Autobiography and other Memorials oj Mrs. Gilbert FROM THE LIBRARY OF REV. LOUIS FITZGERALD BENSON. D. D. BEQUEATHED BY HIM TO THE LIBRARY OF PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY /Y92' HH m m w \ c i A ^zZ- '■&. < ( ' AUTOBIOGRAPHY AXD OTHER MEMORIALS OE MRS GILBERT RECENTLY PUBLISHED BIOGRAPHIES. CHARLES KINGSLEY: HIS LETTERS AND MEMORIES OF HIS LIFE Edited by his Wife. With Portraits and Illustrations. 2 vols. 8vo, cloth. price 36s. GOODENOUGH (COMMODORE J. G.), ROYAL NAVY, C.B., C.MG., JOURNALS OF, during his Last Command as Senior Officer on the Australian Station, 1873-1875. Edited, with a Memoir, by his Widow. With Maps, Wood- cuts, and Steel Engraved Portrait. Square post 8vo. Cloth, price 14s. RAHEL: HER LIFE AND LETTERS. By Mrs Vaughan Jennings. With a Portrait from the Painting by Daffinger. Square post Svo. Cloth, price 7s. 6d. MEMOIR AND LETTERS OF SARA COLERIDGE. Edited by her Daughter. Third Edition, Revised and Corrected. With Index. 2 vols. With 2 Portraits. Crown Svo, cloth, price 24s. Cheap Edition. With one Portrait. Crown 8vo, cloth, price 7s. 6d. THE LIFE OF SAMUEL LOVER, R.H.A; Artistic, Literary, and Musical. With Selections from his Unpublished Papers and Correspondence. By Bayle Bernard. 2 vols. With a Portrait. Post 8vo, cloth, price 21s. C KEGAX PAUL & CO., LONDON. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2013 http://archive.org/details/autobioOOtayl ^c^-< A! flu R SON AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND OTHER MEMORIALS OF MRS GILBERT, (Formerly Ann Ta With Portrait and Illustrations. Edited by JOSIAH GILBERT. Al/THOR OF "CADORE; OR, TITIAN'S COUNTRY," ETC., AND JOINT-AUTHOR OF '"THE DOLOMITE MOUNTAINS."' THIRD EDITIOX. ' Life, I repeat, is energy of Love. Divine or human ; exercised in pain. In strife, and tribulation, and ordained If so approved and sanctified, to pass Through shades and silent rest, to endless joy." London : Kegan Pail & Co., r Paternoster Squari 1878. The rights of translation and of reproduction arc resen\ cd. PREFACE " Lord, what is Life? — if spent with Thee In duty, praise, and prayer. However short, or long it be. We need but little care, Because Eternity will last When Life, and death itself are past." Hymns for Infant Minds. Ann Taylor was young when she penned the above stanza. She little thought that she was writing her epitaph. It was not a short, but a long life that was destined for her ; and when at the age of eighty-five she was laid in her grave, they who knew her best, thought no words could be more fitting for a final memorial than those in which she had summed up life as "duty, praise, and prayer." To present a true picture of such a life to the reader ' is the object of the following pages. It was duty as she believed, though of an ordinary sort, that withdrew Ann I Taylor from the literary career that brought oth< I her family into note ; and while it will be du her memory to point out the large share she had in Works long before the public, and to rescue wise and thoughtful words upon man)- topics from the oblivion ol manuscript, the chief justification <>f this memoir is vi Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. sought in the life it portrays — a life very active, very useful, and, despite inevitable sorrows, very happy. The Autobiography with which the work opens, passes to some extent over the same ground as the memoir of Jane Taylor by her brother ; but as a personal narra- tive of an almost unique family life, it is told very differently, and with large additions. It was addressed, it will be seen, to her children, and some discursiveness has been corrected, but its character of " Domestic Re- collections " should be borne in mind. Yet the quaint personages, with their no less quaint surroundings, which appear in its pages, — the quiet old English places, half town, half village, where they lived, reproduce the old Puritan life — homely, frugal, studious, which is perhaps only known to most of us through the art of the novelist ; and it may be interesting to compare the real with the ideal picture. A later phase of Nonconformity, also, is displayed in the other portion of the work. The Autobiography ceases early, but it is believed that the loss will be compensated by the brightness and fresh- ness of the extracts from correspondence, of which the rest is mainly composed. A few selections, poetical and other, taken from a mass of material, as illustrative of character or circumstance, complete the portrait of a clear and active mind, and show the outlook of their author upon great questions, both of this day and of every day. Marden Ash, May i, 1874. INTRODUCTORY NOTE To enable the reader to follow with more advantage the " Domestic Recollections " of my mother, I will extract from some notes upon the family history, drawn up by my mother's father, a few particulars, of which, had they been at hand, she would probably have availed herself. They illustrate the formation of hereditary tastes, and account for the adoption of certain family names. Her grandfather, the first Isaac Taylor, was the son of a brassfounder at Worcester, and while learning his father's business, early showed a talent for Engraving. Upon the death of his father, who in some way had fallen into poverty, the young Isaac came to London, giving half-a-crown for leave to walk by the side of the stage waggon. In London he first entered the cutlery works ofjosiah JefTerys, then employing sixty or seventy nun in his business, and who afterwards retired to Shenfield, in Essex, where he died. A Nathaniel Jefferys, his brother, was at the same time Goldsmith and Cutler to the King ; and Thomas, another brother, who became Geographer to the King, married a sister of the Mr Raikes* of Gloucester, well known as the founder of Sunday Schools. viii Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. Josiah Jefferys had, at the age of eighteen, married a Miss Hackshaw, aged sixteen, as she was on her way to market. Her father, then a man of substance, with a rent roll from an estate near Raleigh of £1000 per annum, was extremely angry, and told her that, being his child, he would not turn her out of doors, but that if she ever went beyond them she should never return. Upon these strange terms she remained two years under his roof, when her brother interceded, and persuaded her father to set the young husband up in business as a cutler, in which, .as appears above, he prospered. Her father, on the con- trary— Robert Hackshaw — after mortgaging his estate, fell further into misfortune, and died of grief. The marri- age was twice celebrated, the ' first having taken place before registers were kept. This young wife, when a child, sitting upon the knee of Dr Watts, received from him a copy of his Divine Songs for Children, which eventually came into the possession of the Taylor family ; for the Isaac Taylor who had walked from Worcester, in due time married her daughter, Sarah Hackshaw Jefferys, but not till after the family had retired into Essex, for it took place at Shenfield Church, May 9, 1754. The Hackshaws (or Hawkshaws) were either of Dutch extraction, or belonged to the Puritan emigration in Holland, for the father of the above-named Robert Hackshaw, was purveyor to King William III., and came over with him to England. He was called the " Orange skipper," from having been employed, before the Revolution, to carry despatches backwards and for- wards, concealed in his walking-cane. Isaac Taylor had engraved crests and other devices Introduction. IX at Worcester, and so distinguished himself in that depart- ment in Josiah Jeffery's works, that it led to his adopting art engraving, then recently introduced, as a profession, to which he added presently the business of an art pub- lisher. His house became in this way the resort of several personages of note in art and literature. Goldsmith, the illustrations to whose works are often signed " Isaac Tay- lor," was frequently there, and upon one occasion, when consulted upon the title of a book with an apology for troubling him upon so trifling a matter, replied, " the title, sir! why, the title is everything." Bartolozzi, Fusel i, and Smirke, were among his friends, and he was one of the original founders of the Royal Incorporated Society of Artists of Great Britain, from which sprang the Royal Academy. The celebrated Woollett was for many years secretary to the Society, and Isaac Taylor eventually succeeded him in that office. Thomas Bewick was his valued pupil, who in his turn speaks of him in his auto- biography, as "my warm friend and patron Isaac Taylor." And again, "he was in his day accounted the best en- graver of embellishments for books, most of which he designed himself. The frontispiece to the first edition of Cunningham's poems was one of his early productions, and at that time my friend Pollard and myself thou it was the best thing ever done." The most important work executed by this Isaac Taylor was a large plate, the " Flemish Collation," after Ostade. Howard the philan- thropist took such notice of one of his daughters, when a child, that in later years she named a son after him ard Hinton, an eminent Baptist minister lately deceased. Of the three sons of Isaac Taylor, Chai x Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. Isaac, and Josiah, — the second was* the father of the subject of these Memorials. Her brother, a third Isaac Taylor, was the author of the " Natural History of Enthu- siasm," and other well-known works ; and to a son of the latter, a fourth Isaac Taylor, literature is indebted for " Words and Places," and '• Etruscan Researches." The long association with metal working, of both the Jefferys and the Taylor families, throws an interesting light upon the engraving talent which both the first, and the second Isaac Taylor, my mother's father, developed ; and the connection with Holland and the Revolution suggests early preferences for Nonconformity. — [Ed.] C O N T ENTS. CHAPTER I. LONDON AXD LAVENHAM. The Review of Life — Her Father's Character — Her Mother's History — The Old House at Lavenham — The Meeting-house and its Congregation — Home Ways and Home Education — Early Scribbling, . . . . . . 1-55 CHAPTER II. LA VENHAM. Rural Holidays — Castle Building — First Visit to London — Artistic Work at Home — Her Fathers Dangerous Illness — The New House — Youthful Gaities and Nervous Fears — Political Dis- turbances— State of Religion — Her Father enters the Noncon- formist Ministry — Removal from Lavenham, . 36-66 CHAPTER III. COLCHESTER. The Colchester House — Colchester Town — Colchester People — The Work Room, and Engraving Mysteries — Youthful Friends — First Appearance in Print — Domestic Economy — A Minister's Wife — Umbelliferous Society, . . 67-S8 xii Contents. CHAPTER IV. COLCHESTER. Her Father's Scientific Lectures — Constable's Country — The Minors Pocket Book — Lawful Amusements — Forbeses and Conders — The Stapletons — Sudbury Visits — The Strutt Family — Scarlet Fever in the House — Religious Conviction — The Editor of Cal- met — Family Festivals — Jane Taylor's Jen d' esprit, 89-1 17 CHAPTER V. COLCHESTER AXD OXGAR. Application from Darton and Harvey — Isaac's First Piece— Active Literary Work — Terror of Invasion, and Flight to Lavenham — Private Theatricals — Mournful Deaths — Interview with Joanna Baillie — Evils of Diary-Making — The Brothers Remove to London — Approaching Change — Removal to Ongar — Review Writing — Ilfracombe, ..... 118-151 CHAPTER VI. LITERARY CHARACTER. Ann and Jane compared — The domestic character of Ann's Poetry Specimens of its Arch Drollery — The Tragic Element and Sara Coleridge's Criticism — Observations upon Ann's Hymns — The Poem "My Mother" and its history — Scott, Southey, and Edgeworth — Ann Taylor's Prose, . . . 152-179 CHAPTER VII. ILFRACOMBE AXD OXGAR. Ongar Scenery — The Winter at Ilfracombe — A Visitor and an ofter of Marriage — Mr Gunn and his Sailors — Return to Ongar — Engagement to Mr Gilbert— Marriage ; and Letter from her Mother, . . . . .180-199 Contents. xiii CHAPTER VIII. ROTHERHAM. Yorkshire Life — Salome — The Cookery Book — The Allied Sovereigns in London — Visit to the New Home at Ongar — "Eclectic" Articles — Her Mother's Authorship — Prospect for the Autumn — Birth of a Son — Illness of her Father — Nursery Delights, 200-218 CHAPTER IX. ROTHERHAM. Another Ongar Visit — Her Little Boy's Accomplishments — Criticism upon her Sister's Poems — Change of Residence — A Welcome to a Birthday — Visit from Jane and Isaac — Excursions to York and Stockport — The Break up from Rotherham and Removal to Hull, ....... 219-238 CHAPTER X. HULL. Salome's Marriage — Anxiety for her Sister — A Poetic Effusion — Death of the Princess Charlotte — Politics — Summer Days at Ongar — Visit of her Father and Mother — Her eldest boy at Ongar — Letter to Mrs Laurie — Miss Greaves — The Greenland Fishery — Supposed Fatal illness of her Father, . . 239-257 CHAPTER XL J I I'LL. The "Peaked Farm" and its Inmates — Letters to her Husband, Father, and Sister — Cleethorpes — Death of Jane Taylor - Letter of Consolation to her Mother — Perplexity at Home Departure from Hull, . . . . . .25 xiv Contents. CHAPTER XII. NOTTINGHAM. Arrival at Nottingham — The Castle, and a New Home — The Boy at Ongar — Lectures on Infidelity and Atheism — Miss Chambers — Address to Wives and Mothers — "The Prisoner Infidel," 280-298 CHAPTER XIII. NOTTINGHAM. The " Paul and Apollos" Spirit — Death of Her Son Edward — Isaac Taylor at Stanford Rivers — Servants, Bad and Good — Her Father at Nottingham — The " Natural History of Enthusiasm " — Death of Her Father — Death of Her Mother — Signs of the Times, ....... 299-320 CHAPTER XIV. NOTTINGHAM. Letter from a Friend— Riots and Destruction of the Castle--A. Son beginning Life — Church Establishments — Isaac Taylor and Joseph Gilbert — Danger of early Mental Expenditure — Pilgrims1 Hatch — Mr Gilbert's Lectures on the Atonement — Derbyshire Tour — Morals and Romanism — Skegness and its Storms — The "Convalescent" — Anti-Slavery Contest, . . 321-358 CHAPTER XV. NOTTIXGIIAM. Song of the Tea-Kettle — Market-Day in Nottingham — Corn-Law Controversy — King Potato — National Fasting — Free Churchism — Letter upon the Rights of Women — Pet Children — Providence and Life — Letter from Isaac Taylor, . . . 359-380 CHAPTER XVI. NOTTIXGIIAM. A near Sorrow — Pupils in the House — A Begging Expedition — The Leifchild Hymns — Harpenden and Marden Ash — Church Mem- bership— Trouble, ..... 381-402 Contents. xv CHAPTER XVII. NOTTINGHAM. Forebodings — Failing Energy — The Palace Tree — The Father's Last Christmas — The Meadow Crocuses — Farewells — Death of her Husband, ...... 403-416 CHAPTER XVIII. NOTTINGHAM. Memoir of her Husband — Dispersion of the Household — Death of Jefferys Taylor — Winter at Stanford Rivers — College Hill — Passages from Correspondence — Summer Journies — Wales and Scotland — Christmas Gatherings, . . . 417-443 CHAPTER XIX. NOTTINGHAM. Thankfulness and Trust — Italy and America — Home Scenes — Illness and Death of her Youngest Son — Edinburgh and Ilfracombe — ■ Last Correspondence with Isaac Taylor — His Death — Last Visit to Lavenham — A Hint of the End, . . . 444-465 CHA PT E R XX. THE EX J). Leaflet Message — Sunday Evening — Last Letter — The Last Sleep — The Graves of the Taylors, . . . 466-470 (jppendix, . . . . . . 471 |toex DOMESTIC RECOLLECTIONS. CHAPTER I. LONDON AND LAVENHAM. 1782-1789. " My father ! Well the name he bore, For never man was father more." Ann Gilbert. "And found myself in full conventicle. To wit, in Zion Chapel meeting." R. Browning. And now, my dear children, I am not about to enter the confessional. Such of my faults as you may not have discovered, may as well remain in what obscurity they can, and I feel that I do not here afford you, in these respects, the full benefit of my experience. Many you know, I wrish you did not; forgive and forget them as soon as you are able, though doubtless your training has suffered more or less from some. The faults of a >arent can seldom be so dammed up as to leave no taint the stream, or feculence on the shores. It is my heartfelt conviction, on the closest inspection of ly circumstances and character, that, excepting a few — :ry few — external trials, my unhappiness, whenever I tve not been happy, has arisen solely from myself, or, at >t, that it might have been corrected by a better state things within. A pervading influential Christianity rould, I am persuaded, have rendered my life one of the 2 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert happiest possible, for I have ever been surrounded with the materials for happiness, many and abundant. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places ; I have had, almost to my heart's desire, a goodly heritage ; and as at present most of you enjoy similar advantages, I would press it upon you, with maternal earnestness, more fully to improve them than I have done, and not to suffer impatience, pride, self-will, indolence, or any other of our bosom enemies, to slip in between you and the cheerful enjoyment of the blessings surrounding you. Make the most of what God has given you, and you may be happy if you will. You have often appeared interested when I have related particulars of my early history, and it seems but right that you, who (as I have said) are almost certainly either better or worse for my habits and tendencies, should know some- thing of the circumstances amongst which they were formed, if only as finger-posts on your own road. It has sometimes surprised me to perceive to how great a degree you were ignorant of things and events so long familiar to my own recollections, but of course you can know on these subjects only what you are told, and pre- suming that to know more may be either amusing or useful, I have long entertained a wish to leave for you a brief outline of what I have been, or felt, with the various turns and interferences of Providence by which I have become what you find me. To review my life will not in all respects be a pleasant occupation, for it presents much that I would fain erase. The close inspection of my character which it calls for gives me anything but satisfaction ; but when I refer to the course through which I have been conducted, and the flowery fences by which I have at all times been hedged in, my causes for gratitude are more than I can enumerate, and greater than I can express. Few, perhaps, owe so much — certainly few more — to Providential arrangements than I do ; my intimate asso- ciates have always been, in one respect or another, better than myself, — not all in everything, but each in some things ; so that there has been a continually ascending Her Parents. 3 influence acting upon me, and counteracting, in some- degree, less favourable circumstances or tendencies. Among these, the mercies of my position, I must place first the personal history and singular characters of my dear parents, of whom it would delight me to present you with a graphic portraiture. What little you knew of them was not sufficient to furnish you with a correct idea, nor could you form one without knowing also the disad- vantages with which severally they had to contend. Your dear grandfather was an unusually single-hearted man and Christian. His life till nearly thirty was spent in London, but he caught not a taint from its atmosphere. So long as he remained at home his father, a man of sense and ability, and a well-known artist of the time, was not, it seemed, under the influence of Christian principle, though a strictly moral man ; and he exhibited towards his family an austere reserve which was little calculated to awaken the domestic affections to genial life. His mother, possessing no small share of practical good sense, and real concern for the interests of her children, was yet so more than occupied in the labours of rearing them, and withal of a temper so heedless of the graces of life, that it seemed scarcely possible for kind and tender dispositions to expand under her influence ; but my father not only revered, but as his nature could not help, loved her also. Her will was law, and in many respects her family reaped the advantage of such a parent, but it is perhaps surprising that a heart so warm as his, should have been trained under her hand. His willingness, docility, and obedience were a little "put upon" while a youth; he was made something like the "fag" of the family; but so great was his pleasure in serving at all times, and in all ways, those by whom he was surrounded, that it as less irksome to him than it would be to many. At thirteen he commenced a life which became one of ffusive piety. At sixteen he joined the church under e Rev. Mr Webb of Fetter Lane, and from those early ars, till he went down to the grave, at seventy-one, his aracter was one beautiful progress through the benig- nt graces of Christianity. 4 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. His love of knowledge was early, strong, and universal. Nothing was uninteresting to him that he had oppor- tunity to acquire, and when acquired his delight was to communicate. Apt to teach he certainly was, and in- genious as apt ; all his methods were self-devised, and the life of few men devoted to teaching as a profes- sion, would have accomplished more than he attained by husbanding the half hours of his own. Early hours, and elastic industry were the " natural magic " by which his multifarious objects were pursued, and labours per- formed. Whatever I possess of knowledge came from his trea- sury, and far more than is now mine, for many engage- ments, and a memory never good, and perhaps in childhood too little cultivated, have deprived me of much. Too little cultivated, I say, because my dear mother having suffered from injudicious exactions upon memory when a child, erred perhaps in training her children in the other extreme. As far as I recollect, we were never required to learn anything by heart ! It was my father's habit, whenever a question arose in conversation on points of science or history which we could not accurately determine, to refer at the moment to some authority — the lexicon, the gazetteer, the encyclo- paedia, or anything from which the facts could be gained ; so that much was in this way imbibed by his children without labour of any kind, and at the expense only of some little impatience at a digression with which they would at the time have been willing to dispense. " Line upon line," was, however, in this way gradually traced and deepened. Method, arrangement, regularity in every- thing, were the characteristics of his mind ; as were a tranquil hoping for, and believing in the best, those of his heart. The future he could at all times cheerfully commit to his heavenly Father, the present had ever some bright spot for which to be thankful, and on this his eye, as by a natural attraction, fixed itself, while his wit or humour could strike a spark out of the dullest circumstances. Her Fathers Methods. 5 The two words which he adopted as his daily guide in education, were mild, but firm ; and he was fitted by natural disposition for both mildness and firmness. He was not easily moved from an opinion once formed, but the kindness of his heart, and the sobriety of his judgment, habitually prevented him from forming hard or unsound ones. Few, perhaps, have ever moved in active life for seventy years, retaining a tendency to judge so favourably of all he met with. Hope and cheerfulness were as the air he breathed, and these were confirmed and rendered habitual principles, by a faith in the providence and the promises of God, often tried, but never observed to fail. His activity was untiring, and stimulated by a glowing kindliness it enabled him to do with his might for all whom he could benefit, whatsoever his hand found to do. He was never a clog on plans of usefulness, or even of pleasure. His heart was love, and his life a holiday. For nearly half a century he was the lover as well as the husband, alive to all the impressions of tenderness, and constantly devising with considerate affection pleasant little surprises for my dear mother. Her forty years of incessant bodily suffering afforded ample field for such a heart to adorn with the flowers and evergreens of love, and with ingenious tenderness he did so to the last. As a youth, he had accustomed himself to rise early, but the habit declined through disturbed nights during the infancy of his children. After a few years, it was renewed and never abandoned, and, if I am not mistaken, it was by the following incident that he was induced to return to six o'clock as the commencement of his day. He had received a call from some poor minister, with a request that he would purchase from him a small hymn-book, beautifully bound in morocco ; the price was half a guinea, a larger sum than he could prudently afford, but his open heart could not refuse the aid that was asked for in this form, and the little volume proved, in the end, of incalculable value to him, for, sensible of his indiscretion, he resolved to cover the loss by making a longer day for labour. This, though constitutionally disposed to sleep, he resolutely 6 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. accomplished, starting from his bed at a quarter before six every morning, till within a short period of his death. It was not managed without difficulty. At first, an alarum clock at the head of his bed was sufficient, but becoming accustomed to the monotony, he placed a pair of tongs across the weight of the alarum, so disposed, that when it began to move, the sudden fall of the tongs should surely move him also.* My father's habits of devotion formed a valuable part of his example. Rising thus early, the time from six to seven o'clock was always spent in his closet — really a closet — enclosed by double doors. But though thus secluded, and in a remote part of the house, we were, at times, near enough, in a room below, to be aware of the earnestness of his prayers, which were uttered aloud. He always preferred articulate prayer, and when retirement can really be secured, it is a habit I should warmly recom- mend. It prevents, in some degree, the vagrancy of thought which so often interferes with mental prayer, and it reacts upon the mind, deepening the impressions from which it springs.*)* I would also, and with more solicitude, urge the habit of stated prayer. The heart is so apt to slide from under its intentions, if not compacted by the regularity of habit, that it is rarely safe to trust them ; every hour brings its hindrance, and so often in the shape of all but needful business that " the path to the bush " will, in most cases, be overgrown, if not trodden at the stated period. We may deceive ourselves with the belief that we do pray regularly, because we wish and intend to do so, but on many a day, I fear we should search in vain for the act, unless reminded of it by the hour. It is true * Another expedient dwells in family tradition which probably succeeded the above, to the horrid clatter of Avhich there may have been domestic objections. He placed his watch under the weight of the alarum in such a position as to require energetic action, on the part of the awakened sleeper, to save it from utter destruction as the weight descended. The habit once formed, these extreme measures were discarded. — [Ed.] + A hymn sung aloud accompanied this private morning worship, and the editor remembers when the voice was cracked with age, hearing the cheerful though quaking notes — cheerful, whether heard through the open window of the study in summer time, or in the darkness and chill of winter mornings. — [Ed.] His Habits of Devotion. 7 that a perfunctory- formality may be thus induced, but the benefits, as far as my own experience or observation extends, exceed greatly the disadvantages. It is " a world of compromise," and for this reason, we are exhorted to watch as well as to pray. After a day of continued labour, such as my father's always was, he was again in his closet from eight till nine; occasionally when work had to be sent off by the night mail for London (he then living in the country), he might be prevented from devoting the full hour, but I do not remember the time when the season of retirement was wholly omitted. How much of the excellence of his own character, of the providential mercy that so often appeared for him, and may I not add, how many of the blessings enjoyed by his children and by theirs, may not have been the gracious answer to this life of supplication ? It was not likely that a youth, warm with so many affections, should be long content with domestic solitude. He was, indeed, but a youth, and his prospects were not such as in these days of aim and show would have admitted the thought of a wife, as prudent, or even possible. His early wish to devote himself to the ministry, had been frustrated by an illness of such severity and continuance, as to destroy his hopes of study, and to unfit him for its labours. Lodgings which had been taken for him by his mother at Islington — then quite a country place — and horse exercise, contributed to his recovery ; and he then re- verted to his profession, that of an engraver, for which he had been educated under his father, who was among the first to execute book plates respectably.* At twenty-two, my father married, and the income on which he calculated that he could live with comfort, con- sisted of half a guinea certain for three days' work in each week, supplied to him by his elder brother, Charles, after- * The plates for Rees' Cyclopaedia were executed under his superintendence at his father's establishment, and he always considered that these, and his frequent interviews with Dr Rees during the progress of them, were a means of awakening his desire for knowledge in all its branched — [Ed.] 8 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert, wards known as the "learned editor of Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible," who was, at the time, in business for himself as an engraver and publisher, — and so much as he could earn during the remaining three days, when he was at liberty to work on his own account. This, with thirty pounds in hand, was his independency ; my mother's dowry being one hundred pounds stock, bequeathed to her by her grandfather, with furniture supplied by her mother, sufficient for the pleasant first floor at Islington they were to occupy.* It delights me to revert to this day of small things, and to trace the goodness and' mercy which did follow these dear, simple-hearted parents of mine all the days of their life, till they were called to dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. My dear mother was a character more peculiar, and her disadvantages had been greater than those of my father. The sensibility of her frame, both mental and bodily, was extreme ; her affections were strong and lively, and her sufferings (irrespective of bodily pain) from the sorrows and bereavements of her seventy-two years, proportion- ably intense. Her mother's father, the son of a clergy- man at Beverley, had been ruined in some building speculation at York, and her mother, a beautiful girl of sixteen, was sent off alone on the top of the York coach for London, with, I know not, what prospect or result, except that she resided for a time with a family in Kensington Square. By some accident, her favourite brother had been prevented from seeing her off, but ran after the coach, and was just able to wave his hand to her as it turned a corner. It was the last she ever saw of him, or of any of her family ; separation then was separation in- deed ! She married early a Mr Martin, the son of an estate agent at Kensington. My mother was the eldest of two children, and at six * Investments were not so easily met with then as in these days. Mr Smirke, R. A., was commissioned to paint four small circular subjects, repre- senting morning, noon, evening, and night, for the £100, which the young Isaac Taylor then engraved and published. There was a considerable foreign sale for English prints at that time, and the editor has seen prints signed " Isaac Taylor, Junr.," in some of the remotest spots on the Continent Her Mother. g years old lost her father, who died of fever at twenty-nine. Of him I know little except that he was one of Mr Whit- field's early converts, and thus happily prepared for early death. But he was probably alone in his religious prefer- ences, for upon one occasion having taken his little girl to hear Mr Whitfield, she suddenly stood up in the pew and exclaimed, " what have you brought me here for, among a pack of Whitfieldites ? " His anxiety for my mother was more lively than discreet. He thought it wise to exercise her infant patience by inflictions which she recollected as producing paroxysms of anguish. He once called her to see a new and favourite toy thrown on the fire, hoping in this way to induce a salutary self-control! Such measures could not but exasperate instead of soothe the excitability of her temperament; but, nevertheless, the sensitive child entertained for him a strength of attachment much above her years. On the night of his death she dreamed that she was in a desolate and shattered dwelling, through the rents of which she could see the stars; suddenly among them her father's form appeared, departing upward in a chariot, by gestures taking leave of her, and encouraging her to follow. On waking, she was told that he was dead, and to the excess of her grief her life was nearly sacrificed; nor did she through her more than threescore years and ten fail to commemorate the 13th of February, the anni- versary of her loss. On this first sorrow she was removed from her mother's house near Gray's Inn, to that of her paternal grandfather at Kensington, for change of air. There her health was soon renovated, but she fell under injudicious training, a mixture of weak indulgence with uninviting instruction. Yet her attachment to Kensington was extreme, and she regarded it as an Elysium to her life's end.* Home had, * It was here that she picked up several anecdotes of George the Second's residence in the palace, which, with more stirring stories of the Gordon riots, she sometimes repeated to her grandchildren on winter evenings. Among the former she related how the old king once spent an hour on his knees searching for a sixpence that had rolled on the floor, handing it when found to an attendant with stately gravity, and the remark, " I do not want the six- pence, but I did not wish it to be lost." How, walking one day with the io Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. indeed, become no longer home. Her mother, a very beautiful woman, married again, but not long afterwards lost her second husband, and married a third. The result was an increasing family, and the solitary little girl was made to suffer in their bitterness most of the sorrows of such a situation. Even her mother did not defend her from the selfishness of a stepfather, and the oppression of his children. She was the slave of all; she seemed aban- doned, with scarcely an eye to watch, or a hand to guide, — yet, who that should trace that young life to its close but would thankfully acknowledge an Eye that did watch, a Hand that did guide ! A day-school — a good one, as day-schools were a hun- dred years ago — afforded all the education that as such she enjoyed, but her character was too original and inter- esting to escape attention, and she attracted the notice and kind regard of several intelligent persons, who per- ceived her ability and aptitude to learn, and by the loan of books, and other means, awakened the dormant energies of her spirit, excited a thirst for knowledge, and raised her by imperceptible degrees above the bro- thers and sisters who were allowed to tyrannise over her ; and on whom, nevertheless, she lavished a warm affection, — afterwards repaid by the honest love of some of them. She very early discovered expertness at her pen, and its poetic and often satirical effusions soon gained her a local celebrity. My father was one of a group of young men occasionally visiting at her mother's house, but their first Duchess of Yarmouth, and observing some people laughing at a window over- looking the gardens, he had a high wall built immediately, which shut out their view for ever after. And how George III. kissed his bride on her ar- rival at Buckingham House, the Duke of York waving his hat to the crowd outside the gardens and shouting — " he's got her, he's got her." The Gor- don riots had made a deep impression on her memory. Her mother's house was near Meux's brewery, having fields then close behind it. Preparations had been made at the brewery to play hot water upon the rioters, and the mob were advancing to the attack when the trumpets of the dragoons and the discharge of firearms created an awful pause. Sometime afterwards she saw swinging the corpse of a neighbour's son on a gallows at the end of the street. He was condemned and executed for participation in the disturbances, of which it was believed he had been only an accidental spectator. — [Ed J Her Mother's Childhood. I r approach to each other, if such it might be called, was when at some breaking up of the school he attended, she was the admiring spectator of his receiving a silver pen (a rarer thing then than now) after reciting, with applause, a piece from Shakespeare. They were only children then, and a more important incident was the exercise of his skill in engraving her initials upon the silver shield in front of the beautiful little teapot, still in our possession, and in which he deposited a copy of verses upon returning it to her. These led to a smart rejoinder, and that to a paper war which, for a time, made the gossip of the little circle, till it was termi- nated by a treaty of peace, never afterwards infringed. But interesting as was my mother's character, and attrac- tive to many, some of them literary men, who would fain have rivalled my father in her affections, she was but ill- furnished with that practical knowledge of the details of housekeeping, without which marriage involves a girl, not in a rank above domestic management, in the deepest anxiety. When she married, at the age of twenty-three, she had everything to learn, and most sedulously, with the resolve of a sensible woman, and the diligence of a conscientious one, did she set herself to learn. She became an excellent housekeeper, for with a humility that often surprised me, she would accept the smallest particulars of information from the youngest or the humblest. To the latest hour of my observation at home she had always the rare wisdom to acknowledge ignorance. On their wedding day, April 18, 178 1, my parents entered their first home, in a house standing back from the street, and exactly opposite Islington Church. It was a first floor only, but from the back room, the best one, there was a view over an extent of country, including the Highgate Hills, and on the day of their marriage, though so early in the year, a vine was in full leaf over their windows. There, on the 30th of January 1782, on which day my youthful father reached his twenty-third year, I was born ; and on the 23d of September the year following, their second daughter, Jane Taylor, known, perhaps, 1 might say, on the four continents, and known only for 1 2 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. good, came into the world ; but at this time they had removed for the convenience of business to Red Lion Street, Holborn, then a sufficiently quiet place. Here their first son, and third child, was born ; and here, scarcely allowing herself an hour of recreation either for body or mind, practising the utmost economy, and with her children filling every thought of her heart, my poor mother broke down in health, and might have sur- rendered herself to be the mere drudge of her family, had not a wise friend suggested to her that it would be well if her husband found in her a companion, as well as a house- keeper and nurse. She took the hint immediately, and resolved to secure the higher happiness that had nearly escaped her. For this purpose she commenced the practice of reading aloud at meals, the only time she could afford for mental improvement, and for nearly half-a-century it supplied her daily pleasure, while it sustained the native power of her mind. But now the rapidly increasing family, and its con- sequent expenses, suggested the desirableness of removing to the country, and my dear parents, young, poor, loving, simple-minded, with nothing to call experience, resolved to transplant their household to what then appeared a remote and dreary distance from every relative or friend. They had neither of them been more than twenty miles from London in their lives, and my father, always methodical, obtained a list from Homerton College of all the ministers supplied from that Institution to within a hundred miles from the metropolis, and wrote, I believe, to all of them as to the cheapness of rent and of provisions in each locality, with some other domestic items. One of these applications reached a minister at Baddow when a cousin of his, the Rev. W. Hickman, of Lavenham in Suffolk, happened to be visiting him. They laughed over the questions propounded, which they attributed to some antiquated bachelor, but Mr Hickman remembered a house at Lavenham, which he thought he could recom- mend, and, writing to that effect, with other suitable inducements, my father undertook the formidable journey of sixty-three miles to reconnoitre. Removal to Lavcnham. 13 He decided upon the venture, but the trial to the feel- ings of my dear mother was extreme. The removal to such a distance from all she loved was an anguish almost as much as she could endure. Owing to great suscepti- bility of nature, nervous, anxious, and foreboding, and with these tendencies during the greater part of her life aggravated by incessant pain, yet there was in her charac- ter a steady strength at hand for emergencies, which sometimes carried her through difficulties under which it might have been supposed a mind like hers would reel. It was in June 1786, the fine old-fashioned weather of the eighteenth century, as my memory pictures it, that the little colony set forth — I well remember the freshness of that six o'clock on a summer's morning — in a hackney coach for the stage. My father had gone before to Lavenham to receive and arrange the furniture, and never was "Queen's Decorator" more busy, more anxious, (in some respects more capable,) than he that everything should appear in tempting order, and in the best style of which it was susceptible. His materials, indeed, were few, but his taste and contrivance inexhaustible. The house, which a cottager described as "the first grand house in Shilling Street," was indeed so, compared with former residences. It was the property of, and had been inhabited by a clergyman. On the ground floor were three parlours, two kitchens, and a dairy, together with three other rooms never inhabited ; and above them were six large bed- rooms. An extensive garden, well planted, lay behind. A straight broad walk through the middle was fifty-two yards in length, with an open summer-house on rising ground at one end, and ha-ha fence separating it from a meadow, of which we had the use, at the other. There was also a large yard, with a pig-stye, uninhabited, till my sister Jane and I cleared it out for the purpose of dwelling in it ourselves. It was a substantial little building of brick, but, having no windows, and the door swinging from the top, it was somewhat incommodious, yet there, after lessons, we passed many a delighted hour. 14 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. For this spacious domain, (house and garden I mean, not the pig-stye), it will scarcely be credited that my father paid a rent of only six pounds a-year, but by such a circumstance the perfect out-of-the-wayness of the situa- tion may be conceived. Neither coach road nor canal approached it, though I remember that the advantage the latter would be to the little town was often discussed. The postman's cart, a vehicle covered in for passengers, made its enlivening entree every day from Sudbury, seven miles distant, about noon ; and the London waggon nodded and grated in, I forget how often, or rather how seldom, I believe about once a week. In a neighbour's large old fashioned kitchen I remem- ber a painting representing the church standing in the middle of the town, and it must have been a place of some importance wrhen that was the case ; but, when we knew it, the church was quite at the extremity to the north, where the Sudbury road entered the High Street, which long street, at the further end, issued upon the road to Bury St Edmunds, ten miles off. The church was a noble Gothic edifice, built by the Earls of Oxford. Many of the details were drawn and engraved by my father, and published in one volume by his brother, then an architectural publisher in London. One of my brothers and two little sisters lie in the churchyard near one of the doors. The rector and curate of our day were of the old school,* free livers, yet religiously hostile to the little band of dissenters who occupied a small " meeting-house " that nestled under the shade of some fine walnut trees, standing back from the street. In this reviled con- venticle (for the spirit of " Church and King " was the demon of the neighbourhood, or rather of the times), there assembled a friendly and intelligent congregation. It was generally well filled, and for my own pleasure, more than for yours, shall I record the names, still familiar to me, of those who chiefly composed it ? Well then, first, were Mr and Mrs Perry Branwhite, with their daughter Sally, one of my first playfellows, and their * Belonging to an older school was William Gurnal, Rector of Lavenham, author of " The Christian in Complete Armour." — [Ed.] The Meeting-house People. 1 5 sons Nathan and Peregrine. Mr Branwhite was a quaint, upright, stiff, but somewhat poetic schoolmaster, having charge of a branch of St Ann's Charity School, located at that distance from London for the advantage of cheap provisions. I say poetic, because he had done the Co- pernican system into rhyme, printed on a large sheet and framed. By him and his, four or five seats were occupied. Next to them sat Mr Stribbling, the blacksmith, and family, plain respectable people, though he, to my youth- ful eyes, was very ugly. He was certainly stone deaf, not- withstanding which latter disadvantage he attended very regularly, troubling his minister occasionally by complain- ing of him as a " legal preacher," on the ground that he selected " Arminian texts." These at every service were looked out for him by his children, and upon them alone he founded his suspicions of Mr Hickman's orthodoxy. "Ann and Jane" sat vis-a-vis upon little cross seats at the ends of the next pew, and had ample opportunity thereby of forming an opinion upon Mr Stribbling's per- sonal attractions. Beyond our's was the seat of Mr Meeking, the baker, a personage who occupies a grateful niche in the recollec- tions of my childhood. He was a good-natured, fresh- coloured, somewhat rotund old man, with blue eyes, a light flaxen wig curled all round in double rows, and a beard duly shaven once a week. He kept a bakehouse of local celebrity, and with it a small shop, amply provided with that nondescript variety of grocery, drapery, and haberdashery, farthing cakes, and penny bindings, suitable for humble customers, or needed at a pinch.* Three sons and two daughters, all grown up, at least so they appeared to us little people, composed his family, and the old-fash- ioned kitchen, or house-place, in which they lived, is fresh in my memory as the scene of warm and bountiful hospi- tality to all, and of indulgence to us little girls, who fre- * It is curious to note how frequently in many a provincial town the pro- prietor of just such an omnhtin ^atJierwn shop afterwards developed into the substantial banker of the district, and how generally, too, such, as in the present case, were nonconformists. — [Ed.] 1 6 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. quently found our way there at times of any domestic dis- comfort. The floor of this kitchen was of brick, uncarpeted, one small window (of course you do not care about it, but please let me tell you) looked into the street, and a very large one opposite, with diamond panes and brick mul- lions, into the garden. There was a door from the shop, another towards the parlour, and a third large heavy square one, studded with iron-headed nails, leading to the garden and orchard. But, notwithstanding, this various provision for the admission of fresh air, nothing could exceed the comfort and glow of the chimney corner, large enough to admit the bulky arm-chair of the master on one side, and a seat for small folk on the other; the whole hedged in by an ample screen. And, O, the piles of hot toast, thick, heaped, and sodden with butter, that used morning and evening to crown the iron footman in front of the fire! — toast not cut from a modern neat tin-baked loaf, but from such a loaf — a rugged mountain! Here "Nancy and Jenny," as we were called, were always, and heartily welcome, or indeed to anything we could contrive to wish for ; and in this friendly circle my sister was fairly released from the timidity that concealed the rich store of humour in her arch little nature, and became the centre of fun and frolic* To the wise restraint and plain fare, and limited indulgences of home, Mr Meeking's chimney corner af- forded the widest contrast; and the good-natured kind- ness, less judicious than generous, which always greeted us there, placed our occasional visits among the red-letter days of our calendar. Once a year, somewhere about Christmas, the "best parlour" was duly warmed and inhabited. The young men were musical, there were several in the congregation who could either sing or play, or liked to hear others who could, and on these occasions they would get up something like a concert, where a bassoon, played by the eldest son, with sundry flutes and clarionets, afforded pleasant amusement * It is related in her memoirs that she used to be placed on the kne&ding- board in the shop, in order to recite, preach, or narrate, to the great enter- tainment of the many visitors. — [Ed.] The Meeking Household. to as many of the " friends " as could be crowded in. A piano was at that time quite beyond the Lavenham style, though I remember a spinnet or harpsichord in the best parlour of some other friends, presently to be men- tioned. My dear mother had always the strongest objection to leaving her little girls to the care of servants, and seldom visited where we were not invited, — we were but two, not troublesome, perhaps something of favourites, so that com- pletely social as these and similar parties were, we were often admitted to them at an age when now we should scarcely have emerged from the nurseiy. But nurseries at Lavenham, and at that time of day, I do not remember. The parlour and the best parlour were all that was known beside the kitchens, and thus parents and children formed happily but one circle. Of course it was necessary under the circumstances that the latter should be submissive to good regulation, or domestic comfort must have been sacrificed ; but my father and mother were soon noted as good mana- gers of their children ; for little as either of them had experienced of a wise education themselves, they had formed a singularly strong resolve to train their young ones with the best judgment they could exercise, and not to suffer humoured children to disturb either themselves or their friends. There is scarcely an expression so fraught to my earliest recollection with ideas of disgrace and misery as that of a " humoured child," and I should have felt truly ashamed to exhibit one of my own at my father's table. Yet, I can only say that it has been my endeavour to steer clear of this evil. It is inexpressibly difficult, pressed by daily business and perpetual interruption, to judge correctly of the course we are pursuing, or to retrace it if in error. On this account I should recommend every burdened mother to allow herself an occasional visit away from home without her children. She will then be much better able to review her habits and plans, and, if needful, to reform them, than while surrounded by the din, and borne down by the pressure of daily employments. 1] 1 8 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. She will look at herself and her proceedings, as from a distance, and sometimes in the solitude of the chamber, or the garden, will find it no unhealthy exercise to describe herself aloud. Many things look unexpectedly ugly when put into words ; and in order to derive unadulterated bene- fit, so far as may be, she will take care at such times to keep aloof from the excellences. In other families also she may silently observe what is right or what is wrong, and amend her own doings accordingly. A degree of freshness is imparted to both body and mind during such a process, and probably she will go in the strength of that meat many days. In rearing a family it is scarcely till the youngest has been educated, and often not then, that we come to a satis- factory conclusion respecting the course most desirable to pursue. The elder ones may have been sacrificed in part to inexperience, and the younger to burden and pressure. Happy the mother who can hold an even balance be- tween the strict and the lenient, for, perhaps, on this ability depends the characters of her children more than on any other part of her conduct. The aim is all I can boast of; to inspire the confidence of love by kindness, and to secure obedience by adhering steadily to principles, or regulations once laid down. But if, on reviewing the sins of our youth, we feel it often necessary to ask for- giveness from dear departed parents, equally imperative shall we find it, as we reflect on the failures of after-life, to make the same request to our children ; and thus, dear children, do I with love and sorrow ask pardon of you. But to return from this long digression. Mrs Snelling, the old pew opener, will wonder what I am doing if I do not pass along the aisle more briskly. We are come now to the " table pew;" William Meeking has the bassoon to his lips, and some dozen of country beaux, each with a leaf from the walnut trees in his button-hole, with perhaps a pink, a stock, or sprig of sweetbriar, are raising the Psalm. In yonder square pew, entered only from the vestry, sits Mrs Hickman, the wife of the minister, amongst whose Ea rliest Frien dsh ips. \ 9 family a little boy, rather younger than myself, lived to become the highly respected minister of a congregation at Denton in Suffolk ; but passing on to the furthest of four square seats under the line of windows in front of the pulpit, I must introduce a family of singular excellence, and high esteem in the neighbourhood. The staple trade of the town was wool, and Mr Wat- kinson was one of the master woolcombers, wealthy for such a locality, for he was reckoned to be worth £30,000. He owned one of the best houses in the town, built by himself with every accommodation for a family of twelve children* Beyond the extensive yards and warehouses were a bowling-green and pleasure gar- den, with a shrubbery enclosing a swimming bath, and a large kitchen garden with orchard adjoining. With Anne and Jane Watkinson, the two youngest daugh- ters, it was the privilege of Ann and Jane Taylor to be intimate. The family were well ordered almost to a proverb, and well educated too. Mr Watkinson had been a member of the Society of Friends, and never relaxed, so far as my observation went, in the for- mality and reserve formerly distinguishing that commu- nity. His wife was a plain, sensible, domestic woman, of perhaps the fewest words that in such a family could be done with. Of the host of sons and daughters I can dis- tinctly call to mind the features of each, but I could have had but slight knowledge of their characters. Of Anne, however, my own companion, though she left England with her family for America at fourteen, I have heard Mr Hickman say that he always felt something like respect- ful awe in her presence ! Such was the merciful provision for my earliest friendship. The Lungleys, shopkeepers of repute and means, as most of those good folks were, occupied one of that set of pews. Mr Lungley was a singularly simplehearted, and -pirited man ; Mrs Lungley, a clever, active, managing woman, as much at home with the young as the young At that time wool was combed by hand, given out about the country to be spun, sent to Holland to be woven, and brought back to England to !><■ Sold. A direct ancestor of Mr Watkinson fought under Cromwell— [Ed.] 20 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. themselves. Their house was always open, the rendezvous of as many as could anyhow reckon themselves friends or cousins. Their one child, a daughter, spent the closing year of her education under the care of my father and mother, after they left Lavenham, and years later, when at the head of a large family of her own, she told me that her first permanent religious impressions were made by my dear father's conversations, and that important arrangements in her family were founded on a recollection of his plans. One of these, the assignment of a separate "study" for each of the children when old enough to use it, the wealth of her husband enabled him to carry out to the fullest extent in building a new residence. Mr Buck, a stiff, old-fashioned linen-draper, is waiting for notice in the adjoining pew ; what I chiefly remember about him is, that in his best parlour there hung a large frame, containing what I never saw anywhere else, varieties in "darning," all sorts of fabrics being admirably imitated, from plain muslin to various damask patterns, the perfor- mances of Betsy Buck his daughter. I have sometimes wished for a leaf out of her book. Mrs Sherrar and two maiden daughters occupied one of the upper seats in the synagogue; and her son-in-law, Mr Hillier, the " squire's pew," carefully screened at both ends from the vulgar gaze. These ranked among the small gentry of the neighbourhood ; the Sherrars keep- ing what was no mean establishment for the little country- place, two maids and a man ; the Hilliers living in a handsome house with grounds at the lower end of the town. He was in the main a worthy man, and though a regular attendant upon Mr Hickman's ministry, might be called the squire, not only of the humble Meeting-house, but of Lavenham itself. His wife was a clever, showy woman, reckless of such graces as are deemed specially feminine, and able to utter speeches not so easy to repeat as to remember. The in- firmity of both, if my recollections may be trusted, was pride — Mr Hillier's a quiet reserved pride, his wife's a bold and open pride ; and a circumstance occurred that The "Squire's Pew." 2 1 sufficiently stirred the pride of both, proved disastrous to the interests of the small community, and though little suspected then, affected greatly our own future destiny in life. This brings me to the pulpit, which has been almost forgotten in the pews. Mr Hickman, the minister, was a plain sensible man, of no aim, in manner or anything, but with a fund of natural humour in conversation. He was, perhaps, as little likely to make the venture that he did as any one we could think of; yet, having become a widower, in process of time he thought of, and — singular presumption — addressed, prevailed with, and married Mrs Hilliers sister, Fanny Sherrar ! She was neither young nor handsome ; neither rich enough to render it a tempt- ing speculation, nor, as was supposed, specially qualified to become an intelligent companion. The gentry of a small country town could then afford to do with humble attainments in that line, and I am inclined to think the tradespeople were as a rule better informed. Upon one occasion, at a party in honour of a bride who had belonged to this higher grade, the lady addressed my father across the room with, " Mr Taylor, who wrote Shakespeare ? " The husband, feigning an amused laugh, could only say, "Just hear my wife ! " It was a question none of the humbler folk there needed to ask. With Fanny Sherrar, however, Mr Hickman was somewhat captivated, and he proceeded to the offensive extremity of making her his wife. Nothing could exceed the righteous indignation of the Hilliers on this occasion. He, worthy man, actually made a church question of it, on what possible grounds it is difficult to conceive. There was for a long time a scene of grievous contention, con- vocations of neighbouring ministers were called in to arbitrate, and it ended in the Hilliers leaving both the Meeting and the town. I should add that Mrs Hick- man's conduct as a wife, and especially as a step- mother, went far to redeem the credit of her husband's discernment. The poor of the congregation sat in the galleries, the men occupying the one, the women the other ; the girls 22 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. and boys of the small Sunday School being similarly apportioned in one or the other gallery.* This could not be long subsequent to the reputed origin of Sunday Schools in the benevolent heart of Mr Raikes. That at Lavenham was collected, I have reason to believe, greatly through my father's personal exertions. He was active in everything, regular, I may venture to affirm, and never weary in well doing. A small volume, entitled " Twelve Addresses to a Sun- day School," contains the substance of some spoken to this very early congregated little band/f* He did not take a class, but acted rather as superintending visitor. And when, after an interval of more than sixty years, I visited Lavenham, I found, among surviving members of this school, proofs that " the memory of the just is blessed." Wherever he moved his name is still fragrant. Mr Hubbard, a basket-maker, a young man of very peculiar character, part simple, part conceited, part worthy — yes, a good part worthy — part thinking, and very theo- logical, was engaged, as the paid teacher of the boys, sit- ting with them in the gallery and supplying the want of * In some old fashioned rural congregations of Nonconformists this separa- tion extends to the whole congregation. The custom is common among the Protestant congregations on the Continent, and universal among the Friends. t In a paper entitled " Sixty Years Ago," contributed to the Sunday School Magazine in 1 848, by Mrs Gilbert, she says, ' ' I am old enough to remember that in a little country town, about 200 miles I should think from Gloucester, there was a Sunday School very nearly sixty years ago, and one in which my dear father used to labour with all the activity of a warm Christian heart. I was a very little girl, and perhaps for that reason I do not forget the grand gala days, in which long tables were set in Mr Watkinson's barn, and well covered with roast beef and plum puddings, for which the young people of his family (there were twelve in all, sons and daughters) had been merrily busy in stoning raisins. Yes, I remember them ! And there came the schools, winding up the quiet street, for it was very quiet generally, though then of course, the neighbours would stand at their cottage doors to gaze at the pro- cession, and the young gentlemen at Mr Blower's school would look over the blinds to wonder about it ; and people, perhaps, who had not yet sent their chil- dren might wish they had. There have been many Sunday School treats and dinners given since that time, but I just mention this, to prove that at the remote little town of Lavenham, in Suffolk, there was at least as early as the year 1790, a happy, well regulated Sunday School ; so that if Gloucester should ever think of erecting a monument to the founder, it might do well to inquire whether or not the first thought were really there ?" " Old Orford." 23 gratuitous teachers. Teachers of this sort were indeed, at that time, as little known as schools. There was scarcely one department of Christian usefulness, as it is now understood, at that time, occupied or even thought of by our churches as necessarily belonging to church work. I must not, in my present review, forget " Old Orford." But where shall we find him ? Not in a pew — it may have been half a century since he sat in one — but high up on the pulpit stairs, for he is very deaf, and does not, I fear, contrive to hear much even with his conspicuous trumpet ; but he tries. His aged features, surmounted by a red ^night-cap, are among a set of pencil studies, still extant, by my father. How old he really was, I cannot say, but so long as I remember him, " Old Orford " was popularly reputed to be a hundred years old, though, I suppose, he moved among the figures at about the same rate as most of us.* And, certainly, Peter Hitchcock, the clerk in the " table pew," ought to have been named earlier — as much a char- acter as could be found in the congregation. A stout, thickset little man, of, as one might say, the " cock robin " build was he, with the peculiarities of the bachelor, and betraying some of its least offensive propensities in his queer physiognomy. * A similar aged worthy occupied a seat, at the top of the pulpit stairs, at Ongar, during my grandfather's pastorate there. Leaning against the pulpit door, he looked like the minister's henchman. His venerable and rheumy countenance, his drab knee breeches gaping above his corded grey stockings, are deeply graven on my memory, and not less so, a certain occasion, when his huge tin snuff-box slipped from his pottering fingers, and rolled bump, bump, down the uncarpeted stairs with portentous noise. John Day, no whit disconcerted, watched its course, and then, with his heavy highlows, descended after it, one stair at a time, returning in like manner. The whole operation took nearly a quarter of an hour ; yet the sermon halted not, nor did devout attention fail. In those days, if any one suffered from drowsiness ander the subdivided discourse, he would rise and stand in his place. Several grave elders, in an afternoon, might be seen thus upon their legs, and it is recorded that my mother's great grandfather, Martin, leaning, unluckily, upon his pew door in Kensington Church, it opened suddenly, compelling him to follow its semi-circular movement at a smart trot, till brought up sharp against the pew side. Then the grave figure in snuff-coloured suit and pro- tuberant wig, took it in hand and walked back into his place, with probably no visible disturbance of the congregation. — [Ed.] 24 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. As a retired flour dealer, he possessed a snug inde- pendency, and had fitted up, for himself, a small house, for the garden of which my father, early in repute as a landscape gardener, kindly drew a variety of plans. Yet it was but a slip, and the economic Peter saved the expense of a man, by clipping the grass-plots himself with a pair of scissors. Two maiden sisters, Miss Sally and Miss Betsy, never otherwise called, lived with him, each a perfect speci- men of an "old maid." Miss Betsy, the youngest, had, perhaps, the most fretful, unhappy expression of countenance that could well be conceived. Verily, she looked as if it had been half a century, at least, since the world had smiled upon her, if, indeed, it had not been ill-using her for quite that period. No doubt, she was unhappy, and benevolence, even Christian benevolence, does not seem to extend to this description of sufferer. Fathers and mothers, and young people of both sexes, appear to have received dispensation for heartlessly adding to the sorrows of that solitary con- dition. In parents, nothing can be more indiscreet ; in young women, less delicate ; in young men, nothing more ungenerous. What can that father expect from his daughters, who allows himself to taunt, with "cruel mocking," the un- married women of their society ? What but the convic- tion that to marry is indispensable, and therefore, at whatever risk ? Yet is it always the least excellent, the least valuable of a family who is left to fill the withering ranks at which the young and the thoughtless — the old and the thoughtless, I may safely add, — point the finger ? If constrained to guess at histories, I should be disposed to affirm that, more frequently than otherwise, the useful retiring, affectionate daughter, is left to expend her womanly love on the declining years, and trying infirmi- ties of her parents, while the colder heart plays a suc- cessful game, and sports the honours of the wedding ring. Perhaps there would be more of romantic history in the biographies of the old maids of society than in those of Old Maids. 25 twice the number of flourishing- wives, — history that would excite, if known, the tenderest sympathy, the truest respect. Many might be the causes enumerated that have led noble and virtuous women to refuse marriage — women among whom might be found some of that almost extinct class, whose New Testament includes that awkward text — " only in the Lord." What, however, may have been Miss Betsy's history, I know nothing, beyond the obvious discontent of her countenance; but of Miss Sally, there were traditions of some interest, how far correct, I cannot say. She was, I think, the senior by several years, and must have been pretty in her time, while her now aged quiet face had none of that expression which made her sister so con- spicuous. But she was admitted to be "not quite right, you know," for, as the mood came over her, she would retire to the corner of the room (I have seen her do so when it was filled with company), and stand there, for a length of time, straight upright, with her face to the wall, and occasionally whispering a little to herself. It was something of a trial to "Ann and Jane " to see Miss Sally making so queer an exhibition of herself, but I do not remember having our gravity upset by it ; it was only Miss Sally in one of her freaks, and we were too young to understand the mysterious hints oc- casionally floating, "that, many years ago, she had a disappointment, and had not been quite right ever since." I think, also, that one of her arms was paralysed, and hung useless at her side. Such were the hieroglyphics of one mournful, yet not uncommon history. In a circle, such as I have now described, we children, of five and six years old, were placed on our parents' removal from London. It was a happy seclusion. Yet my mother had gone down to it with an almost breaking heart, bring- ing, to this circle of strangers, a recent grief in the loss of one lovely child, and before the year was out, losing another ; so that all the assiduities of my father, and the novel charm of a summer in the country, failed to recon- cile her to the banishment, till the first dreary winter had 26 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. passed away, and then a heart, sensitive as was my dear mother's, could not remain long untouched by natural scenes and pleasures. But the winter was dreary. In the course of it, my father was called (as, indeed, he frequently was) for a month, to London, in prosecution of his profession as an engraver ; and with her two little girls, her young half-sister, and a single servant, with the recollection of her lost children bleeding in her bosom, and in a house large enough to have accommodated half-a-dozen such families, my mother dragged wearily through the dismal evenings of this, to her, forlorn exile. One of them is still fresh in my memory, as I have heard her describe it. It was a dark and stormy winter's night, the wind roared down the huge kitchen chimney, and screamed in the trees across the road. "Ann and Jane" had gone early to bed, the last dear babe had recently found its resting-place in the churchyard, and my poor mother sat in her grief beside the parlour fire. Suddenly a dreadful crash was heard ; the kitchen chimney was exactly over the room in which we slept, and her instant thought was that it had fallen, burying us in its ruins. She ran to the foot of the wide staircase and called, I was always a wakeful sleeper, but now there was no an- swer, and she felt no doubt of the terrible meaning of the silence. Her sister jumped out of the parlour win- dow, and, my mother and servant following, fled up the dark street to Mr Meeking's, the nearest friend in need. She fell on the high steps leading up to his shop-door, and his little dog, rushing out, tore off her cap before she could regain her feet. " Oh ! Mr Meeking, Mr Meeking, my children are both killed!" "Let's hope not, madam, let's hope not," and the worthy old man, with sons, staves, and lanterns, hastened back with her to the scene of disaster, first, of course, visiting our bed- room, where, holding a lantern at the foot of the bed, " Nancy and Jenny " were seen sound asleep. That was enough ; and when they had searched in vain Lavenham Scenery. 27 through all the upper rooms of the large house, they began to smile at the alarm as one of imagination only, till entering the kitchen a mound of bricks upon the floor, that had fallen down the ample chimney, explained what had happened. The cracked grate long remained to attest the peril. But my father returned — returned with sufficient em- ployment in his art for months to come. Spring returned also, the winter had passed, the rain was over and gone, the time of the singing of birds was come, and my dear mother awoke to the beauties that surrounded her. Not that the style of country was particularly attractive. Suffolk, or at least that part of it, swells into shoulders of heavy corn land, with little wood, and these undulations shut out extensive prospects ; a small river creeps dully through a succession of quiet meadows, and I think it must be partly owing to this tameness that a real taste for the country was not sensibly awakened in me till ten or twelve years later in my history. I can hardly otherwise account either for an impres- sion of gloom which, though it was seen under the sunlight of childhood, still hangs over that Lavenham scenery. Enthusiasm must have been enthusiastic to be kindled among those flat meadows and cold slopes, with their drowsy river ; but there might be other causes that make me feel even now that to walk in broad daylight, but alone, by that river's brink, or up the rugged " Clay Hill " beyond, would try my nerves. I came to love the real country afterwards, have long loved it, and have craved, perhaps, no earthly blessing more than a home and a garden in the country, and happy am I to say now, at sixty-two, that the delight derived from such pleasures is still healthily vivid within me* And, whatever the surrounding country might be, there was at Lavenham a large and beautiful garden. We lived not in either of the big front parlours, but in a small pleasant room opening into it. There my father's high desk, at which, during his whole life, he stood, as the most * She would have expressed the same fresh delight at eighty-five.— [Ed.] 2 8 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. healthy position, to engrave, occupied the corner between the fire and a large window ; my mother sat on the opposite side, and we had our little table and chairs between them. One wing of the premises seen from this window was covered with a luxuriant tea tree, drooping in long branches, with its small purple flowers ; * on a bed just opposite was a great cinnamon rose bush, covered with bloom ; a small grass plot lay immediately under the window, and beyond were labyrinths of flowering shrubs, with such a bush of honeysuckle as I scarcely remember to have seen anywhere. Then there were beds of raspberries, gooseberries, and currants, espalier'd walks, ample kitchen garden, walls and palings laden with fruit, grass and gravel walks, a honeysuckle arbour, and an open seated summer-house ; flourishing standard fruit trees, and no end of flowers and rustic garden seats — all this world of vernal beauty, all to be enjoyed by only stepping into it, won my mother's heart in this first springtide out of London, and the country retained its hold on her affec- tions to the last. She never loved the town again, and entered fully and for ever into the truth of those lines written long afterwards by her little Jane, — " Happy the mother who her train can rear Far 'mid its breezy hills from year to year ! " Here our habits and, to some degree, our tastes were formed, and here began our education. In that little back parlour we were taught the formal rudiments, and in the garden and elsewhere, constantly under the eye of our parents, we fell in with more than is always included in the catalogue of school learning at so much per quarter. Books were a staple commodity in the house. From my mother's habit of reading aloud at breakfast and at tea, we were always picking up something ; to every conversation we were auditors, and, I think, quiet ones, for, having no nursery, the parlour would have been intolerable other- wise. There was a large room adjoining, having a glass door into it, and there, or in the garden, we were at liberty to * Lycium Barbarum, Willow-Leaved Box Thorn. Imagination in Children. 29 romp. A closet in this room was allowed us as a baby- house, round the walls of which were arranged our toys, but I must acknowledge that here we were not the aborigines, an interminable race of black ants had taken previous possession, and we could only share and share alike with them. I do not know how far children so completely invent little histories for themselves as we did. We most frequently personated two poor women making a hard shift to live ; or we were "aunt and niece," Jane the latter and I the former; or we acted a fiction entitled "the twin sisters," or another, the "two Miss Parks." And we had, too, a great taste for royalty, and were not a little intimate with various members of the royal family. Even the two poor women, " Moll and Bet," were so exemplary in their management and industry as to attract the notice of their Royal Highnesses the Princesses ("when George the Third was King.") When these two estimable cottagers were the subject of our personation, we occupied (weather permitting) either the summer-house or the ci-devant pig- sty. On the grassy ascent upon which the summer-house stood, terminating the long walk, the grass was mixed with a small plant, I fancy trefoil, but I have never been botanist enough to know ; however, its name to us was Bob, why, I cannot imagine, unless from the supposed similarity of the three letters to its three small leaves. This we used to gather for winter food, (so hard bestead were we) and the seeds of the mallow we called cheeses, and laid them up in store also. These were simple, healthy, inexpensive toys and pleasures, and, having such resources always at hand at home, and without excite- ments from abroad, we were never burdensome with the teazing enquiry, "What shall we play at ? What shall we do ? " Yet we had always assistance at hand if needed. Both father and mother were accessible, and many a choice entertainment did we owe to their patient con- trivances. My father, especially, was never weary of inventing, for our amusement or instruction. I have still a little glass case containing a cottage cut in cork, a few trees of moss, a piece of looking-glass for pond, a cork 30 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. haystack, and so forth (a Suffolk idyll) which was one of these productions. Another was a small grotto fitted up with spars and minerals. But there was one of these home-made toys which I can hardly think of now without pleasure ; it was a landscape painted on cardboard, cut out and placed at different distances, through the lanes of which, by means of a wire turning underneath, there slowly wound a loaded waggon and other carriages ; it was contained in a box about seven inches by twelve, and two in depth, with a glass in front. What became of this masterpiece of mechanism I do not know, but it greatly delighted me, and I sometimes think that I owe to it the pleasure I have felt up to this day at the sight of a tilted waggon winding along a country road * Of course my dear mother, with health never strong, and all the needlework of the household on her hands, could not undertake our entire instruction. Reading, the Needle, and the Catechism, we were taught by her, and as my father was constantly engraving at the high desk in the same room, it was easy for him to superintend the rest. We were never severely treated, though both my parents were systematic disciplinarians. But I record one instance of mistaken punishment only to show how pos- sible it is, when a child is confused or alarmed, for parents to fall into that error. It must have been when I was very young, for it was owing to a supposed obstinacy in not spelling the word thy. I had been told it repeatedly, t - h - y, in the same lesson, still at the moment it every time unaccountably slipped from the memory. My mother could only attribute it to wilful perverseness, though I believe that was a disposition I could not be charged with. She felt, however, so fully persuaded that I knew, and would not say, that she proceeded to corporal punishment, very rarely administered, but not so entirely abandoned as is the fashion now ; a fashion, as I conceive, not countenanced either by reason or scripture, so long as the child is so young as to be sensible to little beyond * It will be observed that trie intention of all these toys was the healthy excitement of the imagination, and to stimulate a taste for rural objects and the picturesque in nature. — [Ed.] A Terrible Fright. 3 1 bodily pleasure and pain. " He that spareth the rod hateth his child," but the proper season must be borne in mind. Wholly to withhold it in early childhood, and to continue it when higher feelings might be appealed to, are errors perhaps equally mischievous. Happy are they (and happy theirs) who with a nice discernment pause at the moment when affections and principles may be brought to bear. The precise hours allotted to our instruction I now forget, but they were regular, and regularly kept. I remember pleading once in vain for some temporary deviation. We breakfasted at eight, dined at half-past one, took tea at five ; then at eight we went to bed, and my father and mother supped at nine. On Sundays, however, we were indulged to sit up to supper, a treat indeed. Of our Sunday habits I am thankful to remember that, though never gloomy, they were after the olden fashion — strict. It was a day unlike to other days — a feeling I should wish to preserve as a perpetual safeguard. I will not say how much I was profited by accompanying my father, at seven o'clock on a winter's morning, to the early prayer meeting, as I conclude, to be out of the way during early duties at home. The only vivid recollection now in my memory is of the astonishing noise made by the blower in raising the vestry fire. This, with the assidui- ties of Mrs Snelling, the pew-opener, have survived the friction of much more than half-a-century. As Lavenham lies embedded in clay, and there was neither paving nor lighting, Water Street, which frequently well deserved its name, offered sometimes difficulties to Sunday chapel- goers, and not a few of the gentlemen wore pattens. A massive pair, belonging to our friend, Mr Watkinson, the tall, sedate, immoveable man, never guilty, if he knew it, of saying or doing a droll thing, was, when with his family he removed to America, given by him to my father. Occasionally, when my mother was not well enough to go from home on the Sunday, I have been left to stay with her, and one of our quiet Sundays was signalized by an incident that shook my nerves. She had fallen asleep in 32 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. the little back parlour, leaving me sole guardian of the premises. Suddenly I heard a tremendous noise some- where in the kitchen, a knocking and a battering so long and loud, that nothing less than determined burglars could account for. My mother was so poorly that I dared not wake her, and even then so deaf that she did not hear the noise. With inexpressible terror I listened and watched to see the ruffians either enter the room or emerge from the back door into the garden, and, only eight or nine years old as I might be, armed myself with the poker for the worst. If I had not happened to catch sight of the culprit at the precise moment of escape, the mystery might have remained to this day unaccounted for. But I did ; an immense dog issued suddenly with pro- digious speed from the back door with the remains of a large, deep, stone milk-jar about his neck ! Doubtless a small quantity of milk had been left at the bottom, the poor fellow had unwittingly thrust in his nose, the neck was narrow, the milk beyond his tongue tip, he thrust, and thrust, till he found himself in dreadful custody. Then began the sound that had chilled my blood as he banged his portable prison about the kitchen floor, till the bottom giving way, he made use of recovered daylight, though still with a good portion of the pot about his neck, and decamped through the garden, wearing, to my astonished eyes, something like a close cottage bonnet. Whither his terror carried him I never heard, though if he scampered through the town in such a guise I think it would have made some stir.* And another Sunday afternoon had its terror. From my earliest childhood I had a nervous apprehension of the sudden death of those about me, so that any inequality in * Jefferys Taylor afterwards versified, this incident for his ' ' ^Esop in Rhyme," ending with — " At last he broke the bottom out Of this disastrous jug, But still the dog was not without The remnant of the mug. With this the trophy of the day In haste forth trotted he, And if 'twas ever knocked away They have not told it me." Sabbath Keeping. 33 the breathing, if asleep, or anything unusual in appear- ance, excited my alarm. This time, my father being slightly unwell, I was left at home alone with him. For our mutual edification he read aloud Wilcox's Sermons, not the liveliest volume in the world, and after a time I >erceived something very singular in his pronunciation ind tone, a confusion of syllables, a lengthening and a >ause ! I thought he was going to die ! He did not die, but soon safely recovered ; yet it was years afterwards lat, recalling the symptoms of this appalling seizure, the true character of it occurred to me, my good father had >een — almost asleep ! I had always a conscience, whether or not enlightened, ret always a conscience, and especially with regard to the >abbath. One Sunday I was myself alone at home, from some trifling ailment, and employed the morning in reading little book by the Rev. George Burder, containing the " History of Master Goodchild," and various other strictly Sunday readings. Towards the end is the fable of le kite and the string, but this stopped me — a fable light not belong to Sunday reading? — and I left the >ook open at the place, till my father returned from Meeting, to know whether I might proceed. He silenced my apprehensions, while approving the hesitation. I should prefer so to educate a child as that his errors should lean to the safer side. If misconceptions cannot ilways be avoided, those which shall early imbue his feelings with a reverence for the Sabbath are at least less >erilous in their tendencies than an over liberal view in ie opposite direction. I have, as before stated, no gloomy associations with the Sundays of my childhood, >ut habits were then formed such as afford a safe ground- work on which principle may build with advantage. The time at which I began to string my thoughts (if thoughts) into measure I cannot correctly ascertain. It could not be after I was ten years old, and I think when only seven or eight, and arising from a feeling of anxiety respecting my mother's safety during illness. Not wishing (I conclude) to betray myself by asking for >aper at home, I purchased a sheet of foolscap from my C 34 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. friend, Mr Meeking, and filled it with verses in metre imitated from Dr Watts, at that time the only poet on my shelves. What became of this effusion I do not know, but I should be glad to exchange for it, if I could, any of my later ones, — " Not for its worth, we all agree, But merely for its oddity," as Swift says of learning in ladies. The earliest stanza that dwells in my memory, whether belonging to this production or not I cannot tell, is the following u Dark and dismal was the weather, Winter into horror grew ; Rain and snow came down together, Everything was lost to view." Certain it is, anyway, that from about this date it became my perpetual amusement to scribble, and some large literary projects occupied my reveries. A poetic rendering of the fine moral history of Master Headstrong; a poem intended as antecedent to the Iliad; a new version of the Psalms; and an argumentative reply to Winchester on Future Pun- ishment, were among these early projects, and more or less executed. Though from the result in substantial pecuniary benefit to ourselves (as much needed as unexpected), together with, I venture to hope, some good to others, I have great rea- son to be thankful for the habit thus contracted, yet I have certainly suffered by allowing the small disposable time of my youth to expend itself in writing rather than in read- ing. My mind was in this way stinted by scanty food. Of that I am fully sensible, and leave it as a warn- ing to whomsoever it may concern. If I had not breathed a tolerably healthy atmosphere it would have been lean indeed. But there was always something to be imbibed ; either from my mother's reading at meals, or that in which we afterwards all took turn in the workroom ; from my father's untiring aptness to teach, his regular habit of settling all questions by reference to authorities, and the books that were always passing through the family. Books at Meals. 35 Wherever my father moved there soon arose a book society, if there had not been one before. One word, however, about the reading aloud at meals. I believe my mother fostered thereby a habit of despatching hers too quickly, by which her digestion was permanently injured; and, again, it hindered our acquiring readiness in con- versation. To listen, not to talk, became so much a habit with us, as rather to impair fluency of expression — at least in speech. CHAPTER II. LAVENHAM. 1789-1795. " The simple ways in which my childhood walked." u Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up, Fostered alike by beauty and by fear." Wordsworth. Quiet, and destitute of amusement as Lavenham was, we yet had our holiday seasons and pleasures, all in keeping with life in the country. In very fine weather, the tea, or even dinner, in the garden, for which there was a choice of spots whether in sunshine or in shade, was an occasion to the children. But the great thing was a whole day's ramble, on what would now be called a pic-nic excursion — father, mother, children, and servants — my father with his pencil, my mother with a book, the servant with provisions. And wherever there was a cottage, a stump, or a tree, worth sketching, there we gathered round him (those of us who did not prefer to hunt for violets), and my mother read till the sketch was finished. Well I remember my father's signal, for attracting our notice to any slip of the " picturesque " that might catch his eye : " Lookye, lookye there?" It was certainly not his fault if my love for it was not kindled so early as might have been. Several drawings and small cards are still in my possession, the result of these happy excursions. But of all our rural holidays the most exciting was an annual visit to Melford fair. Melford was, perhaps is, a very pretty town of a single street, terminating at the upper end in a large, open, and extremely pleasant green, with respectable houses on one side, a fine old church Melford Fair. 3 7 at the top, and fringed on the other by the park of Sir Harry Parker. On this green was spread the fair, not, as my recollection serves, rude and riotous, but attracting an assemblage of respectable country people from several miles round. Yet the fair made but a part of the pleasure, for on the return walk of about four miles was there not tea at Mr and Mrs Blackadder's, a worthy couple, the per- fect personification of farmer and wife far up in Suffolk, say a hundred years ago, for they were still quite of the olden times. Their little homestead was the very centre of old-fashioned hospitality, and tea from the best china in the best parlour was no small delight. Best parlour, how- ever, I should not call it, for the "House, or houseplace" as it is called in Lincolnshire, on the other side of the en- trance, could not aspire to anything like so genteel a name. There the ' min ' were admitted to regale themselves, — master and men together after their daily labour, unless there was "company." But of the parlour the great attrac- tion for us little girls was the mysterious weather-house on the mantelpiece, from which, if fine weather was to be ex- pected there turned out "a full-dress" lady, or when storms, a gentleman. Home again, it was a pleasant three miles summer evening walk, perhaps with moonlight, all of the olden time ! Once, Jane was retained for a few days, a great treat for her, in the midst of farm occupations ; but it was with a dash of terror in the enjoyment, that she used to accompany Johnny Underwood to collect the cows for milking. Sometimes, but this was later, when my father's circumstances were becoming easy, there was tea at the " Bull " at Melford, and a drive home in a post- chaise, with its bob-up-and-down postilion, the invariable vehicle for a party in those days. For the clay-roads, however, and among the foot-deep ruts of Suffolk, a lighter vehicle was in use called a " whiskey " or a " quarter-cart." This was constructed to run beside the ruts, and the horse did not occupy the middle of either the carriage or the road, but rrn in shafts on one side, so as just to escape the heavy dragging fissure made by the waggon-wheels. Now, so long as the animal kept the track, and especially so long as the side on which he ran did not suddenly sink, 38 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. all was safe, the weight of the horse counterbalancing the sway, but if suddenly raised on the opposite side, horse and chaise would go over together. To drive a " quarter- cart," therefore, along a Suffolk road required some skill, yet, my father, who had a regular engagement to supply the drawings and engravings of the gentlemen's seats of the county, for Gedges's Pocket-Book, published at Bury, drove continually in a " quarter-cart " and never met with an accident. On the 9th or 10th of October (perhaps both), Laven- ham Fair was held in the "market place," though it boasted no market. And on the 5th of November, Guy Fawkes came out in all his glory. That night (if one may speak for another) the excitement was intense. Exactly opposite our house was the playground of Mr Blower's school, and it was matter of moment to ascertain whether the young gentlemen intended to make their annual dis- play of fireworks on the premises or in the market place. If the former, we had an excellent view from our upper windows, alloyed by only two circumstances ; the one, that the principal front of all the fireworks was directed towards a bevy of ladies assembled, for the evening, in the gardens of the bachelor clergyman ; we little people, therefore, could only rejoice in the happy free- dom of squibs, sky-rockets, and Roman candles, which confessed neither law, limit, nor politeness in their eccen- tricities. The other detraction from the pleasures of the evening, consisted in the dark uninhabited remoteness of the large chamber, from which we witnessed the exhibi- tion ; a flight of dark stairs led up to it ; a few pieces of ambiguous lumber were its only furniture, and even by daylight, I did not pass the foot of that flight without a response from my nerves. But at night ! It was only the fireworks in front, and papa and mamma behind, that rendered it tenantable. If, however, Mr Blower's young gentlemen "let off" in the market place, the interest and anxiety were greater still. We had then to be conveyed through innumerable perils by our dear, careful father, to "Bob Watson's," a fat, good-natured hairdresser, from whose large upper Dr Tom and Dr John. 39 window the view was excellent — except, that again, as fate would have it, the most brilliant Catherine wheels and every determinable article were always set, would you believe it ? — opposite the house of Mr Brook Branwhite, who possessed a numerous family of unmarried daughters ! Nay, the two young doctors, brothers, usually known as Dr Tom and Dr John, displayed exactly the same per- verseness, calculating all their effects for the same bay- windows ! very provoking, but historians must be faithful. These brothers, Dr Tom and Dr John, carried on the various departments of the medical profession for miles round Lavenham, and lived together in the same house, but, according to popular report, without ever speaking to each other ! The patients, however, were never inter- changeable. We belonged to Dr Tom, the youngest, a handsome man, wrho, as surgeon in the militia, sometimes quickened the pulses of little patients by appearing in the uniform of his regiment. For myself, he won my heart by the gift, one day, of a most diminutive pill box, a real original Dutch-made wooden pill box — not one of the paper substitutes to which we were condemned when the trade with Holland was broken up by the French war, and with which the country has remained apparently satisfied ever since — cured or killed, as before ! I have hesitated whether to give the local colloquial appellation of " Bob Watson " and others, but I am amused (as, perhaps, you may be) at the extent to which this homeliness of style was then and there carried. Whether from the seclusion of the place or the distance of the period, most of our poorer neighbours were always so spoken of: taking the cottages, as they stood nearest to us, there was Poll Porter, and Bet Carter, and Bob Nunn, Billy Joslin, and Sam Snell. Wishing, as far as I can, to photograph both place and period, this homeliness cannot be excluded. Be it remembered that it was as far back as 1786 that the sun first shone on Lavenham for me. Such as it was then, I give it you, and pleasant it was on a summer's afternoon to see the street lined with spinning wheels (not spinning-jennies, but Jennies spinning) ; every- where without, the whiz of the wheels, and within, the 4-0 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert, scrape of the shuttle, the clatter and thump of the loom at which the men were at work. Picturesqueness was got out of it all, if not gold * Upon "Bob Nunn," a journeyman carpenter, I remem- ber to have expended much compassion and worlds of contrivance, by which he was never benefited. Very early, I took to castle building, and the desolate condition of this poor man laid the first stone, as far as I can remember, of these aerial edifices. He was one of the ugliest, dirtiest, and most forlorn looking persons I can call to mind ; but withal, reputed industrious and honest, so that his misery must have sprung from an indolent, ragged, offensive, dawdle of a wife. His mud cottage, with its mud floor, and wretched destitution, were the pity of the neighbourhood. It was, therefore, a favourite speculation of mine to take him in hand, and, in some way, ridding him of his female incumbrance, I conferred upon him the advantages which industry and honesty ought to secure ; in fact, I made a new man of him. This was one of my castles, and for years, I can assure you, they were of the most benevolent and even patriotic character. I had another protege. Billy Joslin was, by trade, a hand weaver, with a wife, a clever char- woman, perhaps of doubt- ful integrity, but occasionally employed in our service. He was a member of our church, had a large family, and was worthy enough, and poor enough, to become a recipient of my bounties. For this family, I did wonders. There was a house on the common, shaded by two fine trees, which, repaired and white-washed, would be very pretty ; this, therefore, I mentally repaired and white- washed accordingly, and next, provided the family with suitable clothing, determining the number and patterns of * Along with this picturesqueness should not be forgotten the occasional horrors of a bull-baiting through these streets, when, "after due notice from the bellman, and with a hideous hubbub of yells, screams, and the barking of dogs, came the bull at a rolling trot, with a pertinacious cur or two swinging from his lip and nostril, a dozen at his heels, his scarlet eye-balls ogleing from side to side as he goes — no help or mercy for him — for it is his doom's-day ! torment to the death is the rule and reason of all this hubbub." See Isaac Taylor's "Personal Recollections," Good Words for 1864. It is singular that his sister's recollections make no reference to what, even in my own remem- brance, was a constant source of terror in certain neighbourhoods. — [Ed.} Castle Building. 4 J every article, being- greatly indebted for the colours of the little frocks required, to the diligent study of the patch- work quilt under which I slept — or should have slept, when these perplexing cares sometimes engaged me. Having thus made full preparation, I enjoyed the satis- faction of breaking to them the singular secret ; when, having them all clean and dressed, I took them in pro- cession, two and two, to their new habitation, where, I have no doubt, that I supplied any deficiency in their means of subsistence. I believe that all this good was done before I was twelve years old — perhaps I should rather say all this evil ! For what a ruinous pre-occupation of mind does it imply? The habit itself, whatever be its object, is so grievously injurious, that I would leave it, stamped with double earnestness, as a charge to my children and to theirs, never to indulge in it ; the best way being never to begin. How must they be characterised, who, passing like shadows only, among the realities of living duty, inhabit hourly, daily, and for years, a world of imagined interests, wasting mental vigour upon exertions never made, and dimming common comforts by an ever-hovering mist of vain imaginings ! When, during my youth, something like religious im- pression was made upon my mind, I felt the disadvantage, was convinced of the sin, and made severe struggles to disentangle myself from the snare in which for so many years I had been a prisoner. And for a time, I think a considerable time, I sustained the resolve ; but at length a small circumstance, nothing more than having to copy a beautiful landscape, carried me over again into fairy land, and led my musings into the seductive regions from which, as I thought, I had escaped. It had its day — a day too long — but eventually the realities of life made forcible entrance ; though duty itself has sometimes had to pioneer its way over the rough roots and broken stems of an imperfectly cleared wilderness. Oh, my foolish heart, what hast thou to say to such a retrospect ! * * It may be objected to this severe condemnation of daydreams, that in the writer's case they were evidently the result of a lively imagination, innocently 42 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. We had been in the country about three years, when my mother's yearnings to see her family and friends in London were brought to a point by the expected visit of the king (George III.) to St Paul's, to return thanks for his recovery from mental illness ; a scene of excitement little calculated to continue a sane condition, but there was probably some unacknowledged political reason for amusing the public by the fearful venture. Among the thousands who on that occasion flocked to the metropolis were my mother and her two little girls. I was then, June 1789, somewhat more than seven, and Jane not quite six years old. We were to travel by the Bury coach, which passed through Sudbury, seven miles distant, as early as seven in the morning on its road to London. Between one and two, therefore, that summer morning we left our beds in order to start by " Billy East," by which must be understood the postman's cart. Loaded, and covered in as we were, behind our single Rosinante, I soon began to feel very sick ; and being asked how I was, replied, " I am inclined for what I have no inclination to." That I should have borne this early sprout of the pun in mind for much more than half a century, seems something like a waste of memory, does it not ? Yet, if in my wis- dom I were to try and forget it now, I daresay I should not be able. My father accompanied us to Sudbury, then returning to his high desk, and the sole companionship of his promising little boy, Isaac, third of his name, my still living and well-known brother. He was at his birth (1787) a remarkably fine child, as is fully attested by a sketch taken of him when less than twenty-four hours old, by my father ; but he began immediately to pine, his death at one time was hourly expected, and a glass held working out pictures and fictions for itself, as such a faculty would be sure to do, and in preparation for a legitimate and useful exercise of it ; while, again, it did not prevent her becoming an eminently practical and active person in after life. Still, many indulge in such dreams whose imaginative powers are not of the quality which would render them in any way service- able ; and few, indeed, possess the sensitive conscience, the indomitable energy, and strength of will, which compelled and enabled her to take up the nearest duty so soon as it was plainly before her. Jane Taylor confessed and lamented the tendency. "I know," she said, "that I have sometimes lived so much in a castle as almost to forget that I lived in a house." — [Ed.] George III. at St Paul's. 43 over his mouth alone detected his breathing-. In this state Mrs Perry Branwhite insisted upon taking him to a wet-nurse, a young woman of nineteen, and the change for life was almost instantaneous. He was thenceforward carried daily to " Nanny Keble," of whom there is a small portrait, painted as a gleaner, at Stanford Rivers.* For size and beauty as a child he became after this almost proverbial. Martin, born fourteen months afterwards, was also placed out with her, and Isaac, therefore, was the only one left at home when we set out for London. Of London, and its brilliant doings, I can recal but here and there a shred. We had friends in Fleet Street, on the left hand side, looking up to St Paul's, and there we were to take our stations. A better position could scarcely have been selected from which to witness the cavalcade. We went to the house at five in the morn- ing of the 25th of June, the room, a first floor, being fitted up with seats rising from the windows a considerable height behind, but we as little folks wTere happily placed in front. There we waited, oh, so long ! There was amusement, however, in watching the throngs below less fortunate than ourselves, and the ladies in the room, many in full dress with their hair curled and powdered, and head-dresses adorned with white ribbons carrying in gold letters the words, " God save the king." At length, towards noon, the splendid pageant arrived, and fortu- nately for us a carriage with several of the princesses was detained a considerable time under our windows. They were dressed in white, and some sort of golden ornament lay in the lap of one of them. Poor things ! I have thought since, for the lot of English princesses has not always been enviable. So the cavalcade passes into the mists of memory, which refuses to produce more of that long forgotten day. The evening of the following day London was splen- * Writing now, so late as 1S65, I may point you to the graphic and grate- ful notice of " Nanny Keble," by your uncle Isaac in Good Words for 18 >.i. In a late visit to Lavenham, I had the pleasure of seeing again this poor woman, then nearly ninety, but she started up almost wildly at the name of Isaac Taylor, and said, " Yes, and there was Martin, too." — [NOTE Bl Gilbert.] 44 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. didly illuminated. We children saw a little of it in Holborn, but my poor mother was induced reluctantly to accompany a party to the India House, which was re- ported particularly brilliant, and from that night dated much of her after life of suffering. Whether from fear of fire, or some local accident, the plugs in that neighbour- hood were up and the streets under water, while, to make matters worse, in the midst of the overwhelming crowd both my mother's shoes were trodden off. Many others it seems were equally unfortunate, for in the course of the night she met a woman with a barrowful of lost shoes, amongst which she had the strange luck to pick out first one, and then the other of her own ! The cold thus taken, however, became so threatening that my father was sum- moned to town, and though she recovered the immediate effects, her health was never sound afterwards. Among the few additional circumstances which I retain of this excursion is a visit to Kensington, to see that James Martin (my mother's uncle), of whose conduct to his aged father you have heard me speak.* Yes, and my terror at passing a door in my uncle Charles Taylor's house, leading to a room, as I was told, full of " dead men's arms and legs," a terror which scarcely yielded to the information, afterwards obtained, that it was only a depositary for plaster casts. The " dead men's legs " con- tinued to speed after me, notwithstanding. My mother having sufficiently recovered, we again left London for our pleasant country home, to her with feelings how different from those under which she first entered it! It was now a home, and with the prospect of more than comfort. The work, to complete which in cheap retire- ment my father had quitted London, was a set of plates to an edition of Shakespeare, published by his brother Charles. These had been so well executed as to establish his reputation as an artist. Alderman Boydell about this time projected what was to be a great national work, cal- culated to give employment for many years to the first talent in the country, both in painting and engraving. All * In the sixth chapter, further reference is made to this painful matter, in explanation of certain passages in the " Nursery Rhymes." — [Ed.] The Pictures of Opie and S tot hard. 45 the artists of note were engaged to furnish pictures in oil, most of them illustrative of Shakespeare, and all the en- gravers followed in their wake. Upon my father showing to Mr Boydell some specimen plates of his small Shakespeare, he was immediately entrusted with a large plate (measur- ing about 24 inches by 18), the subject being the death of David Rizzio by Opie. For this engraving, an immense advance upon anything he had done before, my father was to receive 250 guineas. I have heard it said that the painter having some cause of pique against DrWalcot, the notorious Peter Pindar of the day, introduced his portrait as the principal assassin. It is possible that Peter in some of his satires may have justly incurred the rebuke. I have heard my dear father say with what a pang of depression and anxiety he contemplated so large an under- taking, which must be carried through with his own solitary hand, and upon which so much of the well-being of his family was suspended. But his was not the heart to cower before difficulties. Hope, faith, activity, patience, cheer- fulness— what a train of angel helpers! — were at his side, and to it he went. The work was admirably executed, though not without difficulties. It was necessary to send the plate frequently to London for proofs, and at every such time the painter revised it, suggesting altera- tions of effect by black and white chalk. Who but an engraver knows the doleful meaning of a " touched proof?" An alteration freely made while the painter could count ten, might cost the engraver more, probably, than as many days, or even weeks to effect. However, the plate was entirely successful, and being exhibited at the Society of Arts in the Adelphi, obtained the gold medal, and a premium of ten guineas, as the best engraving of the year.* My father was now loaded with commissions, and the * The picture from which this engraving was made was exhibited in 1862 at the great South Kensington Exposition of that year. Though considered one of the best of Opie's works it looked poor beside the engraving, which is marked by great vigour. To Isaac Taylor, who was a little boy at the time it was executed, the picture, which was of large size, recalled his favourite amusement of creeping behind the great canvas, and using it as a portentous drum. — [Ed.] 46 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. large parlour which, unoccupied, had been our play-room, became the centre of attraction to the neighbourhood. " The Pictures at Mr Taylor's " became the lions of Laven- ham. One of them, a noble picture by Stothard — the first interview between Henry the VIII. and Ann Boleyn — contained sixteen figures, rather larger than life, so that it filled the side of the room. A beautiful one by Hamilton, about eight feet by six, represented the separation of Edwy and Elgiva. That of Jaques and the wounded deer was of the same size, with many others. For engraving the Ann Boleyn the price was 500 guineas. It was now necessary to take apprentices, and two were engaged, one of whom, Nathan Branwhite, the eldest son of the schoolmaster, afterwards became an artist of repute. Both lived in the town, and did not, therefore, intrude on the comfort of the fireside, to which my father and mother would not willingly have submitted. Another room, however, was fitted up as a workroom, to which my father's high desk was re- moved ; and, as various smaller works were in hand at the time, a printing press was procured for " proving," and a young woman, glad to earn a few shillings apart from the spinning wheel, was instructed to work it; the building intended for a brewhouse being converted into a printing office for the purpose. A course of easy prosperity appeared likely now to reward my father's industry; but an immediate diffi- culty arose from the fact that our pleasant house was required by its owner, the Rev. William Cooke, and en- quiry in every direction for another was made without suc- cess. After much anxiety it was found necessary to pur- chase one close by, having ground sufficient for a garden, and with three cottages adjoining. It was in ruinous con- dition. For the entire property the purchase-money was £250, and it was to cost ^250 more to render it habitable. This work, now commenced, therefore, and with all the pleasure that a thorough contriver, architect, and gardener, such as my father by nature was, could not but feel in the seducing business of brick and mortar, paint and paper, grass and gravel. Time, thought, ingenuity, and hope were occupied to his heart's content. Here, in a home of The New House. 47 his own, contrived in every particular on his own ideas of convenience and comfort, and with a large garden laid out to his own taste, he hoped to rear his family, and spend his life. But a cloud the size of a man's hand was in the sky. On the 30th of October in this year 1792, your Uncle Jefiferys was born. Nanny Keble was then out of date, and the infant was consigned to the care of nurse Hunt, a very clean cottager living up an entry in the High Street, but open to the country behind. He was about six weeks old, when my father started on one of his annual journeys for the Pocket-Book. As usual it was in a " quarter-cart," and this time as far as Thetford in Norfolk. The season was advanced, it came on continued rain, and having no shelter, he returned with a severe cold, and rheumatic-fever ensued. It was the commencement of a time of trial, not perhaps exceeded by any of the subsequent afflictions of my mother's life. For three months he was confined help- less, and almost hopeless, to his bed. Very soon it was requisite to stop the workmen at the other house, which, close in view of the room in which my father lay, was a sight of agony to my poor mother; it stood dismantled and desolate, and with every probability that it would never be inhabited by him. On my father's personal exertions depended our entire provision. Nothing had as yet been realised beyond what was required for the purchase of the house. Two appren- tices, not sufficiently advanced to do anything but of the humblest order, were left unemployed. The four children at home, the eldest not eleven, the youngest only four years old, were left to the tender mercies of a kitchen, full of the helps and sitters-up that disorganise a house on such occasions ; while my mother, weak from her recent confine- ment, stricken in her tenderest affections, giving up in one desperate abandonment every care of which her husband was not the object, confined herself night and day with little sleep or food to his bedside. What it cost her to give up her children none can estimate who did not know the depth of tenderness with which, till then, she had de- voted herself to their interests. It was sorrow indeed! 4 8 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. I have wondered since that I was not admitted to render more assistance than I recollect was the case, but I suspect the typhoid form, which I believe the disease assumed, pre- vented this. I remember well the forlorn foreboding that was continually upon me, for, though I was not told my papa was dying, yet the daily visits of the Lavenham doctor, then those of Dr Drake of Hadleigh, and at last the summons of Dr Norford from Bury, told me of the danger ; and when on the Christmas morning I awoke and heard the bells, my first fear was that they were tolling for his death. But on Christmas-eve a special prayer -meeting was held in behalf of him of whose recovery little hope was left, and he was re- stored, as it seemed, at the supplication of the sympathiz- ing Christian friends who then assembled. On the same dreary evening, Dr Norford at his bedside, after fixing his eyes upon him, and apparently with deep attention watch- ing his pulse for a long time, — my mother breathless on his eyes and lips, said cheerfully, — "Well, sir, you are not a dying man to-night." Oh ! the moments of intense joy that sometimes sparkle like stars in the midst of trouble ! Xo seasons of what is called happiness are half so delight- ful. It was a mournful circumstance that within a month of this visit when Dr Norford's words brought life to the household, he was himself removed by sudden death. It was at the most alarming period of my father's terrible illness that the mind of my dear mother seemed on a sudden to give way. She had done and borne every- thing with indefatigable patience and energy ; a single egg in the day was for a length of time all the sustenance she could take ; she never left the room, and committed the personal attendance requisite to no other hand ; but on one of those gloomy winter days she was suddenly missing. The alarm of the whole house was very great. Mr Hickman was sent for, and at length she was found alone in the solitary meadows, walking on the brink of that dull river. He soothed and brought her home, but for an hour or two she did not seem aware of the circum- stances. She presently entirely recovered, and never sank afterwards. Her Father s Illness. 49 So at last the winter of sorrow, deeper and more gloomy than that of the season, began to break up. Relapse, it is true, came upon relapse, and I well remember the undefined terror with which, from time to time, I heard that word, but still our dear father was evidently recover- ing. With spring came hope and glimpses of happiness, and at last the workmen were summoned to the abandon- ed house again. After five months' confinement, my father once more appeared amongst us. There were large bills to pay — besides physicians' fees, £30 to the surgeon, the cost of a bushel of phials left as perquisites on our hands — innumerable derangements to rectify, anxious work to resume, and strength wasted all but to the grave to recover ; but, nothing dismayed, he took his place among various and pressing duties, with thankfulness, faith, and hope. At the mid-summer of 1793 our new house was deemed habitable, and thither, as to a new life, we were delighted to remove. By his unfailing contrivance, the house was made to suit us exactly, and the garden, beautiful and pleasant, to our heart's desire. The best parlour (a "drawing-room" was not then known in Lavenham), till a little of the pecuniary pressure was worked down, was left unfurnished at the disposal of "Ann and Jane" to whip their tops in, but the common parlour was as pretty and comfortable as it could be, with a door and a large bay window into the garden, and a sliding panel for con- venient communication with the kitchen. China closets and store closets were large and commodious ; all was so convenient, so contrived for the comfort of every day, that to live and die there was the reasonable hope, as it was the highest ambition, of my parents. The garden, too, was an especially nice one. Happily there were several well-grown trees already on the ground, and a trellis arbour covered with honeysuckle, stood on a rising ground under- neath a picturesque old pear tree. Then there was a long shrubbery walk, and an exit by a white gate and rails to the common. A poultry yard, containing sometimes seventy fowls of different sorts was on the premises behind, and an excavated and paved pond for ducks. D 50 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. To this agreeable residence, however, my mother carried a state of health, which effectually prevented her from enjoying it. Doubtless the demands made on both mind and body during my father's illness conduced to this result. But so it is, that in various ways it almost uniformly happens that the entrance upon any scene from which much has been anticipated is spoiled. The thorns and briars threatened as the spontaneous growth of a sin- smitten world seem here to be planted thickly, and with clear design to obstruct the path. Yet, though assisted by these constantly recurring intimations, how long it is before we learn effectually, if ever, that the next projected change — the home we have selected and furnished for our- selves— does not contain a single element of substantial happiness ; that it is not fitted to be our rest; that it might be a greater curse than any other if we could con- tentedly feel it to be such ! Perhaps in time, after numerous disappointments, we begin to spell out the meaning, to regard the future with chastened expectation, and to enjoy with more sobriety the comforts that are vouchsafed to us. Happy if such is the result rather than a dull unthankful impatience! But even if no obvious interference occurs with our designs, yet to every spot whither we go we carry our- selves, and with ourselves the root of evil. An ill- governed mind, and may we not say that every mind is more or less so ? cannot be entirely happy anywhere, and blessed is he who can honestly say, " I have learned in whatsoever state I am to be therewith content." Till then, " Tis but a poor relief we gain, To change the place and keep the pain." But even the Christian heart, controlled and regulated as in some degree it is, needs the constant memento. Some bitter must needs be infused into every cup of enjoyment in order to sustain in the spirit the recollection of its true character. There is but one remove respecting which a hope without alloy may be safely indulged, if even this always safely. The Pack of Cards. 5 r The scene of comfort with the prospect of temporal prosperity now before us, was such as fully to meet the quiet ambition of my parents. I sometimes heard their speculations for the future, but a change of style was not among them. Would that such were now the spirit of the times ! To live as they were, but without anxiety, and to command all that was needed for the education of their children, formed the limit of their wishes. Yet, even in such a secluded sphere, we were not quite secure from moral hazards. Our nearest neighbour was the Rev. W. Cooke, whose tenants we had recently been, and with his daughter, a sweet and beautiful girl of our own age, we became acquainted at the dancing school, the pupils of which consisted, besides ourselves, of the younger Watkinsons, and a selection from the young gentlemen of the school opposite. Our fat dancing-master — for light as might be his professional step, his reputed weight was eighteen stone — came over weekly from Bury to a room at the Swan Inn, and it has been no small pleasure to me to meet in after years with one of my dancing partners of those days, in General Addison, belonging to a Sudbury family of Nonconformists, and who showed himself to the last not ashamed of his colours. With the Cooke's we were soon at home. He was quite a clergyman of the old style, — slender in make, courtly in manners, his wife something between a fashionable and a motherly woman. The Favells, mother and daughter, generally resided with them, and during vacations young Favell, a gay good-natured Cambridge-man, fuller of amusing tricks than of qualifications for the clerical profession, for which he was training. In this family, while the elders took their evening game at cards, the children amused themselves with an old pack in the corner, and I became exceedingly fond of the diversion. About the same time an elderly lady, a relative of my mother, whose sources of amuse- ment lay in narrow compass, visited us, and we were allowed to borrow a pack of cards for her entertainment. They were returned as soon as she left, not without urgent entreaty on our part that we might have a pack of our 52 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. own. My wise father firmly refused. He believed in the " stitch in time." Bury St. Edmunds fair, was a mart for all the surround- ing country. There, not " dresses " but " gowns " were bought, destined not for the dressmaker, but the "mantua- maker." Prints of 3s. 6d. per yard, calendered, as we now do our chintzes and curtains, made handsome " gowns " for a married lady, a square neck-handkerchief of book muslin, duly clear-starched, being pinned over the dress. It was one of our Autumn holidays to drive over in a post- chaise and spend a day at Bury fair, making necessary purchases. There our winter clothing, as well as my first wax doll, were bought. On one occasion when, after dining at an inn, our chaise was ordered for the return, troops of enviable holiday-makers were flocking into the theatre opposite. We were urgent again, "just for once," but again my father refused. In these cases the narrow end of the wedge may have been in his mind, and the remembrance may be worth preserving. At the Watkinsons', grave people as they were, there were Christmas dances, and of course at the Cookes', but to these we were too young to be invited. On one occasion, however, we were allowed, under my mother's wing, to go to what was called a dance. It was at a farm house, to the family of which we had been intro- duced under circumstances illustrating the habits of the place and time. The small-pox was not allowed to make its appearance within an inhabited district. A singularly deplorable building, at a short distance on the road to Bury, was appropriated to the reception of cases occur- ring among the poor of Lavenham ; nor shall I forget the feeling of mingled terror and mystery with which we regarded it, if ever we passed within sight of this forlorn receptacle of disease and misery. But from the same rule, when respectable families had resolved on innoculation, it was necessary to take lodgings for the purpose at a dis- tance from the town. Mr Coe, of the farm house referred to, was about to innoculate his own family, and it was decided that my mother and I should remove thither, in charge of my three young brothers, that they might A Farmhouse Dance. 53 submit to the anxious process. (My sister and I had passed favourably through it in London.) As none throughout the household were seriously ill, the sojourn amongst them was more of a holiday than anything else ; and now at Christmas we were invited to the dance, where no less than, sixty rural belles and beaux assembled. The chamber of arrival was thickly strewn with curl papers, my own hair was dressed as a wig two or three inches deep, hanging far down the back, and covering the shoul- ders from side to side, a singular fashion which I have lived to see re-appear among my grandchildren. Perhaps I had better confess that, though having learned to dance, an advantage not general to the company, I might have expected some appreciation as a partner, the full-formed easy figures, glowing complexions, and merry eyes of the farmers' daughters, were undeniably more in request. There was one among them that, if my impressions are correct, was in all respects the most beautiful young woman I have ever seen. I am now in my eightieth year, where is she ? Her history, whatever it has been, we may be almost sure is closed. To me it is very impressive to review the associates of my childhood with the thought — still existing — gone somewhere — but whither ? I have frequently adverted to a nervousness of imagina- tion, from which, indeed, I have suffered through life. The mention of Hadleigh, the residence of Dr Drake, of literary celebrity, recals to my mind a torment of my childhood, with which one of the martyr-worthies of the reign of Queen Mary, Dr Rowland Taylor, who was rector of that place, had* some connection. Low, sloping hills rise on almost every side of Hadleigh, and from their summits may be seen the winding river, the green meadows, the substantial bridge, and the ancient houses of the town ; a steep lane, between banks, leads up to Oldham Common, where an old rude stone bears this inscription : — 1555- Dr. Taylor, Defending that was goode, At this place left his Blode. 54 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. He had been taken to London and imprisoned in the Compter. After degradation by Bishop Bonner, and an affecting interview that evening with his wife and children, the sheriff and his officers led him forth in total darkness, for it was two o'clock on the morning of the 6th of Feb- ruary, to the Woolsack Inn in Aldgate, " but " — here I quote from a brief biography — " as he passes through St. Botolph's Churchyard, his wife and two little girls are waiting, shivering with cold. They spring out to meet him, and they four kneel down to pray for the last time. He gives them parting counsel and his blessing, kisses his children and his wife, and the brave woman says, ' God be with thee, dear husband, I will, by God's grace, meet thee at Hadleigh.' At this spectacle the sheriff weeps, and the officers, strong men as they are, are bowed down. And now, committed to the custody of the sheriff of Essex, and guarded by yeomen and officers, the prisoner is placed on horseback, and the cavalcade moves on to Brentwood, to Chelmsford, and so to Lavenham. Two days are spent at Lavenham, the last halting-place. Many gentlemen assemble there and try to turn him to Popery. Pardon, preferment, even a bishopric are offered him, but all in vain." And so he passes on to Oldham Common, but a few miles off, is chained to the stake, and breathes out his last words amidst the flames, ' Father, for Jesus' sake, receive my soul.' " Familiar with this mournful narrative, a nervous terror fell upon me whenever I had to pass the old brick build- ing in which Dr Taylor was said to have been confined. It stood at some distance behind a wall, so that I could see little of it except the upper storey — in my time, I fancy, a hay loft. In this was an opening, not exactly a window, but an orifice closed by shutters of time-black- ened boards, sometimes left open, and disclosing a dark un- known— the very chamber, as I either heard or supposed, in which the martyr had been immured ! Whenever I had to pass this haunted spot alone, I well remember that I always ran. You will wonder that I have not been fright- ened to death long ago. You will understand, at least, why I so regularly refuse to listen to a ghost story. Imitates of the New House. 5 5 We had, in our new house, a large room, running the entire length of one part of the building, this was appro- priated to business. My father's high desk was placed at the upper end ; a row of windows facing the yard, was occupied by the apprentices, and another, overlooking the garden, was filled by the children pursuing their educa- tion, with whom, two or three times a week, were associated some of the juniors of the Watkinson family, to share advantages which were now well understood by our neighbours. One young lady became an inmate for a time, who was endeavouring to learn the art of Engraving, to which, however, neither her taste nor her health proved equal. Another addition, too, was made about this time, in a Mrs Salmon, a sister of the Dr Norford who has been mentioned. Her history was singular and mournful. Early in life, she had been on the stage, had married an officer, and accompanied him to America during the war there; she was now a widow, in nearly destitute circumstances, and having been brought through accumulated trials to her " right mind," had fallen, in some way, among the Christian people at Lavenham. My father and mother, much interested in her condition, offered her a temporary home under their roof, and her lively manners and variety of anecdote, rendered her a not undesirable guest. Our house was thus a scene of active and intelligent industry, and our circle not wanting in diversity of interest, yet notwithstanding our numerous household (to which Nathan Branwhite was now added), we never kept more than one servant ! Incredible, and therefore impossible it would be thought now, yet the home of my childhood was not disorderly. We were always punctual as to time as well as early, in part, perhaps, the secret of this creditable state of things ; and though, during the ten years at Lavenham, we had our share of indifferent or unworthy servants, we had the good fortune to have, at least, two who deserved the favourable mention made of them by my mother, in her " Present to a Young Servant," under the names of Susan Gardener and Sarah Leven ; both remained with us till they married. and the latter came occasionally afterwards. Needlework 56 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. was never put out, but the abundant ornament now thought necessary for children, was happily not thought so then. My mother used to say that " a child is pretty enough without trimmings." Yet, with all this activity, my mother suffered con- stant pain, and at this time, though drives two or three times a week were recommended, the jolt over a small stone in the road was almost more than she could bear. It was determined, therefore, that, leaving Mrs Salmon to act as housekeeper, she should visit London, and take the best advice there. My father, mother, and I, then twelve years old, made up the party, and remained in lodgings at Islington about a month. She derived, however, little benefit from the treatment prescribed. But it was at this time that I was first introduced to the valued friends of my youth, Susan and Luck Conder, the only surviving children of Mr S. Conder of Clapton. A distance of more than half a century, and half the globe, has not yet severed associations then formed. Their father and mother, even before their marriage, had been the friends of both my parents, and it gives me pleasure to feel that the entail has not yet been cut off. The changes of situation, and too often of feeling which frequently terminate early friendships, are, to me, peculiarly painful to contemplate. It is true that, in many instances, the local associations of childhood and youth are better dropped than continued ; moral differences may widen, and tastes so opposite may develope themselves, that continued intimacy might be as burdensome as dangerous. But where it is only that one party has been fortunate, the other unfortunate, the separation is mournful indeed. How much more so when the inequality divides the brothers and sisters of the same nursery ! I please myself in the belief that, among you, dear children, there is a feeling too deeply fraternal and sisterly to fear much from the blights of time or circumstance. Still, who shall predict the irritations, supposed or actual wrongs, which, as life sweeps roughly over you, may inter- rupt the harmony ! " The mother of mischief is no bigger than a midge's wing," and, as in a sea bank, you would dread Troublous Times. 57 a fissure, however small, rid yourselves with loving1 inge- nuity, speed, or sacrifice, of the first feeling of suspicion, of jealousy, or any of the thousand wedges, hot from a forge below, by which hearts and families are sundered, — above all, dreading the "wedge of gold." Ah, I cannot help pausing over the bitter possibility, and by all the tender- ness that consecrates a voice from the grave, would entreat you not to allow a breach to commence. Will circumstances never arise to try the elasticity of affection ? strange if they do not! But are you obliged to succumb to them ? No, you were born probationers. Life is but one advancing trial ; the best of its possessions have to be paid for — some by industry, privation, suffering ; others, and the best of all, by forbearance, self-control, self- denial ; by the reflections and resolves of a rational and Christian mind. Habituate yourselves to realise the feelings natural to those around you, and deal as tenderly with them as with your own. Above all, and may that be the master key to all your hearts, " Be tender, be pitiful, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you." So prays your mother, living and amongst you, so, with intensity of emphasis, would she pray, if allowed to address you from her final resting-place. But to return to Lavenham. A change of weather was in the sky, and it blew from different quarters. The Revolution in France had produced, in England, universal ferment, and with it, fear. Parties in every nook and corner of the country bristled into enmity, and the dis- senters, always regarded as the friends of liberty, fell under the fury of toryism, exploding from the corrupt under-masses of what, in many places, was an all but heathen population. " No Press, no Press," meaning no Presbyterians, was the watchword of even our quiet town. Troops of ill-disposed, disorderly people often paraded the streets with this hue-and-cry, halting-, especially, at the houses of known and leading dissenters. On one occasion, as has been related, both in my sister's "Life" and in my brother's "Recollections," our house was only saved from wreck by the appearance of our clerical neighbour, Mr Cooke, at his door, with a request to the 58 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. vagabond concourse to pass on, but the credit of which interference he entirely disclaimed to my father when he went to thank him the next day, coolly giving as his reason that Mrs Cooke's sister was unwell at the time, and the disturbance might have been injurious to her. And it was not from an ignorant populace only that danger was to be apprehended. A system of oppres- sion and espionage was adopted, which threatened to violate the free privacies of life. No one felt safe in expressing a political opinion, even at his own table, if a servant stood behind his chair. The shades of Muir and Palmer raised a warning finger in even the least suspect- ing companies. The safeguards of Habeas Corpus were removed, and the counsel once given, " let them that are in Judea flee unto the mountains," seemed fearfully appro- priate to the day. America was the home of safety to which all who could emigrate began to cast a longing eye, and under the conviction that England would become less and less of a mother country to her children, our friend, Mr Watkinson, to the inexpressible regret and loss of the circle with which he was connected, announced his intention of transplanting his family to that land of liberty. Of Mr Watkinson's twelve children, one daughter had married a gentleman holding a farm not far from Laven- ham, and not only did they consent to share the removal, but others, to the number of sixty in the neighbourhood, took advantage of the convoy, and left at the same time. It was the first serious breach upon the prosperity of our little church, and it was speedily followed by another. This was in 1794, when "Ann and Jane" were respectively twelve and eleven years of age ; yet the correspondence was kept up with their friends across the water, till the death of Jane Taylor in 1824, broke one link of the friend- ship, and that of Ann Watkinson in 1835, the other. Though Mr Watkinson was eminently the wealthy man of the congregation, my father was the friend from whom, when quarter day did not come quite soon enough, the minister was accustomed to borrow. If in need of tempo- rary assistance in this way, Mr Hickman would come into Other Peoples Secrets. 59 the workroom, and exhibit five or ten fingers on the edge of my father's desk, when the dumb show would be adroitly responded to without exposing the business to children, apprentices, or standers by. My father and mother made early confidants of us in their own affairs, but they held it to be neither kind nor wise to be equally frank with the affairs of others. Our children they thought are not their children, and this to them makes all the difference. My mother had a truly Christian delicacy in these respects, and used frequently to say, " People excuse themselves by saying, it was only my husband, only my child, to whom I told it ; but unless it were your husband ox your child, this renders it not a whit more agreeable to the confiding friend." My mother, who was anything but reserved, made a strong distinction between concerns simply her own, and those with which she might be entrusted. Let me add a word upon this. There are two things in our intercourse with society which it behoves us to keep in mind : one is, that a burdened spirit in the relief afforded by communication and sympathy is sometimes led into disclosures which may afterwards be sorely regretted. It should be felt binding, therefore, on the honour of the receiver to hold sacred even an implied confidence. Many little occasions may arise trying to this integrity of friendship ; but they are moments of temptation. Remember that for the short-lived pleasure of telling, you barter the approval of your own heart, and forfeit, if it come to light, the confiding esteem of your friend. Remember, too, that once told, neither skill nor regret can recall the wrong. The thing is known, will always be known, and unless others have more delicacy than yourself, it will also spread. The other point refers to such a case as this : you have come into possession of some scandal, by which the standing of persons within your circle is irrecoverably lowered, though it may have occurred early in life, or been followed by a complete change of character, or years of consistent usefulness ; and then some stranger has scarcely set foot in the locality when you are impelled to dole out to him all the grievous 60 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. history ! A mischief this as irreparable, as it was need- less, has been committed ; the disgrace of the unconscious victim is handed on, and no length of blameless conduct can avail to deliver him from the grip his sin has got upon his name. No doubt there are cases in which it becomes a painful duty to instruct a stranger in the real character of persons to whom he may be unsuspectingly introduced, but let it be seen to, that such is the necessity, before the wrong be done. It was at this juncture, when infidelity and crime seemed to have come forth with shameless ferocity, that the Missionary society (not to mention the Bible Society) took its rise. Its history you will better learn elsewhere, but it is curious to recollect the hesitancy with which it was met. Mr, afterwards DrBogue, was among the first actual movers in this great Christian enterprise. If only permission from Government could be secured he wished to transport himself as a missionary to India, but great objection was in the way, and application was made, I conclude, to the churches generally, to unite in petitions to Government to that effect. The strange proposal was discussed in our parlour between Mr Hickman and my father; and forward as he was in every good word and work, I remember the doubt with which he entertained it. Could it be a duty ? was it not running before Providence ? and so forth. Where could the antiquated christian be now unearthed, whom we could find harbouring such suspicions ? What hath God wrought ! From such a state of feeling generally towards the great missionary work, it might be supposed that vital religion did not exist in the country. But the suspicion would be as unjust as it may appear natural. The religion of the State — that by law established — was indeed snoring in its sleep, or if a little more awake, was speaking only the great swelling words of vanity, which the pet of kings and statesmen is sure to utter. It is true there were Scotts and Newtons to be found weeping for the evils by which they were surrounded, and diffusing a clear light within limited spheres ; but as far as, either at Lavenham, or afterwards at Colchester, my own knowledge extended, State of Religion. 6 1 it might be charitable not to depict the character of our authorized teachers generally. It was more than half a century earlier than the period to which I refer, that Wesley and Whitfield darted, as by electric flash, the light of heaven through the stagnant masses of a church-going population, and from that time vital religion found new homes. Brutal, senseless opposi- tion could not extinguish a work that was of God, and the good of Methodism will survive whatever may become of it as a system. But it was of the Independent Churches that I knew the most, and many were the excellent of the earth who found a shelter among them. They had, how- ever, been hemmed in by early persecution, they were isolated in narrow localities, and had yet to learn, among other things, the practical meaning of those words, " Go ye into all the world." The command had been addressed to the earliest church, but seemed now quietly consigned to the churches of times yet long to come. But day was dawning, and the injunction was at length spelt out and obeyed. But I shall finish my life before my memoir if I indulge in these perpetual digressions. The sore feeling which had been excited in the church at Lavenham by Mr Hick- man's marriage, and the removal about the same time of so many from the congregation by the Watkinson exodus to America, decided him shortly after, to surrender his little charge under the walnut trees, and to accept an in- vitation from another church. There was still a nucleus of intelligent hearers, but little prospect of sufficient sup- port for a respectable minister; and under these circum- stances a suggestion was made which it might have been wise to adopt. My father had been for several years a deacon in much esteem, and during the occasional ab- sences of Mr Hickman had been accustomed to conduct a service in the hall of our house, which, on such occasions, was generally well filled. His early aspirations had been directed to the ministry; his qualifications both as a chris- tian, and a man of thought and knowledge were probably superior to what the church as now situated would be likely to secure, and he had, moreover, the opportune ad- 6 2 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. vantage of an income which would relieve its now crippled resources. It occurred, therefore, to Mr Hickman to pro- pose him as a successor. But it was not to be. The ministers and churches of the neighbourhood did what they could by opening their pulpits to my father to sanc- tion the proceeding, but the majority of the Lavenham church apparently could not brook that a fellow-member should thus become their minister.* Yet by this means, a door was opened to ministerial labour elsewhere. In the course of his above-mentioned services in the neighbourhood my father preached on Sun- day at Nayland, a small place within six miles of Colches- ter, and on Monday walked over to look at the interesting old town. There he met with a Lavenham friend, who, hearing how matters stood, immediately formed the design of transplanting him into his own locality. There was at the time (besides the influential " Round Meeting " as it was called) a small congregation of Presbyterian origin, which had degenerated into a condition, not so intellectual, but as cold as Unitarianism. There was a good building, some small endowment, and two or three substantial * It should be remarked that, though unusual, the selection of a minister from among the members of a church is legitimate according to the principles of the Independent Body. They believe the ministry to receive appoint- ment and authority directly from the Church ; and by the Church — they under- stand, according as they think to Scriptural precedent, and primitive Catho- lic tradition — "a body of believing men and women who enter into open recog- nised relation with each other for the purposes of common worship, mutual edification, and combined Christian service ; and who under a freely consti- tuted government, in submission to the law of Christ, maintain the ordinances, and sacraments, and discipline enjoined by his law." Such a Church (dis- tinct from the congregation of hearers only), they hold, must be a local and limited body, but bound to associate with other churches similarly constituted, so as to form the Catholic Church of Christ, and to exhibit to the world its true unity. Ordination is the solemn recognition and sanction of the choice of the par- ticular church, by the ministers of churches of the same order, and is fre- quently accompanied by the laying on of hands. But the selection of a mini- ster in the manner proposed to the church at Lavenham is exceptional, since special education for the office is in most cases desirable. A young man wishing to devote himself to the ministry is recommended by the Church, of which as an essential condition he must be a member, to one of the colleges instituted for ministerial training. The course of instruction varies from four to six years, and the candidate is then eligible for the pastorate over any church which may call him to the charge. — [Ed.] Her Father visits Colchester. 63 families; while a return to something like evangelical sen- timents seemed the only chance of revival. It happened that a Monday evening lecture was held at the Methodist Chapel, and the Lavenham friend arranged that my father should be invited to officiate, while some of the principal members of the vacant church were apprized that a stranger would preach that night, who might be available if they wished. It illustrates the state of feeling with re- gard to Methodism, that one of them confessed to having hidden himself behind a pillar to hear the sermon, from shame of being seen at a Methodist Chapel ! So, however, it came about that my father was scarcely at home again before the friend who had been so active in the matter ap- peared, commissioned, if practicable, to secure his services. My mother foresaw at a glance the speedy termination of all her hopes and plans for Lavenham, and her heart sank at the prospect that was opened. She disliked both change and publicity. To the country she had now be- come deeply attached, and to exchange the domestic privacy which her deafness and constant suffering ren- dered additionally grateful, for a conspicuous station in a large town was a grievous trial. But she was not the woman to suffer tastes and feelings to interfere with duty. My father preached his first Sunday sermon at Colchester on the 1st of November 1795; and on the 20th of January, 1796, Jane and I took leave of the pleasant home of our childhood at Lavenham, commencing with the new era, the perils, the follies, the enjoyments, the vanities of youth! " Oh Lord, remember not against me the sins of my youth nor my transgressions!" [Ed. — Seventy-five years, and more, after the last-men- tioned date, two grandsons of Mr Taylor set off one after- noon from Hadleigh, to walk to Lavenham. They took the ten miles by pleasant footpaths, that wandered up and down from village to village, noticing among the cheerful Suffolk cottages, the gable ends, and projecting storeys, and thatched roofs, and embowered porches, familiar t<> them in their grandfather's sketch-books. 64 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. Towards evening, a lofty tower rose in the distance, and marked where Lavenham stood. - But the way soon sank into a wooded hollow, where uncared-for timber, avenues all overgrown with weeds and bushes, and a de- serted mansion — it had been years in Chancery — seemed to burden the air with memories. A footpath traversed meadows where lavish herbage concealed a silent stream, and suddenly the dun roofs of a small town, with almost as many trees as houses came into view — the lordly tower retreating to the left. They then recognised in the " solitary meadows, and the dull stream," the scene of the wife's anguish during the supposed death-illness of her husband. A street of low nodding houses strayed upwards from a small common. Upon the gable fronts, elaborate devices in plaster work, bulging with age, justified the dates they carried — 1690-1695, and so on; while some black carved doorposts, or cornices thick with whitewash, indicated dates still earlier. No spinning-wheels encumbered the pavement, but the sound of the handloom and the song of the girl weaver were heard from several open windows; the fabric, however, was only horse-hair. A succession of lanes branching off, and all climbing upwards, were bordered as much by old gardens and orch- ards as by houses; while these, again, were sometimes cottages, and sometimes many-peaked mansions. At the foot of one such lane the travellers stopped and gazed with curious interest, puzzled by alterations, and, yet, with a dreamlike consciousness of identity. " Is this Shilling Street?" they asked. "Yes, sure," replied an ancient; but he was not quite ancient enough to tell all they wanted, and further on, a lean old man, resting upon the dilapidated steps of a doorway, was referred to as a better authority. " Yes, yonder was Cooke's house, and he had heard say that a Mr Taylor once lived there, and in the one next below, too." "And which was Mr Meeking's?" "Why, here to be sure, this very door, but it's not as it used to be, you see; it was all one then from end to end." It was somewhat difficult to choose quarters for the night; one or two antiquated inns, of which the "Swan" The Two Old Houses. 65 was one, showed gaping- gateways, where the London wag- gon might erst have rumbled in, but bed-rooms looked fusty and forlorn. They found accommodation at last, where the ceiling of one large chamber was richly de- corated, and a recurring device showed that the house must have had something to do with the " Springes," a name older than the fifteenth century in Lavenham, and of great note in woollens — now perpetuated as "Spring Rice." Morning, in the market place, showed it crowning a knoll, from which lanes of old houses dropped down on every side, an old-world town. At one corner a very picturesque half-timbered house, quaintly carved, went by the various names of the " Guild Hall," its first designa- tion, the " Poor-house," and Mr 's wool store. Con- nected with its premises at the back was a weird old building, abutting on a wall, and answering to the descrip- tion of Dr Rowland Taylor's last resting-place on his way to the stake at Hadleigh. But the two houses that had belonged to their grandparents were of course the chief attraction to the visitors. One of them, " Cooke's House," the earliest and the longest occupied, was in all the antiquated condition that could be desired, though show- ing a decent front to the lane. The large parlour, where Stothard's and Opie's great gallery pictures used to rest against the wall, lacked only them. The little work-room where Ann and Jane sat at their lessons, while the father handled his graver and the mother sped her needle, was, like all the rest, intact. The house gables towards the garden were a tangled mass of luxuriance — vine, and pear, and jasmine, and many coloured creepers, and the garden itself, abundant in careless flower and fruit, stretched away into an orchard of grey-stemmed trees and cool grass. Upstairs they explored rambling ghostly rooms, one of them that in which the Isaac Taylor, most known of the name, was born. It looked over to the second house inhabited by his father. This was too modernized to retain much interest, though work-room and printing- room and the place of the charming old "bay window" could still be recognized. The Branwhites, and Watkin- sons, and Meekings were remembered names in the place ; E 66 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. an honoured representative of the latter occupying the Watkinson's house. The venerable depopulated gram- mar school, slumbered among its walnut trees. In Water Street, the water course was now controlled or hidden, and pattens would no longer be needed to reach the Meeting-house, lying back from the street, but now replaced by a carpenter's yard. In the evening, the church, a grand edifice standing on a hill apart, was visited. The tower, lofty and massive as a castle keep, shewed, on nearer view, that it was intended to carry pinnacles, of which the bases only remained. The explanation lay in a half-demolished tomb before the church door, described as that of the architect, killed by falling from the tower's " dreadful height," upon which, in consequence, not another stone was laid. Notes of an organ, and of choristers, drew the visitors within, where a few lights mingled with the yellow dusk. The chanting ceased, and a voice was heard reciting, — " And he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ," and the listeners thought that among the ancestry they were come to honour were some who had worthily filled more than one of those noble offices.] _. v-- ir\ CHAPTER III. COLCHESTER. 1795-1798. ''■ Not wholly in the busy world, nor quite Beyond it." .... TENNYSON, The Gardeners Daughter. "And I must work thro' months of toil, And years of cultivation." Ibid., Amphio7i. To remove from a country seclusion like that of Laven- ham to a gay and busy garrison town such as Colchester, was to a girl of fourteen a move of some peril. My father, as before, had been our pioneer, and he had succeeded in obtaining a house with a garden, almost the only advan- tage for which my mother and he were disposed to stipulate. But it was nearly in the centre of the town, in a street which, though narrow and disagreeable at one- end, became wider, and owned several excellent houses at the other. Ours was among the excellent houses, but it was not one of them. It was just respectable, and would just hold us ; and the garden, not a small one, contained some well-grown trees. Speedily, under my father's hand, it showed grass plots, and winding walks of good Essex gravel, a white seat, a vine-covered arbour, and so forth, besides laburnums and lilacs that warm my heart to think of even now. Our travelling party consisted of my mother, Ann, Jane, Isaac, Martin, Jefferys, and our favourite cat. Of myself I cannot think as other than stiff and awkward, as I was certainly thin and pale, though enjoying good health, and a strength beyond that of my companions generally. Jeflferys was a delicate child of three, for he had suffered from measles, whooping cough, and fever 6S Memorials of Mrs Gilbert successively. The beauty of the party was the cat, as " Beauty" was her name, but she became so unwell a few weeks after our arrival that it was deemed best to consign her to a watery grave. She was taken down two or three lanes to the river, a brick was tied round her neck, and she was thrown into the stream. The next morning, however, she appeared at our back door in excellent health (perhaps the earliest " water cure " on record.) Not the least puzzling circumstance was her scenting out the new dwelling in the midst of the strange town. Yet a far more extraordinary instance of sagacity was related of a cat belonging to a lady of Lexden, two miles from Col- chester. This lady also possessed a house in Bedford Row, London, to which she was in the habit of removing for the season. The cat always travelled with her, but on one occasion was forgotten and left behind in London ; yet within a fortnight she made her appearance at the country-house in Lexden. By what means had she steered her way over the sea of roofs and hedges interven- ing between one home and the other ? Many similar exploits, however, are related of dogs, and I do not know — does anybody ? — why cats should not be as clever. On arriving at Colchester we were located for a few days under the hospitable roof of a Mr Mansfield, one of the deacons, a worthy man of some property, a manufac- turer of " says" and baize, the former a sort of poor flannel, then the lingering staple of the town* Here we were struck with the singular concatenation of relationship among those who assembled to greet the new minister's family — it was my "Cousin Dolly" and my "Cousin Jerry," &c, without end.-f- Mr and Mrs Mansfield com- pleted their wedding jubilee soon afterwards, when house and garden were thrown open to all comers, and they * The "bay" and "say" manufacture was brought into Colchester in 1570 by eleven Dutch families flying from the Alva persecution. "Say" was a kind of serge, all wool, much used abroad by the "religious" for shirts, and by the English Quakers for aprons. The word is said to be derived from sagum, a soldier's coarse cloak, or a kind of blanket. t The remarkable consanguinity mentioned was, no doubt, due to the Huguenot immigration, as also to some extent were the Nonconformist communities. — [Ed. ] The Last Doll-house. 69 were filled with children, grandchildren, great grand- children, and relations in every degree. With as much speed as possible our new residence was got into order, and only a month after we had entered it, my brother Decimus, the tenth child of my parents, was born. He was a dear quiet little fellow, and, though dying from scarlet fever when little more than five years old, he lived long enough to leave a trace, and his loss a thorn in my memory, up to the present time. It surprises me to remember that, although now at the womanly age of fourteen, one of my first cares, in conjunc- tion with Jane, was to fit up a closet in our bed-room as a doll's house. That this was a pleasure shortly to wane we did not foresee. The closet was duly furnished, but it did not do; and I remember the pang of regret and dis- appointment with which the discovery broke upon me that dolls and doll's houses did not maintain their interest for ever. The closet was arranged, but, that done, we could never enjoy it afterwards. The new interests of Colchester consigned the doll regime to oblivion. Yet I never could sympathize with the philosophy which pro- scribes the doll. What harm does it do ? Certainly in our own case it did not interfere with or curtail the pro- cesses of an assiduous education. No more time was expended in the doll house than formed a reasonable relaxation, and many were the good results, with, as far as my convictions reach, no bad ones. A cheerful use of the needle is acquired in dressing these innocents ; much thought, contrivance, arrangement, and prelusive affection are brought into play ; and the natural avidity with which a little girl, left to her own choice, seizes, caresses, loves a doll, seems to indicate the suitableness of the amusement. Yes, do let the little girl alone, she knows about it better than you do. For my part, I like the old-fashioned arrangement ; that children precede adults — girls women It is prettier, at any rate. I have already remarked that, from whatever cause, my local recollections of Lavenham appear always as if under a cloudy day ; though certainly not because I was unhappy there. Those of Colchester, however, never present them- yo Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. selves but as bright and warm with a summer's sun. I do not use the terms figuratively, they express the real colouring with which the two scenes are suffused when- ever they appear to my mind's eye. It is a nice old town, and the country has just that cheerful pleasantness about it which is inviting to the evening walk or the social ramble. The town, clean, open, and agreeable, is situated on a healthful gravelly hill, descending towards the north and east, commanding from many points a view of the Colne, the meadows through which it winds, and the horizon fringed with wood — "the High Woods," which formed the most delightful portion of our longer evening excursions. But in this direction I am told that the engineer has been defacing with his iron lines, and brick station houses, one of the prettiest spots, and, to our memories, one of the dearest in the whole vicinity. Yet I must not be unjust to the beautiful village of Lexden, ter- minating a pleasant walk west of the town, or the ornate path through Lexden springs. Innumerable happy asso- ciations place them among the brightest of our mental pictures. Large barracks adjoined the town on its southern side, and an air of business and activity was given to the place as a great military station, while the High Street was quite a gay promenade. The music of the evening bugle is still a pleasant note in my ears, as well as that of the eight o'clock curfew bell from the tower of Old St Nicholas. The castle, which, in one shape or another, has braved the storms of a thousand winters, forms the conspicuous feature from the northern meadows, as well as a giant poplar towering above the broken ivied tower of St Martin's Church, and denoting, within a few yards, the house in which we resided. Colchester was quite remark- able for its churches. Though containing not more than 14,000 inhabitants, the town was divided into fourteen parishes, and there were still twelve churches, more or less dismantled, and with dilapidations dating from the rough work of the civil wars, especially of the siege by Fairfax. Large portions of the town walls remained entire ; and the fine ruins of St Botolph's Priory and St John's Gate, Her Father s Ministry. Ji added to the picturesque and historical interest of a place which was full of interest for both antiquary and artist. The number of chapels, at the time we knew Colchester, was small. Dissent there was not many-headed, but neither was it intelligent, nor of a sort to promise increase. There was a tendency to " high doctrine," (leaving a low sediment,) in most of the congregations. In the large old " Round Meeting," holding about a thousand people, and generally well filled, there was an elderly, heavy, unattrac- tive minister, under the singular chant of whose slow, monotonous delivery the young people of his charge just thought their own thoughts, and considered they had paid sufficient respect to Sunday. Indeed, so sad was the state of things when we entered Colchester, that no young person of good education, position, and intelligence, was associated in the membership of any Nonconformist church in the town. In our own congregation there were a few substantial families, and two or three wealthy individuals, but these were the only present materials. The dissenters of the town were men of habit more than men of piety, and few knew or thought why they dissented. This con- dition, however, did not continue ; many felt there was a reason before they saw it, and the consciousness of a prin- ciple came at last. Among the twelve churches in the town the ministrations at one only were accounted evan- gelical, at that time the sole form of life in the Establish- ment, and the abilities of the clergyman officiating there, excellent man as he was, were about as commonplace as were likely to obtain holy orders. Of the clergyman of our own parish, the Rev. Yorick S , I can only record the sacerdotal-looking but very portly figure, the rotundity of which was the more striking, from his habit of walk- ing with his hands behind him, and which occasioned at last his melancholy end ; for not observing thereby an open cellar, he fell into it, and was killed! "Alas, poor Yorick ! " In those early days my father, in such an atmosphere, had certainly much to struggle with, and the decay of religious sentiment in the place that had chosen him for its minister might afford ground for suspicion that he J 2 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert, could scarcely be quite sound himself. At his ordination, however, which took place April 21, 1796, his orthodoxy was sufficiently attested by the presence and assistance of many known ministers, and thenceforward no apprehen- sion of the sort could be honestly entertained. My father's manner, though always methodical, still had more of animation and extempore freedom than was then known in the town ; so that, though the place was somewhat large, his Sunday evening lectures were crowded, and at last it was arranged that they should circulate among the three congregations, the other ministers taking their turn. The intervening evenings thus left at liberty my father employed in village preaching, these evening services being in addition to the regular morning and after- noon ones at home. There were, however, no societies, no committees, no public meetings on the week days to divide his attention or expend his strength ; but the labours requisite for the maintenance of his family, along with the necessary ministerial preparation, more than fully occupied his time. We were many to provide for ; the two apprentices still formed part of the family, and at this time a change was passing over the country — over Europe, I should say — which blighted the prospects of almost all the artists, young and old. Engraving had offered so fair an opening just previous to the French war, that almost every family having a son who could draw, hastened to place him with an engraver, as in later times, every likely lad has been for trying his skill as an engineer. But the foreign market being suddenly closed by the war, a fearful stagnation in art employment was the consequence. The larger works were at once discontinued, and book engrav- ing was carried on in a very small way, while troops of young men, just entering their profession, and sorely needing bread and cheese, were glad to engage in it at almost any prices. My father, at fifty miles distance from London, was naturally at a great disadvantage in the struggle, and a grievous reverse of fortune thus fell upon him. All prospect of making money passed away, and to feed his large family and keep out of debt was the The Workroom. J 3 utmost he could hope for.* Had we remained at Laven- ham, where there were no other resources, we must have suffered indeed, but just in time we were providentially- removed, and so enabled to retain a loaf and a little more on the pantry shelves. The two apprentices, when they left us, shared in the common misfortune ; one soon died, and the other turned his ability into another walk of art. It pleases me some- times to recollect that it occurred to him, some three or four years later, to make me an offer ; because perhaps it is not in every instance that an offer would be made after so much probationary acquaintance as living so long under the same roof implies.*)" Again, it was speedily discovered (for he never made application) that Mr Taylor's modes of education were worth participating in, and several families requested that their young people might share in them. This was another signal mercy, for by the addition thus made to his income, he was able to withstand the pressure of many trying years. We had, as before, a large room designated the " Work- room." It was not originally part of the house, but a door was broken into it, while there was also a general entrance from without. A large diamond-paned window occupied the middle of one side, and sash windows wrere put in to light the entire length. Here, at his high desk at one * A relic of those trying times remains in a scrap headed — " THE'ACC URATE DATE." " ' When, you say, did it happen?' ' I'll tell you, my dear, 'Twas about — let me see — that unfortunate year, "When the bread was so high and the meat, as you know, And our cash, on the contrary, ran very low ; That year you were ill — you remember it, wife ? ' 1 Yes, indeed ! for this suits every year of our life.' " In happier times my grandfather, pointing on one occasion to his fine work, the Anna Boleyn, said, with a tear in his eye, " Yes, and the hand that did that was once glad to engrave a dog collar." — [Ed.] + The self-depreciation of the writer, and her characteristic reticence upon certain points, might suggest that as a girl she possessed few outward attrac- tions. From the circumstance, however, not recorded in these memorials, that while at Colchester she received several offers of marriage, some of them very eligible, that inference would not seem to be correct ; and the attentions of which she was the subject may account in part for the very sunny memories which, as she tells us, Colchester left upon her mind. — [Ed.] 74 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. end, stood my father, and long tables ran from thence the length of the room, where the eldest of us were soon prac- tising the engraver's art. Nearest to him sat my brother Isaac, then Martin, then myself, and next to me Jane. Behind us a second range of tables was occupied, two or three days a-week, by pupils. Happy days, — mornings, evenings, — Happy years ! — have I spent in that shabby old room ! From the windows we could just see over the garden, and beyond the roofs, Mile End church and par- sonage in the pretty distance, reminding us of the evening walk by which the day's business was so often closed. Our many callers in after years never thought of finding us " in the parlour," like other young ladies, but regularly turned into a back yard from the street, ascended the short flight of brick stairs, and placed themselves each on some wooden stool beside Jane and myself, watching what they were sometimes pleased to call our " elegant art." I must say we were never ashamed of it, and why need we have been ? We had, I might almost say, the honour of stepping first on a line now regarded as nearly the one thing to be accomplished, the respectable, remunerative, appropriate employment of young women. It was not the prevision of such a course by which we were led, but happy domestic circumstances brought us into it, and thankful should I be if opportunities such as we enjoyed were more generally available. A paragraph has fallen under my eye which induces me to add a few words to my honest outburst of happy recol- lection. In the April No. for 1859 of the "Edinburgh Review," under the head of " Female Industry," it is said — " It seems not very long ago that the occupation of the Taylor family was regarded as very strange. The de- lightful Jane Taylor of Ongar, and her sisters (N.B. Sister) , paid their share of the family expenses by engraving. Steel engravings were not in very good demand, yet the young women were incessantly at work, so as to be abun- dantly weary of it, as Jane's letters plainly show." Now, notwithstanding the first rate literary authority of this passage, I must challenge its correctness. Doubtless, we were sometimes weary (I have heard of people weary of Eng raving Mysteries. 7 5 doing nothing), and sometimes should have preferred a favourite employment of our own just then in hand; or, with a zest the unemployed cannot feel, should have en- joyed a holiday; but, nevertheless, the life in that "shabby old room " was a happy one; and if Jane did at times dis- like the monotony, it never reached habitual weariness.* For myself, what I have said, I have said, and that most truly. Nay, the time has been, when I have risen in the morning with exhilaration to put on the brown-holland bib and apron, with sleeves to match, in preparation for two or three days of " biting," this not very charming em- ployment frequently falling to my lot. But you will hardly know what " biting " is, and I will endeavour to explain it, as I have often done to interested and interesting visitors. Singularly ignorant about it people often are ! I re- member once after my father had spent much time in ex- plaining the various processes of engraving to a lady, she exclaimed with sudden perception — " O then you only pre- pare for the printer!" while, not long ago, on my showing a gentleman the engraving of the Ann Boleyn, and saying that my father received 500 guineas for it, he remarked — " I think neither you nor I would have cared to give that," supposing that the print alone cost that sum ! Well, then, as to " biting." A plate of polished copper (not steel at that time), of the size intended for the print, having been thickly covered with a sort of waxy ground, the subject to be engraved is etched upon it with a steel point, as you might say drawn with a strong needle, much as you might with a pencil or pen, but cutting through the ground to the surface of the copper, t The lines, however, are of no depth, and of course all alike, and to increase and vary both depth and width, the work must be " bit." To effect this a wall of wax is raised round the plate, with a spout., moulded at one corner, by which to pour off the liquid, * " Ah ! but Ann was always such a dog trot ! " exclaimed her only .sur- viving sister on reading this passage. — [Ed. ] + It should be understood that in a line engraving, portions only of the sub- ject are etched, and that the most skilled and distinctive part of the [ rOCett follows in the use of the cutting-tool — the 4i graver."- -[Ed.] J 6 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. and a dilute preparation of aquafortis (nitric acid) is poured on, which eats away the copper in the exposed lines. It is now a delicate matter to watch the operation, ascertaining when the needful depth of the lightest por- tion is attained; at the moment, the acid is poured off, water plentifully applied, and then dried out of the lines. A thin coat of varnish is now painted over the parts that are sufficiently deepened, technically speaking they are " stopped out," and the process of biting is recommenced. But all this is subject to accidents; and one trying misfor- tune is, when the ground, from some defect in its composi- tion, or from being laid on under too great a heat, " blows up,'* as it is called, and the acid penetrates to the copper where it is not wanted, causing innumerable specks which must be immediately stopped out, and requiring a grievous amount of labour afterwards with the " graver " to repair. An engraving after Ostade, the interior of a Dutch kitchen, was etched by me, and covered almost entirely with work, but in biting, the ground blew up largely, and it was my business for three months afterwards to sit at the patient repair of it, speck by speck. I should not wonder if during this time I did feel " abundantly wear}*."' So much for weariness, and for " biting," a part of the process for which it will be seen there was good reason to be armed with bib, apron, and sleeves. One further remark I am bound in honesty to oppose to the reviewer's assertion. I cannot please myself with the thought that we contributed much towards " the family expenses " by our daily toil. Our dear father, always liberal to the extent of his ability, gave us not only board and lodging, but also wages, so that in keeping us at home I am sure he did not consult his own advantage. He thought he was fitting us for self-support in after life, not otherwise than feminine ; and in keeping us around him at home he retained a domestic feeling, strong in every one of us. Providence, as it proved, had different designs for us, but little at that time could they have been predicted. But these work-a-day times do not belong to our first years at Colchester ; I am forestalling our engagements The Stapletons. 77 by two or three years. At Lavenham I had but one quiet story to tell, but I find myself now surrounded by so many scenes, circumstances, people, and interests, that I fear to become sadly prolix. If among the points I select some should appear to me more worthy of note, than to you, forgive me. The nearness of my point of sight may pre- vent a correct vision — yet not near either, when much more than half-a-century is interposed between the facts narrated and the narration. Who shall say how they have been stored? Surely there is nothing about us more won- derful— wonderful as is every thread of our frame — than memory ! For what purpose is this great deposit, the wealth of which only appears by glimpses ? Is it some day to form the ground of amazing thankfulness when we re- view the course through which we have been led? Or, fearful alternative, the vitality of that worm, which is to be fed by unquenchable recollections ? Let me introduce you to the society now surrounding us. In our own congregation there were no young people of similar age and education with ourselves, but we were soon introduced to others, with whom we formed lasting intimacies. The plain respectable household of the Keeps, was almost within call of us. There were ten children, but Mary Keep was the only one near enough to our own age to become our associate. With her we soon reached blood- leat — fever-heat on the thermometer of friendship. And trough the Keeps we were next introduced to the Staple- tons — a name interwoven with our history for many years. Dr Stapleton was a physician, a dissenter, a plain good man; Mrs Stapleton was every way a superior woman, the backbone of the family, and maintaining in it a calm and wise authority. She had been married, I suppose, not twenty years before we knew them ; but I have been told that on the Sunday of her bridal appearance, the party being discomfited by a heavy shower, it was opportunely recollected that an elegant convenience called an umbrella tad been seen in one of the shops, which was sent for and >orrowed for the occasion. It was, however, deemed an ill-omened assumption of style on the part of the bride. \t Lavenham, even in my time, it was considered J 8 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert, a mark of luxurious refinement for a man to carry one.* Four very interesting, and, in different ways, lovely girls, and one son, composed their family circle. Mira, the eldest, seventeen, when we arrived in Colchester, was too much our senior at first to become a familiar associate. Her face was beautiful with intelligence, and the intellectual pride, which was perhaps her tendency, was scarcely indi- cated beneath the mild and lovely expression of her fea- tures. Bithia was a strong contrast to her sister ; animated to enthusiasm, daring, spirited, affectionate, and very near my own age, a sort of spontaneous combustion, and inter- fusion speedily ensued. Eliza was a fine showy girl, with less of mind, and perhaps of heart, than her sisters. Letitia, similar in age to my sister Jane, became by instantaneous attraction her bosom friend. She was very pretty, but her tastes, pleasures, and pride were all intellectual, and cer- tainly at that time not far from romantic. To read by moonlight some favourite poet, among the picturesque fragments of the old town wall on the Balkerne Hill, was sufficient happiness for them both. The Stapletons were among the first to become my father's pupils, so that we had almost daily opportunities of intercourse ; nay, it was so incessant, that my mother used to remind us of the ancient counsel, " keep thy foot from the house of thy friend, lest he be weary of thee." Our acquaintance had subsisted for little more than a year when Dr Stapleton died. He had been seized with apoplexy early in the morning, and with the strong affec- tion of her nature, Bithia, who was not quite dressed, ran without shoes or stockings along the very rough pavement of one of the principal streets to obtain medical assistance. He rallied slightly, but only for a short time. Considerable changes necessarily took place in his family. * Isaac Taylor records that it was Mr Watklnson, "in his pattens full three inches high, that carried him, bright shoe buckles and all, clear of the mud," who, at Lavenham, first availed himself, "on Sunday, at least, of a happy novelty of that age of marvels — an umbrella ! And what sort of a thing was this ? . . . a handle it had like the mast of a yacht, and a covering of oil- skin tarpauling, and whalebone ribs. The weight must have exceeded that of a soldier's musket." Ornamental Needlework. 79 Mira had, during the life of her father, occupied herself as a teacher in a boarding-shool in Colchester ; it was at that time a new thing for a young lady, under no pecuniary necessity, so to employ herself, and it was as usual won- dered at by the wonderers, a class existing in most com- munities ; the wisdom of such a step has been since better appreciated. Mira occupied a separate room, and it was there that I learnt from her, going for an hour daily, what little French I once knew, and also the practice of orna- mental needlework. It was the only sight I ever had of the interior of a school. I have sometimes been surprised that my father thought needlework an accomplishment worth the time we bestowed upon it ; but Miss Linwood's pictures in wool work were just then talked about, and it might be this, together with an unappeasable disgust at the bad in any production, whether of art or mechanism, which suggested an attempt to improve the raw taste of the times in this matter. A girl and doves in tambour, a cat and mouse in marking stitch, a small oval imitation in " print-work," as it was called of a painter's etching, a landscape in coloured worsteds from a good drawing, and a small group of flowers in embroidery, remain to attest my industry in this line ; but it was one of the very few points — I do not recollect another — in which it has struck me that labour was ill bestowed in our education.* Yet a * The study of fortification might be reckoned (as indeed a reviewer of the present day has so reckoned it) another instance of ill-bestowed labour, espe- cially for girls. But the father of this family desired that all his children should be able to take an intelligent interest in what was going on in the world, its present history included, and it was then an era of great wars. In order to facilitate the reading of voyages and travels he had strained a larn-e Mercator's chart, round a revolving cylinder, upon which, with pith-headed pins, representing the Pacific voyager or African traveller, his pupils could follow the wanderings of each. Me adapted this method to the illustration of the campaigns then in progress from Moscow to Oporto. The pith-balls coloured to represent the different armies in the field, followed their move- ments over the face of Europe, according to the news of the day, and it is not surprising that some knowledge of the elements of fortificaton, exemplified by diagrams, the construction of which exercised hand and eye, was consid helpful to such a circle. During the stress of the Crimean war, the i happened to encounter some young ladies diligently reading their " Rollin," but having only the faintest notion of the history that was thundering course almost within earshot. If they had received the instruction to which this Colchester family was accustomed, the morning telegrams might not have proved so puzzling and therefore uninteresting.— [Ed. J So Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. lady of not less than fifty years of age, placed herself at the same time under his instruction, and executed a large piece of worsted from a good mezzotinto print — a cupid and lion. There was a mournful tearfulness in her face to which I have often since thought there must have been a history attached, but we knew only that she was a lady residing in the neighbourhood. We were perhaps rather sought after as " clever girls " at this time, and of the two, Jane always conceding a large share of birthright to me, I seemed to be generally accepted as the cleverest.* The mistake has been recti- fied by the public since, and indeed so as to swing a little beyond the mark, attributing to her many productions that are really mine. Publishers have frequently given a convenient wink, and announced " by Jane Taylor," when "Ann Taylor" was the guilty person. Dear Jane never needed to steal, while I could not afford to lose. But what signifies it ? When you read this, what will remain to me save the moral results of my life, and of the " talent," the one, or more than one ? I must have scribbled a good deal, but about this time, being accused of literary vanity, perhaps justly, or the suffering would have been less, I made a magnanimous conflagration of all my MSS., and resolved to go humbly all my days. For a time, my favourite amusement was laid aside, but it could not be for long. Writing, as a mere manual exercise, was always agreeable to me, independently of the pleasing necessity of giving expres- sion to the emotions, new and innumerable, of the young bosom, though in truth as old, and as often repeated as the moonlights and spring days, the hopes and affections by which, in every age, they have been elicited. It was, I think, in 1797 that I made my first poetical appearance * " My Ann, you had taken the lyre ; And I, from the pattern you set, Attempted the art to acquire ; And often we play a duet. But those who in grateful return, Have said they were pleased with the lay, The discord could always discern ; And yet I continued to play." — Jane Taylor. Tzuo Sisters. 81 in print on the occasion of a contested election, when Robert Thornton being the Tory candidate, and a Mr Shipley the Whig", I ventured an election song for home- reading solely. But it happened to be seen, and was speedily printed, a distinction that no doubt I felt as somewhat dazzling. The production, I am constrained to say, exhibits sadly little wit, and much more than was appropriate of the moral lecture. I knew, by report, the excellence of the Thornton family, and felt aggrieved by his taking, as it appeared to me, the wrong side ! While our intimacy with the Stapletons was at its height, our circle was enlarged by two interesting girls, somewhat older than ourselves, Cecilia and Fanny Hills, orphan sisters, each attractive in her way, but of characters wholly different. They resided with an aged grandmother, and on coming of age, were to possess a pleasant independency of about ^400 a year each. They belonged to the Church of England, and were educated for the " world." Cecilia was of a quickly impressible, enthusiastic character, exposed to powerful impulses, and with courage, perhaps eccentricity, sufficient to carry them out. Through the Stapletons, she became a pupil of my father's ; was pleased with his ministry, and from something like a fashionable church-goer, became subject to religious impressions, proved to be genuine, by a long Christian life afterwards. But she was not formed for a medium in anything. Having once broken loose from the society and habits to which she had been accus- tomed she was prepared for any lengths ; and being seized upon, while young and unfixed in her new principles, by some religionists, certainly not attractive in themselves, — plain good people, but of low manners, narrow views, and, with a tendency to what was then the bane of Colche-ter, high (antinomian) doctrine, she was readily drawn aside, assumed a peculiar style of dress, would walk arm in arm with some of their leaders of a low grade in life, ■ntly joined their persuasion, and in the presence of a crowd of her former fashionable associates, was publicly baptised.* Her attendance upon my father's ministry It is right to add that she soon abandoned these early eccentricities. — [Ki>.] F 82 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. ceased, but our intimacy did not ; yet it was between her and the Stapletons that the attachment was extreme, and from this time, I was sensible of some decline in that of Bithia to me, a change which I felt bitterly. But, little as I then could have borne the thought, these first friends of my youth were to yield, before long, to a new circle, in the midst of which I have found my liveliest interests, not only during the period of my youth, but up to the present late autumn of my life. Fanny Hills, the younger sister, was altogether a different character. Lovely, not so much from direct beauty as from the frank sweetness of her countenance, pretending to nothing but to please and be pleased (which was no pretence), still retaining her intimacy with gayer companions, together with the Stapletons and ourselves, I can give to any of her admirers the credit of loving Jier, if capable of love at all, notwithstanding the attractions of her fortune. A young clergyman of the town was one, but she did not like him, or thought, at least, that she liked some one else better. I happened to be at her house, when a call was made by the less fortunate lover, and heard the well-trained servant, notwithstanding many questions, continue to aver, with ingenious variations, that her mistress was " not at home," poor Fanny listening with tremor for the result. I was shocked then, and am not less- so now. In what way are we to secure the honesty of servants towards ourselves if, for our own purposes, we inure them to complicated falsehoods ? It was not long before Fanny passed out of our connec- tion. A captain of artillery, then stationed in the town, of interesting appearance and manners, shortly won the open-hearted girl ; and the last recollection I have of her, is as a recent bride driven past in the elegant phaeton of her husband. Many years passed away; we were, by time, distance, habits, everything, widely separated, and we knew nothing of her history. Long after my own marriage, I heard a melancholy fragment of it. My mother, then residing at Ongar, was one day visited by a shabby, sickly stranger. Whether she recognised the once attractive features, I now forget; but the out- Anna Forbes. 8$ burst of feeling- was strong and mutual, when it was found that Fanny Hills had come to seek her former friends. She told her story with frank simplicity. Captain M had not long remained the enamoured husband ; her property had been wasted, and they were now living at a lone house in the neighbourhood, where a person, thought by the wretched man, more attractive than his wife, was mistress. Fanny herself, broken-hearted and broken down, was little better than a servant. Beyond that sad point in her history, I know nothing more. It was in the year '98, and again by Mary Keep, that we were introduced to a young friend of hers from Camber- well, who had been visiting in the neighbourhood. We had heard much of this young lady, and were in high expectation. She was within a year of my own age, of appearance, disposition, and manners, not a little interest- ing, and possessing an intense vitality, that left me far in the rear. A few among my associates, and she was one. have so far exceeded me in speed of wing, elegance of plumage, in, if I may so say, ethereal buoyancy, that I have always felt in their society, less like a bird of kindred feather than a lame chicken, expected to accompany a lark in its flight. Yet, notwithstanding this discrepancy, my intimacy with Anna Forbes, not only commenced quickly, but without one interval of estrangement, has grown, and strengthened, and matured, till our respective families have risen to enjoy, and perpetuate the friendship. Begun in the glow of young extravagance more than sixty years ago, it has been at last rivetted by the endearing connec- tion which linked a daughter of hers with a son of mine. It had been on the 12th of July 1797, when I was in my sixteenth year, that the design always kept in view of educating Jane and me to engraving as a profession, was first put in practice; but in order that my mother might enjoy the assistance she needed, as well as that we might become sufficiently domestic in our acquirements, We took our places at the work-table only in alternate- weeks ; the one employed in the workroom being known as " Supra," and the other as " Infra," the latter a slight improvement upon the humble title of " Betty," which had 84 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. been previously bestowed on the housekeeping sister. To " Infra," below stairs, belonged pro teni. numerous do- mestic duties, from essays in cookery, to washing and get- ting up the fine linens ; so that the assistance we could render in needlework was really very small, and a heavy burden was still left on my dear industrious mother. But this the kindness of a thoughtful young friend frequently lightened for her — a kindness of which none can fully estimate the value, excepting those who have experienced it. I trust, any to whom these lines may come, who are able thus to assist their minister by assisting his wife and family, will not be backward to render this labour of love. From the minister's wife, often a woman with small re- sources, a large family, and little assistance, more is fre- quently required in the way of public activity than from any other — unjustly as I have always thought, and possibly the occasion of irregularities sometimes complained of in mini- sters' families. If she have no children, or is so assisted as to be able to leave them without injury, let her stand fore- most in every good work committed in these busy times to female hands: but if the little band, entrusted by special seal from heaven to her vigilance, must suffer while she labours abroad, would she not do well to heed the touching lament — " They have made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard have I not kept ? " Would that there were something like parish boundaries clearly defining the limits of contiguous duties ! Opposing duties, though sometimes talked about, do not, as I conceive, exist. That which God does not require is not duty, and he never requires exer- tions inconsistent with each other. What we need is wis- dom to draw correct lines, and then vigour to fill them up with our might. The minister's wife has, at least, the warrant of Paul to be " a keeper at home." To her own master she ultimately stands or falls, though the " many masters " to whom, as the wife of a minister, she may be supposed amenable, may possibly come to a verdict less gracious on her conduct. Happy is she who " condemneth not herself in that thing that she alloweth." Another kindness shown to my mother, not in its nature inimitable, was by an excellent lady, a widow, residing The Umbelliferous Society. 85 alone with two servants of truly primitive style and cha- racter. They were Betty and Polly Tillett, and deserve a place in the list of our friends. Many years afterwards, when my brother Isaac visited Colchester, he found out Polly, the then survivor, whom he described to me as re- sembling a " faded primrose, stiff and dry." And such I can easily conceive her to have become. She was much attached to her minister, and most cheerfully seconded the considerate kindness shown by her mistress to his family. Almost every Saturday evening she came down with her pleased prim look, as the bearer of some little nicety under a white napkin for his Sunday's supper. Or, whenever a party had been entertained at the house, some of the re- maining delicacies were sure to find their way in the same direction under the modest care of Polly. But the greater kindness referred to above, was when these willing and assiduous sisters would come with their " mistress's kind respects" — to fetch the fine linen of the family to be "got up" — and how beautifully! — in their ample leisure. Pleasant is the memory of such a friend, and of servants such as these. I must say, to the credit of our small con- gregation at Colchester, that they were not forgetful in this matter of their minister. He claimed no tithe, but in many a shape it came, freewill offerings whenever the oppor- tunity occurred. Ah! I have felt a little, and seen more, of the difficulties under which many an excellent man has to labour, and appear cheerful. Do not fail, I beseech you, to the best of your ability, to think kindly for him who thinks, how responsibly, for you ! I have already hinted that the renunciation of my be- loved pen did not last very long, and in April of 1798, I entered with great zeal into the formation of a society sug- gested, I think, by my father, intended to improve the talent for composition, and let us hope, the ability to think also. The title, I am sure, was suggested by him — " The Umbelliferous Society," designed, of course, to indicate many buds, blossoms, flowers — whatever we might consider ourselves most to resemble — on one stem. The original members were, Mira, Bithia, Eliza, and Letitia Stapleton, Mary and Betsy Keep, Jane and myself, to whom some 86 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. others were afterwards added. We were to meet once in every month, rules were drawn up, officers duly appointed, and each member was expected to furnish some original production in either prose or verse, as well as written answers to questions proposed at the preceding meeting. Besides this we had readings in useful authors. Whether or not we derived benefit from these early exercises I can scarcely say, but pleasure we certainly did, and as all we wrote was in over-hours, either before or after the business of the day, we were excited to habits of industry at least. We always breakfasted at eight o'clock, were allowed an hour's interval for dinner, half-an-hour for tea, and closed the daily routine in " that dear old workroom " (as more than one of our friends called it) at eight in the evening. It was chiefly, therefore, or according to the letter of the law, only by rising early and supping as late as half-past nine, that we could effect anything. But I must confess to having had pencil and paper generally so near at hand, that a flying thought could be caught by a feather, even when engraving or biting was going on ; or, in cases of extremity, when it was to be feared that all would escape me before eight o'clock came, I have made a sudden exit, and in honest haste and unintelligible scribble, pinioned the fancy or the lines to the first slip of waste paper I could find, there to abide till happy evening. Instead of engraving, I was going to say etching, but this would be scarcely cor- rect, for while etching it was generally desirable to keep the " point " unchanged in the fingers from meal to meal. Only a very beautiful point indeed would be so exquisitely true, that no inequality of stroke would result from changing it. To render the point perfect by grinding all the angles, was often not a little difficult, and would cost much time ; as a hone for this purpose, a fragment of Roman brick, picked up among the ruins in the town, proved the finest and hardest substance we could meet with. And if I have said "bitings" it must be understood to mean, at times when the water was off, and the plate safely dry. It had always previously been the custom to sup at nine; but when writing became most unexpectedly a business, as well as a pleasure, we petitioned for an additional half-hour, The Attic " Sanctum" S7 and considering the perfect regularity of my father's habits, I feel that we owed much to his good nature in granting it. Xor should I, perhaps, refrain from mentioning that of this precious hour and a half, part was occupied by a short devotional retirement, which, won by the example of our parent, we rarely omitted. My father's plan of providing, as far as possible, separ- ate small rooms as "studies" for his children, has been already mentioned ; he carried it out, as far as our con- fined space at Colchester would admit. What, either of mental improvement or of personal piety, can be expected to flourish where numbers are crowded into one room ? How much may not be expected from those happy ones who enjoy the luxury of a chamber, or a closet to call their own ? How delightful and salutary is the morning hour under such an advantage ? Let those who possess it remember that it is a talent for the use of which they are accountable. Isaac and Martin here contrived, each for himself, a small " sanctum," composed chiefly of paste- board, and secluded by a humble door. It was in an unoccupied room, through which we had to pass con- tinually. Of this, Isaac enclosed for himself the small window, and Martin secured sufficient light by removing a few bricks, and inserting a pane or two of glass. Con- trivance might have been our family motto. It was longer before Jane and I succeeded in making a similar arrangement. We had hitherto occupied the same room, in which was a small dark closet (the workroom being also at liberty, except during working hours) but there was a not very desirable attic, used as a lumber-room, on which she cast a thoughtful contriving gaze, and by vigorous measures she managed to fit it up as a bed- room sufficiently comfortable. From its window it had a peep of landscape over the roofs, of which, before we left Colchester, she took a view, still in my possession.* The By night as -well as by day her little window was a boon to her. She wrote — 11 I used to roam and revel 'mid the stars : When in my attic, with untold delight, I watched the changing splendours of the night." — [Eix] 88 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. lower-room of the house opposite, shown in this drawing,* was used as a dame school of not very high pretensions, and there Isaac, the future author, learned to read, my mother having found his initiation into that distinguished art a matter of quite unusual difficulty. I believe the Umbelliferous Society continued about two years, for changes soon came over this second circle of my friendships. Those of my childhood had passed out of sight before we left Lavenham, and nearly all of this my early youth long before we left Colchester. So far as they are concerned, here I stand alone among the dead! " Yes, Memory ! gaze the vista through, On scenes of love that once we knew, That cheerful home, in which we spent So many a year of young content. :; * The Taylor house is that on the right, with four upper windows. It is now made into two. James' attic was the middle one of the three. — [Ed.] CHAPTER IV. COLCHESTER. 1798-1802. 4; When each by turns was guide to each, And Fancy, light from Fancy caught, And all we met was fair and good, And all was good that Time could bring, And all the secret of the Spring Moved in the chambers of the blood." Tennyson. " Christiana did also begin to consider with herself." BUNYAN. So far had I written years ago ; and now in my eightieth year shall I live to complete the narrative ? O Lord, Thou knowest ! Ah, my children, would that you could realise, while much of life may yet be before you, the sad reflec- tions of a spirit sensible of many practical errors and neglect of opportunities, and of attainments wholly incon- sistent with long continued advantages. Would that it might be your daily habitual request, "so teach me to number my days, that I may apply my heart unto wis- dom." Yet, what empty words, what a thrice-told tale, till the mind awakes to all the realities of existence ! Towards the end of the year 1798 an astronomical lecturer of repute delivered a course of lectures at the Old Moot Hall at Colchester. To such advantages my father was always anxious to introduce us, and the young people who had become his pupils ; but in order that the lectures should be fully understood, he thought it desirable to give an introductory one at home. This he illustrated by familiar diagrams, drawn either by himself, 90 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. or by us under his direction. A considerable number of our young friends availed themselves of the opportunity, and so much were all interested, that a strong desire was felt to extend the benefit beyond the immediate occasion. From this time, therefore, he continued to deliver rudi- mental lectures once a month, to as many as chose to come ; and it became a day of much interest to us, and to many more. They were delivered in our own parlour, and as many as sixty or seventy young people, and their friends, were glad to attend. The subjects, admirably simplified and illustrated, were, as far as I now recollect them — astronomy, geography, geometry, mechanics, gene- ral history, and anatomy ; the diagrams, rough, but vigor- ous and picturesque, when that was appropriate, being exe- cuted on large sheets of cartridge paper. I have sometimes been occupied for three days in preparing them. My father's aim in teaching was, wherever practicable, to address the eye, as being much more retentive than the ear. I especially remember the course on anatomy ; re- presentations of arteries, veins, bones, muscles, detached or combined, accompanied each lecture, of which there were several in every course, and we could not fail to learn a great deal which it was well to know. These lec- tures were continued for three or four years ; they were gratuitous, but the time occupied, labour bestowed, and trouble occasioned, were most cheerfully submitted to ; for he was willing to communicate in all good things. How many now survive to whom the recollection of those happy evenings would bring a glow of pleasure ? The bright eyes have most of them long ceased to sparkle, and none could be found but shaded by the white locks of age or sorrow ! Although at this period we had scarcely a thought or feeling apart from the Stapletons, various circumstances were gradually bringing our intimacy to a close. Unable to meet with a suitable house, they were obliged at last to remove to Dedham, a village about seven miles from Colchester. It was to all of us a sore trial to be thus separated, and our lives assumed almost a new character. For a time there was frequent interchange of visits, and Nutshell Hall. 9 1 they generally came over on the evening- of the philoso- phical lecture. A van passed within a mile of Dedham, but when the weather permitted we preferred to walk ; once I remember accomplishing the seven miles in pat- tens ! The road was pleasant, and in the evening we could put ourselves under the protection of old Howlett, the postman, who for many years carried sundry small parcels, together with his Majesty's Mail, between Ded- ham and Colchester. He was a picturesque old man, and I well remember walking alone with him, in the dusk of a summer's evening, and feeling a little nervous as the road sank into a hollow, with a wood on each side. We could have made but humble resistance with our united forces if attacked. Upon the small house first occupied by the Stapletons we conferred the title of " Nutshell Hall," but they pre- sently removed to a more commodious one, the property of Mr Constable of East Bergholt, whose son, John Con- stable, R.A., the eminent landscape painter, afterwards rendered the rural scenery surrounding his native village classic ground. It is still known as "Constable's country." It was in December 1799 that I was first introduced to his family, and I may venture nozu to say, that so finished a model of what is reckoned manly beauty I never met with as the young painter ; while the report in the neighbourhood of his taste and excellence of character rendered him interesting in no small degree. There were, too, rumours afloat which conferred upon him something of the character of a hero in distress, for it was understood that his father greatly objected to his prosecution of paint- ing as a profession, and wished to confine him to the drudgery of his own business — that of a miller. To us this seemed unspeakably barbarous, though in Essex and Suffolk a miller was commonly a man of considerable property, and lived as Mr Constable did, in genteel style. ^ I have pleasure in finding that the opinion formed at that time of John Constable by a jury of girls between the ages of fifteen and twenty-one, is attested to be true by his life, now published. He lived and died, it seems, the same man of taste, feeling, and truly domestic excellence 92 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. that he appeared to us. His sister, Mary Constable, was in person as much distinguished as himself; but with a loveliness especially feminine. One little incident of our introduction to the Constables I am amused to remember. We had been invited to walk over to Bergholt to see his paintings, together with a portrait recently taken of him by his friend Mr Reinagle, and availing ourselves of this, one morning, we found his mother, Mrs Constable, a shrewd-looking, sensible woman, at home. There we were, five girls, all "come to see Mr John Constable's paintings," and as we were about to be shown up into his studio, she turned and said dryly, "Well, young ladies, would you like to go up all together to my son, or one at a time ? " I was simpleton enough to pause for a moment, in doubt, but we happily decided upon going en masse* In December 1798, when our number at home had been supposed complete, my youngest sister was born. This eleventh and unexpected addition to the cares, labours, and expense of the family occasioned to my suffering and burdened mother a degree of anxiety which many with less cause might well understand. She was ready to exclaim, " All these things are against me." Yet if she ever had occasion for thankfulness for an earthly blessing it was for that child ! She grew up in all respects the best looking of the family, and though by far the youngest, and therefore the one whom it is reckoned innocent to spoil, she was at six years old so good a little girl that a friend remarked, " One would think that child had been born before the fall." Need I tell you through how many years she was the comfort, the nurse, the solace, day and night, of her aged parents, with whom she remained till the latest look of affection had soothed them to the grave? I was the first to whose arms she was committed as a babe, and an affection grew up towards her which I believe was quite as vivid and anxious as that of any mother. She was nursed from home for nearly two years in a * The scene of this visit, Flatford Mill, is one of Constable's subjects. It is a picturesque spot in the meadows of the valley of the Stour, just at the foot of the East Bergholt Hills.— [Ed.] " ^Juvenilia? 93 cottage on the Wivenhoe road by a Mrs Bolinbroke; and generally after the morning service on Sunday we all walked down to see "baby." She was always clean and rosy, but my mother's principle was never to "dress" babies — pretty enough without it. I recollect that among several baptized in public at the same time by my father, she was the only one with simply a corded muslin cap, and no lace for a border. Happily the dear little heads are left now without such costly and troublesome encumbrance. Belonging jointly to 1798 and 1799 was a small event, important as unexpected in its consequences to Jane and me. I had made the purchase of a " Minor's Pocket Book," and on reading the solutions of enigmas, and other poetic contributions to which prizes were adjudged, it struck me that, without great presumption, I might aim at as much literary distinction as these prizes conferred. With lively interest, therefore, I possessed myself of the prescribed conditions, unravelled enigma, charade, and rebus, and forwarded the results under the signature of "Juvenilia," as directed, to 55 Gracechurch Street. I little thought that it was bread I thus cast on the waters, or rather that it would return as bread after many days. I had, indeed, to wait long, and as the interesting season approached for the new pocket books to make their appearance in the window of old Mr Gibbs the bookseller, frequent and anxious were my glances in passing by. At last they arrived, and on turning them over on his counter with as much indifference as could be assumed, I ascertained that the first prize — six pocket books — had been awarded to "Juvenilia." Besides the general poetical solution, I find six charades with the same signature, some of which might not be worse for a little correction, but I must regard them gratefully, as productive of long continued advantages. From this time I Mas a regular contributor for twelve or fourteen years, and latterly became the editor, resigning only on my marriage. From this early connection with Darton and Harvey arose our regular, and as it proved profitable employment 94 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. f as writers for children. Never doubt the gracious direc- tion given by our Heavenly Father to the small, no less than the larger events of our lives. When you see a bee or a butterfly left unfinished, as beneath the exertion of creative wisdom, indulge your suspicions, and believe only in the obviously magnificent ; but till then hold it as not less philosophical in principle, than true in fact, that to Him, our Creator, Provider, Governor, nothing is either small or large, whatever the aspect it may wear to us. It was the purchase, accidental, shall I say? of the pocket book for 1798 that gave direction, and I hope usefulness to our lives. When I was eighteen I paid a visit to London. The half brothers and sisters of my mother there, whose experiences at home had been little likely to inspire religious habits, still less religious tastes, had surrendered themselves to evil influences, from which a sad downward course ensued, that led them at last, notwithstanding my mother's efforts, quite out of our knowledge. But one of them, my uncle John, I remember with interest and gratitude. Open, affectionate, generous, it was a pity he could not be rescued from the fortunes — the misfortunes — of his family. A rare chance in a lottery gave him for a time a competence that soon escaped him, and it was during this brief sunshine that I visited him. He was always devising something to please me, and, as a matter of course, proposed to take me to the theatre. No parental interdict had been laid upon me, and at that time the line had not been drawn so strictly in the case of amusements as it came afterwards to be in many Chris- tian families. I hesitated, but consented. Under the novel attractions of the scene my scruples soon vanished, and I would have readily sacrificed many an evening to its fascinations. Happily, as I think, I never went again. Not long afterwards the question of such amusements was brought before the Christian public. A sermon, preached as one of a monthly series in London, by the Rev. George Burder, was published under the title of " Unlawful Amusements." The subject was extensively discussed ; Mrs Hannah More threw her influence strongly into the Writing a Prologue. 95 scale, and Christian parents felt it more a duty to with- draw their children from indulgences of this kind. In my belief, excitements of this nature are not needed to the due circulation of youthful blood. The mind is inebriated, and for a time unfitted for either religious or intellectual occupation, the hours, the intercourse, the vari- ous allurement of such scenes impair the healthful condi- tion alike of mind and body ; I speak of my own sex ; whether evils still more formidable may not result to the other I do not say. There is besides, as I think, a beauty and a safety in preserving a well defined boundary between the church and the world. It should be visible to which you wish to belong. It is a fruitless attempt to blend the one with the other, hoping yet to remain uninjured by the amalgama- tion. It is true that the line between a forbidding reserve, and dangerous concession, may require some wisdom to decide, especially in certain circumstances ; but a simple desire to do right, and to maintain a Christian consistency of conduct with a conscience void of offence, will generally well supply the place of laborious discussion. A delicate mind feels in its own blush the difference between the pure and the impure, and so it is with the simply con- scientious Christian. Such amusements as tend, unless under strong control, to excite the dangerous tendencies of our nature, it would surely be wise to let alone. Yet I once wrote a prologue ! My brothers, Isaac and Martin, received part of their education under a ]\Ir Levett, a respectable man, who lived close by us at Col- chester. During one of his holidays a little performance was got up among his pupils, the drama of Alfred, from " Evenings at Home," and we took in its preparation a lively and leading interest. My father, always ready to help, furnished the scenes, which were painted roughly, but effectively, in body colours, and we contrived dresses toler- ably correct in costume. The Prologue, of which I \\ as the author, beginning, " Now when assembled round the new built stage," was spoken by Isaac, who sustained not inappropriately the part of Alfred ; while Martin touk that of Gubba. g6 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. Well, none of the little company became actors in ear- nest, or contracted even a taste for the stage, though on the stage of life some have filled honourable parts. Three of them, all of one family, became clergymen, and the memoir of one, the late Rev. W. Nunn of Manchester, has been published. He was then a rather rough, unpolished, but active lad, and he and Martin, both fond of country occupations, indulged this healthy taste by renting between them a small field near Mile End Heath, which, by rising at four o'clock in the morning, they contrived to cultivate themselves. It was planted with potatoes, and, if it brought them little money, conduced much to health and pleasure. On reading the life of this William Nunn, I am not surprised at the lamentable want of clearness in his views of gospel truth. His early training had been under the ministry of the only evangelical clergyman at that time in Colchester, to whose humble intellectual powers I have already alluded, and who, though a man of. sincere piety, adopted the " high doctrine " so rife among the religionists of the town. Under this superficial, hot- bed teaching it was not likely that a youth of ardent tem- perament, and defective judgment, should become other than a one-sided theologian. Such, to a grievous extent, he appears to have been. Self-denying, laborious, econo- mical, zealous in no common degree, and collecting around him a circle of " God's dear people," he was yet, as I can- not but believe, ill-fitted to lead the sinner to the Saviour. To leave him in the dark to his fate, unassisted till it should please Heaven to enlighten him, seems to have been his only thought ; though when once " found of Christ," no one could have offered warmer congratulations. No delineation I have ever met with of the life and cha- racter of a really good man, has appeared to me so evil in its tendency as this memoir, aggravated as it is by the still " higher " sentiments of the biographer. How sorely uninviting is such a gospel ! How useless, one might say, to preach it at all ! Better leave the whole affair to Him who, as we all acknowledge, alone can give the increase, but who notwithstanding commissioned his servants to go into all the world and preach the "good news" to every creature. The Old Century and the New, 9 7 The year 1800 commenced, as did I believe the year 1700, and will, I daresay, the year 1900, with a warm, general, still unsettled dispute as to the period at which the old century should be understood to close, and the new one begin ; and as possibly you may not witness the arrival of the next, I give you notice that you may amuse yourselves by deciding the question beforehand. There was just a year's difference in the calculations of the dis- putants, though to each the question appeared to admit not a shadow of doubt. Did the eighteenth century close on the 31st of December 1799, or of 1800? that, was the point. The opinion generally adopted I now forget. Close, however, it did, and here we are more than half through another ! In "the Minor's Pocket Book" for 1800, I appeared under the signature of " Clara," and we were now so far known to Darton and Harvey as to be frequently em- ployed on small plates for their juvenile works. Writing was as yet only the amusement of my limited leisure, and a visit to London with my father, with which he indulged me in May of this year, greatly stimulated my zeal as an artist, and for a time rendered art almost the favourite pursuit. He made it his business to show me all he could, and introduced me to several artists of note, by whom my ambition was not a little excited. To Mr Byrne, an eminent engraver of landscape, and his three daughters, all of whom he had educated for the profession, I was par- ticularly indebted. One of them etched landscape, : another painted flowers exquisitely, and the third, minia- \ tures in oil. All were admirable artists in their different I lines. They kindly lent me wrorks in different styles to j.:opy ; the head of a Madonna slightly tinted, landscapes t in Indian ink, and studies of trees, chiefly with the pen, are amongst the copies taken at this time, and still 'emaining to me. The pleasure of this employment nduced me, during the ensuing summer, to rise at half- )ast five instead of six, we had the work-room then to )urselves till eight o'clock ; and even in winter mornings ve felt sufficient stimulus, from either drawing or writing, o pursue these favourite employments during that unin- G 1 98 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. terrupted, unrivalled hour, — clothed, of course, as warmly as we could be, for the fire was not lighted till we left the room for breakfast. On many of these fine cold, bracing mornings, too, we would sally out — Ann, Jane, Isaac, Martin, perhaps also the children Jefferys and Jemina, to take a breathing run from the bottom of the Balkerne hill on the backway to Lexden. Pleasant recollections these, as will always be the domestic enjoyments of early life. They recal the freshness, the tenderness, the happy gaiety of youthful feelings, and by-gone days ; tainted with less to deplore and repent of, than belongs to more exciting pleasures. I often wonder, however, that sitting thus in the cold workroom, meeting in these morning walks the sharpest air, living during the day in a room unhealthily heated by a German stove, and then, as we often did, braving the cold again at eight in the evening, paying our " morning calls " on our young friends who rarely expected us earlier, and knew the reason why, — I often wonder that we sus- tained it all without injury, especially under an employ- ment entirely sedentary, and continued during twelve or fourteen of our youthful years. Sorely, indeed, did my mother grieve over it, predicting for us premature old age at thirty, but so it did not prove ; witness my hand copy- ing this MS. in 1861. My father's regular health prevented him from feeling the danger; but he yielded at last to the fears of my mother, and allowed us to leave the workroom daily, weather permitting, at one o'clock, to secure a walk before the two o'clock dinner. It was during the visit to London just mentioned, that I was first introduced to the family of Anna Forbes — that dearest friend of my life! They were a family bearing scarcely a trace of this world about them — a sort of oasis of evergreen simplicity in the great desert of London. The father, a surgeon in extensive practice, was a very child in feeling and manners; the mother, not a child, yet not a woman, such as we usually expect to see a woman in such a circle. She was quiet, reserved, always and im- perturbably the same; her voice, one low even note; her person, neat and prim ; her thoughts heavenly; but though The Forbes Family. 99 safely, as none could doubt, in the narrow way, it was especially a narrow way for her. I do not mean that she was incommoded by its confinement, but that her mind had naturally little compass, or capacity for range. Her eldest son, strangely diverged from the family ways and rose to distinction as an army surgeon.* The second son died a few years later than the period of my introduction, in a state of mind enviably happy; and the youngest was that dear " Uncle William," whom you knew so well, in- heriting largely the simplicity, kindness, and excellence of both his parents. Eliza, the youngest daughter, an elegant and lovely girl, became the friend and correspondent of my sister, many of whose published letters were addressed to her. And another intimate association of my life comes first into notice during this London visit. I accompanied the Conder family to the midsummer breaking up of a school of some repute at Hackney, where Josiah Conder was honourably distinguished among his schoolfellows. He soon exhibited literary taste and ability, and became in a few years almost the centre of our poetic circle, or, as we ventured to entitle it, the " Wreath." Shortly after my return home his cousin " Luck " paid her first visit to us ; she was one whose friendship I tenderly valued, and enjoyed till her death. Thus were gradually supplied the vacancies already making in our earlier circle ; for the remove of the Stapletons to Dedham was the precursor of further changes. Mrs Stapleton had relatives in Dublin to whom she naturally wished to introduce her daughters. They moved in a superior circle, and were persons of fascinating manners, much intelligence and general excellence. The inducements were considerable, but certain consequences might, perhaps, have been anticipated. It was an entirely Unitarian connection to which they were introduced, and certainly a very gay one. Mini and Eliza commenced a long visit there in January of this year, and late in the summer my especial friend Bithia followed them. There had been little in the religious * He became Sir Charles Forbes, and was selected by Lord V. accompany him in his duel with the Duke of Wellington. — [Ed.] ioo Memorials of Mrs Gilbe?i. circles of Colchester to attract the young towards what we regard as the doctrines of the Gospel, little to induce the tasteful and intelligent to join their company. In Dublin everything was captivating, and nothing offensive. The theatre, the ball-room, and all the warmth of Irish hospitality combined to allure; and when they again visited England the Stapletons belonged to another sphere than ours. Of Mira and Bithia my father had thought so favourably that without scruple he would have received them into the Church; but they came back with other views, had " freed themselves from educational prejudices," and soon indi- cated to their anxious mother, that the step so worldly wise, had but commenced a course of trial which termi- nated only with the life of each. There are, it is true, few things in the treatment of a family requiring more of that wisdom which cometh from above, than the decision continually to be made between exposure and exclusiveness. To act out either principle fully would be almost equally injurious. God has placed us in a world requiring the discharge of active duties amid its innumerable temptations, and if we cannot defend our children from all, the best we can do is to arm them with principles for the unavoidable encounter — perhaps padding the shield on the inside with habits. We cannot watch over them till all dangers are past, but a steady eye upon the chief good will steer us safely through many. Do you remember the enquiry made of good old Thomas Scott on his death-bed? In his own large family he had been greatly favoured, and they, having now children of their own to rear, asked their dying father whether he could name any special course or principle to which this success could be attributed? He replied, with the humility of an aged Christian, that he was sensible of many defects and errors, but that one thing he had aimed at, and to that only could he refer the blessing that had distinguished his labours, — his uniform endeavour, both for his children and himself to " seek first the kingdom of God and his right- eousness." So much had everything else been regarded as subordinate, that the Rev. John Scott, his eldest son, and biographer adds, that he believes, "not one among The Mackintoshes. ior them would have ventured to inform his father that he was about to marry a rich wife! " How strangely diverse from the ruling principle now, even among those who pro- fess to be not of this world ! Having named Thomas Scott I cannot resist the plea- sure of expressing the veneration and love with which I regard him. What a beautifully honest man! Truth and conscience everywhere, the pole-star and the helm! There is to my mind in his writings an even-handedness which guides safely among the practical difficulties of theology. Read his volume of " Theological Essays," and you will be fenced in from error, not by dogmatism, but by the wis- dom, judgment, christian experience, extensive knowledge of the best kind, and fearless integrity of one of the best of men. From my heart I admire him, and from my head, such as it is, not the less. He was a speckled bird, how- ever, among the Churchmen of his times. Till near the close of this year, though both destined for the arts, Jane and I had, as has been said, spent only alternate weeks in the work-room ; but an engagement made by my father to supply monthly portraits to the Theological Magazine induced him to withdraw us both from the family, and now to the end of our residence in Colchester we continued fully employed in engraving, with exception of one day each, in a fortnight, for our own needlework, which was certainly most sedulously worked to that purpose. Indeed, without a careful economy of time, we could not have accomplished all that we con- trived to accomplish during our little leisure; a leisure which we thoroughly enjoyed, for none but the fully occupied can appreciate the delight of suspended, or rather, I should say, of varied labour. It is toil that creates holidays ; there is no royal road — yes, that is the royal road — to them. Life cannot be made up of recrea- tions, they must be garden spots in well farmed land. A name of enduring interest to me occurs first in the autumn of this year, that of Dr Mackintosh, the hus- band, as he now became, of our friend Miss Hills. Just sixty years ago he was introduced to us as the elegant and accomplished young physician, warm from the literary 102 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. circles of Edinburgh. Forty-seven years afterwards, and after twenty years of discontinued intercourse, I was delighted by a renewed correspondence unexpectedly commenced by his wife. How little can we surmise among associates of early life who are to survive ! who to wear well through all its trials and dangers — who to return to us after many days ! In Dr and Mrs Mack- intosh I regained truly valuable Christian friends. It was delightful to witness in her letters the ardour and vivacity of her youthful character, the firmness of the fine handwriting, the same graphic archness of description, a freshness of recollection, and a tenacity of friendship rarely preserved amidst the infirmities of years. About this time we were introduced to a new and different family circle from which it was our own fault if we did not derive much benefit as well as pleasure. I think, indeed, that to this day I can trace some degree of moral improvement in my own character to intercourse with these excellent friends. Mr Holman, of Sudbury, was a venerable Christian man of the older school ; he was the principal of a long-established firm, manufacturers of a fabric not, I believe, now in use, a thin white glazed woollen stuff used only for shrouds. It was then required by Act of Parliament, as part of the protectionist system of the day, and to encourage the wool trade, that every- one should be buried in wool* The manufacture, there- fore, was considerable ; and in Mr Holman's factory not the material only, but the shrouds also were made. I vividly remember, on a dark winter's evening, returning from a visit to Rodbridge Hall, the hospitable residence of an uncle of our friends, and, stopping at a lone house between Melford and Sudbury, in which, under the care of some female relatives of Mr Holman, the shroud making was carried on. We were ushered into a large and lofty room, surrounded by something like dressers or counters, on which, at full length, were laid out the shrouds in all their grim neatness of plaitings, stomachers, ruffles, and * " Odious ! in woollen ! 'twould a saint provoke," Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke. Pope, Ethic Epistles. The Shroiid Room. 103 gimping, while others hung above on the walls. It was about as much as nerves could endure by candle-light. But here were residing three solitary sisters, apparently unconscious of any speciality in their employment. Of one of them, dying a few years after, I may relate a striking incident. They were all pious women, but one had fallen into a state of religious despondency, from which nothing availed to relieve her, and, to the distress of her family, she gradually declined to the grave under its influence. Dying, she made no sign, till at the last moment she suddenly exclaimed, " Glory ! oh, this is glory ! " and immediately expired, permitted, it seemed, in kindness to her sorrowing family, to antedate, but for an instant, Heaven itself. May it prove an encouragement to some suffering in a like darkness to hope on, " faint yet pursuing," till through Him in whom in life they have trusted, they are in death made more than conquerors. There was a very pleasant circle at Sudbury, sufficiently intelligent to be interesting, and quite good enough to be very useful to us. Well do I remember the kind grave suavity of Mr Holman's manner, and the impressions made by his mild gentlemanly reproofs, when we chanced to take what he thought a little licence in speaking of our neighbours, which certainly sometimes we did. I think that almost my first real sensitiveness to this sin of the tongue was produced under the light of his mild eye, and under contrast with the kindliness of his amiable family. Most of them have been long in the grave, and in thus reverting to circle after circle I am ready to exclaim, — " I only am left alone to tell thee." Whether or not to continue thus minutely to notice names and circumstances year after year, I cannot satis- factorily determine, but there were occurrences in 1S01 which demand some speciality. At this time a family was introduced to our intimacy that during the ten years following, were among our most familiar and agreeable associates. As they had always resided in Colchester, I do not know how it was that we came to know them then, or did not know them before The house and household of Mr Strutt — or "Ben Strutt," 104 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. as he was regularly called in the town — were altogether unique. The house was rendered as antique in appear- ance as it could be. In the centre was what was used as a music hall, occupying two stories in height, and hung round with pieces of old armour, weapons, and similar curiosities. One of the upper chambers opened into this hall, not by windows, but literally, — the whole side being removed. It was defended only by a low balustrade, so that the daughter whose room it was, might, as she lay in bed, have found her dreams disturbed by the spectral appearances of shield, helmet, and breastplate gleaming under the moonlight falling on them from a skylight in the roof. Mr Strutt himself it is not easy to describe. What might be his occupation, or by what means he indulged his varied, peculiar, and sometimes expensive tastes, I never knew. He was artist, musician, antiquary, poet, and author, an amateur in each. His fine grey head and dark penetrating eyes made his appearance singular and interesting, while a marked scowl and a taciturn austerity seemed intended to express a high disregard of society in all its forms of external elegance and conventional polite- ness— intended, I fancy, to express all this, but, to my thinking, it did its business awkwardly.* He was, I fully believe, naturally not only polite, but kind, so that notwithstanding the severe exterior, we soon felt at home and comfortable in his unornamented parlour; amused by his eccentricities, and honoured, as we could not help feeling, by his terse original conversation Indeed, I think I may say he seemed to take a sort of liking to us. Of his theological views there were various conjectures afloat. No one ever sounded his opinions, but he was regarded as a sceptic after some school of his own, especially as he never attended public worship anywhere. His wife had been long dead, but his mother, an aged woman, yet younger and more vitally alive than many in * Crabbe Robinson in his diary describes Mr Strutt at some length, having been evidently impressed not only with his singularity but with his intellec- tual power and versatile talent. He quotes some of his shrewd but cynical sayings; among others, — " Young man, whatever you be through life, always be of the Act of Parliament faith." — [Ed.] The Strults. 105 their prime, resided with him, and an unmarried sister kept his house. With the eldest son, a dry, stiff, pedantic oddity, inheriting" his father's queerness, without either his taste or intellect, we were but little acquainted, since he was considerably the senior of the family. Four others, Caroline, Jacob, Rachel, and Sarah, completed the circle, and it was with Caroline and Jacob that we were chiefly intimate. She was a fine girl of about our own age, peculiar as they all were, and with much talent for both music and drawing ; but beyond a sort of church-going religion, which she shared with her aunt, she was entirely ignorant of what we understood as evangelical piety. It became the subject of much conversation and correspond- ence both with us and Anna Forbes, who had been pay- ing us a visit ; but she resented the implication of being " a sinner," as a term that was unfit and untrue ; and it was impossible to say what impression was even- tually made upon her mind. She died of consumption in 1S05. Jacob Strutt was an interesting, intelligent young man, with much that was chivalrous both in appearance and character. A little speech depicts him. We were return- ing late one night from his father's house, Jacob being our escort, when I chanced to drop a bracelet on the pavement. We looked for it in vain ; and, on giving up the search, he said, " a true knight would remain with his lance poised beside him till daylight to guard and recover the treasure." And well his dark scorn-speaking counten- ance would have befitted the knightly figure. He both drew and wrote well ; you will distinguish him as a con- tributor to the "Associate Minstrels" (presently to be mentioned), under the signature S. — a graceful specimen of his lighter style. Being, however, a student of medi- cine at the time, he could not give full scope to his tastes, which inclined much more to art and literature than to science. He did not follow his profession, and I last heard of him vegetating among the ruins of Rome — him- self too much a ruin. One can but sigh over a life that with character formed, and energies controlled and exer cised under Christian principles, might have shone, a 106 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. light in the world. He married a lady of various literary ability, and competent to almost all sorts of work, includ- ing the composition of sermons for languid divines. One of her works I have read with pleasure, " The Triumphs of Genius and Perseverance," an interesting collection of biographies exemplifying those qualities. It was in the social hour after eight that, if ever, we enjoyed ourselves from home, and it was then that we frequently supped with the Strutts. The fare was sin- gular, since one of his peculiarities was the prohibition of animal food to his family, though he admitted of excep- tions in favour of his mother and his visitors ; a lamentable crotchet to which I have always believed the lives of his two daughters, both dying of consumption, were in some degree sacrificed. It was a strange circle — Mr Strutt, the aged mother, the simple, kind hearted, nondescript maiden sister, little Sally, Rachel, a girl of such secluded temper and manners that we had scarcely speaking acquaintance with her, occasionally the queer Edward, or the graceful Jacob, but we were as much at home in it as if all had been young like ourselves.* About this date, the pressure on the arts continuing very heavy, and my father, in these fearfully difficult times, having a hard struggle to maintain his large family, it was suggested by a friend that I should accept a situation as governess in an intelligent Suffolk family. By most parents so circumstanced this would have been regarded as a desirable relief, but my kind father preferred for me the few grains I could pick up under his wing, so long at least as this was practicable, notwithstanding all its cares and privations. I can but regard this decision with thankful- ness, both to my earthly and my heavenly Father, for not- withstanding all my home advantages, I was entirely unfit to undertake such a charge. It is probable that of some things I might know more than many, but I knew * Mr Strutt indulged in favourite cats. He was convinced upon one occa- sion that a fine "Tom" was suffering from toothache, and that the tooth should be extracted. But how "bell the cat?" His ingenuity was equal to the emergency ; inserting pussy, claws and all, into a top-boot, leaving the head alone exposed, he was able to operate with safety and satisfaction to himself.— [Ed.] The Fever. 107 nothing secundum artcm, having never been taught in schools ; and though now nineteen, I was a mere child in judgment and experience. Indeed, I have often thought that, as a family, we were (I was going to say are) younger than our years. Even now, whether at sixty-six, as when I first began this, or at eighty, as I am now, the feeling of being a grown woman, to say nothing of an old woman, does not come naturally to me. I arrive at the conclusion rather by a process of reflection than as a felt fact. I believe, therefore, that I might have been sub- jected to disgrace and disappointment had the offer been accepted, and that I was kept in a path better suited to both my taste and ability. There may be some who, like myself, have mournful reasons for remembering the fearfully hot and dry summer of 1801. During many sultry weeks the sun looked out of the clear blue sky as if he had no pity. The parched fields gaped with thirst ; the streets, even of clean Col- chester, became almost fetid from the want of rain, not a cloud of promise came, and fever broke out with us, as in most parts of the kingdom. In common with our neighbours we dreaded the prevalent infection, and at last our dear little brother Decimus was attacked by the disease. Not one of us was allowed even to see him during the few days of his illness ; my mother nursed him alone, but in a week he died, having reached his sixth year. He was a quiet little fellow, and I cannot even now think oi him without affectionate pain. Dear tranquil child, fare- well to thee once more ! We all followed him to the grave, and our grief was very real. Sympathy goes to the heart at such times. A soldier, standing in an inn yard that we had to pass, was heard to say softly, " poor things," as we moved along. It touched us then, and wrote itself, as you see, on my memory. We had been prohibited from taking even a last look before the coffin was closed, but a friend, more kind than wise, "just took us in to see," and the consequence was, that Martin and Jefferys were immediately seized with io8 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. the disease. It proved, however, in their case, much less virulent, and they recovered favourably. Yet I cannot describe the nervous apprehension with which we were all affected ; we lived in hourly terror, Jane and I especially ; at length our fears subsided, the house was thoroughly cleansed, and we began to suppose ourselves free from danger. But on a fine still Saturday evening, just before we left the work-room, I felt a slight sting in my throat — the fever had commenced, and it proceeded rapidly. By the Tuesday night following, the degree of heat I experi- enced seemed more like that of heated metal, than of human flesh. My parents, brothers, and sisters, assembled in my father's study to pray for my life, and their prayers were heard. My only nurses were my dear, weary mother, and a tender-hearted servant, who had been already ex- posed to infection. She was but a good-natured, round- faced country girl, but I shall always gratefully remember her unselfish kindness and devotion. I wish her as kind a hand to smooth her own sick pillow — if pillow she still needs ! Long has been the interval since I wrote last, partly because it is difficult for me to command seclusion and leisure, and partly because a more serious point was ap- proaching in my history than any I have previously had to touch. A quiet Sabbath evening inclines me to proceed. Great as had been my anxiety when danger was only in sight, I do not recollect anything of the kind during my illness. Though I had no such assured hope of safety as could render the prospect of death other than alarming, the absorbing effect of disease, as I suppose, kept me tranquil. Perhaps such tranquillity may often be mis- taken for the token of a "happy death." In extremity of pain or weakness the mind loses its sensitiveness to any- thing beside, and, except in special cases, becomes almost incapable of deep emotion. The sufferer appears, as it is said, " quite resigned," and so the weight of eternal issues is thrown upon the peradventure "that all is right," or the conviction that, if not, it is too late, — what must be, must be now ! Sear c hi ugs of Heart. 109 In a short time I was restored to my usual health, and my dear father watched for "fruit." What were the indi- cations from which he judged favourably of my Christian character I cannot say, but he did not lose the oppor- tunity, on my recovery, of urging the necessity of decision, and before the end of the year I allowed myself to be proposed to the Church ; how suitably God only knows, the day shall declare it. Oh that I may find mercy of the Lord in that day ! * I was never confident, never satisfied, and there are some, of whose profession at the time I thought ill, whose Christianity has proved of better stamina than mine. They have survived to evi- dence growth, and reality, and leave me, I am constrained to fear, still a dark inconsistent wanderer, vainly attempt- ing to lay hold on the hope set before me in the gospel. " Other refuge have I none," yet I fail of peace, " peace in believing," that blessed possession which the world can neither give nor take away. " Oh, decide the doubtful case, Thou who art Thy people's sun, Shine upon the work of grace, If it be indeed begun." I have just alluded to my own life-long failure in reaching peace and joy. Yet there was a period, long after the date of my admission to the church, when I did enjoy what seemed a well-founded hope, and I will ante- date my history by nearly forty years to narrate the cir- cumstances under which it occurred. Those many years had passed over me with various alternations of comfort and discomfort, hope and fear, when in the summer of 1838 I was called to make a long sojourn at the sea, on a solitary coast. Our first Sabbath on the way thither was spent in a family where I should not have looked for re- ligious improvement; but I was there singularly affected. It was an ordinance Sabbath, and in my usual state of feeling, a doleful sense of need and misery, I joined the communion, of the small church there. During the ad- * " Joining the Church" is with the Independents a serious an Jun- Mlss Jane Taylor. rersona, ^ Mr Mardn ^^ Children, Servant, and Porter. A ring at ye door — Servant niters. Servant. There's a man with two arm chairs. All. Two arm chairs ! ! ! Servant. Yes sir ; all done up in hay. Mr Taylor. They can't be for us. All {tumbling over one another). Let us see. Ann. They are for Taylor the dyer. Jane. But here is ye " Rev." Isaac. Oh, pay for 'em ! pay for 'em ! I daresay mamma has sent them from London. Martin. Yes, yes, that's likely. I know mamma better than that. You don't catch her at those tricks ; besides, they are all gilt and japanned ! Father. Do hold your tongue, boy, and somebody pay for 'em. Who can lend me a shilling ? 130 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. All. I've got none. Father. Can you change me a ? Call again. Well, they are rare easy chairs, however, come they from whom they may. They are such a support to one's back when one's tired. fane. But if they should not be for us after all, we should look rare foolish. Father. Ah, well, let's enjoy them while we have 'em, and not trouble ourselves who may sit in them to-morrow. Isaac. Where will you set them, pa ? Father. Why, I don't know ; let them stand in the best parlour for ye present, to be safe from mischief, and mamma shall settle it when she comes home. Jane. Now, I'll lay anything I can tell where they came from. You know Fowler's a chair-maker, and he's very good natured, and perhaps [Curtain drops. A Short Epilogue. Wist ye not that such an one as / Can certainly divine ! * Monday. — Saw Mr Clayton preach yesterday morning ; Mem. — No sounding board. Heard Mr Bennett at Mr Brooksbanks' in afternoon; Mem. — A sounding board.] The beloved circle in which we had lived during a few years of early youth at Colchester was beginning to thin in 1804; one and another passed away, till scarcely any of those in whom we felt an affectionate interest were left. On the 16th of April there died of decline, in Dublin, Bithia Stapleton, for a time my intensely attached friend. She burnt out prematurely, and we learnt nothing of her last days. Many letters had passed between us on the subject of her changing views, and I would fain regard it as the lingering of a latent faith, that in one of her last to me she said, " Do you think I can be saved by Christ without believing on Him ? " Sad to lie down and die on such a precipice! On the 19th of January, in the follow- ing year, Mira, the elder sister, died at Exeter, whither she had removed for change of air, and where she was most * The chairs were a present from Mr Cecil, the mother only being in the secret.— [Eu.] A Broken Circle. 1 3 1 kindly nursed by an amiable and intelligent Unitarian family. She was only twenty-six, a lovely girl, and of no common intellect. A single sentence only reached us from her dying words, indicating conflicting thoughts, " Lord save me z'/z thine own way!' Letitia died on the 12th of December 1806. She was on her way to Exeter with her mother, but had been com- pelled to remain at the inn at Basingstoke, where she passed ten weeks of severe pain, bodily and mental. The change in her religious sentiments had led her to request her mother not to speak upon the subject of religion at all, but before the close of this trying period she had the consolation of witnessing a happy return " to a good hope through grace," in her daughter, who died in humble but en- tire reliance upon Christ. A singularly interesting account of her was drawn up by the Rev. Mr Jefferson of Basing- stoke, and published as a tract. In the September previous to Letitia's death it was decided that Eliza, suffering, though less obviously, from the same disease, should remove to Dublin, to find a home — too soon a grave — where Bithia only two years previously had found hers. Her mother, being unable to leave Letitia, I was I requested to take charge of Eliza as far as Birmingham, and as her illness did not then appear so fatal as it proved to be, the prospect of the journey was not unpleasant. Our first night was spent at the house of our invaluable friend, Mr Cecil. The second at Oxford ; whence we travelled the next day by post-chaise to Birmingham, where she was met by another friend. After reaching Dublin she lingered only till the 23d of December, surviving her sister Letitia by less than a fortnight. But, deceived, as I have said, by the little appearance of so speedy a result, our journey had been cheerful rather than mournful, and many many times have I reproached myself for allowing this last opportunity to escape without one salutary word. A word spoken in season, how good it might have been ! But, as far as I was concerned, the season was not im- proved, and the omission lies upon my conscience to tin's day. I am not without other regrets of the kind. How very difficult is it— so, at least, I have found it— to speak 132 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. with faithfulness as well as tenderness to the incipient invalid ? How seldom do we, in view of a near eternity, suggest the right thought, or, honestly though not harshly, urge impending danger? It was under a pressing sense of the difficulty of speaking that I afterwards wrote the small volume addressed to a "Convalescent." Would that it may whisper what I have wanted courage to speak ! Letitia wrote to her sister from her deathbed, but it did not reach her in time. When Mrs Hutton, the friend at whose house Eliza died, afterwards read the letter, she said to Mrs Stapleton, " Those were exactly Eliza's feel- ings ; she lamented that her mind had been so vain and trifling, and was continually calling upon me to read to her the promises of mercy and grace." It was about two years after consigning the last of her four lovely daughters to the grave, that Mrs Stapleton died also — solitary, at Bristol, whither she had retired. And besides this entire family, we lost at Colchester, within nearly the same period, four other friends, with whom we had been intimate for several years, and whose names have appeared on these pages — Caroline and Rachel Strutt, Mary and Betsy Keep, the latter a beautiful girl recently married ; paying one of her wedding visits on a wintry night she took down a heavy cloth coat that had long hung in the hall out of use, to defend herself from the weather ; it was damp, and feeling the chill, she sportively exclaimed, " there, I have caught my death," and so it proved. In this mournful way it was, that the path was clearing around us for those associates who have gone down with me far into the vale of life, and with some of whom I am still in affectionate correspondence. So three succes- sive circles surrounded me — those of Lavenham, of Col- chester, and of London ! It is true I have since been favoured with valuable friendships, but the friends of ad- vancing life cannot remember what I remember, and what a uniting charm, a natural magic, there is in that! Colchester, it may be remembered, was the residence of Joanna Baillie and her sister, but they had left the town, where they had lived in much seclusion, before we went to Mrs Barbaitld. 135 it, and there were few, if any, within our reach to whom we could look with that idol worship, with which, as girls, pen in hand, we were wont to regard a " live author." It was not till 1807 that I paid a visit to London, which, through the kindness of various friends, gratified my in- tense, but humble, yearnings to see " Poetry " in the shape of man or woman. On this occasion I was introduced to both Dr. Aikin and Mrs Barbauld. A call I was privi- leged to make at Newington upon the latter, I cannot for- get, nor the strange feeling of unearthly expectancy with which, in a small parlour, I wTaited her appearance. At length the door opened, — for she did not float in on a cloud or a zephyr, — and a small, plain, lively, elderly lady made her appearance; but it was Mrs Barbauld, and that was enough! During the same visit I was introduced to a literary nucleus of a different but interesting description, consisting of Daniel Parken, then editor of the " Eclectic Review;" Theophilus Williams, who succeeded him; and Ignatius Montgomery, a relative of the Poet. Of James Montgomery himself, Kirke White, and others, we, from time to time, heard a good deal from our now intimate friend Josiah Conder, whose correspondence, through the " monthly parcel," was made intensely interesting to us by the literary intelligence it conveyed. I was captivated by art in my visit of 1800, but I was now wedded to litera- ture, so far as literature would condescend to the alliance, and a turn was given, or rather confirmed, which influ- enced my course for several succeeding years. I have mentioned that my father never omitted an opportunity of giving us scientific advantages beyond his own ability, so that whenever a lecturer of any note made his appearance we were sure to be among his audi- tors. From a course of chemical lectures delivered at the Moot Hall, my brothers, and especially Martin, became enamoured of the science, and by rising at four o'clock were able to conduct various experiments in the kitchen (early rising was a gift in the family) before it was re- quired for domestic purposes. I suppose this got known about; and upon one occasion an unlucky lecturer ap- peared at our door with a request, which I will leave the 134 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert, following little note from my brother Isaac to me, the earliest remnant of a lifelong correspondence, to ex- plain— " You must excuse Martin's not coming. Just after you went there came a great rap — Jefferys went to the door. ' Have you got a brother that's a philosopher?' ' I don't know, Sir. I'll call my brother.' I went down — ' Sir, are you a philosopher ? ' I'm not so happy as to understand you, Sir ; I can't say I am ? ' Well, Sir, but do you know anything about making gases ? ' ' Oh, Mr Drummond, I suppose ? ' ' Yes ; my lecture begins in half-an-hour, and all my Oxygen is gone up the chimney. Can you make me any in time?' Martin came down; he engaged his services, and we have been hard at work ever since. Martin is now gone up with five bottles of gas in the capacity of foreman to the lecturer. Therefore you see he cannot come.* I. T., jun." On the 17th of October 1807, my grandfather, Isaac Taylor, died, at the age of seventy-seven. He had been of some note not only in art but in politics, for he had taken an active part in Wilkes's election, and had lost con- siderably more than ^"iooo in doing so. He was also for many years almost alone as an architectural publisher and bookseller, and acquired a comfortable independency upon which he retired to Edmonton, where, in the crowded burial ground, " Isaac Taylor, gent." may be seen upon his tombstone. The larger share of his property went to his eldest son Charles, but my father, along with three others, came in for a portion which was sufficient to add very materially to our comfort, and was the commencing step towards a much better state of things than we had known since the sudden decline at Lavenham. 1 808 was marked by the serious illness of my brother Isaac, and by the addition to our home circle of the daughter of our friends the Lungleys for the completion of her education; and in this year, too, my father found a purchaser, though at considerable loss, for his house in * One evening Colchester was alarmed by a violent explosion in the " Kings Meadows." It was not generally known, but certain of these young experimenters were the cause of it. — [Ed.] The Associate Mi?istrcls. JD Lavenham. As to 1S09, would that I could well recall the events of that year! The almost daily memoranda contained in my pocket-books from 1797 to the present time, have only this interruption; the one for T809 has been singularly mislaid. It may, or may not, be at the time, felt of any importance to make these daily entries, but in the course of years it is so interesting to retrace them, sometimes so salutary, though often so mournful, that I would recommend the practice to every- one, for whom memory may possess any charm. Do not grudge the few minutes of time which you thus expend in order to preserve and enrich its stores. In this recommendation I do not include what is techni- cally called a diary of religious experience. To me it ap- pears impossible that this should be honestly done. Much that generally enters into it should pass under the eye of God alone, and to the writer and the reader is almost equally injurious. If deeply self-abasing, it may pass for humility with one, for hypocrisy with another; or may en- courage a pleasant self-complacency in some who com- pare themselves with it; while, on the other hand, if it describe a state of high religious enjoyment, it may have a slide down into Pharisaism on one side, or it may be too much like writing your own name in the book of Life ! But the great evil is its almost certain publicity. How many such effusions, written in all sincerity and supposed secresy, have been desecrated by unfitting readers, and for a little good, have done a full counterbalance of mischief ! It is, I conclude, to the loss of the pocket-book for 1809 that I must attribute the absence of memoranda respecting a volume which, under the title of "The Associate Minstrels," appeared early in 18 10. However sacred may be the inner flame of Poetry7 — sacred to the few — yet sooner or later the vulgar public is sure to be admitted to gaze upon it. So at least it was with us. Josiah Conder had been our guest. He had relatives at .and, six miles from Colchester, who always opened a most hospitable home to us, and many were the excursions in which we availed ourselves of their kindly welcome. It was during one of those walks with him to Nayland on 136 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. a beautiful summer evening", that the idea and the plan of the "Associate Minstrels" were elicited. Josiah was to be editor and publisher. It was to be inscribed to Montgomery. My brother Isaac was to furnish a design for the title page, and so, including a few pieces from the elder Mr Conder, from the lady afterwards Mrs Josiah Conder, from my father, and Jacob Strutt, we contrived a volume — Jane, Josiah, and I — which did pass into a second edition ! In turning over some old papers of this period I have been pleased to find several forgotten letters, in which pleasant, and even honourable mention is made, both of the "Associate Minstrels," and of the humbler volumes for children. All these distant critics were personally strangers to Jane and me, and therefore their opinions were the more gratifying. Among them are Walter Scott, Southey, Miss Edgeworth, Hayley, and others less known to fame. The two former spoke of their own children as already familiar with the smaller volumes. Pleased and thankful were we then, surprised, and as thankful am I now, at the success and encouragement thus afforded. Mrs Smith, a sister of H. Kirke White, dates from Not- tingham, and says — " Should you at any time visit our neighbourhood, it would be a high satisfaction to show you under our humble roof every attention in our power." Nottingham ! Why did not the very word thrill through me ? How little could I foresee its ultimate bearing upon my life ! All that I then knew about it was, that it was " down in the shires," the usual term in Colchester for the midland counties. One event of deep and tender interest to us occurred in 1809, the first breach in our home circle, by the permanent removal of one of its members, my dear brother Martin. He could draw prettily, but he was not fitted to become a successful engraver, and a place was found for him in one of the large publishing houses in Paternoster Row. The feelings of a young man just liberated from home into the excitements and large interests of London, are neither expected nor wished to wear the hue of melancholy which falls on the circle he has left. He did, however, feel his Parting with the Brothers. 137 solitude, by day in one of those immense warehouses, and at night not a smile to cheer him in his lodging ; and many years afterwards, a touching proof was given of the tenacity of his affections when the house of business he then occupied being burnt down, his first care was to save his little girl, his favourite cat, and the box containing the letters from his family ! The following year it appeared desirable that dear Isaac also should set foot in the open world, and there cater for himself. He had some ability as an engraver, more as a designer, and, under his father, had acquired some skill in painting miniatures ; with these he was to win his way. It was an anxious launch for both brothers, and the hearts at home were feeling it such, more, perhaps, than they did themselves. On the 2d of January 18 10 dear Isaac left us, and by monthly parcel on the 1st of May, the first copies of the " Associate Minstrels " were received. But with 1 8 10 commenced a series of changes, dark, many of them at first, but fraught with mercy when developed and understood. My father had now spent sixteen anxious and laborious years as a minister at Col- chester ; there were tendencies in the congregation in opposite directions on doctrinal matters, which had never been worked off; and various circumstances inclined him to terminate his engagement. This at length he did, and on the 2 1 st of June his resignation was announced.* The * A letter from Mr Taylor to a friend illustrates the nature of the evil he had to contend with, a leaven of Antinomianism which seems to have troubled several of the small Essex churches at that time, and which could not brook his earnest exhortations to personal holiness, nor the strict church discipline he enforced. . . . " You shall judge for yourself as to their sentiment-; and conduct. One of them, when speaking of low frames and worldliness of mind, instead of being humbled and ashamed, took his comfort thus: — 'If God don't choose to give me grace for better living, how can I help it ? ' They commonly held that a believer ought not to pray for the pardon of sins, because they are already pardoned ; and when reminded of the practice of the apostles, had the insolence to reply that if the apostles did not under- stand their own doctrines better, that was no rule for us ! Now, a- they held also, that it was of no use for a sinner to pray at all, because unable to any spiritual exertion, they shut out prayer for pardon entirely." In another letter he defends his large understanding of the gospel. " An attempt has been made to narrow the term ' gospel ' to a few peculiar points. But the Scriptures are everywhere against it. Christ went forth preaching the gospel of the kingdom, but neither did his Sermon on the 138 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. move was one leaving no visible outlet, and till the following year it remained uncertain whither it might lead. Our valued friend, the Rev. John Saville, occupied the pulpit at the " Round Meeting," and thither as a family we shortly removed, my father being often engaged in supplying distant churches. We continued to engrave as well as to write, but for some time were a greatly disjointed family. We did not, however, discontinue what we could retain of domestic festivals, with their commemorative rambles, if the season permitted ; and even concocted a plan for constructing a small cottage among the woods, to be ultimately tenanted by our bachelor brothers, and called the " Old Boys' Cot," while another already existing nearer Colchester, by the rural beauty of which we had long been captivated, was appropriated to Jane and me as " The Old Girls." How different was it all to be ! And then there came the last happy Christmas meeting in the home of our youth, and long unbroken companionship. Isaac and Martin came from London, the latter by the mail in the middle of the night ; we three, Jane, Isaac, and I, remain- ed up to await the tap at the back door, suitable caution having been sent to prevent our father and mother, persuaded reluctantly to go to bed, from being disturbed Mount, nor in general his other discourses, refer to these peculiar points, though now and then he enlightened his friends, or astounded his adversaries, by deeper doctrines, and foundation truths, relating to the system of saving grace. Nay, Paul -was not a gospel preacher if this false principle is to be a rule. • . . The 'gospel' is a large word. It is a glorious system of doctrines, and precepts, and threatenings, and promises. The term ' gospel ' is applied to all these. I am as much preaching the gospel when I am exhorting to holiness, as when pointing to the blood of Jesus ; as surely so when handling a duty, as when exhibiting the promise of the Spirit to fulfil it. If their rule were a sound one, it would shut out from pulpit exercises the greatest part of the Bible. Many important stories are suited to our edifica- tion in the historical parts, but they do not involve the points which some think should always appear. The treasure of pious experience in the Psalms will be shut out, as only a few of them are prophetic of Christ. How small a portion of the four Gospels refer to these specific truths ! Nay, three quar ters of every Epistle must be neglected. Far be it from me to slight the Word of God in this manner. There are also many things relating to Provi- dence, to the Word, to affliction, to the world to come, which would not satisfy such people. Nay, many points of the saint's deepest experience will be destitute of this main material, if in so narrow a form the ' Gospel ' is to be regarded." — [Ed.] A Disappoint?nent. 139 by a thoughtless thunder at the front. You will guess how we listened, and greeted the quiet tap with the prompt and warm welcome of love and gladness. Ah, you all know that the long interval from 18 10 to i860 has deadened neither my ear nor my heart for the sound of the Christmas wheels ! On the following night, Christmas though it was, Martin returned by mail again to the paper walls of his London prison. So brief were the holidays of those days ! We were now regularly placing small sums at interest ; but it was not till we began to publish for ourselves that we felt the solid advantage that literature might bring to us. The " Hymns for Infant Minds" were the first venture we thus made. In the first year of their publication we realized £i$o. But an unlooked-for disappointment awaited us in the failure of our publisher, an old friend, who was, I daresay, as sorry for us as we were for him. All our little savings were now floated off to meet expenses, and we had to make a fresh start. Valuable as money had always been to us, and still was, we yet could not feel the loss, as it was supposed among our friends that we must — almost ought to have done. The pleasures of writing, and the credit we were gaining by it, so over- balanced the simple money misfortune that we bore it with admired equanimity. Before the 1st of January 181 1 the third edition of Hymns for Infant Minds had made their appearance, and we enjoyed the entire profit. The confinement inseparable from years of engraving had long appeared to our friends too much to continue ; though, indeed, I did not feel it. But the suggestion was perpetually made to us, " Do take pupils ; you know your father's methods, you have now a name yourselves, and we feel sure you would succeed." Such was the advice continually given, and in time it worked its way, though never into my affections. But it mingled with the prospect now opening to us of remove and change, and tinged everything with the feeling of an uncertain future. The lines in my album, a " Farewell to Sudbury," a place connected hitherto with only youthful holiday feelings, were commemorative of a last visit there. Life henceforth 140 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. was to be neither youthful nor holiday, or so we felt it, and the lines are naturally embued with melancholy. Happily the course suggested was not pursued, but the prospect seemed to have been set before us for the purpose of detaching us from the groove in which, for twelve or fourteen years, we had run, and placing us in positions which, without a loosening like this, we should never have ventured on. Friends from London and elsewhere, to whom the " High Woods," the " Springs," and even the " shabby old work- room" were almost as interesting as to ourselves, now came to pay final visits : while Jane and I went, as we felt for the last time, to every memorable spot within reach, sending loving looks in every direction. Colchester was very dear to us, though even now nearly every one we had really loved there had passed away. Colchester to me is dear still ; I cannot see the name in a newspaper without a thrill of personal interest, as if it was something that belonged to me. In the summer of 18 10, Jane, when visiting London, had enjoyed a pic-nic excursion in Epping Forest, and observed on a sign post at one of the turnings, "To Ongar." It was the first time she had seen the name. She had presently occasion to recollect it ; but little could she imagine how deeply it was involved with her future history! On a Sabbath in 181 1, my father, not yet having any settled charge, preached for a brother minister at Brentwood, and on the day following walked the seven miles thence to Ongar. On coming to an angle in the road, from which the pretty little town is visible within the distance of a field or two, he rested against a gate to look at it, and said to himself, " Well, I could be content to live and die in that spot." And so it was to be, he lived and he died there ; spending more than eighteen years as the assiduous and beloved pastor of its little church. On the 14th of July that year he received a call to the pastorate. So the time for removing really came at last, and on the 31st of August 181 1, we closed, as it proved, our many years of work-room work. The Castle House, a quaint Feeble Fa ith . 141 and very pleasant country residence, was engaged for us at Ongar, whither my father repaired to receive the fur- niture, &c, and, when all was ready, to welcome us — my mother, self, Jane, Jefferys, and Jemima, to the new home. But, instead of detailing from memory the circumstances of this, to us memorable transit, I will here introduce por- tions of a letter written, at my first leisure, to Luck Conder. Castle House, Ongar, September 23, 181 1. — The mere date of my letter, my very dear friend, might prove a text for many pages. Since September 23, 18 10, what great changes have occurred to both of us ! We spent that day, if you recollect, at Heckford Bridge (which we have not since seen), and on the following Sabbath my father took leave of his charge at Colchester. O what anxious heartaches it would have saved us, could we have glanced but one look at the date of this letter ! We did not know, but, "fools and slow of heart," we might have " believed." When providences open and discover the kindness and care of God, surmounting our fears and anxieties, we are apt to fancy that we have faith, because we are constrained to acknowledge the wisdom and goodness which have conducted us. But a poor faith is that which must thrust its hand into the prints of the nails before it will believe ; and blessed, indeed, are those who, " though they see not, yet believe." I do wonder at established Christians, those who can " read their title clear to mansions in the skies," when they are overwhelmed with temporal anxieties, and seem as careful, and sorrowing, and even despairing, as if they had to choose their own path, and be sun, and shield, and rock, and staff, and God, to themselves. ... It is a humbling proof of the weakness of faith, even in the liveliest Christians, that they cannot composedly trust in God for so much as a crumb of bread. If he lay but a finger upon their earthly comforts, or hide their path for a few moments behind a sharp turning, they begin doubting and wailing, as if He were some God whose kindness they did not know, whose power they dared not trust ; and the poor prayers by which they 142 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. think they evince their faith, are little better than impa- tient sallies, half fear, half anger. As to a cheerful de- pendence, and humble resignation, they seldom come till their petition is granted ; and then a great deal of gladness, and a little thankfulness, are too often mistaken for them . . . On Monday evening, August 26, we all walked to the " Springs," to take leave of them, of the "Wild Mount," the "Church Lane," and every spot to which a single association was attached. We each brought home a spray of ivy, as a memorial of many of our happiest, gayest, or most agree- ably melancholy hours — of sunsets, moon, and stars, such as (in spite of the philosophers) cannot be seen from Green- wich Observatory. On Saturday, August 31, Jane and I closed the labours of fourteen years in the work-room. It was a fine moonlight Saturday evening, and I have always felt something peculiarly sweet and penetrating in such a time ; but now a tide of recollections and anticipations rendered this overwhelmingly interesting, and as we rose from our long accustomed places for the last time, and remembered all that had been, now past for ever, and glanced at dear Mile End through the trees, and the twilight, we resigned ourselves to a flood of bitter tears. Jane and I then sallied out for a lonely moonlight ramble. As it was late we could not go far; we only went to the bridge at the entrance of the meadows, and to a few fami- liar spots thereabouts, talking of Colchester, of Ongar, of all the dear friends who had walked with us here, and of the last moon we should see upon those woods, those meadows, and that stream ! We returned up North Hill through the town. It was all life and bustle ; the bright and busy shops on one side, and the broad light of the moon on the other ; but we felt homeless strangers, and it seemed almost wrong for people to be so busy. On the Monday we all began the packing, and now collect all the ideas that make up confusion ! Think of huge packing cases, hampers, straw, ropes, nails, and shavings ; of dust and litter ; of piles of china and furniture in every corner of the house ; of knocking, hammering, calling, and scold- ing ; of a gradual diminution of the commonest neces- A Memorable Week. 143 saries, and of the consequent shifts we had to make — an inverted extinguisher for candlestick, a basin or a teacup for a wine glass, one's lap for a dining table, the floor for a bedstead, — think of carpenters, brokers, and waggoners, and after all you will have but a faint idea of that memor- able week ! On Sunday, our house being entirely dismantled, we were kindly entertained at Henry Thorn's, the whole day. Such a strange Sabbath I never passed ! I thought the first singing would have overset me entirely ; and when we left the Meeting in the afternoon (it was sacrament day) I could no longer refrain, but went home in such a general broken-heartedness that the smallest thing was too much for me. On Monday was the final packing, and as if we had not enough to do,, an express came from H. Thorn, about three, that the rrince Regent was expected to pass through the town every moment, and that we must all go up immediately to see him. So all hands struck, and throwing on our habits we sallied forth, like most loyal and loving subjects, to catch a glimpse of him, hoping, as the poet observes, " if we could not see the king, at least to see his coach." And this our loyal hope was exactly gratified, for, after waiting two hours, watching every undulation of the crowd, the royal carriage at length ap- peared, and we could just discern three plainly drest gentle- men in it as it passed, and then went home again ! You did not expect that, even in such a general rummage, we should light upon the Prince Regent? But if I follow him further, I shall find myself at Aldborough instead of Ongar. Well, then, on Tuesday morning, at seven o'clock, came the waggon, which we continued packing till two. And I wish you could have seen us, and it, as it went nodding and waving from our door ! We were all at the upper windows, and all our neighbours were in the street, looking alternately at us and at it, as it groaned up the lane ; for, indeed, it was packed to such an unusual height that it attracted general attention and apprehension. And during all this time how little we felt as we expected to feel ! we were too busy ; but, in- 144 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. deed, does one feel in any situation, however interesting1, as one should have expected ? Feeling has past and future, but seldom a present tense. She loves to ramble with Memory, or to sport with Hope, but has compara- tively little to do with the most important Now. (N.B. a touch of the sublime !) . . . That night, after assembling at Mr Mansfield's* to say good-bye to a number of our friends, who kissed and cried over us, we dispersed to our several quarters. Jane and I, out of a number of beds that were offered us, pleased ourselves by spending our last night at Mr Strutt's, where we could feel and do just as we liked, and be sure of kindness and sympathy. We had sometime before admired a new room which Mr Strutt had opened at the top of the house, and he had kindly exerted himself to erect and furnish its gothic bed that we might be the first to sleep in it. In the morning we awoke in lithe, though fluttered spirits; and after breakfast, in their pleasant kit- chen, with "Michael," and "Blue-eye," and "White Lady," and half-a-dozen more purring about us, we took leave of a house where we have enjoyed many pleasant hours, and once more assembled at our own as the final rendezvous. We walked round the garden, stroked poor Tom (left by agreement with the new tenant), looked once more into every room and closet, said good-bye to Mile-end from the workroom window, and at half-past eleven, September 1 1, 181 1, saw the door close for the last time, and drove slowly up Angel Lane, leaving a circle of kind neighbours to watch us out of sight. I will not tell you how we looked first on this side, then on that, then through the window behind, that we might lose nothing it was possible to see — suffice it to say we were leaving ColcJiester : you will imagine all the rest ! . . . As soon as we had passed Lexden, we left off looking, and arranged ourselves as com- fortably as we could, but five of us, besides Nutty and her kitten (who was named " Pack " by way of memorial), and the fowls, ham, fruit, &c. — the kind offerings of several friends, — made a tolerable chaise full. * The same friend at whose house they had been entertained on their first arrival at Colchester sixteen years before. Ongar and Barnstaple, 145 And, now, follow us, dear Luck, till we turn into the Ongar Road at Chelmsford. It was a fine afternoon ; quite new country opening upon us at every step, and ex- pectation, which had begun to doze, was all alive again. Father had directed us how to descry the white steeple of Ongar, and the Castle house and trees, about three miles before we reached it, and this gave us most interesting employment, till, at length, we all exclaimed, " There it is!" The road then turned off, and we saw it no more till — O that pleasant moment! — after driving about half- way through the town we turned up the lane and round a sharp corner, and the three peaks and the castle trees ap- peared in view. We drove up the long chase-way, the grass plot was strewed with packages, the hall door open, our good deacon and Rebecca at the chaise to receive us, but no father! We were both surprised and alarmed. He had gone to wait our passing at the house of a friend from which he could reach ours as soon as we by a shorter path ; but, wonderful to relate, though he saw the chaise, and we saw him standing at the door, he neither knew us, nor we him! At length, a young man, who had seen us in the lane, told him that his chaise had passed some time. For- tunately, we had waited outside the doors, and would not enter till he arrived to conduct us. And now, how I wish I could show, instead of de- scribe it to you! but, alas! Ongar and Barnstaple! Well, then, I must e'en tell you of the pleasant places in which our lines are fallen. The house was built upon the site of the ancient castle, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, who once honoured it with a visit. The hall-door, studded with clump-headed nails an inch in diameter, measures 6 feet, by 4 feet 7. The front is covered with a vine ; before it is a flower garden ; on the right, as pretty a village church among the trees as you ever saw ; and close on the left the castle trees rising upon a high mount, with a moat of deep water encircling it. From every window in front we command a rich and beautiful valley, and behind see the town just peeping through a line of elms on a terrace beside an outer moat. Immediately adjacent is a farm-yard, and we have not K 146 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. only the usual live stock of such a scene, but a fine pair of swans, three cygnets, moorfowl, and solan geese upon the moat; rabbits running wild upon the mount; a rookery, wood doves, and, we are told, nightingales in the castle trees. Now, you may fancy, perhaps, that with all this appropriate scenery the house must be haunted, or, at least, hauntable; that there are nooks and vaults, and niches at every turn ; and that sitting, as I now do, a broad moon shining in at my window, and the village clock strik- ing eleven, the next thing must be a tall gliding figure patting down the stairs which wind from my room door, within the northern turret. But I assure you we are the picture of cheerfulness and comfort. The rooms are light and pleasant, not in the least ghostly, and fitted up with every modern convenience. We have a hall, two parlours, kitchen, store-room, &c, on the ground floor; three cham- bers above; and a good workroom, study, two bed-cham- bers, and a light closet on the attic floor. We had to saw the ivy from the back parlour window before we could see it, but some still remains to fringe the mullions; we have beautiful walks in every direction ; and we have placed our garden seat at the end of a retired field, surrounded by the moats and the terrace elms immediately behind the house. Just as we sat down to breakfast the first Sunday, who should appear at the garden gate but dear Martin, who came in his uncle's chaise, and returned the next morn- ing. He writes — " Since I took my farewell of your fairy land, I have not passed a waking hour without presenting my mind among you. It is the object to which my leisure moments, and lazy thoughts are always directed — it is my Miss Ongar" On Sabbath evening, September 22, my father publicly accepted their invitation at a full vestry of apparently kind and worthy people; and with mother and me was received into Church relation. It was a truly interesting and pleas- ing season. The Meeting-house is very small, but ex- tremely neat and pleasant, and as far as we know the congregation, they are a friendly and pious though plain people, not but that we have some dashing silk pelisses A Time of Transition. 147 and feathers on a fine afternoon. Tuesday, October the 29th, is to be the public "setting apart."* The important change had now been effected. At last we had done with things behind, but the future was still looming on us from an unexplored distance. We had given up engraving, so far as it implied daily employment, though it was arranged that if occasionally my father required assistance, I should render it when at home. If we were to devote ourselves to education, important pre- parations were requisite, and for this purpose we accepted an invitation from our kind and valuable friends the Conders, then living at Clapton. Alas ! how little we knew our many deficiencies ; yet that I did know some- thing of them my many misgivings and continued reluc- tance testified. Jane had no fuller confidence in her own sufficiency, but she saw some pleasant results in the change, and perhaps might fancy that I should stand foremost and prove a sort of shield. It was, however, a serious thing to resolve on, and to arrange for the unavoidable expenditure, especially since our own resources had just suffered such an unexpected loss. It would be necessary to apply for assistance somewhere, and such a prospect did not lighten the burden already on my heart. I am thankful that no one came forward to volunteer that assistance. I will not enter into detail, but, after much anxious thought, and applying to our dear * The history of this small nonconformist society is interesting. On the 24th of August 1662, the Rev. John Lorkin, Rector of Chipping, Ongar. together with the incumbents of three adjoining parishes, were among the two thousand clergymen of the Church of England who, on that day, resigned their livings rather than ' ' declare their unfeigned consent and assent to all and eveiything contained in the Book of Common Prayer." When allowed to do so, Mr Loikin assembled his people in his own house, and it was not till nearly sixty years later that the "Meeting-house" on the same premises, then copy-hoTd of the manor of Ongar Castle, was erected. Each minister at that t'me was required, it seems, to purchase the estate. The Rev. John Netdeton, brother-in-law of Dr Doddridge, was minister in 1718; and a printed sermon is extant preached in 1725 at the ordination of two ministers held at Ongar, and which is dedicated to Sir Strange Joceline, Bart., of Hide- Hall, Herts. " a witness to the solemnity of that day." It was not till 1765 that church books and baptismal registers were regularly kept, and the roll of ministers can be fully traced. Among them was, in 1796, the Rev. James Churchill, father of the late medical publisher of that name. — [Ed.] 148 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. parents for their final sanction, the project was abandoned. The entire history of this transition period of our lives is to me a beautiful explanatory comment on the ways and the goodness of Providence. The suggestion so long urged upon us, the difficulties afterwards thrown in our path, resulted in leaving us at liberty to pursue other and much more congenial occupations. It would not be easy to express the relief we experienced in turning away from an undertaking so perilous, and retreating to hide our- selves behind the paper screen which seemed so clearly granted to us. We had a few light-hearted visits to pay in London before returning to the dear and pleasant home in the Castle House at Ongar ; but on the 1 8th of February 18 1 2 we entered it now as we hoped to remain, and I cannot describe the feelings with which we did so. The pretty flower garden and grass plot in front had been put into the nicest order, snow-drops were just appearing, and if any one knew how to make an arrival look pleasant it was my dear father and mother. My own room was one I had requested on the attic floor, commanding a beautiful country view, and having the advantage of a closet where I could sit and write. This was to be my " sanctum ; " here a new life was to begin, and the employment more delightful to me than any other, was henceforth to be mine without let or hindrance. But a new turn was just now given to it. Before we left Colchester, Mrs More's popular tale of "Ccelebs in search of a Wife" was the book of the day, and in the literary correspondence kept up between Josiah Conder and me, I freely gave my thoughts upon it in a long letter sent by parcel. He was intimate with Daniel Parken, the talented editor of the "Eclectic Review," then in much note amongst us, and it was enquired whether I would undertake an article.* It had not been customary in that work to review fictions, but it was pro- * The Review was supported at that time by several able writers, amongst whom may be named Robert Hall, John Foster, and Olinthus Gregory. It was in its pages that the merits of Washington Irving were first recognised in England through an article upon "Geoffrey Crayon," contributed by Isaac Taylor, jun. Conder and Montgomery. 1 49 posed to diverge a little from this rule, and a tale by Mrs West, entitled " Self Control," was suggested to me for a beginning. With anxiety, excitement, and delight, I undertook it. After writing every morning till about weary, I used to take the MS. to a clump of trees a little in the valley as seen from my window, and, sitting beneath them, read it aloud, for until able to judge from the ear I could never form an opinion of what I had written. It appeared in the " Eclectic " for June, and, being favourably received, I was forthwith continually employed. The next review was of Miss Edgeworth's Tales, I forget which series, sent up in August of the same year. A visit about this time from Josiah Conder and James Montgomery gave great pleasure to us. Few and far between had been our glimpses into literary society, and in Montgomery, from first admiring his poetry in the "Athenaeum," we had felt the most lively interest — yes, and notwithstanding the remark of a young lady belong- ing to our higher circle in Colchester, who, hearing from me that he was printer at Sheffield, exclaimed, " La ! how terrible." It was scarcely worth while to remember it for half a century, but how can we get rid of anything that chooses to stay ? On the afternoon of their visit, our walk with the two poets across the meadows, and up the wind- ing lane to Stondon Church was indeed delightful ; and yet the only shred of conversation that clings to my memory was the simple remark of Montgomery, when I mistook distant thunder for artillery (that of Woolwich sometimes shook our windows), "Yes, the artillery of Heaven." What whimsical tricks does memory play with us ! Sometimes it hangs up a piece of nonsense where we cannot help seeing it, and at others obliterates words to be set in silver ! But shadows were rising over our pleasant home and pleasant plans. Isaac and Martin were both in Lon- don. The former, occupied in various artistic work, had just now an engagement of some length for a set of anatomical drawings in the dissecting room. Under London atmosphere, and not the best of it, and pursuing 150 Memorials of Airs Gilbert. his profession without stint of time or labour, his health gave way, and he came down to Ongar to recruit. We were all eye and ear, and there were in his constant cough and other symptoms, what my dear sensitive mother regarded as unquestionable omens of decline. We had seen so much of it ! Happily the Isaac Taylor who has lived so long in the public eye was not to fulfil these anxious auguries. During the previous summer he had been invited to Devonshire to take several miniatures amongst our friends who had removed thither, and their connections, and he had, in consequence, become acquainted with many families there. As soon, therefore, as a change to the milder climate was recommended, it was obvious that he need not, in undertaking it, abandon his profession ; and as Jane and I could carry our pens with us as easily as he his pencil, it was determined that we should both accompany him. But my dear mother ! Her eldest son whose conduct and character had never given her a pang, was to leave his father's house, as she fully believed, never to return, — to be nursed far away from her hourly watch- fulness, and to lie in a distant grave ! Those only who knew my mother, could know what all this meant to her. Our anxious journey commenced, as far as London, on Monday, September 28th, 18 12, and at a quarter past two on Wednesday, the 30th, we set out by one of the " long stages," from the Castle and Falcon, Aldersgate Street, under promise of reaching Ilfracombe on the Saturday afternoon following. What a banishment it seemed ! What a tedious journey ! I remember the forlorn feelings with which, a party of nineteen altogether, we paced down one of the long Devon hills, for everybody had left the coach in order to relieve the descent ; strangers indeed we felt, almost three hundred miles from the " Castle House " and its dear inmates. We got a few hours' rest on Thursday night at Taunton, setting off at five o'clock on Friday morning, for a twelve hours' journey to Barnstaple. Here a welcome tea at the inn, and a call from a gentleman already known to my brother, the Rev. Mr Gardiner, concluded the weary day. On Saturday, after breakfasting Ilfracombe. 151 with him, we started in a postchaise for our final destina- tion, and final it seemed likely to be, for on some of the round knolls of the road, we seemed to be driving down straight into the sea. At length, under the brow of the precipitous hill, the roofs of the houses became visible. Yet we did not reach it without risk ; at a narrow part of the road, a wheel came off, but the narrowness served us in stead, and we only fell against the bank. Our adroit postilion, accustomed perhaps, to such accidents, contrived to refix the wheel, and we descended to Ilfracombe in safety. Isaac's friend, Mr Gunn, had engaged apartments for us on the quay, a first floor ; two windows in front looked over the basin, so full of shipping that, from the further side of the room, nothing but masts were visible. There, in employment, in recreation, in society quite to our taste, and altogether interesting, we spent the entire winter. 1866.* — Long intervals have occurred in my successive memoranda, and now, late in the day as it is, I cannot expect to complete this Memorial. Indeed, it was never my intention to do so. From the period of my marriage, dear children, in 18 13, you are almost as well acquainted with the important steps in my history as I am myself, and as to minuter details, it might be scarcely so well to speak of them as of the bygone tints of a finished century. * The year of her death, in the eighty-fifth of her age. CHAPTER VI. LITERARY CHARACTER. " Genius played With the inoffensive sword of native wit." Wordsworth. The Autobiography which has hitherto left to the editor but the easy task of selection and condensation, closes ab- ruptly. It now remains to supply from correspondence, and some other sources, the records of a life extending over more than half-a-century beyond the period reached in the preceding pages. But at this halting place, and when the brief literary career of Ann Taylor was drawing to a close, a few re- marks may be offered upon its character, especially as some of her poems have more than once been the subject of criticism. As she has herself intimated, her share in the early series of poems for children has scarcely been recognised, in consequence of Jane Taylor continuing to write and con- centrating public attention upon herself, after her sister had resigned the pen. Yet, it is remarkable that, almost with- out exception, the most popular pieces in the joint works were by the elder sister. This may be accounted for from the circumstance that, generally speaking, Ann Taylor dealt with the facts of life, and Jane with those of nature, and the former was, consequently, more dramatic in style, and more given to depict motive and character. Of many that have become " Household Words," two little poems — "My Mother," and "Twinkle, twinkle, little Star," are perhaps, more frequently quoted than any ; the first, a lyric of life, was by Ann, the second, of nature, by Jane ; and they illustrate this difference between the sisters. Poetic Beauty. 153 The elder was eminently practical, and always entered with keen relish into the social circle and the business of life. A walk through a crowded market place, such as that of Nottingham, so familiar in after years, was to her refresh- ing and inspiring, as a poem to be given in its place will show; while the "Song of the tea-kettle " exhibits her delight in progress and invention. Her first venture in print, she tells us, was an Election song ; it may quite be doubted whether it could ever have been Jane's; the sen- sitive and shy disposition of the latter (though she could sparkle on occasion) disqualified her for society, and nature with its peace, its pathos, and its infinite suggestiveness, was her chosen refuge. Ann was fond of nature, but it* was chiefly in relation to domestic incidents — she dwelt upon the cottage, the stile, the footpath, the garden and domestic animals — while Jane looked upon the larger landscapes, and her mind floated into dreamy reveries over the expanse of sea and sky, partaking more of the contemplative, and curiously inquiring character of her brother Isaac. Yet, in some instances, the elder sister showed a sympathy with nature, and a delicate touch in adapting its lessons, quite equal to the younger. Two or three verses in the Nursery Rhyme — "A Pretty Thing" may take rank with any of the kind in poetic beauty and simple diction — When the sun is gone, I rise In the very silent skies; And a cloud or two doth skim, Round about my silver rim. All the little stars do seem Hidden by my brighter beam ; And among them I do ride Like a queen in all her pride. Then the reaper goes along, Singing forth a merry song ; While I light the shaking leaves, And the yellow harvest sheaves. >r, again, on the Michaelmas Daisy — I am very pale and dim, With my faint and bluish rim 154 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. Standing on my narrow stalk, By the litter'd gravel walk, And the wither'd leaves, aloft, Fall upon me very oft. But I show my lonely head, .. When the other flowers are dead, And you're even glad to spy Such a homely thing as I ; For I seem to smile and say — " Summer is not quite away." And as a fair pendant to the " Twinkling Star " of Jane, take the following by Ann — I saw the glorious sun arise, From yonder mountain grey ; And as he travelled through the skies, The darkness went away ; And all around me was so bright, I wished it would be always light. But when his shining course was done, The gentle moon drew nigh, And stars came twinkling, one by one, Upon the shady sky : — Who made the sun to shine so far, The moon, and every twinkling star?* These instances may suffice to show that the writer was possessed of a true poetic gift in the observation of nature ; and they illustrate, too, that rare quality, simplicity, which, while a necessary condition for success in the task attempted, has been seldom reached. In these poems it is attained without feebleness, or baldness of diction, and the result, in some instances, falls little short of the sublime, as in the picture of the moon, rising — "In the very silent skiec." * Perhaps these lines, learnt in childhood, suggested to Heber the motive of his noble hymn, — I praised the sun, whose chaiiot rolled On wheels of amber and of gold ; I praised the moon, whose softer eye Gleamed sweetly through the summer sky — &c. Domestic Character. 155 while, again, in the simple plaint of the " Michaelmas Daisy " there is a touching pathos — " And the withered leaves, aloft, Fall upon me very oft." But, as has been said, the popularity of Ann Taylor's poems in the collection — one test of which is the frequency with which they have been set to music — must be attributed less to their poetical merits, or pellucid diction, for in these her sister equalled, if not excelled her, than to their concernment chiefly with home life, and their lively dialogue. It is she who takes for her subject the . . . . Pretty cow that made Pleasant milk to soak my bread. though she does not forget the more poetic aspect of the affair — Where the purple violet grows, Where the bubbling water flows, Where the grass is fresh and fine, Pretty cow go there and dine. Animals are almost always introduced in this practical relation with the young folks, and with the constant eye to rousing a kindly sympathy for them, as in the " Last Dying Speech of Poor Puss," "The True History of a Poor Little Mouse," " The Epitaph upon a Poor Donkey," and others, — all from the pen of Ann. The poem which an eminent writer has styled " the finest lyric of the kind in the English language," w My Mother," has been already referred to as a specimen of this domestic tendency; but I what is more perfectly a song of the nursery than — Dance, little baby, dance up high, Never mind, baby — mother is by ; Crow and caper, caper and crow, There, little baby, there you go ; Up to the ceiling, down to the ground, Backwards and forwards, round and round ; Then dance, little baby, and mother shall sing, With the merry gay coral, ding, ding-a-ding ! ding. 156 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert Or this, of graver tone — Come, love, sit upon my knee, And give me kisses one, two, three, And tell me whether you love me — My baby ! Of the same realistic class are "Meddlesome Matty," " I do not like to go to Bed ; " and of another sort, but vividly dramatic, the "Little Ann and her Mother," describing an actual incident in the childhood of the writer's mother, and which has raised a curious interest in " Cavendish Square " in many a young breast. To Ann also was due that touching picture of great significance at the time when the "slave" was still a doleful fact, — Ah ! the poor little blackamore, see there he goes, And the blood gushes out from his half-frozen toes, And his legs are so thin you may almost see the bones, As he goes shiver, shiver, all along on the stones. Miss Yonge, in her papers upon Children's Literature of the last century (in which she attributes, as usual, the sole authorship to Jane), speaks of " the astonishing simplicity without puerility, the pathos, and arch drollery of the secular poems." This arch drollery was certainly a characteristic of Jane Taylor, yet the instances adduced by Miss Yonge are all from the contributions of Ann. Among them is the story of the "Notorious Glutton," which readers who have forgotten their early lore may not be sorry to see again. It illustrates the vein of sarcastic fun in which the writer excelled, and belongs also to a class of subjects which have been since objected to. A duck, who had got such a habit of stuffing, That all the day long she was panting and puffing, And by every creature that did her great crop see, Was thought to be galloping fast for a dropsy ; One day, after eating a plentiful dinner, With full twice as much as there should have been in her, While up to her forehead still greedily roking, Was greatly alarmed by the symptoms of choking. Now there was an old fellow much famed for discerning, (A drake, who had taken a liking for learning), Arch Drollery. 157 And high in repute with his feathery friends, Was called Dr Drake : for this doctor she sends. In a hole of the dunghill was Dr Drake's shop, Where he kept a few simples for curing the crop, Small pebbles, and two or three different gravels, With certain famed plants he had found on his travels. So, taking a handful of suitable things, And brushing his topple and pluming his wings, And putting his feathers in apple-pie order, He went to prescribe for the lady's disorder. " Dear Sir," said the Duck, with a delicate quack, Just turning a little way round on her back, And leaning her head on a stone in the yard, " My case, Dr Drake, is exceedingly hard ! " " I feel so distended with wind, and opprest, So squeamish and faint, such a load on my chest ; And, day after day, I assure you it is hard To suffer with patience these pains in my gizzard." " Give me leave," said the doctor, with medical look, As her cold flabby paw in his fingers he took ; *' By the feel of your pulse, your complaint, I've been thinking, Must surely be owing to eating and drinking." " Oh ! no, Sir, believe me," the lady replied, (Alarmed for her stomach as well as her pride), " I'm sure it arises from nothing I eat, But I rather suspect I got wet in my feet. I've only been raking a bit in the gutter, Where the cook had been pouring some cold melted butter, And a slice of green cabbage, and scraps of cold meat : Just a trifle or two, that I thought I could eat." The doctor was just to his business proceeding, By gentle emetics, — a blister, and bleeding, When all of a sudden, she rolled on her side, Gave a terrible quack, and a sttuggle, and died ! Her remains were interred in a neighbouring swamp, By her friends, with a great deal of funeral pomp ; But I've heard this inscription her tombstone was put on " Here lies Mrs Duck, the notorious glutton ;" And all the young ducklings are brought by their friends, There to learn the disgrace in which gluttony ends. 158 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. Better still, perhaps, for its terse simplicity, is the story of the little fish that would not do as it was bid. " Dear mother," said a little fish, " Pray, is not that a fly ? I'm very hungry, and I wish You'd let me go and try." " Sweet Innocent,'" the mother cried, And started from her nook, " That horrid fly is made to hide The sharpness of the hook ! " Now, as I've heard, this little trout Was young and foolish too, And so he thought he'd venture out, To see if it were true. And round about the hook he played, With many a longing look, And — " Dear me," to himself he said, " I'm sure that's not a hook." " I can but give a little pluck : Let's see, and so I will." So on he went, and lo S it stuck Quite through his little gill ! And as he faint and fainter grew, With hollow voice he cried, " Dear mother, had I minded you, I need not now have died ! " The reader will remember Goldsmith's brilliant repartee to Dr Johnson : — " The skill," said he, " consists in making little fishes talk like little fishes." Whereupon, observing Johnson shaking his sides with laughter, he smartly added, " Why, Dr Johnson, this is not so easy as you seem to think, for if you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like WHALES."— {BoswcWs Life, Ap. 27, 1793). The tragic element in the " Original Poems," instances of which occur in those above quoted, has of late been strongly objected to. An American writer, who exclaims against the horrors of " Little Red Riding Hood," and especially the dreadful scene between the wolf and the grandmother, Sara Coleridge s Criticism. 159 as "enough to make a child's flesh creep with terror," holds Ann and Jane Taylor to be the " chief sinners in that respect." And a much higher authority, Sara Coleridge, speaking of Mary Howitt's charming poems for children, while ranking them below the " Original Poems " in sim- plicity, thinks them thus far preferable, "that they re- present scarcely anything but what is bright and joyous." Children, she adds, " should dwell apart from the hard and ugly realities of life as long as possible. The ' Original Poems ' give too many revolting pictures of mental depravity, bodily torture, and of adult sorrow ; and I think the sentiments — the tirades, for instance, against hunting, fishing, shooting, are morbid, and partially false." Now, surely the experience of most people will incline them to think that children get little harm from such dramatic representations, whether in the grotesque of the older legend, or in the homely treatment of the newer poem. If a giant cuts somebody's head off, the spectacle is only realised as a striking and effective denouement , and the man without his head is regarded as something funny rather than horrible. Childhood is by its nature and unacquaintance with suffering, sheltered from horror. Death itself is more curious than dreadful. The child's mind demands strong lines and colours in the picture pre- sented to it, while its moral sense is not satisfied short of the extremest sentence of the law. For them retribution needs to be absolutely decisive and emphatic ; and Ann and Jane Taylor, so far as they depicted such retributions (for to their associate in this first work, Miss O'Keefe, most of them are due), simply acted from an intuitive per- ception of child-nature. Really, according to these critics, Punch and Judy should never be permitted to come near a nursery window ! But is it true that " nothing but what is bright and joyous " should be presented to children ? They do not actually live in a fairy world ; they are not really little igels. It is part of their education for the world as it is, iat spectacles of all sorts should pass before their eyes, and that thus, while to a great extent shielded by their 160 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. imaginative natures and light-heartedness, from what is hard, and ugly, and sorrowful, they should be gradually prepared for dealing with such things, when the inevitable time comes. And is it not well that sympathies should be early awakened ? Is a " sad story " never to be told to a child ? Is not the word, " poor man " natural and sweet from its lips ? Should the hard necessities of poverty be hidden from it, and not rather used to awaken the compassion which every little heart is ready to bestow ? Was it not better that the " ugly " little blackamoor should be used to draw forth pity, instead of being allowed to generate dislike because he was ugly and black ? And who can say how far this little rill of pity went, in swelling the great flood of philanthropy which long afterwards swept away slavery altogether ? The mother of Ann and Jane was always very careful to prevent her children from showing or feeling dislike towards any bodily infirmity, and her influence upon the young authors of the Poems may no doubt be traced in many of the subjects chosen ; where, if those miseries were vividly painted, it was that the drama of life should really move the heart, and be used for instruction, and warning, as well as for the delight of story. There is danger lest in the modern ideas to which Mrs Coleridge has given expression, children should be brought up in a sort of fool's paradise, out of which they have to be rudely thrust at last into a very different scene* A letter of Mrs Gilbert to her brother Isaac, some thirty- years after the poems were written, and when they were under revision, bears upon another part of this question : — " Respecting the objectionable words specified in your letter, I have had some thought, both before and since, and feel a little at a loss how to proceed. It appears to me that, so long as scolding, fighting, pouting, quarrelling, and sulking occur in the best nurseries, more or less, (require testimonials from your nurse- maid that they never occur in yours) — that is, so long as infant human nature exhibits itself in this way, and requires correction, * John Stuart Mill remarks that the new system of education seems to be, ' • training up a race of men who will be incapable of doing anything which is disagreeable to them.'' Treatment of A nimals. 1 6 1 it is necessary to advert to the things, and to call them by some name understood by the parties. I would not willingly employ an offensive or inelegant word, in preference to one which ex- pressed the same idea in a nicer manner, but in the cases above, I scarcely know what to substitute that would not lessen the applicability to the conscience, or appear to soften down the offence. ... In the 'Notorious Glutton,' and perhaps in 'Med- dlesome Matty,' the subject in both cases is inelegant, and the former might have been expunged. I considered it, but as it has obtained a degree of favour as it is, and could not be altered altogether, I decided to let it stand." That this admirable piece of " arch drollery " should have so narrowly escaped suppression under her brother's influence, is remarkable. The alterations in several instances were unfortunate, they were many years later still, pointed out in an article in the Spectator, and attri- buted to the blundering of some incompetent editor. The author of them, who had herself then forgotten the cir- cumstances of the revision, quite agreed with the critic, and was confounded to discover how, and when, they had been made. Sara Coleridge's remarks upon "the tirades against hunt- ing, fishing, and shooting" are scarcely justified by the poems themselves. What they say can hardly be termed " tirades ;" and the sentiments were in accordance with much accredited literature of that day.* In this case the aim was evidently to check that propensity to cruelty to animals, so common in children simply through want of thought, by an argumentum ad puerinn ; and the appli- cation of the rule, " Do unto others, as ye would they should do unto you." In this way not only might much unnecessary suffering be saved to animals, but a commencement might be made of that moral discipline in the careless little ones, which is the deepest need of every soul. This brings us to the poems by the two sisters, which " Sandford and Mertcra," and Mrs Trimmer's "History of the Robins," dedicated to the Princess Sophia, are full of the same feeling, and were in the highest repute. 1 62 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. have a distinctly religious purpose — the "Hymns for Infant Minds," "Sunday School Hymns," &c. Miss Yonge, while naming Jane Taylor (?) as one of three who alone have been successful hymn writers for children, yet considers her hymns inferior to the secular poems. In this opinion we do not concur. In these hymns, as in the other poems, it is Ann Taylor whose contributions have secured the widest popularity, and the simplicity without puerility, and pathos without sentimentality, which distinguish the secular, seem to us to belong, in a still higher degree, to the sacred poetry. So to treat the great topics of religion must also be a more difficult task. The estimate of two such men as the late Dr Arnold and Archbishop Whately, may be adduced in support of this opinion. The former, in one of his sermons at Rugby, says, — " The knowledge and love of Christ can nowhere be more readily gained by young children, than from the hymns of this most admirable woman." And the latter, in his " Essays on Christian Faith," remarks : — " A well- known little book, entitled ' Hymns for Infant Minds/ contains, Nos. 14, 15, a better practical description of Christian humility, and its opposite, than I ever met with in so small a compass. Though very intelligible and touching to a mere child, a man of the most mature understanding, if not quite destitute of the virtue in ques- tion, may be the wiser and better for it." The poems here referred to are those entitled " How to Find Out Pride," and " How to Cure Pride," and were written by Ann Taylor. They exhibit a close analysis of motive, which was common to both Ann and Jane; but which the former expressed with more homely force. The first of these poems, after setting forth a searching catechism, ends with, — Put all these questions to your heart, And make it act an honest part ; And, when they've each been fairly tried, I think you'll own that you have pride. Some one will suit you, as you go, And force your heart to tell you so : But if they all should be denied, Then you're too proud to own your pride. Hymns for Children. 163 The second, after enumerating various means for the cure of pride, closes with, — And, when all other means are tried, Be humble, that you've so much pride. It was Ann, too, who wrote — Great God, and wilt thou condescend To be my Father and my friend ? I a poor child, and Thou so high, The Lord of earth, and air, and sky ? Art Thou my Father ? Canst Thou bear To hear my poor imperfect prayer ? Or wilt Thou listen to the praise That such a little one can raise ? Art Thou my Father ? Let me be A meek, obedient child to Thee ; And try, in word, and deed, and thought, To serve and please Thee as I ought. Art Thou my Father ? I'll depend Upon the care of such a friend ; And only wish to do and be, Whatever seemeth good to Thee. Art Thou my Father ? Then at last, When all my days on earth are past, Send down and take me in thy love, To be thy better child above. It may not be too much to say that the manner of the Divine Teacher has been seldom more nearly approached. Such might have been the little child whom " he set in the midst." In such words might the most mature Chris- tian address his Father in heaven. The hymn beginning — Jesus who lived above the sky, Came down to be a man and die, And in the Bible we may see How very good he used to be. — has been found, in dealing with the poor, one of the best, 1 64 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. because one of the most simple expositions of the gospel mystery. Another of the same kind is a sermon in itself — Lo, at noon 'tis sudden night ! Darkness covers all the sky! Rocks are rending at the sight ! — Children, can you tell me why ? What can all these wonders be ? — Jesus dies at Calvary ! The moral impressiveness of the following, may be ac- knowledged by others than children. It is mentioned in one of her letters as receiving the highest praise from Montgomery. Among the deepest shades of night, Can there be one who sees my way ? Yes ; God is like a shining light, That turns the darkness into day. When every eye around me sleeps, May I not sin without control ? No ; for a constant watch he keeps On every thought of every soul. One of the less known poems was added at a later period. A captain forth to battle went, With soldiers brave and trim ; The captain by a king was sent, To take a town for him. It returned to the writer in bread of consolation after many days. In her old age she learnt that one who, still young, had distinguished himself before the deadly earth- mounds of Sebastopol, and so won his captain's commis- sion, was greeted by his little sister on his return home with this hymn, learnt for the occasion, and deftly repeated. He listened how one had been, — Taught by his mother to repeat What Solomon had said, That he who rulcth well his heart, And keeps his temper down, Is greater, — acts a wiser part, Than he who takes a town. The Captains Hymn. 165 and how thereafter — From day to day, from year to year, He kept the watchful strife, Till passion seemed to disappear From that young Christian life : In love he passed his pleasant days, And dying, won a crown ! — The crown of life ! — O better praise Than theirs who took the town ! He listened, and the words sank into his heart Not long after, from the midst of barrack life, he wrote that he had not forgotten the little hymn, and asked to have it sent to him. Within a month or two, fever carried him away, when the words that seemed to have awakened spiritual life in his soul, became messengers of peace to his sorrowing parents. With all the cheerfulness of Ann Taylor's nature, there was associated a strong vein of melancholy, which led her too often into the neighbourhood of death and the grave. The fearfulness of that under- world, the loss from the liv- ing circle, the awful problem cf the future, haunted her imagination; while the belief that such inevitable facts in human destiny should not be hidden from the thoughts of children, but that they should early learn the lessons they are intended to teach, induced her, perhaps more often than her sister, and more often than was healthy, to turn her pen in that direction. It was she who wrote, — Yes, it must moulder in the grave, This moving heart, this breathing breast, And flowers shall grow, and grass shall wave, Where these cold limbs are laid to rest ; and so it was, that when she addressed her youngest sister on her birthday she fell into this solemn strain, — He knows the point, the very spot, Where each of us shall fall, And whose shall be the earliest lot, And whose the last of all. 1 66 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert Dear cherished child ! if you should have To travel far alone, And weep by turns at many a grave. Before you reach your own ; May He who bade you weep, be nigh To wipe away your tears, And point you to a world on high, Beyond these mournful years I Yet, if it be His holy will, I pray that hand in hand, We all may travel many a hill Of this the pilgrim's land : With Zion's shining gate in view Through every danger rise, And form a family anew, Unbroken, in the skies. The thought of a family broken, and perhaps for ever, was one of the tortures of her heart, and this prayer that hers and all dear to her should meet "unbroken in the skies " was the oftenest upon her lips. Her nature was compounded of great tenderness, a strenuously realizing imagination, and profound convic- tions, and these when carried to excess may have un- duly coloured her view of things. They compelled her to dwell occasionally on subjects still darker than the grave. She believed in sin, she believed in the future punishment of sin, and she could not hide her belief away in the presence of little ones, in whom she saw the germs of evil, and whose steps might be turning towards the broad road that leads to death. Yet neither she nor her sister ever brought the doom of the wicked into prominence. The references to it are infrequent. It is never elaborated as a picture. No line by either sister deals with the subject as Dr Watts, their venerated predecessor, ventured to do. Some sixty years after the publication of the poems, a writer in the "Athenaeum " (understood to be Professor de Morgan), ignorant that the author still survived, wrote as follows : — Poem of "My Mother!' \ 67 "One of the most beautiful lyrics in the English lan- guage, or in any other language, is spoiled by the intro- duction of what was not uncommon in the little songs formerly written for children, a bit of religion, no matter what, thrust in, no matter how, something good as a piece of form and propriety. After that description of a mother's care and kindness which, as written for a child, is absolutely unequalled, the song ends with the reason why the child is never to despise its mother, and that reason is the fear of God's vengeance. . . . "The last verse would suit admirably if those which precede had described indifferent or harsh treatment, for the fifth commandment makes no distinction of mothers, which is all that could be said about the duty of attention to a bad one. But, placed as they are, these lines spoil the whole, and are perhaps the reason why the poem is by no means so common among the children of this day, as it deserves to be. We propose that it should be remitted to the Laureate in the name of all the children of England to supply a closing verse which shall give a motive drawn from the verses which precede, and in accordance with the one immediately preceding. It will not be easy, even for Mr Tennyson, to satisfy reasonable expectation, but we hope he will try." The verse animadverted upon is as follows : — For God, who lives above the skies, Would look with vengeance in his eyes, If ever I should dare despise My Mother. The succeeding number of the " Athenaeum " contained this reply : — "Allow me to thank your correspondent for both his praise and blame. I am grateful for one, and confess to the other, in his notice of a little poem, 'My Mother,' of which I was the author, it may be something more than sixty years ago. I see now so much as he does, though not in all its implications, that should another edition pass through the press I will take care that the 1 68 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. offending verse shall be omitted ; or, as I may hope (with- out troubling the Laureate) replaced. I have regarded our good old theologian, Dr Watts, as nearly our only predecessor in verses for children, and his name, a name I revere, I may perhaps plead in part, though not so far as to accept now what did not strike me as objectionable then. There has been an illustrated edition of our "Original poems" recently published. I am sorry to see it retained there, but, as the still living author, I have sufficient right to expunge it. Possibly you may have heard the names of Ann and Jane Taylor, of whom I am the Ami, and remain yours, &c." She sent the following alteration of the verse : — For could our Father in the skies Look down with pleased or loving eyes, If ever I could dare despise My Mother. A correspondent of "Notes and Queries," July 14, 1866, again took up the subject, and, after criticising both the critic and the author, objected to the emendation of the latter. " There is still the abrupt and unnatural transition from the extreme of fondness to its very opposite, and the fear of our Heavenly Father is still put forward as the only motive to the exclusion of his love. . . ." Two verses were suggested by this writer, to whom the author, within six months of her death, rejoined. "Again I have to thank, and in part agree with, my critics, confessing that at my age it is a favour to have any critic at all ! With some of their views I may not fully agree, but in the concluding verses just received, I concur so nearly, that were they simply my own I might be glad to employ them. Yet I would rather be honestly myself, than cleverly any one else. Excuse me, therefore, for retaining what I have already sent, should another edi- tion allow it. " Young as I was when the original verse was written, I did not see, as I do now, its incongruity in tone with those The "Pitiful Story r 1 69 preceding it. Still, I believe that all moral evil is sin ; that all sin incurs the divine displeasure; but 'vengeance' is a word I would not now employ." To this curious little discussion, so long after the publi- cation of the poem, in which several besides those quoted took part, the present editor would add what he believes to have been the true explanation of the objectionable phrase. In the earlier editions, "anger" not vengeance, was the word employed, the expression was intensified at a later period ; but it had a purely biographical, and not a theological, reference. At page 44, allusion is made to a painful piece of far back family history, the ill treatment of her great-grandfather on the mother's side, by a son who had been the spoiled pet of his parents. Her mother, when a child, had been a witness of this conduct. Perhaps her passionate affection for the grandfather, whose house at Kensington had been the happy refuge of her earliest years, may have coloured her recollections; but as she used to tell of her secretly taking the old man's head upon her bosom, and feeding him with soft biscuits, while the tears rolled silently down his cheeks, and he in- dicated in dumb show what he suffered; the indignation she expressed was deep. In the " Reciprocal Duties of Parents and Children," Mrs Taylor told the story under feigned names ; and her daughter Ann repeated it in one of the " Nursery Rhymes," beginning — " I'll tell you a story, come sit on my knee, " A true and a pitiful one it shall be, " About an old man, and a poor man was he." To the end of her life she could never refer to it with- out tears, and it is not surprising that, with this story in mind, the possibility of filial ingratitude should occur to her when writing the poem in question, and that she should denounce upon it the severest judgment of heaven ; nor that she should even intensify the expression, when it came before her for revision. The knowledge of an actual fact hid from her the incongruity, both as a matter of art and morals, of such an idea with the rest of the poem ; and when it eventually became the subject of criticism. 1 70 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. the author, at the age of eighty-four, had forgotten the natural history of the verse, the introduction of which she evidently had difficulty in explaining. Any way it would be quite contrary to her nature to insert " a bit of religion no matter what, thrust in no matter how — some- thing good as a piece of form and propriety." One other modern criticism may be noticed, again refer- ring to one of Ann Taylor's hymns : — " I thank the goodness and the grace, That on my birth have smiled, And made me in these Christian days, A happy English child." This has been found fault with, by an eminent preacher, as a piece of pharisaism resembling the " I thank thee, I am not as other men," of the parable. It surely hardly needs to be pointed out that thankfulness for all the bless- ings of this life, and sometimes for special ones, forms part of every public prayer ; and is totally different from an expression of thankfulness for the possession of moral excellence, in which the Pharisee's proud heart indulged. The concluding verse shows that the moral intended is the responsibility of privilege, — My God, I thank Thee, who has planned A better lot for me, And placed me in this happy land, Where I may hear of Thee. It is remarkable that even this simple hymn should have been honoured as an instrument for good far beyond its intention. She wras told long afterwards, that a very gay, thoughtless family ascribed to it their conversion to spiritual religion. That so many years after these little poems had been given to the world they should receive the commendations of such men as Arnold and Whately, is higher testimony to their enduring merit, than any contemporary judg- ments ; but it may be interesting to quote a few passages Scott and Southey. i 7 r from letters received at the time from some whose names are still of note in literature. Sir Walter Scott, writing to Josiah Conder, says, " My young people are busy with the ' Rhymes for the Nursery,' and it is perhaps the highest proof of their being admir- ably adapted for their benevolent purpose, that the little students have most of them by heart already." Southey, writing to the same, on receipt of the volume entitled " Associate Minstrels," makes some general remarks, which may be worth transcribing : — " There was a time when poets of this country, like those of every other country, trod one after another in the same sheep-tracks of imbecility. We have got out of this, — yet not so much in reality as in appearance ; for the modern art of imitation consists in borrowing or stealing from many, instead of honestly copying one. The first thing I look for in a volume of verses is to see whether the author be a mocking bird, or if he has a note of his own. You certainly have ; it is a sweet one, and I have little doubt that it may be made a powerful one, if you choose to cultivate its powers. . . . The title of you." book, though you have abundant precedents for it, offends against my sense of costume. We injure and impoverish our language when we reduce a word which has a peculiar meaning of its own to be a mere synonym. I perceive as much impropriety in using ' Minstrel ' for Poet, as there is in applying the terms of chivalry to modern warfare." " The ' Original Poems ' of your friends and associates have long been in my children's library, and equally favourites with them and with me. There is a cast of feeling in them which made me suppose the authors to be Quakers, a society with which I am almost, yet not wholly in communion. Whoever these ladies are, they have well and wisely employed their talents, and I am glad to have this opportunity of conveying my thanks to them through you, for the good which they are doing, and will long continue to do." 172 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. Miss Edgeworth, acknowledging some communication from Ann Taylor, says : — " Whenever I have an oppor- tunity of adding to ' Parents' Assistant,' or to ' Early Lessons/ I will avail myself of your suggestions, and endeavour, as you judiciously recommend, to ridicule the garrulity, without checking the open-heartedness of child- hood. My ' Little Rosamond,' who perhaps has not the honour of being known to you, is sufficiently garrulous, but she is rather what the French call ' une petite Raison- nense ' than what you call a ' chatterbox.' Miss Larolles, in ' Cecilia,' is a perfect picture of a chatterbox arrived at years of discretion. I wish I could draw Miss Larolles in her childhood." " In a book called ' Original Poems for Children,' there is a pretty little poem, ' The Chatterbox,' which one of my little sisters, on hearing your letter, recollected. It is signed Ann T . Perhaps, madam, it may be written by you ; and it will give you pleasure to hear that it is a favourite with four good talkers of nine, six, five, and four years old." Coming to works of more pretension than the Poems for Children, we may note that the " Associate Minstrels" contained eleven poems by Ann Taylor. Montgomery writes of it — " A is to my mind the Queen of the Assembly. She is a poet of a high order, the first, un- questionably, among those who write for children, and not the last, by hundreds, of those who write for men. The 'Maniac's Song ' has not only the melancholy of madness, but the inspiration of poetry ; also the simile, p. 97, is wonderfully fine, and perfectly original. The two stanzas that contain it are as lovely as the stars they celebrate." The simile referred to is from one of the longest poems in the volume, entitled, " Remonstrance,' and deals with the question, now much more loudly propounded, the true relations between man and woman. Enlarging upon a motto taken from Hannah More — " Women in their course of action describe a smaller circle than men, but the perfection of a circle consists not in its dimensions, but in its correctness," she says — Hannah More. i j$ Thus Venus round a narrow sphere Conducts her silver car, Nor aims, nor seems to interfere With Jove's imperial star. Athwart the dark and deepening gloom Their blending rays unite, And with commingled beams illume The drear expanse of night. It was not till mid-life that she composed hymns to any extent, for congregational use, and then perhaps not very successfully. They will be referred to at the period to which they belong, but it was at the age of eighteen only, that she wrote a hymn in three parts, which has been included in some collections. It begins — Thou who didst for Peter's faith Kindly condescend to pray. With the removal to Ongar, Ann Taylor's pen took a new direction, in which it seemed likely to achieve con- siderable success. Her first article for the " Eclectic Re- view" led the way for others, of which one upon Hannah More's "Christian Morals" attracted much attention. That accomplished authoress was then at the zenith of her fame, and, quite unused to so fearless and caustic a style of criticism, upon discovery of the writer, expressed her displeasure in a manner unworthy of her genius. Isaac Taylor always held that his sister's chief talent lay in this branch of literature, and Montgomery once referred to her as a rare instance of one whose prose style was perspicuous and beautiful, without, as far as he knew, having had the assistance of a classical educa- tion. Some quotations from her reviews may be given, not only as illustrating the character of her prose, but as expressing opinions which she held strongly through life — the result of a homely realism, which cut through the outward seeming of things. Mrs More's work is thus criticised : — . . . " Various detached thoughts, in Mrs More's usual style of thinking and writing, are thrown into 174 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. chapters — some more, and some less connected with their immediate neighbours — and look like the gleanings of a portfolio, which are too good to be thrown away, and too desultory to be well arranged. In many places the sub- jects are too much generalised to admit of that correct touch, in which the observation and skill of Mrs More are displayed to advantage. The reflections are just, and precisely such as most reflecting people have made already — such as many reflecting people could write, and, perhaps, not sufficiently unlike what has been written. Peculiarities of style, which, while they were new and infrequent, might strike as beauties, adding point, force, or richness, are here so numerous and unrestricted, that the ear anticipates and is fatigued with their recurrence. If we may venture on such an allusion, Mrs More, after lighting her candle, puts it under a bushel — and, not seldom, by unmeaning tautology, under half-a-dozen bushels successively, for many of her illustrations are so nearly synonymous that they rather exercise the reader in discovering, or inventing, distinctions, than assist him in attaining a complete idea. This, instead of indicating mental exuberance, is usually the resort of conscious failure, labouring to express what it cannot condense ; or of indecisive judgment, which is unable to select." " Genius feels and decides with prompt correctness, places its idea in the most striking attitude, in the broad daylight of expression, and presents to a glance — ' The fairest, loftiest countenance of things/ Industry walks carefully round its subject, holding a light, now on this side, now on that, in every direction, till, not- withstanding the general obscurity, every part has been successively discerned. This fatiguing endeavour is per- ceived, upon many occasions, in the style of Mrs More. We should call it, if allowed the expression, ' much ado about ' — something" More important, and strongly marked by the writer's opinions, is the following : — . . . " She frequently writes as if the two classes Christians who are not Christian. 175 which divide society — ' the children of the kingdom,' and * the men of this world ' — were amalgamated in a third — natives of some country midway of those distant regions — Christians who are not Christian. We admit that there are many who present such an appearance to the eye of man — many whom charity would fain regard as brethren, although they do not ' come out ' and ' separate ' with such entire consistency as to render their character indu- bitable. But this uncertainty exists, not in the subject, but in the observer, to whom the heart is inscrutable ; and while it suspends his judgment, it must not confuse his language. Amidst endless diversities of situation, temper, and knowledge, every individual is, or is not, a Christian ; and he that is not must not be flattered with the name." .... " Upon what ground, therefore, does Mrs More bestow the name of Christians upon such as are destitute, accord- ing to her own account, of the 'vital spirit of Chris- tianity ?' ' The good sort of people ' she is exhibiting are well described as ' contractors for heaven, who bring their merit as their purchase-money, who intend to be saved at their own expense,' and ' do not always take care to be provided with a very exorbitant sum, though they expect so large a return in exchange for it.' . . . " These characters, who have descended without inter- ruption from a numerous family in the days of our Saviour, are here so accurately delineated — the very cut of the phylactery is so well observed — that we should reckon it one of the most useful parts of the present work, were it not for the strange concession which is made to them in the same breath. Is it credible that persons so described should be complimented by Mrs More with the title of ' unconfirmed Christians,' and often with that of ' Christians,' without any qualifying epithet ? That such Christians are called Christians by the world, we do not deny ; but it seems to us that for that very reason Mrs More ought not to call them SO. In what respect does the title belong to them ? In what respect can it belong to them, if they are distinct from the character ? We have heard of young, of un- 176 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. learned, of weak, and even of inconsistent Christians — persons who have much to learn and to mourn, and long to struggle — but they are not such as could be character- ized by the foregoing marks. . . . " In some writers we should either attribute this negli- gent bestowment of the Christian name to a dubious view of the subject, or consider it as a cowardly compliment to polite readers. In Mrs More we can do neither. We re- gard it as an unhappy relic of the language which becomes popular wherever religion is established and national. In the eye of a national religion birth and baptism confer Christianity. The ' Young Christian ' is an expression not uncommon among * good sort of people,' as soon as the baptismal office has done its wonder. Upon the unin- formed, upon the majority, we may therefore conclude, in every nation thus situated, the effect of such a superstition is a complete mistake as to the grounds of safety; . . . Even among the more enlightened, we perceive the evil effect of such a system in the instance before us. It is a compliment so universal, under an established Christianity, to be called a Christian; it is reckoned so barbarous, so uncharitable, so heathenish a thing, to deny the title to any but the unbaptised; that even Mrs More adopts the popular phraseology, and upon persons addressed by the Saviour as ' Pharisees, hypocrites,' (and whom it is evident she views in the same light) bestows the distinguishing name of his true disciples." The following remarks have received striking illustra- tion in our own day when the extreme Ritualist and the extreme Rationalist are found joining in the same form of words. "And here, without wishing to detract one particle from the excellence of the liturgy, we must be allowed to express our surprise at seeing so weak a plea, as that it ' secures from the fluctuations of human opinion,' advanced in its behalf by writers, who, if they had thought, must have seen its fallacy; who ought not to have written without thinking; and who if they had thought, and did Futility of Forms. 1 7 7 see its fallacy, should have been ashamed of employing it. It is not only bad as a principle, but erroneous as a fact. Human opinion continues, and it will continue to fluctuate, notwithstanding. Mrs More frankly acknowledges the 1 incurable diversity ' of it; and she must know that people, as well as ministers, are liable to ' degenerate.' We are astonished, therefore, to hear her plead for uniformity of language, while she allows that uniformity of sentiment is unattainable. This surely, could be no other than ' bodily exercise which profiteth little ; ' and it converts the forms of the Church into worse than mockery, to exact them from men, by whom their doctrines, Scriptural as they may be, are not embraced. ' All things may be pure, but they are evil to that man who eateth with offence.' To per- severe in a form which the mind rejects, is only adding hypocrisy to unbelief; and if in the sight of God hypocrisy were not an abominable thing, yet, what is gained by com- pelling an infidel, whether a systematic, or a thoughtless one, to say ' I believe ?' " A review of Miss Edgeworth's Tales was one of those contributed by Ann Taylor to the " Eclectic ; " the last of them, soon after she became Mrs Gilbert, had for its sub- ject, Miss Hamilton's ' Popular Essays.' From this, a last quotation may be allowed, from its bearing upon a ques- tion still under discussion — the true sphere of women. " But we feel inclined to explain and to qualify, before we proceed, an epithet which has just escaped us. It is that of inferior duties, for we doubt whether in such a connection, it ought to be employed. It appears, indeed, that to the term duty, the qualifications, great, and small, can never with strict propriety be applied. The due occu- pation of the passing hour is the uniform demand which the Giver of that hour makes upon the receiver of it, and in his sight, the nature of that occupation neither elevates nor degrades the servant to whom it is given. To all within the sound of his word, the injunction is addressed, 1 Be ye holy; for I am holy!' but to none, not to the most intelligent of his creatures, does he say, ' Be ye great, for I M 178 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. am great' In the scale of intellect, we take the place as- signed to us by presiding Wisdom, and are only enjoined to improve the few, or the many talents, without repining, and without sloth. In the scale of morality we are, if the expression may be allowed, to find our own place, and never to rest satisfied with an inferior station. The woman, therefore, who feels herself confined, by the appointments of Providence, to a narrow mental range, and who is per- mitted to expatiate in those humble regions only, which comprise, perhaps, little more than the nursery and the kitchen, has no need to be ashamed of the rank she holds, or to repine at the limits by which her walk in life is cir- cumscribed. She is an agent in the hand of God, and should be estimated, not according to the place she occupies, but the skill and industry with which her particular part is performed. In the sight of God, the moral appears to be far more valuable than the intellectual principle. It is that mode of approach by which finite beings are en- couraged to advance towards infinite perfection. Amaz- ing intellect cannot elevate a Satan; and, though gifted only with the humblest portion of mind, a Christian is noi degraded. He rises, in the dignity of the moral principle, into esteem and consideration even with the Most High. . . . It appears, therefore, to be a false view of things — a view taken not in the light of Scripture, but by the flashing of human pride, that regards the performance of any duty as degrading, or even as inferior. Ascertain only that it is duty, and it is that the right discharge of which God will honour. The Christian woman who can reflect upon a laborious life of domestic duty, looks back upon a scene of true virtue ; and if, in order to perform the whole of her allotted task, she was obliged to repress a taste for pursuits more intellectual, the character of magnanimity is inscribed upon her conduct, however retired, or in human estimation insignificant, may have been the daily exer- cises to which she was appointed." The last paragraph may fitly close our consideration of that portion of the life we are delineating, which was de- voted to art and literature. After her marriage, Ann Gil- Duty, Praise, and Prayer. 1 79 bert gave herself with all the sedulousness of her nature to the occupations of that more contracted sphere, in which she yet recognised a true moral greatness ; striving therein, as far as in her lay, to live a life of " duty, praise and prayer." CHAPTER VII. ILFRACOMBE AND ONGAR. I8I2-I8I3. . . . . " How wilt thy virginhood Conclude itself in marriage fittingly ? " R. Browning. " So this match was concluded, and in process of time they were married, but more of this hereafter." Bunyan. Ongar, a name very dear to my mother's heart, had in reality little to do with her life, except through the repeated and happy visits she paid there, so long as her father and mother lived. These, however, were among the brightest gifts of the years, while the impression of the first arrival, and the first summer spent in the picturesque " Castle House," never wore off, and Ongar always was to her the chosen home of rural happiness. The old house has since then been much altered ; the two turrets, in one of which was her writing closet, have been pulled down, and the whole has been re-fronted. Yet some vestiges of its former condition remain, as in the staples for the chains that supported the drawbridge over the moat, for the house was originally the gateway to the castle yard, enlarged into a mansion about the Elizabethan era. " The Mount," upon which stood the ancient keep, and "the moats" are still there. The widest and deepest of the latter was once at least navigated by Martin, Jefferys, and Jane, in a brewing tub, when they unluckily lost one of the fire shovels, used for oars. Ongar itself,* a straggling, red-roofed little town of a * Spelt in Doomsday Book, Angra. From the castle, once a place r»f considerable note, it appears sometimes as "Ongar de Castrum." The Devonshire Winter, 1 8 1 single street, has not sustained much alteration or enlargement ; but the changes have all tended to diminish its picturesqueness. The most notable disfigure- ment has been the cutting down of the tall poplars and other trees around the churchyard, and the gradual obliteration of the ancient lines of foss and earthwork covered with trees and bushes, surrounding the town on three sides, that marked its early adoption as a place of strength. The country round would now hardly answer to the loving eulogies of the Autobiographist. Like most English landscapes, it has been smoothed and pared away till its peculiar charm is almost gone. What with the removal of timber, and of thatched cottages, the enclosure of the commons, the disappearance of the elm-shaded strips of green along the roads, the straightening of hedges, the pulling down, or renewal in bald ugly style, of the farm houses that formerly boasted grey carved porches and columned chimneys, — the character of the scenery has grievously deteriorated, in any but the farmer's point of view. My own recollections of it are not inconsistent with my mother's description. It was, however, at Ilfracombe, far away from this loved spot, that the Autobiography left us. The charm of its romantic scenery, and that of other parts of Devon and Somerset, seems to have been more appreciated by her brother and sister than by herself, who, ever a home bird, enjoyed especially the more simple features of a home landscape. It was the dear friends she found or made in Devonshire that gave warmth to her recollections. Her bosom friend, Anna Forbes, now Mrs Laurie, lived at Budleigh Salterton ; Luck Conder, as Mrs Whitty, at Axminster ; the Gunns, and others, were now for the first time amongst her intimates. A happy six months was spent at Ilfracombe, then a very retired village. The winter storms thundered at their back door, and sometimes "tons of water broke against the chamber window." But they clambered over the rocks, and explored the dales in almost all weathers, and within doors "a jewel of a landlady," and "our Peggy, 1 82 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. the civilest, obligingest, curtseyingest little Devonshire maid that can be," made them very comfortable at a fire- side cheerful enough from their own resources, but which choice friends contributed to enliven. It was not all holiday, however, Jane, indeed, seems to have spent her time more in gathering impressions for after use than in actual work ; but Ann and Isaac were fully occupied. Ann was chiefly engaged upon reviews for the " Eclectic," stimulated by finding that an article by Dr Olinthus Gregory had been displaced to make room for one of hers upon Miss Edgeworth. It was here she wrote that pungent review of Hannah More's "Christian Morals," from which some quotations have been given. Isaac, besides some miniature painting, was busy with his designs for Boydell's Bible, the striking originality of which drew the admiration of Haydon, and of late years have been referred to by Gilchrist and Rosetti as resembling those of Blake in conceptive power. But his versatile genius was not confined to art. An invention for engraving by mechanism was shaping itself in his mind, and here subjected to tentative experiments ; while at the same time his thoughts were pursuing the problems of early Church History, to which the accidental pur- chase of a Latin Father had given the impulse. It was a singular illustration of this versatility also, that he should have been offered the appointment of draughtsman to Mr Salt's expedition to Abyssinia, and solicited to become the pastor of the small Dissenting Church at Ilfracombe.* That small community had been accustomed to the ministrations of a very able man — Mr Gunn, afterwards of Christchurch, Hampshire, and noted for organising there the largest and most successful Sunday school then in the kingdom. He had just introduced the use of Ann and Jane's Hymns in his school at Ilfracombe, and with him the three visitors in the small house on the Quay formed the closest intimacy. Ann's diary shows that scarcely an * The whole party had made themselves so useful and so beloved that when they left they were presented with an address, expressive of the affec- tion, the gratitude, and good wishes of the members. Mr Gunn. 183 evening passed that he did not take a seat at their tea table. All three wrote, and Isaac subsequently published, the highest encomiums upon the charm of his manner, and the power of his mind. Ann writes to her mother, — " Mr Gunn, the noble Highlander " (he was from Caithness), " adds greatly to the pleasure we here enjoy. He spends his evenings with us more frequently than not, and by the anima- tion, the philosophical cast, and perspicuous style of his conver- sation, renders our fireside most delightful. His person, air, and manners are those of a military man of rank ; but the graceful ease and candid frankness of his conversation remove any embarrassment in his company, although Jane and I had mutually determined to say nothing in his presence but ' Yes, if you please, sir,' or ' No, thank you, sir.' Father will be pleased to hear he is making us Dissenters to the backbone." To this, a very permanent result with the two sisters, the injudicious denunciations of a Cambridge dignitary, whose sister occasionally attended upon Mr Gunn's mini- stry on week days may have contributed. Ann writes " Miss W 's brother, in writing of Mr Gunn, always calls him ' the man.' I only wish he could once see and converse with him, and he would perceive how emphatically he is ' the man,' — in person, in manner, in character, and in principles." With this opinion of him, it is not surprising to find that the sisters and their brother were his hearers three times every Sunday, and that their attendance at the lecture on Wednesday, and the prayer-meeting on Friday evening, was unfailing. They had, however, been brought up in the strict observance of " ordinances." But the chief event of the winter at Ilfracombe, was the arrival of a visitor on a peculiar errand. A minister, for a short time resident in Essex, but now associated with Dr Williams as classical tutor in Rotherham Theological College, had been so impressed with Ann Taylor's writ- ings, and had heard from those acquainted with her so 184 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. much eulogium upon her personal merits, that he took the singular step, without having seen her, of writing to inquire, whether " any peremptory reasons existed which might lead him to conclude that a journey, undertaken with the purpose of soliciting her heart and hand, could not possibly be successful." " To this extraordinary letter," as she terms it, in writ- ing to her mother, she returned a brief and most distant answer, but was somewhat conciliated by the reply, and especially as inquiries instituted by her father brought forth the warm praises of many friends. It was speedily inti- mated that the writer was coming to Ilfracombe, and Ann's letters to her one confidante, her mother, are full of the oddity and embarrassment of the situation. " I can scarcely believe that such a negotiation is actually on foot, and yet that I have not the slightest idea of the party ! Whatever his present feelings may be, and I believe them to be sincere, — however permanent might be the affection he entertains for an unknown character, in case he were never personally introduced, that affection will scarcely come into service when the ideal object is displaced by the real. He will feel like a man whose love has slipped through a trap door. Yet I think it proper to allow an interview, because it is the only way to effect a speedy cure, — if cure is to be effected." At the same time she combated the hot objections of one of her brothers, and thinks she detects in the letters — and it was a wonderfully true prevision — " an elevation, but simplicity of nature ; that kind of manliness which results from integrity of principle, and singleness of de- sign. ... As to M , I cannot but recollect that tastes differ, and that even a quick sight may sometimes be too quick to be true." * * The circumstances recall the manner in which Colonel Hutchinson's affections were attracted towards the unseen lady who afterwards became his wife. In her own charming narrative, Lucy Hutchinson tells how " he grew to love to hear mention of her," and " began to wonder at himself that his heart, which had ever entertained so much indifference for the most excellent of womankind, should have such strong impulses towards a stranger he never saw. And certainly it was of the Lord (though he perceived it not), who had ordained him. through so many providences, to be yoked with her in whom he found so much satisfaction." — "Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson," ->• 57- The Unknown Sttitor. 185 The unknown suitor first visited Ongar, and the impres- sion produced upon so keen and severe a judge of character as the mother, fully supports that which the daughter had gathered from his letters. It is evident that he took the further journey with the good wishes of both parents, and a letter from her mother is clearly intended to prepare the way to her daughter's heart. " We had had the sweeps, and were in the back parlour, which was also in the usual litter preceding Christmas. Your father was out, and we, in great deshabille, had just sat down to tea, when Jemima exclaimed with a look of dismay, ' there's a foicrble knock at the door ! ' Immediately I decamped into the store- room, and was speedily followed by a ludicrous procession. . . . However, I determined to carry it off with address, so having slipt upstairs, and hastily adjusted myself, I returned and I believe received him with tolerable ease. I just said slightly that we had had the sweeps, &c, but I soon perceived he was not the man to be impressed with unfavourable ideas from such trifling circumstances. He was one of the favoured few with whom I could immediately assimilate, and could freely converse. We presently commenced an animated conversation, chiefly on literary subjects, — Montgomery, ' Edinburgh Review,' &c, &c, but I could see he was constantly verging towards the main sub- ject, which at length we entered upon very fully and frankly. I blamed him for the step he had taken, and asked how it was that he did not first try to get an introduction to you ? " . . . (After explanations) " He said he had acted in the most direct opposi- tion to his own theory. I replied he had to mine ; and that I had known many who, though appearing unexceptionable in the eyes of the world, had to me some trait that would have been an insuperable bar to such a union. He replied that what I saw was, though I might not then be aware of it, a certain indication of some defect of mind, and that he was convinced, from long acquaintance with yours, there could be nothing of the kind in you.'' . . . " But as to the man it would be vain and fruitless for me to say — ' like or dislike him.' Your own observations, your own eyes, your own heart, must be your directors. But I may say, / like him, and that he grows upon me most rapidly. I soon discovered a vivacity, a gracefulness, and even a fascination in his manner, which I thought might in due time render him 1 86 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert, acceptable. Poor fellow ! There was no place inside, and he had to travel on the roof this bitter weather, and was so absorbed in love and learning, that he had left behind his warm travelling cap, and, but for your father, would have gone away again with- out his overalls ! " " Your father says, that had he been so fortunate as to have been one of the workroom loungers at Colchester, he is the very man soon to have become a high favourite. Now, my dear Ann, I have but one request to make, which, after all, I daresay is needless. It is not that you would marry, or even like him ; but simply that, after having travelled so far on your account, you should show every hospitality, and he will the more deserve it if you reject him." Her father adds his word also — " I met him once at an association of ministers, and was so struck by his countenance as to inquire who he was, for his look was penetrating and superior. I received for answer that it was Gilbert of Southend, a deep thinker, very clever, and not at all suited to such a place. The next thing I heard of him was his being appointed assistant tutor at Rotherham." On the 31st of December 18 12, she describes the result of this singular visit. " The first time he introduced the subject, which was the first morning, I declined entering upon it entirely, as a total stranger. The second, I settled preliminaries : that is, explained to him that he must consider himself as under no kind of engagement to proceed a single step, but that all he now said or did must be without any reference to the past. And certainly my suspicions in this respect appear to have been groundless ; he does not seem to have made the transfer with so much difficulty as I ex- pected. In the course of his subsequent communications, I have had the opportunity of observing the complete furniture of his mind. He is both intellectual and cultivated, and in conversa- tions with Isaac and Mr Gunn, discovered himself to be compe- tent both as a philosopher and a scholar. In freer conversation he appeared an agreeable, intelligent companion, and really en- livened our fireside. But all the while I quite forgot his errand, and only felt towards him as to any agreeable visitor. Even his Embarrassment . 1 8 7 affection, which is much more than it is probable I should ever excite in any other instance, made less impression upon me than I could have believed possible ; and to my own surprise inspired neither like nor dislike, for either of which I should have been almost equally thankful." A letter to Mrs Laurie explains a little later the position of affairs : — " Lest you should first hear a piece of my private history by means of public report, which a friend should never do, I have determined to communicate it myself. Yet as I am informed, to my surprise and regret, that some busy newsmongers have already put it in circulation, I may perhaps conclude that you know to what I refer, — proposals which have lately been made to me by a gentleman of whom, till the moment in which they were made, I scarcely knew the name — I need not conceal it — Jhe Rev. Joseph Gilbert, classical tutor at Rotherham College, a widower of thirty-three, without family, and recommended in such terms as left nothing but the question of individual taste to be decided. . . . That he has strong feelings I have sufficient evidence, but, notwithstanding all (so wayward and uncontroll- able is the heart), I have felt it utterly impossible to give him the answer he desires. I sustained the attack upon my affections with a degree of insensibility such as I should not have given myself credit for before ; but, in consequence of the warmth of his attachment, and the wishes of my family, I have consented to postpone a determination, absolutely final, till the summer, when he will visit Essex You are therefore authorised and requested, my dear Anna, to inform the world that it is mistaken about ' Miss Taylor's being going to be married,' for that it is no such thing. This is necessary, you will see, or else it may have to conclude in process of time that something has happened ' to break it off,' an observation I do not covet to have made upon me." The enjoyment of Ilfracombe was evidently somewhat disturbed by this state of things, and a correspondence to which she had reluctantly consented she felt to be "the most embarrassing part of the business." The death in March of his revered friend and colleague, Dr Williams, whose mind, those who knew him and his works, regarded as of 1 88 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. the highest order, occasioned such acute grief to Mr Gilbert that her sympathies could not fail to be touched ; while the unanimous petition of the students that he should succeed the Doctor as Principal and Theological Tutor, was strong proof of the estimation in which he was held. She writes again to her friend : — " I do not like making courtship a defensive war, or treating one whom you are shortly to promise to love, honour, and obey, as if he possessed none of your love, and were unworthy of your honour and obedience. It is, indeed, so easy for the sins of love to be visited by the vengeance of marriage that I should always tremble to lay up for myself such a retribution. As far as pos- sible I would waive punctilios that have no foundation in natural feeling and delicacy, and would endeavour in a word to show (were I, I mean, in the circumstances which it is possible I never may be), that I respected both him and myself. "You, my dear Anna, have your hands and your heart full, but of this I am persuaded, that it is more for our happiness to have them full of anything, even of toil and sorrow, than to have them empty." Perhaps at that moment Mr Gunn was too much of an ideal hero to admit easily of a competitor. This admired friend, whose settlement at Ilfracombe had been some- what accidental, removed to another charge on account of his wife's health, shortly before the Taylor party left it. The following portions of a letter home contain a vivid portrait of a remarkable man, and describe the close of their Ilfracombe visit : — April 13, 18 1 3. — " Mr Gunn sends word that he would rather be preaching to his sailors at Ilfracombe, than to all the grandees of Bishops Hull. You never saw such a scene of desolation as his going occasioned ! There were huge sailors so overwhelmed with crying, that they could not sit upright in the pews. One says, T quite unmanned myself Another, 'I love him like an only sister.' One of the young women said, ' I have seen very few gentlemen myself, but I daresay the Miss Taylors have seen a great many, and I will ask them whether they ever saw any one like him ? ' We said no, indeed, we never did. You are prefectly right in supposing that he has natural gifts enabling him A Probationer. 1S9 to command. His beauty, his gracefulness, his unfailing, never slumbering politeness, his independence of character, and of circumstances, compel obedience from every eye and every heart. You would be surprised to see how entirely his politeness is his weapon of defence against the low and ill-mannered. It preserves in all circumstances the attraction of repulsion. He repeats a saying of Dr Bogue, when one of his students com- plained that some low hearers had treated him disrespectfully, — * Indeed ! that is your own fault ; why do you not fight them with your hat ? ' Yet, with all this command, this independence, and depth of observation that looks fathomless, — with a dark view of human nature, and systematic study of character, motive, and conduct, Mr Gunn is a very child in simplicity, always cheerful, often gay and sportive. He is, in a word, such an one as we never saw before, and do not expect ever to meet again. " They are learning here that they must not rest in means, nor in men ; that they must not mistake the delight of hearing Mr Gunn for the pleasure of religion. On Saturday arrived Mr Davies, his probationary successor; but what shall he do who cometh after the king ? Poor man ! we so well understand his feelings, his anxieties, and hopes, that we sincerely sympathise with him under his disadvantages. He is a little, mean, plain, meek-looking Welshman, with his hair combed good on his fore- head, coarse, light worsted stockings, and the Welsh pronuncia- tion almost to spluttering. He preaches right down gospel, though not in a way I should ever expect to be strikingly useful ; and I believe he is thoroughly worthy and well-meaning. He has a wife and six children, and seems to feel — exactly as we know how. We had him to tea on Saturday. " I believe our departure is now fixed for Tuesday, the 27th. O dear ! O dear ! We propose to reach Linton that day, and continue till Thursday morning, exploring its beauties, at the pretty little inn on the mountain top. If we have fine weather I hope we shall enjoy ourselves ; but dear Ilfracombe ! it will cost us a good deal to bid it good-bye, though the animating spirit is gone already. We shall send the large box home by waggon. It seems but yesterday that I saw it on a fine autumn morning trundling down the chase-way from the Castle-house, and now it is trundling back again ! So life goes on ! " How we should enjoy introducing Mr Gunn to Mr W , and giving him his cue ! It would be a fine sight — the Royal Tiger and the King of the Crocodiles ! Mr Gunn insists much upon a minister being a gentleman, as a means of usefulness 190 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. Some time ago he gave six months' education to a young shoe- maker preparatory to his going to the Hoxton College. And then, he said, ' you might have seen us marching backwards and forwards in my study, handing the chairs from one side to the other, and opening the door and entering forty times in a morning, in order to give him a little ease and propriety.' Yet there was never anyone less finikin, or a ladies' man. A few years back Ilfracombe was so retired a place, and a carriage such a rarity, that when Sir Bouchier Wray was known to be driving in, half the town used to go three or four miles on the road to meet him ; — ' Ah, Sir ! ' said an old woman to Mr Gunn when he went, ' I am sure if you ever come here again you will be like Sir Bouchier's coach. ' You would have smiled to hear an old man, the pew opener, talk to him, — ' Yes, your Reverend ; no, your Reverend/" An ordinary mortal (who, however, by his friends was considered by no means ordinary even in gifts of person) would plainly be at much disadvantage beside this para- gon. A change of venue would give him a better chance. They left Ilfracombe, April 27, 18 13, and spending a day or two at Linton, went on by Minehead to Taunton, post- ing for the most part, except where, from the steepness of the hills, their luggage was put in panniers, and they climbed on foot. At Taunton a day was spent with the Gunns; then by way of Chard they reached the Whittys at Axminster. Budleigh Salterton, where, at " Eden Cot- tage," Mrs Laurie was living, was their next resting-place; and the Golding's (Eliza Forbes) at Bridport their last. From Axminster, Ann writes to her father that the abun- dance of literary work before her when she gets home, " renders the thought of the Castle-house, and my own room, and dear little study, delightful, without requiring any foreign aid to make it interesting; indeed, there seems so much ' fash ' in any arrangement which may interrupt these quiet regular home occupations, that I look at it (if ever I do look that way) rather with regret than any- thing else. But I do not forecast in general." Time passed away among these dear friends, for long dis- tances and slow coaches implied long visits in those days ; and it was the 20th of July before they took the Cornish The "Yes? 191 mail for London. On the 23d, after ten months' absence, they were once more under their father's roof at Ongar. There, on the 2d of August, Mr Gilbert arrived for the momentous final answer that had been promised him ; and three weeks afterwards an entry in her pocket-book records it, — " walked in the afternoon, oui" It was a " yes " in which all her family and friends rejoiced, and which brought to herself nearly forty years of happy married life. Lest her long hesitation should suggest that the cause of it lay in the suitor, it may be well to add to her mother's opinion of him the testimony of Isaac Tay- lor, published long afterwards : — " A man of the warmest benevolence, of extraordinary intelligence, extensive ac- quirements, excellent judgment in common affairs, and withal, of deep and elevated piety." To Mrs Laurie, she writes in the autumn — " I am learning with tolerable facility to believe what you told me when you said, ' Oh, this delightful, mutual love.' The day is fast approaching which is to rend me from home and parents, and everything I have loved hitherto, but it is only to unite me to a heart that I love, and a mind that I venerate." To Mrs Whitty— " I have not leisure now to say much of the progressive alteration of my feelings, from the indifference which you wit- nessed at Axminster, to the happy glow of confident affection. I can only say that I begin to understand that sunshine of the heart of which you have told me, and a little to excuse Rebekah for consenting to accompany a stranger to a distant land. The distance is indeed the only circumstance of alloy, and it renders the separation from home exceedingly painful. Rotherham is four days' post from Ongar." Two extracts from the correspondence with her future husband are subjoined : — (Nov. 12, 18 1 3.) — ..." The anxiety you express as to your ability to render me happy is little more than a transcript of my own feelings. The fear of disappointing you has ever hung heavily upon my mind. ... I hope I stand where 192 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. the providence of God has placed me ; and I wish to cast the burden of these anxieties upon that arm which has conducted me. You know too well the defection of the human heart to rest your hopes of domestic happiness upon the expansion of its meagre virtues. It is only as I may hope for assistance from above, that I can entertain the thought of taking the precious happiness of another into my unworthy care. The prayer of my inmost heart for this assistance is the only light that shines upon my fears. / cannot make you happy, but God can ; and may I indulge the hope that He will employ me as the means of bless- ing you ? You know my fears as to my filial interest in His favour. These are at the foundation of every other anxiety, and chill the confidence with which otherwise I should seek His aid, and anticipate His benediction. Could I feel myself a child of God, I would shrink from no inferior relation. I could do all things through Christ strengthening me. But I seem to be cast upon my own weakness, and then do not be surprised if I tremble. Upon these subjects I confide in you to feel and speak as a Christian minister, and then you will not compliment. Indeed, if you knew how painful to me is the sound of com- mendation which I do not deserve, you would not distress me with it. It falls upon me like the bitterest reproach." (Nov. 25, 181 3.) — " I feel this evening as if I could not enter upon the principal subject of your letter ; but I cannot help saying that while the ingenuity with which you administered reproof made me smile, the confidence with which you ventured to console me, made me tremble. I will give weight to your persuasions, but to your assurances I dare not. It is not, indeed, that I wait for the whisper of God in my heart. I could almost say that I would be content never to hear the consolations of His voice, if I could but distinguish the operations of His hand. It is to consistent regulation, internal and external, that I look as an evidence of the presence, aid, and favour of God ; and it is the want of this which overwhelms me with doubts, which, as you justly observe, weaken the moral power, and depress my comfort. Sometimes I suspect that I do not cast myself upon the Saviour with sufficient confidence, but then I am afraid of becoming easy, and attaining cheerfulness under imperfections (if they deserve so tender a name), which at present bar my approach to Him. Progress seems to me indispensable as an evidence of being led by the Spirit of God. I need no assur- ance of the certainty of the promises. I know that a good work Spiritual Progress. 193 begun shall be carried on ; but this is no consolation till I feel that it is begun. " Perhaps you will attribute all this to humility ; it is the construction which indulgent friends are too apt to put upon the mere decisions of a well-educated conscience, but I dare not ascribe them to such a principle. It is possible, I fear, to have dark views of ourselves without humility. Among many anxieties which have harassed me in giving myself to you, I assure you the fear of being an unchristian companion, a hind- rance to you in your journey heavenward, has not been the least ; but I hope you will take me by the hand, and lead me to Him in whom your own confidence is placed, from whom your supreme happiness is derived. Should I feel myself travelling thus by your side, I would not be solicitous for inferior sources of enjoyment ; it will be sufficient, whatever may be the path, if we enter Heaven together." The wedding was fixed for the 24th of December ; but, in the meantime, threatening symptoms had again com- pelled her brother Isaac to proceed to Ilfracombe, and he was accompanied by his sister Jane, a separation very painful under the circumstances. It was then the fashion for ladies to travel in a riding-habit ; a friend had under- taken to purchase the cloth for that required by the bride at a wholesale warehouse in London, and she was not a little gratified to learn, that when the proprietor heard for whom the purchase was intended, though he only knew Ann Taylor from her works, he begged her acceptance of the four guineas worth of cloth as a token of respect. She signed herself " Ann Taylor " for the last time on the morning of her marriage. December 24, 18 13. — " Dear Jane and Isaac, — It is just eight o'clock, and we are about to assemble for family worship j before I go down, I devote a minute to the recollection of you, my dear brother and sister. Forgive every instance in which I have been other than a sister should be, and if, ' hand in hand ' * we travel * The expression "hand in hand," had a double reference, — first, to a picture painted by their father of the two girls at the ages of nine and eight, standing together in the garden at Lavenham ; and next, to a poem suggested 194 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. on no longer, believe me, dear Jane and Isaac, your most affectionate sister, Ann Taylor." Although the church was close by, they went in two chaises to it, down the old chase-way, and all the party accompanied the married pair the first stage on their way to Cambridge ; but from a long letter to Mrs Laurie, we may give this close of the Ongar life, and the beginning of that at Rotherham : — " The next morning, between twelve and one, we reached the sacred banks of the Cam, and being Christmas-day, had the advantage of hearing the fine service in King's College Chapel by ' taper's light.' On the Sabbath we heard three different preachers. On Monday, we saw as much as we could, set off at twelve, and reached Ongar again to tea. . . . On Friday afternoon, it being a beautiful day, we all took a farewell walk on one of our favourite roads, — where we all went the day before Jane and Isaac left us, and where we had often conversed, both of Ilfracombe and Rotherham. The next morning, Saturday, January i, 1814, at a quarter after ten, I took leave of my dear family. It was a bright winter's day, and I shall not soon forget the dearest group in all the world to me, left at the garden gate by the picture, which Ann had addressed to her sister in 1806, commencing with the following stanzas ; — Spring, summer, autumn wind their dance, Old winter hobbles near, And verging round the blue expanse Declining suns appear ; The seasons vaiy, — but we stand Dear girl, as ever, hand in hand. The violet blossoms but to fade, The virgin green of spring Soon deadens to a deeper shade, The birds forget to sing ; All nature varies, — all but we, And here, still hand in hand we be. And hand in hand we travel on, The lovely change to trace ; To mark when one sweet flower is gone, Another fill its place ; And with a rapt delight pursue Each simple line that nature drew. The two heads engraved for this work are taken from the picture. — [Ed.] A rrival at Masbrd. 1 9 5 to watch the chaise out of sight ! I had a last look as we ascended the hill. It was one of those bitter pains which we sometimes have to pay for pleasures of an earthly kind.* . . . " On Monday evening I waited at a friend's warehouse in Coleman Street, to be taken up by the Leeds mail. The horn blew, and at a quarter to eight I was seated with my husband and off for Yorkshire. It was moonlight, and the frost so hard that the roads were excellent. At Kettering we breakfasted, dined at Nottingham at four, and entered Sheffield at ten ; where the approach, as far as I could see, gave all the indications of a flourishing metropolis. We had tea, refitted a little, and at eleven took chaise for Rotherham. It was an interesting time and scene, and I could have felt much if I had given way to it. As soon as we left Sheffield, two great furnaces appeared before us, which were, Mr Gilbert said, in a line with our house, about a mile beyond. These lighted us all the way, blazing like volcanoes, or streaming like the northern aurora along the sky. The country rose into fine hills on each side, and after a short drive the old spire of Rotherham appeared under the moonlight. "We wound through the town, which is of some extent, and entered Masbro.f A great many thoughts and feelings crowded upon me as we stopped at length at my own door. Salome came out to receive us. We entered our house at ten minutes before twelve, it is a very pretty one, and in everything comfort- able, though small. " The young lady here mentioned was the niece of Mr Gilbert's first wife, and who, having lost her parents, resided with him. She was just eighteen, lively, spirited, sarcastic, and the new wife felt some anxiety as to their future relations. A long farewell letter from her mother had been put into her hands on leaving home, which may be given Her mother describes the parting to the brother and sister at Ufracombe. "The grand, the harrowing scene is over, and we have parted with our dear Ann ! The separation was so agonizing to me that the poor man was viewed rather as a depredator than as the kind guardian to whom I was going to commit my child. When she was seated in the chaise, her eye roved from window to window of the house, and rested with unspeakable expression on that of her own room. As it drove along the chase-way she stood up, and we saw her dear hand waving to us till she dis- appeared." + A suburb of Rotherham, in which the College was situated. 196 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert nearly entire. It may well conclude that portion of her life, which was more or less an education under her parents' eyes. " My dear Child, — The time is now probably at hand when you and I must separate, and the nearer its approach, ye more precious every remaining moment becomes. My feelings would be soothed by spending the residue of it in your society ; but as that cannot be the case, I frequently indulge them by retracing ye years that are past. Happy days, to us, were those of your infancy ! ' Nancy and Jenny ' beguiled many a heavy hour, and cheered our spirits under many a severe trial. It was to the promotion of their ultimate happiness that ye chief of our youth- ful exertions were directed. In schemes to this end a great proportion of our retired hours were spent. If those schemes were not always wisely laid, our own disadvantages must plead our excuse, for we had little to assist us but a very small stock of experience, and a great deal of affection. . . . " Now you are about to enter a state which must determine the future happiness of your life; and I feel urged to avail myself of the relation in which I stand, to suggest a few hints, which, by a wise application of them, may prove of more in- trinsic value than a marriage portion, which, alas ! we have not to give. " That the man on whom you are going to bestow yourself possesses all ye amiable qualities which his friends have ascribed to him, I readily believe ; but I will never believe that he is perfect ; in whatever respect he is otherwise, must be deeply interesting to the being who is to become a part of himself, nor ought it to be deemed an unnecessary anticipation of evil so to expect some imperfections, as to be in a degree prepared to meet them. "Those little eccentricities which mark families are rarely visible to the parties themselves. This may account for their proving so obstinate and incurable in many, who possess good sense sufficient to put much more formidable enemies than these to flight. Such family traits are often so undefinable that no title or name can be applied to them but that of the family to which they belong. Accordingly when we say Watkinsonish or Taylorish, we are in general sufficiently understood. Now, from the little I have observed of Mr Gilbert (and I have made the most of my op- portunities), I should imagine that his disposition would not at all assimilate with some peculiarities of the sort to which I have Her Mother s Farewell. 1 9 7 alluded. That he is of a frank and open temper little doubt can be entertained, and, if a man of strong and ardent feelings, he will naturally demand much sympathy ; and here, my dear Ann, I think that you are sometimes under a mistake when you maintain that it does no good to talk about certain evils. To those who are in ye habit of talking about them, assuredly it does no good. It is true that every day brings its troubles, but an indulgent providence does not every day exercise us with what may be termed calamities. It is but seldom, therefore, that ye sympathy which is such an embellishment to human nature, and which is as essential to ye Christian as the gentle- man, could be brought into action, were it not called upon by those petty ills which annoy us every hour, and which, if they do annoy, establish our claim upon those around us for an attention proportioned, not perhaps, to the circumstances, but to Y" pain which they excite. There are few who are disposed to brood over their ills in silence. I should say it does no good so to do. The opposite conduct is a principle so engrafted in human nature that philosophy in vain endeavours to extinguish it, and Christianity does not attempt it. The crew of a sinking ship could do no good by all their clamours and vociferation, and they might just as well sit quiet in the cabin and ride com- posedly to ye bottom. Yet such circumstances, I presume, would put even the self-command of the Watkinsons to flight. When complaint is extorted, from the scratch of a pin to ye wound of a broadsword, it is in ye power of sympathy to mitigate ye one and make us forget the other. " I will add another caution, which it would be well if every couple would take into consideration. I refer to that spirit of disputation which for aught I see, pervades almost every family. It is a matter of no moment what weapon they choose whereby to put to flight their domestic peace. They will maintain end- less arguments about a pin or a straw, till they have rendered those desperate for whom they would sacrifice their lives. My dear girl remember your mother's parting injunction, — Beware of the first dispute. " I will now give you my thoughts upon a subject, which perhaps there would have been no occasion for, might we have had the ordering of your lot — I allude to Salome. It has contributed to enhance Mr Gilbert's character in my estimation that he has manifested such an affection for ye memory of his deceased wife. His fatherly care and protection to her niece is the result of this. If he should find you co-operate with him in 198 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. his benevolent intentions towards her, I should anticipate a very happy result to yourself. Yet with ye best intentions on all sides, we see daily at what minute apertures discord will enter. . . . In the present instance I cannot think of better counsel than that you determine Salome shall love you. . . . It is probable that, since the death of her aunt, some power must have been vested in her hands ; let not the transfer be abrupt, but gradual, and as much as possible, imperceptible. Let her rather perceive than feel that you are come to supersede her. Make her rather approve than submit to it. All this I say, my dear Ann, that altercation and disputation may not mar ye happiness of your fireside. Could I know that it did, it would almost annihilate ye felicity of my own. . . . Yet, while I am so anxious for you, let me say that, as an orphan, I cannot help a certain interest in her. Those who, like her, by repeated deaths, are transferred from one to another, and find themselves in the wide world obliged to strangers for protection, I have frequently contemplated with a good deal of compassion. As I have mentioned your predecessor, I would just suggest to you that if he is disposed to speak of her, you will avoid appear- ing as though ye subject were either unpleasant or uninteresting to you, but rather appear willing to allow her a corner in his heart to cherish her beloved memory. But your knowledge of human nature will dictate this. " This epistle is ye result of my anxiety, and a duty which my conscience would not suffer me to dispense with. What benefit you may derive from it I know not ; I only know how highly prized, how very salutary such a proof of ' maternal solicitude ' would have been to me. Oh, at what price would I not have purchased some sage admonitions to guide my steps when first I commenced my perilous journey through life with your father? For want of such aid, I have groped my way as I could. No wonder if in my thorny path I have stumbled, and thereby in- terrupted those who have happened to stand near me. Could you know the torture which a daily contemplation of my own imperfect character occasions me, you would be disposei. to be- lieve that I had done all I could. " My dear, dear child ! ' my first-born, and ye beginning of my strength ! ' may I not add, ' ye excellence of dignity, and y* excellence of power ! ' Never, my beloved Ann, have I willingly inflicted one pang on you. Whatever you may have occasionally suffered from ye imperfection of my temper, has invariably recoiled on myself, and inflicted a yet deeper wound. And, Her Mother s Farezvell. 1 99 now that we are about to part, can I utter a word that is not fraught with maternal affection? Three times have I penned this epistle, so careful have I been not to utter a word inadver- tently, and three times have I sprinkled the paper with my tears. "Finally, my dear child, farewell. 'Be perfect, be of one mind, and the God of peace shall be with you.' To Him you were dedicated in Baptism. To Him I make a fresh surrender of you, now you are about to leave ye paternal roof. You will find an altar already raised to His praise under that you are going to ; there you will often be joined in spirit by your "Affectionate Mother " Dec. \2th, 1813." " Ann Taylor." CHAPTER VIII. ROTHERHAM. 1814-1815. " And life's uncertain scope In pleasant haze before them lay, A land of Love and Hope." Ann Gilbert. -" a babe, by intercourse of touch, I held mute dialogues with my mother's heart." Wordsworth. The life at Rotherham was novel in all respects. It was Yorkshire all over in warmth of welcome, and warmth of fires, the banked-up mass of which mitigated within doors the rigour of that noted winter of frost and snow. Mr Gilbert had not succeeded Dr. Williams in his chair. He remained the Classical professor, and worked in cordial relations with Dr. Bennett who was appointed to the theological department, and Principal of the college. The Essex lady, whose pen had preceded her, was eagerly awaited by the students who, it was reported, filled all available windows on the night of her arrival, and accus- tomed to the larger Yorkshire type, exclaimed to one another, "how little she is !" The next morning a hearty greeting from them lay on the breakfast table. At six every morning, except Monday, Mr Gilbert met his students in the library of the college, and some who have become eminent in after-life, among them one who for many years filled a chair at the London University, have spoken of those early prelections — the blazing fire, the surrounding tomes, the enthusiasm of their tutor, to whom Greek was ever a passion — as delightful memories. Rot her ham. 201 At eight he returned to breakfast, and was with his classes again from half-past nine till one. After dinner, at two, the rest of the day was given to literary work, of which he had much in hand, and in which his wife rendered willing aid. In these months, however, she had plenty of occupa- tion of the same kind. " I am now getting on," she says, "with Miss Hamilton's 'Popular Essays,' though I cannot apply as I used to do, and I have in the house for re- viewing, Miss Edgeworth's ' Patronage,' — and two or three other things." Yet, characteristically, it was the special duties of her new position that began to absorb her attention. In letters to her mother she enters into details of household economy, requesting advice from that first-rate authority upon " iron- ing and 'getting up,' the composition of those mince-pies with which you have sometimes contrived to finish a piece of boiling beef; and the history and mystery of your delicate little bread puddings for the sick." But to both literary and household duties the interruptions were frequent. The abundant hospitality accorded to her and her husband on all sides, including stately dinners among the Iron Mag- nates, in a style to which the modest circles, in which Ann Taylor had previously visited were unaccustomed, occupied evening after evening. Her husband, too, held at this time a pastorate at Sheffield, going thither generally on Saturday afternoon, and remaining till Monday evening. At first she often accompanied him, and as spring came on they not seldom walked together on a Sunday morning, and before breakfast, the six miles between the towns, by what were then pleasant fields and woods. This seems to have been at her own suggestion, and however delightful in the peace and freshness of the hour, must have been no slight tax upon the strength of both husband and wife. At Sheffield, another and a large circle of friends sur- rounded them, amongst whom Montgomery, the poet of her young enthusiasm, gave her the warmest welcome. Upon an early Sunday, they stayed at his house, when she " witnessed the phenomenon of a poet smoking two pipes after supper." With the strong affection that distinguished the members of the now widely separated 202 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert, Taylor family, they had agreed, on the night of every full moon at nine o'clock, weather permitting, to look at it alone, and meet in thought. To Ann, the first occasion was on the night of their visit to Montgomery's, when she says she was " permitted to retire behind the curtain to think her own thoughts, but could do nothing else, since the moon was invisible." With his usual thoroughness her Father had provided his children with a list of the full-moon nights for the year, and, contriving time for everything, had accompanied it with an ode to the moon, thirty-two stanzas long, and con- secrating the appointed hour. Opening with — " Empress of the noon of night, Pour thine urn of silver light;" it contains several fine lines, and closes with the solemn yet happy thought, as he surveys the band of loving ones — " Who first dies Is first to live How faithfully he kept the tryst himself, is shown by one of his letters from the " Moated Grange " at Ongar : — " Castle House. — It is nine o'clock, the full moon shines de- lightfully into my study, and the duty (for so we have agreed, and therefore it is a duty) — the pleasing duty calls me to think of my absent children ; not that there would be any danger of my forgetting them, but I love to look at the bright moon, and to recollect what dear eyes are looking at the same object, what precious bosoms are beating, at thoughts of their father, their mother, their home ! " From the same strong family feeling, each of the absent ones had to furnish the circle at Ongar with the most exact particulars of their different homes, even to plans of rooms, and gardens ; and in a letter to her father, Ann gives these with such detail that everybody's accustomed chair is indicated, as well as the colours and pattern of carpet and wall. There is promise, too, of a sketch from the window, when the snow is gone. Salome. 203 "It has been extraordinarily cold even for Yorkshire," she adds, "and the snow which set in the day after we arrived renders many roads impassable, yet our house is so substantial, and our fires so excellent, that I never remember to have suffered so little winter cold in my life. I scarcely know what it is even to feel chilly, though our situation is high, solitary, and exposed directly to the east. No one here thinks of putting on a shovel of coals ; some thrice a day the bell is rung, and in comes Mary with a full scuttle, hearth-broom, dust-pan, and duster ; the mass of cinders is removed, the entire contents of the scuttle discharged, the hearth swept up, fire-irons dusted, and the duster run over all the furniture ; by this means we preserve a fine Arabian temperature, and, as Mr Hunt observed,* ' have all that fun for ninepence !' " The fires outside struck her still more. To Jane she writes : — " Three times I have been with Mr Gilbert to Sheffield ; the first time struck me exceedingly ; it was dark when we arrived, and we had to climb a very high hill about a mile beyond the town. It was moonlight, and the sky shone with polar bright- ness ; the ground was covered with snow, and behind the hill we were ascending were three tremendous furnaces, which waved an irregular light over our heads, like the aurora borealis. Indeed, I cannot describe the wonderful effect of these furnaces in every direction. There is one about a mile from us, which clearly illuminates our garden, and, seen through the intervening trees, presents the finest sight imaginable." As Mrs Gilbert's family were well aware of her anxiety to establish happy relations with her husband's niece, her letters soon make reference to this young lady : — Salome must certainly have exerted herself beyond what most girls of her age would have been equal to, to get everything into perfect order. She must have worked both hard and cleverly. She is altogether an interesting character, and often amuses and delights me with her gay simplicity. She is nearly eighteen, pretty, and genteel in ideas and dress, though in the Ltter entirely unornamented. She has an unceasing propensity * The " Orator Hunt " of that day. 204 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. to laugh heartily, possessing a keen taste for the ridiculous, tempered with a good notion of propriety in conduct and manners. Her vivacity is equally simple, and arch, if you can understand that ; and her spirits are entirely uncontrolled by sorrow or contradiction. She does not recollect ever being punished or checked in any way; so that she is strongly dis- posed to do nothing that she does not like ; it happens fortunately that in general she does like what is proper. I might call her a little artful, but then it is only from her own frank relations of the tricks she has played, and the scrapes she has got out of, that I should say so. She is no bad housekeeper, and not a little observant ; so that it is not so easy to try experiments in that line as it would be without her. But with all her gaiety she is quite respectful and obliging, and an enthusiast in poetry, of which she can repeat volumes, all well selected, for her taste is good as her feelings are quick. I often look at her with interest and admiration for the simple youthful happiness which she displays ; not that she is in the slightest degree childish in her manners." Later she has learnt a little more, and writes — " She is full of human nature, speaking her mind without reserve on all occasions, and often makes remarks both close and curious. She is quite indifferent to the opinion of people in general, whose faults and follies she is by no means dull in dis- covering, or scrupulous in exposing ; and her indifference will make her enemies among those she does not care for." It will not be surprising that the two thus brought into close relation, soon conquered, each the other, with the true conquest of affection. Several years afterwards, their mutual position was in a singular manner rendered especially difficult ; but the wisdom and love of both surmounted the difficulty. Salome, however, will fre- quently cross the path of this narrative, and we need not anticipate. March 28, 18 14. — " My dear Jane and Isaac, — I have been taking such a pleasant walk on this fine spring day, that my spirits seem in right cheerful mood for writing to you ; and yet, sit down as I will, when I begin to read your letters, and address Domestic Difficulties. 205 you in reply, I involuntarily fall into the pensive, and could with .little difficulty commence with tears ! When I am reminded of times that have been, and are not ; of successive periods over and gone ; of a compact domestic circle finally broken and scat- tered ; and of the progress which all this implies towards the dis- solution of every earthly tie, I cannot repress the feeling which succeeds, and do not wonder that you fancy a strain of melan- choly in my letters. Yet believe me, it is only when thus reminded of distant things, that my mind assumes this colour. At other times I am happy ; and even this should not be con- sidered a defect of happiness, it only casts upon it a twilight shade. " You wish for a more exact description of my mode of life. At present I am hardly settled enough to tell you, but after breakfast I generally spend a quarter of an hour in my own room, safe and sound, over the cookery book, which is my guardian angel, oracle, and bosom friend. The first week I came I experienced a real sick qualm by a present of a wild duck, before the cookery-book had arrived ! Mary had never dressed one, and I was looked to for the entire orders. All that I could remember was put into requisition, and I did right in all respects, — did not stuff it, did not cook the giblets, did truss it right, — did rejoice when it was all over! I was told, too, that when the students came to tea there must be a plum-cake — cookery-book a month on the road ! was obliged to postpone the visit till it arrived, — managed extremely well when it did. Pro- fessedly Yorkshire customs, I do not mind learning ; and Mary has so provincial a pronunciation, that it often gives me time to frame an answer to a question for which I was not entirely pre- pared. Altogether I manage very tolerably, and what with my ' bosom friend/ some recollection, and a spice of ingenuity, can give my directions I assure you in good style. Whenever I can, — but there is always ' some bed or some border to mend, or something to tie or to stick,' — I endeavour to get to writing about eleven, and write during the morning, more or less, as I am able." But of her writing she was very jealous. She says in another letter — " I am persuaded that many here are expecting to find me a dawdle. Mr G. says that people have been continually fishing for information on this head, ' Is Mrs Gilbert always writing ? ' I 206 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. wish, therefore, to be as cautious as I can. Mr G. is very desirous that ' Mrs Gilbert ' should be as well known as ' Miss Taylor ; ' but he has invested me with other characters, and he does not feel, perhaps, that to be well known at the expense of these, would be disgrace, rather than fame. I hope, by prudence and activity, to be able in time to unite the different occupations and characters, so as not greatly to injure any, but if one must suffer, it should certainly be the literary/' During the spring-, the family at Ongar were obliged to leave the Castle House, which, painful enough, would have been more so had they not succeeded in obtaining a large old house in the neighbourhood, about a mile from Ongar, suiting their tastes nearly as well , especially as it owned a larger garden, which, under her father's skilful eye and hand, soon became a charming spot, with shrub- bery walks, and terrace paths, and rustic seats, and flint- paved grottoes. Of the house itself more anon. In June, the remove having been completed, and Mr Gilbert obliged to go upon an ordination tour into Cumberland and elsewhere, his delighted wife was indulged with a visit to the new home. On Monday afternoon, June 13, 1 8 14, at half-past three, her husband put her into the " Highflyer," Edinbro' coach, at Retford. Giving him an account of her journey she says, — " Your fears for my safety were quite groundless, and those for my comfort were nearly so. It is true that the German passen- ger did not turn out to be Count Altenberg, the English one Colonel Hungerford,* nor the Scotchman a Wallace; but, to the best of their ability, they all behaved very well, or intended to do so. I confess that the German smoked his cigar during the fine warm night, and. when by far too weary to prefer conversation, the Scotchman tormented me with incessant enquiries, as minute as ihey would have been impeitinent if he had not put them, as I really believe he did, in simplicity, and without any idea of giving offence. As there was no appearance of inten- tional mdeness, I put up with it pretty well, though, ' of course, it was the first time I had ever travelled by the stage.' At * Characters in Miss Edgeworth's tale, " Patronage." Arrival in London, 207 Newark a very pleasant young woman got in, and we were great comforts to each other. She was very pretty, had never been in London before, and wishing to surprise her friends, had not informed them of her coming — as foolish a thing, methinks, as could have been done. So I saw her safe to their house — a service which I rendered most cheerfully, and she most grate- fully received. During the night I had, as the Scotchman told me, a long and comfortable ' snoozing ; ' but Tuesday was so intensely hot that it required positive effort to keep myself tranquil. If I had once begun to fidget, I should soon have been reduced either to a calx or a gas. . . . " Friday evening I spent at Miss , and slept there. I think Miss C is like me, as I have been told ; and I soon recollected what Salome once said of her inexhaustible 1 unsqueeze-in-betweenable conversational talents.' Saturday was devoted to the only business which is just now carried on in London, — attendance upon the noble and lovely strangers from the Continent ; and verily they are so noble and so lovely that it is no wonder all London is sadly bad about them. On Friday I was shopping in Ludgate Hill when I quite unex- pectedly saw the Emperor * in an open barouche, and a single glance did for me. His face seems to beam with the happiness of an empire. Believe all the papers tell you of him and his lovely sister, the Duchess of Oldenburgh, for they cannot exaggerate. She is twenty-eight and he thirty-seven. On Saturday he was to dine with the Prince Regent, the Royal Dukes, and 'all the rest of the gentlemen,' at Guildhall \ and the same preparations were made as for a coronation procession. The whole line of streets was gravelled, and filled with company. One thousand sat down to table, and four or five thousand ladies in full dress were there as spectators. I, and a houseful besides, were at 18 St Paul's Churchyard, which commands a noble sweep of the line. Many rooms on the route were let for forty or fifty guineas ; houses, leads, and ledges were all crowded, and I only wished for you to partake the general delight. A beauti- ful sight it was. The Prince Regent, with whom the King of Prussia rode, was received with cheers and hisses as he passed, an insufferable mortification, surely, before his royal friends, and in his own capital ! "On Monday, uncle offered Martin to take me to a * The Emperor Alexander of Russia, at the time of the visit of the Allied Sovereigns to England. 208 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. grand review in Hyde Park before their majesties, and, not liking to refuse, I accepted it. It was a fine sight, and Martin was very good in keeping me out of danger ; but the crowd was immense, and once an unexpected movement of a corps of flying artillery compelled us to a rather rapid retreat across the enemy's line. We did, in fact, run for it as fast as we could, along with a great deal of good company. I reached Holborn at two, where was your welcome letter, and, by expert generalship among hackney coachmen and porters, contrived to collect my baggage, and reach Aldgate at three, where my place was taken for Ongar, but as the Proclamation of Peace was taking place in the City at the time, I thought I should never get through, the press of carriages was so great. " Near Ongar, at the turn of the Ingatestone road, Jefferys was waiting for me, and I got out of the coach. Father met me on the way, and mother and Jemima were planted at their pleasant window to watch my approach. The house, newly whitewashed, looked exceedingly pretty among the trees, covered with vine, which clings round the porch, and surrounded by a large countri- fied garden, laid out, by father's unconquerable contrivance, in the prettiest rural style. There is an arched gateway of yew over the wicket entrance, a fine row of poplars on one side, and fruit and flowers in abundance. On the ground floor are a large parlour and a very comfortable library, also a commodious ' work-room,' and what father calls his cabinet, containing prints, pictures, and everything of the kind ; kitchen, dairy, store-room, and out-places of all sorts. Above, are mother's room, large, and very pleasant, opening into a little study, which is her delight, over the porch, furnished with all the family pictures ; the spare room, a nice green country room, with Jemima's closet adjoining; Jefferys' very quaint, and several others that could be fitted up if necessary/' An extract or two from succeeding letters during this happy visit depict the daughter and the wife : — " Ongar, June 29, 18 14. — Again, my dear husband, you have been better than my hopes. You know that I do calculate well, and I knew it was possible for me to hear on Tuesday, but situated as you were I would not expect you to write so soon. Yet, it is certain that I cast many an inquisitive look from the breakfast - table this morning for the return of our little post woman across the field; but it was "Eclectic" Articles. 209 with a feeling much more like a wish than a hope; and even when a letter was announced for me, I would not believe it was from Rotherham. My love, it is very kind of you thus to remem- ber me, pressed as you are by business, but believe me the effort is appreciated. I feel the value and enjoy to the utmost the pleasure of it. I want to know every particular of your move- ments. If, on Saturday evening, you should be walking to Shef- field remember the full moon will have a message for you ; and if you are in some northern mail contrive to sit next her, that at nine o'clock she may drop the wonted whisper, and make sign of love in the name of one upon whom she will be gazing beyond many a blue hill. Your absence is, I was going to say, the only drawback upon the happiness of my visit to a happy home, but I must not forget the exiles of Cornwall, and you would not wish me to forget them. . . . " I am witnessing the weather-beaten happiness of my dear father and mother. 'They clamb the hill thegither; and mony a canty day, love, have had wi' ane anither.' Now. 1 though they totter down, love, still hand in hand they go ' — and derive an endearing satisfaction from the remembrance of the toil and the struggles of early years. Providence has abundantly smiled upon them. It has continued them to each other in the enjoyment of constantly increasing affection: and it is delightful (especially to one who is entering the same path with a compan- ion as dear and estimable) to witness the sun of happy love that lights their declining years. They wander together about the new house and garden, and fancy themselves in Eden." July 11, 1814. — . . . "Have you seen the 'Eclectic?' The new editor, if I may judge from certain minute alterations, is less a wit than a scholar. This perhaps, it will be thought is just what an editor should be ; but one does not like to see point beaten flat, and sentences weakened down to rule, till they are ready to die. I have not much to complain of, yet it is not gratifying to see, if it is but a single word displaced for a worse. I am not sufficiently acquainted with the wording of yours to discern the variations, if any are made. It appears to me an excellent article. I have read it attentively as a whole, and like it exceedingly.* There is a short review of Horsley's Speeches in Parliament, which also pleases me very much ; it is Foster's. * Her own article was a review of Miss Hamilton's " Popular Essays ; " the subject of her husband's, " Faber on the Holy Spirit." He, like Foster, greatly admired Bp. Horsley. O 210 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert and is written with all the force of his vigorous pen. The cha- racter starts to the eye as he proceeds, and there is that kind of fine, bold expression in his language which makes one feel as if breathing mountain air — ' not like the balmy south upon a bank of violets ' — but clear, healthful, and invigorating. It is very short, but to me delightful. Mrs Hinton, who has just left us, says that his mind is in a state of much and increasing per- plexity. Persons oppressed with theological difficulties, fre- quently apply to a mind of such depth and compass for assist- ance ; but return more confused than they went, and are rather distressed by his eccentricities both of thought and conduct, than enlightened by his wisdom. Are we to receive another lesson, that God seeth not as man seeth, but chooses the weak to confound the wise, and pours contempt upon that which we are apt to worship ? " Of this first of many happy visits to Ongar she wrote to her parents — "It was a six weeks of uninterrupted enjoyment; and for the tenderness, the trouble, and solicitude which made it so, my heart and my tears thank you — they are the first I have shed, but sitting down to write has opened the flood-gates." At this time her mother had unexpectedly become an author, whose works were not only frequently issuing from the press, but running into several editions. Of " Mater- nal Solicitude" alone, four editions were sold almost im- mediately. Mother and daughter correspond, therefore, as well upon literary as domestic matters, though the latter far predominate. Ann writes : — " I truly rejoice in what you are doing, and hope, my dear mother, that you will go on with ardour while the sun shines. I would wait just long enough to enjoy the interval as relaxation, but no longer. Your next plan (' Correspondence between a Mother and Daughter at School') is so good, and Jane's name will be so advantageous an addition, that you have no need to wait for the public opinion upon this ; even if it should prove unfavourable, it ought not to be discouraging. Set to work, therefore, immediately, with expectation and spirit. But do not suppose that I augur ill of this. It must not be wondered at, or An Author s Preface. 21 r even regretted, if a work is not equally acceptable to all. It is designed for a certain class principally, and it is no fault if to that class it is in some degree confined. I should like to see the preface, for if something of this kind could be just neatly indicated, it would be an advantage, but it should be delicately done — short, neat, terse, explanatory ; such as I could not write, or exactly imagine, but only wish for. As to its implying the author to be a Dissenter, I should not care for that in the least. A writer in very few instances can, or should, so completely conceal himself as to have his sentiments entirely unknown — I mean, if the subject upon which he writes relates in any degree to sentiment. There is a sense in which he should be content to say, ' if it is not liked, it may be lumped,' though if this manner be adopted too indiscriminately, instead of lumping it, the public may lump him, which is quite another thing." This preface received its final shape from her ready pen. " I shall be glad (she writes), my dear mother, if this meets with your approbation, and can only say that at any time to render you this or any kind of assistance in my power, is a real pleasure which much more than pays for its board." After a visit to Ongar in the summer, she writes, Sept. 15th, to her "dear family," as her letters home are almost always addressed — " I do not wish anything fit only for my private eye to be in the next letter, as I may not be in a situation, perhaps, to read it myself, but do not write under restraint on this account ; Mr G is no critic. I have given peremptory orders for your hearing immediately and honestly whatever may be the news. I need not say I hope it will be good, but I wish I could think of you without pain supposing it should be otherwise ; do not, my dear family, be over anxious. I shall think of you on the 27th, and hope the weather will be favourable. I had a fine coze with you last full moon, it was a beautiful evening, and being the first time since I left Ongar, I allowed myself an extra pocket handkerchief. The next will be, I hope, the last till I can hold up the baby to look at it too. What do people think of my portrait ? and does it hang up yet ? and where ? * Oh, I wish I could take a peep at the pretty study ! I often think of * Drawn by her brother Isaac during her visit to Ongar. 2 1 2 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. it, and of every cranny in the house. It is pretty. My dear father and mother, and Jefferys, and Jemima, most affectionately farewell ; perhaps I may not write again till you and I have new honours ; but till then, believe me with affection and gratitude, your child and sister — Ann Gilbert." A little more than a week from the event she sends her final corrections for the preface of her mother's forthcoming work, and in reference to an evening which her mother proposed to devote to special prayer in her behalf, she says, " I have strong confidence in the prayer of faith, but in ask- ing for temporal mercies, we have no absolute promise, and can only ask with submission. The possibility of danger just stands between me and the thought of the future, but I do not look at it." Thus bravely, but not blindly, she prepared for her trial, and on the 7th of October became the joyful mother of her first-born son. Her husband, sending the happy news to Jane at Marazion, says — " She has presented me with a boy, and the little rascal soon let us know that he had arrived amongst us, for as usual, he came crying into the world. They really say he is a very fine boy, and notwithstanding I am aware that it is a common compliment of nurses, I am much inclined to believe it. He certainly does look engaging, as he lies in the arms of his mother, and reflects back from his lively happy countenance the beams of her eyes, all glistening with joy. She says it is as she had been told, a heaven upon earth to find herself safe in bed, and a baby on the pillow." In a week, that the sight of her own handwriting might give assurance of safety, she was writing to both Ongar and Marazion, and telling her sister, " I cannot describe to you the flood of tenderness which the dear little boy has opened in my heart, but surely of the pleasures attending this time of peril the one-half was not told me. As we both for the first time looked at the child together, every one left the room, aware that they were happy moments, and for The Baby, 2 1 3 about a minute my husband returned our joint and fervent thanks to the kind Hand which had dealt with us in peculiar favour. Nothing delights me more than to witness the spring of fatherly affection, and the solicitude which it occasions. He has dis- covered that it is a good thing and a pleasant, for a man to be a father. Dear Jane and Isaac what cause have we for gratitude ! You cannot think how much I have enjoyed the happy result on your account, and for dear Ongar." It was, indeed, a flood of tenderness opened in her heart, a motherly tenderness that never ceased to flow, and that swept away for many years all desire and opportunity for literary work. To remonstrances about the idleness of her pen she replied, " never mind, the dear little child is worth volumes of fame." As her letters are full of this one topic, the reader must pardon its constant recurrence in the few extracts which depict her life at this time. '; On Friday evening last I thought of you, my dear mother, and perhaps you might think of me. It was that day of trial, of which I have heard you speak, when nurse was to go. She had been indefatigable in cleaning up for a day or two, and when Friday night came, she kept pottering about as if she could hardly find in her heart to leave me ; at last, however, after doing and saying everything she could think of, she bade me good-bye. I went to my window and watched her lantern down the garden, and then burst into tears. On Saturday I dressed my dear little boy for the first time, and a fine thing I found it for opening the pores ; better than wine-whey or treacle posset, or anything of the kind ; for he is a most naughty and riotous fellow at being washed, and used to put even nurse into a fume. I wish you could have heard her talk to him ; it amused me many an hour in bed, for she speaks the broadest Yorkshire I have heard, ex- cept from a coal miner. ' Wale, wale, ma little lud, whad'ye mack sic a din, an croy soa ? O, for shaam ! I mun whip ye, happen ye wornt loyke that. Coom, coom, I mun hap ye oop, an lig ye int bed for a soop a bottle. Hoosh, hoosh, thenna, an dunna croye soa ma little piggin, an dunna foight soa, an tear ya screed.' " Two months afterwards anxious tidings reached her irom Ongar. 214 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. "Dec. 5. — My dear mother. — This morning came the news of my dear father's illness. I had greatly enjoyed the account of your present ease and comfort, and rejoiced, when feeling myself busy, with the idea of your being at rest after the heat and burden of the day ; but, at this distance, we know not when it is safe to rejoice ; while I was thinking this my dear father was laid upon a sick bed ! It is the Lord, and our only repose is in a confiding submission to His will, I am satisfied that you have told me the worst, and will continue to do so ; do not spare the expression of your feelings, and the moment you have a wish intimate it. Do not spare advice, and pray do not spare assist- ance ; your health and strength must not be expended, and as to other expense, neither your mind nor my dear father's will be disturbed on that account ; you have had experience enough cf the kindness of Providence in far greater exigencies. Your manna has always been to be gathered afresh every morning, but there has been no day in which it has not fallen. Tell me if you wish it, and I will come. I am much better able to stir than Jane, for I could send my little boy to the nurse, and feel confident of his safety." "Dec. 15. — I had waited with some anxiety for your letter, for though I depended upon you that while you were silent my dear father was not materially worse, yet I was sure he was not much better, or you would have had both time and spirits to tell me so. I feel, indeed, that were you to write every day I could never know how he is, but only how he was, and this is the great trial of being at such a distance. The mind is left to any surmises it may choose to indulge. . . . The dear little boy thrives finely. He seems sometimes as if he would laugh loud, he smiles so beautifully, and I cannot describe the delight those pretty looks give me. I am ready to think he takes more notice than ever a child did before, and I forgive his father for laying down his learned Greek author upon the table to chir- rup to him. The indications of intelligence interest him very much, and awaken all those feelings which, from long disuse, it was at first difficult to bring into play. Miss Hamilton says it is seldom that an infant interests a father greatly, till it gives signs of intelligence." "Jan. 20, 18 1 5. — Your last letter was welcome news, and I hope I was not mistaken in following my dear father down stairs on the Sabbath. I guessed that he would come Ntcrsery Delights. 2 1 5 down a little before dinner, and sit in one of his great old arm-chairs by the fire, well blanketted on the side next the door; and I fancied how cheerful and happy you would all look when he was once more seated amongst you. ... It has struck us all that as soon as the weather is a little more favourable, and it would be safe for him to travel, it would be just the thing for him to come to Rotherham. Now, my dear father and mother, do think seriously of it, . . . and I need not say with what delight I should receive you, and present my dear little boy to his and my parents. Mother's dreams shall then be proved libellous, and scandalous defamation, for certainly he could not be accused by his worst enemy of being as ' broad as he is long,' he is a slender delicate child ; I often think we shall not rear him. He is a pretty, pretty, olive bud, and should he be taken would leave a sweet and long fragrance. . . . Lydia says we ' mun baptise him, and then he will be better happen.' " "Feb. 1815. — . . . The dear child looks a poor pale little thing in the afternoons, but in the morning he looks by no means ill, nay, even well. Though small, his limbs are firm, and he is strong and active; apparently all mind, just cased in deli- cate flesh to keep it from sailing away. I only wish I were a less interested observer, and then I should be able to tell whether he really is the most enquiring and intelligent baby that ever was; but to me he seems like a very sensible foreigner, whose only disadvantage is that he does not understand, or rather cannot speak the English tongue. And certainly everybody says — 'Well, to be sure! well, to be sure! what notice the child takes!' On Thursday, the 9th, we had him baptised. The dear child was extraordinarily good, though laughing at every word Mr Ben- nett said. He is a great laugher. Christiana, my little nurse- girl, commonly called Amy, really believes that he understood what Mr Bennett was saying, and said ' aye, aye,' to all his re- marks— (but then he ought not to have laughed)." "Feb. 1815. — Dear Jane and Isaac. . . . I had, indeed, no previous idea of either the pains or pleasures of having an infant. The pleasures are inexpressibly great. They seem to have given me a new sense of which infants are the objects, for I love all I see, and feel the liveliest interest in them. And all this is necessary to compensate for a degree of fatigue such as no one can imagine without trying. Often at tea I can scarcely lift the teapot, my arms ache so with several hours nursing. Tr. 2 1 6 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. the afternoon, when he is fretful, my little nurse-girl is not com- petent to manage him, and I dare not suffer him to be nursed badly. Mr G , indeed, is an excellent nurse, often succeeding when we fail, and willing to assist at any time, but he is so pressed with business that I don't like to let him. Salome often relieves me for a time, but she sustains none of the burden. When he is cross, and requires all the strength of arm and voice, with the assistance of poker and tongs, and every sonorous moveable on the premises, it is I who am always leader of the band — singer and dancing-master in general. ... As to ' Miss Edgeworth,' I feel in despair, for I cannot seclude myself, and nurse up my mind as I have always found necessary to composition. I devoted two or three days to it last week, but always before I could get into it, was called off to the child." " Mr G is very desirous that we should produce a volume of hymns for Sunday Schools, adapted to singing, and containing 150 or 200, which with our names would render it superior to any other. He says, that if you, and I, and he, and Isaac, were to write equal parts, it might soon be done (he can write a very pretty simple hymn upon occasion, you are to understand). What do you say to it after the child is weaned and runs alone? Dear Jane, I do from my heart congratulate you on having accom- plished your work. From the ease of your style I have no doubt it will require very little correction. What is its name?* With regard to the subjunctive, the rules are so many and delicate that it is no great disgrace occasionally to fail; but there are many cases in which it ought not to be employed when at first sight you would suppose it ought. . . . But you have Murray and gumptiofty and Isaac. I do not recollect the instances in Mother to which you refer." "March 14. — In compliance with the wishes of my friends I have consented to wean the dear child. At five yesterday morn- ing we both, I mean he and I, had a cry about it, but upon the whole he does very well. I hope it will be a less trial to him than to me. . . . There is one of the students very ill, and in his countenance so like Isaac, that I can hardly bear to look at him. I almost fancy it is he; and yet, there is a touch of ab- surdity in some parts of his face that prevents my saying much about it to others. But you cannot think how like he is l" * It was the tale eventually published under the title of " Display," and which went through three editions in six months. The Iron Foundries. 2 1 7 "April 18. — The dear child is much better in going to strangers than he was, and you would have been pleased to see him last Saturday when there was a large dinner party here ; he passed from one gentleman to another like a shuttlecock, and quite as quiet. Mr Montgomery was of the party, and after most had taken him, I went and requested that he would con- secrate the child to Poetry by just taking him in his arms ; but he shrunk terrified from the touch of a baby as a totally ignorant bachelor, and Mr George Bennett ran in and out with the child, pursuing him through the whole party, to the great amusement of us all, Montgomery scampering round the room as if from a spectre. O, I do want you to see him, and I do wish it were practicable to take him to Ongar ! But I am afraid that, much as I know you would enjoy gathering every spray of the family into one nosegay, you would find it too cumbersome for your bough- pot. Do not let feeling overcome your sober judgment, but tell me exactly what you think. I hope dear Jane and Isaac would decide upon coming too, and that we should once more enjoy the happiness of seeing our circle complete. " I have seen lately two of our manufactories at Rotherham, which pleased me exceedingly. One was the great iron foundry belonging to the Walkers, and they were casting pieces for the New Strand Bridge. It was a most magnificent sight. The sheets of iron are twenty-four feet long, six wide, and two thick. The glowing metal issued at the same instant from three burning fiery furnaces, and travelling through numerous channels in the floor, covered the mould in the space of a minute, and nothing could be more beautiful. One of these sheets is cast every day. The whole is to cost three hundred thousand pounds, and it will take three years." "May 18, 1815. — You would have enjoyed a scene we wit- nessed last Monday. The Sunday schools of Sheffield, con- taining six thousand children and thirteen hundred teachers, assembled in an open space in the outskirts of the town, where they formed into a hollow square, sang the " Old Hundredth," and then marched in procession through the principal streets to a very large chapel, where a sermon was preached to them. Our hymns were sung, and the first, which was the first in the 'Infant minds,'* had a beautiful effect from so many little English voices. Large hustings were erected round the pulpit, where * "I thank the goodness and the grace." 2 1 8 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. the principal ladies and gentlemen of the town were placed, and in front a gentleman beat time with one of our books. Montgomery told the committee in choosing the hymns that the middle one — 'Among the deepest shades of night' — was the finest hymn of the sort in the English language. The last in the volume concluded.* Mr Gilbert enjoys such incidents." "June 20, 181 5. — . . . You see I have no room for anything but just business, nor time either, for my journey makes me very busy. I hope, my dear family, that nothing will happen to prevent or embitter it, for I long for it indescrib- ably, and can hardly bear to realise your nursing the dear child. I am such a poor judge myself, and am so strongly disposed to think highly of him, that I feel ' I must to the wise man go, to learn whether he's a witch or no,' and quite long for your unprejudiced opinion of his beauty, sweetness, sprightliness, talents, and acquirements ! I hope dear father will furnish himself with a bib and apron, for I can promise him as much nursing as ever he likes. The child is so exceedingly fond of male nurses that though he goes very reluctantly to strange ladies, he will dance and caper to go even from me to a gentle- man— man or boy, known or unknown, clean or dirty, squire or sweep — and he cannot even hear his father's voice without crying to go to him. I am almost afraid you will find the novel sound of a young child troublesome ; and though I know you agree with certain excellent writers that they should not scramble on sofas, break crockery, and pull work-baskets to pieces, yet I assure you we can hardly help thinking it exceedingly interesting when he breaks a plate, pulls over the tea cups, and drags the green cloth, with everything upon it, off the table." * " Come let us now forget our mirth." — The two first named hymns were her own. CHAPTER IX. ROTHERHAM. 1815-1817. " arch looks and laughing eyes And feats of cunning ; and the pretty round Of trespasses, affected to provoke Mock chastisement and partnership in play." Wordsworth On the 4th of July, Mrs Gilbert, with her husband and child, set off, by way of Doncaster, for London. Stop- ping a day at Huntingdon and another in London, they reached the " Peaked Farm," at Ongar, on the 7th, when she placed their grandchild in her parents' arms. If the far off brother and sister, to whom at Marazion, it took thirteen days to send a parcel by waggon, could have joined the circle, the happiness would have been complete. As it was, the group that strolled along the lanes and field-paths in the evening was sufficiently happy. During the latter part of the stay her husband left to visit rela- tions in Hampshire, and the absence gave occasion for a few letters, from which some extracts follow. " Very often since I married I have thought of an expression, which I never entirely understood before, ' Thy desire shall be unto thy husband.' It is so expressive of that waiting, and watching and solicitous dependence for happiness which a wife must feel towards one who is appointed to rule both over and in her. In him, most emphatically, her desires centre. The whole fabric of her happiness is at his disposal, and a breath from him can either confirm or shatter it. She cannot enjoy an independ- ent pleasure, for the very thought of its independence prevents it being pleasure. The curse in this instance, as in that bestowed 2 20 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. upon her guilty associate, ' in the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread/ is indeed turned into a blessing, for it imparts a cer- tain refinement and tenderness to her enjoyments, which they could not have possessed, if they had not descended to her from a hand she loves." Her husband had sent her some verses written in memory of his first wife, to which, in her next letter, she refers : — " There is something most touchingly, solemnly beautiful in the lines, and never need you fear, my love, your ' Anna should complain ' of the pure flame of such a friendship. No — ' They are holy tears we shed Upon the bosom of the dead.' " and it always affords me a melancholy pleasure to hear you referring with tenderness to past times. The only painful feel- ing occasioned by it, is the fear that I should deserve a lower place in your affection and esteem. 1 Then let the tears of mournful love descend, I, too, would claim them — were I such a friend. I, too, my love, if parted from thy side, Would claim an hour to lighter thoughts denied. Oft as December led his revels by, Would ask the tribute of one faithful sigh, And watch with fond inquiry to perceive, If still thou couldst remember Christmas eve?in Returning to Masbro', she resumed her ordinary busy and happy life there. The removal to a new and more commodious house, then in pretty fields, now in the midst of smoke and cinders, was accomplished just before Christ- mas. " October 15, 1815. — To Mrs Laurie, — Do you never, in the midst of present joys and duties, revert to those ancient times ? I do ; and with all its smoke, and dust, and disorder, and con- finement, that old workroom supplies one of the most agreeable and tender of the recollections of my youth. Many a day of happi- ness was passed there, many an interesting face was familiar there, and among them some who shall be known no more for ever. How little did you think of Reading? — or I of Rotherham ? — or dear Jane of Cornwall, then ? I had ? map of England pinned The Map of England. 221 up against the screen at my left hand, and often in idle moments read the uninteresting names, but never felt one prescient thrill as these important letters caught my eye ; perhaps there are still some spots which are to become equally interesting ! how glad I am we do not know them ! " The 23d of September was her sister Jane's birthday. 11 On the 23d four important domestic occurrences took place in our family, exclusive of the interest which has long attached to that day. We lighted our first fire in the parlour, added a pretty puss to our establishment, dear little J left off his caps, and for the first time took six or eight steps alone, for which feat you cannot think how heartily I admired, praised, and kissed him. Ever since he has fairly run alone without assistance, and is as busy a little body as ever you saw, and as pretty a one. Besides all this he has the following accomplish- ments : he says what the cow says, and what the sheep says, — nay, a few days since, he heard a donkey bray, very loud and long : he listened attentively, and the next morning in bed began a very good imitation of his own accord, from which time he has continued to bray to the admiration of enraptured auditors, whenever required. Besides these versatile accomplishments, his friend Lucy Bennett has taught him to make a very funny face, and though, as in duty bound, I never encourage this, yet, between friends, it really is very funny, and even when in conse- quence of the same tuition, he spit at Mrs and Mrs (two great ladies in the neighbourhood), I could not help thinking it very entertaining, though certainly ' terrible awful, and horrible shocking.' Pray how long should elder wine continue to hiss, supposing you give it no extraordinary provocation ? My mind is almost hurt at the continued insolence of mine, and I am determined not to give it a drop of brandy till it has done." To her sister she writes, Nov. 14 — "I have lately sent to the ' Eclectic' a short review of the life of Mrs Newell, an American Missionary. I wish you could see the work, it interested me exceedingly. The time for ' Patron- age ' is gone by, but I have partly engaged to review a new volume of ' Pious Women,' and to say a few words on the ' Legend of Stutchbury,' a little tract, but I do not know when it can be, 222 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. and every hour I devote in this way now, is almost against my conscience, as I have not the time to spare. My mind is never in that composed careful state which I have always found necessary for writing ; my ear is waking perpetually to the voice or cry of the dear child, and continually I am obliged to break off at a moment's notice to attend to him. What I write now, therefore, is to please Mr G , who likes to see and hear of me in that character, so that sometimes, dear Jane, I feel almost pained at your progress, because I know he always wishes that I could do the same; but mind you never say the less about yourself on this account ; I could not forgive you if you withheld a single word." Jane Taylor was at this date preparing for the press her volume of " Essays in Rhyme," the point and beauty of which were much appreciated in their day ; and might have secured a more permanent place in literature had the author lived to become more generally known. Some of the poems were from time to time forwarded in MS. to her sister, who in reply, along with warm admiration, sent a good deal of verbal criticism ; the result of her husband's refined taste, of Salome's keen perception, of Montgomery's experienced ear, and not least, of her own intuitive judgment. The "World in the house," and the "World in the heart," and a poem entitled the " Pair," were among the first submitted to this coterie of critics; upon the former she says — " I think you lose a good opportunity in not describing the wife, whose rotund self-indulgence forms almost a distinct species, and might be well introduced. It is quite different from the father and daughters, it is a more sensual lazy worldliness than either.* " The apostrophe — l Hence let us rise ' — is so elevated and beautiful, that however just and expressive, I would omit the two * Her brother Isaac Taylor once remarked in reference to the comparative piety of the two sexes, that nothing was more rare than a conversion to God of women who had reached maturity without that great change ; whereas, with men, thoughtfulness and consequent piety were frequently of late growth. If in early years the feminine affections had not been drawn heavenwards, he considered the case all but hopeless, and that the supposed preponderance of piety among women was therefore doubtful. Rhyme and Reason. 223 concluding lines ; they reduce the feeling too suddenly — a feel- ing which is too poetical to be sacrificed even to the point and contrast those two lines afford.* "... But I shall not leave room for Montgomery's remarks 1 Pilgrims sojourning,' why this accent? ' In all they do, and say, and look, and wear Aping the rank they were not born to bear* put share. This I don't agree with, but he hates alliteration. He thought that ' bairns ' means boys, and therefore objects to it, but I do not think so, I like it. ' Nay, say they ' — Cacophony. "He made no comments on the last poem * The Pair,' but par- ticularly admired the sunrise at the conclusion ; also ' France rages now, and Spain, and now the Turk Now victory sounds, but there he sits at work ! ' which he thought more striking than a man's sailing round the world and returning to ' Find him on the same square foot of floor On which he left him twenty years before.' " I confess, for my own part, I thought it savoured a little of St Serle, The uncle of the banished Earl/ 1 " Mr Gilbert and Salome made a huge outcry at the rhyming of 'fire with Messiah,' and say it must be altered. This is one of our most inveterate southernisms, and I cannot yet tutor my ear to be affronted at it, but I have endured so much the trial of 1 cruel mockings ' on account of it, that I beg you will extricate yourself at any rate." Inheriting so much of her mother's painful sensibility, * The passage referred to was the following — Regions of intellect, serenely fair, Hence let us rise, and breathe your purer air. There shine the stars ! one intellectual glance At that bright host, — on yon sublime expanse, Might prove a cure ; — ' Well,' say they, ' let them shine, With all our hearts, — but let us dress and dine.' The suggestion of the elder sister was not, it seems, adopted by the younger, t Lady of the Lake, Cant, v., 19. 224 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. a "removal" under any circumstances was no small thing; and she describes to her sister how, on the evening of Dec. 21, after tea at a neighbour's — "We all took a most melancholy turn over the dear old house, Salome and I crying bitterly; we then locked the doors and padded through the snow to our new habitation, crying all the way we went; but my sorrow was turned into joy when the door opened, and we were shown into the pleasant parlour, with a cheerful fire, and put nicely to rights." It was only just in time, for on the 3rd of January her second child, a daughter, was born. " I wish, she writes to her mother, you could see and kiss the dear little ' Anne Taylor,' who is come to supply the place of one you lost." To her friend Mrs Whitty she writes — "Jan. 1816. — This day three weeks we slept in our new habi- tation for the first time, and a most agreeable and comfortable one it is. I have, in particular, a very nice store-room fitted up under my own direction. The view in front is extremely plea- sant over gardens and meadows, with the river winding through them to a distant wood. We have a lease for fourteen years, but I do not like to look through that long period. O, the mournful changes, my dear Luck, which it is likely to produce in the beloved circles in which we are centred.* All! here is not our rest ! We must not fancy for a moment that we have found one. We may have a long lease of the house, but it has not a moment's lease of us. Should our lives be spared, my dear J will then be just deciding his views for life — O, what will they be ? May that God who has given us children, and some sense of the value of the trust, give us also wisdom to bring them up for Him, and to pursue that most difficult path — the path of unwavering, consistent, universal discipline — never re- laxing, never turning aside. . . . Do not fail to remember us to our interesting friend Mr Gunn. What a pretty little bit of our history, framed and glazed, was the year we spent at Ilfra- combe ! It seems scarcely like a reality, so different was it from anything that went before, or that has followed after it. Mr G and I, often say how much we should like to visit Ilfracombe to- * During that period her father, mother, and her sister Jane, were all re- moved to another world. Juvenile Poetry. 225 gether, and endeavour to retrace those strange ominous days; but while Ongar is Ongar, I feel as if every other spot in England were under an interdict, for when I have time to go anywhere I cannot think of going elsewhere. I have, however, a very dim prospect of seeing dear Ongar at present ; two children, and one so young, prevent my thinking of it this summer, for I feel more every day, how desirable it is that mothers should be keepers at home." On the 20th of March, his birthday, her husband, on coming in from his early morning duties at the college, was received by his little boy with the following lines : — Papa, papa, your little boy Is come to-day to wish you joy, And waits to give a pretty kiss For little Joe and little " sis." There's nothing yet that he can do To give you joy, but calling " Poo," Or hushing " sis," or saying " pray," Or telling what the donkeys say. Or he can shut the parlour door, Or pick up letters from the floor, Or stroke poor puss and give her toast, Or walk with letters to the post. But by and bye, when he shall grow A great good clever boy you know, He hopes that he and little " sis " Will give you greater joy than this. Yes, and a joyful day 'twill be To see them what we hope to see, And feel our sorrows, pains, and cares, Sustained by tenderness of theirs. But if God should not please to spare These pretty buds that look so fair, But rend them early from the bough That yields them sap and shelter now, E'en then, though all bereaved and torn, We hand in hand should live to mourn, Still might we keep that land in view Where blighted buds are raised anew P 226 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert, " You enquire," she says to her mother enclosing- these verses, "if he does not begin to talk, and here I feel a little at a loss, for Mr G fell upon a passage in Quin- tilian the other day, which says that early speaking is not an indication of genius, so that we are rather uncer- tain whether to boast of him as remarkably forward, or remarkably backward. I will therefore give you his vocabulary, and leave you to judge." . . . For the wedding day of her father and mother she writes : — " April 12, 1816. — I wrote so lately that you will probably wonder at hearing from me now, unless you happen to recollect that Thursday (the day on which I hope this will reach you) is the 1 8th of April. I feel a pleasure in joining, as far as I am able, in the festivities, or at least in the feelings of these red- letter days, and contributing my mite towards the satisfaction they inspire. Very little is now in my power; many, many opportunities in which I might have contributed to the happiness of my dear parents have passed away, misimproved ; and all I can now do is to beg they will forgive the times which will occur to their remembrance, when I have given them pain, and ill requited their care. I am now often reminded by my own feelings, hopes, and fears, of what theirs have been ; and very frequently, when looking forward on my children, look back upon myself. I rejoice, my dear parents, that as years pass on you are losing most of the toils of a family, and enjoying many of its comforts, in the increasing sense which all your children entertain of their obligations to your anxiety, your unremitting labour, your much enduring affection. " This time five and thirty years many were wishing you joy, and notwithstanding all your trials I do think their prayers have been heard. Whenever I read my dear father's touching addresses to my dear mother on these occasions, I cannot but say, ' Yes, they have been happy indeed In laying out our little garden here I am trying to make one corner like that which held the white seat at Colchester. A man who came to work at it said he was sure he had seen me before, and recollected at last that it was at Colchester, where he used to garden for Mr Patmore, twelve years ago ! " Giving up the prospect of a visit to Ongar this year, she Cornwall to Yorkshire. 227 began early to entertain the idea of seeing her brother and sister at Rotherham in the summer. She thought of it with unbounded delight, and several letters are filled with suggestions and plans for the long journey from Cornwall to Yorkshire. She urges that " travelling is now cheaper than it has been for a long time, or than it is likely to con- tinue to be, for if the farmers rise, corn and horses must rise too." The project ripened. Land routes and sea routes were discussed — the choice lying chiefly between sea to Milford Haven, and thence by coaches, via Liver- pool and Manchester, — or by the coaches through Bristol and Birmingham. It is curious to read, that "between Liverpool and Manchester, the fares are extremely low, as there is much opposition ; but great attention is paid by the magistrates of those two towns, to prevent racing, so that it is safe travelling notwithstanding." The Birmingham route was preferred, and at length, on the evening of the 29th of June, at twenty minutes after ten, the brother and sister arrived in a post-chaise from Sheffield. They had not met since the autumn of 18 13, when Isaac and Jane left Ongar for Ilfracombe. A very busy six weeks succeeded. Isaac had, as yet, made no sign in the literary world ; but Jane Taylor's reputation, as a writer, was considerable, especially from the recent publication of " Essays in Rhyme," and in the large circle that surrounded her sister in Yorkshire, and where the hearty admiration of Montgomery was well-known, she was naturally much sought after. Rather chary of speech, she was not easily drawn out in conversation. "What do you consider the principal defect in the Quaker system," was rather formally demanded of her, in a large company, at Sheffield. " Expecting women to speak in public, sir," was the prompt reply. But she was fluent with the pen, and had occasion to use it. In her poem, entitled — " Poetry and Reality," were these lines; — " Indeed, the Gospel would have been his scoff If man's devices had not set it off; For that which turns poor nonconformists sick Touches poetic feeling to the quick." 228 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. And on her present visit to the neighbourhood, the fol- lowing comment appeared in the Sheffield Iris; — u If trappings to religion nought impart, They're not the things that most defile the heart ; In Jewish temple, where they stood so thick, The Saviour taught, and never once was ' sick/ These outward things can ne'er defile with sin, The temple of the spirit is within, If that be simple, pure, and cleans'd by grace, We then may worship God in any place? " Her rejoinder came with the next number : The fact is granted, courteous friend, Nor did my playful verse intend The inference to bear ; That proud St Peter's painted dome, Nor like devices nearer home, Could stain a sinner's prayer. That Jesus ne'er that building scorned With goodly stones and gifts adorned Is true, — it was divine. That "worldly sanctuary" stood — Its gold, its brass, its costly wood — As God's, not man's, design. But Jesus came to make it void, And now, demolished and destroyed The splendid forms decay ; Then why revive, and why allow, Those " carnal ordinances" now Which He has done away ? And why appeal to ages gone — To Moses and to Solomon If Christian rules would do? One deems all other reasons spent, When such a shadowy argument Is borrowed from the Jew. A succession of visits in the neighbourhood of Sheffield and Rotherham, and excursions to the beautiful scenery of that part of Yorkshire, filled up the time, till, all too soon — one August morning, they drove away from the Return to Ongar. 229 door, to return, after three years' absence, to their father's house at Ongar.* Writing to Jane afterwards her sister says : — " I shall not forget watching the coach up the hill towards Doncaster. I plunged deep into business as soon as I got home, and could not indulge myself till Friday evening, when, the wash being done, Mr Gilbert and I walked exactly the same walk we took the last evening, and then he let me have my cry out, and say just what I pleased, which was a great pleasure. You cannot think how much he felt the loss when you went ; he often complained that even his study seemed dull to him. But I enjoyed more than I can describe your account of your arrival at Ongar. I only wished to have known the exact time. I always want those little points of circumstance which may enable me to realise with all possible precision. I so enjoy your enjoyment of the sweet spot of which I have said so often — ' Oh, it is delightful ! ' for now I can believe in your entire sympathy when I say again — ' Isn't it ? ' " Dear father and mother ! it is a constant satisfaction to think of them in such a retirement, so exactly all they wish and want. I hope mother will not quite give up writing to me while you are there. What I should like would be foolscap sheets jointly filled, and then I should hear what each thought of the other. Little J. puts his finger to his nose when I ask what uncle used to do when J. was naughty. He still points to Salome's room when I enquire where aunt was, and to the study window when asked where uncle got in when J. bolted the door." In October of this year she relates to her family an excursion very interesting to her. It may be remembered (see p. 8) that her grandmother, Mrs Martin, came from York, leaving it, a girl of eighteen, alone on the top of the coach for London. "October 8, 1816. — I have had two extremely pleasant * Y\ riting of this visit in the Memoirs of his sister, many years afterwards, Isaac Taylor remarked of the dissenting congregations he then became acquainted with — "There was intelligence — there were habits of reading — there was the listening to noted preachers— Robert Hall, the prince of them, which altogether raised some of these societies to a level, as to thought, taste, and knowledge, which no other religious communions of the time had reached." 230 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. holidays lately, in one of which I thought of dear mother incessantly. Mr Gilbert was called to preach at York, and by invitation I accompanied him. We went on Saturday, returned on Tuesday, and saw as much as possible in the time. It is a most interesting city, and the remembrance of our poor grand- mother rendered it all the more so to me. Almost every old- fashioned house I saw, I thought, ' perhaps she was born there ; ' and I looked with peculiar interest at such parts of the buildings as had evidently undergone no repair, thinking ' she has certainly looked at this.' Our quarters were within a few doors of Micklegate Bar, the great southern gate of the city, through which she must have passed on her road to London ; and when at seven o'clock on a fine morning we set off to return on the top of the coach, I thought very much of her solitary journey, and of the way in which Providence protected and directed her till she became two bands. Almost every old tree we passed I thought, ' seventy years ago she saw this, perhaps, and saw it flourishing in its prime.' We went all over the Minster, which exceeds everything of the kind I ever saw. It is undergoing complete repair, and from one of the external ornaments, almost effaced by time, which was taken down, I severed a fragment of decaying stone, and have this morning made it up into a small parcel for you ; when it arrives, therefore, pray do not expect anything important, for it contains nothing but the aforesaid stone for mother. " As we were returning, the coachman said, ' You don't know who it is on the coach with you. Jack Ketch of London ! He went down to Carlisle to hang a few, a week ago, and is now going back again.' We looked at him with terrible curiosity, and surely a viler face was never worn right-side-out — a cool, merry demon ! At York Castle the curiosities were : — ' Here is the pickaxe with which such a one murdered a woman and two girls ; this is the penknife with which so-and-so cut the throat of her baby ; this is the great club,' &c. — instruments the most varied and horrible, with which, during a number of years, most of the great murders in the county have been committed." The other holiday was at Stockport in Cheshire. " The country is beautiful, and the friends I visited most hos- pitable, but the grand inducement was to hear Angell James preach the annual sermon for the Stockport Sunday schools. Three thousand children are there educated in the most noble An Anxious Question. 23 1 building for the purpose. The room for preaching is only a part of it, and on this occasion the congregation assembled was nearly six thousand, the orchestra containing six or seven hundred more ; there was a noble organ, a full band of instru- ments, together with Braham and other London singers. The collection was nearly four hundred pounds, and the sermon the most wonderful piece of eloquence I ever heard. Oh, how I wished for you all !" By the end of the year, when scarcely a twelvemonth of " the fourteen years' lease " had expired, all the dreams of prolonged residence in the pretty house were disturbed, and a time of distressing perplexity ensued. Mr Gilbert's health had begun to suffer under the combined strain of his college duties and those of his ministry at Sheffield ; and just when this anxiety arose, he received from two churches of some importance, one at Worcester and the other at Hull, almost simultaneous invitations to theii pastorates. The following extracts explain the difficulties of decision under these circumstances. After describing the nature of the work at Hull, where it was proposed that he should have the assistance of an excellent young friend, who had been one of his own students, she says : — " All this took place last week ; the present week has involved us in still greater anxiety. On Thursday we received a letter from Mr. J. Angell James, engaged, he said, as special pleader in behalf of Worcester, ' the church there being determined to think of no other man upon earth till the last hope of having Mr Gilbert was extinguished/ And the same afternoon arrived two gentlemen, deputed by the Church to deliver their unani- mous call, and to press it with all possible earnestness. They stayed with us till last night, urging their cause with great solicitude. You cannot think how distressed we feel. My husband said he was in danger of bursting into tears all day, he felt so much harassed, and the affection he bears to Sheffield is so great." To her husband, absent at Hull, she writes about this time : — 11 God, I think, seems to be trying the purity of our motives. 234 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. held up the right hand ; the spirit of love and peace seemed eminently to be with us.' A few days afterwards came the official reply signed by the whole church." And so, presently, the die was cast, and notwithstand- ing the most generous ofifers on the part of his people at Sheffield, and of the students, — indeed for the very sake of both students and people, Mr Gilbert was compelled to accept the call that had been addressed to him. What this implied to the sensitive heart of his wife can well be understood. " We hardly know how to bear it," she says, " and yet you will easily perceive that with such proposals Mr Gilbert could not have complied ; he would have felt doing but half his duty." The indulgence of feeling, however, was soon checked. The children were seized with scarlet fever ; and presently the whole household, husband, niece, and a young man recently received into the family to complete his educa- tion, all, excepting herself and servant, were prostrated, and passed through more or less dangerous crises. The energy of her character, and the innate strength of her constitution, were severely tested during these trying weeks, but at the end she was able to write — " I feel it an unspeakable and undeserved mercy to be resuming our former comfort with no breach in our circle. . . . By- the-bye, when you send, we should be very thankful for a few odd proofs, for J. has no greater delight than to look at ' pickeys,' and the cuts in ' City Scenes ' are almost threadbare. I regret the many 'pretty pickeys' I have burnt, and should be very glad of any you can scrape together, especially of small subjects he can understand. He can tell already that Balaam beat the poor donkey ; that Samson carried the great doors ; that poor little Moses cried in the basket ; and that little Samuel went to chapel to hear Eli preach, and was very good, — only from looking over our little Bible during his illness."* March 20, 18 17. — To her sister — * Baskets full of proofs might be collected from the "workroom." The small book referred to was a little square volume of Bible illustrations and letterpress, the joint work of father and daughters. Differing Lots. 235 . . . " Almost every letter you send, dear Jane, I cannot help saying what different lives we lead ! There are some things I regret, but I feel daily that mine is the lot for me, and yours for you, and we must take them as they are. If your fame, and leisure for the improvement of your mind, could be combined with the comfort and pleasures of a larger domestic circle ; and if, with a husband and children, I could share a glimmer of your fame, and a portion of your reading, we should both perhaps be happier than it is the usual lot of life to be, and at least happier than it seems good for us to be. Mr Gilbert expresses his conviction that such a course of reading as you have lately indulged in must injure the mind for exertion of its own. He says he feels it impossible to be at once a reading and a writing man ; and that had he read less, he should have written with much greater facility. He does not mean to con- demn so much reading as is necessary to furnish the mind, but only to say that habitual reading places the mind in such a different state from that required for writing, that it must recover from one before it will feel at ease in the other. Do not there- fore feel discouraged, dear Jane, at the natural effect of your late pursuits, and suppose a decay of power, but wait patiently and cheerfully, and you will gradually recover tone." In a letter home, dated April 17, 18 17, there is a glimpse of the severe distress prevailing, — the collapse after the great war which made peace for a time more trying— " The distress at Sheffield is very great ; the poor live upon little else than oatmeal, but if the cheapest, it seems the most nourishing of food, for it is observed that the children look healthier than usual. Everybody is turning away servants, workmen, and clerks ; that last resort, a ' clerk's place,' is hardly to be obtained by any interest, however great, and the cases of distress we hear of continually, are heartrending. We have a pleasing young couple close by who have wrung our hearts by their sufferings, which, till just now, were quite unsuspected. They have lived well ; the wife a delicate little creature only twenty, just confined with her second child ; and about six weeks ago, before he had communicated his distress to Mr Bennett, they were literally starving; had sent out their last penny the night before to buy a candle, thinking it would betray their 234 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. held up the right hand ; the spirit of love and peace seemed eminently to be with us.' A few days afterwards came the official reply signed by the whole church." And so, presently, the die was cast, and notwithstand- ing the most generous offers on the part of his people at Sheffield, and of the students, — indeed for the very sake of both students and people, Mr Gilbert was compelled to accept the call that had been addressed to him. What this implied to the sensitive heart of his wife can well be understood. " We hardly know how to bear it," she says, " and yet you will easily perceive that with such proposals Mr Gilbert could not have complied ; he would have felt doing but half his duty." The indulgence of feeling, however, was soon checked. The children were seized with scarlet fever ; and presently the whole household, husband, niece, and a young man recently received into the family to complete his educa- tion, all, excepting herself and servant, were prostrated, and passed through more or less dangerous crises. The energy of her character, and the innate strength of her constitution, were severely tested during these trying weeks, but at the end she was able to write — " I feel it an unspeakable and undeserved mercy to be resuming our former comfort with no breach in our circle. . . . By- the-bye, when you send, we should be very thankful for a few odd proofs, for J. has no greater delight than to look at ' pickeys,' and the cuts in ' City Scenes ' are almost threadbare. I regret the many ' pretty pickeys ' I have burnt, and should be very glad of any you can scrape together, especially of small subjects he can understand. He can tell already that Balaam beat the poor donkey ; that Samson carried the great doors ; that poor little Moses cried in the basket ; and that little Samuel went to chapel to hear Eli preach, and was very good, — only from looking over our little Bible during his illness."* March 20, 18 17. — To her sister — * Baskets full of proofs might be collected from the "workroom." The small book referred to was a little square volume of Bible illustrations and letterpress, the joint work of father and daughters. Differing Lots. 235 . . . " Almost every letter you send, dear Jane, I cannot help saying what different lives we lead ! There are some things I regret, but I feel daily that mine is the lot for me, and yours for you, and we must take them as they are. If your fame, and leisure for the improvement of your mind, could be combined with the comfort and pleasures of a larger domestic circle; and if, with a husband and children, I could share a glimmer of your fame, and a portion of your reading, we should both perhaps be happier than it is the usual lot of life to be, and at least happier than it seems good for us to be. Mr Gilbert expresses his conviction that such a course of reading as you have lately indulged in must injure the mind for exertion of its own. He says he feels it impossible to be at once a reading and a writing man ; and that had he read less, he should have written with much greater facility. He does not mean to con- demn so much reading as is necessary to furnish the mind, but only to say that habitual reading places the mind in such a different state from that required for writing, that it must recover from one before it will feel at ease in the other. Do not there- fore feel discouraged, dear Jane, at the natural effect of your late pursuits, and suppose a decay of power, but wait patiently and cheerfully, and you will gradually recover tone." In a letter home, dated April 17, 18 17, there is a glimpse of the severe distress prevailing, — the collapse after the great war which made peace for a time more trying— " The distress at Sheffield is very great ; the poor live upon little else than oatmeal, but if the cheapest, it seems the most nourishing of food, for it is observed that the children look healthier than usual. Everybody is turning away servants, workmen, and clerks ; that last resort, a ' clerk's place,' is hardly to be obtained by any interest, however great, and the cases of distress we hear of continually, are heartrending. We have a pleasing young couple close by who have wrung our hearts by their sufferings, which, till just now, were quite unsuspected. They have lived well ; the wife a delicate little creature only twenty, just confined with her second child ; and about six weeks ago, before he had communicated his distress to Mr Bennett, they were literally starving ; had sent out their last penny the night before to buy a candle, thinking it would betray their 236 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. condition to their landlady if they sat in the dark. They used to have the cloth laid as if to dine, but have nothing ! You cannot think the pleasure with which I packed a basket for her of such things as I had in the house which I thought would be ... most needed, and go fastest during her lying-in. I can think of but one little hamper which I ever filled with so much pleasure, and that was the one we sent to dear Martin in London when he came of age. " Have you seen a little threepenny book by Mr Harris of Cambridge, called ' Conversations on Prayer,' intended to render it a ' reasonable service ; for young children ? I think it comes nearer to a perfect book for children than I ever saw. It is completely childlike, without being childish — a distinction most difficult to preserve." In April she paid a visit with her husband to Hull, and describes it to her parents. " You will believe that I felt no little interest in taking the first view of Hull, of our new home, and of the chapel where Mr Gilbert is to enter upon so large a sphere of labour, as well as in he introduction to strange faces which have taken place during the week ; and I believe I may say that in all, my expectations have been more than fulfilled. Hull is a fine, open, lively town, with the constant interest of a seaport, without being close and disagreeable as many are ; and even the country, though not to compare with our beautiful Rotherham, is in many respects better than I had expected. In a house we have been pecu- liarly favoured. It stands in a small, genteel row at the ex- tremity of the town, so that we can walk either by the Humber, or in the country, without taking a step through the town. Exactly opposite to our windows is an enclosure, as in the squares of London, with a grass plot, gravel walk, and planta- tion, the use of which we can have, and the view behind is extremely pleasant over a number of gardens to the Humber, a fine river three or four miles broad, with vessels constantly passing, and the coast of Lincolnshire rising beyond. . . . The chapel is a large, good building, which now lets eleven hundred sittings, and has not a single seat to dispose of, so that they are obliged to refuse several applications. It is beautiful to see merchants and men of business, young and old, leaving their counting-houses at all hours, if any plan is to be considered Consecration. 237 for doing good; and such a throng of respectable or venerable heads as is seen following their minister to the vestry is most encouraging." In prospect of the approaching trial which leaving Rotherham would prove, she writes — " Tell Jane I do not intend to take her advice ; I am not subject to dangerous excesses of such feelings, and I like, there- fore to enjoy them to the full, especially as at these times there is always sober business enough to do and arrange, and a suffi- ciency of common-place about chairs and china, and bread and beer, and cheese, and string, and straw, to reduce the fine edge of romantic suffering to a very endurable degree of bluntness. The very simple but supposable circumstance of being qualmy in a coach is quite antidote sufficient for enervating grief. The few parting looks I may be able to take without interruption, I shall not, I think, be afraid to indulge." On the evening of Thursday, July 3, these " parting looks " were taken, — " It was, I assure you, a bitter ride down Masbro, and, till we lost sight of our dear pleasant house, which we could see for a mile on the Sheffield road." They went to friends at Sheffield, and spent two days in farewells to the large circle there. On the Sunday they " had a sharp trial under the last sermon at Nether Chapel, the place as full as it could hold, aisles and all." On the Monday they posted forty miles to Booth Ferry, where, " at ' the commodious and solitary inn,' they spent the night." It was an evening always memorable to him (her husband). After tea, he went out alone, taking his path down a secluded country road, and there he received, as from the hand of his Master, the charge, the true bishopric of souls, about to welcome him as their guide, or to be allured to the fold by his ministry. His spirit bowed, almost bent beneath the pressure, but he went to the Strong for strength. He knew in whose service he was engaged, whose command it was, as he fully believed, he had obeyed, and then and there consecrated his life, as by sacramental engagement, to the solemn work." 238 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. The following day they reached the hospitable roof of a friend at Hull, close by their new residence. The goods had arrived by water, unpacking began, and the true daughter of her father writes home, — " I enjoy exceedingly every step we make towards order once more. It will be a nice house when it is done, lightsome, agreeable, convenient. I shall only want some of you here to give me the complete enjoyment of it. It is in Nile Street ; you could not have made a more unfortunate mistake than to suppose it Hill Street, there is not a hill to be seen for love or money." CHAPTER X. HULL. 1817-182O. " But little know they of the toils of thought, Heart, head, and conscience, to the labour brought ; The search for truth in Scripture's deepest mine; The snare resisted, not to teach, but shine." Ann Gilbert. " Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships." Tennyson. "Eight happy and successful, though truly laborious years" were, as Mrs Gilbert wrote long afterwards, spent by her husband in Hull, as pastor of the large congrega- tion at Fish Street Chapel. During those years six more children were added to the household ; and she herself was not less active and laborious in her sphere, and certainly not less happy, than her husband. But in dealing with this, as with other busy periods of her life, it will be necessary to compress the narrative much more than hitherto. Three weeks after they had entered their new home, her third child, a son, was born. "He wants nothing but a name," she writes, " which we are quite at a loss about. I should like to call him ' Isaac,' but Mr Gilbert does not like it, and nobody thinks it pretty. Indeed, I cannot deny there is nothing but association in its favour." Her husband's lively niece Salome was at this time absent for a few months, and an allusion to this in a letter home reveals that with all her interest in the orphan girl, 240 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. she had proved some check to the happy freedom of domestic intercourse, as the addition of a third in the home of any newly married couple was likely to be. " The last three months, I believe, we have had more con- fidential conversation than for three years before ; and this is about the only cause of regret to me that Salome is with us. It is almost impossible for three to converse so freely as two, even if all were equally intimate; but I am so persuaded that it is duty to keep her here, and when I look at my own dear children, I feel too so deeply how strong are the claims of an orphan, that if holding up my finger in the dark would remove her, I wrould not do it. It is a little crook in a happy lot, and I dare not ask to have everything my own way." This " little crook " did not last long. Richard Cecil, a son of her old friend, and a student at Rotherham Col- lege, had now confided to Mr Gilbert his attachment to Salome. Some delay to make up her own mind was all that remained, " and," said his wife, " if I am anything of a conjuror, I can prognosticate the event." Perhaps this prognostication did not require a conjuror. It was soon a settled thing, as we find by the following reference : — " Salome does not allow that she shall marry for many a year, but if he should be settled soon, I conclude it would not be long, and I cannot help smiling at the little domestic observations which she, unlike her wont, now occasionally makes — of course, quite in a casual way — such as, ' dear, how was this made ? ' or, ' Was that rabbit's head quite right ? ' But the smile is quite in my sleeve. Oh, it is a real blessing to have had a little practice in the minutiae of housekeeping before one is called to perform in the eye of the world, and what is worse, of his wife. When I see the splendid dinners which all the merchants give here, I wonder what I should have done had I settled at , and in a situation where I must have given, as well as received ; for verily in this instance, it is not more blessed to give than to receive." The " crook " was succeeded by a real anxiety. Allu- sions presently occur to indications in her sister's health, which after some years ended in her death, the first sorrow of the kind since childhood, that entered this loving family A Dark Shadow. 241 circle. The trial to such a nature was poignant, yet she says — " I cannot but admire the goodness of God in the many miti- gating circumstances with which this affliction is accompanied. How merciful it is that she had not to brood over it during her retirement in Cornwall ; that Isaac does not now need her atten- tion; that she is able to feel so much pecuniary ease without continued writing ; and that her own mind should have been so previously strengthened and girded for the trial." In bearing this trouble, too, the elder sister, however prone to dwell in imagination upon dark possibilities, was helped by a characteristic energy of practical hopefulness. She was unwearied in suggesting and investigating all remedies that came to her knowledge, and always san- guine about them. And, then, there was ever the bright domestic duty at hand. " This is the first evening for weeks I have been able to sir down alone and at home, and now I am enjoying myself. The house is got nicely in order at last ; I have just finished a three weeks' wash, and I am every moment expecting Air Gilbert from Leeds. I have a comfortable parlour, with a neat, brisk fire to greet him, and in the kitchen a little chicken roasting for his supper, added to which all the three children are quiet and in bed." It may have been observed that, in all her references to her husband, he is termed "Mr Gilbert" or "Mr G." This formal style, which continued almost to the last, was, it need hardly be said, no indication of coldness, but took its rise from early shyness at any exhibition of affection before Salome's sarcastic glances ; a proof that the con- straint of which she speaks existed in no small degree. The deep and tender devotion of her heart was poured forth whenever it was confided to the pen. His absences, on ministerial duties among the Yorkshire churches, were now very frequent. During one of them she writes : — " If we look round at other families, we may easily persuade ourselves that ours are light afflictions, dealt out with a sparing O 242 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. and tender hand. If we may be still indulged in this respect, I shall enjoy the thought of your finding a little more rest at home than for a long time you could have had there. There is no thought more delightful to me than that of making your fireside both rest and recreation. It grieves me to think that, with family cares, you should ever find it otherwise, but sometimes you know I am lawfully too tired for the latter. Ah ! if I could but plead that at others, I was lawfully too cross for the former, I should have less reason to say, forgive me ! . . . I have attended to your study plants with a direct and affectionate reference to their owner, — also with no disrespectful feeling towards themselves." In the midst of incessant occupation, her pen, if used at all, was devoted to thoroughly homely matters of corre- spondence, but the receipt of a poetic effusion of her husband's and a breath of country air at the little village of Welton, where she had taken lodgings for her children, seem to have revived the old inspiration. She writes, — "January 19, 181 8. — Why describe the loveliness of one still the idol of your fancy, but whose slightest outline I dare not appropriate? Was it to make me jealous? If I can help it, it shall only make me emulous. But, however, if you had any ill design, I have meditated a sort of revenge in sending you, on the following page, the praises of my first love, — of one who still holds a wide empire in my heart. On receiving your beautiful, inappropriate verses, I longed very much for leisure to reply in kind ; but when yesterday, in my solitary ride from Welton, the sphit came over me, it did not flow in that direction. I found my mind cariied out towards another object, so I did not check its flight, but gave myself up without reserve to the passing impression. If you can, love it for my sake, as I must endea- vour to gaze on the beauties of your mistress for yours ; and if I can grow more like the charming original I will. But remember there will always be a painful difference between the seen and the unseen. The visible Helen, I will venture to say, was not so enchanting as the invisible personification which poetry has given to her loveliness. The ' seen,' in this case, is mere mortal clay, drest in a cap and gown ; and though I am not intimating that, if you did not see me, and did but know it, I am a Helen, The Princess Charlotte. 243 or even a distant relation of that lady, yet I would meet the dis- appointment half way, and assist you to remember that material substance cannot — do what it will, or be what it may — possess the poetic attraction of ethereal essence. " O beautiful nature, how lovely thou art In thy bonnet of blue and thy mantle of green ! Love, early and pure, it was thine to impart, My bosom's soft soother, my fancy's fair queen ! Does life seem a labour, perchance for a while, Its promise a cheat, by no pleasure repaid ? One glance of thine eye, and one glimpse of thy smile, Rekindle its brightness, thou beautiful maid !* " But now for news from that homely scene, where your muse takes her rest with resigned cheerfulness — that good red brick messuage known by the name of No. 8, Nile Street, Hull. . . . The house is now perfect neatness and order ; silence and solitude reign throughout (all the children away in the country), interrupted only by the occasional singing of the mangle, or the swing of the oven door ; if you would but add the postman's ring, it would be all the music I wish for." In November 18 17 had come the shock of the Princess Charlotte's death. " O," she says to her sister, " this mournful mourning ! Before I begin with anything else, I cannot help expressing my interest and grief in the event which has clothed us all in the garments of genuine sorrow. Night and day it has scarcely been out of my thoughts, so deeply melancholy is every view we can take of it ; and I confess, though I feel for the public, it is the private part of the story that affects me most. T realise every aggravating particular till I can hardly bear to think of it. How it enhances the mercies of our own firesides! I look at dear little H now as a double favour." The general grief on the day of the funeral called forth a sermon from every pulpit, that by Robert Hall achieving a wide celebrity. Mr Gilbert chose for his text J or. xxii. 29, " O earth, earth, earth, hear the word gf the Lord ! " * I have inserted one stanza only of a rather long poem. 244 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert, " Read it," she says, in writing home, "but be sure you do not look at the following verse ! ('Write ye this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days,' &c.) It was deeply affecting ; the place crowded, the pulpit hung with black, and every eye in tears. O it was most mournful, in the quiet moonlight of that melancholy night, to hear the dumb peals from the churches, chim- ing till past twelve ; and to think that the same sad music was sweeping over the whole land from north to south. We went in the evening to one of the churches, and during the performance on a fine organ of the ' Dead March in Saul,' I gave myself up to the full power of imagination, and I saw the scene then passing in the Chapel Royal like reality." A lively interest in public events always distinguished her; and she warmly embraced the cause of " the Queen," which became so curiously mixed up with political feeling. At a later period, when "the Manchester Massacre," a charge of Yeomanry upon the people, was in all mouths, she writes, — " We were at a large party last week, and got so deep into Manchester politics that we were obliged to conclude with a chorus of ' God save the King' called for by the Low party. AVhat do you think of the signs of the times ? Mr Gilbert can hardly rest in his bed for interest and anxiety. He is afraid there are fetters forging for his children. I heard there a neat characteristic story of Mr Parsons of Leeds.* He was at a dinner where a very high Tory gave ' Church and King/ suppos- ing Mr Parsons would not drink it. Mr P. drank it, however, very cheerfully; but when his turn came proposed the ' Queen and the Dissenters.' Did you see a reply of Hunt's as he passed in procession through Manchester ? — you know, perhaps, that he is separated from his wife — a man as he passed called out — 'Hunt, who sent away his wife?' — 'The Prince Regent,' my man, ' but hush, we don't talk about that, you know.' " With the first Spring time in Hull came longings that the dear ones at Ongar might see something of her new home, — nay, if possible, the father and mother, who had never taken so long a journey in their lives, and to whom * Father of Rev. James Parsons of York. Traveller s Fears. 245 there was now the special obstacle opposed, of that six miles of water between Barton and Hull, to be traversed only in a precarious sailing boat, for, as yet, no paddle- wheel beat the surface of the H umber. So early as Janu- ary 18 18 she introduces the subject — " 1 make one enquiry with all imaginable earnestness. Is it possible that my dear father and mother could visit Hull this year? The journey from London to Barton is about from even- ing to evening, fare £2, 16s. ; and if you were to see the Bar- ton packets coming in every day, as we do, you would begin to think the danger small. There has never been one lost since the days of Andrew Marvell, whose father perished in a very stormy passage ; but when the weather is so rough as to be dan- gerous, they do not sail. The coach passengers always rest at Barton the night, and cross in the morning. When the wind is favourable the passage is made in half-an-hour, and the vessel, though called a boat, is a sloop with mast and deck. Now do, my dear parents, try and think that you will come in the course of the summer." The same letter notices her father's recently published, and perhaps in its day, best known work, " Self-Cultiva- tion." " It appeared to us to make a great improvement in style about the middle of the third chapter, and several parts, espe- cially some chaste but striking figures, we have marked with pencil notes of admiration : — that of the ' echoes among the mountains ' is extremely beautiful.* But I do not mention the figures because we think them the best parts either, the whole stream of thought is excellent, and as far as books, — poor quiet books, are ever likely really to improve that stubborn material human nature, I should say that it must be useful." Of course, her mother, timid with all her courage, was quick enough to see her advantage in the Andrew Marvell accident. "I foresaw," says her daughter, "your ill use * "The culprit finds that blasting rumour has been before him and pie- pared the suspicious or malignant to do him injury long after he had .sun- posed scandal herself was tired with the monotonous repetition. He will meet the report again and again, as the lingering echoes among the mountains return, after long intervals of gloomy silence." 246 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. of Andrew Marvell, and therefore added what you seem to have overlooked, that when it is so rough as to be dangerous, the boats do not sail." The pleasant thought was not to be fulfilled that year, but in its stead there came the happy prospect of a visit to that dear Ongar, to think only of which, in its rural peace, was she said, ' a constant rest to her spirit." Yet there was always now a secret anxiety. " It grieves me," she says, in writing to her sister, " that you should be obliged to carry daily in your mind even a ' bearable anxiety,' but in this world we shall have tribulation, and it were vain, and perhaps foolish, to wish to evade the universal sen- tence, either in our own persons, or in those that are dear to us ; and soon, even at the longest, the trials we have passed through will appear indeed unworthy to be remembered, but for the peaceable fruit they shall have produced. Oh, woe to those who suffer under barren sorrows ! — who get no nearer heaven by the rendings and wounds that detach them from earth." April 17, 1818. — " Here I am in the study. It is a beautiful afternoon, the wind is blowing the Humber into foam ; a number of little vessels are labouring down the stream ; the pretty gardens all round us are just coming into bud, and the only green field we can see is looking like spring on a holiday. Oh, how I wish, not that you were just coming over, as I often do, but that you had just got safely in, and were admiring the beautiful prospect now before me ! But alas ! alas ! when and where are we to meet again ? If it were possible for father, mother, and Jemima ! — but I am afraid you will think me The visit of her parents was not yet to be, but the happy day came instead, when she and her husband and child set off for Ongar. It is amusing to contrast the journey with one by the Great Northern Express of these days : how, leaving Hull at four in the afternoon, on May 4, they supped at Lincoln, breakfasted at Peterboro, dined at Baldock, and got into London at half-past ten at night! A few days later they went down to Ongar, and thence she and her husband, and her sister Jane made a delightful four days' excursion to Colchester, driving all the way, The Old Home again. 247 and sleeping on the road, both going- and returning. It was the first visit to those loved scenes, — The High woods, Mile End, Lexden springs, the Balkerne hill — since the whole family drove away from Colchester nearly seven years before. At Ongar, in the old house a mile away in the fields, her diary and letters show how happily and characteristically the days passed, — the walks and talks in the well known lanes and meadows, and teas on the grass plot, or in the vine-covered porch ; the visits of her brothers Isaac and Martin, coming down to supper on Saturday night, and off on the Monday morning ; even her uncle Charles, the "learned" editor, who always treated her father as de- cidedly the younger brother, driving down in a post-chaise one Sunday. She records her father's preachings in the neighbouring hamlets ; her mother's birthday (sixty- one), with its little festival ; the family work going on ; — "mother with a tale completely written, the production of three weeks' mental fever ; father just in receipt of £yo for another book." And then, after five weeks' stay, the sorrowful departure, though with the happiness of taking her youngest sister, Jemima, back with her to Hull. An extract or two from letters to her husband, who had returned to Hull before her, may be permitted. " Ongar, June 12, 18 18. — . . . When will you remember that in order to enjoy a complete sympathy with those I love I like to know the exact times at which anything interesting befalls them ? On Wednesday evening, when I believed you would be leaving London, I thought of you incessantly, and spoke the same full often enough ; we were drinking tea under the pear tree on the front grass plot, and should have enjoyed ourselves completely, but for the oft-repeated wish that you were with us, and for the recollection that instead of enjoying that Italian sky and balmy air, and beautiful country, you were sitting to be tarred and feathered with heat and dust on a stage coach. On Sunday we expect Martin, and then, if all should be well, we shall once more assemble an entire family at our father's table, and with one pretty sample of a third generation ; how I wish that you and the two dear children at home could complete the circle ! but let us hope we all may meet one day in a higher 248 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. house and a fuller company ! . . . Dear little J. is much engaged in watching the gardener, and the carpenter, and the bricklayer who has been paving the Hermitage in the shrubbery ; and "Master Wood/' who has been clearing out the pond; and the sheep-shearers, who have been busy in the farm-yard. I hope he will return to Hull rich in health and knowledge, I am also quite well myself, only half baked and half broiled with incessant sunshine ; but I have had two falls, one down the stony de- clivity towards the pump in the kitchen, and the other down stairs with Jane's beautiful desk in my hand, which fell on its face, and bears my signature at every corner, which I am very sorry for. I am quite unhurt, except a few picturesque bruises. Isaac came on Tuesday, and has begun my portrait. Your like- ness I think perfect of the kind, but you know it is the wrong side, and has the wrong expression. It is like you when you wish to be pleasant, but wish still more that you need not be. . . . The thought of Nile Street and the spring-tide of com- forts I have there, is so sweet, that sometimes I feel in a strait betwixt two ; yet the thought of leaving this dear peaceful, beautiful spot, with all its living interests, is almost more than I dare indulge, — how impossible it will be to take one more look when I have once turned the corner of the road ! But then Hull and all that is dear to me there, will rise like a sun over the dis- tance." She returned home on the 27th of June in a brisk gale, which she inadvertently admitted laid the vessel "gun- wale to." The young Jemima was a bright addition to the household. "Ah," said one of their Hull friends, "I have seen your sister, I have seen the lady that is famous ; " " Yes," she replied, " and now, Sir, you see the lady that is not famous." Her husband's health gave way under his laborious duties, and the unhealthy atmosphere of Hull. Her children (she had eight of them about her before she left Nile Street) and her servants, were continually suffering from illness ; visitors were incessantly coming and going, and if any of them were needy or troubled, their stay was only the more prolonged in the hospitable home. In the societies and charities of a large town she took her part ; but a brave spirit and unflagging energy bore her through Arrangement with Publishers. 249 it all; only when anxiety for dear ones touched her, then for the moment, as she expressed it, she " became weak as water," till faith and hope, those " angel helpers," came to her aid. Her long letters to her family, or to her husband, during the absences which his impaired health now made neces- sary, are little else than domestic journals, enlivened with little gems of tenderness, or here and there sparkles of fun. A bundle of them in 18 18 is chiefly concerned with negotiations for a new arrangement with the publishers of the various works in which herself and her sister were jointly interested. Some difficulty was experienced in obtaining terms, which, under the large sale and increasing popularity of the poems, were considered "just," but that they should be just was her only wish. Characteristically she observes, — " In order to maintain firm ground, we must ourselves feel convinced that it is reasonable Martin deems it wise to come forward with k' large and bold demands,' but to our feelings, the path of wisdom, to say nothing of honesty, seems to be some- what diverse from this. We feel, or fancy, that we can never make a stand to a bold demand till we have ascertained, as well as we can, that it is a just one ; — that to use decided language when our own minds hesitate, would be both wrong and foolish ; and that the sinking below an extravagant demand (which if it were extravagant must be done), would place us in a more humble situation than the most scrupulous care betrayed to them, lest in the first instance we should ask too much." Her sister Jemima left Hull for the long journey home on the 30th of March 18 19, threatening "to cry all the way to Lincoln, six and thirty miles." Writing to her afterwards, she says, — " On Friday, while some people were drinking tea with us, I indulged myself with a few minutes' coze with my eyes shut, in order to realise your arrival at Ongar, — hoping to join your circle as well as a separate spirit can. Is father at work on Eoydell yet? How we admire Isaac's article on Madame de Stacl ! he has a magical use of words that gives the beauty and expressive- ness of a new language." 25c Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. But this year was made a very happy one by its fulfill- ing the great wish of her heart, a visit from her father and mother. Her father, who had suffered latterly from re- peated attacks of illness, had been recommended to try sea air and bathing, and the opportunity was taken for the whole family to remove to Hornsea. She herself, too, was very unwell, and though suffering plainly from ex- haustion, had, according to the practice of the day, been frequently cupped till the symptoms became alarming. On the nth of August, avoiding the possible fate of Andrew Marvell by travelling through Doncaster, her father and mother reached Hull. They had timed their journey so as to meet Robert Hall there, and to hear him preach on the Sunday at Fish Street. On the 17th, her brother Isaac's birthday, they all removed to Hornsea, a little fishing village, then so out of the way that letters arrived only three times a week by carrier. Her mother's penetrating eye and practical good sense soon led her to distrust the effect of the cupping treatment, and low diet, upon so delicate and emaciated a frame. In a shrewd and racy letter home, which gives a glimpse of the life at Hornsea, she says. — " I remain nearly as sceptical as ever respecting Ann's dis- order, notwithstanding ye long list of symptoms with which you were entertained in ye last letter. And I am sure, though I can- not get her to own it yet, that her looks are improved here, and her spirits are better. We all enjoy ourselves very much. You may think of us from ten to one every day walking or riding ; and again in afternoon or evening, when the tide is up. I ride on a donkey almost every day, and am become so good a horse- woman as to keep my seat when the animal is sinking in the sand, struggling, and kicking. We have, too, a donkey-cart, which carries the whole party, your father excepted. This all adds to the expense, and extorts from me many a sigh and groan, and I fear when the fun is over, like ye children, I shall cry for my money again : yet wre are willing to avail ourselves of such an opportunity, and not to spoil a ship for a halfpenny- worth of tar. Plunging headlong, however, into the sea, does not well suit my nerves. ' Take your time, ma'am,' the women say, when I am clambering up the ladder from the waves, but Going Away, 251 you can guess how it is, I daresay, as well as if you saw me. Yet I had rather bathe in the sea ten times, than once seethe and roll about on the surface of a warm bath like a bottle ! "We hope to hear from you now,— no, not every post, but every errand-cart. Let me hear how you all are in plain truth, and no lies. Also how the maid goes on, whether she is gone, or going, and what else is gone, stolen, or strayed. " On Monday at Hull we are to drink tea at Mrs CarlilTs to meet Robert Hall and several more, but all this does not prevent my waking sorely ill this morning." After some stay in Hull, on leaving Hornsea, her father and mother returned home, taking with them their eldest grandchild, then nearly five years old, — an event to both families, since, with exception of one or two visits home, he remained at Ongar till the death of his grandfather, ten yrears later. Her mother became very ill on the journey. " Little did I think," wTites the daughter, " how you, my dear mother, were suffering ! How often, during that day, did I wish I could see you for one rive minutes ; and how distressed I should have been if I had ! O, I can hardly believe that the pleasure I have been anticipating and feasting on in many a pleasant reverie, for almost these six years, is gone ! — gone so swiftly ! How often I think of that dark and dreary morning when I stood crying at the corner of the market place, watching till the coach turned down Silver Street, and the rattle of the wheels died away \ I shall never forget it, — nor that pleasant evening when I first caught a glance of the ' Rodney ' and clear mothers bonnet, as it drove down the market. These, with the stopping of the chaise at Masbro', with dear Jane and Isaac, are seasons written on my heart. u If it were possible you could be here when we are quiet, or rather, if we could possibly be quiet when you are here, how glad I should be ! I reproach myself now for many things, but I try to put the thought aside. I think I may safely say, that since we have been in Hull, no minister has preached at Fish Street of whom so much has been said by everybody, as of dear father. His praise is, at least, in all this church. I was much pleased to hear that when he rose to speak at the Tract Society, he was clapped ud ; this is a testimony to general estimation, very 252 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. different from the rattle of a few sticks at a piece of wit, perhaps hardly worth saying. ... I thought of you all, on Friday evening at six, very satisfactorily, but was sadly puzzled to decide on which side of the coach Isaac would stand, when he came to meet you at the corner, and whereabouts they would catch the first glimpse of J ." Of course the absence now of her eldest child drew forth, from time to time, many a tender thought and word. " I perceived," she says, " when last at Ongar, that without indulgence, he was yet sensibly injured by being the sole object of attention. This is almost unavoidable, but as far as it can be prevented, I rely upon your joint care. Bless his little heart ! How I enjoy the thought of his many privileges and comforts, ghostly and bodily, especially his gardening. . . . Yet I regret very much that there is a portion of his life — a stage of his growth, which I shall never remember ; my little boy of five years old, I shall never see, though I may find eventually a better one of six." Dec. 31, 1819. — "As to dear mother's anxious feeling of responsibility, I wish I could remove it by assuring her how completely my own mind feels at ease respecting him. Not, — O do not suppose it, that I feel any confidence in having him spared to us. I feel rather as if all my comforts were exposed on the brink of a precipice, with a loose and crumbling soil. Disease and accident have keys for every door, and I feel no persuasion that our dear child will not meet with them, even at Ongar." To Mrs Laurie, Feb. 8, 1820, she writes — " Whether or not your hands are full, I assure you that mine are ; and this alone is the reason that the friends of my youth — they whose names are associated with most that is dear and interesting in that interesting period, are all as nearly forsaken as they can be, while my affections remain faithful to their trust. You ask many particulars relative to my present circumstances, and were I to enter into the detail of my days and weeks, and years, you would believe that my time for correspondence was very small — small enough, pretty nearly, to justify the long intervals I allow in it. ... I could wish for a little more leisure, " Plain, Neat, and Economical." 253 or more properly, for a little more time for necessary duty ; but far, far, do I prefer this constant pressure to the busy trifling of a life of leisure. I heard a married lady, described, the other day, by a morning caller, as being well, and well dressed, in a well- furnished room, at twelve in the day, sorting seals ! O, I felt the privilege of having more work than I can accomplish, com- pared with the inanity of such occupations ! Our dear children, of whom you inquire so kindly and specially, are all (as we think) nice children. . . . Dear J is altogether a Gilbert ; A is a genuine Taylor — thought a beauty by some, and plain by others ; I take a middle opinion. H is a rough, fat, rosy, honest fellow, with as good-natured a face as ever smiled, — when he is not roaring under some affliction, that makes it look more like a door-knocker, or the lion-faced spout on a church steeple. ' Edward Williams ' * improves upon all of us, in one respect, in having beautiful soft curling hair, which his mother turns round her fingers sometimes, with no little pleasure. I think he will be pensive ; he is a delicate, elegant, little creature, and wins upon papa amazingly. . . . " With regard to their dress, it is as plain as can be for many reasons : first, we find it necessary to pursue a strict economy, and think it highly advantageous to them to be educated in similar habits. It always grieves me to see a child with the air of style and fashion about its dress ; it seems to be doing it the unkind office of just setting it in at the wide gate, to take its own course on the broad way ; besides, it seems to me to spoil the simplicity which should characterise childhood. Secondly, I cannot afford the time, either in work or washing, which would be necessary to keep them in the ' mode,' even if I were to set them in ; and thirdly, I am sure that a minister's family rather loses than gains respect, by any assumption of style. You are not to suppose, however, that we distinguish ourselves by an affected and obvious plainness, that would, of itself, attract attention ; but I wish my own dress, and that of the children, to be such, that if anyone takes the trouble to cast an investigating look at it, it may be evidently plain, neat, and economical. One thing has long prevented them from looking * fashionable,' however nicely they might be dressed ; I never would suffer the exhibition of their little shoulders, its look of uncomfortableness, and its direct tendency to inure a girl to future exposure, are quite sufficient objections." * Lost by an early death. 254 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. Her sense of responsibility in the management of a family and her means of meeting it, are shown in the following extract. " It is frightful to contemplate the long descent of evil and suffering, resulting from the mistakes, the prejudices, the ignor- ance, the ill tempers, the want of self-control, the indolence, or the unavoidable hurry of occupation of one individual mother ; herself, perhaps, a half-educated girl, and yet entrusted with a freight of incalculable, of eternal value ! To such an one, how needful is heart religion, a daily sense of dependence, and yet a cheeiful courage, resulting from the assurance that all who lack wisdom, are invited to ask it of God. None can know till they make the experiment, how much of strength and direction for secular duty may be derived from this source. I am mysel disposed to believe that nothing which it is right to do, and therefore to do well, is beneath the range, the warrant of prayer. The privilege may be abused by bringing the humbler necessities of life into social prayer, but, between ourselves and Him, to whom the final account must be rendered of work He has given us to do, nothing is mean that requires more wisdom than we have; and in the daily exercise of this emergent communion, ' whoso is wise, and will observe these things, shall see of the loving kindness of the Lord.' " ** Febritary 17, 1820 — To Ongar. — "I suppose we have all been feeling pretty much alike about the good old King, but I confess that after the death of the Princess I am almost impenetrable. Nothing can be so touching as that, and it is too recent to be forgotten. I try to make the children remember the death of the King, because such an event often supplies a date to the recollections of childhood ; but Anne, when I tell her King George is dead, always corrects me with 'George King' — it seems to her that I put the cart before the horse ! As we are glad, I suppose you will be glad, to hear that Miss Greaves has just purchased the house next door to us, and has decided upon giving up Grcystones. Everybody is pleased to see her settle amongst us, and we are not sorry, I assure you.'"' The lady here alluded to was a friend at whose hospi- table mansion, near Sheffield, they had frequently visited, and it was the value she set upon Mr Gilbert's preaching Miss G reaves. 255 that induced her to remove to the very inferior situation at Hull. Eventually, by turning two nouses into one, and purchasing- adjoining gardens, she obtained a roomy and comfortable residence, the delights of which with bound- less generosity she threw open to the family of the minis- ter, for whom she had sacrificed so much. The faithful and solicitous friendship of this lady during many years, not only requires grateful acknowledgement, but was too important an element in the happiness of the household with whose fortunes we are concerned, not to receive a passing notice. When the garden ground was purchased, Mrs Gilbert turned her father's garden lore to account, and spent much time in laying it out for her friend ; and along those gravel walks the children romped and screamed many a day, always without rebuke from the gentle face that watched them from the window. A sea-port town offered interests very different from those of the inland places to which the wife, at least, had only been accustomed. A branch of her husband's family had for several generations been connected with the Royal Navy. One member of it, accompanying Captain Cook in his first voyage, gave his name to a group of islands in the Pacific ; another, then a midshipman on board, but who afterwards became post captain in the service, was present at Captain Cook's death, and brought home his watch, which, bequeathed to him by the great navigator's widow, remains still as an heirloom. These associations gave Mr Gilbert great interest in the sea, and he himself was always a favourite with sailors. He was concerned in the establishment of a floating chapel at Hull, and once a year the departure of the Greenland whaling fleet gave occasion to a striking service, when Fish Street Chapel was crowded with sailors, and a special sermon was ad- dressed to them. During their absence in the frozen seas, prayer-meetings were held on their behalf at some private houses, at which the minister and his wife were always present ; and from the study window, which then com- manded a view of the Humber, the returning ice-battered vessels were eagerly watched for. Many of them belonged to friends deeply interested in the results, and news of the 256 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. number of fish and tons of oil, of this and the other well- known ship in the offing-, was brought to the door by hasty footsteps. With yet deeper interest the distant rigging would be searched by the telescope to see whether a coffin suspended from the yard-arm announced a death on board during the voyage. Too often it was so, and the minister departed on a heart-rending errand to some mournful household. For a ship to be reported "clean" might be almost ruin to the owners, and once a famous " captain," whose success was all but unvaried, arrived insane in his cabin from an unusually disappointing season. Most people of any means in Hull had shares in, if they did not own, a Greenland ship ; and Mr Gilbert at one time held a small share, so that for some years his wife's letters to Ongar contain unwonted references to news from the ice, and especially to the fortunes of the Per- severance, sometimes fairly successful, more frequently not, and one unlucky year all but "clean" — a result traced eventually to the circumstance of the "captain" having been drunk most of the voyage. A burden was lifted off" the heart of the wife when the share, involving so much uncertainty and anxiety, was sold ; and the good folks at Ongar seem never to have considered a " share in a ven- ture " quite a right thing to be concerned in. The Lincolnshire coast lies opposite Hull, and in May 1820, Mrs Gilbert for the first time made the acquaintance of her husband's Lincolnshire relatives, spending a fort- night among the hospitable farm-houses sprinkled through the Wolds, and with the novel experience of riding on a pillion behind him. Heavy anxiety rested over the latter part of the year from the dangerous illness of her father. To her mother she writes : — " I fear that this long and anxious trial will prove very un- favourable both to you and to Isaac. I pray, my dear mother, that you may all be supported, and that as your day your strength may be also. We have the best of all consolations in the full persuasion that even at what we should call the worst, dear father has nothing to fear. The day which should grow darker and darker to us would grow brighter and brighter to him. Dear Anxiety. 257 father is a happy man, whatever may now be before him, and whether you- look backward or forward. I greatly enjoy to review his life from his youth up ; with all its difficulties, it has been a cheerful ascending path. He has tasted all the best streams of earthly happiness, and enjoyed them all, and there is yet the river of the water of life, clear as crystal, of which he shall one day drink and thirst no more/' When it was possible to remove him, Isaac and Jane accompanied their father to Margate. " How well," she says, " we can now see it to be that Jane and Isaac did not come into Yorkshire early in the summer, as we wished to contrive ! Oh, upon how many things as life proceeds, do we look back and say they were well, though perhaps at first they appeared much otherwise ! This day nine years we arrived at the Castle House, Ongar, and how well that has been ! Do you remember what a beautiful evening it was ? " When a slow recovery led to thoughts of return, the anxious daughter at Hull writes : — " Of course, you will not venture home by steam-packet, except in calm weather. They are perhaps less manageable even than sailing vessels, when the weather is so rough as to leave one wheel out of the water" — a singular apprehension, but no doubt expressing the nautical opinion of Hull at that time. R CHAPTER XL HULL. 182O-1825. " Across its antique portico Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw." Longfellow. " This river has been a terror to many; yea, the thoughts of it also have often frightened me ; but now, methinks, I stand easy." BUNYAN. My mother treasured to the end of her life a thick volume, the gift of a friend at Hull. It was then the days of albums, and this was one ; but it was rescued from the common fate of such by the use she made of it as a family record. She immediately appealed to the circle at Ongar for a worthy commencement, soliciting a contribu- tion both in pen and pencil from each. A single withered oak leaf with an acorn, in water-colours, its rich yet pathetic tints of decay exquisitely rendered, was one of two drawings by her sister's hand. It was accompanied by the following sadly significant lines, — " A faded leaf ! and need the hand that drew Say why from autumn's store it made this choice? Stranger, the reason would not interest you, And friends, to you the emblem has a voice. " I might have plucked from rich October's bower A fairer thing to grace this chosen spot ; A leaf still verdant, or a lingering flower, I might have plucked them, but they pleased me not. " A flower, though drooping, far too gay were found, A leaf still verdant ; Oh ! it would not do ! But autumn shed a golden shower around, And gave me this, and this I give to you. The " Peaked Farm!' 259 u But should these tints — these rich autumnal dyes, Appear too gay to suit the emblem well, They are but dying tints, the verse replies, A withered leaf, that faded ere it fell." * Her brother Isaac, among other contributions, gave one in his favourite manner of firm yet fine outline, drawn with a camel-hair brush, representing a babe and a skull resting upon the surface of the round earth, while above, through a rent in the clouds, is seen the resurrection trumpet. Beneath is the legend, — " Dust ! Dust ! " Her father inserted a vigorous water-colour drawing of the "peaked farm," his then residence, to match one in pencil, finished like an etching, of the Castle-House, by- Jane. Her father's sketch set his daughter Ann's pen going, and upon the succeeding page she wrote, — ■ " There's a spot far away, where the distance is blue, 'Tis dear, 'tis delightful to me, The traveller that passes returns to the view, Half seen through the arched yew tree. " There's a low white porch where the vine leaves cling, And chimnies where fleet swallows play, And there have they builded, in the merry time of spring, Through many a good king's day. " The tall old elm, which the evening light Tips still, when the day is done, How long has it creaked in the drear winter's night, And waved in the summer's sun ! " And many are the feet which have danced in its shade, When the harvest moon beamed high, That now 'neath the churchyard trees are laid, And O, how still they lie ! * At sight of the beautiful drawing to which these lines refer, Montgomery pencilled under it the following impromptu, — " It faded ere it fell to earth, But 'twas the weight of fruit That brought it down ; to second birth The acorn soon will shoot, And ages shall rejoice to see The glory of the future tree." 260 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. " But yet sweet spring, with her stir of leaves, And her primrose breath moves on ; And the tame robin chirps from the vine-clad eaves, As in years that are past and gone. " The poem is too long to be quoted entire. The "yew tree," the "vine-leaved porch," half the gabled peaks, one of the massive chimney stacks, the sur- rounding poplars, have all been improved away. The elm tree itself, last remnant of a rookery, has been lopped of its noble arms ; and the garden has gone to ruin. But at the time of our narrative the old house and its inhabitants offered a remarkable spectacle — a literary and artistic workshop. A large, low, wainscotted parlour was the common room for the very lively meals and winter- evening gatherings. At these the father sat in an arm-chair on one side the fire, the mother on the other, leaning with her hand behind her ear to catch the sounds ; Isaac, Jane, Jefferys, Jemima, completed the circle. Some one might then read the last composition amidst a running fire of comments, — sarcastic from the mother, genial from the father, acute from Jane, sedate, though not without humour, from Isaac, droll from Jefferys ; Jemima, the youngest of the circle, joining in occasionally with quiet little hits that left their mark. When Ann was of the party, pun and repartee abounded more than ever. The writer well remembers hearing his uncle Jefferys read the " Tolling Bell " one winter night, the wind roaring in the chimney, and wailing among the tall poplars outside, so that it became quite impossible to go to bed up the black oak creaking staircase, except well accompanied, and with a candle left in the room till sleep should come. The father's study, furnished with the best English liter- ature, opened from an adjoining passage, and on the other side of the same passage, what was called the "brown room" was entered. This was used for engraving, and was redolent of oil and asphaltum, of aquafortis and copper-plates, but always warm and cosy, and even pic- turesque, for it was oak pannelled, and the wide mantle- The Taylor Home. 261 piece displayed elaborate carving-. Beyond this, a small room was fitted up as a cabinet for pictures, collected dur- ing the long art-life of the father, all of them good, and some carrying well-known names. Upstairs were roomy bedrooms ; that of the father and mother opened into a small chamber over the "vine-clad porch," occupied as a study by the latter. Here were collected several family treasures, in the shape of china, books, and miniatures, and here her writing-table stood. Jane's bedroom, smaller than the rest, looked out behind, over the green meadows of the Roding Valley — but she has herself described the view. " Twilight already stealing over the landscape, shades yonder sloping corn field, whence the merry reapers have this day borne away the last sheaf. A party of gleaners have since gathered up the precious fragments. Now all are gone ; the harvest moon is up ; a low mist rising from the river floats in the valley. There is a gentle stirring amongst the leaves of the tall elm that shades our roof — all besides is still." * Isaac's study, for he was now residing at home, was a strange remote place, approached by dark and narrow stairs across the kitchen and a dreary lumber-room. Its one window, high up, opened under the spreading branches of the elm tree, and had scarcely any other pros- pect. This room was not unpleasantly perfumed with Indian ink, his designs for books being always executed in that delicate pigment. Miniatures were also frequently in hand, and shelves were beginning to be laden with vellum-bound editions of the Fathers ; but literary work was always carefully hidden away under lock and key. The "sanctum" of JefTerys was still more out of the way. A range of attics at the top of the house was unused ; the floors of some were understood to be dangerous, and one of the huge stacks of chimnies was always regarded with anxiety by the inmates in windy weather. One of these attics, looking towards the west, between the waving poplars, and very rarely intruded upon by any but the owner, belonged to Jefferys, and contained, besides a few books, a turning lathe, and numerous odd bits of machin- * Contributions of Q. Q., "The Mulh." 262 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. ery ; for, like his brother Isaac, he possessed a strong- mechanical genius, and here invented a machine for ruling such portions of engraving work as required straight and close lines, which at one time was of much pecuniary advantage to him. Here, too, " Harry's Holiday," and "^Esop in Rhyme," were written, with other popular works ; fragments of MSS. lay about carelessly enough. Such was the dear old " rabbit-warren," as somebody called it, never long absent from my mother's thoughts in her distant home. When her husband once visited it with- out her, she writes to him : — " I have, as you will believe, accompanied you in spirit along every foot of your road to Ongar — saw the laden coach climb the last woody hill, and heard its wheels grate upon the gravel, as it approached the well-known corner. There I saw Isaac's cheer- ful but sedate welcome, watched you, unseen, towards the white wicket, and saw the busy lights, thronging, with happy voices, into the porch, as your steps were heard. This, and much more, I have enjoyed in a little private picture gallery, of which I only have the key. It is hung round with many pleasing portraits, and some tender landscapes." " I need not tell you how my heart has bounded at your account of our dear promising child ; but be very cautious to betray to him nothing but affection and kind approval. Never Ch ild and Husband. 263 let him read admiration in the corner of your eye. Do not let him hear a single word of his repeated, or have the praise of man substituted in his heart for the pure love of things, good and beautiful. Oh that he may be preserved from that vile pollu- tion— the thirst for admiration, as it differs from approbation." In the summer of 1821, she was herself at Ongar. From a batch of letters to her husband, we make a few extracts — " My Dear Husband, — I cannot begin with an expression which means more to my own heart than this. It includes all that the world can do to make me happy, and it does make me happy indeed. If, by long experience, I had not learned to distrust myself, and to fear, from mischiefs no bigger than a midge's wing, I should look forward to our meeting again with unchastised delight. ... I would rejoice to be your companion in the highest sense, and towards a still brighter happiness ; but I fear that Hamilton gave me the key to many of my religious feelings in that word ' romance.' There is so much that is picturesque and poetic in the idea of travelling hand in hand to heaven, that it is hard to distinguish the false from the true. It is like church music, a dangerous test of devotion. One thing often affords me real consolation, and that is the belief expressed in your letter that it was Providence that united us. When I reflect on your prayers for direction, and remember that /was the answer— brought, as it were, from the ends of the earth, and as unlikely, as bread and water by the ravens, I cannot but believe that it was so. I might, indeed, suppose that I was selected from the world as the most appropriate trial that could be devised for you ; but (not to mention that you tell me it is not so) I cannot but think you might have been made miserable, if need were, nearer home. It was sending you to a distant shop, indeed, if it was only to buy a rod." " Perhaps we had both too much of poetry about us to be entrusted, at the outset, with the romance of love. I was not the vision of your early musings ; as if on purpose to destroy that illusion, I was even less so than I might have been, and what / could have felt of enthusiasm, was strangely checked as by a spell. I was "in fetters, when it would have been lawful and delightful to unbend, and the streams of affection which had been wandering for years through fields and flowers, seemed unnaturally thwarted, instead of being suffered to expand in the 264 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. sunbeams which then began first to play upon them. I have often pondered over there circumstances, and have fancied that I could perceive the wisdom and still more the justice of fhem. But whatever we have lost, it is matter of no small thankfulness that the loss came first, and the gain afterwards." " I was much pleased, the other day, with three quaint verses I met with, by Dr Donne, addressed to his wife ; having nothing better to add, I transcribe them, — "If we be two, we are two so As stiff twin compasses are two, Thy soul — the fixed foot — makes no show To move, but doth if th'other do. " And tho' it in the centre sit, Yet when the other far doth roam, It leans and hearkens after it, And grows erect as that comes home. "So shalt thou be to me, who must Like th' other foot eccentric run, Thy firmness makes my circle just, And makes an end where I begun." " An old-fashioned writer, in whom I found it, says that c true conjugal love, on the part of the woman, is the love of her husband's wisdom ; and true conjugal love, on the part of the man, is his love of her love of his wisdom ! ' Take heed, there- fore, that I have wherewithal for this most excellent sorte of affection." She fell in, at this time, with one of the Sunday school anniversaries — great occasions at Ongar, for there were then no other Sunday schools in the neighbourhood. The children arrived in tilted waggons and carts from outlying villages ; an excellent dinner was provided for them and the visitors, in a large barn, decorated with flowers and evergreens, and two of the most eminent ministers of the day preached the sermons. Upon one occasion, Edward Irving, in the zenith of his fame, gave a magnificent oration, two hours long, upon the somewhat unsuitable subject of the battle of Armageddon, the chapel windows being taken out to allow a crowd outside to participate in the service. Birthdays. 26 " I retire," she writes, " from the pleasures of a very pleasant and busy day, to enjoy a sweeter hour of converse with you. Your welcome letter arrived just as we were beginning the bustle of our anniversary, which has gone off exceedingly well. Mr John Clayton preached in the morning, and Dr Ripon (a worthy fatherly man) in the afternoon, for an hour and twenty minutes, from the gospel of St Parenthesis, a loose paraphrase of which he gave from the first to the fiftieth chapter inclusive ! We had beautiful weather, and besides the children, dined a party of a hundred, in the greenly decorated barn." On the 17th of August 1821, her brother Isaac's birth- day (thirty-four), she records in her diary — "Martin left us at four in the afternoon," and adds at a later date, "father, mother, Ann, Jane, Isaac, Martin, Jefferys, and Jemima, met for the last time in this world? On the 3d of September she and her sister Jane walked to the Castle House, returning, through the pleasant meadows which separated the two houses, to the "peaked farm." This was the last walk of the sisters together. The elder left next day for Hull. In January 1822, writing for her father's birthday, she says — " As to Ongar, and all that is dear to me in it, I do not know how to think, and, of course, not how to speak of it. It seems to me a sort of dream that you are going to leave the house, and how to think of you in the course of a few months I cannot tell. Yet Providence has always favoured your particular tastes, and allowed you something better than brick and mortar to look at, and I hope you may be equally favoured now. It will be in some respects no disadvantage to have both house and garden on a smaller scale, and if a little more air-tight within doors, so much the better also, — and then there are the chimnies ! So that it may happen, as when you left the Castle, that you will not really regret the change, though the parting must be painful. Oh, that ' low white porch where the vine leaves cling ' ! I shall never forget it." " And so in an hour or two after you receive this, I, if I live, shall be between forty and fifty ! Nothing but registers, and almanacks, and pocket-books, and the most authentic tradi- 266 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. tions, could induce me to believe it ! I feel just as young, for anything I can perceive, as ever, only with this difference, that I think of myself twenty years ago as a more disagreeable and foolish personage than I was then aware of. But it seems to me as if Luck, and Susan, and Anna, and Josiah, and Isaac, and Martin, and Jane, and I, were a kind of intermediate order of beings, never intended to grow old like other people in conse- quence of living long, but only to grow wise, and useful, and sober young people still." The news about the house was too true. It was re- quired by the landlord, and after much difficulty another was purchased in the outskirts of the town, with some pleasant views from the upper windows, but entirely un- picturesque in itself, and with a sadly small plot of garden attached. Mr Taylor built a study, and a cabinet for his pictures, adapted an outbuilding for his "brown room,'* and did wonders with the garden. His cheerful spirit conquered everything, but his daughter Jane, declining in health, suffered keenly in the change. Her sister, with much the same practical view of things as her father, speedily conformed to circumstances. " I want (she writes) exceedingly a catalogue raisonte of your rooms, closets, and conveniences, that I may be able to feel my way pretty well about your new habitation. I have solid satisfaction in thinking of you in it, and airy regrets when I think of the other, — of which, indeed, I do not much like to think." Her father sent her a drawing of the house, writing under it — " My house again, my love, I am removed From scenes so rural, and so well beloved. One more remove, and then ! — Ah, could I give A sketch of that where next I hope to live ! Beyond my powers to paint, or yours to see, Yet may T say, come there, and visit me." Anxieties began to cloud the year of 1822. In the course of it her husband, whose failing health obliged him to spend much time away from Hull, sailed for Ham- A Superintending Providence. 267 burg-, to take part in an ordination there. A long and stormy passage home delayed his return till the hearts of the waiting ones were well-nigh sick. " I cannot tell you (she writes), how we, and our friends for us, have watched both winds and tides ; nor how many a dead flat of disappointment we have fallen into, when, after tracing vessel after vessel up the Humber, there was not at last the one we wanted. He was off a very dangerous shoal near the Elbe, during thirty-six hours of tremendous storm, and has scarcely been free from anxiety the whole time ; but between seven and eight this morning we had one messenger after another to say the vessel was coming up, and most thankful we feel that he is in perfect health and safety, and finds all well. A vessel that left Hamburgh two days before is not in yet. Oh, the anxiety we should have endured if he had come by that, as he was recommended to do ! The voyage was rough, but I believe they were borne on the prayers of two large and affectionate congre- gations— one at Nottingham and one at Hull.* But the permanent anxiety was now her sister Jane, whose malady took her to Margate for several months, and who was besides deeply troubled by the circumstances of an attachment, to which there seemed little prospect of a happy ending. " What I fear to hope I dare to pray" (wrote the elder sister), and on another occasion — " I had felt, dear Jane, almost disposed to write to you, but, on consideration, I preferred leaving the case to better wisdom than either yours or mine. My husband and I, therefore, met for the express purpose on Sabbath evening, of commending you once more to the kind and wise influences of a superintending Provi- dence. We have in seasons of difficult and anxious decision sought and found direction thus, for which we have felt constant- ly grateful when the event appeared. Few promises are more special than those which undertake to direct those concerns which are humbly placed in His hands. Scripture and experience are alike encouraging — " Is any afflicted let him pray : does any lack wisdom let him ask of God ;" " Cast thy burden on the Lord and He will sustain thee; He shall direct thy steps." And there is * Mr Gilbert's colleague on this service was the Rev. Mr Alliott of Castle- gate Chapel, Nottingham. 268 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. one text still more express, but I cannot remember the exact words, but they are the words of God." The following year (1823) she wrote to her sister — " We must not murmur. The scene through which you have been led has been so evidently providential, so, as we may say, almost singularly contrived to distress you, so knit together by well ordered accidents and coincidences, that we cannot but re- gard it as a special interference in the course of your spiritual discipline. Though we may look upon every affliction as de- signed for benefit, yet there are some (and this is one) in which the shaft seems to be more than commonly pointed, and sent with direct almost articulate aim. It is the Lord's doing, and who can feel a doubt that the end will be, you shall come forth as gold ? It is, I had almost said, the natural element of our mental constitution to live in spiritual darkness ; not to breathe the free air, nor enjoy the clear shining of that grace which is in the gospel. But it is free grace nevertheless ; free in the offer, free in the administration, over above, and notwithstanding all our iniquities. . . . Take the consolation, dear Jane, of this distinguishing feature of Christianity, and do not suffer the enemy of your peace to embue you with feelings (for I cannot in your case call them views) less evangelical. I could not and would not endeavour to rest your hope on any review of past usefulness, but when you spoke of a ' life misimproved,' I could not help thinking how few had been able to reach the extent to which you have served religion in your writings, every word of which has a direct Christian bearing, and that with an inviting sweet- ness and " naivete," which will give them influence, and make impression, where many a sermon would have failed." On the 30th of January this year, the family festival, she wrote of her father — " He and I seem growing nearer and nearer each other every year, though with one and forty years over my head I cannot yet feel myself a middle-aged woman. I cannot believe that ' The Associate Minstrels ' are all past the prime of life, not one of them young any longer ! In a very few years, if they are spared, J. and A. will take the standing that we once held; may they be wiser and better, and therefore happier. I will not grudge them any improvement on the original pattern. On our Strengthening Home- ties. 269 wedding-day (Dec. 24) we had our Christmas dinner, and after- wards sat round a blazing Yule clog according to our ages \ the baby fastened in his chair by the parlour broom, and a vacant chair being placed by me for dear J at which a kiss was regularly left as it went round." The following quotation will explain how what was to her the happy event of that year came about : — " It has been, I may say, for years our wish to see J once more among his brothers and sisters at our fireside, that his right to the situation may not be imperceptibly questioned ; that that principle which is truly second nature may not be wholly wanting to strengthen the domestic affections between us ; that he and we, in short, may/r33 tion of such sweeping changes would alarm Parliament and startle the country, and he considered it the sacred duty of every government to maintain an Establishment of religion." " People are not so easily frightened at changes nowadays," replied the sturdy Quaker, and he proceeded to argue, that " to establish one sect in preference to another, was to establish a party and not a religion." Some months afterwards four hundred deputies met in London, and among them Mr Gilbert and Mr Howitt came from Nottingham. My mother followed the pro- ceedings with eager interest ; and she and Mrs Howitt — (the Mary Howitt, whose poems for children she admired as much as anybody) met and compared the letters of their respective husbands. To my father, whose practical despondency she so often cheered, she wrote, — " You have not now to inquire whether the work be good and needful, and having that persuasion, it is easy to see that to do it comes next. There will be opposition no doubt. Who, ever contemplated such an undertaking without expecting it — and even from those who ought to cheer you on? But private interests and feelings cannot be heard where a great public course has been deliberately chosen. I do from my heart believe it to be a course thus to be conscientiously pursued. I am only solicitous that the right temper should be preserved on the right side. We have every tittle of the argument, most of the clear-headed ones, and a noble result to animate us. All that ought to be feared is the ' stormy spirit.' How very strong will the cause of Dissent become, if all its advocates keep their temper ! . . . Your interview with Lord Althorp I think most important Be very explicit ; make him understand distinc- tions? In after years she wrote of this period : — " It is not always borne in mind that a second step cannot be taken without a first. It seems needful, in order to gird the courage and give form to the convictions of many, that a first step should always have one preceding it, to fall back upon ! A sounder judgment and a braver zeal know better. . . . Groat causes seldom fly. They emerge from a few thoughtful minds, possibly from a solitary monk in a solitary cell. By degrees 334 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. they gather strength ; work their way into public notice ; move into first this quarter, then into that, for a while it may be, take a long sleep, or hide in prisons — carrying the brand of disloyalty, disturbance, revolution on their foreheads ; and for years — it may be many — continue the quiet testimony, the holy remon- strance under as much opprobrium as interest, ignorance, or pre- judice can heap upon them ; the first movers being always ' men wondered at.' ': "But that the progress of great causes is thus unequal, or for a time, even retrograde, is no proof that they are not good as well as great, and destined to ultimate success ; and whenever that day comes, first movers obtain their late honours ; history will award them. Her laurels, usually, are planted on the grave." " Make him understand distinctions," most assuredly, never more necessary than in the discussion of this great question in which an attack upon Establishments is so constantly mistaken for an attack upon the Church. The distinction here, she was strenuous enough in pointing out to her friends. " You will see," she writes to a friend in the West, " what the dissenters of Nottingham both think and do. I hope you are all true men, and comport yourselves as those who believe in the 'Revelations.' I cannot conceive how it can be that Christians, with their eyes open, can do otherwise than ask till they succeed in severing the Church from her wicked husband, which, indeed, is not her husband, but only the usurper of the rights of one that is. It is not as a dissenter, but as a Christian solely, that I would press the subject home, — press without ceasing till the glorious divorce ensues." Speaking of the injurious influence of an Establishment upon the character of its ministers, she says, — " Strange that it should ever have been thought unnecessary to separate from such a system ! For of the system this is the natural product, and will be more or less, so long as the Church offers a genteel profession to the younger son, to literary leisure, to the talented, or the untalented son of noble or wealthy fami- lies. To this, the original sin of a State religion, we have objected. We object as to a root from which such fruit cannot Isaac Taylor and Joseph Gilbert. 335 but grow. When will the evil be seen, felt, acknowledged, and removed — root, and therefore branch ? " Meanwhile, all the " opprobrium that ignorance, interest, or prejudice" could heap upon the first movers, did not fail. In most cases, a very natural ignorance was, no doubt, the chief agent, but the result was cruel to some sensitive minds. Death had already removed, as the wife mournfully said, almost all the inner circle of devoted friends, many of them of singular intelligence and culture, that stood around them in their first years at Nottingham ; and now, they found themselves isolated from almost all the intelligent culture of an outer circle, while, at least, one intimate friend silently withdrew. This last stroke, her husband's susceptible nature felt to the end. Upon this question of " Establishments," the difference of opinion on ecclesiastical subjects, between the two brothers-in-law — Isaac Taylor and Joseph Gilbert — could not fail to be very strongly marked, yet, without any inter- ruption to a cordial admiration and affection for each, other. The former still, and for several years more, retained his position as a deacon in the small independent church at Ongar ; but this was for the sake of supporting the cause of evangelical piety in the neighbourhood, for which, at the time, this seemed the only means ; and also, as he expressed it, for the good of his own soul. For these reasons, he would, as he said, have joined the Wesleyans or any other evangelical body doing the same work, while, apart from individual preference, he considered Noncon- formity a vital element in the religious life of England. But he always adhered, in principle, to episcopacy, or personal government in the church,* and was strong for the union of Church and State, principally, as he endeavoured to show in " Spiritual Despotism," to secure lay control over clerical claims, and to check their intoler- ance,— much too, because he then regarded the Church of England as the great bulwark against the power of Rome. He lived to see the insidious growth of Anti-Protestantism Not, of course, on the ground of a so-called " Apostolical sucession," for he spoke of his own father as a true " bishop." 336 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. behind this very bulwark, and to discover that it was likely to become a fortress for its foes, instead of a defence against them. He began, mournfully, to predict dis- establishment, and a separation of the Episcopal com- munion into three separate bodies — an Anglican, Evangelical, and Latitudinarian ; but this was before the Establishment was lauded, as comprehending Romanist and Rationalist alike, which might have led him to desire, rather than to dread its dissolution. Isaac Taylor, with a strong conservative bias, aimed to be the practical states- man in church affairs, guiding himself more by existing conditions and the lessons of history, than by abstract principles. His brother-in-law's high spiritual notions, he deemed unpractical, who, again, would reply that these, if founded upon irrefragable truth, would justify themselves in the end, as the most soundly practical. But there was little actual conflict between the two. Minds so different could scarcely find common ground for combat, while they quite understood and appreciated each other's positions. How completely cast in different moulds they were, may be judged from the following description of his friend, written several years later by Isaac Taylor. "In a very extraordinary degree Mr Gilbert possessed and commanded the abstractive faculty, using that term in the sense in which it stands opposed to the disposition to consider and to deal with things in the concrete, or under the aspect of their individualities. So it was that while he was completely informed in the field of history, ancient and modern, he was prone to draw off from history as a scene of confusion, yielding scarcely and precariously the available fruits of universal or general truth. . . . Man, in his esteem, or considered as an object of science, could claim little regard otherwise than as a finite moral agent, related to the Infinite Being. As to the diverse characteristics of humanity seen in the concrete, they did but constitute the picturesque of a tattered and many-coloured costume. A mind of so much perspicacity and power, if, during the best years of life, it had taken its direction towards the abstruse branches of mathematical philosophy, would not have failed to win honours among those who lead the way on that field. Or, An A bstract Mind. 337 if, instead of this, Mr Gilbert had in some academic cloister given himself to his first loved studies, those embraced in the circle of theological metaphysics, it is not assuming much that is doubtful in his behalf in supposing that he would have taken up the clue of Descartes and of Leibnitz, and have gone near to reach the impassable boundaries of human speculation concern- ing the primary problems of the intellectual world." To Isaac Taylor, " the picturesque of the tattered and many-coloured costume* of humanity," presented an irre- sistible attraction,* and he devoted volume after volume, with a genius all his own, to the philosophy of religious history. It was characteristic of his mind, too, that he should enter into an elaborate argument upon the " Physical Theory of another Life," and again, that he was inclined to dwell upon certain literal fulfilments of prophecy. To Joseph Gilbert, a spiritual interpretation of prophecy seemed more probable ; to the physical conditions of future existence he was greatly indifferent (" I can leave all that," he would say), and the chief work from his pen was concerned with the " Principle of Sub- stitution as applied in the Redemption of Man." But between brother and sister there were perpetual sharp passages of warfare, sharp, but enlivened by bright flashes of wit and satire, yet never to the disturbance of the most affectionate relations ; witness the following extract from a letter written by the brother after a visit to Nottingham with his wife in 1833. It contains also an estimate of his sister's powers to which he often gave utterance. " And now, my dear sister, let me pointedly thank you for the kindness, indefatigable, unlimited, considerate, tender, which we received from you. I know no one like you — so wrong in matters ecclesiastical, so uniformly on the right side in all matters of the heart. You would have been killed long ago with disinterestedness, if Providence, in compassion to all about you, had not by almost miracle kept you alive. May you long, long, * " I have cared intensely for whatever may be found to bear upon the history of our human nature as it has played its part upon this arena of mysteries — the field of religious development, ancient and modern." — PERSONAL Recollections, by Isaac Taylor. Y OJ Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. be so preserved, you and yours ! E has been every way much benefitted by her visit, and her recollection has been enriched and garnished with sparkling relics of affection, and images of goodness. But I must save a space to reiterate in black and white the injunction I laid upon you to take up your proper part in public instruction. You now incur a treble responsibility if you fail to listen to earnest and wise advice. He that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, &c." Upon this matter he says in another letter — " If I had leisure I should say something very pointed on the subject of your pen, and try to cut it for you anew. If I can write, you can a fortiori, and if you would, when the fit comes, compose a ' Sunday Evening,' people would quite forget ' Satur- day Evening.' " In a letter to Mrs Laurie, my mother refers to the above remonstrances. " Isaac, and others, are importunate with me to turn author again, and almost bind it as a duty on my conscience. But .though, if I had anything to say, I should not despair of being able to say it, yet the hard sterility of the thinking district, after so long a fallow, discourages me from attempting to break the clods. You remember the good saying — ' We cannot have thoughts without thinking ; ' * and though to you, who seem essentially motion without matter, it may appear incredible, yet with me it is so much matter without motion, that real thoughts are strange things to me. My mind has indeed suffered para- lysis from want of food; but I do not know that the history of my complaints can be either interesting or edifying to others — though so far as this I will add, that it would be a very desirable and serviceable exercise if all who are in any way capable of making a mental registry of such events and causes as operate on individual character, would keep a faithful retrospect of them. Some very slight and almost unobserved circumstances would often be found to have originated the most important and con- trolling results. But the great difficulty would be to be faithful, — so faithful as to be the precise warning which we might be, to those who are to succeed to our difficulties, and perhaps to suffer from similar mistakes. The exploded experiment of putting old * Jane Taylor in Q. Q. Thoughts and Thinking. 339 heads upon young shoulders has never been fairly tried, because the old heads have always kept a reserve of hard earned wisdom, of which, for shame's sake, they have not suffered the young shoulders to participate ; I must say that I give our children credit for having less folly about them than their mothers had (I am speaking of I by itself I, mind you), but whether this arises from a somewhat better acquaintance with my own heart than with theirs, I cannot determine. " I think I have not written since the poems were sent me by your two girls. They are very promising, and must afford you no small pleasure. If they do not let their fingers run to seed, as I did mine at their age, I should say to them, ' go on and prosper.' There is good material, but the pleasure of thus giving outlet to the poetry of the young heart is so great that a habit of mental expcnditiwe is too often induced, to the fatal discouragement of the accumulative spirit. They are perhaps favourably placed in the treadmill of imperative daily exertion, and may therefore be saved the peril of perpetual writing. As well wear an open blister to give tone to the constitution, as indulge daily in the luxuries of poetic composition if mental vigour be the object. However I am far in all this from applying, or intending to apply, a word of discouragement to your dear industrious girls. I am only giving substance to a few of the passing pangs of remorse with which at times I recall my own early history. . . " It is a subject of frequent regret to me that so many circum- stances of our youthful days are entirely obliterated from my memory which it would have been pleasing, or mournful, or salu- tary, occasionally to review ; and I attribute this loss very greatly to the habit early formed and deeply rooted of imagina- tive musings (vulgarly called castle-building). If I had twenty voices I would raise them all to warn my children, and young friends against the pernicious luxury. It indisposes to immedi- ate duty, shuts the eye to the living world, renders tasteless the wholesome viands of domestic life, eats out the heart and essence of prayer, and leaves a dense fog to obliterate pages and volumes of useful memory and valuable acquirement." During the ten years immediately succeeding the death of her parents, my mother paid but two visits to Essex, where Stanford Rivers now took the place of Ongar. The first was in 1834. Edward Irving was then fast sinking in 340 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. the mire of that strange miracle-worship, which finally suf- focated his genius, but she went to hear him as she passed through London. " It was the saddest nonsense I ever heard ; no miracles except of folly. Did you know that the sixty pillars of the tabernacle indicate the sixty evangelists who are to belong to Mr Irving's church ; and the five pillars supporting the inner vail, the five — himself the centre — who are to watch over admissions into the church ? I will tell you why they were made some of brass, some of wood, some of gold, &c, when I see you, if you cannot find out before." The following Sunday she spent with her brother at Stanford, and heard him give " a striking address " in conducting the afternoon service at Ongar, for at that time he occasionally assisted the minister in this way, besides taking village services in the evening. But brother and sister had no doubt some lively disagreement upon church matters, for she writes : — " Did you see that a public meeting has just been held in a church in the Isle of Wight, praying Parliament to dissever them from their iniquitous relationship to the State. If this fashion should be followed the work is done." Pilgrims' Hatch. 341 But in addition to Stanford Rivers, there was now "Pilgrims' Hatch" to visit. There, upon a picturesque common, a gate once stood to receive the toll of pilgrims on their way by Tilbury to Canterbury, and there her brother Jefferys and his wife had taken up their abode in one of those quaint old houses, set in the midst of an ample garden, that the Taylor family always affected. In front, the common stretched away into a woodland dis- tance, that in varying shades filled a large tract of country, up to the heights of Danbury on the horizon. Behind, another rich woodland sank gradually, some four or five miles, into the valley of the Roding, where Stan- ford Rivers lay. It was a charming drive between the two seclusions chosen by the brothers. Their households were very different. A large family was gathering round the scholar and philosopher, who passed continu- ally with grave steps from the sanctum of his folios, into the nursery or schoolroom, or out among the merry voices in the garden. No children blessed the other's hearth, though his genial, careless nature seemed intended for such a surrounding, and his literary works were almost all intended for their amusement or instruction. An in- corrigible " droll," he poured forth much that young wits could not appreciate, and possessed, too, of a weird ima- gination, he was apt in turn to chill their young blood. The mysterious treasure vaults in " Ralph Richards," the cave in " The Young Islanders," the ghostly vision in "Tales and Dialogues," witnessed to this faculty. Indeed, his massive head and sparkling grey eye seemed to indi- cate more of power than the delicate features of his brother Isaac, but it was a power untrained, and fitfully exerted, and the whole aspect of the man, the halting gait, supported by a stick, the burly form, the quizzical features, bespoke the wayward genius he too truly was. Just now, a brief heyday of prosperity, derived parti)- from mechanical invention, partly from literary strokes of luck, and most from a fortunate legacy, had landed him for a time in this congenial spot, and enabled him to exercise his large-hearted hospitality. As usual, he was surrounded by a collection of oddities, in books and bits 342 Memoi'ials of Airs Gilbert. of machinery ; as usual, there was a sacred attic. At another residence he had constructed 'a staircase into a tree, where, sequestered among the branches, a small plat- form and seat provided a cosy outlook ; here a ladder to the roof reached a nook with a wooden balustrade, among the chimney stacks, commanding all the country round. To this house " Ann " paid several visits in coming years. Jokes and puns roared to the roof-tree, even in presence of his philosophic brother, but all the more when his quick-witted sister was there to cap them. In the year 1835, she spent several weeks in London and its neighbourhood, during the delivery of her hus- band's lectures upon the Atonement, at the Congregational Library. It was the third course of the series, in which Dr Wardlaw and Dr Vaughan had preceded him. In the subject of these lectures, and in my father's treatment of them, she took the deepest interest. She was accustomed to close and clear thinking ; she had insisted upon under- standing the recondite discussions of her husband's earlier writings ; she had followed his arguments with atheists and infidels, she was not likely to fail in following this, upon a matter which concerned, as she believed, a vital truth of Christianity. To the position taken, she gave her full assent, and never ceased to regard this work as the crown of her husband's labours. At one time, indeed, she would have liked to think of it as an in- stalment only of work in a field which she deemed him eminently qualified to cultivate, but it was becoming sadly evident that ill health was sapping the needful energy, and that this would be his closing contribution to theology. No doubt, if she had held the pen the style of this book, if more diffuse, would have shown more ease and brightness ; for here, unlike the preacher, the writer is somewhat rigid and elaborate. But he was dealing with a closely compacted argument, and with such profound things as — " the principles of moral administration," " the function and bearings of substitution," "qualities essential in a valid substitution," and the like, and advancing, with Lectures ltpon the Atonement. 343 careful steps, through difficult ground, his manner became measured and precise. But there is no lack of clearness, and an entire absence of mysticism. The argument seeks, on the one hand, to deliver the doctrine of Substitution from the crude and rash modes of statement, degrading to its dignity, which have given ground for much objection ; and, on the other, to establish it in the light of first principles, and in relation to the practical ends to be attained. " Substitution, in the view here maintained, is a substitute for penalty," something to answer the same end — namely, " an adequate expression of the divine fixed disapproval of sin some other way." And if it be asked, as it so often is, "to whom is the atonement made ? " the answer is — " for the interest of creatures it is, that the sacrifice is made ; and to them virtually, but yet only as represented by the Supreme executive power, is the price of atonement paid. Thus, it is rationally and clearly consistent to say that Christ, as a sacrifice, was offered up both to God, and by God." The argument may be represented by opponents, in a favourite phrase, as of too " forensic " a character ; but, as the doctrine is essentially concerned with the governmental relations between the Divine Ruler, and the creatures whom he has gifted with free-will, it may be asked, whether the terms of human judicature are not those which best shadow forth its character and aims ? whether such a representation of it be not the only one clear to common minds, and fitted therefore, as every divine doctrine must be, to influence the mass ? — whether, further, it is not that which best agrees with the current phrase- ology of Scripture on the question ? — whether, lastly, all that is objectionable in a forensic statement of it, is not guarded against or avoided ? At that time, the school of religious thought, which goes by the name of " Broad," was scarcely established. It was some years later that my mother came into contact with it, and some passages may here be quoted, from a letter to a young minister, with whom circumstances allowed her to take that liberty, which show how she regarded its first approaches. 344 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. " In your ministrations, observations of an evangelical char- acter slip in, but even when led by the text to expect something more, they only seem to cross the stage without taking part in the discussion. You know what popularly we mean by the " Gospel " — that which you admit to be the leading doctrine of the Christian ministry — leading, set in the van ; but you have appeared to imply, that once known, once seen, it might almost be left to itself, while the practical externalities were deduced and enforced. It seemed legitimate to infer, that though Paul, in dealing with Jews and heathens, was necessitated to announce, explain, and enforce it (yet comparing Paul at Athens, and Paul to the Churches, this could scarcely be substantiated), it was a thing now known in congregations, professedly Christian, and therefore might, with more safety, be less frequently referred to. This would.be obviously just, if to know the facts, and subscribe to the creed, were all required. But in Christian congregations, of even the better sort, how many are there — shall we not fear the majority? — who thus know and believe without any personal application of the doctrines, any true peace of con- science resulting from them — any root in themselves? so that the cold knowledge which they do possess, does nothing for them here, and will, we can but suppose, aggravate their condemna- tion hereafter ! Now, to this large class, a warm and frequent explanation, enforcement, appeal, seems needful — a clear ex- hibition, line upon line, of the way of salvation " You treat your hearers almost always as lax saints — alas, too mstly ! but more justly still, as I fear, might the many be regarded as needy sinners, more or less sensible to their condition, — some requiring to be aroused, some to be directed and encouraged to come, in all their misery, to Him who calls not the righteous, but sinners to repentance, because, upon Him, has been laid the iniquities of us all " At first, you know, we are obliged to judge of men by their preaching ; afterwards, it is generally safe to judge of preaching by the men. ... I am excepting that part of your sermon in which you appeared — or might be supposed to refer to Evangeli- cal preaching as almost a thing gone by, or belonging to earlier times, or missionary labour — which would have surprised us from anyone." In 1836 the husband and wife went a tour together in Derbyshire after a fashion they greatly enjoyed, driv- A Derbyshire Tour. 345 ing in a gig for several weeks about that charming country, then in all the seclusion which preceded the advent of the rail. The pretty fishing inn at Rowsley was their principal centre. Thence she writes to her two young daughters at school one of the very few descrip- tions of scenery she ever indulged in, — why so few, per- haps the extract itself explains. " Many a kind thought lately have I sent towards my two dear girls along two hundred miles of hill and dale, rock and meadow, wood and stream ; and you cannot think, dear children, how pleasant it has been sometimes to drive up to some strange post-office, and on enquiring, ' any letters, &c.,' to hear that nice little word, ' Yes.' "It would be vain to tiy and describe to you the lovely or magnificent scenery which we have travelled through. Nothing, I believe, is more difficult than to convey an impression of such enjoyments. When I tell you that we spent a delightful day walking among the rocks, the crags, the precipices, the green slopes, the grey promontories, the rich woods, the bright, dark, turbulent waters of Dove dale, / can accompany every word with the image by which it was suggested ; but to you it affords little more excitement than it would to get by heart the words with their meanings from Johnson's Dictionary : As thus, Promontory, a bold precipitous headland ; Rock, a magnificent stony mass, shooting into figures, fantastic, picturesque, or sublime ; some- times partially covered with rich mosses, sometimes with vegeta- tion, variegated from the brightest green to the darkest purple of pine blackness, or with the scarlet, crimson, orange tints of autumnal foliage, — and so forth. . . . Yet I can scarcely help telling you of the hill for four miles out of Buxton, where the wind was so powerful that had it blown against us, I think we could scarcely have made way up it. Yet the piled and .aden coaches which we see every evening rattling safely into the White Lion at Nottingham, have all weathered this fearful ascent; and everyone that sets out in the morning for Man- chester has to trot, gallop, slip, slidder, scratch, or tumble down it ! Yesterday we had one of the most dreary, uninterest- ingly dreary, drives possible. Oh, so bleak, and bare, and desolate ! as if the world had gone to sleep without being tucked up, and got its huge shoulders uncovered in the night." It was during this excursion that a printed lecture 346 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. reached them, recently delivered by an eminent Roman Catholic physician at Sheffield, before the Mechanics' Institution of that town. Its subject was " the causes of the greater amount of Intemperance in England, as compared with the Continent," and stress was laid upon the "greater religiousness of the people in Roman Catholic countries," the result of the large amount of display in ceremonial and observance, by which, according to the lecturer, "a high degree of religious excitation is con- stantly sustained." The friend who sent the pamphlet asked her to undertake a newspaper reply, and the leisure of a few evenings at Rowsley enabled her to do so. It was signed "A Rustic Rambler," but was afterwards pub- lished separately with her name, to which she was rather unwilling to consent, having, she said, " purposely adopted several expressions to sound more like boots than slippers, so as to give the idea of a plain commercial traveller just struck enough with the nonsense to give his opinion upon it." The style of this paper, however, betrays a very different hand from that of an ordinary "commercial traveller." She inquires — " How far morality as a whole has gained in those countries (Italy and Spain for example), in which ceremony has been sub- stituted for conviction, and perpetual parade for wholesome industry ; whether a religion and modes of instruction by which the people generally should be excited to thought and reflection, each man for himself exercising therein the highest faculties of his nature, would not more hopefully conduce to moral improve- ment in all its branches, than one, the daily ceremonials of which should merely consume the time, while it held the intellect un- employed?" She traces the intemperance of England to various causes, and proceeds — " To counteract such facilities to destruction, the thinking power of the country should without doubt be brought into play. Education, in its best sense and noblest bearings, should be diffused; every sort of amusement comporting with habits of Practical Work. 347 decorum and industry, and with the good sense of the people, should be accessible ; garden allotments as recommended by the Labourers' Friend Society should be largely made ; public walks, rendered attractive by everything that is beautiful in natural scenery, should be provided ; such a limitation of the hours of labour, and such a degree of fair recompense for labour should be adopted, as should allow the full advantage resulting from libraries and lectures conducted for the benefit of the working classes; and, above all, the Bible, and the religion of the Bible, should be placed in its simplicity, its spirituality, its moral beauty and greatness, in the view of every soul created for its enjoyment. A religion conversant with solemn realities, with the wants, the motives, the hopes of the human heart of whatever class or climate, — a religion which commends itself wherever it is under- stood or embraced, to the universal yearnings of the bosom, — ■ which gives employment, controls passion, regains human nature to order, and bestows upon it, both in possession and in pros- pect, the most entire happiness of which it is susceptible ; — let such a religion be presented, and from living exemplars be im- pressed upon the public mind ; and then, if it be needed, — if the result obviously requires such an addition ; — if reasonable men, with this Bible in their hands, concur to advise that the pageantries, the ceremonials, the toys, the fables, the fancies, the delusions, the mummeries, described as the lecturer describes them, should be superadded, or laid as the basis of public morals, — if they would make us more of men, or more of sober men, — why then let us have them ! Let our ships be freighted with rosaries, kissed by his Holiness,* and let us see whether these magicians can do with their enchantments better than the word of God addressed to the conscience and the reason of man, can do without them.'; Evangelical religion has not been credited in these days with sufficient attention to the practical welfare bf man- kind. It has been supposed that its energies were absorbed in care of their souls. That it was Evangelicals who stood prominently forward in the great efforts against, first the slave trade, and then slavery, is enough to confute this opinion, and the above passage shows that at least one devoted Evangelical was not indifferent to the general * The Doctor had quoted a passage in Sir H. Davy's "Last Days o( a Philosopher," in which he spoke of the interest attaching to such a rosary. 34-8 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. welfare; while the practical holiness in which alone she recognised the evidence of true religion, should remove another stigma often cast upon the tenets she professed. She was always ready to act upon the advice she gave. Now that she was more free from family cares she readily entered into public work. She was one of the founders of a Refuge for unfortunate women, and gave a great deal of her time to it when established. She was a diligent col- lector for a town Provident Society. She belonged to a committee for the management of a Free Library, and her diary shows her invariable attendance. Later she took an active part as a visitor to the Blind Asylum; and when advanced in years took her turn with another lady in leading out for a walk the long string of inmates, holding the hand of some timid one. As to more definite religious work, she for many years superintended a class for young women on Sunday after- noons, and conducted a cottage service for women. At Hull she printed an address to " Collectors," couched in very earnest terms : — " Your exertions " (she wrote), " present a visible answer to all the prayers of all Christians for the progress of the GospeL Your weekly walks, slender as they may seem among the resources of Infinite Power, and inefficacious as they may appear to the eye of human wisdom, may be made the means of direct- ing the children of sorrow to the only source of consolation — the desponding to the only hope — and ruined sinners to the only name given under heaven whereby they may be saved." Isaac Taylor paid one of his rare visits to Nottingham in 1836,. on returning from the unsuccessful contest with Sir William Hamilton for the chair of Logic and Meta- physics at Edinburgh, on which he had been persuaded to enter. His sister, before the event, had written; — "if given to me to decide I should say, perhaps, let him lose by one vote, thus attaining the honour, without running the hazards; but it is in better hands than mine." He lost by three votes, and always considered that his rejec- tion in favour of so distinguished an opponent, was for- tunate both for the University and himself. Death of Miss Greaves. 349 And now sorrow again drew nigh. The dear and faith- ful friend of many years was sinking to her rest. Miss Greaves, it may be remembered, after leaving the Castle, had secured her pastor and his family as neighbours in an adjoining house. Under her roof the young people were always welcomed with a gracious smile, and found there all the quiet refinement which intellectual tastes, and abundant means could supply; while many a refreshing pause in their busy life was granted to both the minister and his wife, in afternoons or evenings passed in the calm companionship of their old friend. But now, in the sum- mer of 1837, she lay dying, and for many days insensible to sight or sound, so that her two devoted friends could only watch at her bedside. " You will know (writes my mother) that she is in the deep waters — thankful should we now be to say that she had gained the ' fields of living green ' on the opposite shore. We lose the benefit, and she the consolation that might have been derived had the intimations of danger presented themselves to her mind while its powers were in action. Yet it is but for a moment, and the light of eternal happiness shall show to her the deep valley from which she has safely emerged." She died the next day, June 19. An explanation, which it was thought necessary to make to a friend, it may be desirable to quote here : — "She was always, as you know, most considerately kind, and appeared to study Mr Gilbert's opinions in everything, and to have the deepest concern for his comfort, but with one or two exceptions her kindness was never costly to her." This lady left Mr Gilbert executor to her will, and £1000; but that she had not made any provision respect- ing a large sum lent at the time of the erection of the chapel pressed heavily afterwards upon the resources of the congregation, especially as the commercial condition of the town long continued deplorable, and its minister resigned a portion of his stipend to meet the difficulty. He prepared also to remove to a smaller house, but the cir- 350 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. cumstance that his wife about this time came in for her share in a bequest of her uncle Josiah Taylor (the only Taylor hitherto, who deserting the precarious ways of Art and Literature had achieved wealth), enabled him to con- tinue the education of his sons, and assist them liberally in the professions they had chosen. Their mother was quick to observe these things, and to see of the loving kindness of the Lord. Referring to threatenings of illness this year she writes — " Another such illness as I had eight years ago would at least make an old woman of me — if it left me a woman at all ! I dread exceedingly being deprived of the power of active exer- tion. If it be the will of God, I pray to be spared that trial, but I wonder which of all the trials within His power to inflict we do not wish to be spared ! We can look at none and say, ' that is the kind I should like/ I have much pleasure in the thought that after an interval of absence, varying from twenty to forty years, I have, within the last three years, seen again, and under my own roof, the three most beloved friends of my childhood and youth — Anne Watkinson, Anna Forbes, and Luck Conder.* I have inexpressible reason to thank God for my friends. I can reflect on few of my associates who have not in some way or other said to me, ' come up hither.' Thrown into unfavourable association, such as at various periods of my life just glanced by me and moved away, what might I not have been ! Give my love to your dear children. I pray that they may endure to the end, and so — be saved ! O the unfathomable meaning of that hacknied word ! How we do let great things slip from our lips and thoughts, without perceiving their immensity ! " In the summer of 1838 my mother, with two of her children, spent three months at Skegness, a lonely place on the Lincolnshire coast, near the scenes of her husband's early life. This stay was in more than one respect me- morable to her. It was on the way thither, at a small village, that s"he experienced that singular influx of reli- gious peace and joy, described in her Autobiography. Of her first Sunday there, she writes — * An entry in Mrs Gilbert's diary, March 26, 1 836, is to this effect — This day died in Hartford, Connecticut, my earliest friend Mrs Wells, once Anne "Watkinson. We parted in the year 1795, met once more, 1834, parted finally in July 16, that year. Days ai Skegness. 3 5 1 " Too unwell for Church in the morning, and I do not know anything else for us but the Ranters in the evening. I do not like seeming ashamed of good people if they are good, but I do not like, either, to have my feelings shocked by extravagancies. I have borrowed two vols, of old John Newton's which please me exceedingly, and help on the Sabbath pleasantly and profitably." Presently there came the prospect of an anxious de- cision, upon which husband and wife could only correspond. He had declined the Presidency of Rotherham College sometime before, from the same sense of duty which had kept him so long at Nottingham, and now another im- portant post was offered to him. She writes — " We were never separate under circumstances so peculiar as now. And yet I rejoice in, rather than regret my absence from home at such a juncture. It allows us each to form an opinion more independent than we could otherwise do, and leaves you especially to revolve the circumstances without bias of any kind. It is not for the lure of more money that I should wish to accept the offer. I believe that at our time of life we should not lightly uproot ourselves in the expectation of forming more agreeable connections, or of being permanently and daily happier. It would always be a bitter in the cup if we had the consciousness of having wronged an affectionate and willing people." To her relief the offer did not finally reach the point requiring " aye or no." But a very different kind of anxiety was associated also with Skegness. Her son, Henry, who, in conformity with Dr Spurzeim's prediction, was showing a marked predilec- tion for science, had suffered for some years from an acci- dent which deprived him of the sight of an eye, and threatened to debar a pursuit demanding such delicate processes as Chemistry. After leaving school he was at Scarborough for his health, when a pistol, carelessly dis- charged by a companion, left him, as it was at first sup- posed, blind for life, and his mother, travelling before the days of telegraphs and railways, carried with her the anguish of ignorance as to the extent of the danger. Many weeks of nursing followed, and her letters home, 35 2 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert, full of those minute and faithful particulars which she desired herself, and always gave, show what she was hourly suffering-. Letters from several Christian friends came to cheer her during this weary time, for which she felt very grateful, and " except on dull evenings," when she " took her solitary turn on the sands," she was able to be cheerful herself, in the exercise of that trust of which she possessed so much. The shock long affected the sys- tem, and now six years afterwards her son had taken a voyage to St. Petersburg for the benefit of his health ; while she at Skegness was expecting his return from day to day ; but days and weeks passed, and there came no news. It is the melancholy shore that our great Lincolnshire poet loves to depict, where the . . . . " Slow dashing wave Heard in dead night along that table shore Drops flat, and after the great waters break Whitening for half a league, and thin themselves, Far over sands marbled with moon and cloud, From less and less to nothing." Nowhere are the "plunging seas" grander than on this coast in a storm, " The hollow ocean ridges roaring into cataracts," and storm after storm now raged, driving wrecks ashore, while the sad mother writes, — " These terrible winds ! — to go to bed on a dark night and hear them rave and roar requires an effort to enable one to sleep" — (and a week later) — " my heart sinks within me at this long delay. I give up calculating, I only wait and pray, — pray incessantly for his safety. Last Wednesday we had a terrible gale here, and two vessels were lost with their crews, in sight of shore. The lifeboat went so near as to hear their cries, but could not effect their rescue. You may imagine the heart sick- ness it gave me ! On Sunday another vessel got aground on these dangerous sands, I felt suddenly as if both my knees had been cut away, by hearing that it was a vessel from St. Petersburgh, and though it was immediately added — ' a foreign vessel bound for Boston' — I did not soon recover it." Skegness. 353 At length she wrote, — last Wednesday, while at tea, I saw the donkey mail winding in, and left the table to meet it, but was disappointed, 1 no letters ' — ' no newspaper.' I went mournfully home, finished my meal, and then set out for a couple of rushlights to help through the night. I had just turned Hutton's corner when I saw a gig far on the road. It was late for company, and I just wondered what it could be. I saw it stop at Baxter's gate, and that they were directing it across the pastures, pointing very much, indeed, towards Mrs Guiley's, but I still went on, and only when quite alongside discovered the well-known blue spectacles ! I cannot tell you the delight of that moment — ' Henry, my dear Henry ! is it you ? ' He was out of the gig directly, and walked home with me, looking very well. Now, I could not sleep for think- ing of it. The lightning that we had seen in the east, too far off for thunder, was a fearful tempest 150 miles out at sea. Henry was in the midst of it, and the captain said it was the most awful he had ever been in." * At Skegness, and for the last time, she took up her pen with a view to publication. That anxiety for the safety of the soul, paramount to all other anxieties, both for her- self and those dear to her, of which her letters show so much, seldom found other expression. She was never ready to utter deep feeling, and especially shrank from personal appeals on so momentous a subject. She not often spoke even with her children on personal reli- gion, though she wrote with tender imploring earnest- ness. One thing she compelled herself to do — to continue for a time, when childhood was past, the habit of praying with them on Sunday afternoons, commenced when they were children round her knee ; but a certain shyness, touching to remember, as she invited them to follow her into her room, a sigh as she knelt down, showed that it was not without cost she kept up the old practice. Once on her knees, her heart poured itself forth without con- straint in free and fervent petition. She alludes to her * A mining engineer from Siberia who had shared with her son the terrible five weeks' passage from Cronstadt, perished with his family immediately after arrival in the wreck of the " Forfarshire." 354 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. difficulty in conversing upon religious subjects in a letter to a friend : — " I wish, oh, how often and ardently ! that I possessed the gift of improving conversation, and could be to the young people around me what a minister's wife should be. But though, I hope, careful not to do harm, I mourn under a strange inability in this way to do good. I should like to steal pleasantly into a young mind by the side door, but my only chance seems to knock direct at the principal entrance, and this is so formidable that I rarely attempt it. But what would I not give for facility and tact in thus discharging my conscience ! " Just before coming to Skegness the serious illnesses of some young people about her, one of her daughters among the number, seem to have impressed her deeply, and during this unwonted leisure she composed " Twelve letters on Recovery from Sickness." The manuscript was read to her husband on her return, and published the fol- lowing year under the title of "The Convalescent." A few passages will show the character of the work, and be of some biographic interest. None ever felt more keenly than herself the anxieties of the sick room, — " A little increase of pain, of fever, or debility, was felt like a cold arrow in our hearts, and with proportionate delight were the indications of returning health hailed by us. Many a wakeful hour of night witnessed the imploring earnestness with which on unquiet beds, or watching till the lamp grew dim, we raised our petitions, brief but frequent, to Him who heareth prayer, that the stroke we feared might be averted. . . . With looks as little dispiriting, as cheerful as we could assume, while our hearts sank in the faintness of anxiety and anguish, we endeavoured to per- form the weary, willing sendee of the sick chamber, commending you incessantly to God, asking — oh, what did we not ask ! and with what fervency I" She depicts the severance of the sufferer from all the ordinary occupations, interruptions, recreations of the world : — " The frivolous and pleasure-loving among our associates stand Nature of Conversion. 355 aloof from our calamity. We are severed from them as by a great gulf, which we cannot, and they would not pass, ... so we are left alone. A few indefatigable friends, two or three who have really loved us, remain only to tread gently, and speak in whispers, and share with us the gloom — perhaps more than share in the anxieties of the sick chamber. ... To exclude the sun and to deaden the sound is our impatient desire. We are shut up by our own consent with darkness, and stillness, and solitude, and whether or not we consent to it, with pain, restlessness, debility, and danger. . . . It is now that the past and the future press in upon us — the foolish past — the unknown, terrible future !" But it is with the " Convalescent " that she has to do ; to deal with that dangerous period when all old influences of seduction or indecision are regaining their power, — " Trusting to-morrow ! to-morrow ! which to how many comes but to diminish the sensibility, strengthen the habits, add to the difficulties, break the promises, increase . the guilt, lessen the hope, perpetuate the folly, and confirm the ruin of to-day ! The thought of to-morrow fans the hopes, and sucks the blood of the soul at the same moment." "'Will you not pray with me?' Oh, my dear! I cannot ex- press to you the music of that word to us ! . . . It was indeed with pleasure that we heard that unusual, feeble, anxious cry, — ' Will you not pray with me ? ' It seemed for the moment as if all we had been wrestling for had been suddenly granted. We thought of you as now seeking, and therefore as finding, life everlasting; and for a short time we had joy and gladness — a feast and a good day. The thought of separation was no longer an agony. We felt it possible to say, ' Thy will be done.' "... " The sight of a crowd is at all times affecting to me. How many individual histories, and yet how near a resemblance con- sidered as creatures passing towards the final account ! . . , How many in seasons of anxiety have prayed earnestly ; have wished, and hoped, and intended to become genuine Christians ; have recovered to life, and relaxed in their wishes, and deferred their intentions ; have gone through this variety of conflict time after time ! — till at length the weighty interests of the world have rolled heavily in upon them. They have become men over- whelmed with business, or women scarcely bearing up under 356 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. ever-recurring daily pressure. They are urged onwards — they are on the road — they must proceed, or be crushed by the following trains. There is no pause for their spirits." . . . " I know you may be disposed to say, as while writing, I have not seldom said to myself (or Satan to me), ' lay down the pen, persuasion has no efficiency to change the heart. Affliction itself, that weapon sharper than words, cannot do it. Without the interference of a Power which you cannot command, nothing will touch the conscience, still less convert the soul ! ' I acknow- ledge that this is true ; but shall I lie down in despair, and you in a just neglect, because it is so? God forbid! I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord, that this is not the legitimate inference to which His truth conducts us " Be satisfied that your Maker understands the thing He has made, and commits no mistake in His method of treating it. He can say, let there be light, and there is light ; or He impresses on irrational creatures, His own directing wisdom, and constrains the bee to build with mathematical accuracy. But His intelligent creation is differently dealt with, — dealt with according to its different nature. In spiritually affecting the mind, God acts with us, not without us. We do not sleep and wake, and find ourselves converted, a change having been put upon us like a garment. Conversion is a series of acts passing within the mind, and in the use of its natural faculties, but affected towards other objects, and in other ways, than it has been wont." But our quotations must stop. The last of the " Twelve Letters " deals with that caricature of religion which would represent it as " a system of privations and penances — a hard price paid as an exemption from something harder." " On the contrary, since the condition of the mind is alike the spring, and the index of enjoyment, should this be described as comprising — love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance — an equal poise of the passions, and a right bent of the affections, — happiness of the highest style, and but lightly affected by temporary and outward circumstances, must be the certain result." Familiarity with the sick-room and its anxieties, was her's, beyond most women. Not that she experienced an Anii-Slavery Contests. 357 unusual amount of illness in her family, but because her admirable qualities, as a nurse, were well known among her friends, and always freely at their service. Her firm arm was strength to the weak ; the order, neatness, and regularity that accompanied her, diffused quietness and comfort Her ready resource inspired confidence. Her voice was all tenderness, her words full of cheerfulness, and not without little flashes of fun, if the patient could bear it, although her heart might be passing through some of the agonies she has described. It was matter of course, that my mother should take an eager interest in the anti-slavery contests of her time, and her pen was frequently employed in contributions to current anti-slavery literature. In early years, she had thanked "the goodness and the grace" through which she " was not born a little slave To labour in the sun, And wish I were but in the grave, And all my labour done." and her fervour, in the cause, was not likely to cool. In 1838, at one of the crises of the long struggle, she thus replies to an application — " If I should be able to comply with your request, I will do it with pleasure ; but I have scarcely more com?na?id of my own time or faculties than I have of yours, so that I seldom engage for such services. Sometimes a thought will flow, all without my care or payment, so that it is no trouble, and loses no time, to gather as it drops. At others, when, perhaps, much occupied, or bound to a fixed period for its completion, I may spend a day over a single verse, and that without success. I am sadly disabled by the pressure of more than I have time for. This has been my lot through life — always yesterday eating out the com- fort of to-day ! How very singular it is that, in such a heart as Montgomery's, there should float even a film of hesitation on such a subject ! How exceedingly desirable does it appear to secure the mind, of the impressible particularly, from early pre- judice, and any association which may render the judgment infirm ! One would have thought that his was the last pen for which such a fear could have been entertained. We have no 358 Memorials of Mi's Gilbert. scruple, as to female petitions, in the cause of humanity. Hear Lord Brougham's opinions on the subject." Upon this occasion — the shortening of the slave appren- ticeship period — my father went to London as a member of a deputation to Government He was in a lobby of the House of Commons on the night of the debate, along with a crowd of delegates, during a division, when there was an unexpected but small majority in their favour. Suddenly O'Connell opened a door, and thrusting out his broad face, shouted, " We have it, we have it " The dele- gates, most of them " grave and reverend signors," unable to control their exultation, gave way to loud, ringing cheers, and were instantly and ignominiously bundled out of the sacred precincts by the scandalised officials. She often gave to her husband, during his absence, her shrewd judgment upon sermons preached in his pulpit, such judgment, however, being never confided to the family ; criticism there she always promptly checked. On this occasion she wrote : — " Yesterday, I believe Mr gave very general satisfaction. He is within an ace of being really somebody. Whether there is not a slight touch of the absurd, which may stand between him and that eminence, I do not quite know ; but he certainly did preach extremely well." December (1839) found her expecting the death of another old and valued Nottingham friend : — i&j " A slice out of this world anywhere," she wrote, " is generally well coloured with calamity, .... how long we are in learning practically the simple lesson, that here is not our rest ! Year after year, as we go forward in life, we are constantly making a nest for our hopes in some cherished pleasure, some happy arrangement, — something in which we have forgotten to look for the cankered side. And sometimes after wandering from hope to hope for the best, or rather the longest part of a life, we are brought suddenly to deduce the mournful moral (mournful as far as earthly expectations are concerned), that here truly, not merely as a passage familiar to our memories, but in fact and reality, here is not a rest 1 " CHAPTER XV. NOTTINGHAM. 1 840- 1 8 50. " Some honour I would have, Not from great deeds, but good alone." " Faith that soars on hia;h, Cowley. And Sympathy that dwells on earth." " TANNHAUSER." In the ten years now before us no great sorrow broke in upon the life of which we tell the story, but it was an arduous, and in several respects, an anxious period to a mind so active, a heart so sensitive, a life bound up with so many other lives. Sons settling in different professions and forming homes of their own, pressed hard upon re- sources, and obliged a frequent drawing upon " Hook, Crook, & Co.," as their mother used to say; while in con- sequence of her husband's failing health and a laborious occupation in addition to his pastorate which now came to his hands, almost all the correspondence with them fell upon her. Perhaps none made greater use in domestic affairs than herself of " the glorious penny postage " as she called it, which began on the 10th of January 1840. The introduction of envelopes however, so far destroying the integrity of the old-fashioned letter, and causing " an ever- lasting sub, sub, note writing," was to her detestable. Not less did she rejoice in the development of the rail- way system, which during these years took such amazing dimensions. It was rather remarkable that with a tem- perament dwelling so fondly upon the past, clinging so tenderly to places and associations, and keenly alive to the picturesque, a change so great should have been welcome. 360 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. But she heartily rejoiced in all conquests of mind, and in all quickened energies of life. The old coach made part of a picturesqueness she enjoyed, but when she ran to a garden gate to see it pass along a country road, or watched the laden mail with scarlet coat and sound of horn, rattle through the streets of Nottingham, tears came to her eyes, as much from sympathy with the stir and movement of life and business, as from any other feeling. And so with the railway works now pushing everywhere; true, the sod of a sweet pasture was turned up by the ruthless navvy, but it was to make way for that triumph of steam, which conquering time and space, was weaving together all the towns and peoples of the land, and more than all to her, destroying that long and bitter separation of families, from which in earlier days she had suffered so much. The fol- lowing lines, portions of a poem, first printed in the " Lon- don University College Magazine," give expression to this hearty sympathy with the great instrument of modern pro- gress : — THE SONG OF THE TEA-KETTLE. Since first began my ominous song, Slowly have moved the ages long; There I hung, or there I stood, Giving what sign my nature could, Content till man the hint should catch, To purr to the lift of the cottage latch. Fraught with the weal of kingdoms vast, I sighed as the simpleton man went past ; Vainly I gave significant proof By thrusting high my prisoning roof, My lips uncouth their witness bore, But inarticulate, could no more. Slow was the world my worth to glean My visible secret long unseen ! Surly, apart, the nations dwelt, Nor yet the magical impulse felt, Nor deemed that Charity, Science, Art, All that doth honour or wealth impart, Spell bound, till mind should set them free, Slumbered and sung, in their sleep in me ! Song of the Tea-kettle. 361 At length the day in its glory rose And off in its speed the engine goes ! Ponderous and blind, of rudest force, A pin and a whisper guide its course ; Around its sinews of iron, play The viewless bands of a mental sway, And triumphs the soul in the mighty dower; To Knowledge, the plighted boon is Power. Hark ! 'tis the din of a thousand wheels, At play with the fleeces of England's fields ; From its bed upraised, 'tis the flood that roars To fill little cisterns at cottage doors : 'Tis the many-fingered, intricate, bright machine With its flowery film of lace I ween. And see where it rushes with silvery wreath The span of yon arched cave beneath ; Stupendous, vital, fiery, bright, Trailing its length in a country's sight ! Riven are the rocks, the hills give way, The dim valley rises to unfelt day ; And man fitly crowned, with brow sublime, Conqueror of distance, reigns, and Time ! Lone was the shore where the hero mused, His soul through the unknown leagues transfused ; His perilous bark on the ocean strayed, And moon after moon since its anchor weighed, On the solitude strange and drear did shine — The untrack'd way of that restless brine ; Till at length, his shattered sail was furl'd 'Mid the golden sands of a western world ! Still centuries pass'd with their measured tread, While winged by the winds the nations sped ; And still did the moon as she watch'd that deep, Her triple task o'er the voyagers keep ; And sore farewell, as they hove from land Spake of absence long, on a distant strand. She starts ! — wild winds at her bosom rage, — She laughs in her sport at the war they wage ! In queenly pomp on the surf she treads, Scarce waking the sea things from their beds. A few bright suns, and at rest she lies, Glittering to transatlantic skies ! 362 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. Simpleton Man i ye tribes of yore, Open awhile death's dusty door ; Rise, for a glimpse of victories won, Busily see the peoples run ; Mountain and precipice melt away The mind's high sorcery who can stay ? Who to her necromancy cry, Hither come up, but pass not by? No! she has felt her strength, her force, And springs abroad to a limitless course. Simpleton man ! Why, who would have thought, To this the song of a Tea-kettle brought! Easily touched by the " enthusiasm of humanity," any day of public interest in the town stirred her thoroughly, and on such occasions the services of her pen were not seldom asked for : — " It is the morning (she writes) for opening the Mechanics' Exhibition — a fine holiday- making, bell-ringing Whit-monday, when the poor dressmakers, and warehouse girls, and journey- men breathe the fresh air, and one's heart leaps to look at them. There will be a Corporation procession, headed by a military band, and skirted, as I presume, by the entire ragtailia of the good town of Nottingham, from the Town Hall to the Exchange, wrhere a noble organ, assisted by the band, is to perform the National Anthem, which I was up at six this morning to alter for the occasion." The last stanza of this new version ran thus : — O Lord our God arise, Bless every enterprize Worthy her reign ; Grant her a people free, Men such as men should be, Women as fair as she, God save the Queen ! A fortnight afterwards, arrived one of the first Excursion trains that ever carried its hundreds of holiday makers, and which now brought Leicester to visit its old rival Nottingham. Nothing could suit her better. Market Day at Nottingham. 363 " It was a beautiful day and scene. Upwards of a thousand arrived at ten o'clock in thirty-four carriages, with colours flying, and hats and handkerchiefs out of the windows as they swept into the station, where were gentlemen of the town, with a number of flags and a band of music, to welcome their arrival. It was supposed that twenty thousand people were in the meadows to see them, and if they did not count me, there were twenty thousand and one ! The town was alive tl^e whole day. It is just the thing that I like." Again, she was asked, but it was late on a Saturday night, to provide a welcome to be printed for distribution among the Leicester folks. She was not one to refuse her best endeavours, but the piece bears traces of composition at an ungenial moment ; for, as she wrote to her sister, "the washerwoman had only just come in with the clothes." " Loyalty to the Royal " was a passion with her. Descending from the old George the Third days, it had certainly suffered eclipse during the reign of the "first gentleman in Europe," but had revived in that of his honest sailor brother, and broke forth into ardent affection for the young Queen who succeeded him ; and when, in June 1840, Oxford attempted her assassination, she, like every other bard in the country, was stirred into an effusion of indignation. But we have not space for its reproduction. A genuine pleasure to her was "market day." The good old housewifely custom of "marketing" lingers still at Nottingham. Twice a week the ample colonnaded market-place is filled with rows of stalls ; the roads are crowded with incoming villagers ; quaint vehicles of most antique pattern, and ranging from what she likened to "a stage coach run to seed " — half van, half omnibus — down to the most ricketty donkey cart, choke the back streets and every available corner. Many a glowing sunset has lighted up the old tower of St Mary's, and gilded the long lines of stalls, that as twilight deepens are each ablaze with flaring lamps. Before this, however, van and cart have moved slowly off, climbing the long hills out of 364 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. the town, each crammed with market people to be dropped at distant cottage doors, in the secluded villages along the vale of Trent, or in the hollows of Sherwood Forest. Such was the inspiration of the following: — Saturday Morning. I love to see the country folk come in, Daughter and dame, on sunny market days, Laden from field and dairy, barn and bin, And glorious flowers, whole baskets in a blaze ! The young eye, ranging round the motley scene, Allured by gorgeous shop or busy throng, The matron-mother, reckoning, I ween, Amount of takings, as she jogs along. Butter she brings in cloth of snowy bleach, " All its own colour," from the fragrant mead, And store of eggs new laid, transparent each. With pretty pinioned chickens, doomed to bleed. And herb of every virtue, green or dried, Gathered in season due, with housewife care ; Or culled ;mid morning mists, by greenwood side, The savoury mushroom, fit for queenly fare. O, yes ! I love to see them crowding by, From carrier's loaded van or country cart, Bearing the opulence of earth and sky, To barter Nature's gifts for wares of art. But more I love to see them thronging home, All hampers empty and all bosoms light, Toward grassy dells, where drowsy cattle roam, And woods half hushed bespeak the summer night How have I gazed ! and fancied as they went, The low white homestead, hid in sheltering trees, The garden, redolent of bloom and scent. The roosting poultry, and the clustering bees ; The primrose lanes, o'er-arched with branching sprays, Through which with measured trot they onward wend, The tidy " house-place," cleaned on market days, To greet the travellers at their journey's end. There stands the old arm-chair in chimney nook, The oaken table there in glory shines, On decent shelf, good tract, and Holy Book, And, framed in marking stitch, some poet's lines. Days in the Country. 365 The ancient clock repeats its warning tale To sons, as heretofore to many a sire, The glistening tankard tells of home-brewed ale, And Christmas gathering, and the " yule clog " fire. The country ! O how beautiful, how sweet, Alike in wintry frost or summer shades ! How longs the weary spirit to retreat Arid breathe refreshment in its quiet glades ! These are the touching scenes, on which one dwells With tender stirrings, from youth's rosy store, Memory of gipsy days in rural dells, And evening walks, with dear ones now no more ! For this I love to see them thronging in — And out, — those homely folk, from near and far, Waking up moments that in bliss have been, And gilding, as in sunset, things that are. A day's "outing" to some village along the Trent, Clifton or Thrumpton especially, was as great a treat as she desired, and a farm-house never lost the charm bestowed by early experiences of Suffolk hospitality at Mr Blackadder's. Hearths as cheery were to be found within pleasant drives of Nottingham, especially just over the Derbyshire border, where, at one such farm, she stayed occasionally with some sickly one of her family, jogging home sometimes, when her host and hostess came to Nottingham on market days, in what, with a droll wink, she would call " a light conveyance " — to wit, a market cart On the death of the good wife, some time after- wards, she wrote, " It is a real loss to the living world when such a warm spring of taste and feeling is closed to it. How much more of a chasm will she make than many more of higher pretensions ! " Much, too, she delighted in those occasional excursions among her husband's Lincolnshire relatives, in one of which, as has been related, she rode behind him on an ancient pillion. In 1841, when, from long pressure of anxiety, during an illness of my father, she wrote that, "her head was little better than a bonnet-block above her frill " (frills just then, almost rivalling in size and style, those of Queen Elizabeth) — they hired a phaeton for a 2)66 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. long- Lincolnshire round. From farm to farm, in those fat lands, they went, enjoying all the hospitality that abundant rural wealth could command. The good people were all Wesleyans, but withal, State-churchmen, tories, and protectionists, so that discussions, ranging from the doctrines of Calvin to those of Cobden, were often loud and long, with "Uncle Joseph" and his lively wife. Naturally, they should have been dutiful sons of the Church of England, whose grand church towers ruled all their landscape ; but upon a certain occasion, their common ancestor, Mr Gilbert's father, had allowed a barn of his to be used by Mr Wesley, on one of his preaching tours, and was, in consequence, dragged through a pond by a mob, the rector, it was said, sur- veying the sport from the belfry. It ended in the victim building a small chapel for the Wesleyans, and most of his descendants became ardent members of the " Con- nexion." Of the bitterness of the Corn-Law controversy in those years, some idea may be formed, by the manner in which a respectable paper spoke of an expected visit "of that Bright " to a northern county. " Should he make his appearance, it is to be hoped there may be found some stalwart yeoman ready to treat the disaffected vagabond as he deserves." That Mrs Gilbert, along with her husband, should take an earnest part on the side of free trade, could only be expected, since, with both, it was no mere political matter, but in their judgment, deeply affected the well-being of the community, and with it, their moral and spiritual welfare. In this, they were not singular among religious people ; several eminent clergy- men of the Church of England took the same view ; they saw around them, a deep, and wide, and growing distress, which they attributed directly to bad legislation, and they protested against this in the name of interests the most sacred. These points were forcibly put in a memorial to the Queen from the women of Nottingham, which was drawn up by my mother. It is well, sometimes, to recall the real state of mind prevailing at the time of the settle- ment of great questions, for, when they are settled, it Address to the Qiieen. 367 is often entirely lost sight of, to the injury of those con- cerned in the struggle. After apologising for approaching the throne upon a public question, but encouraged by the recollection that it is filled by a woman, and limiting the appeal to what it might be consistent with constitutional rights to grant, she justifies it on the ground that — " The cry of distress has been heard in the land from the length and the breadth of it. It is not a feigned cry. It is not a party cry. It is not a rebellious cry. It is, we are constrained to believe, not a temporary cry. Nor is it a cry unanticipated. It is the compressed groan of multitudes, the result, we believe, of unwise, because shortsighted, legislation." " Involving as it does the interests of this mighty empire (for it must no longer be regarded as the depression of a class merely — of a class that might be freighted with its miseries to some distant grave), and being as your memorialists have ground for believing, the slow ebbing out of the strength of the nation, we most solemnly, though with profound respect, urge it upon your Majesty, to divest the momentous inquiry of every con- sideration extrinsic to its real merits, to set out of view the names and the parties by whom supported or opposed, and to decide, as responsible to the one only Potentate, the vital question ; shall your people be permitted to obey the great law of existence — ' in the sweat of their brow to eat bread ' — or shall they perish — surely perish ? " Upon this matter her brother Isaac wrote — " I wish I could feel as sure as you do that corn-law repeal would remedy the miseries now endured. I fear not, but having no leisure to make myself master of so difficult a question, can only groan about these sufferings, and let ' the Queen and Parlia- ment ' do what they will. Your paper is very pungent." My mother became an active member of the Ladies' League Committee in Nottingham, which sometimes overwhelmed her with correspondence ; and when, in 1842, the Great Anti-Corn-Law Bazaar was started at Manchester, she found herself unable to refuse taking 368 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. charge, in conjunction with another lady, for whose assist- ance she stipulated, of the Nottingham stall. But she did not altogether like the scheme. " I think,'-' she writes, " more explanation respecting the uses of the monies obtained would have been desirable, because ever so much gold in one scale would not necessarily send up the Corn Laws in the other, and the bearings are not immediately visible. Indeed, it does occur to some of us, that if all the sums expended in preparation had been devoted to the object, and all that will be contributed in articles, the trouble might per- haps have been spared, and the money obtained as great. I have never liked bazaars." The influence of the potato famine in bringing this great social injustice to an end may now be almost forgot- ten. It was known there were dissensions among the mem- bers of the Peel Government, "and if," said Mr Cobden at the Guildhall, " if it be not the potato rot, I want to know what murrain it is that has crept into the Cabinet ?" Sir Robert Peel himself afterwards admitted that the immediate cause of the resignation of the Government was, " the great and mysterious calamity which had be- fallen Europe — the failure of the potato crop." In this circumstance my mother saw the very finger of God. The following lines bear date November 1845, when Lord John Russell had been summoned to the task of the aboli- tion of the Corn Laws. King Potato. Beneath the wet sod, Lay sprouting the rod, While statesmen the high courts of Parliament trod, And Potato Augustus, There mutely nonplussed us, While the Duke and Sir Robert, so sagely discussed us. Tis diverting to see, King Potato, for thee, What Cabinet Councils, — what panics there be ! The Chemist, exploring With quick-lime and chlorine, In vain seeks a nostrum thy health for restoring : King Potato. 369 The League, with its riot, May grin and be quiet, Now Nature takes up the great question of diet ! The landed Esquire, With the Knights of the shire, And the Lords of the counties, in impotent ire, Cry, " what shall we do ! Vile root ! is it you That venture both Commons and Lords to eschew ! O ! who would have thought, That we both should be brought, By a simple Potato, to do as we ought ! " The oppressed, with their groans, Have not wakened the stones, But have roused the Potato to speak before thrones. And vain the endeavour Of wicked, or clever, The righteous result from its pleadings to sever ; — See ! breasting the gales, Come paddle and sails, Deck-laden to barter their bread for our bales, And gladsome commotions Of laughing old oceans, Proclaim, that Free Trade wins the world to its notions? A modern Seer, Appointed Bard to King Potato/ When after all Sir Robert Peel had the honour, amidst unparalleled obloquy from his party, of carrying the great measure, my mother was quick to recognise the nobleness — "O brave Sir Robert!" she exclaims in one of her letters, but adds — " Is it not nice to see that a soft Potato slung by Providence has killed the giant!" In March 1847 a general Fast was proclaimed — "On account of the grievous scarcity and dearth of divers arti- cles of sustenance and necessaries of life." Upon this occasion she wrote to a friend that a united service of the Independent Churches in the town would be held, — 2 A 3 7° Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. the different ministers, Mr Gilbert included, giving ad- dresses— " Exactly on what grounds," she says, " I can scarcely say, except that something of the kind may be agreeable to the several congregations. Mr Gilbert is strongly opposed to any acknowledgment that " Caesar " has a right to interfere in such matters, and he is, moreover, feeling very decidedly, that the present calamity has grown out of bad measures and bad land- lords. His own views are too well known to be mistaken, and he will probably state them in the opening address. However, you see they do not prevent him from falling in with the Govern- ment suggestion. I believe that the Proclamation only adopts an old form in the mention of penalty. It is to be regretted that this has been done. We ccmnot act in religious matters under threat — human threat of any kind, but though bound to main- tain this as a principle, and even to resist were coercion attempted, there does appear to me a seemliness in the united confessions of a nation, and as no such simultaneous expression could be obtained except by recommendation from head-quarters, I am willing and even pleased to conform to it. And although none of us may have personally shared in the particular crimes to which correction is now addressed, we each contribute a share towards the guilt of the country; and as a country we are as- suredly very guilty in many ways. I like the general acknowledg- ment, and can only hope it may be in many instances the ex- pression of individual feeling. " To the act of fasting we do not conform. It would greatly impede with most of us the exercises of the mind, but I shall give my family* a plain sufficient dinner, without niceties, or superfluities of any kind, and endeavour to give the juniors an impression that a sense of sin is not out of place. To make it a day of solemnity and privation to them, would be, I think, worse than useless. I should feel no conscientious objection to our usual employments, but should scarcely violate the feelings of others by sending the young people to their singing lesson. In case of persons confined to daily labour, I think we are autho- rised to allow of complete relaxation — so far, ' to break every yoke and let the oppressed go free.' " I believe there are not many who hold the principles of In- dependency in matters of conscience more firmly than I do, but * At that time including two or three private pupils of Mr Gilbert. The Scotch Disruption. 3 7 1 I think, in a case like this, they may perhaps be ' honoured more in the breach than the observance. ' I would not be too stiff, but these are times in which we are called to speak out and to act vigorously. We are as much alert on the Education question at Nottingham as Nottingham usually is. Mr Gilbert says he could not die in peace leaving such an entail to his family, and he works and speaks vigorously, but generally we are behind other towns." The last paragraph has reference to the Education scheme of Sir James Graham, of which, in writing of her husband, she afterwards said — " On the movement towards an education for the masses from the public purse, and under clerical superintendence, his interest was strongly excited, and he concurred with every exertion to negative the proposal. Of course it was not that he undervalued the boon— knowledge with him was the second great good; but he looked anxiously at the channel through which it was to come, the hands by which it was to be doled out. To large ecclesiasti- cal influence he objected, on the firmest principle, and nothing could induce him to sanction the risk. The question is one, doubtless of great difficulty, and likely to perplex even the most honestly liberal of our public men ; but so long as there is a petted child in the State, it is scarcely possible that fair play should be shown to the rest. Where such an anomaly, such an injustice does not exist, a system of public education does, it is said, work well — query — would not voluntary activity work better?" The formation of the Free Church of Scotland taking place in these years, stirred her sympathies to the quick — " That noble step," she called it, " the precursor, too," she was sanguine enough to think, " of others south of the border." Yet she could not but be amused that the great defender of Establishments, Dr Chalmers, should prove the great leader of Disruption, nor did she leave her brother at Stanford Rivers without significant reminders of the progress of events. Her interest in the advancement of certain great questions seemed to grow with years. One of her sons had congratulated her upon retaining such vigorous attachment to what he supposed her early prin- ciples, whereupon she thus enlightened him : — 372 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. " You talk, dear J , of the same hearty faith in sect and party with which I started before you were born. Now, be it known to you, and you at least are not qualified to contradict me, I have to the best of my judgment a faith in sect and party a great deal heartier ! Before you were born, or while at Col- chester, I had no faith of the sort at all, but a kind of mongrel namby-pamby Charitaria?iis?n, much to poor father's discom- fiture, who seemed to us to go sadly too far in being a Dissenter on principle, and wishing that we were too. The i great truths' you know, and Christia?i love — they were the things — not to contend for, of course, but just to lie down in a nice green place somewhere, and let them fall on us like dew ! — that was Chris- tianity. I should be sorry to know less of the doctrines, and I should be glad to feel more of the love. I know that real Christian love is the highest attainment we can make ; but of the principles, with which both I believe work best, I think I do understand and feel more than I did then. I believe they are the principles on which the great disruption — the sweep before the setting to rights — will take place, and that what we will not learn in our lessons we shall be taught by the rod before long. It is my duty, dear children, to understand about it as well as I can — it is much more yours. Oh, the young ! the buffets they must submit to, if they will not think ! And then comes acting, when, and as far as, opportunity offers ; but till it offers, at least, do not be ashamed. That is the duty to-day — do it, and you will be better able to do to-morrow's. Have you read Vinet ? " * " Perhaps (she writes) the great work is to be done irrespective of the wisdom and help of man, through his rank absurdities, which form, as it were, a hotbed for a healthier and a nobler tree than could have resulted from his best culture. Look at Scot- land, at Ireland, and at England ! Are not the roots already in the soil, already breaking the clods, and promising surely to destroy the poisonous vegetation which is rampant on the ground? Oh, yes, we may almost stand still now and see the salvation of the Lord ! Principles are in action which will never, I think, sleep again. Can they in Scotland? Will they in Ireland? and what is the prospect entertained by the best of the clergy in England? I hear of such, who, looking at the Scotch Church, are expecting a similar necessity for themselves. And what a relief will free air and unshackled limbs be ! No bit in the mouth ! One is ready to ask in one's simplicity, Why not * Vinet's able work on " Personal Religious Conviction," Woman s Rights. 2>7o now ? Is it not pleasanter, — more like men, to walk out, than to be kicked out ? " This was written so far back as 1843. ^n ^45 she was reading with intense interest the biography of Arnold, — " What a man he was ! " she exclaims, writing to her husband, " yet I should like to have his little ' crookeds ' set straight. . . . I read yesterday the closing chapter, including his most mournful death, so in the vigour of life and usefulness ! But it gave me great pleasure to see an indication of change of view towards the close of his life, individual conviction looking larger, and national agreement less to him." But it was not every new movement of which she approved, and she by no means favoured that for admit- ting women to the franchise, which was then beginning to attract notice. In reply to an application on the subject, she wrote, February 1 849, a very characteristic letter :— " To Ann Knight, in reply to several papers advocating the rights of women, particularly to the Elective Franchise : — " Dear Friend, — " I have looked over the papers forwarded to me this morning, and cannot say that I accord with the views there advocated. On many grounds I think them untenable. " I believe that if half every family — observe, not half the community (and there perhaps lies the practical mistake), for that might be a class only; but that, if half of every family is honestly represented, the rights of the whole will be, in fact, as well secured as by any other arrangement. There will be, I think, as much justice, with perhaps less dissension — dissension which might affect domestic happiness — together with a much less cumbrous machine to manage. " Nature seems to have settled the question h priori. We have not lungs ; we have not courage ; we have not time for it (to say nothing of interruptions which might happen incon- veniently during the sittings of Parliament !). And modern science says, further, that the division of labour is the great secret of order and progress. So long as houses have insides as well as out- 3 74 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. sides, I think that the female head will have enough to do, even, I might almost say, irrespective of the numerous demands now making upon her by benevolent and religious societies. To these she does feel it her duty to attend, but they make a large addition to ' woman's work ' as understood by our grandmothers ; still, with a warm heart and managing head, much of this sort may be accomplished, but it seems to me to form the boundary line of her out-of-doors business. Indoors she may do much, even politically — that is, I should say, it is her duty to instil principles into her children — principles affecting all the great questions — Freedom ; Slavery ; Justice ; Humanity ; War ; Mono- poly; Private Judgment; Voluntaryism, with as many more as may be thought of — and, supposing she do all this well, wisely, effec- tively, and see to it at the same time that dinners come secundum artem, that shirts have buttons (and buttons shirts) — that every- thing, in short, within the homestead is ' done decently and in order ' — she will have, to my thinking at least, enough to do ! " You adduce scripture, and, suitably applied, we all bow to its authority, but not misapplied. ' The righteous is bold as a lion,' — certainly, and as a general truth, has no need ' to fear what man can do unto him ; ' but if applied to women as women, it would be plainly confronted by other passages especially in- tended for our own guidance, in which ' shamefacedness,' 1 subjection,' ' a meek and quiet spirit,' the ' inquiring of husbands at home,' and many such like are enumerated, as their virtues ; and in describing their sphere, a very different course is assigned to them — ' To guide the house ; ' 'to bring up children ; ' 'to entertain strangers ; ' to descend to the humblest kindnesses — are marked out for them by apostolic authority. It appears to me, therefore, that whenever Scripture legislates for us specially, it speaks in direct opposition to the views you advocate. I do not think they would comport with the design of our creation, or with actual, undeniable, unevadeable duties ; I think they would subvert the wise result of experience in the division of labour, so necessary to the working of all great ma- chineries; and I think after all, that we should not be a whit the better for woman's interference ! "Of course, I believe that there are both wise women and foolish men, but these terms do not divide the sexes. Generally speaking, if wise, we are not the wisest — on a large scale especially, — though perhaps on a small one. But ' the hand cannot say to the foot, I have no need of thee,' each is best about its own business; and unless we could regard ourselves Woman! s J Fork. o/ o as likely to make, not only able statesmen, but the ablest of the two, all we could plead for would be an admission into their councils, and then, large committees are always, I believe, less effective than small ones. The fewer that can manage a business the better; and as Government do not take upon them to make laws for us as women, but only as ' all one con- cern ' with the men, we may. I think, without anxiety, consent to ' share and share alike ' with the law makers. " These at least are my opinions, and even if incorrect. I have not leisure to remodel, or further to defend them. You have stated yours at length, I mine briefly, and if either is unconvinced, we should not perhaps effect much by saying more. I do (woman though I am) feel a lively interest in great rights and wrongs, and rejoice in the belief that ultimately wrong will have the worst of it ! We are going forward, but I should not expect much advantage from taking the other half of every fireside into the quarrel. My left hand has much to complain of — never either wears a thimble or holds a pen ! But I don't find myself injured by this partial arrangement ; one has th work, the other the needle, and so I manage between them. " Will you excuse me for having spoken thus freely ? I think yours is a false movement, and thus far I put in my protest against it Believe me, yours frankly,* Ann Gilbert/' Thoroughly, indeed, the writer carried out in practice her ideal of "woman's work," — real work of any kind, indeed, as in the old "bib and apron" days, she truly en- joyed. Upon a change of servants she writes — " This week I am up to my ears — rather above, as the crown of my cap will testify — among pots and pans, and dirt holes unimaginable. In my rummagings I have found the handles ot ten of our vanished knives and forks ! Oh, it is this, and more of the same, that makes that pitiable compound, a cross old woman ! " Of her overruling concern for the spiritual welfare of all belonging to her, enough has been seen : yet she by no It will be seen that this letter does not apply to the aspects of the ques- tion at present mooted. When a woman is sole head of a household, the family is entirely unrepresented ; and voting for members of Parliament is a widely different thing from sitting as a member. 3J6 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. means considered seclusion from the world as wholesome treatment for the young, and speaks thus of a friend's son — "They feel him too great a treasure to be exposed to the world's winds, and in fact will nurse him up in a bed of solitary prejudices till he will be unfit to deal with men, or encounter anything." And to a widowed mother whose heart was centred upon an only child, a daughter, she writes — " Your dear child has possessed advantages, both moral and intellectual, equalled by few, and I have no doubt is the dear and valuable child which such training might be expected to form ; — still, as you know, this is a world of compromise. The advantages of all systems will not result from one, though that one be the best, and I do conceive that a change now might be beneficial. We feel disposed to wrap up our children in cambric handkerchiefs (as well we may) to keep them from the taint of a wicked world, and for a time it may be well to do so ; but when a safe course has been so long persisted in, and the affections and moral habits are formed, it seems desirable to vary the method, and with all care to place them in different circumstances — a degree of stimulus, activity, expansion, 'manner,' and in some respects a sounder judgment might be the result." It was now a great pleasure to her to be entrusted occasionally with the young children of her sister, when their mother was absent from home and so to renew, for a short time, the nursery care, which was no longer required at home. Upon one such occasion, Edward, the youngest, spent some weeks with her. It was the founda- tion of the warmest friendship between the two, but the laying of the foundation was sometimes accompanied by scenes of contest, to which she thus refers — " But you will like to hear news of the pet lamb which we have to nourish. He is, and has been, quite well, and very generally good, though every now and then we have a pull for it. I endeavour to evade a contest whenever it is possible, and I assure you it costs me not a little thought, to meet the prevail- ing tendency with all needful wisdom, and in the way most Frustrated Hopes. ^17 likely to overcome it. I charge you to keep an attentive eye upon him, or he may become unmanageable, sweet and reasonable as he is. My present conclusion is — ist, avoid direct opposition where it can be done honourably and unperceived ; 2d, make, when necessary, a speedy and sharp appeal to the body, adding, as soon as convenient, a few reasonable words; and, 3d.lv, in case of failure, leave him totally unnoticed, as much as if he were not in the room. Let everything go on, and even go out, at the proper time, without reference of any kind to the culprit, and I think it both brings to, and brings down more surely than any method I have yet devised — and I have devised many. But he is so perfectly intentional in his resistance, that in any case of habitual failure — such as crying at going to bed, or getting up, &c, — I have found it serviceable to converse with him very plainly on the subject beforehand ; and it is not very difficult to persuade him in this way to obedience, and what he means, he does generally. You will excuse my speaking to you in this fashion ; but I know how easy it is to look over, scarcely to observe, or too long to neglect, the evil tendencies of one among many, and especially of the youngest, whom we are apt to regard as the baby, long after he is fairly in business for himself. I think you have everything to hope or much to fear for him, and that the alternative depends, more than in most cases, on the judiciousness, or otherwise, with which he may be treated." In this case, " the everything to hope " was fully justi- fied. Edward Gilbert Herbert lived to exhibit talents which always placed him foremost among competitors, and led his friends to expect for him high distinction in more than one pursuit. He was a member of the Chancery Bar, but his death at thirty-two frustrated all hopes. A charming essay on the "Congregationalist character," from his pen, derived much of its inspiration from the portrait- ure of his grandfather, furnished by his mother and his "Aunt Gilbert." To her, the name he bore in remem- brance of her own lost child, would have sufficed to render him especially dear. In some verses addressed to him on first leaving his father's roof for school, occur these lines — Thy name, dear Edward, to my heart its tenderest thought recalls, As music of a hymn long past upon the spirit falls. Fulfil thou but the promise that his early childhood gave, And nothing would we change for thee — except his early grave. 0/ Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. That one, so industriously careful, and faithfully exact in all details, should be an excellent "woman of business," may be easily believed. All committees upon which she served, felt this ; but she was also, for many years, con- cerned with the management of property for a dear friend who had left the neighbourhood, and her testimony upoi^ this point is valuable. " The greater part of my correspondence with her, consisted of business letters, and no correspondence I have had with any man of business, was ever so satisfactory ; there was never a mistake, and an explanation had never to be asked for ; she never dis- appointed me " I used to be struck with the power she had of entering into the feelings of others, throwing herself into their circumstances, speaking and acting with so much wisdom and discrimination, and often have I felt reproved and humbled by the fair dis- passionate views she took of everything ; giving their due, even to the most unworthy, never impugning their motives, trying to look at the bright side of every character. Never did I meet with one who, with an eye so quick to detect errors, was possessed of so large a portion of that charity that 'thinketh no evil, but believeth, hopeth, endureth all things.' " It was to this friend, that upon occasion of an un- expected and disastrous change in her prospects, in which the honour and faithfulness of a relative seemed to be impeached, my mother wrote, striving so far, as might be, to relieve the memory of the departed from blame, but winding up thus — " It is a quieting thought that whatever may have been the secondary causes, there is One, and He your best friend, who had the entire arrangement within His control, and who, nevertheless, did not interfere to prevent it. It is inexpressibly consoling, and very often are we obliged to resort to the remembrance, that, with perfect ease, everything we had desired might have been granted to us ; and that, if disappointed, it is the deliberate decision of the wisest and the kindest, as well as the most powerful of friends, that, for us, it would not have been advantageous. In reference to the long detention of property belonging to our own family, now in Chancery, my brother Isaac lately wrote, ' There is no Letter from Isaac Taylor. 379 earthly reason why the distribution should not be made to-morrow, but, perhaps, there is a heavenly one.' By such an assurance, we may be tranquilized under any circumstances, and I desire, in all things, to resort to it as demanding even more than acquiescence." From the letter of Isaac Taylor just quoted, somewhat beyond date, I will add some further extracts. It was accompanied by the first number of " Ancient Christi- anity " — "April 1839. — My dear sister, — Would that our communica- tions were more full and frequent ! and that those things for the sake of which life is a good were not, so much as they are, over- powered and put aside by the mere adjuncts and incidentals of life ! But so it is — each of us (' if one may speak for another') in our open boat with our precious crew and charge, and our few chattels, the billows running high, and seeming, swell after swell, as if proud with a conscious commission to swallow up our pitiful skiff and all ! — each of us with knit brow reading the storm, and a hand convulsively grasping the tiller, can barely afford grace enough, once and again at distant intervals, to hail the dearest companions of the voyage, as they are tossed upon our horizon by the surge. Enough of allegory, but in fact this simile so well typifies the truth that it is frequently in my mind's eye, and when looking round upon my charge, I can actually feel the little leaky boat, tossing, and wrenching, and bulging under my tottering feet. The unconscious urchins are in high glee with the foam ! The deep they do not sound. " Ever since I saw the announcement of your little book,* I have felt' as if I ought as well to congratulate you, as to express my particular pleasure in finding that you have at length returned to your vocation, and left (as I heartily hope for ever) the mend- ing of stockings to hands that cannot so well handle the pen. Some of your mended stockings have metaphorically, and per- haps literally, cost more than the silk hose which they say were presented to Queen Bess. That you will go on writing I take as a matter of course ; write for grown folks, on the most compre- hensive subjects; I will not speak of the little book — the pre- cursor— until I have taken a quiet Sunday evening upon it. . . . " Never heretofore have I felt in writing, the sort of impulse which in this instance carries me forward. The crisis is great, * "The Convalescent." 380 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. the movement fatal in its tendency, deep, general, and on no side effectively stemmed. Few are in a position to resist fear- lessly and regardless of consequences the wide inundation. All, or almost all, have that to care for which prevents their going straight forward. As to myself — five times in the day Satan walks into my study (unless it be my good angel), and mocks at me aloud for my presumption in thinking that with accomplishments so slender, and means altogether wanting, I should be able to encounter Oxford professors on their own ground. Notwith- standing these jeers, well founded as they are, my persuasion every day increases that I may do some service. I have the ear of a portion of the clergy, some of whom encourage and urge me on ; I have the habit of writing ; I possess what few out of col- leges do, the books which are the text of the controversy; I have the temper and habits of labour and research ; and moreover assuredly know that the Nicene Christianity, now obtruded on the Church, was essentially unlike Apostolic Christianity, and essentially identical with the superstitions of the middle ages. This, if spared, I shall place beyond doubt. "You will easily believe that with such adversaries to en- counter, with a parching Sahara of Greek and Latin to traverse in all directions unaided, unrefreshed, and having to carry my bread and water on my shoulder every step of the way, my daily labours are not light." CHAPTER XVI. NOTTINGHAM. 184O-185O. " The matter that detains us now may seem To many, neither dignified enough, Nor arduous, yet will not be scorned by them, Who looking inward have observed the ties That bind the perishable hours of life Each to the other." Wordsworth. The last chapter was occupied with the various public questions of the time in which my mother took an interest, and with some miscellaneous matters ; the more domestic record of the same period — between 1840 and 1850 — will now be dealt with. In 1840, the death of a young mother, the sister of her daughter-in-law, and very dear to a large circle, came with November gloom. It almost broke some hearts, and her tender, sympathetic nature felt it deeply. To her daugh- ter-in-law she wrote again and again, trying especially to remove a painful regret attaching to the suspicion of mis- taken treatment. ..." Yet, dear S , when we have done our best, acted upon the clearest judgment, or the kindest feelings, or the best advice we could command, it is equally wrong, as unavailing, to indulge regrets and attribute sad results to our own mistakes. Whatever were the circumstances, it is clear now that her death at that time was intended, and always had been intended, by Providence. Had her life been to be prolonged, many events must have been arranged otherwise than they were ; but of her mortal existence there was and could have been no more You have ever been to her, my dear child, the tenderest sister, and you ought to take the comfort of such a recollection. You 382 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. did all that love could do under the circumstances, and we are never responsible to-day for to-?norrows light. " You speak of an impression which you desire never to lose, and I earnestly pray that you may not. I pray that all the hearts broken by this stroke may in this way be bound up, but sorrow itself will not do it. It will deify the past, and the heart will again idolize the present. How soon does it try to make amends to itself for the blight of one dear interest by idolizing another ! Do not yield to the delusion. Look while the veil is drawn aside at the great things beyond." But trouble was soon at her own door, and in one of its most trying forms. For several months in the following year, her husband lay in severe illness, at one time so serious that all his family were sent for. Of the courage, patience, and submissive trust, shown by the wife — though, as she said, " often sickly anxious " — it is needless to speak. The anxiety was aggravated by the necessity of moving to another house, for which his recovery only just allowed time. " You cannot think how I long to be as strong — as strong as Hercules' wife — at any rate, for the occasion ; but I find I can't * do as I used to could,' and must be content to pull my business behind me, instead of pushing it before. How very few comfort- able afflictions there are !" The house, to which they now removed, was inferior both in itself and in its situation, to that they left, but from the rooms in front, and especially from my father's study, there was a prospect of gardens across the street, in spring rich with lilacs and laburnums, which often drew the now venerable figure to the window, where he would stand for several minutes at a time, lost in abstracted gaze. The room was still large enough to permit of the peram- bulation so necessary to his thoughts, and to hold his library, as well as the favourite stand for plants. Within these walls his last days were to be spent. The fitting up of a new home had always a charm for my mother, whatever her regrets for the old one, and notwith- standing its disadvantages, comfort soon pervaded this, as every home of hers. A New Scene and New Faces. 383 " We can forget (she wrote), so far at least as not to be endur- ingly unhappy, at parting with scenes long endeared to us, if only other scenes of love, employment, and usefulness are opened to us elsewhere." And a new element was now introduced into the house- hold. The sons gradually became only visitors at home, but pupils, first one and two, then as many as four, came in their stead. They were not sought, but offered, and at a time when the aid was very acceptable. Two, after reaching manhood, are already dead, the others, men of influence and position, retain, it may be said, an affection- ate remembrance of the house in St James' Street, of the kind-hearted tutor, who would blush while he corrected a false quantity, and of his wife — " Gentle, untiring, tender, Simple, cheerful, true," as one of them wrote long afterwards. She was solicitous that none should come as schoolboys to a school, but as members of a family. She felt them a great respon- sibility, and, as always, sought help of God to perform her part. She was not given to serious speech with them, anything serious she would rather entrust to a letter, laid upon a table, or put into the hand at parting for a holiday; but she often administered smart rejoinders and sarcastic, perhaps too sarcastic, hits, which, however, as well as the letters of more earnest moment, were taken in good part. Let him, already quoted, bear his testimony on this point : — " Kind ways she had of warning, For those she thought had erred, And sparkling wit adorning, Just barbing, suited word." Among the " kind ways of warning " may be instanced the following, contained in a letter to one of her daughters ; it began : — " Have you seen the following sad paragraph ? We think we know the people, — 384 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert, FEARFUL LOSS OF LIFE ! " It is our painful duty to record an afflictive circumstance, which will involve, it is feared, a fatal issue to nearly all the younger branches of a family well-known in the vicinity (Not- tingham), but which, for obvious reasons, we do not at present name. " It appears, that it had been the habit of the senior members, for a great number of years, to assemble for breakfast at eight o'clock a.m., no apparent evil resulting from this arrangement; but for reasons as yet unexplained this desirable custom had for some time past become nearly extinct ! The result, as we are assured, by the ablest calculators, is the loss of at least one hour per diem to all the actors in this domestic tragedy; and this, supposing the term of life to be seventy years, and its available working time, exclusive of childhood and rest, about 35 years, will shorten that period by not less than 1672 days — days without night, or clear working time. Of course, though the proportion to a shorter life would be but the same, the value of loss or gain, to such an amount, would be only enhanced. We feel justified, therefore, supposing the present ruinous system to continue, in regarding it, as to all intents and purposes, a needless, an irre- coverable— a fearful loss of life.'" Reference has been made to the difficulties in which the people of Mr Gilbert's charge had been involved, through the pressure of a heavy debt. For the extinction of this debt, his wife now privately formed a resolution, which led to one of the most self-denying acts of her life. She would go forth and beg, hoping at least to collect a sum, which might prove " a nest-egg " (a favourite expression) for future additions. " I have," she writes, " lately taken up a new profession, which has occupied time, thought, strength, not a little, and the more so, as it has been carried on incog. — even papa knowing at present not a word of it. The case is this : I am proposing to attempt in London something towards the reduction of the chapel debt, but I have felt that it would be requisite to any decent appeal to strangers, to be able to say that something had been done at home. So it occurred to me to act on my own responsibility. It cost me much to determine upon, and much to effect, and I am weary of the concealment imposed upon me. ... I long Au7it Hooper. 385 a little to know what Papa will say when I display my bank notes, which I hope to do in full tale on Monday evening. I have been obliged to let the girls into the secret to account for my continual absences from home — O such trudging ! " But at Nottingham she was amongst friends. In Lon- don it was a different affair. She had indeed her son's house there to go to, and she humbly proposed an earlier visit than she feared might be convenient, on the ground of being upon the " King's business." He, and all her family, heartily disliked the errand ; her husband, for his part, would rather, he said, " spend seven years at the treadmill ; " and there are some who still think remorse- fully of the little help or encouragement they gave to their noble mother, in a task as distasteful to herself as to them, and of which, she took without murmuring, all the weari- ness and painfulness. With a pale anxious face she would start in a morning, and return in the evening, " dog-tired — ready to be carried away in a spoon," as she phrased it — but radiant or depressed in spirit, as the result of the day might have been. One generous friend she had in the large-hearted Dr Leifchild. Without his encourage- ment she would hardly have ventured upon the undertak- ing. A few passages from letters to her husband will ex- plain how she fared. "June 1842. — Dr Leifchild introduced me to his deacons; they were very kind ; Ann Taylor, and the sister of Jane Taylor, they did not doubt many would assist with pleasure. I am really thankful to find my name everywhere so service- able to me, for all refer to it as the ground of any success I may meet with. . . . " One great difficulty has been to make a commencement, which the Dr. would not allow me to do for less than jQ 10. At last I undertook to make my own commencement with Aunt Hooper, to whom I had written a tew days before. I lost three hours' sleep that night from anxiety for the result, and set off with something of an aching heart. Nothing could be kinder than my reception. Not a cross word or tone during the visit. She was benevolent and tender, and gave me ten pounds as freely as if they had been so many pence. Indeed, I thanked 2 n o 86 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. God and took courage ! There I dined (it was at Kensington), and saw the Queen and suite, with the children, going to Ascot Races, but I really saw only her parasol." The " Aunt Hooper " spoken of was one of that original family of Taylors who, with the exception of their brother Isaac (my mother's father), possessed a deal of grit in the composition of their powerful, rugged, but not unkindly natures. "Aunt Hooper" especially, had so caustic a humour, that nephews and nieces of very mature age were apt to shake in their shoes on approaching her door. My mother deserved to prosper, for to many a poor minister with a " chapel case " had she given hospitality, and aid often better than money, to the jaded man. His home it might be, was far away among the Welsh hills, but he would find all the comfort of a home for days or weeks under her roof. Her success after six weeks' toil was moderate, yet she considered that her object was sufficiently attained, and then gave herself up " without a twinge, to rest and pleasure in a visit to Stan- ford Rivers, going down on the top of the coach ; every- thing, except here and there a new cottage, looking precisely as it did thirty-one years ago." The Cecils were now at On^ar, Mr Cecil having taken the pastorate there. Several missionary students were then under his care for preliminary training, and among them David Livingstone, who showed the future explorer by walking the twenty miles to London on a straight line by compass, over hedge and ditch. Livingstone was sent one Sunday afternoon to officiate on an emer- gency at the small chapel at Stanford Rivers, when his performance astonished the congregation. He gave out his text, and then, after a pause, descended the pulpit stairs, took up his hat, walked straight out of the chapel, and sped back to Ongar. It could have been little fore- seen that the "stickit minister" would one day find a grave in Westminster Abbey. The bright intelligence and keen discernment of the Rotherham " Salome," disciplined by the trials of life, Burial of the Deaconess . 387 now found ample scope. " She is," wrote Isaac Taylor at this time, " a miracle of energy and ' au-fait-i-ty.' " He rejoiced, too, at obtaining a man of such elevated piety as her husband for a pastor. " I long for my Sun- days," he said. With Salome, my mother now " enjoyed a quiet coze," rejoicing to have regained another home at Ongar. Making the excuse of inquiring whether there was a path across the fields, she knocked at the door of the " Peaked Farm," was asked in, and went through the old rooms, where she " could all but see the dear old inhabi- tants." Then she " visited the graves," and walked home to Stanford Rivers alone, " on a lovely evening — the quiet hour filled with touching recollections." The strong friendship subsisting for many years be- tween herself and Dr Leifchild, arose from her having largely assisted him in the publication this year, 1842, of a volume of " Original Hymns " for congregational use. She contributed seventy-six, but they were not among her happiest efforts. Some were too didactic, or even argumentative, for psalmody, others dealt too much with private experience, most of them lacked that spontaneity and ease which belonged to her occasional pieces. She needed a personal interest, and one of the hymns included in the collection owes its superiority to this. It was written for the funeral of a lady who, during the early years of my father's ministry at Nottingham, was familiarly called " the Deaconess," from her untiring, unobtrusive labours. There had been excavated in the solid rock under the chapel, vaults in the fashion of the Roman catacombs, and the scene was very striking, when, after a service in the chapel above, the dead were borne with lights along the rough-hewn aisles below, and the mourning group, half hidden in the darkness, gathered round the spot, where the loved remains were to be sealed in their rocky tomb. Several of the honoured founders of "Friar Lane" lay there already, when this "young saint" was brought to join them, and the effect of the following lines, sung around the bier in those subterranean corridors, will not be forgotten by any who heard them : — 388 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. He comes ! the Saviour comes ! His mourning Church to thin, The faithful few, to peaceful tombs, How thickly gathered in ! Here fast the ransomed dead Are sheltered from the strife, Each slumbering in a quiet bed, Till death is lost in life. Here mothers sink to rest, Unheeding infant cries, Here in his labours richly blest, The Christian veteran lies. And still with happy tears, Another saint we bring ! How old in faith ! how young in years ! This gem of Christ our King ! Stir, stir thee, O my soul ! T'await the trumpet call ; His chariot wheels how near they roll! His shafts how quickly fall! E'en now thy lamp to trim, Turn thee from earth away, And follow those who followed Him, Through darkness into day. For a great number of years after leaving Hull, she wrote the hymns to be sung by children and teachers at the anniversary services. These too often, like so much of her poetry after the death of her loved Edward, when writing for the young, "took the tone in which a mourner sings." Yet, of the hymns contributed by one of her sons to Dr Leifchild's collection, she curiously makes this very com- plaint— "why do you write hymns for a mournful imagi- nation only ? Try something that shall fall like sunshine on the heart — something that Plato could not have written." With her great love of country scenes, it was no small pleasure to her, that two of her sons finally settled down in country places. Her son Henry, however grievously disadvantaged by the accident to his sight, had now, in Harpenden. 389 association with J. B. Lawes, Esq., of Rothamsteu1, entered upon that career of scientific investigation in relation to agriculture, which has made their names so widely known. In that ideal of an English village, Harpenden, he took up his abode, or rather on the borders of its village green, which, shaded with fine elms, spreads out from a grey church tower, upward into an extensive common, bright with gorse, and traversed by tempting footpaths. On one side, the noble trees of Rothamsted lead up to the antique manor-house ; on the other, amidst a labyrinth of sequestered lanes, is hidden the " Mackery End " of Elia. Not much further offis Gorhambury, and the tomb of Bacon, who, of all men, would have rejoiced in the true Baconian methods pursued at Rothamsted. Here, in his first year of tentative experiment, came father and mother to see their son, the first, of nearly annual visits henceforward, to the country homes of their children. It was a journey of many changes in those days, for it was long before any railway approached the spot, and traffic, even on the great lines, was interrupted by long delays. In writing to her sister of the delights of arrival, a notice of the primitive laboratory in the fields, whose successor has been styled the " Greenwich Observatory of Agriculture," is now of some interest. " It was half past eight in the evening when we were left with our luggage on the platform at Boxmoor. There was an hotel close by, and Mr G , who was thoroughly chilled, thought nothing could be nicer than a warm, and a bed, but I thought that to get to Harpenden, and not disappoint poor Henry, would be nicer still ; so after a good warm at the fire, and spirited inquiry on my part, a conveyance was produced, which, with a brisk little nag, brought us to the next stage, Hemel Hempstead, and there, under a bright and beautiful moonlight, we took a post-chaise for the rest of the journey, through a fine hill and dale, and woody country. It was sweetly calm and pleasant, and I did enjoy it. Just as we crossed the pretty Common, at the entrance of Harpenden, a voice called, ho ! stop ! The man, I believe, thought we had fallen among thieves, for he whipped forward immediately; but, on looking out, I joined the hue and cry, and dear Henry was on the box in a moment, so that we 39° Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. drove direct to the lodgings he had taken for us. It was half- past ten, the door opened into our sitting-room, bright with candles and comfort, the very beau-ideal of snugness; even that night, papa could not help expressing gratuitous approbation; and the next morning, after a sound rest, when we awoke to our snow-white furniture, a beautiful day, and the very pretty village — trees, houses, cottages, roses, and green, visible from the window, he could not but break out into expressions of unqualified pleasure. Three times during breakfast, he uttered various " eulogia," not a little gratifying to me, who had been the guilty suggester and perpetrator of the journey And now, while I have been writing, he has put down his Greek book, and said, ' This is calm ! this is really calm ! this does seem the place to come to i ' Isn't it a comfort ? ' " Yesterday, we walked twice up to the Laboratory. Henry has, indeed, an arduous employment, or rather, employments, for there are various and distinct departments; but he is interested in both the processes and the result. He has frequently, and had yesterday, to remain there till eleven at night, then walk a solitary mile home, and be there again at four, not returning to breakfast till near ten; and worse than this, he is, during the evenings and mornings, entirely alone, in order to let the man sleep who watches when he is away. It is a process attended with some danger, and we neither of us liked leaving him yesterday evening (we stayed till nearly nine) alone in that solitary spot, not a soul within call (at least, not a body, the other we could not answer for), in a wild, rambling laboratory, surrounded, or rather crammed, with implements and objects, that looked more like the fossil remains of extinct species than anything else. Before we left, he closed all the doors but one, a large barn door entrance, which would have admitted a gang of gipsies very well, stuck three lighted candles, in some sort of putty or other, about the walls, and then took leave of us for two hours of dismal, and rather nervous-looking solitude, with just the possibility of an explosion before he had done." * But perhaps the removal of her eldest son from London to the country was even more interesting to her, for it was to Ongar that he came. Near the " three wants-way," where visitors for the old Peaked Farm used to leave the * This was before the investigations were exclusively confined to the chemistry of agriculture. Ongar again. 391 coach, and which, marked by an ash tree in the middle, was named Marden Ash, stood a house well bowered in trees. There he made his home, and it became a favourite haunt of her's for many years. Nor was the cause of the removal less interesting to her, since it was the association of her son with her brother Isaac, in the artistic management of his remarkable invention, for applying mechanism to the delicate and complex pro- cesses of line-engraving. The decision to join in this matter, however, and to remove from London, had been an anxious one, and many letters had been written by both father and mother on the subject. The mother's were tinctured strongly with hope, and with the delight of seeing him located between Ongar and Stanford. " I do not love London — its habits, tastes, hours, or any- thing— and could not therefore regret for you the change. And oh, the beauty of the real country ! and the quiet of a life un- interrupted by wheels and knockers ! But this, of course, ' is as folks think, uncle.' . . . It is, I think, mercifully arranged that your decision may come piecemeal ; all we need, as I say often enough, is the sight of the next stepping-stone, and if that be but afforded, and the stone itself is tolerably smooth and dry, we may not only be satisfied, but thankful. "My thoughts, when free from the anxiety of indecision, and dwelling only on your present, and, to me, pleasant location, feel to breathe a freer air, and to be tinted with brighter colours than when they hovered over you in London ; and to you, whose early and happy home it was, I should think it must be full of delightful interest. But, oh, the final yea or nay ! I do dread it. " Do not be afraid of death from suffocation from those beau- tiful trees. You will get to love them ; and how sweet they are, with the winds and the birds, and the flowers, and the grass plots, and all the lovely items of a country garden — that one earthly good which I have coveted all my life, and do not possess ! Think of turning out on to your own gravel walks before breakfast, and bringing in a fresh radish to help your appetite, if then needing help ! But these radishes will make me poetical, and I must forbear. I cannot express my astonishment and admiration, knowing as I do what engraving is, at the effects 39 2 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. you describe. Nothing in modern invention seems to me more marvellous." When the change was completed, she did not let the occasion pass without urging a step still more serious. " It is not a favourable thing to be lost in the multitude of a large London congregation. Whatever may be the pulpit, there are too many pews to form a Ziome. A mass of strangers, many of them exhibiting anything but a lovely phase of Christianity, is not a soil in which Christian sympathies readily expand. It is not a brotherhood. How much happier and more improving to form one in the bosom of a smaller, but compact assembly, where each knows and is known, loves and is loved. Long and anxiously, dear children, have I watched for your progress ; but you have appeared to me to yield to unfavourable influences, and to fritter your hopes among everlasting cavils, forgetful that, after all, neither your own cavils nor those of other folks, will afford an available excuse for continuing stragglers without the fold. " I know you have objected to the scrutiny to which a more direct course would subject you, but see whether it is a reason- able objection. Could you feel the Christian brotherhood of a church whose admissions were indiscriminate? or would it be possible for such a church to bear honourable witness for Christ in the world ? Would you like to make one of such a com- pound ? or could you read the Epistles to Colosse, Philippi, and Thessalonica, as addressed to you, being one of their number? And, if not — if in order to preserve the character and the uses of a Christian church, it is necessary that some candid judgment should be formed respecting those who wish to unite with it — how could you devise that it should be effected in a way less objectionable than that usually adopted? Be reasonable, my dear children ; and if, after looking seriously at the circum- stances, you still feel that there are disagreeables to be encoun- tered, still decide honestly whether they are such as would justify you, related as you both are to 'the household of faith,' in holding a solitary course, and refusing both the honour and the happiness of naming the name of Christ according to His will. Perhaps the circumstances you object to, may form the very cross which dispositions like yours maybe required — might do well to carry— a test of humility and sincerity even wisely adapted — the rough angle of the strait gate, which, nevertheless, you are Favourites in a Family. 393 required to enter. Would you have shrunk back when Jesus spat on the ground and made clay?" She had greatly rejoiced in her son and daughter living now near to her own " Salome," but this was not long to be. The following year, 1844, Mrs Cecil died, a loss deeply felt by her old friend, — " I have (she writes) a very nice letter from her, written only on the 15th of April. Of you she says: 'J is gone to London, and S is coming to tea alone. You can scarcely long more for their obvious salvation than I do. The Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.' These were the last words she ever addressed to me ; and deeply, dear children, do I feel her loss for, and with, you. I had regarded her as a kind Christian friend, affectionately watching over you, and that such an one should be thus suddenly taken away is a loss very great, and not easily replaced. ... Be solicitous to fill up the ranks thus broken. Surely it is time. Life is getting on even with you. There is a little ' cause' at hand, which to you, dear J , is as your Fatherland, needing help, needing countenance, need- ing the young to fill up the places of the old. But still more do you need a name and a place among the people of God. How would it comfort the heart of Mr Cecil to find fruit springing from the withered branch of his happiness ! " The letter, from which the following extracts are taken, was addressed to S , the daughter above referred to : — ..." By-the-bye, while we are closeted together, I remember being asked a little time since — 'Mamma, is J the favourite ?' My prompt and honest reply was — ' No, dear, I have no favour- ites among you ; and hope I never shall have.' I found, how- ever, that the question was grounded on a suspicion existing at (what it can live on, poor skeleton, I cannot imagine), that he is not the favourite ! So innocent was I, that this, as the meaning, never crossed my mind. No one, I conclude, has a grown up family, without entertaining a sort of distinct anxiety for each of them. They have separate individual dangers attaching either to their characters, or circumstances, and these impart, in some degree, a separate individual feeling to a mother's solici- tude. One is thought of, feared for, loved in one way, another in another, and no wish have I, if I could, to balance the differ- 394 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. ences, and ascertain if there is any preponderance. ... In truth, there is not one that I love better than dear J , let this, therefore, remain as a question settled with whomsoever it may concern. With regard to dangers surrounding him, they are of the pleasantest kind — not, therefore, the less dangers. We are thought to differ in some respects as to our views of personal reHgion, and the lines of demarcation safe to draw. . . . Mixing with people of all religions, or of none, (and very agreeable not- withstanding,) without close conscientious watching, important points will be placed among the minor differences, and minor differences, though real and scriptural, will go for nothing, or be labelled ' bigotry' Let him take care of this — especially that sort of care that says, ' Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe.' " Whether or not my own religion is worth a straw (and I will not express my anxieties), I know I am thought to be extra strict at least. Perhaps I am, and yet it seems in this day of laxity, to be erring on the safe side. I know the habits in which I was educated, and they seem to me to be safe habits ; such as partake of the nature of a fence. The Sabbath espe- cially, I would preserve for spiritual purposes ; on the mere ground of living a busy life, in which to labour for six days is indispensable, I should appropriate the seventh to those pur- poses for which we have confessedly, and often unavoidably, so little time in the six. This, independently of Jewish observ- ances, or commands, I should judge to be happily equitable to ourselves. When, therefore, I object to irrelevant reading — reading which, though not light, is yet not instructive, or stimu- lating, believe that it is under such convictions that I make the objection. We need time and thought for our eternal interests ; we are not so all awake to them as to require cooling down. Constant, real stimulus is not more than our mental sloth and indisposition call for. To do otherwise is, as if, when stopping in a long journey at a railway station for refreshments, we were to employ our ten minutes in counting the people or the dishes — not wrong in itself, but very foolish, for we shall find no food elsewhere. . . . " When I reflect on the hazards of being afloat on the real concerns of life, without having made distinct surrender of your- selves to Christ — at least to his cause (which is certainly one fear- ful condition — ' he that confesses me not before men' — you know the remainder) I do feel anxious. . . . But do not think of me, or my opinions, think of, and for yourselves. Be persuaded in Early Profession. 395 your own minds, and when persuaded, ask counsel of God, and avow your convictions. I am not your judge, my dear children, if ever you have thought me hard or unwise, remember that ' to your own master you stand or fall.' " When the step so long looked for was at last taken, by both son and daughter together, she felt it, as her sister Jane had said on a similar occasion, a joyful token of " true family prosperity." It was pleasant to her to think, that they were officially introduced to the church by Isaac Taylor, and that it was Richard Cecil who gave them "the right hand of fellowship ;" yet she was far from in- sensible to the dangers even of church membership. To a daughter who had recently entered upon it, she wrote : — " There is, as we think, in the ceremony of Confirmation, a tendency to deceive into the belief that all is now safe, and in becoming a member of a Nonconformist church there is a portion of the same danger. True that more care is previously taken to ascertain the genuineness of professed piety, and that more watchfulness and supervision are exercised afterwards by the society to which a young member is introduced, but still the danger exists. Many, I fear, sink down satisfied with supposed safety, and make little advance if they do not retrograde. But a dependence thus resulting from one act, and one charitable judgment, is anything but secure. Growth, vigour, fruit, must evidence life ; and for these, my dear child, earnestly and con- tinuously labour, maintaining the daily conflict in the hidden field." Upon this point she also wrote upon another occasion — " Though rejoicing when the young make an early and open profession of Christianity, it is rarely I can rejoice without trem- bling. The difficulty of ascertaining the genuineness of it after so short a trial, at an age when emotion is so easily excited, casts a shade which checks my gratulation. Not that there is con- scious insincerity, very far otherwise, but that this early piety, like the early flower, and the morning dew, is so often seen to pass away. If the good seed be really sown in the heart, then great are the advantages of this public surrender. It opens 396 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. a spring of internal comfort, and places around the young dis- ciple an external defence of unspeakable value. But if the im- pression has been only superficial, the effect of circumstances, of tenderness, of terror on the young heart, then, how even injuri- ous both to the individual and the church may such a step become ! To the former, the ' name to live,' may continue to disguise the fact of spiritual death, and the soul deceived, and let alone in its position, may never awake to a sense of its danger ; while to the church is added only a dead weight, as is the case in every body without a soul. With many such mem- bers, its spiritual activity becomes only party zeal, and its func- tion as the ' pillar and ground of the truth ' is impaired or ceases. I would not willingly increase the difficulties of any who contemplate this early surrender. Many, the most genuine, en- tertain the most fear, and need the warm pressure of the right hand of fellowship to give assurance of cheerful welcome. But I would say, let those whose names have stood perhaps for many a long year on the church books, sometimes ask the ques- tions,— ' How came I there? ought I to be there? could I now propose myself?' — and not be easily satisfied with the answers." It was in 1844 that with her youngest son, who had lain for months near to death, she made a long stay at Broad- stairs, afterwards a favourite retreat, and a place of large family gatherings. Eventually her brother JefTerys re- moved to its neighbourhood. Charles Dickens was often there in those years. His letters describe some gorgeous sea efTects at Broadstairs, and here is one they may have looked at unknowingly together. She writes — " Yesterday, at tea, we had a severe storm of thunder and lightning. The appearance of sea and sky as it subsided, was most striking ; the sea, at first one with the sky in heavy mist, so that scarcely a sail could be discovered, gradually cleared to a dead, leaden, immoveable plain ; the vessels, one by one, like stars in twilight, became brightly visible, the sun shining upon them splendidly under the gloom, so as to make their full array of white sails, reflected again from the perfectly still sea, look like polished silver, while one which had brown sails, seemed from deck to masthead in flames. A splendid and perfect rainbow spanned the whole, and after continuing a long time, as it faded from above, looked like a stream of flame from a volcano just beyond the horizon." At Broadstairs. 397 During this absence from home she wrote to her hus- band— " Earnestly seeking for our dear children, l first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,' I am willing to hope that the closing encouragement shall be fulfilled. I know, indeed, and feel, that it is easier to maintain what shall look like faith and dependence in the sun than in the shade, but real faith and dependence are, I suppose, better grown, and better tested in the shade than in the sun. Perhaps the trials and threatenings we have lately en- countered are intended to excite more genuine hope and trust in you, and to deprive me of all that is not genuine — all that runs only in the blood." Her letters to her old friend Mrs Laurie, always recalling so much of the past, begin now to sound like the toll of passing years. " A thousand dear, bright, tender regrets will cling about past life, but whether we are disposed to admit it or not, quiet and rest, life in small compass, are the elements of comfort as we get far into it. ... I hope now that your plans are decided, that the trials, which have threatened in several quarters, will gradually clear away, and leave you a bright evening of enjoyment, tran- quility, and hope. How strange it seems, my dear friend, that you and I should have to talk now only of bright evenings ! I sup- pose that other people have felt it as strange themselves, but to the young, old people look like a race by themselves, who never were, and had never any right to be, anything but old. For our- selves it appears almost as if we never could be anything but young, and as if it were very good of us to consent to be other- wise. My husband is often now threatening that he will give up, and find some quiet resting place in the country. He pines for more quiet than can be had in a country town in these stirring times. And sometimes, the prevalence of errors too wide almost to check, and yet too foolish almost to reason with, makes one all but sick of life, and cowardly under its responsibilities. I hope and pray, that a race may spring up armed for the conflict. But what a conflict it will be ! and how little present appearance is there of such a phalanx." To the same friend she wrote in 1845 — 39 8 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. " I happened the other day to take up a sermon of Mr Bur- net's on ' Errors in Prayer/ and greatly did it disturb me. It is true that much may pass for prayer, which is not prayer, but who shall say that distress shall not cry ? Who could wait to be sensi- ble of faith before he could feel a warrant to pray ? My spon- taneous feeling was, — ' Well, right or wrong I must pray, and if I perish, I perish.' And most thankful was I to call to mind one (and who needs more ?) direct apostolical command to a wicked man to pray, — ' If so be the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee, for I perceive thou art in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity,' — not neutralised by the associated term ' repent,' for both were enjoined as immediate duties ; and if at the moment he had exclaimed, ' God be merciful to me a sinner,' you cannot imagine Peter as interrupting him with the information that he should not have begun that so soon ! No, it is well to arouse the formalist, but surely not well to cast a straw of impediment in the way of one only anxious, much less such a beam as seems the fair result of that sermon." In the following year, giving her usual family chronicle to this friend, she says — " You know I was taken with an attack of sixty-four in January, and do not think I have altogether recovered yet. Take care you do not catch the infection. I never saw it in any case completely got over." Four years had passed, during which the thought of her son's residence near Ongar and association with her brother was a daily joy to her heart; but then came disaster. The adaptation of complicated machinery to so complicated and beautiful a process as line-engraving required much time and capital. Eventual success seemed to be secured by the workmanship of the plates executed for Dr Traill's translation of " Josephus," edited by Isaac Taylor, when the sudden death of the translator, who had embarked large sums in the venture, brought everything to a stand- still, and some of those concerned to the verge of ruin. But for this failure, a branch of art, of which England has supplied some of the finest specimens, might have been preserved from extinction. The time and labour required, Life as a whole. 399 when executed by hand alone, are too great in this age of quick production, and Line-engraving is almost a lost art. How keenly my mother felt this crisis in the affairs of brother and son, how bravely she met it, a few extracts from her letters will show. When the first number of the "Josephus" was on the point of issue there had come ready congratulation — Dec. 1846. — " Nothing, I hope, will prevent your enjoying up to the safe side, a merry Christmas, and a happy new year — happier than usual, I should suppose, if Josephus really looks at daylight on New Year's morning. May that be the prelude to much honourable (word misspelt and lined out) — Only see ! — the word prosperity would not allow itself to be spelt ! So, suppose we say success, which will do as well." The omen was too soon justified. When the following year things were darkening, she wrote, after a family meeting, where every one of her children gathered for a few days under their father's roof — " I am very glad — thankful, that you have all been at home with us once more ; but it was a short, hurried, and in several ways, anxious visit, such as we should not have cut out for our- selves ; very much the colour of the world it grew upon. How long it is before we learn that this is just what life is intended to be !" In the midst of the trouble she wrote her usual birthday letter to her son : — " Hitherto life has been a safe and pleasant course to you. Tenderly do I wish, hope, and pray that it may so continue, though more of cloud and anxiety hangs over it now. It breaks our hearts to look at the position of the whole affair. I have often wondered that your uncle retains his elasticity for constant action. But how I grieve for his haggard looks and grey hair ! Last night he, and your father, and Mr Herbert, sat till past twelve discussing the matter, and your uncle said that the additional weight of a feather seemed sometimes as if it would be too much for him. However, you have the satisfaction of feeling that hitherto you have scarcely taken one avoidable step, and if only you feel where Providence has placed, or even pushed 400 Me7norials of Mrs Gilbert. you, it is abundantly tranquilizing. Besides, I entirely concur with in thinking that the change from London habits, society, and vexations has been obviously beneficial to you ; and if instead of growing a richer, you have become a better man, — if you have made four years of mental and moral progress in the right direction, why, looking at life as a course, and a whole, it has not been ill spent time. They have not in themselves been painful years, but day by day pleasant ones. Take care now to burden your day with no more than its share." Again, to her daughter-in-law — ■ " I do not remember that I have ever felt thoroughly anxious about such things till lately. It has not been my forte ; but the perils of two of my brothers,* and the degree to which you are involved with one, seem now to prey upon me. For J I say as you do, that once unencumbered he would soon right himself, and though blank loss is an ugly thing to look at, yet, when you are not obliged to look at it, it may be forgotten. But my brother ! How I yearn over his anxieties ! " After all, dark and trying as things appear, it is to me a comfort to reflect on the struggles and anxieties through which, during the greater part of their lives, my dear father and mother passed to an old age of comfort, and (I speak now of my father, for my poor mother was all nerve, body and mind), never dis- trusting or upbraiding Providence, and verily he had his reward. Always cheerful, thankful, hopeful, and trusting ! My mother, too, gained something of the like tranquil dependence towards the close of life, and now they rest from their labours ! May we, my dear children, be chiefly concerned to follow them whither they have gone." But the stress was heavy upon her. " How I groan about you every time I wake in the night ! " "O my heavy heart!" — show what she was enduring. In 1848 things mended a little. The engraving apparatus was taken to Manchester, and there applied with considerable success in the end, to engraving the rollers for calico printing, though the inventor gained little permanent advantage. In the summer of this year father and mother visited * Her brother Jefterys had at this time his own difficulties, which led to his leaving the pleasant house at Pilgrim's Hatch. Mile-stones of Life. 401 Marden Ash together, when the latter enjoyed at least one very happy day in an excursion to Colchester, where she took her son and daughter all round the familiar scenes of her youth. Returning home she wrote — " Interest after interest, scene after scene, and memory after memory, have chased each other so swiftly over our hearts, that I could hardly feel all that was, or might be, included in our parting with you, and perhaps it may be as well, at our age especially, to take the present and leave the future, thankful for now, and humbly leaving then. Oh, that the storm may blow over, and skies clear for all who are now in shade ! " The skies did clear at last, and towards the close of 1849, sne was able to write a cheerful greeting to her son — " I think there are some advantages in a Sunday birthday suc- ceeded by a Monday's festival. There are two sets of thought and feeling so diverse, to which a birthday gives rise, but though diverse, not opposite, or destructive of each other. How many glad, and cheerful, even gay feelings, will befit the Monday! . . Yes, a light-hearted festivity may, and I hope will, render it a red-letter day. Nothing, I trust, will be wanting, cer- tainly not the persuasion of warm sympathy over the hills and far away. And for the Sunday, how much there is in the inscription on one of these mile-stones that is emphatically ' Sunday reading.' If I have a pleasant thought about you, my dear child, it is that you have now taken a voluntary stand among the friends of Christ, and that by singular providences, you assist to sustain his cause in the spot so dear to us. It is, I know, an anxious post, im- plying no small burden, still I rejoice in your bearing it, and do hope your courage, faith, and patience will not fail." My mother saw worth, where some are apt to see only "Philistinism." Her testimony to the virtues of that lower middle class with which her position brought her much in contact, may here find a place. It is extracted from a poem of some length upon the experiences of a minister — 2 C 402 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. the folks in trade, Our pastor knew them, often gathered thence Lessons of self-denial, patience, sense ; The trust in Providence, the worth of prayer, The energy of manly bearing there ; Sore struggle 'twixt the dangers of the day, A ruined prospect, or a crooked way ! Yes, and the growth of Christian knowledge, too, Reaped from his labours, in the humbler pew; The listener, faint, and waiting to be fed, Hungry and thankful for the living bread ; The Sunday dinner was not seasoned there With cavils at his sermon, or his prayer, But treasured for the week, they gave supply To toiling souls, who lived that they might die. Not all were such, 'tis owned, but more were found There of such Christians, than on higher ground, And freely as the glorious message fell, Year after year, he saw the number swell : Not many noble yet, that message prize, And more repugnant still, not many wise ! CHAPTER XVIL NOTTINGHAM. 1850-1852. u And darkly pondering on their youth, Slowly have come down aged men, Feeble with years, and bent and hoar, To gaze upon the flowers once more, Never to gaze again." Mary Howitt. The years were now approaching, and they were not few, in which the loving wife was to live a widow. The shadow of the coming sorrow was cast long before. In the brief diary, every returning attack of illness that visited her husband, is now carefully noted, disclosing the secret thought that it might prove the last ; and in every mention of him, there is pathos in the ever-recurring phrase, "my dear husband." Always on the 20th of March, his birthday, a walk together in the level meadows, purple with crocuses,* between the town and the Trent, and usually a visit to a secret hedge side, where the first violets were to be found, marked the day. Gathered by his own hand, violet and crocus were taken home and treasured. But these anniversaries became trembling joys, and after one of them, she wrote — To the meadows, to the meadows, love, the birds are on the trees, And the scent of springing violets comes stealthy on the breeze, And the pulse of early love is warm, on the cheek and in the eye, And the heart is beating tunefully, — it cannot tell thee why. * "In the neighbourhood of Nottingham, the vernal crocus presents a most beautiful appearance, covering many acres of meadow with its bloom, rival- ling whatever has been sung of the fields of Enna ; showing, at a distance, like a perfect flood of lilac, and tempting every merry little heart, and many graver ones also, to go out and gather." — William Howitt, 404 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. And we are young, my well-beloved, and life is yet to be, And many a spring has birthdays yet, to decorate for thee, Then let us to the meadows, love, the woodlands and the vale, And when we've found the '"'white thorn bush," I'll listen to thy tale. I wakened from the pleasant dream — a dream of vanished years ! And time upon my cheek had traced a pathway for the tears, And silver were the locks, my love, that o'er thy forehead strayed, And thou a staff hadst chosen thee, from out the hazel shade. Yet let us to the meadows, love, e'en altered though we go, For still, to all things beautiful, the mellowed heart can glow, And few and brief the summer-tides that yet to us remain, And when we've taken leave of them, we see them not again. E'en now, in some green churchyard way, the dews of night may lave A daisy root, like that we bore from thy young mother's grave. Which ere some pleasant spring or two hath made its leafy stir, Shall blossom over us, my love, as that did over her. Then let us to the meadows, to the woodlands, to the vale, Ere the golden bowl be broken, and the silver cord shall fail ; Green earth shall still be beautiful, when closed our little day, And we'll enjoy her loveliness, as twilight sinks away. A page from the album, family record as it was, opens thus its summary of the events of 1850 — " Another Christmas ! and after an eventful, and a shaking year ; yet here are we again, — living to welcome it ! From successive illnesses, the dear father has been much threatened, and much reduced since its commencement, and compelled almost entirely to recede from public duty, his last sermon during the year having been preached on Sunday, Sept. 29, from words selected without design, which had been also the text of his first sermon — ' Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me/ Up to the present time, he has continued to administer the Lord's Supper to his Church ; but he has tendered to the deacons the resignation of his pastoral office, having been twenty-five years in Nottingham on the 16th of November last. This, for a time, he has been requested to suspend, but he is anxious now to with- draw from duties which he can only so partially fulfil On the 1 st of August last, our dear Henry was married to Eliza Forbes Laurie, fourth daughter of a friend with whom I have been in intimate and affectionate correspondence, from the age Lights and Shadows. 405 of fifteen. . . . On Tuesday evening, December 21, on which day we had been married thirty-seven years, our children began to arrive. ... On Christmas day, their dear father, though unwell, formed one of the party at table, but early retired to his study, and did not return during the evening. Of such lights and shadows are the years composed, and we do not look for much brighter days when the leaves are falling. God of our fathers ! Be thou the God of their children, and of ours. ' Guide us by thy counsel, and afterwards receive us to thy glory.5 " But the end was not yet. Several indications occur in these years to show the strain upon the wife's spirit, and that the wonderful elasticity of her nature was greatly impaired. " I cannot," she wrote, " trundle m\J soul before me, and run after it quite so alertly as I used to do." Again, — "The world is indeed thinning around us ; so many with whom we have been long familiar being removed, that we feel ourselves on the brink also, and almost hurried in spirit (at least, I do) under the feeling of much imperfect or undone. There is no time to spare out of a soon-told seventy years." . . . " Your father must have change of air, and therefore /shall, though to be surrounded by daily business, and bolstered up as you may say by things imperative, seems necessary to keep up my elasticity. I am, in fact, too indolent to be safely treated with leisure, and therefore always fancy I am best at home." Another letter of this year, 1850, alludes to the charac- teristic tendency of her mind, which cheerful spirits so much concealed : — " I cannot write even for a wedding-day without something doleful in it ; much less for a birthday, of course ! I remember when a girl, papa saying to me, after reading something I had written, ' One would suppose, child, you were the most miserable creature living ! ' Yet I never was, and why I so invariably slip into the melancholy I cannot tell. I think in order to avoid it just now I will only say how sincerely, my dear child, I wish you all motherly wishes, all variety of happiness — of the best sorts you know — and throwing up the recollection of a birthday entirely, give you just the few scraps of intelligence which I can call 406 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. to mind. These, after all, are the parts of a letter often most interesting. Occasions that arise every year, with just the same sort of light upon them, it is very difficult to make much of after the first dozen or twenty. All the saws have been sharpened, all the advice administered, all the good wishes exhausted. A little genuine love and real interest, such as may be trusted pure from a mother's pen, and then the few family matters in which we feel a mutual concern, are for the most part the grain of gold in the compound." In 185 1 the continued ill health and uncertain prospects of her youngest son, together with the approaching retire- ment of her husband from the ministry, and the anxieties belonging to the choice of a successor, preyed much upon her spirits : — "The prospect before me," she writes, August T5, "presses upon me sadly, and occasions that doleful, indescribable gnawing distress in what poets call the heart, but which is certainly the stomach, of which, on first waking, my poor mother (who had more causes than I have) used to complain. ... I was going to say ' all these things are against me,' but I desire to withdraw that foolish word. I desire ' to trust and not be afraid,' but when my elasticity yields I am sadly weak. Faith is better than elasticity. I wish I had more of the right sort ! " "B has been to me with a * case of conscience.' My reply was, ' Woe to the man who is not keeper of his own.' " One bright fortnight occurred towards the close of the year, when she was tempted to combine with a circuit among all the dear homes of the south, a visit to the Great Exhibition of 185 1. Of this she writes: — " At eleven we found ourselves amidst the wonders ! A wonder it is ! but so impossible without weeks of time to look specially at anything, that it is the beauty of the thought, and thoughts suggested by it, that made on me the chief impression. The peacefulness, the industry, the amazing skill, the art and science of the whole world (Naples excepted), all in magnificent union, together with the most minute and extensive accom- modation, provided for every want of millions of visitors — these were the essence of the delight which one must have been dead not to have enjoyed ! " A Father's Exhortation. 407 But there was one thought more : Amid the glassy halls, Bedight with gold and gem, Where the light fountain falls, Behold a stately stem — A noble, graceful, living tree, Caged in that gay variety. Its birthplace was the field, Pure skies its native air ; There sun and showers yield Fair food to growth so fair, And, still for open Heaven designed, It flourished, e'en in winter's wind. Now, wherefore droops the leaf, Surcharged with dust of earth ? Alas ! this pageant brief Befits not such a birth ; From realms where purest ether played, How can it here but pine and fade ! Dwells not beneath the veil Of that fair prisoned tree, A monitory tale About the world and me ! A spirit clad with angel wings, Tethered to earth by golden strings ! Oh ! not till brittle walls, Till life's gay glittering show, Till each, in ruin falls, Shall the freed spirit know, Its growth, its strength, its native skies ! Poor captive soul, awake, arise ! Christmas-day 185 1 was the last at which their father sat down with sons and daughters at the family feast. Their mother thus describes it : — " Never before, nor can we ever again, enjoy one so memor- able, so complete, so without drawback of any kind. The be- loved parent was for those few hours in firmer health than usual. Before dinner, the whole of my own and my sister's family, eighteen in number, assembled to an interesting service, the baptism of our first grandchild. Interrupted by frequent emotion, 408 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. my husband went through it very beautifully, addressing all, suit- ably and tenderly, as a Christian father about to lay down his earthly oversight. After dinner he addressed them again, warn- ing them against the religious perils of the day, exhorting them not to regard truth as scarcely existing, or, at least, not to be found, but to search for it as treasure, even if for a time hidden treasure ; to be ever pressing forward to discover, not with the vain fancy of making it for themselves ; and then, so much as re- mained undiscovered here, would await them in Eternity. Truth would there shine out upon them, both to stimulate and reward perpetual progress. For himself he hoped to be even a better mathematician in heaven than he could be on earth." One more happy circumstance closed the year. On the 29th of December, the church and congregation met to present their late Pastor with a testimonial of their esteem, in the shape of a secretary for his study, and a purse of 220 sovereigns. He could not be present him- self, but sent a letter, from which the following passage may be quoted — " I have no need to envy those who repose on a State provi- sion, nor to feel distrust of what is called, sometimes in derision, the 'Voluntary Principle.' For while it is clear that it is conse- crated by the Scriptures, the old as well as the new, it is also clear, that those who, like you, take occasion practically to illus- trate its excellence, and to adorn its exercise, do amply vindicate it from such ignorant censure. Let us, therefore, unite in com- mending it to the guardianship of God, its author, and to that of all good men, His loyal subjects and faithful servants. I rejoice, that in what you are now purposing to do, I should be the favoured instrument through whom you discharge that high function." His wife, in quoting this, adds — " It was a beautiful moment when his children, then ten in number (his own and others united to his own) returned, and stood with their mother in a large circle round the venerable minister and beloved parent, to congratulate, and report to him the proceedings as above. He received the account with humble, The Crocuses. 409 tearful, delighted thankfulness, and after hearing as much as he could bear, sent them away and begged to be left alone." On the 30th of January 1852, her 70th birth-day, she wrote a letter to each of her seven children. It was un- usually cheerful — " It is just as a memorial of my being seventy, not to be burnt, but kept. Presumptuous, isn't it ? But if you have a place in which to keep letters, put this there, and if not, make one; it is one of mamma's fancies, so excuse it ; and just like her too." " I have a long letter from Mrs Laurie, whose heart has beaten true to times and seasons, to my certain knowledge, for more than fifty years. Dear children, I wish you, in return for all your kindness, a life as long as mine, as happy as mine in all outward circumstances, and, dear friends, as true and warm as mine. . . . O seek till you find the right sort of happiness, and let the thought of future regrets be ever at hand, to aid and corroborate present duty, whether in the outward world, the home circle, or the little theatre within, where all the great battles have to be fought." On the 20th of March, her husband's birth-day, once more, and only by help of a cab, they got down together to the blooming Crocus meadows for the time-honoured handful. Already these charming lakes of purple colour were invaded by inclosure, and she had uttered this lament — THE LAST DYING SPEECH OF THE CROCUSES. Ye tender-hearted gentle-folk of Nottingham's fair town, And you who long have loved us, from the Poet to the clown, Attend our sore complainings, while with one accord we weep, From mossy beds uprising, where we sought our summer sleep ! How many a pleasant spring-tide, ere a blossom peeped of May, Nor yet a stealthy violet its dwelling did betray, And scarce the winter flood had left the lowlands to the sky, We came in thronging multitudes to gladden every eye ! We came — a simple people, in our little hoods of blue, And a blush of living purple, o'er earth's green bosom threw, All faces smiled a welcome, as they gaily passed along, And " have you seen the Crocuses?" was everybody's song. 4io Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. Forth came the happy children, to their revel in the flowers — Forth came the weary working-man, to that sweet show of ours : Forth came the lace-girl cheerily, the common joy to share ; And e'en the stately gentle-folks were pleased to see us there. But oh ! 'twas dreary midnight, when we heard the winds bewail — Deep strange Eolian whisperings, came sighing on the gale ; Anon, with hammer, wheel, and blast, the welkin rang around, And each a deadly shiver felt, beneath us on the ground. Awakened in the solemn gloom of that untimely hour, The little spectre started up, of each ill-omened flower, While o'er its head, a coming spring, in brick red trance was seen, As factory, mill, and wharf, besoiled our home of meadow green. One gentle shriek the silence broke, one quiver of despair, " Our fatherland, farewell ! " we cried, " farewell, ye meadows fair ! " " Dear children, born of yester spring — dear children, yet to be — Ye shall but read of Crocuses — no more, alas ! to see." " Spirit of giant trade ! We go ; on wings of night we fly, Some far sequestered spot to seek, where loom may never ply. Come line and rule — come board and brick — all dismal things in one — Dread spirit of Inclosure come — thy wretched will be done ! " To a friend this year she writes, — " Rest and quiet are the natural luxuries of age. But how far are they, or ought they to form, luxuries to those in youth or middle life? The gracious curse of labour is an incalculable blessing ; and among the special mercies of my life, I have always regarded the regular confinement to daily work Your account of is very touching. There was an expression in a Prayer Book used by my mother at home, which always struck me, — ' Without Thee, in the fulness of all mortal sufficiency, we are in straits.' And how true is it ! A vigorous high tone of piety would supply the craving of the spirit, and find both enjoy- ment and employment in either the lack or the abundance of this world's good. To a medium class of mind, married life with its duties and pleasures, would for a time be sufficient ; or to a character naturally strong, ways would open which it would be exhilarating to pursue ; but which of these conditions can we command ? Or how deal with the want of them ? Indeed, I cannot advise. When the mind is not strong enough to move itself, what can be applied as sufficient stimulus ? For myself I Autumn Leaves. 411 have been thankful never to have been left to choice or oppor- tunity, but always to find a groove before me, and quick trains behind." In June a little incident cheered the wife's heart, — " At the Public Missionary Breakfast of the year, the Exchange Hall was densely crowded. Mr Gilbert had for a long time ceased attendance at any meeting of the kind, but ' midway in the proceedings his white head was observed, as he made his way through the assembly. The speaker paused, — a warm, heart-gladdening cheer ran through the meeting ; he was assisted to the platform, and then, though interrupted by frequent emotion, he acceded to the request of his brethren, to return thanks to the ministers deputed to visit us ; this he did with nice adaptation to each.' . . . Few more anxious, or yet happier moments have I enjoyed. I must confess to the satis- faction with which, on being inquired of by a lady next me, who it was whose entrance had so interrupted the meeting, I was able to reply — my husband." In October she wrote, — . . . " Even in early autumn the leaves begin to fall around us, and should we ourselves chance to be evergreens, we may be left bleakly standing. We, indeed, are among the fading or fall- ing trees, and it is a strange feeling (or strange, perhaps, that it did not impress us sooner) to know, that the blast, or the wood- man must now be near at hand ! " Yet during these last months the husband and wife together, were able to correct for the press, a new and cheaper edition of his Lectures upon the Atonement, she sedulously assisting, except when, as she laments, " a proof sheet of thirty-two closely printed pages arrives, with so much Latin and Greek in it, that I can be of little use." Mr Gilbert put a short preface to this edition, concluding with these words : — " Verging as I now am on the limit of mortal life, the great inquiry of human nature — the great inquiry presented in the New Testament— * What shall I do to be saved?' assumes an 4 1 2 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. unspeakable importance. There I find the one answer — "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.' That this simple reply involved, and intended the Divine scheme of sub- stitution, I cannot question ; and I rejoice once more to attest my reliance upon it my earnest, cordial recommendation of it, ac the sole, solid dependence, the only consolation left to the spirit, in the prospect of its final account." Later in the year a work, published anonymously in numbers, " The Restoration of Belief," afterwards acknow- ledged by Isaac Taylor, attracted general attention. My mother writes of this and another very different work, — "We have read two numbers of the 'Restoration of Belief with great interest and admiration. It rises as it proceeds. There is the Hall mark upon it, indubitably. Nobody could question the authorship. PaDa is especially delighted with it. By-the-bye, is it a sheer insult at this time of day, to ask if you have read ' Uncle Tom ' ? Strange if you have, and yet have not mentioned it ! O, what a book it is ! My admiration is simply inexpressible ! that is, say what I will, I ache to say more, but cannot find words, which is, I suppose, what people mean by inexpressible." . . . This was the last bright passage in my mother's letters for many a day. On the 25th of November the dear father was assisted from his study to his bedroom. She writes, — " He left the scene of thought, labour, enjoyment ; endeared to him, notwithstanding continual pain, by the associations of many years, and he saw it no more. He expressed satisfaction at the comfort of a small dressing-room, used during the day for a short time longer, but added significantly, — ' We know what it means.'" Later she says, — " It distresses me to advert to it, but the alteration in your dear father I cannot shut my eyes to, though I would fain not open my lips." In the first week of December his sons from a distance The last Sleep. 4 1 3 began to arrive in sorrowful expectation that the end could not be far off ; and on the morning of Sunday the 5th, after sending his love to the church, to be delivered at the Lord's Table, he addressed two of his sons at some length, "preaching to them," as he said, his "last sermon." During a few following days he spoke to friends visiting him, in short sentences, but with collected and continuous thought. He was tenderly grateful and affectionate to every one around him, and his reliance was humble, cheer- ful, and unwavering on his " Blessed Redeemer," the term he most frequently employed. " More light," said a great man as he felt the shades of death approaching; "The Lord shall light my candle for me," said this dying Chris- tian as the darkness grew : — adding with the habit of a scholar, "it should have been lamp." " By the middle of the week he became silent, but a brief ' I love you all,' and 'bless you,' expressed his wi&y'mg affection, and still later the pressure of our hands to his lips. The last two days he fell into lethargetic slumber, and we did not expect any further sign from his exhausted frame ; but at noon on Satur- day, when we thought every hour might be his last, he suddenly lifted up his head and searched us each out earnestly with his eyes, striving in vain to shape his lips to speak, for no sound issued, but we understood him to mean ' bless you ' by the motion of them. Soon, with a sweet smile, he laid his head down again upon the pillow, and dozed off into his last sleep." This from a letter by one of his sons. The last scene of all shall be told in my mother's words : — "About three o'clock on Sunday morning, December 12,. the audible breathing gradually subsided, and sank at last into the quietest calm. We were all assembled round his bed, and at about twenty minutes before four, we concluded that he had left us, though so gently, that for nearly half an hour we remained uncertain whether he were indeed gone. None but those who witnessed, could conceive the beautiful expression which for some time rested on his countenance. Not a movement had passed over his features — not a gasp, not a sigh was drawn — and from that which he had always dreaded, ' the unknown pang of dying/ he was, we feel sure, entirely saved." 414 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. It was the anniversary of the death of our grandfather at Ongar twenty-three years before ; and it was Sunday morning, once the day of our dear father's honourable labour, but now of his sacred rest. When our mother turned from her long, fixed, silent gaze upon the coun- tenance of exquisite placidity, where the cold shade of death was gradually settling, her eyes were full of tears, but a smile was upon her lips as she murmured, "beautiful, beautiful." The funeral took place on the following Sunday after- noon, not in the catacombs which have been described, but in the general cemetery. The principal service, how- ever, was held in the chapel, where the coffin was placed in front of the pulpit. When the time came to bear it away, our mother stood up, and, stretching out her hand, rested it a moment on the lid — a final farewell. She did not accompany the funeral to the burial ground. There several thousands were assembled ; the grave was reached with difficulty, and the scene justified the opening words of an address by one of his brother ministers : — " To-day the gates of this cemetery open to receive one, who is followed to his resting-place with the eyes of multi- tudes, and with the respectful regrets of the churches of Christ." In the evening the large family circle, with Isaac Taylor and his widowed sister in their midst, sat late into the winter's night listening to the talk between them — he expatiating upon great themes in meditative strains, that recalled now the rich utterances of a " Saturday Evening," and now the far flights of a " Physical Theory of Another Life," she questioning or assenting. For a time the thoughts of all were lifted to those things which are " un- seen and are eternal." Too soon, as we are apt to think, the claims of life arise to draw mourners from the grave at which they would fain linger. Especially it was so now, when immediate ar- rangements were necessary for leaving the house, for dis- posing of the library, and providing another home for the widow and her daughters. To a friend she wrote : — A Birthday Forgotten. 415 "January 14, 1853. — . . . It is indeed a strange, incon- gruous mixture, which the world, as it moves on irrespective of our sorrows, introduces into our hearts and hands. But such are the terms on which we survive even the dearest. We must go on ! We are permitted to weep only for a time, and even that with interruptions, which may be salutary, but which we should not have chosen for ourselves. The interval since my dear husband's death has been one of unresting business — coming and going of my children — and only a few quiet hours in which to look at either the past or the future with its continued bereave- ment! It seems so strange that this will not alter— cannot improve, except by a gradual 'reviving of the spirits,' which, though kindly aimed at by our friends, it seems cruel to wish for. How often do I long to see him, as even lately, coming down from the study in his gown, his candle lighted, and his white hair almost on his shoulders ! But it will never be again ! That word never we do not at first realize. Continually the thought crosses me for the moment, ' Oh, I will tell him !' as things occur that would once have interested him. How far he knows now, without telling, who shall say? " We are obliged to plan and act for ourselves, and that I do feel. His children come and go, and we arrange for future com- fort without his advice, or a kind look or word of acquiescence. For some length of time he had desired that we should do so ; but we always felt that we could ask an opinion if we would. Now we have just to make ourselves comfortable, and please our- selves ! A sad change to get used to ! " The change was so great that her own birthday, occur- ring a few weeks later, passed unnoticed. Being her father's also, it had always been a family festival. She wrote to a daughter : — " I had intended a birthday visit to the cemetery, but I just went through the rain to the Refuge. I feel with you, dear C , how much of a dream was that sad season ! I could not feel as I would fain have done what was passing over me ; and thankful should I now be to recall a vivid recollection of every day. But so it is. Life is a vapour we cannot grasp. It escapes us, whether as yesterday, to-day, or to-morrow — though of yester- day, we have the firmest hold of the three. I have many a quiet cry which nobody knows of, and yet I feel a constant deep thankfulness, a very touching blending of sorrow with gratitude " 416 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. One evening, shortly after her husband's death, she read to her children, what not long- before, she had read to him, a poem, entitled "The Minister's Widow," from which a single quotation will now be given. Although not at all biographical in the portions which might be supposed to describe herself, but which had a purpose of their own, it is evident that in " the minister," she drew from life. There was in him a restless bent of soul, Of every questioned point to grasp the whole, And if it gained a bias from his pride, It was to doubt against his party's side. He could not think in grooves, but took his flight Far, deep, and wide, and high, as mortal might, Till what he gained was his by noblest right. And forth to noblest use such gains he gave, His life's one object now, was souls to save. He owned One master, and to him he brought Each gathered fruit of toil, of prayer, of thought, And if he much enjoyed the kindling ray Of human learning, as the holiest may ; Or felt the generous glow at honour won — The public plaudit in a race well run, For higher ends was each acquirement stored, Strength, knowledge, fact from every realm explored. Talents, to him, were loans of solemn weight, Fields not his own, except to cultivate, And ever and anon he kept in view, The reckoning day when interest would be due ; O ! to be owned a faithful servant then, With praise of Heaven ! what now were praise of men ? CHAPTER XVIII. NOTTINGHAM. 1852-1862. " King of Comforts ! King of Life ! Thou hast cheered me." H. Vaughan. u Thus would I double my life's fading space. For he, that runs it well, twice runs his race." Cowley. TOWARDS the end of the Pilgrim's journey, Bunyan describes his entrance upon the pleasant land of Beulah, "whose air was very sweet and pleasant," — "a country where the sun shineth night and day," a land where " they had more rejoicing than in parts more remote from the kingdom to which they were bound, and drawing near to the city, they had yet a more perfect view thereof." Our Pilgrim was now in her seventy-first year. The demand for great and strenuous exertion had in various ways ceased. The great sorrow of her life, which had long darkened it with foreboding, was passed ; more than all, the Christian's hope grew brighter and more peaceful. These days were her best days. She recovered health and spirits. Within the bounds of her own country she travelled far and near, enjoying nature and art with a keen relish, and with a youthful enthusiasm which her children envied. But there must first be a great break up of old and sacred ties. The disposal of her husband's library was an immediate care. After each of his sons had made choice of a portion, the rest was sold in London, and it cost her much to strip the study walls of the treasures of many 2 1) 41 8 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. years. But she was very brave about such things. Yet one little sentence shows what she felt. " The three beautifully bound volumes of Leibnitz (they had been bought by him abroad, but were bound only during the last year of his life as a final mark of his regard) were purchased for Rotherham for 7s. 6d. ! I cried, though nobody saw it, and my expressed regret induced Mr H. to reserve them for T . I wonder some of you did not secure them ; the outside and the sentiment are not in Latin, if the inside is." Then came the surrender of the house, waiting the building of another, undertaken by one of her sons ; and the dismantling, and the warehousing of furniture for the year during which herself and daughters were to be homeless. With wonderful energy she superintended all this ; and in the midst of it, hunted from room to room by the incursions of workmen, called off every moment, she composed a memoir of her husband, to accompany " Recollections of the Discourses of his closing Years." " I have no idea," she writes to a friend, " how it will sound, but I trust at least we may be thought to have done something like justice. It has been written so much against time, and interrupted by so much uncongenial business, that I have been compelled rather to work than to feel. It does, however, come over me with constant satisfaction, that I have been spared to pay at least a genuine tribute to his beloved memory. On Friday, the 13th, I do hope to start for our long, homeless, journey. I say hope, not because it is pleasant to leave the scene of so many dear associations, but because it is time we should be on the move." Respecting the memoir she afterwards wrote — " I have heard it regretted that the memoir is so distinctly that of a dissenter. Now, it appears to me that to have blinked such a feature in the convictions of a clear inquiring intellect, and the conduct of an active Christian life, would have betrayed a cowardly surrender of things which he, and we, held to be great truths, and shifted from under him the platform on which he Opprobrium of Dissent. 419 stood. / could not have written with such a tether. But such a regret appears to me one of the collateral evils inseparable from an Establishment. Some moral delinquency it might have been well to veil, or with such a difficulty, to have let his history die with his life ; but on what ground, but on that unjustly assumed, could it have been even desirable to screen his theological and ecclesiastical preferences from the public eye ? On none, but on the assumption we are right, and therefore you are wrong, and occupy a disgraceful position. Why cannot we occupy even ground? In reading the lives of Cecil, Scott, and Arnold, I perceive not the slightest attempt to screen the fact of their being clergymen, — nothing like saying in a tone of apology — ' You see what men they were, and yet they belonged to the Establishment.' But if not for them, why for my husband ? From what did he dissent? Assuredly from nothing obviously scriptural, not even now from the law of the land. When such a man forsakes the communion in which he was born and trained, to the obvious dis- advantage of his secular prospects, and against the persuasion of esteemed men, it is surely due, both to him and the views he embraced, to state the grounds of such a decision. His history- could not have been given without the facts. His entire life and usefulness were traceable to his position as a dissenter, and I should have deemed myself cowardly, even for a woman, to have done other than I did." On the 5th of April, she " took hasty leave of the dear old rooms — the study, the bed-rooms, — the garden where, on so many Sunday evenings of late, dear papa and I have walked ! But it is all over ? Now, what shall be the next change ? " One circumstance connected with this removal, was not known till long afterwards. The death day of her Edward was always marked in her diary with a broad black stroke, and his age, had he lived, was noted. It was now twenty-six years since his death, but in a locked drawer were the child's clothes he had worn. She would not carry these to any new house, and alone, at dusk, one evening, buried them in the garden, along with other sad memorials. A fresh leaf in her life was turning over, and she would accept it as such. But the first year of this new era was twice touched with sorrow. Early in the spring, the beloved wife of her second son died, and in August, at St Peter's, near 420 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. Broadstairs, her brother Jefferys passed from his change- ful life. His sister, with energies seemingly unimpaired, being, as she said, "single-handed but able-bodied," sat up with him, night after night, through a prolonged and solemn scene of death, daily described in her letters. The large brain could now only prompt short exclamations of "bitter, bitter." The deft hands were only thrown out towards her whenever she entered the room, pressing hers, or drawing her down for prayer ; while the nurse, with weird, old-wife notions, teased her with — " when you take hold of his hand so, it just prevents his going when he would." His long-tried, faithful wife lay in another room. " It is, indeed (writes the sister), a trial of patience to lie blind, helpless, feeble, dependent, hearing without being able to assist her poor husband. Sometimes she mourns that she is so useless, but I tell her she is doing more honour to Christianity by such utter passiveness, than she could have done by the most strenuous labour. We all know how much easier it is to work than to bear I think, sometimes, of your large and pleasant circle, when I sit down to my solitary meal, not that I would change places \ I rejoice to be here." It was at this bed-side that she heard of the death of her oldest friend, Mrs Mackintosh. " She was (she wrote) quite the earliest living of my friends ; the last remain of Colchester. And you know how I have enjoyed the latter years of her friendship — the gathering of the last ripe figs, here and there, one on the topmost bough ! Just fancy yourselves, childen, standing alone among the graves of a generation ! Not one left to whom you could say, ' don't you remember that ? ' " She settled for the winter of this year, 1853, under her brother Isaac's roof, at Stanford Rivers, though he was generally absent at Manchester, carrying out the applica- tion of his prolific mechanical ideas, not only to the engraving of calico patterns, but to the costly processes of calico printing. He wrote to bid her welcome to his home, and in tender Winter at Stanford Rivers. 42 1 remembrance of the death day of their father, though now nearly five-and-twenty years had passed. "You will not have failed to recollect this 12th of December 1829. The weather here, to-day, is very much of the sort it was that day, and it has aided me in bringing back all the circum- stances. I cherish these recollections, and when occasion arises, I feel pleasure in transmitting them to my children. You, perhaps, do the. same It is getting late, and I ought to wind up for the night. What unlikely things come about, — in your journey ! — in mine ! Four-and-twenty years ago, nothing could have seemed more strangely improbable than the facts of the present — at Manchester, living apart from wife and children, and spending my days in the rumbling intestines of this world of machinery ! " But now, at this late hour, when H takes his candle, it is my practice to invite calming meditations, and to cherish the best thoughts." This winter, in a country seclusion, hallowed by so many sacred associations, was very pleasant to her. " How beautiful everything looks ! it is hard to decide between winter and summer under a bright sun ; each has its loveliness. Stripped as the trees now are, there is so much variety of pencil- ling— so much evergreen, such sweeps, and fingers of gold and brown, and such brilliancy in the white frosts, that on the whole, we have beauty everywhere, even now. You cannot think how much I enjoy my temporary residence once more, near Ongar. The pretty little town is, almost to a brick, the same as it was forty years ago. Door-plates are altered, and there are a few new buildings, but the general appearance is the same " On the day before Christmas, her wedding day, she contrived, at seventy-two, to walk to Ongar alone, and to do a memorable thing. " I made my way to the Castle House, then to the church, up one lane, and down the other, and finding the church-door open for Christmas decorations, I went in and stood at the Altar ! Very, very strange ! sad, and yet merciful, at the end of forty years, to stand on the same spot, and see everything just as it looked then ! to feel myself embosomed in the love of a new generation, 422 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. near and distant, and to visit the many dear graves, at that time, little thought of. ... . God finds sorrow for us, we make regrets for ourselves, and may those who are young enough to profit by experience, take care that the sorrows are kept pure." Of her brother, who had returned home for a time, she gives this picture — " He is indomitably active, has an eye, an ear, a thought, a contrivance for everything, and with all the pressure, a father's heart, overflowing as human heart can be. He looks to me as if he had lived among the steam engines, till the whole tone of character was marked by high pressure. I believe the solitude of his condition at Manchester, which he bitterly feels, is yet highly advantageous, if not necessary, for the work he has to originate. J. M — — says his inventive faculty is wonderful, and except perpetual motion, which seems a property of his own nature, it appears as if all machineries were within compass of his powers. The variety of lines in which he has excelled, astonishes me. Many of his early drawings, designs, and miniatures, are beauti- fully executed, his domestic poetry is touching, we know his works, and we see his machines. Yesterday, he went to London to arrange for a very important adjudication in conjunction with Henry Rogers, and Professor Baden Powell of Oxford.* Two hundred and thirty essays were sent in, several in German, which they discarded as not intended by the testator. Eighty they dis- posed of as below par. One considerable volume was blank paper, ruled, with only this at the beginning — ' The fool hath said, in his heart, there is no God,' — ' if there be a greater fool, it is he who sets about to prove that there is ' ! — witty and wise too." At a later date — " Isaac is all day at mechanics ; at every meal one of the MS. vols., on which he has to adjudicate, is laid on the table ; at ten, when we go to bed, he sits closely at them till twelve, and the third part of 'Restoration of Belief is just ad- vertised ! It is killing work." To this picture may be added a portrait of the wife, a * The Burnet Prize Essays on the "Testimony of Reason and Revelation to the Existence and Character of the Supreme Being," are here referred to. The first prize was adjudged to Rev. R. A. Thomson, and the second to the present Principal Tulloch. Brain Work. 423 year or two afterwards, and then staying with her hus- band at Manchester. " Your remarks, as to the love and loveableness of E exactly express my own feelings. The very continuity of interest which wearies, perhaps, us commoner or busier people, is the outflow of an universal love and sympathy not often met with. But I think also that a few months at Manchester have opened sluices long nearly stopped by the leaves and flowers of thirty summers in the country. Her short youth was one of admira- tion and homage, her maturity, of maternal seclusion ; and now an almost second youth has gleamed across her. She has struck me as the most of woman in simply womanly attributes, of any that I know." Many years before she had expressed her surprise at the amount of work her brother could accomplish, and his re- ply includes a curious reference to the way in which one of his most noted books had been received in certain quarters — " There is no real mystery in getting through with a good deal in the year ; or if there be, one Taylor need not explain it to another. Only observe the simple rule of staying at home, and sitting so many hours every day, to the business in hand, and the thing is done. If free from care, and well in health, I should not scruple to undertake getting out two bouncing octavos per annum, and all original ! Thank you for your favourable opinion of ' Saturday Evening,' but you have not near so sharp a sight as some folks, who have discovered that the author is a ' Neologist,' &c. . . . who contributes his help to distress and bewilder believers." At another time, however, he confessed to the strain of this continual brain work — " I am compelled to use my cranial machinery very cautiously, and if I could, would take a year's rest. But who can do as he- would? I have some doubts whether Gabriel can." Her now only other brother, Martin, living- at Welling, Kent, was also visited during this year of wandering. I lis fondness for animals was as marked, as a certain antipathy 424 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert, towards them in Isaac Taylor. The latter was annoyed to see human nature reflected in so low a sphere. " So the months fly along, about as quickly as I do from one scene to another. ... I greatly enjoyed my visit to Welling, though all my visits now partake much of the farewell feeling. They are as happy there as care will let them be, and Martin can throw that off pretty well for his wife's smile, Fury's bark, and Minnie and Fay's (the cats) affectionate importunity. Which they love best, him or his supper, I will not say, but he thinks it is ' him ' / . . . It has been sadly dark and dreary for Martin's late rides from town. How anxiously we listen for his horse's foot, sometimes at almost ten ; and how gladly we feel assured by Fury's unmistakeable, and never mistaken welcome ! When he happens to be out of doors he will distinguish ' Tom's ' sober trot at a considerable distance. It is pleasant to see the happy home which our brother enjoys, cheered by all this live stock. They are, I confess, pretty creatures, with winning ways, and I am sur- prised and amused to see how three successive dogs have worked their cold noses into my cordial regard. But what a wife he has ! last and not least, so exactly and admirably suited. . . . " I am glad to see immense importations of foreign corn, so that housekeeping will be a little better for us all. But I am anxious about the war (with Russia), are not you ? — though fully approving it as unavoidable, and greatly admiring the modern patience and caution with which it has been entered upon, so different from the word and blow system — blow first — of our fore- fathers." Three years later, visiting- Welling", she writes — " I was surprised and thankful to find Martin a warm admirer of Spurgeon, about the last preacher in the world with whom it seemed likely he should coalesce. He now rises at six on Sun- day morning, rides ten miles to the Surrey Gardens, and sits there from a quarter-past nine till eleven before the service begins. He does not reach home again till late in the afternoon. But he seems to labour for language to express his conviction of the genuine simplicity, earnestness and power of the preacher." In the spring she was staying at her son's house, near Ongar, and there heard of the death of her old friend Montgomery. She writes — Libei'ty of Widowhood. 425 "May 15, 1854. — Few have lived so honoured, so beloved, as our dear departed friend. It was, indeed, merciful that the bitterness of death was so entirely removed, a favour granted to many of the children of God, within my own knowledge, to whom the physical act had always been an object of nervous dread. My sister Jane, my dear husband, whose peaceful departure is so nearly described in that of Montgomery, and our friend, Miss Chambers, had all suffered from the apprehension, which in much mercy to them was never fulfilled. They knew nothing of dying till its blessed result broke upon them " The past year has been one of much mercy, and the con- tinual change has been beneficial to my health, for though I was not sensible that it required improvement I find in increased strength, and other indications, that the scenes of many previous months had impaired it. . . . My winter's home (Stanford Rivers) was a kind, loving, soothing retreat, and though leaving it for one as happy here, with my dear children, I felt the parting very much. I should think, my dear friend, that you can sym- pathise in one sad feeling belonging to widowhood — the liberty to go where I please, and do as I prefer, without leave or reference. It has cast a shade of sorrow over even the kindest arrangements for my comfort, and soon now I must furnish a home for myself! Of course, the comfort and wishes of my three dear girls will be part of the plan, but there will be no study. O how does the world seem thinning of all with whom we have lived as of our own day ! It speaks of sparing mercy to ourselves, but it is a new sad feeling which the young cannot in the least realise — one of the sure sorrows of time : — " Live to be ninety ! So my friends predict, Ambiguous blessing ! What does it imply? That stroke on stroke my lonely heart afflict, That one by one 1 see the dearest die ! " To her sister, — " Some of these beautiful days I enjoy exceedingly. Every thing is so lovely, within and without, — everything is so soothing, so that sometimes I am surprised at the almost young flow of delight which, at seventy-two and with all that I have to remem- ber, comes over me. The last year has been advantageous to me in many ways, and interesting in every portion of it. Very shortly, now, I must set forward into life again, and I partially dread it. A new home and new plans, at my age, carry suspi- 426 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. cion on the front And I am afraid, after a life of stimulus, of mental subsidence, — unless I become too much interested in these temporary arrangements. From so many changes, so long continued, I may have acquired desultory habits. I am anxious to see how I turn out after such a probation. At such times, and at all times, I can only say, ' Hold Thou me up, and I shall be safe.'" But she was " beginning to feel impatient of a large slice of life without an object," and longed to be doing something. In September 1854, she rejoiced in moving all her furniture into the new built house, and entering vigorously upon reducing to order " the absolute insurrec- tion of chairs, tables, sofas, and every thing which we ought to keep under." " It is" she afterwards wrote, " a pleasant spot to call home. I do so enjoy it daily and hourly, often opening a door, or look- ing out of my window, for the simple pleasure of seeing how pleasant it is ! Certainly the one half was not told me of the addition which the kind thought, so beautifully executed, has made to my regular enjoyment. Really the children think I am At seventy- three she never thought of long enjoyment of her new home, but yet twelve more years were to be added to her life, and during which she dated from " College Hill." A small garden attached to the house gave its mistress great delight. Hither she removed some favourite Ongar flowers, and especially lilies from Stan- ford Rivers — both father and brother delighted in their purity and elegance. " I am told," she writes, " that they are not now fashionable flowers ! a monstrous absurdity. There cannot be any sweeter or more beautiful, and to me they breathe the sweetest recollec- tions. I enjoy the thought of tasting their fragrance in the draw- ing-room on some pleasant July evening. Yes, to me they are sweeter than the most fashionable novelty with the hardest name ! " The house nearly adjoined the " People's College," a Mrs Forbes. 427 public lower-class school, and opposite were the blank walls of a nunnery. The occasional noise of the out- pouring children was a pleasant sound to her, and she did not fail to note the contrast afforded by the convent. " There stand the buildings ; face to face, In harmless brick and stone ; But, O, the spirit of each place Remote as zone from zone ! " One shines upon the hopeful poor, With learning's morning ray, A manly people to secure For England's coming day. " The other — even Nature's light, Heavens air and sun, denies, The young, the fair, the warm, the bright, Shut hopeless from her skies ! " "Aunt Mary sa\rs it is a house fit for anybody ! " This is a name very frequent henceforth in my mother's corre- spondence. It is that of a dear friend, Mrs Forbes, of Denmark Hill — no real aunt, but known in the family by that endearing title. The widow of Mrs Laurie's brother, she knew intimately all the " byegones ;" and with her, Ann Gilbert became almost Ann Taylor again, renewing her youth in constant summer journies, arranged by the sisterly affection and generosity of her friend. In 1855, the first of these was devoted to Colchester, Laven- ham, and Sudbury, where the two old ladies, young in heart, enioyed together a honeymoon of delight. These excursions, with now frequent visits to the homes of her sons, took her away summer after summer. She signalised a visit to Harpenden in 1857, by resuming her long-abandoned pencil. The old Barn-Laboratory of 1842 was now superseded by a large, well-appointed building (of which her third son had been the architect), and occupied by an ample staff of assistants. Important papers had for some time been issuing under the joint names of Lawes and Gilbert, and when at Harpenden she 428 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. frequently took her part as one of her son's amanuenses ; amusing herself during pauses in dictation by writing charades upon words of frequent occurrence, among the dry scientific details with which her pen was occupied. But now a series of careful coloured drawings of wheat and other plants — "nat.-size" — was wanted to illustrate a paper to be read at the British Association, meeting that year in Dublin. " I devote to them," she says, " every morning, and all the light after tea ; but we have company enough for perpetual inter- ruption. Scarcely a foreign chemist of any note comes to Eng- land without running down to see what is doing. One of them told Henry, the other day, ' that he ought to feel himself the happiest chemist in the world,' and so he well may. While I was drawing the plants out of doors, I had at command one of the boys from the British School to help me in counting the stems, which were often much entangled. He is a clever lad, resolved, I fancy, to work his way up ; and I was much amused on one occasion, when I was carrying a line too far, to be stopped by ' whoo ! ' That was making me work like a horse, wasn't it ? " * Among her excursions she never had much fancy for the sea, unless associated with scenery. From Blackpool she writes, — " There are no walks except on the Terrace, a sort of Cheap- side or Regent Street, and scarcely a drive ! It is Blackpool and people — people and Blackpool, and that only. Shall I confess to you, too, that the astronomical punctuality of the tides is a monotony which always wearies me ! Not that I complain of it as peculiar to Blackpool, but as just the one disadvantage which the beautiful sea obliges us to put up with. I have the same complaint to make of a fountain, — always playing ! Up and down, up and down ! always playing ! It tires me." But, if much from home, returning to it was ever a delight as well for its own sake, as from her power of making the most of small pleasures, and the day's com- fort. On this point she felt constrained to write many a lecture : — * These drawings afterwards went to America. Wise Counsels. 429 " Why be so constantly diving into a future which we cannot penetrate, even the real colour of which may be wholly different from that with which we tint or shade our horizon. To live by the day is the secret of cheerful living, always remembering that our times are in God's hand, and always aiming to leave them there. How useless long plannings may be ! I am sorely sen- sible of having injured myself, expending thought and interest to worse than no purpose in perpetual forecastings. Even my mind has been debilitated by the unprofitable habit. There are turns in Providence on which we are called to deliberate and choose ; but otherwise we do but exhaust strength and spirits by endea- vouring to act out paths which we may find at right angles with those we have to tread." " I try to convince M of the practical wisdom of that admonition, ' sufficient to the day is the evil thereof,' but she is willing to load both shoulders, one with the ills of to-day and the other, of to-morrow.'' " Vet now I am obliged to confess, that true and wise as I believe it to be, I do not feel myself in circumstances to put my belief to the test. God in his providence has for seventy years been so gracious to me, given me from humble beginnings such a goodly heritage, that I am not tried by the necessity at present for so much confidence. " To-morrow is a lecture on a ' Special Providence,' of which I do not need to be convinced. But it is not from particulars that I would argue it. There could not, as it appears to me, be a general without a special providence. A single pin wanting would derange the machine, a pebble turn it off the line. The inter- weavings of Providence are to me more wonderful than the miracles of Creation. Oh, the mercy of being able to believe that we are under a system of wisdom, goodness, and power which can make all things work together for good to us ! But there is a great previous question to be ascertained, Who are we I " To a friend whose reverses had obliged her to open a school : — " Whenever painful recollections of things harassing to account for force themselves on your mind, endeavour to regard the otherwise strange dealings of Providence as intended to shine on those around you, if dark in your own history. This is the light in which I have viewed them. How many families may now 43° Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. perpetuate the advantages derived from yours? . . . You see, my dear friend, that Providence was not asleep when the wrong was done, but that a course of usefulness was in store for you, which otherwise you would not have chosen. "You speak very justly of leisure as a rare possession. I believe I am now regarded as a lady having time almost to waste on my hands, but it is far from true. Every season, every day, brings its appropriate work in some form or other, and I feel unable to economize time so as to do all or half I should like to do. " There is a satisfaction in the special circumstances by which sometimes our hopes are frustrated, so that we more readily read the will of Providence in such allotments. We see it was not to be, and that in some way it will be better otherwise. I think the children of God may freely and in all cases take this con- solation. Sometimes the only resource is to say, ' This is the finger of God ! ' Yet it has cut me sorely." One of her daughters had reported some strange occur- rences at Harpenden, for which the "science" there had been unable to account. After suggesting some ingenious explanations, and observing that on the same night a very remarkable aurora had been seen, she adds : — "You know, after all, that what is termed superstition never appeared to me so unphilosophical as it is assumed to be. Of course, many supposed supernaturalisms have originated in acci- dent, in fear, in imagination, in unconnected coincidences ; but my suspicion has always been that from time to time interferences have been permitted which, whether immediately significant or not, keep up in the popular mind in all ages and countries the belief, at least the impression, of a spiritual world. This I con- ceive may be a worthy end when the immediate cause may appear to have scarcely a meaning. Whether there is anything in philosophy, in history, or in religion, to prove such a view absurd or impossible, I do not know. It does not appear to me that there is. . . It is a singular circumstance that human nature cannot rid itself of the conviction that we inhabit a border- land. " Now that I am over seventy, I often think of the nearness of that ' bourne,' and I tremble for myself and those most dear to me. To be ' cumbered with much serving ' — the fatal danger of Purchased Wisdom. 431 man and woman, of young and old — each in a line that seems to us duty — is a greater temptation than more obvious sins, against which both conscience and society would warn us. " It troubles me, dear , that I make you sorrowful by being able to enjoy for a time entire solitude ; but you are by no means to conclude that I like it, except for a change, and then I do. Oh, no ! — * That solitude is blank and drear Which still is solitude throughout the year ' — and I, at least, have no desire for it. I may confess to you what has often struck me as a mistake in my life and habits, that I have been too independent; not, if I know myself, from being proudly above assistance, but from a dislike, unwise when carried to excess, of giving trouble. And I have carried it to excess, depriving both my husband and children of fitting opportunities for showing their love. ... I have long seen this, and felt that I had fallen into an evil track. Oh, my love ! if we did but set out with the wisdom we may end with, what happy lives we might lead ! " I forget whether you have heard that became a Ply- mouth brother? But his mind, or at least his judgments, have so much of the pendulum in them, that I should never confide in their permanence for either wrong or right. The singular art- fulness of the votaries of that system is almost Popish. On being convinced that the Brethren were right, he at once said he must avow the change. ' No,' was their reply, ' do not avow it and you will the more easily instil your sentiments. Return to your people, and do so-and-so.' Protestant Jesuits 1" Upon a proposal to warn Sunday scholars against Romanism, she wrote, 1854 — " I have not thought very deeply about it, but I do think that real efforts to counteract Popery are called for by the times. If we could be sure that Sunday School teaching aimed simply at conversion, and would always convert, I should say that is nearly enough. But it is the few only who are thus benefitted, and the majority leave school to enter factories, or low associations, where some general knowledge of popish sophistries might be essentially valuable. Possibly, simple lectures from qualified persons addressed to schools, teachers and all, would be better 43 2 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. than to make universal disputants. But we have so long looked at Popery as a maimed foe, whose limping we need now only laugh at, that we are hardly awake to its new vigour. " There is a modern cant which says, ' I hate controversy.' I wonder in what way we are to ' strive earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints ' without it ! I wish people would define the meaning of controversy. It is a man of straw to hrow stones at as they fancy. I do not accuse you of this cant, but my stomach is sometimes turned by it. . . . People who see things from different points are apt to see them differently, even if not given to squint." " If and could see eye to eye by this time, I should be glad. I believe both to be as honest as honest, but if both are as particular as particular, it may be difficult to adjust the eyeglass. I hold my tongue like a good girl." " Yesterday's proceedings (the celebration of peace with Russia) were well worth seeing, and with all related thoughts, too full for poetry. It was in fact continually an effort to keep the tears within doors. We had a perfect view, servants, children, and all. The procession was an hour and a quarter passing us, clergymen, ministers, &c, heading their respective schools. All windows, ledges, housetops, crowded, and waving with flags and handkerchiefs. A halt was made for a time when the Friar Lane schools were exactly opposite ; they greeted us with a cheer, which we returned with white handkerchiefs, and then they attempted to sing one of my hymns — Many voices seem to say, Hither children, — here's the way, Haste along, and nothing fear, Every pleasant thing is here. But some stronger voices in the rear interrupted, and cut it short. At the school the plates of beef devoured were scarcely credible, mashed potatoes in untold abundance, twenty-six plum-puddings of 6 lb. each, and pitchers of melted butter ! The puddings came after a slightly anxious interval in a washing basket, by hc;se and cart, each warm in its bag. It would have done you good to hear the cheering ! And to see the ignorance of the gentlemen as to the method of getting a hot pudding out of the bag ! How they ran about it burning their fingers !" Outlook tip07i Events. 433 Oct. 7, 1857. — The Fast Day for the Indian Mutinies. " I cannot help fearing that gloomy times are before us as a country, and that with India at the end of a long arm, and Ireland almost at our elbow, we may find it hard work to hold upright. We have certainly prided ourselves full enough on our position and character, and all that is excessive, selfish rather than grateful, may have to come down ! England has not of late been used to humiliation, but if needed, we would say — if we dared to stipulate — ' Let us fall into the hands of God, and not into the hands of man/ — which means, I fear, being inter- preted, ' Do not humble us quite so much as might be.' Well, God will do with us wisely and justly, and above all will, I trust, shed down on us generally a deep spirit of prayer, and of suppli- cation, with especially a sense personally, of personal sin, — good at all times." " He that is down need fear no fall, and I think we all feel just now that blessed are the snug. Happy they who cannot lose much money, and will not lose any character, which is fear- fully threatened in some cases ! I had a talk with yester- day, who seems to think trouble is not over yet, that it is rather the beginning than the ending in the provinces, and I fear, or hope, that many may be settling down from extravagance to a much humbler style of things. Well, if it eradicates the gigantic folly of speculation ! We were needing a lesson. Talk of gigantic, — the poor Leviathan ! * I wish it would wag its tail and be off some night all out of its own head ! What will become of the en- gineers ? " These glances at public events mark the years that were passing. Among the circumstances of private interest were the entrance of a nephew upon the ministry. " I can well understand that dear T should feel the responsibility of his undertaking — a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord, whose business henceforth must be to beckon in from the crowd of wanderers. He is not the first who has said, ' Who is sufficient for these things ? " The old Adam and the young Melancthon have kept up the warfare, and Another, as he knows, must step in to secure the victory. I could not help remember- ing some thoughts in my folio, which he may find on the next page. * The name given to the " Great Eastern," then stranded on its slips. 2 E 434 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. The Christian life is conflict all the way, An onward pressing through a deadly fray ; No Reverend status, rest, or respite claims, Dangers but thicken round distinguished names ; And while enamoured audiences conclude All ghostly strife in such a soul subdued, It may be, faith and prayer sustain a brunt In the heart's field, as in the battle's front. How hard, how hopeless, save as helped of heaven, To keep all motive pure from earthly leaven ! * The marriages of a daughter and a son, both in 1856, came nearer to her still. " But, dear me ! what strange things have happened to us all within the last month! — the entire future of both our families altered by a few words spoken — I hope for much good." To one of the couples on their wedding-tour, she wrote — " May the short journey before you, and the long journey on which you have but entered, continue as kindly prosperous as they have commenced. To think of you as almost without a care in such scenes, such circumstances, and such weather, is a bright thought at any hour of the twenty-four, busy or solitary, or whatever may be the bill of fare at home. But do not suppose me unhappy. I am much otherwise, though my happiness is not exactly like yours. I do not profess to endorse Burns on all sub- jects, but I have always thought him pretty true in those beautiful lines — "If Heaven one draught of heavenly pleasure spare, One cordial in this melancholy vale, 'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair, In others arms breathe out the tender tale, Beneath the milk white thorn that scents the evening gale." ' Milk white thorns ' are now in season, I hope you enjoy them, and I was going to say may they be the only thorns in your path ! But how foolish, impossible, unkind even, to frame, really to frame such a wish ! No safe path is ever without them. It is well not to plant them for ourselves, which how many, — perhaps how often we all — do ! I sometimes look with regret upon my own gardening, and would fain open your eyes to the wilds where the twigs are grown, which, in our folly or ignorance, we trans- *From the unpublished poem, " The Minister's Widow." With her Grandchildren. 435 plant into our otherwise pleasant enclosures. But personal ex- perience, and heart religion, are the only defences. Very little efficient wisdom is gained from the experience — that is, the sins and sorrows — of others, however wisely they may expostulate with those who succeed them; but heart religion, a constant conviction of need and weakness ; a faithful inspection of our own tendencies and daily, hourly, habitual application for help from God, these are securities. . . . You will learn, dear children, the value of such appeals even on small occasions. No room is too noisy, no work too urgent, no occasion too small, to allow of a look for assistance, and you may sometimes be surprised to find how truly and timely it comes/' With her grandchildren (at whose advent she was always chief minister) she often resumed the practice of her old art and mystery of discipline. Of one little body, she wrote — " Yesterday, before he was brought as usual into my room, he indulged in a long continued, violent, thoroughly ?na?iufactured scream. Hitherto I have greeted his arrival with truly grand- motherly demonstrations of love and joy, but on this occasion I felt it wise to wear the calm appearance of deep silent sorrow, not bestowing a word or a smile ! I do wish that you, or any un- prejudiced person, could have seen the sad, motionless, enquiring, or rather conscious gaze which he fixed on me. It was strangely touching, but by dint of great self-sacrifice I maintained the same imperturbable wisdom till my own toilet was ended and I could leave the room. He knew perfectly well what was meant. This morning I made myself as agreeable as possible, proving to him the difference between a bad boy and a good one. I am still active enough to be a very harlequin of a grandmama. " Tell M that books, and especially library books, should never be within reach of mischievous fingers. My mother's boast was that she never allowed a child to have anything it ought not to play with. Are there better fashions now ? n To another she wrote — " ' Little pet/ you call her, but my dread is making her a pet. It is the bane of only one — or of the youngest — sets of pets are harmless things." To the young she was always young ; to an expected 436 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. youthful visitor she promised " to do as much as in us lies to keep a young- heart beating cheerily," which, young or old, her own heart seldom failed in. A name long absent from these pages — Mrs Cowie — is recalled in the following quotation — "July 1857. — Friend of my busiest days! — in Birkenhead? no, it is in Hull that you always live to me. How well I remem- ber your first call on the new Pastor —even the chair on which you sat ! But I remember you further back than that ; I am quite sure that at Union Chapel, Islington, I sat with the Cecils in the next seat to you. I had then no special reason for re- membering it, but the happy young couple I saw, left a pic- ture in my memory, which must have been you and your dear husband soon after your marriage. It is not often that we pick up a pebble, and find it so long afterwards a gem." The happy journeys with Mrs Forbes were now becom- ing more and more a feature in the years. In 1858 they went the round of Derbyshire together by carriage, and from one of its quiet inns she sent to her " children " what she called " a few nuts to crack from the bushes of Derby- shire." They were charades upon the names of various places visited. Two or three may be given as specimens of what she flung out constantly with abundant ease. Unambitious my first but to lie at your feet ! What palace, what cottage, what cell were complete Unless with my second supplied ? My third, — why ! 'twould puzzle or painter or poet To draw it, to sketch it, to tell it, to show it, And therefore in truth I've not tried. Pharaoh of old engaged a man My humble first to do ; Of course the royal contract ran, T' include my second too. My third,— whate'er may be its charms, Put us poor travellers up in " Arms !" My first implies the dying out Of winter's cozy fire ; Or else it hangs its arms about In graceful green attire. A Welsh Journey. 437 My next's a goal, but not a gaol, And so you need not fear it ; My third, if not itself a dale, Is really very near it.* In 1859 the two dear ladies explored South Wales, starting in September, and remaining to be dug out of the snow : — "At Chepstow the weather did not allow of a drive to Tintern Abbey, which those who have seen it greatly regret. I who have not, am satisfied with the conviction that ' out of sight out of mind/ or rather ' that what the eye does not see, the heart does not rue,' which last, expresses my meaning incomparably better than the other, which indeed wholly contradicts it, as I hope you will believe. I can do very well without seeing anything, but, having seen, am not happy till other people see it too. " An immense hotel, belonging to the ' Company,' deluded us into the belief that we were at the veritable Milford Haven, when at dusk we found ourselves at a sort of Land's End station — no flys, no lodgings ! and through wind and rain we had to traipse up the road to that monster home, bright with lights, busy with waiters — no sitting-room at liberty ! — twelve new bedrooms just built, scarcely finished, the mortar mixed with salt water, so that every wall was oozing with water and salt ! I never slept among so much wetness. However, I did sleep well, and got no harm. . . . Next morning we were taken back one station towards the only habitable Milford Haven. It was still raining when we were turned into a dimi- nutive omnibus, to be carried four miles down to the shore, where we were taken to the back door of the * Lord Nelson/ large, lofty, and storm-battered outside, but within most perfectly comfortable. It is the real Milford Haven, a fine arm of the sea or enclosed gulf, with a good deal of shipping, a fine long street, with a single row of houses, facing the water, and a wide, dry pleasant walk ; but the houses look almost all of them defaced or weather-eaten. " After more than a week we left it with high expectation for Swansea. But, though I am very glad to have been, I am at least as glad to have got away ! The queerest place I ever set eye upon ! I shall never forget (as the presumptuous saying is) the first appearance of it — an immense housey valley, and beyond, * Matlock, Bakewcll, Ashbourne. 43 & Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. an enormous bank of mountain, stretching far and wide, studded with cottages bright in the sun, but with such a pother of smoking furnaces at the foot as I never beheld ; a viaduct at either end, almost sky high, and ships, if we may judge from the masts, but no coast ! I wanted sadly to get where I could see over to Ilfracombe, because I know that from Ilfracombe we could see over to Swansea, but there is no such spot that I can hear of." They posted sixty miles from Kington to Aberystwith — " Rewarded by many miles of noble scenery, but with much discomfort from the miserable vehicles, which were all we could procure — lumbering machines, which seem indigenous to the country — and provoking delays in changing — at one time sitting for an hour in a carriage without horses and so forth. . . . At last we did reach Aberystwith, and in dusk and rain, housed ourselves in the best hotel. But on the following morning (October 20, 1859) there set in an intense cold. No efforts could give us the feeling of warmth. In vain we load on coats and clothing — nothing will do. The weather is wild with rain, wind, hail, lightning, and thunder. . . . "October 26, a perfect hurricane, rain, wind, and sea.* How we are to return becomes an anxious question. We are all getting almost dismal, except when occasionally we burst out a laughing at the thought of our misery. Oh, dear me ! oh, dear us! — and then all the doors have bells, and not knockers, so that we never hear the post coming. " On the first fine morning we commenced our posting home- wards. We had for several days observed streaks of snow on the hills, but did not expect to find any obstruction, and set off under beautiful sunshine, taking the Devil's Bridge on our way. Towards this we ascended for about ten miles, when the most richly magnificent scene opened upon us that / have ever be- held. I commenced the wild descent, but having taken the guide's arm down a flight of shattered stairs at the top, I saw immediately that, with my nervous horror of the precipitous, I could not proceed — narrow, shelving, defenceless, winding paths, strewed with fallen leaves to slip upon, were the only means of descent ? " The noble views from the road, however, satisfied me that even that was worth coming for. Then we had continual ascent * The morning that the Royal Charter was lost on the Welsh coast. Dag otU of the Snow. 439 for several miles, rounding knoll after knoll of those winding roads — hill and heaven on one side, precipice with a mere sham of defence on the other. At length we began to understand the streaks of snow we had seen from our windows. Large blocks had already been cut, and lay heaped on the road side, and it did not look nice to see the steep slippery ascent still covered with it. After a slow drag, we came to a standstill in the midst, and the driver came round to say, that if we 'would just get out and walk on the top of the 70a//,' he thought he could pull through — a wall with deep snow on one side, and a fearful depth on the other 1 Mrs Forbes said at once she could not, and would not stir, and preferred the expectation of sitting till another pair of horses could be got from the Devil's Bridge. M , after considerable demur, entrusted herself to the man ; and, as soon as their backs were turned, I jumped into the snow, preferring to wade through any depth, to the possible depths on the other side. The carriage was up to the axle-tree, and still in statu quo, when, after walking till far out of sight, we returned, and found the driver and a man he had called from the deeps digging away at it. . . . Further on we found snow in many parts, but not impassable. It happened to be a cattle market at a small town on the way, and we were amused at the diffi- culties encountered by the poor beasts, plunging so deep that, as M said, we might have had iced cream, cheap." She was then seventy- eight, but had several more happy expeditions before her. The following year, i860 (August 9), found her crossing the Border for the first time : — "We were alone; and you may judge of the health and spirits of the dear Auntie by her rising to dance in the carriage to welcome me to Scotland as soon as we passed the Tweed, and again on entering Edinburgh ; and none of us a bit the worse for a four hundred miles travelling this morning ! O that blessed Stephenson ! How kindly I thought of him all the way, but at Newcastle especially, the cradle of his greatness. And what a place it is ! the most singular spot in our journey ; only who ever can exist in such a smoke? We drove into this noble city at 8.30, and to an hotel in one of the finest sites in Kdinbro', where we were well content to stop, as apparently were some scores of travellers besides ourselves. The bedroom provided for me proved to be a sitting-room on the ground floor, with a bed and mattress ' pro 44° Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. tern./ and lest I should exceed the exact truth, I wall not say how many miles away from the rest of the party, — but there I did sleep. " If only the weather would really smile upon us summer fashion, it would add much to the pleasure, but though for the last few days we have not had rain, yet every morning we have had to wonder what the fog would do with itself, and sometimes it has wrapt us about, a cheap shepherd's plaid all day ! " Edinbro' itself is a sight, and a site so magnificent that many additional sights are not needed. And we have seen about all that is special, Salisbury Crags, Arthur's Seat, the Castle, Calton Hill, Holyrood, and, almost as fine as anything, that which we cannot help seeing, and pay nothing for, the beautiful view from Princes Street, with the Old Town, and intervening gardens. We have had the unexpected pleasure of meeting ; it is very pleasant to fall in with these fragments of old times, especially as we agreed that it was only by a process of logic that we under- stood ourselves to be ' old folks.' " Then we have made a beautiful day to Hawthornden and Ros'yn, as lovely as anything we have seen ; and since that, another to Melrose and Abbotsford. In returning from the latter, we were advised to drive through the Tweed at the ' Abbot's-ford,' from which Sir Walter named his residence. It is there a broad stream, though not quite deep enough to reach the floor of the carriage, and the current running very strong, we jolted along for some time, not liking the amusement ; but in the midst of it, we came to a stand-still, — one of the traces had broken ! The driver made every effort to repair it, but at length jumped into the water, and with Payne's help, contrived to botch it up so as to pull through. There was no assistance within reach, and I began to fear that u>e should have to wade also." . . . " We have just had a great treat in the return of the Queen and family from Balmoral. The Auntie and I contented ourselves with watching in the exquisite gardens of Princes Street, through which the train runs. It went very slowly to favour spectators, and as soon as it reached Holyrood, a salute of twenty-one guns was fired from the Castle, close in front of us. It was nearly dusk, and the lightning and thunder reverber- ating from every peak, hill, and building, in and around the glorious old city, were enchanting. It made one loyal to the bottom of one's heart, and the top of one's poetry — though it did not require making for the occasion — it was ready made." , . . " My letter has just been interrupted by a call from Dr Spirit of Hebrew Poetry. 44 1 John Brown, author of ' Rab and his Friends,' so I have seen one of the pleasantest looking men I ever did see. He says, too, that his father had known me, which I was obliged to confess myself old enough to forget ! Very unpolite, but I cannot help it. I often commit such mistakes now." These holiday times gave her more opportunity for reading than she had ever had before. The following explains her interest in Newcastle. " I have been reading till almost crazed with interest, the Life of George Stephenson. How many novels it is worth ! — the very best of them ! I do not remember being so absorbed since the days of the ' Scottish Chiefs.' " Then there is that clever old fashioned book, ' The Caxtons,' in which one of the leading characters so much resembles Mr Gilbert/ To her brother Isaac she writes — " My wish for several weeks has been to thank you for the pleasure I have enjoyed in reading your last volume, 'The Spirit of Hebrew Poetry,' — not exactly expressed in the title. It grows upon reading, and is as valuable as beautiful, and beautiful as valuable. It opens a new door of thought. If you really intended it to be a final production, you could not have finished more nobly." . . . " I received lately by post, without note or comment, a small volume entitled, ' Thoughts for the Heart, addressed to Women, by a Woman.'* Do you happen to know by whom? It is closely printed, and I have yet read not more than a third. The first part seems to have some queer crotchets about Adam and Eve, and Eden, but I fancy the object of the book is to establish as scripture truth the annihilation of the soul instead of eternal punishment. Several years ago I read White's volume on that subject, and thought it appeared a probable view, as this does also. Have you so far encountered the reasoning as to have a fixed opinion? On many grounds it seems to me both reasonable and scriptural. Human nature shrinks almost, if not quite as much, from non-existence as from suffering." * Since understood to have been written by Mrs Howard Ilinton. 44 2 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. To the question put, the only reply was the following — " I know nothing of the volume you mention. Many such are sent to me, which I acknowledge before reading them. Specula- tions are now rife of a sort that will greatly trouble the religious world, and lead to changes. But I must have done." When a Government pension was granted to her brother, she wrote : " It is a lasting satisfaction to think of such an acknowledge- ment to a life of no common labour and usefulness. Yes, you earned, shall we say, the first instalment against the parlour mantlepiece in Angel Lane.* How very wrong for a fee to be required in such circumstances. I wish Dickens would hoot it out of fashion." Some of the " sure sorrows of Time " descended upon 1 86 1. Early in that year Stanford Rivers lost its sweetest charm by the death of Mrs Isaac Taylor, and by mid- August Mrs Laurie had passed away. As rose leaves in a china jar, Breathe still of blooming seasons past, E'en so, old women as they are, Still doth the young affection last. These lines had been sent from " Ann to Anna " not long before. The latter was now living near Manchester, and Mrs Forbes and my mother being in Derbyshire this summer, went over to see her. The bright mind was failing, but looking up gaily into her friend's face, she said, " Yes, I used to call you Nanny," and then repeated with perfect memory five or six verses addressed to her by Ann in the early Colchester days. Less than a fort- night after, the shades of death closed softly round her. The day after Christmas-day 1861, my mother wrote a long letter to her brother : — "There are remembrances we can scarcely touch, sad thoughts which might cast their shadow, but once a year we try, if we * See page 121. Farewell to the Muse. 443 can, to evade them. . . . And I do feel it a great, I am disposed to think it, an uncommon privilege, to remain so long within a family circle which, whether near or distant, is, without excep- tion, a loving one, ' neither screw nor cratchel wrong.' Happily there has been no great Will case to disturb us, and we are not sorry for that ! Never yet has the wedge of gold made entry amongst us, or who knows how many screws would have been cracked by this time ! " At these Christmas gatherings, when now from twenty to thirty of sons and daughters, nephews, nieces, and grandchildren surrounded the hospitable board, my mother for several years enjoyed a little ceremony that came with dessert, when a casket of letters was brought in, these directed with her own hand, and each containing a few verses of wise and witty appropriateness, were distributed to the guests ; often they were so slyly appropriate as to set the table in a roar, in which the victim could always heartily join. They ceased with the Christmas of 1862, when the writer, then just eighty-one, thought it well to close the series, which she did with the following : — " Oh yes ! oh yes ! The Bellman said, Oh yes ! oh yes ! say I, Take notice that the muse is dead, Which this doth certify. " Long I've been knocking at her door, Long pulling at her bell, But what I thought kind looks before, Meant but a kind farewell ! " And if sometimes she threw me scraps, My craving hands to fill, 'Twere simple greed, to think, perhaps, She'd name me in her will ! u Then fare thee well, fair Patroness, In classic shades interred, Such loss, 'twere hopeless to express, Without thy helping word. " So know it all, both great and small, That ' Muse and Co.' have parted ; And sunk the slender capital With which poor ' Co. had started !" CHAPTER XIX. NOTTINGHAM. I862-I866. " Yes, eighty years ! They did not crawl, Xor, as we fancy, fly ; — They kept their pace with Time's foot-fall, And slid in silence by." Ann Gilbert. " Christiana, the bitter is before the sweet. Thou must through troubles, as did he that went before thee, enter this celestial city.'* Bunvan. " A STREAM of comfort has flowed up hill from the low- levels of Lavenham:" so wrote our dear mother as she looked back on the long course now nearly closed. " Giv- ing thanks always for all things " might have been her motto through life, and in the bright evening of her days thankfulness, amid some sore trials yet befalling her, was always on her lips. This grateful spirit illuminates every page of the letters now before me. In writing to her brother Isaac, who had remarked, inter alia, " my father was a man of talent, but my mother was a woman of genius," she says — " I rejoice in your full and warm acknowledgement of obliga- tion to our dear parents. When I reflect on their mutual disad- vantages, I wonder ! They extracted good out of much evil, — taught by contraries ; and I own most thankfully how much of any right views I have, is due to them. It is very nice to feel a stream of benefit flowing over us, so long and so widely, from that modest source. I do love and revere their memories." In similar strain she wrote the following — Trustfulness. 445 My father ! Well the name he bore, For never man was father more; Gentle but firm, his loving eye Looked with no grudge as by and bye His quiver filling to the brim, (St Malthus was no saint to him) Around his frugal table met Of Olive plants a goodly set. Shallow the soil, but little doubt Had he that heaven would eke it out, And by its blessing, timely showered, Bring to fair fruit what there had flowered, Nor any worthy good deny, To prayer, and faith, and industry. So 'twas with him ; — through many a day He and my mother toiled away, She fearing lest the cruse should dry, He drawing out with upward eye, And feeling that his prayer was said, When he had asked for daily bread, And owning that his prayer was heard, If daily answered that one word." " Petitions in detail," she wrote to her daughter, " I scarcely dare to offer, for I may just ask that which would not conduce to your happiness, and as God knows well that that is my object, I am thankful to leave the direction in His hands. I could mark out a course for you, my love, which would appear delightful, but I would rather not. ... I am rejoiced to see you able and willing to live usefully, which, as far as this life is concerned, is the real secret of happiness. Occupation, not only in fancy work, but in doing good both at home and abroad, fulfilling as a hireling your day, is the sweet smile worn by the original curse. "There is nothing in my own history for which I have felt more thankful than the sort of workboard life provided for me, almost from one end to the other. If Providence do for you, as successively it has done for me, — lift up a corner of the cur- tain, and say — ' Look here ! ' — I shall, I think, be willing, almost willing, to leave the rest ; or that, at the least, is the wisest way." This, the father's trustfulness, never forsook the daughter, and grew with years ; nor was she ever weary of pointing out the wonderful ways of Providence, and the often visibly happy result. Referring to an instance of the sort, she wrote — 44 6 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. " I compare it to walking up inside a church tower, so walled in that you could not miss your way, and yet so dark that you cannot see the steps ; but, oh, the prospect at the top ! " And so again — "A marvellous development of marvellous providences woven for many years behind a dark cloud." . . . "I felt sure that good was on the road, but the night was too dark to see, and the storm too loud to hear." Trust was strong, however dark the cloud — "He who deals the stroke can pour in such influences, sustain by such thoughts, and even bestow such calm unreasoning sub- mission, as shall almost seem like a quiet happiness — reposing under the ancient question, still held to by so many hearts, < Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right ? ' " But trust has other fields for its exercise — " It does me good to think, I at any time say a word in season, but I have great faith in truths; they are standing benefits, — never get mouldy or out of fashion, and for medicine I wish to give nothing else." "There are reasons sometimes for avoiding ecclesiastical col- lision, otherwise it is good occasionally to have one's recollections refreshed, or instructed as the case may be. Truth will take the throne it is heir to, and it is no discredit to any who may assist at the ceremony. All kinds of truth will come right in time." Yet, meanwhile, she would not omit clearly to express what she believed to be truth — considering, no doubt, that she did thereby " assist at the ceremony." She more than once quoted with satisfaction from a letter of her brother's his trenchant criticism upon a volume of Broad Church sermons, — "Very nice and silky, a swansdown Christianity; no such thing as Paul preached. Take my firm testimony that this flimsy stuff is not the Gospel. Let it be advertised as court-plaster 7~—— —"■-•" New Doctrines. 447 out Romanism is a better thing. But there will be a reaction ; you will see it in its time." And, again, his description of the theology of an American work, popular in England, to which she had drawn his attention — " German beer that has been carried twice across the Atlantic with the cork out." Of any new views which came before her, she seldom said much at the time, but, as in the following instance, her letters fre- quently showed that she had been pondering them : — " 1864. — It is not to be regretted that Mr thinks for himself, but one of his views disturbs me — the third class pas- sengers that he books for heaven — or rather for the portico, for I do not see any opening for them from the terminus — do you ? It is not the first time that the inquiry has been made. It was once put to One who could well have answered, but when it was asked, ' Are there few that shall be saved ? ' His only reply was, ' Strive to enter in at the strait gate, for strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it' It does look, if not like an answer, yet as much as to suggest that more than that is not needful, perhaps not desirable for us to know. And I could not help feeling that the easy inference from this new definite doctrine would be with very many, ' Oh, then, I need not mind so much, I shall do somehow after all.' It opens at least to such a conclusion. I only hope Mr will put the same question himself to Christ before he expresses his present views too largely. He explained his argument to me by the ' ninety-and-nine righteous who need no repentance.' Do you think that is anything but an illustration ? One thing pleased me, Mr said he always studied from the Greek Testament ; if so, he will come right in time.' With still lively interest she followed public events, in spite of her more than eighty years still keeping step with the century. She watched the struggles of both Italy and America as scenes in the great drama of Providence. Her view, indeed, of the contest in America, with her strong attachment to anti-slavery principles and liberal policy, was not what might have been expected ; but she was at this period a daily reader of the Times, 448 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. provided by a friend, and this may account for some colouring matter in her generally clear, and always honest, judgments. She was ever ready to be convinced. June 4, 1 86 1, she wrote : — " To-night, Dr Cheever, from New York, lectures in the Mechanics' Hall upon the American Crisis, and I mean to go to hear him, if I can get in. I should like to be set right, if he can do it." "June 7. — How very sorry I am to hear this morning of the death of Cavour ! It was posted in our market-place last night. Oh ! what a pity to lose calm wisdom at such a crisis — as much wanted as bravery. I think I told you that we were to hear Dr Cheever on Tuesday, and a treat it was. Such a voice I never heard, and he is a very interesting man. It was not on the American Crisis, except as it bears upon slavery, but his object is to awaken the country to the claim of the South to be recognised as an independent State. If this is done uncon- ditionally, slavery exists as before, and the only condition upon which it should be granted must be, that every slave born after that recognition should be declared free. I do hope the country will be unanimous in this requirement. He and Mrs Cheever very kindly called upon me — of course, as the sister of Jane Taylor — nobody suspecting that I am my own sister, too ! I asked if he knew the disposition of our Government on the subject. He said he knew only individually the opinions of some, which were the same as his own." " You have witnessed," she wrote to a friend, " the wonderful changes going on in Italy— poor down-trodden, uprising Italy! It has always appeared to me one of the most God-like expres- sions of the Divine nature to be so slow to work. If we had the power, should we not have made quick work of it? Not so He whose work it is. But when will eyes be open as well as limbs be free ?" "July 21, 1862. — What do you say to American news? I wonder whether the thought ever occurs to the North that the South has as much right to separate from them as they all had to separate from us ? — within my own memory too, for I distinctly recollect standing at the best parlour window in Red Lion Street, Holborn, to witness rejoicings on the proclamation of peace with America! and I think it was on the 23d of September 1783, Italy and America, 449 the day on which Aunt Jane was born, but this I do not sav on oath."* " All kinds of truth will come right in time," and so has the truth about the great American conflict. The com- ments of my mother upon the successive phases of it are only interesting as showing how difficult it was for con- temporary and distant observers to appreciate its charac- ter, and how general was the impression that prevailed in England irrespective of political party. Most of these comments occurred in furnishing reports of public affairs to her son and his wife abroad. Their yearly wanderings in the Dolomite regions of the Eastern Alps were to her a yearly source more of anxiety than pleasure. Light and active as she was herself, she had always a nervous horror of an edge or a height, and when, to the risks she pictured of Alpine travelling, were added those of unknown and distant mountains, it was as much as she could bear. " Now, don't tumble over precipices for the prettiest sight in the world, for then you will never see another," she urged. And when the first far flight was arranged, she wrote : — " Where you are going, I have no notion. I daresay it is somewhere not in the maps, or at least not christened when I learnt geography. I had much rather you were not going at all. It is a pleasure with so many slips and slides in it, that I should prefer to think of it as over, not to come. But write as often and as fully as you can, remembering that if you take ' slip and slide and gulf and rock/ I claim my share in — ' The Postman's knock.' " The fulfilment of this injunction led to the accumula- tion of a mass of material which afterwards formed the foundation of a volume published in 1864. She expressed her approbation of the book in a few terse terms of praise, but, like her father before her, strongly deprecated " a life of writing." " You have secured enough of literary credit to append to your watch-chain, and if you let that suffice * Peace was signed at Paris, September 3, 1 7S3. 2 F 450 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. it will be no small physical advantage. People die now of standing on their heads." Mountains did not suit her, but with ever young delight, she welcomed the home-landscapes of England. " There go the beautiful harvest waggons ! I do so enjoy to see them — picturesque, bountiful, and how merciful," she would exclaim in the middle of a letter. " It is exactly half a century since I first knew and began to love Ongar, little surmising the large part of my history to be written on its green pages." It was the real country seclusion there that made much of the charm ; and of Harpenden, not so rich in memories, but rich in trees and lanes, she writes — " Everything around is so beautiful — trees, flowers, hay- making in perfection, and every day a drive through the beautiful wriggles of the tree'd-up lanes. I do not know when I have enjoyed a country holiday so much." And this at eighty-two ! But she retained other sym- pathies also. " I met in the market this morning, — yes, dear S , -it was in the market I met him. Wasn't it nice ? For hereby I confess I do like the ' Market Place, Nottingham.' I like to go there for several reasons, one being that it always implies some- thing to be done, which is as you know a constitutional disease of mine, I believe inherited from both parents, whose revered names I do not wish to vilify. Again, and still more astonishing, there is something to me almost of poetry in a large scene of business ! The clatter of a factory has music in it, and suggests, if one does but listen with the right ear, not simply pounds, shillings, and pence ! Do give me credit for this if you can. Yesterday I chanced to meet your friend Mrs T., who broke out, much to my satisfaction, in praise of the town, the old town ! without a single caveat against the market-place, so that I felt quite thankful — under shelter as one may say. Yes, the good old town ! in which, strange to say, I have already spent very nearly half my long life ! " But this happy life was not to close without one more " J antes Montgomery" 451 bitter pang. " Fully ripe " as she seemed, she had yet to be made perfect through suffering. In the autumn of 1863, her youngest son, "James Montgomery," his name bearing testimony to an ancient friendship, began to show symptoms which, for a long time mysterious, declared themselves at last as a mortal and terrible disease. In him she had possessed a son of bright intellectual gifts, and who was all she wished in early piety and purity of mind and heart. A young wife and four children graced his pleasant home at Bowdon, in Cheshire. His long illness was a long anguish to those who loved him, and a few passages from her letters, following the melancholy dates, will suffice to show how his mother bore herself in this valley of the shadow of death. Aug. 17. — "It has been as much as I could do to wait for this morning's letters, and in order to bear the suspense, I, as it were, quench myself — put all my thoughts and feelings into a stupid oblivion as far as I can. Of course you think all sorts of thoughts. I cannot say more than repeat the injunction so timely, ' pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks." Sept. 11. — " So, dear children, our anxiety keeps alive, and I fear it has yet long to run. Oh, that our united prayers may be graciously answered ! This they will be, but how apt we are to feel — ' Yes, but let it be in our own way ! ' " Sept. 28. — "I cannot feel much cheered by the report this morning; — instead of immediate danger, I look forward to months, years, perhaps a life of disablement ! It is sent. We dare not complain. 'Can a living man complain?' We would at least try not, but to us it does seem mournful to see a young, active, useful, and promising life so stricken down ! However, that it is, and has been, a Christian life is an unspeakable con- solation. ' 'Tis but a speck, and we and they, the happy port shall gain,' and we do hope as well as pray for strength equal to the day of trial. Many are the mercies, great as many, by which its severity is mitigated. I have always looked upon the word friendless as almost the most bitter word in the language, but how far, dear child, is he from that ! " My heart is heavy. Do not say this at Bowdon. I will do as well as I can." 452 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. Oct. 22. "Very thankful were we this morning for your letter of faithful detail. Sad enough, but yet we all feel disposed to hope, and Oh, how thankful shall we feel if the result should justify the hope? We do endeavour to wait, to rest, to pray, and with as much patient submission as we can. It is a sorrow so unlooked for, that we cannot yet feel quite equal to it." She went to Bowdon, but at this time she began to be troubled with deafness, which she touchingly laments, now that she is continually in the sick-room. "Though constantly assured that he only says what it is neither needful nor interesting for me to hear — just to move his pillows, stir the fire, or such like, still I do not hear, and can only fall into the conviction that it is one of those uninteresting remarks ; and in the course of time, should time be allowed me, I shall, I hope, accept the inevitables of age as such, and there- fore to be borne patiently, as all trials should be." " December i. — For myself I am up and down continually. If I wake in the night I give him up almost entirely ; if I see him in the morning cheery and speaking with a natural voice and manner, I think — ' O, no certainly,' and so I waver. ... If the back is not quite fitted to the burden, how nearly and merci- fully is the burden to the back ! " "December 26. — It has not been such an anniversary as we would have chosen, not by many, such as we have enjoyed. Our Christmases have been allowed to slide, they have not been wrenched away, and sad as recollections might be, if we chose to indulge them, we are not compelled to feel only grief. I think the rattling of the arrival wheels (hitherto so musical to me) on Christmas Eve, is the thing which I miss nearly most ! What different lives we should lead if we would but take things by the minute — 60 of them would make many a pleasant hour for us." In January 1864 the end was near, and she regretted that, through his continued wandering, it had become too late to coaverse, as she would have wished, upon the great things from which the veil to him was soon to be lifted. " Something like a prepared expectation is desirable for even the most advanced Christian," she wrote, " we The Last Sorrow. 453 should have liked to see a bright sunset." She lived in lodgings at a little distance, and every night through the dreary winter moonlight of this month, her slight and silent figure, accompanied by son or daughter, passed to and from, the house of watching. On the night of the 16th a messenger presently followed her home, and told, with a tearful smile, that the " dear fellow was at last at rest." A few days afterwards she wrote to her friend, Mrs Forbes — " You know what sorrow means ; and if you had known more of my precious child you would know more of what ours must be. And yet for him we cannot mourn. A life of love and useful- ness, and now a home of eternal happiness, cannot be over- balanced by a few months of intense anguish, or weeks of sad unconsciousness. But you know for whom we must and do feel — dear M ! the sight of her and of the four dear children, all under six years old, is the bitterest of all. But for the widow and the fatherless there are such special consolations stored up, that seem to say — ' Yes, I know they are the greatest sorrows that you will have to bear, and here am I] ready to help accord- ing to the need ! " " He will lie in the beautiful churchyard here — beautiful from the fine old building, and the lovely view that it commands, and catching the light of every setting sun." " It has always seemed to me a mistake to deprive children of a sight and share in the last scenes. Dear tender Herbert especially, I feel as if he had been deprived of his birthright not to have had his hand in J s at that sad time. He should have attended as chief mourner, as, in fact, he must ultimately be, but everyone was against me, and I withdrew the suggestion. Instead of false and unhealthy influence I think that the real difference between soul and body might have been explained and impressed by it. He understands fully that ' dear papa is gone to heaven,' but before long it will render the churchyard a strange enigma, which will probably be explained to him by some one not wise in such explanations. He asked nurse if she had seen Jesus when He took dear papa away? and, under the circum- stances, she gave, I think, a very nice answer — ' No,' she said, * He was in the room, but I did not see Him.' " Some lines, written a few years previously, express the 454 Memorials of Mrs Gilbe}t. feeling to which she again gave utterance as she turned away from Bowdon Churchyard. Oh, the first night-fall on a precious grave, Remote, deserted e'en of those most dear ! No effort now the tender one to save ! No anxious wakeful fondness watching near!- But there the cold moon sleeps upon his bed, Dear child ! Just parted from our warm embrace ; And spring's first dews their chilly drops will shed Unheeded, on his lonely resting-place. Around the hearth, — returned again, convenes The wonted household, — saving one away ! Oh, the strange sadness of those altered scenes, That mute assembling, and the dark array ! Perhaps they listen to the falling rain, Perhaps they chide the starlit evening sky, — Brightness or gloom brings each its gush of pain, The throb of memory, and the brimming eye. For months afterwards expressions well up in her letters which show how the sorrow was working in her soul. " I feel the moonlight like a touching reminder, we used to depend on it so. . . . As far as we are right in calling any arrangement of Providence mysterious, I think we may regard this as such. But how do a very few years close such views ! " " It is not till God applies consolation Himself that it really reaches us. Affliction I believe does not effect its purpose till we take both it, and its consolations, as direct from Him." " Oh, those dear ones ! But God knows all about it, and He is the real Executor. ... If Providence lays down a line, we may be thankful for direction so far, and venture to travel with our little all upon it. To dear M I have neither spoken nor written ! The great sorrow has lived in our hearts in silence, but there it is ! " " Can trouble live with April days, Or sadness in the summer moons?" Yes, indeed, they may; but yet that sorrowing heart Glimpses of the Past. 455 could not be insensible to the touch of spring. She was suffering from a new infirmity in a troublesome lame- ness : — " My knee does not in the least improve, and now that spring says, ' just step out and shake hands with me,' I feel it the more trying. . . . But what right have I, in my eighty-third year, to wonder at anything, or to expect much improvement? The earthly house of this tabernacle must dissolve, and at present it is doing it gently." " One thing I am, or ought to be, very thankful for, that the rheumatism does not trouble me in the night. Very generally when a chronic rheumatism attacks old people, it makes its head- quarters between the blankets." Her dear old friend did not fail her in this stress, and arranged one journey after another as summer advanced, while she responded cheerfully to such efforts. Again they started for Scotland, this time by a different route : — " The new line was to me especially interesting, through so much of dear, green, smoky Yorkshire — just as I left it (railways excepted) almost fifty years ago ! I knew it by its tall red brick chimnies ; then its bordering meadows — with bright streams twisting about like the border of a carpet — and fenced in by noble shoulders of wood, rich in foliage. It was beautiful in the present, and touchingly eloquent of the past, saying many things to me that other people could not hear ! " To be deaf and lame, since my last visit to Edinburgh, is not an improvement, but how much worse it might have been ! On Sunday morning M and I heard Dr Candlish ; that is, she heard, and I saw him — a short man, with broad shoulders and a head large enough for his diploma. But O, such nervous varieties ! If I were his wife, I would make his waistcoat and his gown fit better — they were never doing their duty to his satis- faction." Returned from Scotland, she was presently tempted away — a device of affection — to visit, of all places, Ilfra- combe again ! Resting at Harpenden on the way, she glories in " the summer moons." 456 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. " The lanes, the fields, the woods, so beautiful that it is a treat, go which way we will, and an early tea, leaves us a pleasant evening till dark — and the harvest is magnificent. It is wonder- ful to see the sickles at work on one side the hedge, and the steam-engine on the other, threshing away into sacks, in total neglect of either barn or stack ! It will soon be, I should think, a plough at one end, and a loaf at the other ! " August 29, Lynnmouth. — "For how many ages has 'good news from a far country ' been held as a blessing ? We have been trundling about for some days, and at last are here. A beautiful drive, and beautiful weather, but O such a road ! You might as well drive down a corkscrew ! At last we left the carriage and luggage to fend for themselves, and accomplished the last few twirls on foot. On the 1st of October 1812, I slept at Barnstaple before, and now, 1864, I slept there again ! How large and full a life has passed in that interval ! A letter from J . He and Churchill took a walk of twenty-five miles with a girl of seventeen as porter ; she bore it well till the last hour, and then said — ' Well, we must laugh while we can, and cry when we must.' A remark well worth remembering. " Exactly opposite to our windows here, hanging like a strip of yellow ribband from the summit of a fine wooded hill, is the coach road to Minehead, and the two lamps of the coach we see sparkling down at nine every evening. It is now nearly sixty- three years since, early one fine morning in May, Isaac, and Jane, and I, with a man, and our luggage carried on a pack-horse, walked over the bridge to climb that hill, from the top of which we could just descry on the hill beyond, the chaise, like a speck of gold, which we had ordered to meet us from Minehead. There was no coach then, and that any coach now should venture, in either dark or daylight, down the fearful hill, on which we trace it nightly, is scarcely credible, but seeing is believing. " At Lynton, where we lunched, my object was to realise old recollections, but it was difficult. We found ourselves in a long handsome hotel, wholly different from the small white house with bay windows on each side. I was determined, however, to make it out if I could, and walking nearly the length of the premises I did find the veritable spot, known by its old- fashioned windows, now, alas ! converted into a coach-house. You cannot think (though perhaps you can) how much I enjoyed these reminiscences." September 14, Ilfracombe- — . . . " It is so altered that I Again at Ilfracombe* 457 recognise scarcely anything but the sea, the rocks, and the Cap- stan Hill. Houses, terraces, everything, new since we left it ; the old chapel pulled down, and two new ones built. By chance, however, we drove to the Britannia, the inn where your father stayed during his short visit. And I have sought out our veritable house on the Quay. Several houses looked like it, and I went into one, but though like, it was not it ; so seeing an old man who might, I thought, have known it fifty years ago, I made up to him, found he had lived all his life there, remem- bered Mrs Blackmore's, to which he took me, and to be sure there was the veritable room — its two windows, fireplace, and closet, like enough to be sworn to, together with our back bed- room, and uncle's small one in front — all to the life ! And I have now a correct photograph of the Quay, gave a shilling to the good woman, and sixpence to the old man, and so feel my- self cheaply satisfied." "And I did get too an introduction to one of the young women known to us through Mr Gunn, and sure enough she was identified by a smile of welcome recognition as soon as she found who I was. She replied to questions respecting us from J and C with amusing correctness, even to the dresses we wore. A nice old creature we all thought her. She and one sister are in lodgings together, the church paying their rent, and I had the pleasure of slipping something into her hand as I left." So summer and autumn wore away, and after a visit to the dear Essex homes, she returned for the winter to College Hill, whence she wrote : — " I did not like leaving you, however thankful that I had been spared to see homes and faces so dear once more, though with every year increasing probabilities against another such enjoyment. But this I desire to leave, 'meet for the inherit- ance,' being the only suitable thought." Her brother Isaac and herself in these last years ex- changed several loving little greetings. Thus he wrote : — " It should not be so, my dear sister, and I often feel it, that our correspondence should be so infrequent as it is — we travel- ling on so far toward the end of a long journey ! But you know that penny post has ended the dispensation of letters, bringing in 45 8 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. the dispensation of scores of notes, each as brief as Saxon may make it. The locust swarm of scraps in an envelope, has eaten up almost every green thing in the fields and gardens of soul- land. This is what we have come to under Whig adminis- tration !" He asked at this time for her photograph, which had been applied for by a friend in America, and added : — " You are in high regard throughout the Northern States. In truth, my dear sister, it is true of each of us, that for one reader in England we have ten or twenty in America. Among all sorts of regrets in looking back through years past, we may be thank- ful thus far that we have not been allowed to spend seventy or eighty years in filling cabinets with coins, moths, botanic samples. Something has been done which has gone far, and already effected good. Something which may speak when we are gone. Nothing to be proud of, something to be thankful for. Is it not $0?" She took leave of the year in a letter to Stanford Rivers : — "My Dear Brother, —for I conclude the last time, till 1864 has done its duty ! It will ever be to both of us a year of sorrowful memories.* I trust that to the two deepest sufferers real and enduring consolation will be afforded. The best of all consolations came with the stroke, one that will increase in com- fort as life proceeds, and end at last in undying satisfaction. . . " Dr M writes to me that ' Twinkle, twinkle, little star,' has been translated well into both Greek and Latin. How little did such a possibility enter Jane's head in writing it ! We have had really cold weather, but I have been able to brave the outer world better than might have been. I have felt also much re- lieved in walking — quite able to walk from Harden Ash to Stanford Rivers without inconvenience, and to say so at eighty- three, is it not a mercy ? " I form no plans ; for me a plan was formed in January 1782, which I have learned to trust to." To this, in the beginning of the year 1865 (his last of life), came the following reply from Isaac Taylor : — * His eldest daughter had become a widow in the course of it. Last Illness of Isaac Taylor. 459 " So it is, my dear sister, that I have now two of your loving letters in hand, unacknowledged ; true, also, that I have an envelope directed to College Hill, which has been a fortnight or more in readiness for a note to be written the first open moment; true, also, that such moments are rare, except at the end of a morning when any more work would do me harm. . . It is ground of thankfulness to each of us that we are spared so long, held up in body and mind, so as to be serviceable to those dear to us, and not a burden — this is indeed a mercy ; able to comfort, and perhaps to help and advise as parents, not able or wishing to do as heretofore what our children can much better do than we can. And so it is, as we may say, that gently, and step by step, we recede descendingly from our places, and at the same time have more or less of space granted to us to call in our thoughts as to the past, and to muse upon the future." Some little time before, he had written : — " My answer very lately to a kind invitation was this, — Who- ever asks me must invite me and my infirmities, which invitation includes more than it did twelve months ago. So it is, my dear sister, that the pins are taking out, and screw heads losing their hold. I distinctly know this, and think of it daily — hourly." She in similar strain replies to him : — " You and I my dear brother are each under a certainly fatal disease. At present I am mercifully spared severe indications, though much in advance of you as to time. May we both be found maturing for the inheritance. I seem to have been very long under treatment, with how little benefit ! To her old friend, Mrs Cowie, she sends a message — " Tell her I can now better sympathise with her deafness than when I last saw her. It is like living in a house with the blinds always down ; so cut off from the world we have lived in. . . . But spring seems a new thing, old as it is, it never comes amiss." Yet spring was bringing sorrow. The accounts from Stanford Rivers grew worse. In April her brother wrote that he was "only just crawling about." In May she herself had not any hope of him. But trouble fell upon a calm spirit 45o Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. now, she had entered into that blessed condition of which her brother, in a recent Christmas letter, had spoken — " Happy are those whose habits of thought are such as to make the blending of the sorrowful and the joyous an easy and natural process — a harmony of the soul in which the sorrowful is joyous, and the joyous, if not sorrowful, yet thereto tending, and nearly allied." She was dwelling in " the pleasant land of Beulah where the sun shineth night and day;" and so when at last the news came that, on the 28th of June, sitting upon his couch, in the room that had been his first, and after a long interval his latest, study at Stanford Rivers, her brother had breathed his last,* she only wrote — " How can we mourn ? There is no further suffering, there is no more death, neither crying nor tears. What a life ! laborious, anxious, but loving and useful how far beyond most ! May we, as far as equal to the lesson, 'follow those who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises.' And again — ' Where is the room for bitter grief?' My dear James, and my dear brother, one mysteriously early, the other venerably late, have been taken, but infinitely happy for them ! " " Yes, so it is," she wrote to another friend — " So— ' One by one I see the dearest die ; Father and mother half-a-century gone, No features of past time to gaze upon.' It is a tax always paid by eighty and ninety for the boon of survivance." Again, her old friend gave herself sedulously to provide change of scene, and this time bethought herself of Laven- ham and Colchester. The experience of Ilfracombe had shown that nothing gave her companion so much pleasure as revisiting old scenes. They travelled leisurely the sixty * True to his father's memory, her brother's constant companion during the months of his last illness was the hymn book, the purchase of which had led to his father's early rising, and out of which he had daily sung his morning hymn. LavenJiam for the last time. 461 miles from London by carriage. At Colchester — my mother writing to her sister, lamented — " you know what it is now; almost every house new fronted, so that just set down in the midst, I could not have said where I was." But at Lavenham it was different. " Well, by six o'clock on Thursday evening, we drove into dear quaint old Lavenham, called in passing at Mr Meeking's to enquire about the ' Swan/ drove there and found we could all four be accommodated. It is where, in the olden time, stylish assemblies used to be held, and Jane and I learned to dance. Then after tea, to lose no time, I set off down Water Street, on to the Common, up Shilling Street, and happily gained a friendly admittance to both houses, and gardens. The next morning the horses wcie put to, and under my direction the coachman com- menced a slow drive, down Water Street, the Common, and to both houses again. It was most kind of Mrs Forbes to contrive such a treat for me, but her interest and sympathy almost rival my own, so that it is a real pleasure to say — ' Look here, or look there ! ' The lady who lived in our first house told us that an old man, still living, when he saw Uncle Isaac's death in the paper, said, 'why, he was born in that house.'" . . . All sorts of recollections crowded upon her, and amongst them, this — "A farthing a week each was granted to Jane and me as weekly allowance, early at Lavenham, and ot this we were at liberty to dispose as we thought proper. Sometimes when it happened that two farthings were not at hand, we had to divide a halfpenny, always in that case taking it over to the variously diversified shop 462 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. of our friend Mr Meeking, by whom it was exchanged for the smaller coin, and then having each possessed herself of her private share, it was not seldom laid out again in a farthing cake for each. Once, I remember buying a farthing's worth of pins at Michael- mas to be in readiness for dressing our dolls at Christmas. You know I always like to be in time ! " A visit to Hoddesdon, where her only surviving brother, Martin, lived, concluded a round among the southern homes. " He was himself to a nicety," she declared, and spoke of this meeting as one of the happiest days of her long life. Then, before the autumn was over, there was Edinburgh again, where the effects of a fall, detained her some time. " But," she wrote, " what a feast it is ! Everything grand or beautiful to see, and everything his- toric to give it interest." You cannot think how often the dear old family feeling comes over me for a moment — " dear me ! we ought to tell papa and mamma ! " — u But say ; has no ' Physical Theory ' been wrought, By which happy spirits, still nigh, but unseen, May listen, and learn in the stillness of thought, Of the homes and the hearts, where those histories have been?" And now, the last of the long roll of years had come; be- fore the close of 1866 she had joined the blessed com- pany, " so thickly gathered in " during these latter days. January the 30th, her last birth-day, she was eighty-four. " Oh what a length of mercy," was entered in her diary. All her family assembled to spend the evening with her, and there was little perceptible failing, except from the deafness, peculiarly trying to one who took so bright an interest in every passing matter, but which she bore with perfect patience. " But, dear Aunt Mary, my deafness does not improve. I do not expect that at my age it will, and it gives me a sort of isolation, not pleasant to sustain. The daily interests of life are small matters, not absorbingly great things, and these are lost to the deaf — things too small to repeat, yet leaving a gap of silence between them, and the running interests of the day." In the summer she visited, for the last time, Ongar and A Last Interview. 463 Stanford Rivers, and drew up an inscription for her brother's grave in the sequestered churchyard of the latter. In July she explored the Lake scenery for the first and only time, " Magnificent and beautiful at every turn," she described it, " do not trouble yourselves, whoever you may be, to go out of England till you have been to the Lakes. It is a shame to risk half-a-dozen necks in Swit- zerland while this is unexplored." Later in the year, at the conclusion of the " seven weeks' war," she wrote to her son abroad — " I am enough of a politician to rejoice in the present unwonted condition of Europe. Will it continue ? Is it an approach to millennial blessedness? Prussia gives a noble programme of her constitutional changes, and you, I conclude, will all but hear the grasp, as Austria and Italy shake hands." Almost all her family were abroad at this time, and she, though staying with her friend, felt alone in England. Just in the midst of it some slight but significant attacks of a paralytic nature made her anxious for the return of all dear to her, but she would not allow " a shade to be cast over the holidays," by communicating what had oc- curred, and she appeared presently to regain her usual health. It happened, however, that the severe inundations of North Italy that year, delayed not only the travellers but correspondence, and she suffered an anxiety the acuteness of which was not understood till afterwards, when joy, relief, thankfulness burst from her heart and lips. Going to Denmark Hill after my return, I saw her, as soon as the hospitable door was opened, standing alone in the middle of the wide, well lighted hall — the slight figure, the pale tender countenance — watching intently the opening door for the arrival she was expecting. It is my last vivid impression of her, alive and conscious. She returned to College Hill and wrote cheerfully, yet with frequent reference to what had occurred. " October 29. — At present I do not feel that to resign all home duties would be a relief to me ; habits of ancient date could not be broken without feeling the rupture. I am thankful that I am not disabled; the time cannot be very distant, I do feel 464 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. that, and earnestly hope to stand prepared for the change. The more than hint conveyed by my late queer illness, could not, and ought not to be misunderstood. . . . The last few months have given me many lessons, may they well accomplish their mission ! but we all forget too much the solemn, yet certain future." In December she wrote, explaining a longer silence than usual — • " It is long since I wrote to you, yet I have been, I might almost say, writing ever since. You cannot think what a green sprig of laurel has lately sprung over my grey hairs, for it has been with no small surprise that I am heard of as still without a monument ! . . . . " You remember that in May last, there was a discussion in the 'Athenaeum' on my poem, 'My Mother,' which surprised everybody as an announcement and advertisement — (or producing one from me) of my continued existence, so that the Post-Office has gained all but a revenue from letters addressed to me, which kindly com- plimentary as they are, I have, of course, had to answer. Some ask for, '"My Mother" in your hand;' some, 'your veritable autograph;' some, — but I need not go on. Several want to know whether there is an engraved portrait of me in existence, for they have enquired in vain (certainly). . . ' " So you write still ! I could wish you were more like a gentleman of fortune, but if launched in the ink- bottle I am afraid of your being connected with the female part of that family — misfortune ! for will your health stand it long ? It is with reluctance that I give up the Christmas party. I have long delighted in it. The last fell on a Sunday, most happily obliterating the recollection, and I cannot say that I wish it restored. O, the changes that time and Providence make!" She was always cheerful, but the following lines from a poem, addressed to her now only surviving brother Martin, suggest the thoughts of her heart. I breathed a sigh that spake of tears At thought of life's departing years ! " Ready to Depart." 465 Well ! Speed they must, but O, to stand Equipped for that near — distant land ! My soul stands trembling but to think Of that unseen, that awful brink, And for herself, and all, she prays — " Lord search our thoughts, and try our ways, And see in that vain world within, Or errors blight, or hidden sin." 2 G CHAPTER XX. THE END. 1866. " Now when they were come up to the gate, there was written over it in letters of gold, — ' Blessed are they that do his command- ments, that they may have right to the Tree of Life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.' " — Bunyan. About a week before the end, my mother received one of those little leaflets which some are in the habit of en- closing in their letters. She had been reading it to her- self, and then, evidently touched with its appropriateness, brought it to her daughters, saying, " I rather like this." It contained these two verses, the full significance of which a few more days revealed : — The way is long, my Father ! and my soul Longs for the rest and quiet of the goal ; While yet I journey through this weary land, Keep me from wandering. Father ! take my hand, Quickly and straight Lead to heaven's gate Thy child. The way is long, my child ! but it shall be Not one step longer than is best for thee ; And thou shalt know, at last, when thou shalt stand Close to the gate, how I did take thy hand, And quick and straight Lead to heaven's gate My child. On Sunday, December 16, she did not feel very well, and remained at home all day. In the evening one of her daughters read from Raleigh's "Quiet Resting Places" the sermon that came in course, that noble one, the The Last Letter. 467 "Kingdom and the Keys," and my mother, leaning for- ward, listened intently to the words of peace : — "Fear not for thyself. I will console thee in trouble, strengthen thee for duty, open a way for thee amidst life's perplexities, pitch thy tent in safe places, and be around thy tabernacle with my sheltering presence until it is taken down, and thou art called to the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Thy path may seem rugged and cheerless ; but it is open and onward ; and I will pass with thee myself along all its length, nor leave thee in the shades which hang over its close. I will be with thee in the dark valley to support thy trembling steps, with my rod and staff; I will softly unlock the awful door, and usher thee into Hades, where a thousand sights of beauty will fill thy delighted eye, and a thousand voices of welcome will hail thy coming." On Monday she said, with a bright smile, " I am quite well again," and in the evening wrote her last letter. To serve all who fell in her way had been her constant prac- tice, and this last effort of her pen was to me in behalf of a young lady who desired by copying pictures to do some- thing for a livelihood. " I always feel for such cases," she said. From other portions of this now precious letter I quote a few passages : — "December 17. — My very dear J , I believe that I told you how much I was engaged in writing to my complimentary correspondents, so as to occupy all the time allowed for writing. Happily this demand was completed on Friday last, and I now am allowed to feel that I have a family. Many things I know I had to say, though how many I may now recollect I cannot be sure of, for my memory — oh, you do not know what a vagabond it is ! . . . . " I had so very poor a night on Saturday, that yesterday I was unable to go out at all — so much disabled ; but, though with much apprehension, I enjoyed a delightful night after it — not once conscious till this morning. Oh, what a merciful mercy sleep is ! and for how many years did I enjoy it, I fear with scarcely a sense of it, except as just going to bed — and who feels they have to be thankful for that ? . . . I cannot say that, 468 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. bereft as we now are, I regret your absence at Christmas, though I should be very sorry to lose a family meeting entirely, so am thankful to have been born as early as January 30, which affords a reason for meeting then. ... I am summoned to reading down stairs, and wish I had anything to say just now, in order to use the ink in my pen (which you see I had not), but I never waste any if I can help it. ... I have reached the end of both time and subject, so now, dear child, one more good-bye from your affectionate old mother, Ann Gilbert." That evening she wrote up her diary, settled her accounts to a halfpenny, as she delighted to do, and then took up her reading of Froude's history, in which she was greatly interested. She was very cheerful that night, and in no melancholy tone, looking round the room, said to her two daughters : " I should like to think of you, dears, as remaining here with all these things about you after I am gone. I wonder how it could be managed." Before supper, according to lifelong custom, she retired for her sacred half hour of private devotion, her last utterance, in this world, of " praise and prayer." On going to bed, one of her daughters assisted in arranging her silver hair, as had been needful ever since the accident at Edin- burgh, which had injured one arm. Her mother kissed her, saying "that's for thank you," and then a second time, with " that's for good night." I was reading my mother's letter the following day, when a boy passed the window, and a telegraphic message was brought in — " Mrs Gilbert very ill. come directly." That morning she had seemed to be sleeping soundly at her usual hour for rising, and she was left therefore undis- turbed. Time went on, and still she slept, breathing calmly. At ten o'clock an attempt was made to rouse her; but no loving voice could reach her — no passionate appeal ; still she slept ! Every doctor was out on his rounds, help was long delayed, and when, one after an- other, they came in haste, still nothing availed to break the slumber. By evening, all her children had come from their several homes, but the arriving wheels brought no " Buried in Peace!' 469 throb to her heart. They gathered round her, and still, still, she slept ! So it went on. It had been thought that in the course of the following day, Wednesday, she might, perhaps, wake naturally, and that this should be without shock of any kind, those about her were advised not to disturb her with speaking. Once she seemed to notice a remark uttered louder than was intended, and once, as I touched her hand — that honest and good hand ! she grasped mine firmly in return. She even took a little food, but never opened her eyes upon those who gave it. By the evening all hope was gone. The breathing became quick and heavy, and towards morning gradually subsided. Her six surviving children stood round her bed, and just as the neighbouring convent bell sounded for matins at dawn in the winter morning, December 20, a single sigh closed the long life. O tender and most loving mother! the cold daylight opened upon a forlorn world to us her children, but she had been taken — Quick and straight To Heaven's gate. All sadly fell our Christmas Eve, and on the day of happy festival the house was dark and silent, for our mother lay dead in her chamber. On the 27th she was carried to the grave that fourteen years before had received her husband. In addition to the lines quoted on the first page of this work, there was inscribed over her remains — " In Psalms and Hymns and spiritual songs," " She being dead yet speaketh." In her will, she disposed of her little property, chiefly copyrights which are now extinct, with " a poor mother's love," and the last words of it were — " May you share largely, and for ever, in an enduring inheritance. See that ye fail not of the grace of God ; to His everlasting love I commend you." The one life has been twined with other lives, for the family bond woven at Lavenham and Colchester was a 47 o Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. very strong one. They are now all at rest save one. The father and mother, with their daughter Jane, " the first to die, the first to live," lie at Ongar, but their graves have been enclosed within the enlarged buildings of the chapel ; the vestry floor is above them, and close to the honoured dust, the children of the Sunday school, so dear to them in life, assemble. It is no desecration. At Stanford Rivers, in a churchyard surrounded by trees, and in the midst of the fields, rest Isaac Taylor and his wife, with two daughters who preceded them, " waiting for the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." " My only claim," said Isaac Taylor in his humility, "is that I am one of those who love His appearing." Across the sweet valley of the Roding, amidst the woods, is the se- cluded Church of Navestock ; the bells of Stanford and Navestock " answer each other through the mist." There, close to the church porch, lie Martin Taylor and his wife. Jefferys is buried at St. Peter's, near Broadstairs. To Ann Gilbert and her husband, the general Cemetery at Nottingham affords no such quiet resting-place ; but it is on the scene of his twenty-five years of faithful ministry, and in the midst of the old town she loved. " I have been dwelling on enchanted ground, Looking on thee, and dreaming of the past ; A spell of shrouded faces, and lost sound Thou hast around me cast." APPENDIX THE PRISONER INFIDEL. Mrs Gilbert sometimes regretted that she had not revised and re- arranged this poem, so as to fit it for publication. No more is now attempted than to give selections, which will show its character and scope. Opening with a doleful picture of the prisoner for unbelief, who cries — " At sound of lock, and bolt, and bar, These Christian arguments, how strong they are ! " she dwells upon the absolute immunity of religious, or irreligious be- lief from human authority. A brief quotation from this portion of the poem has been given in the text, — " But still opinion is man's freehold ground, s Belief by chain of law was never bound," &c Nor would, she urges, religion suffer from this freedom, for " who," she exclaims — Who the living truth shall long withstand? Who, in the face of common sense aver That man were better, if deprived of her ? Nor take some lonely hermit for your test, But see such truth extend from breast to breast ; Courts with their councils, cities with their wealth, Towns with their business, hamlets with their health, Men of all classes, characters, pursuits, Thus bringing forth Religion's native fruits ; Miss not a grace that Scripture doth enforce, Nor add one virtue drawn from other source ; Let the twelfth chapter of the " Romans " stand For common law and statute of the land, Not a dead letter, but a living code, The rule of shop and market, field and road, 472 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. So as in figure did the seer foretell — " Holiness written on the horse's bell." We ask no fetters for such Truth to plead, She stands alone, and scorns the broken reed : Ye who cry — " murder ! help ! " to human laws, Thus live, thus love, and fear not for your cause ! From the next section of the poem, a personal appeal to the soli- tary atheist soul, a quotation has also been given. One or two more may be added. Yes, when I view thee as a brother born My pity melts and mourns thee, most forlorn ! Yes, blood for blood the same, we own thee man, Created brethren when the race began, All nature's sympathies, in each the same, One mortal fabric, one immortal frame, Up from the moment when we lay at rest Infants and helpless on a mother's breast, Thro' life's ten thousand changes, till we thread The great enigma, known but to the dead ! Then why this dissonance ? — This breach immense ? Spirit with spirit has like exigence, In fear, in hope, in destiny allied — Brother ! this gulf ! whence comes it ? deep and wide ? Dwelling on the common sense of need, and of dependence, she asks — O why this strange discordance ! Light my way To that dark path that led thee thus astray — and endeavours to trace the circumstances or the reasonings that have led the Atheist to — This thy sole hope, — that hope will soon be gone ! Then follows an appeal to the happier and purer intuitions of youth. Call back that hour when thought was glad and young, When skies, and stars, and woods, and silent plains Shot thrilling voices thro' thy answering veins, And whispers met thee on the mountain wind, Fraught with high meanings to thy opening mind ; Did then the thought come o'er thee to refuse A boundless scope, and bind thy dusty views The Living Creed. 47 Down to an atom ? When thou wouldst have flown Athirst, attracted towards a Great Unknown, Did Nature frown thee backward, and aver The yearnings of thy soul were not from her ? O tell me not, that nature, feeling, thought — Fair virtue's instinct, — in thy bosom wrought This change from hope to gloom, from sky to clod, From life to death, — to idiot chance, from God ! Some spot with green grass covered, does it hold Nothing thou lovest in its bosom cold ? O if thou art a brother, art a man, Thou must have known, consoling as it ran Thro' thy heart's wounds, with healing in its scope, The sovereign virtue of immortal hope ! And whence the cry of nature in her need Of joy or anguish? Whence this living creed Wrought in thy bosom as a finer sense, And quick to spring in deepest exigence ? Spontaneous growth of innermost distress, Spontaneous now of grateful happiness, Spontaneous striving of our beings bent, To seek, to find, the One Omnipotent ! Where else appears a craving unsupplied ? For meaner thirst breaks out the sparkling tide, For gasping lungs expands the vital air, For mental taste, the beautiful and fair, For the heart's loneliness, around, above, The exquisite varieties of Love ! The Being whose thou art Hath stamped His conscious presence in thine heart.. Given thee the clue, inwoven with thy frame By which to track, and trace, and find his name ; And placed a guard of strong emotions near, To pour th' incessant wisdom on thine ear. After a picture of the social disorganisation of an Atheist world, she anticipates the retort — "But these,'' exclaims the Infidel. " are crimes Of Christian countries, and religious times, Point out enormities that are not found To stalk or creep on consecrated ground ; 474 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. The Holy office, with St Peter's keys, And * kings by grace of God ' can wink at these. A world of infidels has yet to be, Why call them fruits then of an Atheist tree ? " Yes, infidelity is yet unknown As legal occupier of the throne ; Laws, titles, seemings, compliments, and names, With decent look, allow to God His claims ; But while in heart denied him, all the fruit Springs black and cankered from this evil root. Hearts may be atheist, where the man is drest In God's own livery, with the cross His crest ; And deeds like these are ever streams that flow Forth from a spring of atheist thought below. Give unobstructed passage to the wave, And peace and virtue find a common grave. I know thy boast, that thus it needs not be, The wary atheist dares not so be free ; Tho' safe from dread of future ill severe, Yet nature holds her child in wholesome fear, Her laws avenging wisely all offence, And chiming in with happiness and sense. If any venture from her laws to stray She rolls the rock of fate athwart his way, And in her blindness, blest with vision keen, Crushes that rebel 'neath her vast machine. Good, good, my friend ! for more I scarcely ask, It saves my labouring logic half her task, Mark how our God and all His works agree, His word but well interprets things we see, No arbitrary rule His laws impose, ;Tis truth and fitness for the frame he knows, And lest our heedless passions miss the way, He sets His beacon where we else might stray. Had there been strange discordances to blend, Had God and nature each a different end, — Spoke languages that had no common root, — It might have opened passage for dispute. After admitting exceptions in the " Few calm souls with honey in their blood," and the " few beside of philosophic mould," she asks for a creed- Not picked to please and fit, a one in ten, Or in ten thousand, but for common men ; A Faith for the World. 475 A faith that holds for better or for worse, Dull labour's solace, and affliction's nurse ; A bond that girds the young, supports in age, With power the master passions to engage ; And where but in the Bible shall we find A scheme thus ample as the human kind ? Look with calm eye, the lucid story read, Tis no inexplicable depth of creed ! Beheld aright, the reasoner dare not carp, It breaks in music from th' angelic harp, Pealing one song from earth and heaven above, " O height, and depth, and breadth, and length, of Love ! " In dealing explicitly with the Atheist argument, she first points out the distinctive character of nature's work and means, and their adaptation to the human function, as suggestive of an intelligent adapter. 'Tis odd, for instance, in her ample range, Wide, various, full, she never dreams of change. From one fixed line no power can make her stir, She'll trench no more on man, than he on her ! 'Tis wonder she confines her cunning art To things where he, with all his boasts, must pause, Helps him so far, then slips behind her laws ! 'Tis not more difficult to rear a shed, Than weave upon its walls the ivy's thread, And wherefore never, or in work or play, Doth nature exercise herself that way ? She might, one would suppose, to prove her skill, Just now and then erect a house, a mill, Or leave a watch in blossom on some bush, To show what she can manage at a push. But no, — no never, — since the world began, She frames the stuff, but leaves the work to man ; He for the raw material must defer With humble, hopeless impotence to her, But where his wisdom can the rest fulfil, She keeps her ground, and leaves him to his skill. So nice a bargain, one would think, should show Some drawn agreement marked, where each should go ; Tho' ages would suffice not to intrigue The million articles of that great league. Sure neither chance nor fate could fit to man The very dovetails of this curious plan ! And though to such conclusion one were loth, There seems at least some power beyond them both, Some " Great first cause," benevolent as wise, Who warp and woof of this great scene supplies. 476 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert. Then follow sketches of five or six theories to which great philoso- phic names — ancient and modern — might be attached. Yes, it is only motion ! Good, my friend, Thou really then hast reached thy journey's end ! Motion, with matter, are the clear beginning (Save some odd push or so, to set them spinning, Just not worth mentioning). Beyond a doubt They need no God who do so well without. I only wish they'd let me peep to see How such amazing miracles can be. Man with his powers of intellect, refined, The vast resources of reflecting mind, Has not the skill with every art he knows To frame the humblest blade of grass that grows ; Much less his incantations hope to raise The clod of being to its vital blaze ; Yet (so at least by sages we've been taught), Matter is but the stepping stone to thought ! 'Tis monstrous mortifying to be beat By blind brute substance, in so wise a feat. Yet, if 'tis so, why then, with one consent, Let us urge on the rare experiment ; Some process yet to learn may give the clue, And make the creature man, creator too, Till, in the march of science, we may hope To form both molecule and microscope. May we ? — I do not — but I think we might, If only the hypothesis were right. But now to business, — bring thy tools and try, Mechanics press to serve, and chemistry, The task commence with philosophic zeal, Galvanic pile, and multiplying wheel ; Beat well about thee, — drive poor matter on Till its old vis i?iertice be gone ; Something will come, if not a perfect thing, At least a rudiment, some leg or wing, If but a feather, or a film come o'er, " Thankful for little," looks we know, for more. And who in this dark state of things can tell What forms may linger in thy crucible ? Well, I'll reduce my challenge to a straw, And all I ask is just to see the law : Have perfect proof that this one simple thing From such or such a power did solely spring. I'll not be told that atoms in their glee Kicked up a rout, and so it came to be ; But if they do it dancing, I'll be there, And see as well as thou, — it is but fair. Matter and Motion. 477 Believe a thing I've neither seen nor heard ! Nay, — leave to Christians to be so absurd. 'Tis true the wits have differed now and then About that puzzling job, the making men ; How first they came, and more, as there were two, Both male and female, — twice the work to do ! However, each accounted for should be, And that by them, and therefore let us see. Some think, that on the ocean rose a scum, Of course at first insensate, deaf and dumb But after age on age had rolled along, It grew so thick, attenuate, and strong, That, there's the point it seems so hard to drive, But somehow it began to be alive ! Well, 'twas at first mere life, an abstract thing ; Then grew, perchance an ear, perchance a wing, — Or fin more likely, for they seem to wish To prove this miracle at first a fish. And fish it might be. but it did not stay Above some centuries, less or more, they say, Before its slumbering energies began To push this way and that, to make a man. Nobody saw it, — that of course we know, But no one can deny it then, if so ; And thus 'tis fairly proved, since none refute, That man emerged from this amphibious brute. Still there's the question, whence the woman springs But — never mind — we'll talk of other things. And yet 'tis odd that products each so rare, Should thus be timed so nicely as they were. If no design, as million ages rolled, Watched the slow germ, and bade its powers unfold, But so it happened) that to life it grew. What strange coincidence produced the two ? Methinks our worthy grandsire had been dead Before his finny mate had shown her head, If wild fortuity alone had wrought The finished product, up to life and thought That simultaneously they sprang to birth, Appears the luckiest accident on earth. But some then think, that floating in the skies, Or on the earth, or else some other wise, Were ever living filaments, that strayed This way and that, as favouring zephyrs played ; 47 8 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert, Threads, finer, thinner, than — we know not what, But when to some entanglement they got, Caught, hooked, inwoven, they began to frame Life to some shape, and win themselves a name. From moss to herb, from herb to shrub and tree, From thence, a leap both down and up must be From mountain oak to animalcule. But so it happened seemingly, and then The thing went forward till it came to men. The various steps 'twere needless to rehearse, One can but get the outline into verse, And show how reasonable, wise and just, These people-makers are, that people trust. One point, however, one can scarce rebuff, Their minds can be but matter sure enough. But other geniuses new truths unfold ; They were not filaments, as some would hold, No, for they think (the difference is but small) That life was first a microscopic ball, A globule, quick, significant, and fraught With such a cargo — organism and thought ! Millions of these, eternally at play, (Matter and motion see you — that's the way) Attracted strangely, and to concourse driven, Had, as time rolled, a gradual figure given, And each, with something of a Roman soul, Gave up his single rights to form a whole. Life, long content within a mote to reign, Now framed a league to widen his domain, And as the conscious grains together ran, The million parts agreed to make one man. It puzzles simple intellects to tell How, with no head, they managed it so well, And ranged in order so remarkable. 5Tis true that others think, as centuries ran Innumerous, ere they perfected a man, And matter all that time was on the twist, Wreathed in all shapes, that none could thus be missed Sooner or later, from the teeming mass Would start the varied forms of every class ; Some monsters doubtless, — though we wonder why Monsters should find they were but such, and die ; For so it seems they did, and nothing stood Perpetuate, but the beautiful and good. One feels at times with such a scheme as this But little wiser than with Genesis ! Vain Pilots. 479 Well, but if form and organism rise 'Mid these eternal possibilities, — The goodly frame, the instrument entire, — Yet whence originates the vital fire ? Another tells us, — but the tale's so long, 'Tis difficult to weave it in my song ; And philosophic too, with words so fine I scarce can bend or break them to my line, But not to be outwitted, let me try, — This other thinks then (though a simple " why " Might sorely pose his ingenuity), But then he thinks, that thus the case is clear, — Intense excitement of the atmosphere," Produced by divers motions of the earth, To heat, and then to life, has given birth. The energetic atoms of the air Fixed in the lungs, become quiescent there, But motion, ever in its mass the same, Lost to the atom, lodges in the frame, Sets the blood running up to summer heat, While certain muscular dilations meet With rarefactions, and contractile touch, Mechanical disturbances, and such ; Till, from this transfer of atomic force, What think you comes ? Vitality of course, — Life, with its wondrous process, and effect — Heat, motion, consciousness, and intellect ; And so the veil is rent, and nature sits Exposed in open daylight to the wits ! But others think, that first, they never came, " You see the world it always was the same ; " From son to sire continuous, they ascend Through millions, billions, trillions, without end, Infinite series, — not in thought, but fact. Was ever proven logic more exact ? "It seems so natural — what we daily find. Sceptic, believe your eyes, and never mind, There's not a word of truth in what we hear" (Well, when I read such nonsense, so I fear.) Vain pilots, steering in a stormy night, And sending rockets up for polar light ; While dim, but steady to the watchful eye, Beams truth's benignant beacon in the sky ! Though many keen sarcastic touches enliven this portion of the poem, yet pity and earnest warning predominate throughout all ap- 480 Memorials of Mrs Gilbert, peals to the Atheist himself; and a scathing indignation is reserved for Christians who are such in name only — the men whose lives with silent force Obstruct the blessed gospel in its course ; Win none to love the truth they so abuse, And fix the shaken sceptic to refuse. Ye men of hollow heart who cringe and bend With holy seemings for some earthly end, Call God your Father, and with saintly eye, "Our blessed Saviour" as your watchword cry, Yet live as they, or worse than they who own No power above them save on nature's throne ; Sinners in Zion, doff your coward shame, And if in Satan's service, wear his name, Step boldly forth, and rank with him confest Who bears the Atheist brand upon his breast ; Nor leave to Infidels that polished blade Which he has furbished who makes truth his trade. True to her Nonconformist creed, she aims a shaft at the " sham Christianity" engendered, as she believed, to a large extent, by the forms of the National Church and the fact of its being " National." Still do not say, with narrow view confined, I seize the dross, and leave the ore behind, Forget your holy doctrine, Scripture creed, And large proportion of the precious seed Or close the gates of charity on all Who keep the other side my party wall. No, God has owned, and surely so may we, The thread of gold in each community. Hay, straw, and stubble, men in folly mix, But Heaven makes use of all to burn her bricks, And fair the temple that shall hence arise, Though reared on earth, the topstone in the skies ! The poem ends with an appeal to all Christians, in deed and in truth, — that all who — Live by His power, His pity, and His death, Should consecrate their being and their breath, Health, reason, vigour, influence, and days, His will to work, and spread His worthy praise. A Sketch. 48; A SKETCH. Some verses under the above title (a few lines of which have been already quoted in the text . written by one who lived under her roof for several years as a private pupil of her husband's, contain so true a portraiture of the subject of these memorials, that they may be allowed to form their final word. Gentle, untiring, tender, Simple, cheerful, true : Genius beneath, to lend her Brightness and varied hue : A slender, active figure, A straight, unconscious gait ; A mien from which the rigour Of age could scarce abate : Genial, social. — trying All things in her fresh thought, Oft from a large heart sighing, While busy fingers wrought : Child-wise and sage-wise, loyal, Flushed by a noble deed ; Royalist to the Royal, Scornful to pride and greed ; And ever mostly leaning To some the world despised. She thought her Master" s meaning- Such lowly ones He prized : With kindly ways of warning For those she thought had erred, And sparkling wit. adorning, Just barbing, suited word ; The force of Genius yielded To force of Love in her ; The unresting pen, she wielded, Knew not ambition's spur. Affection only guided, Lent lustre and the grace, And most of wealth confided Where dearest eyes would trace. 2 11 -/— "; -'.'." _- -. •: - - - I - : e i _ — g - 484 Index. Convalescent, publication of the, 354. Corn Law Controversy, 366. Cowie, Mrs, 269; letters to, 282, 307, 308, 318, 436. Crathern, Rev. Mr, 1 1 1 . Crystal Palace 1851, visit to, 406. Dance at a Lavenham farm-house, 52. Darning, 20. Darton and Harvey, 93 ; letter from, j 119. Daughters, letters to, 272, 314, 345, | 383? 395. 429, 43o. Daughter-in-law, letters to, 381, 393, 400, 450. Decision for God, 327. Dedham, 90, III. Derbyshire, tour in, 345, 436. Despondency, evils of, 328. Devonshire, journey to, 150. Devotion, private, 7. Diary-keeping, 135. Discipline in a family, 17, 271, 435. "Display," Jane Taylor's tale of, 216. Dissent at Colchester, 71, 211, 419. Dog and Jug, 32. Dolls, 69. Domestic management, 322. Donne (Dr), Quotation from, 264. Drake (Dr), of Hadleigh, 48. Dressmaking, Ann and Jane's, 1 14. Drollery of Ann Taylor, 156. Duties, none great or small, 177. Early compositions, 34. Early rising, 6 ; Neglect of, 384. Eclectic Review, Articles Written for, 149, 173, 177, 201, 209, 221. Edgeworth, Miss, Letter from, 172. Edinburgh, Visits to, 440, 462. Edinburgh Review, 74. Education at Lavenham, 30 ; of a Son, 285. Education Question, 371. Eighteenth Century — When did it close? 97. Election Song, 81. Engraving at Lavenham, 45 ; Pro- ' cesses of, 75, 86; Ann and Jane begin, 83; Mechanism applied to, 39i, 398. Establishments, Church, 331-336. Evangelical Religion, 347. Excursion train, First, 362. Faith, in Providence, 141 ; in God, 304- Family Affection, 78. Family at Ongar, Letters to, 188, 203, 211, 217, 218, 230, 231, 232, 235, 239-241, 244, 249, 252, 254, 267, 269, 284-286, 288-290, 300, 316. Fasting, 370, 433. Favells at Lavenham, 51. Fetter Lane, Chapel of, 3. Fever, Attacked with, 107; Rheu- matic, 311. Fish Street Chapel, 236 ; Robert Hall at, 250. Flatford Mill, Visit to, 92 . Forbes, Anna, 83, 98. Family, 98. Mrs, 427. Foster, John, 209. Free Church of Scotland, 371. Friar Lane, Chapel of, 310; Cata- combs of, 387. Friend, Letters to a. 320, 349, 357. 370,376,378,4i85424,429,43i,433- Letters from, 322, 378. Furnaces (Smelting), Fine effect of, 195, 203. Garden, 28, 67, 206, 255, 276 ; Lines upon a, 315. George III., Visit to St Paul's, 42; Death of, 254. Gilbert (Rev. Joseph), writes to Ann Taylor, 185 ; visits Castle House, 185 ; at Ilfracombe, 187 ; Accepted, 191; Marriage, 194; College Life, 200 ; invited to Worcester and Hull, 231 ; Self-Consecration to Ministry, 237 ; Pastor at Fish Street, 239 ; sails for Hamburgh, 267 ; serious ill- ness of, 270; His Life of Dr Williams, 278 ; Joins R. Cecil at Nottingham. 279; Lectures upon Infidelity, 288-293 ; His Preach- ing, 292; Interest in Disestablish- ment, 332 ; Mental Character, 336; Lectures on the Atonement, 342 ; His Pupils, 383 ; Last Sermon, 404 ; Last Christmas, 407 ; Testi- monial to, 408 ; Last Days, 400- 414; Death, 414. hid ex. 485 Gilbert (Josiah), 212, 221, 224, 248, 252, 269, 285, 390-394, 449 5 Let- ters to, 302, 327, 331, 372, 39i, 392, 399, 401, 4°5, 437, 439, 447, 450, 467. (Henry), 239, 311, 350, 388, 427. (Edward), 253 ; Death of, 301. (James Montgomery), Illness and Death of, 451, 453. Goldsmith (Oliver), Anecdote of, In- troductory Note. Governess, Proposition to be a, 106. Gunn (Rev D.), 182, 188. Greenland Fishery, 255, 256. Guy Fawkes at Lavenham, 38. Greaves, Miss, 254, 281 ; Death of, 349- Habits, importance of, 100. Hadleigh, Martyrdom of Dr Rowland Taylor at, 53. Hamburgh, Mr Gilbert sails for, 267. Happiness, attained by a pervading influential Christianity, 2. Harpenden, 389, 427, 450. Hawkshaw. Robert, Introductory Note. Herbert, Edward Gilbert, 376, 377. Hickman, Rev. W., 12, 21, 61. High Woods, Colchester, 70, 115. Hillier, Mr and Mrs, 20. Hills, Cecilia and Fanny, 81. Hitchcock, Peter, 23 ; Sally and Betsy. 24. Holidays at Lavenham, 36, 37 ; at Colchester, 115. Holman, Mr, of Sudbury, 102. Hornsea, Stay at, 250. Howitt, William, 332. Hubbard, the basketmaker, 22. Hull, 231, 233, 236, 238. Humber, View over the, 246. Humoured Children, 17. Husband, letters to, 191, 192, 206, 208, 209, 219, 220, 232, 241, 242, 247, 262, 263, 265, 277, 278, 333, 35i, 353- 358, 373,385, 397- Letter from, 276. Hymns, Congregational, 173, 387. Hymns for Infant Minds, publication of, 139 ; Opinion of, by Whately and Arnold, 162 ; comments on, 161, 162. Ilfracombe, 151, 181, 190; visit to, 457- Independency, principles of, 62. Instruction, Early, at Lavenham, 30. Invasion, Panic of, 124. Islington, her father at, 7 ; her birth at, II. Irving, Edward, 264, 304, 339. James, John Angell, 230, 231. James', St, Street, 382. Jefferys, Josiah, Introductory Note. Jeu d'esprit, by Jane Taylor, 116. Keep, Mary, friendship with, 77. Kensington, 9 ; visit to, 44. Lavenham, Removal to, 13; first house at, 13; church of, 14; meet- ing-house at, 14 ; scenery of, 27 ; second house at, 49 ; grandson's visit to, 63-66 ; flight to, 125 ; last visit to, 461. Laurie, Mrs, letters to, 187, 188, 191, 194, 220, 252, 338, 397, 398; death of, 442. Lectures, by Mr Taylor, 89. by Rev. J. Gilbert to Infidels, 288-293 5 on tne Atonement, 342. Lexden, 70. Lincolnshire, visits to, 256, 365. Linton, 190, 456. Liturgy, the, 166. Livingstone, David, at Ongar, 386. Living by the day, 429. London, her grandmother's arrival at, 8 ; father's residence at, 1 1 ; First visit to, 42 ; visit to, at eighteen, 94 ; likely to be fortified, 127 ; her mother writes from, 128 ; visit to, in 1807, 133 ; brothers remove to, 136 ; allied sovereigns in, 207. Lungley, Mr and Mrs, 19. Mackintosh, Dr and Mrs, 101. .Manchester massacre, 244. Mansfield, Mr, at Colchester, 68, 144. Maiden Ash, 391. Martin, Mr, her grandfather, convert of Mr Whitfield, 9 ; his death, 9. Marvell, Andrew, 245. Masbro'. arrival at, 195. 486 Index. Meeking, Mr, house of, 15. Meeting House at Lavenham, 14 ; congregation of, 14-24. Melford Long, 36. Mental work, 338. Methodist,- revival, 61 ; chapel at Colchester, 63 ; friends in Lincoln- shire, 336. Millenarian expectations, 319. Minister's wife, duties of a, 84. Ministerial responsibility, 433. Minor's Pocket Book, first contribu- tions to, 93. Missionary work, 60. Montgomery, James, 149 ; opinion of Ann's poems, 1 72 ; at Sheffield, 201 ; at Masbro', 217 ; his criti- cism upon Essays in Rhyme, 223 ; impromptu by, 259 ; his Climbing boys album, 271. Morality. Roman Catholic, 346. More, Hannah, review of her Chris- tian morals, 173, 177, 182. Nayland, 62 ; walk to, 135. Natural History of Enthusiasm, 311. Needlework, ornamental, 79. Nile Street, house in, 236, 243 ; re- turn to, 248. Norford, Dr, of Bury, 48. Nottingham, first sight of, 195 ; re- moval to, 280 ; riots at, 324 ; market day at, 363 ; market place, ^ 45°- Nunn, Bob, 40. Nunn, Rev. W., 96. Nurse leaving, 213. Nurseries, unknown at Lavenham, 17. Nursery Rhymes, specimens of, 153, 155. Old maids, 25. Ongar, her father's first sight of, 140; settlement at, 146 ; description of, 181 ; her marriage at, 194 ; visit to, 208, 247 ; third house at, 266 ; visit to. 305-306 ; break-up at. 317 ; son's house at, 390; visit to, Opie's picture of David Rizzio, 45. Ordination of Isaac Taylor, senior, 72. Orford, old, 23. Organs, 307. Original Poems, composition of, 122 ; specimens of, 156, 158. Parnassian evenings, 115. Pathos in poetry for children, 160. Peaked Farm, 206, 219, 247 ; de- scription of, 260-262. Picturesque at Lavenham, 40. Pilgrims' Hatch, 341. Poetry, Mrs Gilbert's, for children, character of, Chap. vi. Poetry quoted: "A pretty thing," 153 ; Michaelmas daisy, 153 ; "I saw the glorious sun," 154; Notorious Glutton, 156; Little fish, 158; Child's prayer, 163 ; To a Sister, 165 ; To her husband, 220 ; Birth- day lines, 225; "There's a spot far away," 259 ; Prisoner infidel, 295 ; ' ' Say Conscience, " 304 ; ' ' The country garden," 315 ; Nottingham Castle, 325 ; "A moment's trance," 330; "Song of the tea-kettle," 360 ; Saturday morning, 364 ; King Po- tato. 368 ; Funeral hymn, 288 ; " To the Meadows," 403 ; Crystal Palace, 407 ; Last dying speech of the crocuses, 409 ; Minister's widow, 416 ; People's College, 427 ; Char- ades, 436 ; Farewell to the Muse, 443 ; Nightfall on a grave, 454. Political dissent, 331. Prayer, habit of, 6 ; scope of, 254. Princess Charlotte, death of, 243. Prisoner infidel, poem of. 295-8. Prologue to " Alfred," 95. Quarter-cart, in Suffolk, 37. Rearing a family, 18. Religious impression, first serious, 109 ; despondency, 109. Rotherham, 194 ; college at, 200 ; S u.mon. Mrs. 55. Sally, Miss, 25. Salome, 195, 198, 203, 204. Saville, Rev. John, 138. School, at Colchester, 79. , Sunday, at Lavenham, 2: Index. 4s7 Scott, Rev. Thomas, his theological essays, 101, no. Scott, Sir Walter, upon rhymes for the nursery. 171. Servants, at Lavenham, 55 ; at Col- chester, 85 ; Nottingham, 308. Sheffield, 261, 203 ; 217, 233, 237. Sherrar, Mrs and daughters, 20. Shrouds, a manufactory of, 102. Sins of the tongue, ill. Skegness, stay at, 350, 354. Snelling, Mrs, the old pew-opener, 18. Son beginning life, counsels to, 327, 331. Southey, Robert, letter from, 171. "Spirit of Hebrew Poetry," opinion of, 441. Spurzheim, Dr, 331. Stanford Rivers, 276, 305, 420, 463. Stapleton, family of, 77, 99 ; deaths of the three daughters, 130, 131. Stockport, visit to, 230. Stothard, picture of Ann Boleyn, 46. Strand Bridge, casting of, 217. Stribbling, the Lavenham blacksmith, *5- Strutt, Ben, 104 ; Jacob, 105. Study, separate rooms for, 87. Sudbury, 42, 102. Sunday habits at Lavenham, 31-34. Sunday school at Lavenham, 22 ; anniversaries of, at Ongar, 204. Supernatural, the, 430. Taylor, Charles, supplies work to he r father, 7 ; his plaster casts, 44 ; himself, 112 ; his study, 113. Taylor, Isaac, first of name, early life, Int. ATote ; his character, 3 ; his death, 134. Taylor, Rev. Isaac, his parents, 3 ; character and habits, 4-7 ; marriage, 1 1 ; engravings, 44-46 ; illness at Lavenham, 47-49; leaves Laven- ham, 63 ; resigns charge at Col- chester, 137 ; his letter upon High Doctrine, 137 ; opinion of Mr (fil- bert, 186 ; ode to the Moon, 202 ; his illness, 214; his "Self-cultiva- tion," 245 ; visit to Hull, 250 ; illness at Margate, 257; lines by, 266; preaches at Nottingham, 310 ; death of, 313. Taylor, Rev. Isaac, letters to, 232, 265. - letter from, 202. Isaac, of Stanford Rivers, infancy of, 42 ; first appearance in print, 120 ; his fust letter to Ann, 134 ; removes to London, 137 ; winter at llfracombe, 182 ; visit to Rotherham, 227 ; drawing in album, 259 ; study at the Peaked Farm, 261; marriage, 276; at Stanford Rivers, 305 ; compared with Joseph Gilbert, 335-337 ; candidate for chair at Edinburgh, 348 ; machinery for engraving, 390, 398, 400 ; at Manchester, 421 ; description of, 422 ; last days, 457 ; death, 480. letters to, 441, 442, 444, 458, 459; letters from, 304, 313, 337, 379, 421, 423, 446, 457, 459, 479, 480. Taylor, Jane, birth of, 1 1 ; early arch- ness, 16 ; early amusements, 29 ; visit to a farm, 37; stanza by, 81 ; attic of, 87 ; jeu d esprit by, 116; journey to Lavenham, 127 ; first sight of Ongar, 141 ; character of her poetry, 153 ; criticisms on her Essays in Rhyme, 222 ; Visit to Masbro', 227 ; verses by, 228 ; her ill health, 240 ; lines upon an oak leaf, 258 ; her room at the Peaked Farm, 269 ; her illness, 267 ; death, 272-4. letters to, 193, 203, 204, 212, 215, 221, 222, 229, 235, 268, 272. Taylor, Jefferys, birth of, 47 ; lines of, from Esop in rhyme, 32 ; study at Ongar, 261 ; house at Pilgrims' Hatch, 341 ; death, 420. Taylor, Martin, birth of, 43 ; removes to London, 136 ; visits Ongar, 146; at Welling, 423. Taylor, Decimus, 69, 107. Taylor, Jemima, 92, 248, 317, 324. 'letters to, 317, 376, 389, 422, 423, 425, 428, 435, 451, 456, 461. Taylor, Mrs, of Ongar, marriage, 11 ; first winter at Lavenham, 26 ; visit to London, 44; opinion on baby-dressing, 93 ; at Hornsea, 250 ; death of, 317. 488 Index. Taylor, Mrs, letters to, 183, 184, 186, 213, 214, 236, 237, 245, 251, 256, 275, 313, 316; letters from, 126, 185, 196, 250. Taylor, Mrs I., of Stanford Rivers, 305, 423 ; death of, 442. Taylor, Dr Rowland, his martyrdom, 53- Tillett, Betsy and Polly, 85. Tom, Dr, at Lavenham, 39. Toys invented by her father, 29. Truth, faith in, 446. Umbelliferous society, 85. Verses, early, 33. Wales, tour in, 437. Watkinson, Mr and Mrs, 19; their j York, visit to, 229, 230. removal 19, 350- to America, 56 ; Anne, Watts, Dr, gift of his Divine Songs, 124. Webb, Rev. Mr, minister of Fetter Lane, 3. " Wedding among the flowers," when written, 123. Wedding letter, 434. Whitfield, Mr, her grandfather, early convert of, 9. Whitty, Mrs, letters to, 191, 224, 274, 334- Williams, Rev. Dr, death of, 187. Winter night at Lavenham, 26. 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