rise, Britannia! rule, Britannia! Over every sea and shore!"

Another noted alarum, sounded in January 1852, commences thus:—

"Englishmen, up! make ready your rifles! Who can tell now what a day may bring forth? Patch up all quarrels, and stick at no trifles,— Let the world see what your loyalty's worth! Loyalty?—selfishness, cowardice, terror Stoutly will multiply loyalty's sum, When to astonish presumption and error Soon the shout rises—the brigands are come!"

After four stanzas of happily unfulfilled prognostication, the last is—

"Up then and arm! it is wisdom and duty; We are too tempting a prize to be weak: Lo, what a pillage of riches and beauty, Glories to gain and revenges to wreak! Run for your rifles, and stand to your drilling; Let not the wolf have his will, as he might, If in the midst of their trading and tilling Englishmen cannot—or care not to—fight!"

One only stanza more, the last of another also in 1852.

"Arm then at once! If no one attack us Better than well, for the rifle may rust; But if the pirates be coming to sack us, Level it calmly, and God be your trust! Only, while yet there's a moment, keep steady; Skilfully, duteously, quickly prepare,— Then with a nation of riflemen ready, Nobody'll come because no one will dare!"

In those days of a generation back, so great was the scare everywhere of Napoleon's rabid colonels a-coming that I remember my brother Arthur counselling me to sink our plate down a well for safety; and Mr. Drummond in a pamphlet exhorted the creation of refuges round the coast by getting the owners of mansions to fortify them as strongholds, filling the windows with grates and mattresses, and loopholing garden-walls for shots at marauders on the roads!

Yet, so sleepy was the British Lion that neither Drummond nor I, nor even the Times, which I invoked, could wake him up for many years: and the Volunteer movement did not take effect till Louis Napoleon kindly urged Palmerston to check his rabid colonels by a bold front of preparation.

I am minded to finish with a mild anecdote which carries its moral. Now, understand that I never pretended to be a crack shot, though I did make fair practice through "the Indian twist," the sling supporting one's arm; if I hit the target occasionally, I was satisfied. But it once happened (at Teignmouth, where I was a casual visitor) that, seeing a squad of volunteers practising at a mark on the beach, I went to look on, and was courteously offered a shot, being not unknown by fame to some of them. The target was at some 500 yards (say about a third of a mile), so it was not likely I could hit it, with a chance rifle, perhaps carelessly sighted; yet, when I did let fly, to the loud admiration of the others and to my own astonishment (which of course I did not reveal), the marker signalled for a bull's eye! Entreated to do it again, this prudent rifleman modestly declined, for he remembered Sam Slick's lucky shot at the floating bottle; it was manifestly his wisdom not to risk fame won by a fluke. So the moral is, don't try to do twice what you've done well once.



CHAPTER XXXVII.

AUTOGRAPHS AND ADVERTISEMENTS.

A word or two about autographs, surely a topic suitable to this book: in fact, I have sometimes preferred to spell it authorgraphs: most public men are troubled nowadays with this sort of petty homage, and I more than suspect that some collectors make merchandise of them; "my valuable collection" being often the form in which strangers solicit the flattering boon. Once I had a queer proof as to the money value of my own,—as thus: I went quite casually into an auctioneer's in Piccadilly, to a book-sale; a lot of some half-dozen volumes were just being knocked down for next to nothing (such is our deterioration in these newspaper days) when the wielder of Thor's fateful hammer, dissatisfied at the price, asked for the lot to look at,—and coming amongst others to a certain book with handwriting in it, said, "Why, here's one with Martin Tupper's autograph,"—on which a buyer called out, "I'll give you eighteenpence more for that,"—suggestive to me of my auction value,—as I have sometimes said. If, however, the more than hundreds (thousands) I have been giving for these fifty years, really have so easily gratified friends known or unknown, I am glad to be in that way so much a gainer. Americans in particular ask frequently, and sometimes with wisely enclosed stamped and addressed envelopes, which is a thing both considerate and praiseworthy; but a very different sort and not easily to be excused are those who send registered albums by post for one's handwriting, expecting to have them returned similarly at no small cost. Longfellow told me of this kind of young lady taxation, and mentioned that he once had to pay twelve shillings for a registered return quarto. I dare say that our popular Laureate has had similar experiences.

The most "wholesale order" for my signature was at New York in 1851, when at a party there my perhaps too exacting hostess put a large pack of plain cards into my hand, posted me at a corner table with pen and ink, and flatteringly requested an autograph for each of her 100 guests! of course, even this was graciously conceded,—though rather too much of a good thing, I thought.

There is wisdom (some have hinted to me) in preferring a card to a sheet of paper; not only because "I promise to pay" might possibly be written ab extra over one's signature, but also because (and far more probably) any special "fad," political, social, or religious, might be added above—to all seeming—your written approbation: e.g., I was told in America that my autographed opinion in favour of Unitarianism had been so seen at Boston. Some zealots for a "cause" even go so far as that. My safe course is to write "the handwriting of so-and-so," where from total ignorance of my correspondent I cannot honestly say "I am truly yours."

Other forms of authorial homage are to be met with in the way of complimentary photographs, and oil or water-colour portraits. Like all other book celebrities, I have had to stand for minutes or sit for days, dozens of times; and seeing that, wherever I have been on my Reading Tours, on this side of the Atlantic or the other, photographic "artists" have continually "solicited the honour," the result has been that I used to keep "a book of horrors," proving how variously and oftentimes how vulgarly one's features come out when the impartial sun portrays them. As with the contradictory critiques about one's writings, so also is it with the conflicting apparitions of comeliness or ugliness in the heliotyped exploits of different—some of them indifferent—photographers. Several, however, have succeeded well with me; as Sarony in New York, Elliott & Fry of Baker Street and Brighton, Negretti & Zambra at the Crystal Palace, and divers others; but one need not reckon up "our failures," as Brummell's valet has it.

As to the several oil portraitures of me, there is extant a splendid full-length of myself and my brother Dan, with large frilled collars and the many-buttoned suits of the day, when we were severally ten and nine years old, now hanging at Albury, painted by my great-uncle, Arthur William Devis, the celebrated historical painter: this has been exhibited among works of the British old masters in Pall Mall. Also, there is one by T.W. Guillod, in my phase as an author at twenty-seven; another is by the older Pickersgill, so dark and lacking in Caucasian comeliness that the engraving therefrom in one of my books makes me look like a nigger, insomuch that some Abolitionists claimed me as all the more their favourite for my black blood! On the other hand, Mr. Edgar Williams has made me much too florid; while recently that rising young artist, Alfred Hartley, has caught my true likeness, and has depicted me aptly and well, as may now be seen in the picture-gallery of the Crystal Palace. Then Mr. Willert Beale (Walter Maynard by literary nom de pinceau et de plume, for he is both a painter and an author) has lately portrayed me in crayons, life-sized, an unmistakable likeness; and years ago Monsieur Rochard, in a large water-coloured drawing, made me look very French, quite a petit-maitre, in which disguise I was engraved for some book of mine: all the above, except Rochard's, having been done complimentarily. In America Mr. Pettit's life-sized oil portrait is the most noticeable.

* * * * *

Two queer anecdotes I must give about another form of author-worship to which we poor vain mortals are occasionally exposed, viz., what Pope called in Belinda's case "The Rape of the Lock." I can remember (as once by Lady—— in London) more than one such ravishment attempted if not accomplished; but most especially was I in peril at the Philadelphian Exhibition when three duennas who guarded some lady exhibitors (too modest to ask themselves) pursued a certain individual, scissors in hand, like Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, in vain hope of sheared tresses; had they been, like many of our American sisters, both juvenile and lovely, very possible success might have crowned their daring; or, instead of the three seductive graces, had they posed as three intellectual muses, I might have succumbed; but a leash of fates obliged a rapid retreat. And for a second queer anecdote take this: a 'cute negro barber had persuaded me to have my hair cut, to which suggestion, as it was hissing hot weather, I agreed. He had a neat little shop close to a jeweller's; next morning I passed that shop and noticed my name placarded there, surrounded by gold lockets, for that cunning nigger and his gilded friend were making a rich harvest of my shaved curls. Sambo can be as sharp as Jonathan, when a freeman, if he likes.

"Interviewing" is another sort of homage nowadays to popular authorship; in America it is very rife,—and I never came to any city but, immediately on arrival, two or three representatives of opponent editors would call, and very courteously request to be allowed to turn me inside out, and then to report upon me: I only remember one or two cases (which I will not specify) wherein my inquisitor was not all I could have wished, or treated his patient victim more unkindly than perhaps a venial native humour might make necessary. Almost always the scribes were fair and gentlemanly. And in next morning's papers it was a pleasing excitement to find that one's extorted opinions on all manner of topics—social, religious, and political—were published by tens of thousands in conflicting newspapers, which took partisan views of the obiter dicta of an illustrious being. I have many of these recorded conversations and comments thereon pasted down in the scrap-books aforesaid. In England, also, one does not escape; and indeed the pleasure of being examined for publication is here less mixed; for on this side of the Atlantic it has been found dangerous to report what might be damaging to a man socially or financially; although, however, no judicial notice is taken of ridicule or false criticism; and therein an author (however little he may care for it) can be libelled to any extent and without all remedy. Not but that some of the society papers have treated my unworthiness generously enough,—in particular, Edmunds' World, which, with too great severity and too little justice, has been taught to tell all truths charitably, if smartly,—and therefore I was glad to welcome his pleasant accredited interviewer, Mr. Becker, a year or two ago at Albury, who compliments me, not quite accurately perhaps, on "good looks and a passion for heart's-eases." Also, the gentleman who represents the Glasgow Mail did his work wisely and kindly: and Mr. Meltzer of the New York Herald; and I might name some others, not excepting my Sydenham friend, Mr. Leyland, who lately wrote a very pleasant paper about me at Norwood for a Philadelphian journal.

As to Advertising.

A word about advertisements, surely an authorial topic. The absurdly extravagant profusion in which thousands of pounds are now being continually flung away in advertising, is one which was never approved by me, and as long as my books remained in print, at my suggestion they all got sold without it. At present there are almost none in the market except Proverbial Philosophy, my Poems, Stephan Langton, and Dramas, and these still live and sell as before, after a silent life of many years. I suppose advertising must answer, or it would not be persisted in; and certainly the newspapers (that chiefly live thereby) exhort all to crowd their columns, if they wish to win fortune: but how the perpetual and reiterated obtrusion of such single words as Oopack, or Syndicates, or Beecham's Pills, or Argosy Braces, or Grateful and Comforting, &c. &c., can prove seductive baits, I do not see nor feel: the shameless amount of space they fill in our newspapers, and especially the impertinent way in which they intrude upon us while reading, as interleaved into books and magazines, so entirely disgusts me that I have often declared I would rather go without "tea, coffee, tobacco, or snuff" (this is a phrase, for the two latter I abominate) than deign to patronise those persistent advertisers A, B, C, D, or E. And yet I do know a splendid church at Eastbourne wholly built of pills,—and Professor Holloway's ointment has produced a palatial institute, and another wholesale advertiser tells me he spends L30,000 a year on notices and paragraphs, to gain thereby L50,000,—and so one cannot but acquiesce in Carlyle's cynical dictum, so cruelly alluded to by Dean Stanley in his funeral sermon at Westminster, that there are in our community "26,000,000, mostly fools," otherwise how can folks be weak enough to be forced to pay for "goods," or "bads," merely by dint of reiteration?

There is, however, one form of advertisement which I have found to pay,—and that is not praise, but abuse. A certain article, written as I was told by Alaric Watts, and stigmatising my readers as idiots, and their author as a bellman, was said to have actually sold off 3000 copies at a run; and Hepworth Dixon's attack in some other paper—I forget the name—was so lucrative to me in its results that I entreated him at Moxon's one day to do it again.

Once I took it into my head to collect and publish a page of adverse criticisms (if I can find a copy it shall be printed here) to excellent sale-effect as regarded my tales. And I remember hearing at a publisher's, that when a book didn't sell through puffing, their Herald of Fame upstairs was directed to abuse it, and in one case a society novel by a lady of title was prosecuted (by management) for libel, in order to get off the edition. That publishing-house used to advertise in "five figures"—that is, upwards of L10,000 a year, and was professionally antagonistic to another, from which it had sprung originally. The critical organs of the one house always used to run down the publications of the other. And I daresay other Sosii are aware of the like mutual warfare going on even now.



CHAPTER XXXVIII.

KINDNESS TO ANIMALS.

As to my several efforts in print to hinder cruelty to animals, beside and beyond what a reader may already find in my published books, let me chiefly mention these two fly-leaves, widely circulated by the Humane Society in Jermyn Street; to wit, "Mercy to Animals," and my "Four anti-Vivisection Sonnets." The latter I must preface with an interesting anecdote. Before Louis Napoleon was Emperor, I accompanied a deputation from Guernsey to Cherbourg, met him, had pleasant speech with him, and gave him a book ("Proverbial Philosophy"), thus making his personal acquaintance; which many years after I utilised as thus. The horrors of that infernal veterinary torture-house at Alfort, where disabled cavalry horses were on system vivisected to death, had been known to us by letters in the Times, of course denouncing the criminality: I remember reading that one poor old horse survived more than threescore operations, and used to be led in daily strapped with bandages and plaisters amid the cheers of the demoniacal students!—and this excited me to make a strong personal effort to stop the outrages at Alfort. Accordingly I wrote from Albury a letter to the Emperor (if I kept and can find a copy I will print it here) as from one gentleman to another fond of his horse and dog, exhorting him to interfere and hinder such horrors. I told him that I purposely did this in a private way, and not through any newspaper or minister, because I wished him to cure, proprio motu, a crying evil whereof he was ignorant and therefore innocent: leaving the issue of my appeal to his own generous feeling and to Providence, but otherwise not expecting nor requesting any reply. I therefore got none; but (whether post hoc or propter hoc I do not know) the result was that vivisection at Alfort was suspended at once, though how long for is unknown to me. As, after all this, many may like to see my four sonnets before-mentioned, I have no room to place here more than one: it is fair to state that they are easily procurable for a penny at the S.P.C.A. office in Jermyn Street. They were written by me in the train between Hereford and London, at the request of a lady, the chatelaine of Pontrilas Court, for a bazaar at Brighton.

"If ever thou hast loved thy dog or horse, Or other favourite affectionate thing, If thou dost recognise in God the source Of all that live, their Father and their King, Stand with us on this rescue;—for the force Of sciolists hath legal right to seize Such innocents to torture as they please, Alive and sentient, with demoniac skill; Ungodly men! hot with the lawless lust Of violating Nature's holiest fane, Breaking it open at your wicked will,— Yet shall ye tremble!—for the Judge is just; To Him those victims do not plead in vain, On you for aeons crowd their hours of pain."

When I was last at Boston my spirit was stirred by what I have poetised below: it has only appeared in some American papers, but I hope will be acceptable here.

The Omnibus Hack.

"Worn, jaded, and faint, plodding on in the track, I praise your great patience, poor omnibus hack; In whose sad gentle eyes my spirit can trace The gloom of despair in that passionless face, While way-wearied muscles, strain'd out to the full And cruelly check'd by the pitiless pull, With little for food, but of lashes no lack, Force me to pray for you, omnibus hack!

"Yes I—if I can pity you, omnibus hack, For nerves all atremble and sinews awrack, How should not his Maker, the Father above, Be just to His creature, and grant him His love? Why may not His mercy give somewhat of bliss In some better world to compensate for this, By animal pleasure for animal pain, Receiving their lives but to give them again?

"And which of us isn't an omnibus hack, With galls on his withers and sores on his back,— Buckled to circumstance, driven by fate, And chain'd on the pole of a oar that we hate— Yon ponderous Past which we drag fast or slow On the coarse-mended Present, this dull road we go, Hard-curb'd on the tongue and no bearing-rein slack, Ah! who of us isn't that omnibus hack?

"Yet great is the comfort considering thus That God doth take thought as for him so for us; That we shall find rest, reward, and relief Outweighing, outpaying all pain and all grief; That all things are kindly remembered elsewhere, The shame and the wrong and the press and the care, The evils that keep all better aback, And make one feel now but an omnibus hack.

"An omnibus hack?—and only a drudge?— Is Duty no more in the eyes of the Judge? He set thee this toil; His providence gave These bounds to His freedman; yes, free—not a slave! And if thou wilt serve Him, content with thy lot, Cheerfully working and murmuring not, Be sure, my poor brother—whose skies are so black— Thou art His dear child, though an omnibus hack!"

My "Mercy to Animals," a simple handbill, has done great good, as it has prose instructions about loading, harnessing, &c. It also is to be had for a penny at Jermyn Street aforesaid: here is the first verse:—

"O boys and men of British mould, With mother's milk within you! A simple word for young and old, A word to warn and win you; You've each and all got human hearts, As well as human features, So hear me, while I take the parts Of all the poor dumb creatures."

For my own part I have done it all my life. Those of my book-friends who have my Miscellaneous Poems may refer in this connection to verses therein on "A Dead Dog" and "A Dead Cat," and to those on "Cruelty." Also in "Proverbial Philosophy," especially as to the "Future of Animals," and their too shameful treatment in this world, one good reason for a compensative existence.



CHAPTER XXXIX.

ORKNEY AND SHETLAND.

I took my family to these Northern Isles of the Sea in 1859, sailing from Aberdeen in a once-a-week steamer; some of our passengers were notable, as Dasent of the Norse Tales (since Sir George) and his sons, Day the Oxonian in Norway, Ellicott, now Bishop of Bristol, Biot Edmondstone, and some others, inclusive of our noble selves. It was a dark night and a dense fog, and we had perilously to thread our careful way through the herring-fleet, fog-horns blowing all night, whilst our distinguished party bivouacked on deck, every cabin having been secured by folks crowding to the Kirkwall fair; and so we enjoyed a seagoing experience which, however cold and dark, was warmed and brightened by the conversation of clever friends all night through.

Next day, jumping into a boat on the top of a wave (it was very rough weather), I and a few others landed at Wick, and witnessed the extraordinary scene of a herring harvest being cured. Much as at Cincinnati they say pigs walk in, and come out at the other end of a long gallery salted and smoked,—live herrings are within some three minutes killed, cleaned, pickled, and tubbed by the fishermen's wives and daughters in their brightest caps and jewellery, for the whole scene is a fair and a festival.

In due time we arrived at Kirkwall, where we stayed a fortnight, in the course of which we were soon invited to Mr. Balfour's castle at Shapinshay. I call to mind in that mediaeval-looking stronghold (but it is a modern structure) his splendid banqueting-room, lighted by the illuminated points of twelve stags' heads, each having twelve tynes, thus 144 of them, ranged on the sides of that baronial hall: the castle, of grey granite in the Norman style, having its own gasometer, all the light was gas; this struck me as a remarkable feature inside: on the outside was one quite as memorable. Those sterile-looking isles of the North Sea are so swept by stormy winds as to be absolutely treeless: insomuch that it is jocularly said, that for cutting down a tree at Kirkwall, the penalty is death! simply because no trees exist there. Well, the wealthy Baron of Shapinshay conquers nature thus; he has dug round the castle vast hollow gardens (not a continuous moat) in which flourishes a profusion of flowers and shrubs and even trees,—till arboriculture is cut shear off, if it dares to look over the mounds. I put it thus:—

"When to the storm-historic Orcades The wanderer comes, he marvels to find there A stately palace, towering new and fair, Bedded in flowers, though unbanked by trees, A feudal dream uprisen from the seas: And when his wonder asks,—Whose magic rare Hath wrought this bright creation?—men reply, Balfour's of Balfour: large in mind and heart, Not only doth his duteous care reclaim All Shapinshay to new fertility, But to his brother men a brother's part Doing, in always doing good,—his fame Is to have raised an Orcade Arcady, Rich in gems of Nature as of Art."

At Kirkwall we could not help noticing what a fine race of men and women, blue-eyed and yellow-haired, many of these Northerners are; at St. Magnus Cathedral they trooped in looking like giants, seeming taller perhaps because the pews are on a dead level with the floor. Of course we duly did all the sights of the place, in the way of the ruinous bishop's palace and so forth, and received hearty welcomes from both high and low, the isolation of those parts conducing to the popularity of strangers; to say less of any greed for the cash of tourists.

I made there good acquaintance also with Aytoun, the poet of Dundee and Montrose, of whom it is rememberable that he used to read all through Scott's novels every year. I thought it a marvellous feat, but at any rate he told me so. He was sheriff of all those northern regions; and writer, amongst other things, of "Hints for Authors" in Blackwood, which for their wit and sense ought to be reprinted: but when I urged it in Princes Street, I found such a booklet was not to be—nor "Firmilian" either—which is a pity, as both are admirable for humour. He was a zealous florist and fruitist; the white currants trained by him upon walls were as large as grapes.

Among these Isles of Thule palpable evidences of the Gulf Stream are frequent; besides that it warms the northern seas so well that snow and ice are not too common there as in much lower latitudes they are with us—it is the fact that most of the seafaring men have for snuff-boxes the large brown circular beans from Mexico floated on tropical seaweed, full of hand coral, and found on the island beaches westwardly. Another notable matter in these Orcades is the strange disproportion between the sexes, eleven women to one man, as Mr. Hayes, the Lerwick banker, told me; this being due to the too frequent drowning of whole boat's crews: hence, one often sees women at the oar. A pleasanter thing to mention is the Fair Isle hosiery, the patterns whereof in the woven worsted are distinctly Moorish, just like those at Tangiers; said to be a survival of some wreck from the Spanish Armada cast upon the shore, with of course its crew and contents, the local manufacture of said patterns having been kept up ever since, with dyes derived from seaweeds, and from flowers. I frequently observed how diligent in knitting the island women were (reminding me of those notable spinsters of Herodotus) working the needles all the while they tended cattle, and with the pile of some costly shawl upon their heads while they fidget at the fringe; its various devices being of natural unstained wools, white, grey, or brown. In those interesting islands I can dimly recall many other noticeable things and people, everywhere having received the warm welcome which is usually the privilege of a bookwright all the world over; visiting the Stones of Stennis with Mr. Petrie, the Celtic tower of Scalloway with Aytoun, and divers similar antiquities, as Maeshow and other refuges of the Picts and Troglodytes.

At Lerwick two of the boatmen who took us to shore from the steamer surprised me by quotations from my old book—even the common folk being full of literature. They are so separate from the great world, and have so little to do, that they cannot help being hard readers,—even of me. A haberdasher told me that though there are in the short summer plenty of simple wild-flowers, there is naturally a dearth all the year round of the brighter and more highly-coloured cultivated kinds; and so these being scarce and female vanity rather common, there is a large trade in artificial fuchsias, pinks, and roses, &c., thus constantly making chapel and church quite gay; the same ladies who so bedizen themselves on the Sabbath going about all the week carrying burdens of peat, bare-footed and kilted to the knee on account of the bogs, among which they have to chase those small shaggy equines, the Shetland ponies. By the way Mr. Balfour at Oronsay had a special breed of his own, and showed us a pair of little darlings which he valued at L100 apiece. The true race, stunted and shaggy from climate, is rare in these days; and I suspect may be picked up cheaper at Aldridge's than at Shapinshay.

On our return voyage we skirted the whole north of Scotland, having had the rare chance of the steamer which once a year is chartered to take back the herring-fishers from Thurso to the Hebrides. But first Sir George Sinclair most hospitably entertained us at Thurso Castle, whose grim battlements frown flush over the Arctic Sea: all within the walls luxurious warmth, and without them wrecks and desolation. So also with the garden; on one side of the high wall greenhouses and flower-beds in the Italian style,—on the other, in strange contrast, the desolate wild ocean, which you see through windows of thick plate-glass let into the walls. At Thurso town I conversed with the local genius, Robert Dick, made of world-wide fame since by that kind-hearted and clear-minded author, Samuel Smiles, the said genius being a noted self-taught naturalist, who as a small baker struggled with poverty through life, to be inconsistently rewarded after death by a national monument; his fellow-townsmen let the living starve to deify him when dead. Cervantes and his like have met the same fate elsewhere. Leaving Thurso for the Hebrides, in company with no fewer than 700 Gaelic fishermen, we passed the magnificent cliffs of Cape Wrath in a pleasant calm,—which next day when we had reached Stornoway turned to a furious storm: had we encountered it with those 700 loading the deck it would infallibly have wrecked us,—as it did many other vessels on that night.

Sir James Matheson was our great host at Stornoway, who treated me and mine with magnificent hospitality. If I had wished to shoot a buck or to catch a salmon (the kilted gillie stood ready with his tackle), I might have done so and welcome; but there was no time to spare for anything but a visit to the prehistoric temple of Callanish, where the stones strangely enough are set in the form of a cross instead of the ordinary circle; and to a Pictish tower, and other antiquities,—which I preferred to sport.

Sir James's piper always wakes the guests a'mornings, parading round the terraces with his bagpipes, and after dinner, as usual at the feasts of Highland magnates, he marches round the table in kilt and flying tartans with his drone-like dirge or furious slogan,—being rewarded on the spot with whisky from the chief.

Here I will cease my quick reminiscence of that pleasant northern travel, though I might recount many noticeable matters about Skye and its dolomite Cuchullins, Staffa, Iona, and Oban, where The MacDougal allowed us to see and handle (an unusual honour) the famous brooch of Lorne, the loss of which saved The Bruce's life, when he broke away from his captor, the then MacDougal; leaving tartan and shoulder-brooch in his grasp.



CHAPTER XL.

LITERARY FRIENDS.

Among the many literary men and women of my acquaintance there are some (for it is not possible to enumerate all) of whom I should like to make some mention; and, place aux dames, let me speak of the ladies first. In my boyhood I can recollect that astronomical wonder of womankind, Mrs. Mary Somerville, a great friend of my father's; she seemed to me very quiet and thoughtful, and so little self-conscious as to be humbly unregardful of her genius and her fame. Strangely enough I first met her in the same drawing-room in Grafton Street (she lived and died at Chelsea) where I acted a silent part years after in some private theatricals with Miss Granville (met during my American visit in her then phase of a German Baroness), herself an authoress and a cantatrice, daughter of Dr. Granville, the well-known historian of Spas. I recollect, too, in those early times, Mrs. Jameson, then a celebrated writer, and a vivacious leader of literary society; and much nearer this day, Mrs. Beecher Stowe, whom I found too taciturn, and as if scared at the notice she excited, quite to realise one's expectation of a famous lioness. With her I have since broken a lance in the interest of Byron, whom I considered maligned in the matter of his "sweet sister," and accordingly wrote on his behalf a vindicatory fly-leaf of poetic indignation. Another lance, too, have I broken in favour of Ouida, as against a newspaper critic who had tried to crush her "Moths;" I had met her before that, and did my little best in her defence, receiving from her from Italy a charming letter of acknowledgment. "Ouida" is not generally known to have been the nursery name of "Louisa" de la Ramenay, just as "Boz" was of Dickens. Both "Ouida" and Miss Braddon, whom also I have seen as Mrs. Maxwell, remind me of that great and not seldom unfairly judged genius, Georges Sand. There remains a worthy duplicated friendship of later years, Mr. and Mrs. Carter Hall, of whose geniality and kindness I have often had experience; also Mr. and Mrs. Grote, my learned and agreeable neighbours at Albury; also Lady Wilde, admirable both for prose and poetry on Scandinavian subjects, and her eloquent son Oscar, famous for taste all the world over; and as another duplicate the Gaelic historian and cheerful singer, Charles Mackay, with his charming daughter, the poetess.

* * * * *

Of celebrated men whom I have not previously mentioned in this volume, there is Rogers, the poet, with whom I once had an interview at his artistic house in St. James's Place; Carlyle, of course, well known to me by books, but personally only in a single visit, when I found him in Cheyne Row cordially glad to greet me;—after a long talk, taking my leave with a hearty "God bless you, sir," his emphatic reply, as he saw me to the door, was, "And good be with you!"

It was a coincidence, proving (as many things do) the narrowness of the world, that he was living very near to the house where in my young days I had wooed my cousin.

Near at hand also (in Cheyne Walk) I have visited Haweis, the eloquent preacher of St. James's, Marylebone; he lives in the picturesque old-fashioned house that was Rossetti's, and when I called there last Mr. Haweis showed me the strangest and most unwieldy testimonial that any public man surely ever received, in the shape of a ton-weight bell hung in its massive frame and placed in his sanctum, which, when touched, gave out melodious thunder. This giant-gift had been sent to him from Holland in recognition of his musical genius, especially in the matter of campanology. And this word "musical" reminds me of Mr. Haweis's noble self-sacrifice in giving up his idolised violin that he might concentrate all his energies on religious teaching; when I asked to see his famous "Straduarius," worth three hundred guineas, and found it unstrung, I expressed my disappointment at not having had the chance of hearing its dulcet tones drawn out by himself, but it lies dumb, though he is eloquent. Of course I have visited the great Tennyson at Farringford, and remember him showing me the tree overhanging his garden fence, which "Yankees" climb to have a look at him. Browning also, tantum vidi, I met at Moxon's, a grandly rugged poet; contrasted with the Laureate he seems to me as Wagner is to Mendelssohn. Mortimer Collins has given us "a happy day" at Albury, coming in a pied poudre on one of his dusty walks through Surrey, as recorded in his book; how he enjoyed his tumbler of cool claret and the ramble with my son through the Albury woods as a most genial Bohemian! Dickens I have met several times, and he gave me good hints on my first American visit; a man full of impulsive kindliness and sincerely one's friend. His son Charles also I have occasionally met, the worthy successor to his illustrious father: I may here state that many of the articles and poems in Household Words are from the pen of my youngest daughter. Richard Owen, too, now worthily K.C.B., our most famous comparative anatomist, I am privileged to number among my true friends; he was one of those who stood sponsor to me when I was to receive a civil service pension. Also I knew for many years my late Surrey neighbour, Godwin Austen, the geologist; and I have met Pengelly, with whom I searched Kent's Cavern; and Dr. Bowerbank, the great authority as to sponges, and my then hobby choanites; he gave me certain microscopic plates of Bacilli which I was glad to transfer to my worthy and eminent friend, Stephen Mackenzie, Physician and Lecturer to the London Hospital. Matthew Arnold also, with whose celebrated father I was in early youth nearly placed as a pupil, I have sometimes encountered; and Shirley Brooks, Albert Smith, and Mark Lemon, once a chief of Punch, who acted Falstaff without padding; and the genial John Tenniel, our most exquisite limner in outline; the venerable Thomas Cooper also, now in his old age the zealous preacher of a faith he once as zealously attacked: an excellent man, and vigorous both in prose and verse. My old friend from boyhood, Owen Blayney Cole, must not be forgotten; year after year for some forty of them he has sent me reams of his poetry. Edmund Yates, than whom a kindlier, cleverer, and better-hearted man does not exist, I have known for years; his father and mother having been frequent guests at our house in Burlington Street; and I sympathised indignantly with him in his recent editorial trouble wherein he was used so hardly. I remember also how he dropped in upon me at Albury one morning just as I happened to be pasting into one of my Archive-books a few quips and cranks anent my books from Punch: he adjured me "not to do it! for Heaven's sake, spare me!" covering his face with his hands. "What's the matter, friend?" "I wrote all these," added he, in earnest penitence, "and I vow faithfully I'll never do it again!" "Pray, don't make so rash a promise, Edmund, and so unkind a one too: I rejoice in all this sort of thing,—it sells my books, besides—'I'se Maw-worm,—I likes to be despised!'" "Well, its very good-natured of you to say so; but I really never will do it again:" and the good fellow never did—so have I lost my most telling advertisement. I must also not forget to praise that humorous novelist, the late Frank Smedley,—a remarkable instance of the triumph of a strong and cheerful mind over a weak and crippled body, with whom I have many reminiscences as a brother author. It was wonderful to see how he enjoyed—from his invalid chair—"the dances and delights" he could not take part in; and one day I remember finding him unusually exhilarated, as he was just come from a wedding-breakfast,—"rehearsing, rehearsing," he laughingly shouted. Poor fellow,—the victim of an accident in infancy, he lived strapped and banded with steel springs,—but as a gracious compensation Heaven gave him a seeming unconsciousness of his helpless condition, and added the happy mind to make the best of this world while looking forward to a better. And let me not neglect to record, however slightly, a few more recent authorial friendships much valued by me among my Norwood neighbours. I will begin with J.G. Wood, perhaps our best naturalist, especially in matters entomological. Never were there more humorous no less than instructive lectures than his, illustrated admirably as they are by his own graphic chalk-sketches on the spot: and if any one wishes to be convinced that animals have souls, let him read the said Rev. J.G. Wood's "Man and Beast." Next will I mention Dr. Cuthbert Collingwood, famous as a naturalist and voyager among the China seas, a poet also, well proved by his "Vision of Creation," and a thoughtful writer on religion and metaphysics. There is Dr. Zerffi, too, whose varied orations on history and other topics have filled our Crystal Palace with his advanced wisdom for fifteen years. There is Birch the sculptor, author of the "Godiva" and "The Last Call," exhibited here, and well appreciated by me as another Durham,—really a metempsychosis of character. Among literary ladies here I may mention as my friends Madame Zerffi, Miss Mary Hooper, and Miss Ellen Barlee,—all noted in their several departments, the first as an eloquent lecturer like her husband, the second known by her domestic essays, and the third for religious writings. I will add as casually encountered by me hereabouts George MacDonald, whose magnificent presence in the pulpit is as memorable as his conversation at the dinner-table, and the interest of his books; and Lord Ronald Gower, creator of that finest group of modern statuary "the Apotheosis of Shakespeare," exhibited at the Crystal Palace, where, as well, as by correspondence, I have had with him much pleasant intercourse.

And here may come a brief memory I wrote lately of Colonel Fred. Burnaby for an American editor.

"I am asked to give a short note of personal reminiscence about my lately departed friend, Colonel Fred. Burnaby, with whom I was intimate for three years before his death. Every one has read his popular life, and heard of his many exploits; how alone in mid-air he navigated a balloon across the Channel; how he accomplished, in spite of State telegrams to the contrary, his adventurous and patriotic ride to Khiva in dead winter and defying perils of all sorts; how he stood six feet four in his stockings (with another foot to be added to that magnificent specimen of manhood when in jack-boots and in his plumed helmet); how he was strong enough to bind a kitchen poker round his neck, to crack cobnuts in his fingers, and to carry a pair of Shetland ponies upstairs under his arms,—how also the genial giant, quite the Arac of Tennyson's Princess, was the gentlest and kindest and least dangerous of knights-errant (unless, indeed, his just wrath was aroused by anything mean or insolent, when doubtless he could be terrible), and how he was the idolised of men, especially his own brother giants of the Royal Regiment of Blues, and naturally was also the adored of women wherever he showed himself. This Admirable Crichton had every social accomplishment, but as he was also gifted with a knowledge of many tongues, even to Turkish and Arabic, beyond the more familiar French, German, Italian, and Spanish, of course he must dare all sorts of perilous travel, if only to prove that he was no carpet-knight, no mere 'gold stick' at court, or silver-casqued statue at the Horse Guards. So he fearlessly risked his life in all ways on every possible occasion which the War Office routine gave him on holiday.

"Khiva and Kars, and of late at last the fatal Mahdi war, had fascinations for him of danger which his thirst for active service (too much refused to him as obliged officially to be a stay-at-home) had not power to resist; and we all know how gallantly, if indeed too rashly, he fought and fell on what his Viking blood loved best as a deathbed, the field of battle. For he came of an old Teutonic family, and on his mother's side was also a direct descendant, as he told me himself, of our heroic and gigantic King Edward III., whom he is said greatly to have resembled, as the portrait at Windsor Castle proves. We were talking about ancestry and the anecdote came out naturally enough.

"In politics a strong Conservative, he, with characteristic antagonism, chose radical Birmingham for his coveted seat in Parliament, but alas! he has not lived to hazard the election. He was a neat, fluent, and epigrammatic speaker, as potent with his tongue as with his sword; and as for the pen (albeit his handwriting must have puzzled compositors), the myriads of readers who have enjoyed his stirring books in print, can testify how brilliant and eloquent he was for the matter of authorship. He told me of a new novel—of the satirico-political sort—which he had written for the press, but as yet we hear nothing definite of its publication.

"My own personal acquaintance with the familiar 'Fred. Burnaby' was confined to several hospitable dinner-parties at the house of his relative, Lady W——, my near neighbour and friend at Norwood, about which I might anecdotise to any extent; but I never allow myself to record private conversation nor to reveal domesticities. All such are sacred in my memory, and on principle I despise the modern mischief-maker whose reminiscences are practically reminuisances. On a certain public occasion, however, Burnaby stood by me, to my great pleasure and advantage, and let me record his kindness thus. When I gave my lecture on Flying at the Royal Aquarium, he most appropriately took the chair, and made some excellent remarks. Altogether, let my testimony, however brief, however inadequate, to the merits of Fred. Burnaby be this: I lost in his too sudden death a friend, as I had hoped, for many years to come, and my regrets are for him as one of the noblest of mankind. Let me add a word further, as the worthy witnessing of one, quite a kindred spirit, whose acquaintance I made some long time back, and look for great things from his energy and enterprise, and multifarious talents,—Charles Marvin, then the famous Eastern Pioneer, who in his book on Asia, says: "Yes, our Burnabys, our Bakers, our MacGregors, our Gordons—these are the real pillars of the Empire. These are the men who confer provinces upon England, who risk their lives to guard them. When the world is a little older, and the working man's vote is worth more than the statesman's opinion, then the splendid achievements of such men will be more generously appreciated: and the warm English feeling expended to-day on torpid, stupid, unpatriotic party politicians will be directed towards heroes whose steady undaunted patriotism, in face of public indifference and bureaucratic disdain, conveys a moral as grand as their careers."

A Dining-out Anecdote.

As I have before said, not having been much given to society, nor therefore a professional parasite of Amphitryon (though sometimes tempted to his side as "a lion," but more often vainly, for I always refused if I could), I have an instructive anecdote to give about a celebrated conversationist, whom I will not name nor indicate even by initials. One evening I found myself compelled to accompany him to a great man's banquet—nota bene, it was after I had well recovered speech—and so I found myself at his chambers perhaps ten minutes too soon. He called to me from his dressing-room, bidding me to amuse myself till he was ready. Now, on the study table were laid several books, open, with weights to keep them so: and I glanced from one to another to while away the time. Then up came his brougham, and off we went. At dinner my "diner-out" started a topic, whereof innocently enough I remembered instantly a suitable epigram. Not long after another subject gave me occasion to tell a witty story, which somehow came to me at the moment. My "friend" asked me with a keen glance where I had read it, and at once I recollected those open books and understood the position, resolving mischievously to outflank the manaeuverer. Accordingly, at each opportunity, with seeming innocence, I "wiped his eye," as they say at a battue, and certainly reaped the anecdotic "kudos" Mr. So-and-so had cunningly contrived and hoped to achieve for himself. I confess it was vicious of me, but who could help taking the benefit of such a chance? Hosts should beware of wits who cram their jokes and anecdotes. Years after I met the same gentleman at another entertainer's table, where I found him in my presence not quite the livener-up they had expected, and he seemed a little shy of me; probably he thought me an omniscient, for I never told the poor man I had found him out. I fear he has departed to a world where genuine truthfulness is more accepted as a virtue than in this.

A Mormon Guest.

Quite recently I have had a visit from a young American, who brought me a letter from a so-called cousin—at all events a namesake—in the Far West, asking me to tell her about her German ancestry. My visitor was good-looking, well-dressed, fair-spoken, and gentlemanly; also well-bred and well-to-do. I will not indicate his name, but I may state that he is a near relative of the eminent electrician who illuminates so magnificently the fountains at South Kensington. Of course, as pleased with his manners and deportment, I kept him to luncheon; and finding that he hailed from Utah, naturally asked if he knew Salt Lake City and the Mormons there. Certainly; he lived not a hundred miles from the city, and those were his own people: as a Mormon himself from infancy, he had nothing but good to say of them, and we in England had been very much misled by Mrs. Stenhouse and other travellers. As to plurality of wives, not two per cent. of their whole 200,000 had more than one wife. His own father, a rich merchant and a church-hierarch, a "stake" of the tabernacle (much as we should say a pillar), had but one—his own dear mother—and he scarcely knew any one with more. It was quite a European misjudgment that many followed Brigham Young's doctrine, which never had been Joseph Smith's,—and the present chief, Taylor, had but one. He showed us many cabinet photographs of Salt Lake City, his own family, leading Mormons, and the like: especially of the Old Tabernacle, like a monstrous tortoise, and one from a finished drawing of the new, of even more tasteless architecture, being the most gigantic piece of perpendicular ever perpetrated, and full of unsightly windows. When asked about the golden book,—well he had never seen it, but believed in it thoroughly; because all the twelve apostles had seen it and he trusted their testimony. Eleven of those apostles were now dead, one only surviving. (Just as with our friends of Mr. Irving's sect at Albury, which arose in the same year as Mormonism.) We had never set eyes on the originals of our own Scriptures—in fact, they did not exist—but believed the witnessing of others, as he did. He himself was not a missionary, but would go if he was sent by the Church; though he mightn't like it, he was bound to, obey, authority, &c. &c.

I had plenty more talk with him, and found him intelligent, modest, and in every way a remarkably agreeable young fellow: and I added to my mental repertoire of better judgments that on Mormonism,—even as heretofore Mr. Sinnett has taught me not utterly to despise Buddhism, Dr. Wilkinson to revere Swedenborgianism, and a few other people I might name who are true believers, to be charitable as to other sorts of strange isms: once I met a very religious clergyman who still held by Johanna Southcote; and we have all heard how Lady Hester Stanhope had an Arab horse always ready saddled for Messiah when He is to ride into Jerusalem; and how some other person had a gold spoon and fork laid daily at his table for the sudden coming of a Divine Guest! Our personal lesson is to be tolerant of all manner of innocent enthusiasms, to hear both sides and bear with all opinions,—sometimes finding to our astonishment that black sheep may after all be whiter than they looked, and that uncharitable prejudice is but another name for ignorant folly. Before taking leave of my Mormon guest, I ought to report that he was teetotal, handsome, taciturn rather than talkative, a hunter among the Rockies, an author himself, and of course an old book-friend, so I made him happy with some autographic poetries.

With reference to "Joe Smith's" own theological creed, there is a very neat and notable precis of it on p. 171 of a bright little book I have lately read, titled "Frank's Ranche, or my Holiday in the Rockies," easily accessible. That creed is so good that when I read it aloud to my homeflock they said, "Why, we believe all that!"—and as to the evil matter of many wives, not only did the original Joseph repudiate that doctrine, but his namesake son, still a chief among the Mormons, does the same, and so far has seceded from the Brigham heresy: which a son of mine says is not bigamy, but Brighamy.

A few forgotten anecdotes may here find place: take these twelve as samples of many more such trivials which memory may have at the bottom of her well, if she only dipped for them.

1. A banknote experience: when a very small child I used to be taken to the Postford paper-mill at Albury by my nurse, who had a follower (or a followed) in the foreman there. While they talked together, I was deputed to amuse myself by making banknote paper, as thus: a spoonful of pulp put into a shallow tray of wire and shaken deftly made a small oblong of paper duly impressed with Britannia and water-marked: being then dried on a flannel pad. Many years after, when I was preparing for Oxford under Mr. Holt at Postford House, there was discovered a secret cupboard in the wall of his drawing-room which was found to contain several forged plates for printing banknotes: and this discovery accounted for the recent suicide of a Mr. H——, a previous owner of the paper-mill, who evidently feared exposure and conviction. No one now is allowed to make banknote paper, except the honourable firm of Messrs. Portal, which has the monopoly thereof: but when I was a child, any one might do it, and if there was a forger handy, fraud was possible to any extent. Our "Newland's Corner" on Merrow Downs is so called from Abraham Newland, whose name is printed on old banknotes as F. May is on new ones, and who owned Postford Mill. Hence the word "Sham-Abram" for a forged note.

2. A noted piscatorial editor wishes me to record now I once caught a trout with its own eye—as thus: I was whipping the Tillingbourne, and hooked a fish foul, for it dropped off leaving an eye on the hook. In my vexation I made a cast again over the same spot where I had thrown, and actually caught that eager wounded fish with its own eye.

3. When I was a guest of Captain Hamilton at Rozelle, Ayr, he told me that he and all the crew had seen the sea-serpent!—but that his admiral had interdicted all mention of it in the log for fear of ridicule: on which I told him what I had seen of the same sort. When crossing the great Herring Pond in the Arctic, the passengers were all summoned on deck from dinner to see that mystery of the deep, the sea-serpent. It was very rough at the time, and certainly within a little distance some apparent monster hundreds of feet long was rolling on the top of the waves: but as some portions of it spouted, we soon saw there nothing but a school of whales, the big bull leading and the cows and calves following in a line. This looked like the real thing,—but wasn't. From other evidence, however, and the Rev. J.G. Wood supplies one, I do believe there are such monsters of the deep whose nest is in the Sargasso Sea.

4. Here is a curious item of my biography. When I was in Canada in 1851, at an hotel in Kingston, the waiter comes to tell me that two persons wanted to see me on special business. Admitted, there appeared a very decent man and woman dressed in their best, and with ribbons and flowers. What might they want with me? Please, Mr. Tupper, that you would marry us! My good man, I can't, I'm not a clergyman. Oh but, sir, you write religion, and we like your books, and we've come across from New York State to Canada to get married,—so please, &c. &c. Of course, I did not please, and as to marriage at all gave them Punch's celebrated advice to persons about to marry, Don't. On which the hapless pair departed sorrowfully. If I had read the service over them, possibly their respectable consciences might have been satisfied,—and as with Romeo and Juliet a lay friar Lawrence would have sufficed. Moreover, there's no penalty from one State to another: and even on board ship the captain may read services, and on land the Consul marries.

5. A picture story. I am invited to a dinner where a rich New Yorker has asked some connoisseur friends to inspect his new purchase, a Raffaelle Madonna and child, for which he has just given a fabulous amount of dollars. I was asked for special judgment as an artistic Englishman. Well: the drawing was perfect; but I didn't like the colouring: I knew the picture, having seen the original somewhere on the Continent: but this couldn't be a copy, as it was less than life-size; so, while most of the other guests praised profusely, I requested to withhold my opinion of its merits till I could examine it in daylight,—which, as I was to sleep in the house, was easy next morning. When my eager host appeared, I took him alone after breakfast into his study, and proved to him what, alas! I had too truly suspected, that however well painted with the over-accuracy of a miniature and absolutely correct as was the drawing,—his prize Raffaelle was after all only an oil-coloured engraving! This he wouldn't believe, triumphantly showing me the ancient canvas at the back: but when I told him that between that canvas and the paint he would find paper, and when a penknife scratch under the frame-edge proved it,—he naturally stormed at the dealer who had taken him in, until I suggested a disgorging of the dollars, and promising my own silence as to the discovery, left him a wiser man and a grateful.

6. How often the poor letter H has crushed oratory and destroyed eloquence! Do I not remember how notably a late Lord Mayor raised the echoes of the Egyptian Hall to an explosion of laughter, by commencing grandiloquently, "When hi survey the dignity of my 'igh position," &c. &c.; and similarly what a disastrous effect a certain preacher caused in church by the announcement, "This is the hare, come let us kill him?" But we all know the mysteries of H and W: AEsop Smith wrote a fable about them, whereof this is the finale: "H," said King Cadmus, "one of my oldest friends! never can I spare your respectable presence; your ancestor is the throat-uttered Heth of Moses; even as you, dear W, are descended from the stately digamma of Homer. Believe me, I value both of you all the more for graceful ambiguities: mystery is priceless to your king, and your usage is obscure: therefore do I lay upon you higher honour. Henceforth, ye vowel magnates, and you my faithful commons consonants, take heed that no one be accounted literate or eloquent who places these my oldest friends in a dilemma. Their right use is a mystery; so be it; but woe be unto those whose innate want of taste profanes that mystery. Honour be to H, and worship be to W; and let those who misuse their secret excellences dread the vengeance of King Cadmus!"

7. Yet a seventh whimsical anecdote rises to the surface. When Prince Albert was made a fellow of Lincoln's Inn, and dined in the New Hall, I was present at the banquet. There was a roast joint and one bottle of port to each mess of four barristers: one would think a supply more than ample: however, some thirsty souls wanted more wine for the great occasion, and the complaint found utterance ludicrously thus. When the National Anthem was sung, some young lawyer who gave the solos, with a good tenor voice and no end of dry humour, raised a gale of laughter and applause by singing very devoutly—

"Long to reign over us Happy and glorious, Three half-pints 'mong four of us, God save the Queen!"

Of course, plenty more bottles were the result,—and the genial Prince Albert laughed as heartily as the rest of us.

8. Yet another anecdote, in these days of professional mendicancy not uninstructive. One day when calling on the Rev. Robert Anderson, at Brighton, a begging visitor came in, calling himself a Polish refugee, and speaking broken English: Mr. Anderson in his kindness was just about to open his purse, when I said to both of them, "I happen to know a little Polish, and wish to ask a few questions:" accordingly, I rapped out at intervals, with an interrogating air, the opening lines of the Antigone of Sophocles! on which that "banished lord," stammering out that he had been out of Poland so many years that he had forgotten the language, bowed himself from the room as a—discovered, impostor.

9. The recent lamentable fire at Kegan Paul's, wherein so much authorial wealth was cremated,—and especially no fewer than six of the works of that clever authoress, Emily Pfeiffer,—reminds me of an irrevocable loss sustained by "Proverbial Philosophy" owing to Oudinot's capture of Rome in 1849: for it so happened that the Cardinal Archbishop of Bologna had, as instructress to his nieces, a lady who afterwards became Mrs. Robinson of South Kensington Museum: she, a great admirer of the work, translated my book for them into Italian, and had it printed at Rome, where unluckily both the whole MS. and the finished sheets were all burnt in the city's bombardment. I have since asked Mrs. Robinson if she could possibly reproduce it: but—the occasion passed, there is now neither time nor need for it, and so my Italian version has no existence, except possibly as photographed on the "blue ether" whither Professor Tyndall hopes to go. A similar fatality, we may remember, affected Sir Isaac Newton through his little dog Diamond: and my friend in old days, Gilbert Burnett, the botanist, had to rewrite his index, a heartrending labour, because a careless housemaid lit a fire with it.

10. And this further reminds me of the perils to which an author's MSS. are perpetually exposed; e.g., before I put a spring lock on my study at Albury (where, by the way, I wrote several of my early Proverbial chapters with a child on my knee) I used to find my papers regularly put out of order by the maid arranging the room; and upon my cautioning her not to destroy anything, I was horrified by the unconscious Audrey's instant reply, "O sir! I never burns no papers but what is spoilt by being written on." Again, I remember to have cautioned my Suffolk friend, Mrs. Crabtree, who had a fine library, not to keep her servants short of firepaper, as they might possibly help themselves out of bound books; whereat she was indignant, as if I was traducing a favourite menial: however, I went round with her, unfortunately proving the delinquency by exhibiting several handsome volumes with middle leaves torn out!—Once more, in the prehistoric days when we sported with loose powder and shot and paper wadding, I was a guest for some days in September with James Maclaren at Ticehurst, and recollect his horror at finding that the luncheon sandwiches were wrapped in some of his most precious MSS.—for he was writing a treatise on finance, and these leaves were covered with calculations—and that his shooting-party were ramming down their charges with the recorded labour of his brains! It was at Maclaren's that I once tasted squirrel; his woods were infested with the pretty creatures, which the keeper shot, and after keeping the skin gave the carcase to the cook: it tasted like very nutty rabbit: but I protested it was a greater outrage than lark-pudding, which I had recently seen at the Judges' Sentence dinner at Newgate, and said it was a shame to eat the sweet songsters. At Maclaren's I learnt the origin of "high" as applied to eatables. His game-larder was a tower of many bars, the lowest containing a to-day's shooting, the next yesterday's, and so forth, always moving up; hence the stalest were at the top, and so most serviceable as least fresh. Trench on words would approve this reason for "high" game.

11. Providence.

I.

"Lo! we are led; we are guided and guarded Carefully, kindly, by night and by day; Punish'd belike, or haply rewarded, As we go wrong or go right on the way; Wisdom and Mercy, twin angels of kindness, Take by both hands the child lost in the night, Leading him safely, in spite of his blindness, Guiding him well through the dark to the light.

II.

"All things are ordered,—the least as the greatest; Motes have their orbits as fixt as a star,— And thou may'st mark, if humbly thou waitest, Providence working in all things that are: Nothing shall fail in its ultimate object, Good must outwrestle all evil at last; God is the King, and creation His subject, And the great future shall ransom the past.

III.

"Ay, and this present,—perplexing, degrading— None may despise it as futile or worse; Swift as it flieth, dissolving and fading, 'Tis the wing'd seed of some blessing or curse. Telescope, microscope,—which hath most wonder? Infinite great, or as infinite small? Musical silence, or world-splitting thunder?— He that made all things inhabits them all.

IV.

"Yea; for this present,—each inch and each second Hath its own soul in a thought or a word; Ev'n as I watch, God's finger hath beckon'd, Ev'n as I wait, God's whisper is heard! Trifles, some judge them, that finger, that whisper,— But on such pivots vast issues revolve; Those are the watchful reminders of Mizpah, Jazer and Bethel, Life's secret to solve!

V.

"Mizpah,—for carefulness, honour, uprightness; Jazer,—by penitence, meekness, and faith; Bethel,—in foretastes of gladness and brightness,— These are the keynotes to life out of death: Providence bidding, and prudence obeying, Thou shalt have peace from beginning to end,— Thankfully, trustfully, instantly praying, Walking with God as thy Father and Friend."

12. Apropos to my mention of Mortimer Collins' visit to Albury on another page, I make this extract from his "Pen Sketches by a Vanished Hand," vol. i. pp. 167, 168:—

"A Walk through Surrey.

"At Albury I called upon a poet,—one whom critics love to assail, but who derides critics and arrides the public. Pleasant indeed is the fine old house, with emerald lawn and stately trees, wherein he resides. Not Horace in his Sabine farm, nor Catullus at Tiburs, had a more poetic retreat than the author of "Proverbial Philosophy" at Albury. But, like Catullus, the advent of May had set the poet longing for a flight far away:

"'Jam ver egelidos refert tepores, Jam coeli furor aequinoctialis Jucundis Zephyri silescit auris; Jam mens praetrepidans avet vagari Jam laeti studio pedes vigescunt.'

And he was about to take wing for sea-side resorts, and the soft cyclades of the Channel, beloved by Victor Hugo.

"Right hospitable was he; a bottle of cool claret cheered the dusty wayfarer, and an hour's pleasant talk was even more cheering. Hence I walked through Albury Park towards Gomshall."

The exquisite bit from Catullus will best excuse my otherwise egotistical quotation.

A few more anecdotes about literary men and things may here find place. Take these respecting Thackeray, and Leech, both of which immortal humorists were my schoolfellows at the Charterhouse; but, as I have said, they having the misfortune to be merely lower-form boys, and your present scribe ranging as a dignified Emeritus, of course there was then a great gulf between us, pleasantly to be bridged over in after life. Thackeray's career has long been fully detailed in public, and I can have little to add of much consequence; but I call to mind how that quiet small cynic—so gigantic in all senses afterwards—used to caricature Bob Watki and the other masters on the fly-leaves of his classbooks, to the scandal of myself and other responsible monitors; these illustrated classics having since been sold by auction at high prices. But "My School-Days" have recorded all that.

As to Leech, who probably adorned his books similarly, he, being a day-boy and allowed for safety to scuttle out of the playground before school broke up, came not equally under our surveillance in those days; but long years after, when that genial and witty friend and true gentleman was my guest at Albury, I had great delight in his company, and he helped cleverly to illustrate (along with divers other artists) my "Crock of Gold" and "Proverbial Philosophy," and in part "The Anglo-Saxon." I remember a characteristic little anecdote about him, as thus:—

We went angling together to Postford Pond, on a fine hot day, thinking less of possible sport than of sandwiches and sherry, and an idle lounge on a sloping bank in the shade, and haply (though for myself I am no smoker) the calmly contemplative cigar. As we lay there, in dolce-far-niente fashion, all at once Leech jumped up with a vigorous "Confound that float! can't it leave me at peace? I've been watching it bobbing these five minutes, and now it's out of sight altogether—hang it!" With that hearty exclamation of disgust pulling up a brilliant two-pound perch, the glory of the day! Next week's Punch had a pleasant comic sketch of this petty incident, thereby immortalised by the famous "bottled leech."

It always struck me that Tenniel and he were a well-matched pair, in kindliness, cleverness, and good looks; and I never can think of one without the other—arcades ambo; par nobile fratrum.

Thackeray lived to have his full revenge of Dr. Birch, in our day the reigning tyrant of Charterhouse; and Russell well deserved his castigation both by pen and pencil.

Let me also give a brace of home sketches of Longfellow. I have had two principal interviews with him in his beautiful home at Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the wide interval between those visits of twenty-five years. Of the first of these I record a few words from my American MS. journal in 1851, adding some unwritten thoughts and recollections. On April 16th, then, in the year just named, Longfellow wrote to me cordially, and with much kindly appreciation, and soon after, calling on me at Boston, took me off in his carriage over the flooded lowlands to the ancient (for America) University of Cambridge, where the Queen Anne-like colleges are nestled in fine old elms. He treated me, of course, most hospitably, and had asked several friends to meet the traveller; but one, a chief guest, was otherwise engaged, and so I missed Lowell, to my great disappointment. It is not my "form" to detail private conversation, nor to describe the Lares and Penates of sacred domesticity; but I may reveal generally that I spent several golden hours of intellectual communion with the Abbott Laurences, Ticknor, Fields, Prescott, and Everett—illustrious names, which will sufficiently indicate the reception they gave me. At this time of day I cannot remember the thousand "winged speeches" that flew about that genial board, and, as I failed, from conscientious motives, to record them in my journal, I will not invent, after thirty-four years have passed over my memory, with their crowds of other words and fancies. Be this enough: I recollect to have asked Longfellow why he wrote Excelsior, and not the more grammatical Excelsius, as the title to one of his most famous poems. The reason is a curious one; he wrote those stirring verses, by request, on the motto for the New York coat-of-arms, which is legended not quite accurately, Excelsior. And when, in the same line of thought, I inquired why he named a German story "Hyperion," with no apparent reason from classical associations, he pertinently enough answered me by pronouncing the name huper-iown, ("going higher"), the story being a tale of progress in human character.