S-^>.§^^^47 I THOMAS LOVE PEACOCK Lines on the death of Julia Hobhouse^ Lord Broughtons daughter Accept, bright Spirit, reft in lifers best bloom. This votive wreath to thy untimely tomb ! Formed to adorn all scenes and charm in all, The fire-side circle and the courtly hall; Thy friends to gladden, and thy home to bless; Fair form thou hadst, and grace, and graciousness. A mind that sought, a tongue that spoke the truth. And thought matured beneath the smile of youth. Dear, dear young friend, ingenuous, cordial heart ! And can it be that thou shouldst first depart ? That Age should sorrow d*er thy youthful shrine ? It owns more near, more sacred griefs than mine. Yet, midst the many who thy loss deplore. Few loved thee better, and few mourn thee more. — Thomas Love Peacock INTRODUCTION By Richard Garnett Few writers whose works have been ac- cepted by their own countrymen as classics have failed to obtain like recognition from critics of other nations. Especially is this true of British and American authors. Broad as it is, the Atlantic has never been a dividing line in separating the poets, novelists and historians of the two countries, whose pro- ductions all are merged in the one expressive phrase of English literature. And yet there have been rare exceptions. For some unex- plainable reason Thomas Love Peacock is one of these. Not that his claims have ever been rejected by American readers and critics, but that they have never been duly and properly presented. His contemporaries such as Lamb, Coleridge, Landor, Hazlitt, Leigh Hunt, and DeQuincey long ago found full recognition, but Peacock remains almost unknown in America save as the friend of Shelley. This is by no means surprising. No writer could be less influenced [3] by the atmosphere of the New World. There is but little in his writings in which an Ameri- can reader, as such, could be expected to take any particular interest. If he win his way — as he ought — to ultimate recognition, it will be by virtue of a certain affinity in his humour, bookish and seasoned with scholarship as it is, to the peculiarly delightful type of litera- ture, at once dry and exuberant, of which in- stances may be found in many American literary journals. Even In England recogni- tion Is far from Implying popularity. No his- torian of British literature would omit Pea- cock; yet In comparison with Lamb he is but little read. The recent appearance, neverthe- less, of two popular editions seems to Indicate progress beyond the select circles to which Peacock's reputation was confined In his life- time, and for long afterwards, though It is improbable that this will become widely dif- fused. At the same time few novelists have a better prospect of permanence, for there are few whose works depend less upon what Is merely temporary and accidental. So little Is generally known of Peacock, apart from his connexion with Shelley, that It may be desirable to furnish here an abstract of the leading particulars in his life. He was born at Weymouth, October i8, 1785. His father, a glass merchant, died when Thomas [4] was only three years old, and he was brought up at Chertsey by his mother and uncle, who belonged to a naval family. He received his education at a private school at Englefield Green, on the border of Windsor Forest, but was mainly self-taught, familiarising himself by a long course of reading with the best ex- amples of Latin, Greek, French and Italian literature, as well as those of his own country, and giving considerable attention to music and applied mechanics. After a short expe- rience in commercial life, which he found dis- tasteful, he declined to pursue it further, and retired to live with his mother, who was pos- sessed of but narrow means, and probably appeared to the world at large, as to Charles Clairmont, "an idly disposed kind of man." A secretaryship to Sir Home Popham, during the naval operations off the Scheldt in 1808- 1809, was an interesting episode in his career, but led to nothing permanent. In 1809 his poem, "The Genius of the Thames," was pub- lished, and in the same year he paid a long visit to Wales which had much influence on the development of his genius. For some years he continued to write poetry of an am- bitious character for which he then had but few qualifications; but In 18 15 he conceived the happy idea of treating the oddities of Welsh society in a humorous novel, largely [5] leavened with the scholarly accumulations of his years of study. In the successful accom- plishment of this task his life work was solved, and the key-note of his subsequent literary activity struck forever. The union of learn- ing with exuberant humour and mordant wit was to a certain class of minds irresistible, and was fortified by the discovery of a lyrical vein of exquisite grace and charming melody of which the author had previously given few indications. Melincourt, less successful than this first venture, but containing some of Peacock's best prose writing in point of style, appeared in 1817, and Nightmare Abbey in 18 18. Maid Marian was nearly completed at the end of this year, when his unexpected appointment to the India House interrupted it, and it remained unfinished until 1822. Peacock was at the time residing with his mother at Great Marlow, where he had lived in close neighbourhood with Shelley for more than a year. Their mutual influence was in- considerable, but the greater genius was the more receptive; and the result of their inter- course reveals an unsuspected impression on Shelley from Peacock's unfinished romantic poem, Ahrimanes. It was not until 1829 that Peacock's official duties left him time to produce another ro- mance, The Misfortunes of Elphin, grounded [6] upon ancient Welsh traditions, whose humor- ous side is brought out most deHghtfully. Crotchet Castle (183 1) displays his powers at their zenith. A long interval follows, only broken by the slight attempt at fiction, — now for the first time published under the title of The Lord of the Hills, — until i860, when the series is closed by Gryll Grange, which may be fairly regarded as a brilliant sunset, more prolific of light than of heat. The effervescence of humour has subsided. The writer who has drawn for our enter- tainment so many oddities, incrusted with obsolete prejudice, has become an oddity him- self. But the style has the old classic finish, and the outlook on the world at large is more spacious and genial. What more can be said of any book than that it has been found an antidote to sea-sickness? Fanny Kemble writes to William Bodham Donne, after a voyage across the Atlantic: "How many thanks I owe you for that delightful book, Gryll Grange — it is almost a poem, and so full of pleasant fancy and smart imagination — it cheered and charmed my sea-sorrow and I blessed you for it all the time I read." Peacock's ofiicial career was highly honour- able to him. He received his appointment in the East India Company's home service by the interest, it is said, of the Company's [7] secretary and historian, Peter Auber, a dis- tant relative. The necessity for a better quality of official reports and despatches had become apparent, and Peacock was one of four new "assistant examiners" appointed from the outside for this purpose. The most distinguished of his colleagues was James Mill, philosopher, economist and historian of British India, father of John Stuart Mill, Peacock's successor as Chief Examiner, upon the latter's retirement in 1856. Peacock had held this high post since 1836; his official re- ports and despatches slumber in the India office, but his efficiency is attested by his published evidence before various Parliamen- tary Committees, especially those on the salt duties and on the alleged grievance of Mr. Silk Buckingham. He had specialties of his own, among them the exploration of the Euphrates and the promotion of steam navi- gation to India. His taste for naval architec- ture, inherited from his mother's family, and his practical knowledge of machinery, en- abled him to design steamers for the East India Company which did good service in the first Chinese War. After his retirement he resided entirely at Lower Halliford, near Chertsey, where he had long had a country house, and where he died on January 23, 1866, in his eighty-first year. [8] His literary remains, here printed for the first time, are selections from a mass of mis- cellaneous papers which the editor has re- cently had the opportunity of examining in company with Peacock's grand-daughter, Mrs. Clarke, who nearly forty years ago published the first collected edition of his works in conjunction with Sir Henry Cole. Most of these papers (such as presented any literary interest) were purchased by the British Museum, where they are now gener- ally accessible. They comprise Ahrimanes, the fragmentary novels, with the exception of the unnamed romance — the manuscript of which is in the editor's possession — and the correspondence with Hookham and Lord Broughton. The letters to Shelley are in the Bodleian Library, along with other papers long withheld from public inspection. A few copies were privately printed many years ago. A very few copies of Peacock's little diary of i8i8 were also privately printed by Mrs. Clarke. THE LETTERS Peacock's correspondence, so far as avail- able, falls into two main divisions. i. — Letters to his friend and publisher, Edward Hookham, 1807-1811. 2. — Letters to Percy [9] Bysshe Shelley during the latter's residence in Italy, 1818-1822. Edward Hookham, with his brother Thomas, combined the callings of bookseller, publisher, and circulating library-keeper at 15, Old Bond Street. Thomas, occasionally referred to by acquaintances as "the little man," would seem to have been the senior partner, and must have been on intimate terms with Pea- cock; but the especial companionship was with Edward, of whom, apart from these letters, hardly any trace remains. The origin of their friendship is not known; it may have originated in a community of sentiment, for Peacock was at this time theoretically a liberal, and so were the Hookhams. In August, 1807, the date of the first letter to Hookham extant, the relation of author and publisher seems to have been most ami- cable. The Hookhams, who had already brought out Peacock's Palmyra in the pre- vious year, are willing to publish a poem, evidently of considerable length, which he is proposing to write, and to supply him with books, which latter office they are found dis- charging throughout the remainder of the correspondence. These books, it is probable, were not purchases on his account, but simply loans from the library; which must have been much better provided with standard [10] works, In various languages, than would be the case with a London circulating library at the present time. The meditated poem was probably The Genius of the Thames, the MS. of which was sent to the publisher in March, 1809, while the author, on shipboard off Flushing, was acting in the capacity of sec- retary to Admiral Popham, amid uncon- genial surroundings, which must have long prevented him from giving much attention to his poem. The piece, indeed, must have re- quired thorough reconstruction, since we find the author, escaped to terra firma, busy with additions and alterations up to the August following; and it is still at press, and still in need of a prooemium in January, 18 10, when the author has betaken himself to North Wales to give it its finishing touches. It is finally annoiinced as ready for publication in February; and Peacock is soon afterwards having his books and wardrobe (as well as numerous other books furnished by the ac- commodating Hookham), forwarded to him in his Merionethshire retreat, which he had not quitted up to August, 18 10. The gap be- tween this date and April, 181 1, suggests that he may have returned to London in the in- terval. If so, he probably carried off "the library and wardrobe," for in the next letter, April 9, 181 1, he is found about to bid a long [II] farewell to Merionethshire, and apparently- unencumbered with anything but "a clean shirt," and Luarch and Tacitus. This enter- taining and most characteristic letter is the last preserved, but as it was purchased by the present editor from an autograph dealer, it is probable that others exist in the possession of private collectors. It has once been printed, but is added here to complete the series. The Hookhams continued to be Peacock's publishers until, in 1837, four of his novels were transferred to Bentley for inclusion in the Standard Novel Series. The Hookham brothers had been the means of introducing Peacock to Shelley, who had made acquaint- ance with them by offering to them for pub- lication his Letter to Lord Ellenhorough on the Prosecution of D. I. Eaton, and to whom in August, 1812, they sent their second edition of The Genius of the Thames, — which in- cluded a republication of Palmyra, — and also Peacock's new poetical essay The Philoso- phy of Melancholy. Shelley in a letter dated August 18, 18 1 2, expresses high admiration of The Genius of the Thames as poetry, but censures Peacock for wildly deeming "that commerce is prosperity, and that the glory of the British flag is the happiness of the British people." Not having had the advantage of reading Peacock's letters to Hookham he [12] could not be acquainted with Peacock's pri- vate opinions on "the rapacity of commerce," or the intention he had at one time entertained of introducing Carthage into his poem as an episode for the admonition of England. The personal introduction was also no doubt effected through the Hookhams. "I saw Shelley for the first time," says Peacock, "in 1812, just before he went to Tanyrallt." This must mean before he went to Tanyrallt from London, since he had originally proceeded thither from Lynmouth; and the date would be early in November, 18 12. The date of Edward Hookham's death is not known. His brother was living as late as i860, when he gave Sir Percy and Lady Shelley information connected with Shelley's history. If Peacock had possessed no other claim to distinction, he might have shared it as the recipient of some of the most beautiful de- scriptive letters ever written; namely, those of Shelley written from Switzerland and Italy. From Italy alone there were thirty, of which the thirteen published by Mrs. Shelley, and one at least of the seventeen subse- quently printed by Peacock himself, entirely merit that high character. It seems at first a serious imputation upon Peacock that no more than fourteen replies from him should [13] be producible; but his share of the corre- spondence was certainly much larger. There is internal evidence both in his letters and in Shelley's of the despatch and receipt of letters which cannot now be found; for Shelley's fre- quent changes of residence in Italy undoubt- edly occasioned the loss of many letters. "I did my best," says Peacock, "to satisfy his curiosity on this subject [Peacock's appoint- ment at the India House]; but it was in letters to Naples which he had left before they arrived, and he never received them. I ob- served that this was the case with letters which arrived at any town in Italy after he had left it." It is always agreeable to see the reverse side of the medal. Peacock's letters,^ though of less importance on account of the writer than of the addressee, make, so far as they go, a good practical counterpart to Shelley's, and must have been valuable to the poet as keep- ing him in touch with affairs in England. They would have been more Interesting if Peacock had been a member of the literary circle of Leigh Hunt and Keats; but his choice, on coming to London, of a residence in Stanford Street, Blackfriars, interposed an al- * Two are omitted as insignificant, and some re- trenchments of uninteresting matter have been made from others. — R. G. [14] most insurmountable barrier of remoteness between him and the Hampstead colony. It is curious, though perhaps hardly wonderful, that there should not be the faintest evidence of acquaintance between him and Charles Lamb, though they worked together in Lead- enhall Street for years, — Peacock certainly ' in much the higher and more responsible capacity. Letters to Edward T. Hookham Cherts EY, August 3rd, 1807. My dear Sir, — I know not how to thank you sufficiently for your numerous favours; but I shall avail myself of your generous offer, and put my little vessel again on the stocks. I fear you will find me rather trouble- some in the course of my undertaking; at present I have only to require Volney's Voy- age en Syrie (No. 17469), and Montesquieu sur la Grandeur et Decadence des Romains (No. 1 62 1 8). I have some thought of arrang- ing the poem in four divisions, but of this hereafter. Perhaps I have undertaken more than I can perform, and shall be obliged at last to leave the work unfinished. However, as I have no better occupation, I will return to the idle trade of writing verses. I am writing in a great hurry, and after dinner, — [15] a time at which I am not very fond of flourish- ing the goosequill. Brevity, as Polonius says, is the soul of wit, but I apprehend, in the present instance it is the soul without a body. Yours sincerely, T. L. Peacock. Mr. E. T. HooKHAM, 15 Old Bond St., London. H. M. S. Venerable, in the Downs, November 28, 1808. My dear Edward, — I have this day re- ceived your budget of modern literature, which has been lying for two or three days at the Three Kings, owing to the negligence of those whom I desired to call for it. As soon as I have finished this letter, which will prob- ably be rather brief, — brevity being, as I have before observed to you on the authority of Shakespear, the soul of wit, — I shall begin to gratify my romantic appetite with Lewis's Romantic Tales. The fourth volume, by the way, of that work I have discovered to be non est inventus. This is a proper Irishism. To call not finding a thing making a discovery places me on the list with Mr. Robson, who heard a profound silence, and with Bottom the weaver, who spied a voice. I thank you for your kind attention, and rejoice to find that my fears were groundless. [i6] How must you have enjoyed your excursion to Scotland! I presume, from what you say, Miss Mills was one of your party. She must have been, if I may be allowed to judge from the little I know of her, a very pleasing com- panion in such an expedition. You went over the same ground on which I wandered alone in the spring of 1806. You visited Dalkeith. Is not the Esk a most delightful stream? Did you see that enchanting spot where the North and South Esk unite? Did you think of the lines of Sir Walter Scott — His wandering feet his native seat 'Mid Esk's fair woods regain, Through banks more fair no stream more sweet Rolls to the Eastern main. Sweet are the paths — oh passing sweet By Esk's fair stream that run O'er winding steep — through copse wood deep. Impervious to the sun. Who knows not Melville's beechy grove And Rosslyn's ancient glen, Dalkeith, which all the virtues love And classic Hawthornden? Did you visit the banks of the sweet silver Teviot, and that most lovely of rivers, the un- describably fascinating Tweed? Did you sit by moonlight in the ruins of Melrose? Did you stand by twilight on that romantic wood which overhangs the Teviot on the side of Roxburgh Castle? [17] As to writing poetry, or doing anything else that is rational in this floating Inferno, it is almost next to a moral impossibility. I would give the world now to be at home, and devote the whole winter to the composition of a comedy. I am most assuredly completely out of my element here. Why then do I stay? To please some of my friends who ad- vise me to do so because there is a prospect of its conducing to advantage. England is the modern Carthage; the love of gold, the last corruption of man, pervades the whole state from the centre to the extremities. If any one be placed in a situation attended with im- mediate or consequent profit, it is sufficient for the multitude to pronounce him well em- ployed, and to raise a most vehement outcry against all who dare to dissent from them. It would be ridiculous to talk to them of degra- dation of mind — contamination of morals. Kindest remembrances to Tom. Tell him I hope to hear from him shortly. Write to me as soon as possible. Yours most sincerely, T. L. Peacock. H. M. S. Venerable, The Downs, February lo, 1809. My dear Edward, — I return with many thanks the whole of your first cargo of books, [18] excepting the comedy of Management. I came on board on Sunday, since which it has blown a constant gale, except during a short period on Tuesday, so that I could not send off this box before. I know not whether our bum boat will be off today, which is the best opportunity I have of transacting any little business of this nature. Have the goodness to send me the fourth volume of Lewis's Ro- mantic Tales, The Romance of the Forest, The Ring and the Well, Adelmora the Outlaw, and something very elegantly romantesque in the poetical department, if you can find anything of that description which I have not yet seen. I have never read the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border; if you can spare it conveniently, you may send me that likewise. Send them in a paper parcel; should they be too many to pack up well in paper, omit The Romance of the Forest. What new in the republic of letters? Is another volume of Miss Baillie's tragedies forthcoming? Has GIfford undertaken to edit Beaumont and Fletcher? Or is any new edition of these dramatists in contemplation? What is Walter Scott about? Is anything new escaped from the pen of the incomparable Southey? How is poor Campbell? His lyre breathed the very soul of poetry; must it remain unstrung for ever? Is Wordsworth [19] sleeping in peace on his bed of mud in the profundity of the Bathos, or will he ever again wake to dole out a lyrical ballad? His last work to all appearance has damned him irrecoverably. Is there any new romance by the author of The Fatal Revenge ? What tours and travels are at present most in vogue? How is Sir John Carr getting on? What was the last act of folly, in the shape of publica- tion, committed by Mr. Pratt, or Dr. Mavor, or Miss Seward, or Mr. Hayley, or any other of Mr. Phillips's formidable host of inanity? Can you tell me anything concerning Jacky Morfitt, the Latinist of Birmingham? You sometime since mentioned a poem by a Sepoy, which Leyden was translating; what expecta- tions may I entertain on that head? Are Knight and Price still at issue respecting the distinct character of the picturesque and the beautiful? Has anything on that subject made its appearance lately? Now, answer every one of these questions categorically, or to the best of your information, which I have no doubt is sufficiently extensive. Yours most sincerely, T. L. Peacock. Apropos, if you have Forsyth's Elements of Moral Science, send that too. I once asked you if Miss Cornelia Knight [20] were the sister of Richard Payne Knight, Esq. You replied, you could not tell, having never heard of her. The lady is the authoress of Latium, or La Campagna di Roma, &c, &c, &c. The gentleman is sufficiently known to you by his analytical enquiry into the princi- ples of Taste. Find out if you can, as I par- ticularly wish to know. H. M. S. Venerable, Downs, March 13, 1809. My dear Edward, — I should sooner have thanked you and your brother for your very kind and acceptable letter, and your last packet of literature; but I have been very busy with Forsyth's Moral Science, and my own little poem of The Thames, which I have just finished, and now send to you, such as it is. I have a number of miscellaneous pieces by me, sufficient, with a classical ballad or two now in embryo, to make a volume the size of Palmyra. Perhaps it might be better to publish The Thames alone in quarto. I sympathise with you most deeply in the doleful description you give of your melan- choly pilgrimage through Carr's Scottish Tour. Heaven preserve us! Sir John Carr on the banks of the Tw-eed! As wise and as observ- ing as an owl in sunshine! Sir John Carr on [21] classical ground! Sir John in Teviotdale! In the scenes immortalised by Scott and Leyden! attempting to hold his farthing candle to the sun, and to meddle with things which he has neither a heart to feel nor a mind to compre- hend! Rosslyn and Richmond Hill! The Frith of Forth and the Paddington Canal will be the next objects of comparison. What adequate punishment can be devised for the inconceivable folly of this incorrigible cham- pion of dullness? this daring trespasser on the territories of the lite-rary republic? this ignorant intruder on the regions of the pic- turesque? this itinerant Vandal? this eternal gatherer of nosegays of weeds? You say he went to Bridewell; would to Heaven he had remained there! I fear you have been considerable losers by the downfall of Drury Lane Theatre; pray let me know. I send you the only copy of The Thames I have. You will particularly oblige me by writing as soon as it comes to hand, and communicating your ideas on the subject. Yours most sincerely, T. L. Peacock. It has just occurred to me that I have been guilty of a horrible piece of vandalism in omitting to mention, in the accompanying [22] poem, Runnymead and Cowper's Hill. This palpable deficiency must be filled up. You will see the proper place for introducing them at page 26. Since writing the above postscript I have supplied the defect In a manner. One or two corrections are necessary throughout the poem with regard to the recurrence of epithets, and the addition of a few notes appears indis- pensably requisite. Ramsgate, April 3, 1809. My dear Edward, — I shall be in London In a day or two. I have sent a trunk and two boxes to your care, which if you will have the goodness to take in, and pay the carriage, you will particularly oblige me. I walked hither today from Deal, and have cast an- chor for the evening. Tomorrow I shall walk round the North Foreland to Margate; from thence I shall proceed to Canterbury, and, after devoting an hour or two to the cathedral and Thomas a Becket, commit my valuable carcass to the first leathern bucket I can find bound to London. This morning between Deal and Sandwich, in a solitary situation, my attention was attracted by a stone, with the following inscription: — [23] On this spot, August 25TH, 1782, MARY BAX; SPINSTER Aged 23 years, was murdered by Martin Lash, a foreigner, Who WAS executed for the crime. I thought immediately of Southey's ballad of the "Cross Roads," and remembered what the soldier in that ballad says of the post against which he is represented to be leaning. Kindest remembrances to Tom. Ever yours, T. L. Peacock. Chertsey, May 17, 1809. My dear Edward, — I am told Tom Warton wrote a poem on the Thames. I sup- pose you have his works; if so, I will thank you to send them me. I have fixed on the Monday week after next for tracing the river from its source, though I shall have finished the first part before that time, which will then consist of more than 700 lines. If I can make the second as long, the "Genius of the Thames" will be sufficiently extensive. I have not at present materials for such an enlargement; I hope my expedition will fur- nish them. You will pass Sunday with me at the Wheatsheaf, and early on Monday morn- [24] ing, when you set off for London, I shall walk over to Slough, and mount the rostrum of one of the Gloucestershire coaches. What think you of this scheme? The course of the river, from Trensbury Mead to Chertsey is i8o miles, a very decent walk. I hope the gaiety and dissipation of London has not effaced the impressions produced by Virginia Water. Let me just recall to your mind the King's plantation, the cultivated corner by the chevaux de frise gates. Chapel Wood, the seat under the oak, the old fisher- man's punt, the magnificent beech, the £12000 bridge, the Belvidere, the laurel walk, the iron gate under the arch, my favourite pine grove on the bank of the water, the cascade, &c, &c, &c. Kindest remembrances to Tom. Ever yours, T. L. Peacock. Cricklade, June 2nd, 1809. My dear Edward, — This place I find is in Wiltshire; my ignorance! After I wrote to you on Tuesday from Farringdon, I walked on to Shrivenham, six miles further, where I cast anchor for the night, and indeed, as it turned out, for the whole of the following day; an incessant rain compelling me to con- tinue where I was. Yesterday being fine, I walked hither, and being within five miles of the source of the Thames, anticipated the [25] pleasure of seeing It today; but my usual bad luck attends me, In the shape of a per- fect tempest of wind and rain, without the smallest chance of its abating. Before I left Shrlvenham, I took an examination of Beckett Lees, the seat of the late Lord Barrlngton. The grounds are very extensive, and, though laid out In the modern taste, very beautiful In their kind, but greatly Injured by neglect. There is an Immense number of elms, the finest I have ever seen. Shrlvenham is a pretty village; the church is good, and con- tains a marble monument to Admiral Bar- rlngton, consisting of a flag, sword and cushion, exquisitely sculptured. There are likewise the monuments of Lord and Lady Barrlngton and their children. But the uni- versal good character of that noble family, and the Indelible regret of all the surround- ing villages and peasantry, form a more noble record than the marble monuments. The estates have passed into the possession of a bishop; the favourite walks of the old lord are overgrown with weeds, and in some places destroyed. Between Shrlvenham and HIghworth, I observed a mill very picturesquely situated. HIghworth church Is a fine object, apparently very ancient. Cricklade is the shabbiest place in Eng- [26] land. The church tower Is fine, and the in- terior workmanship admirable. The church wardens have beautified it with whitewash; miscreants! Several streams unite here; the natives are not agreed which is the Thames; they are the most perfect set of vandals I ever met with. In their vulgar ideas, the canal is the most interesting object. I hoped to be able to extract something from the parson, but I find he is just married, so that all he had in him has most probably been extracted already; besides, who could think of interrupting a honeymoon.'* I slept last night in a nice airy room, with plenty of apertures on all sides for the admission of fresh air. N. B. Blew a hurricane. I have just received your very laconic epistle, by which I see the spirit of grave- digging still keeps fast hold of you. Perhaps on Sunday you may have half an hour to spare; if so, you may inform me what is go- ing forward in the civilized world. The neces- sary address I will give you in my next. There will be no harm, if you find yourself at leisure, in getting a little written beforehand. To find a letter from a friend in a strange place is something like meeting a friend In a foreign country; note this, and favour me If possible. Ever yours, T. L. Peacock. [27] Oxford, June 6th, 1809. My dear Edward, — Having given you the space of twenty-four hours to contem- plate me in an attitude of profound medita- tion over the source of the Thames, I resume the thread of my narration. Thames Head is a flat spring, in a field about a mile from Tarl- ton, lying close to the bank of the Thames and Severn Canal. This spring in the summer months is totally dry. None of our pic- turesque-hunters appear to have asked them- selves the question: How is it possible that a river which is perpetually flowing can rise from a source which is sometimes dry? The infant river at Kemble Meadows is never totally dry, and to this source, by which the stream there is constantly supplied, can alone belong the honour of giving birth to the Thames. But this spring, Thames Head, would never be totally dry, were it not for a monstrous piece of machinery erected near for the purpose of throwing up Its water into the neighbouring canal. The Thames is al- most as good a subject for a satire as a pane- gyric. A satirist might exclaim: The rapacity of Commerce, not content with the immense advantages derived from this river in a course of nearly 300 miles, erects a ponderous engine over the very place of its nativity, to suck up [28] its unborn waters from the bosom of the earth and pump them into a navigable canal! It were to be wished, after all, that the crime of water-sucking were the worst that could be laid to the charge of commercial navigation; but we have only to advert to the conduct of the Spanish Christians in South America, of the English Christians in the East Indies, and of the Christians of all nations on the coast of Africa, to discover the deeper dye of its bloodsucking atrocities. A panegyrist, on the contrary, after ex- patiating on the benefits of commercial nav- igation, and of the great effort of human Ingenuity, the Thames and Severn Canal, which ascends the hills, sinks into the valleys, and penetrates the bowels of the earth, to unite the two noblest rivers of this most wealthy, prosperous, happy, generous, loyal, patriotic, &c, &c, &c, kingdom of England, might say: "And yet this splendid under- taking would be incomplete, through the failure of water in the summer months, did not this noble river, this beautiful emblem and powerful Instrument of the commercial greatness of Britain, contribute to that greatness, even at the instant of its birth, by supplying this magnificent charm of connection with the means of perpetual utility!" [29] I must again break off for the present, and will send you this letter, if possible, tomorrow. Invariably yours, T. L. Peacock. Chertsey, September 5th, 1809. I have to thank you for two letters, and Godwin's "Political Justice." Your letter of Saturday, breathing hell and the devil, I read with that compassion which is due to a soul in pain. When do you propose to leave off knocking about the skulls and bones, in order to get knocked about yourself by the waves of old Neptune, getting your hair filled every morning with salt and sand, for the sake of passing all the rest of the day in a fruitless attempt to make it either dry or clean.? The Genius of the Thames is in a state of progression. I have thought of various sub- jects for an episode, but cannot hit on any- thing to suit my fancy, unless, in my reflec- tions on the mutability of empire, I were to introduce one on the fall of Carthage. I think this subject highly susceptible of poet- ical ornament. I Intend, however, to finish the poem without any episode, leaving the second part shorter than the first, and with a place in which an episode may or may not be Inserted. Is there not another number of the "Graphic Illustrations"? You say noth- [30] ing of N. W. — what are your intentions on that subject? Adieu! Thos. L. Peacock. Chertsey, September 19, 1809. I perceive by the newspaper direction that you are still in Bond St. I do not suppose you can have been to Brighton and returned from thence, already. Let me know what are your intentions, and whether you are likely to remain long at home, as I hope in a few days to send you the second part. I have not in- troduced an episode. I think the poem, as a whole, will be much better without one. Will you favour me with Kirwan's "Metaphysical Essays" — Madame Cottin's "Mathilde," in French, — " Cook on Forest Trees " — " Park's Travels in Africa" (No. 3349); the "Remains of H. K. White," Knight's "Progress of Civil Society," and that volume of Hume which contains the reign of Elizabeth? I want several of these for the purpose of manufac- turing notes. Wright's "Horae lonicae" is highly praised in the Critical Review. I should like to read it, if in the library. I am now reading Locke and [Jacob] Bryant. I recommend you by all means to read the former, before all other speculative books: the "Essay on Human Understanding" is the very best foundation of an enlightened [31] system of study. You may observe that most modern philosophical writers suppose the reader to be acquainted with Locke. Adieu! In a few days I shall send you the second part, but let me hear from you first. T. L. Peacock. Maentwrog, Merionethshire, January 20, 1810. I have received your second Lacedemonian despatch, enclosing a sheet from Bentley, which, however, does not require to be re- turned. It was a clean sheet, not a proof. If you have written since that time, the letters must be at Tre-Madoc, which I left on Thurs- day. I shall request Mr. Madocks's attorney, who resides in this place, and goes thither every week, to make enquiry at the post office. Maentwrog (pronounced Maentoorog) is eight miles from Tre-Madoc. I have taken a lodging here pro tempore, while I look about the country for something less expensive. I shall remain where I am, till I have quite done with the Thames. I have delayed writ- ing till the last moment, in the hope of being able to send the Procemium, but that I must defer till Tuesday. This is a delightful spot, enchanting even in the gloom of winter; in summer it must be [32] a terrestrial paradise. It is a beautiful narrow vale, several miles in length, extending in one direction to the sea, and totally em- bosomed in mountains, the sides of which are covered, in many parts, with large woods of oaks. My sitting-room has a bow window, looking out on a lovely river, which flows through the vale. In the vicinity are many deep glens, along which copious mountain streams, of inconceivable clearness, roar over rocky channels — and numerous waterfalls of - the most romantic character. There is no other lodging of any descrip- tion to be obtained in this part of the world but that in which I now am, and which suits me admirably in all respects but one. If I could induce mine host to moderate his de- mands a little, I should feel perfectly happy in casting anchor here. I am in a detached house, called The Lodge; there are not above seven houses in the place. The post office is at Tan-y-Bwlch, a solitary inn just by, at which a picturesque tourist lately made a pause of five months, being unable to tear himself from so fascinating a scene. This piece of information I received from Mr. Madocks. Maentwrog, small as it is, contains a lawyer, doctor, and parson. The latter is a little dumpy, drunken, mountain goat. Pray write me a long letter in the course [33] of a day or two. I do not like to send for my books till I am settled in a permanent residence. T. L. Peacock. Maentwrog Lodge, Feb. 26, 1810. I should have written several days ago, but I have been expecting by every post a letter from Auber, whom I requested to enquire of the E. I. H. librarian the title of the best his- tory of Persia, which is almost the very first work I ought to read. I suppose he has not had an opportunity of asking the question, but as I do not like to lose time, I shall be obliged to you to get me the best History of Persia you can discover. I presume the "Genius of the Thames" Is now ready for publication. At what price do you mean to publish it? Of course not more than that of "Palmyra." You will oblige me by sending twelve copies to William St. Croix, by the Hornerton coach; six to my mother, and six to me. Have the goodness likewise to send my mother Sturm's "Reflections." My packages I suppose are now jumbling in the Shrewsbury waggon; as my mother in- formed me she should send them to London on the 19th. I half expected a letter from you, notifying their departure. Mr. Tonnereaux's snuff-box puzzles me [34] completely, as the Romans were not in the habit of regaling their noses with "pungent grains of titillating dust." If he uses these artificial stimuli, like some of my philosophical friends, to lighten the labours of the midnight lamp, perhaps Horace's laborum duke lenimen may suit him. But when my classics arrive, I shall investigate the abstruse subject with due profundity, and perhaps may have suffi- cient sagacity to smell out something apropos. I wish I could find language sufficiently powerful to convey to you an Idea of the sublime magnificence of the waterfalls in the frost — when the old overhanging oaks are spangled with icicles, the rocks sheeted with frozen foam, formed by the flying spray, and the water, that oozes from their sides, congealed into innumerable pillars of crystal. Every season has its charms. The picturesque tourists, these birds of summer, see not half the beauties of Nature. I look forward with anxious satisfaction to the close of the opera season, when you and I may crack an egg together here — a more philosophical operation than cracking a bottle. T. L. Peacock. Maentwrog Lodge, March 22, 18 10. I sit down with a resolution to write a very long letter, so put on your nightcap and com- [35] pose yourself at full length on the sofa. When your letter arrived last week, announcing the departure of my library and wardrobe, I re- solved to devote the whole interval to explor- ing the vicinity, and have been climbing about the rocks and mountains, by the rivers and the sea, with indefatigable zeal, carrying in my mind the bardic Triad, that " a poet should have an eye that can see Nature, a heart that can feel Nature, and resolution that dares follow Nature;" in obedience to which latter injunction I have nearly broken my neck. Now were I to attempt a description of all I have seen, and felt, and followed, I might fill seven sheets of foolscap, and still leave the cream of the tale unskimmed. I shall therefore content myself with promising, when you come here in August (which may no evil genius prohibit!), to show you scenes of such exquisite beauty and of such overpowering sublimity, as, once beheld, can never be forgotten. The other day I prevailed on my new ac- quaintance. Dr. Gryffyth, to accompany me at midnight to the Black Cataract, a favourite haunt of mine, about two and one-half miles from here. Mr. Lloyd, whom I believe I have mentioned to you more than once, volunteered to be of the party; and at twenty minutes past eleven, lighted by the full moon, we sallied [36] forth, to the no small astonishment of mine host, who protested he never expected to see us all again. The effect was truly magnifi- cent; the water descends from a mountainous glen down a winding rock, and then precipi- tates itself, in a sheet of foam, over its black base, into a capacious basin^ the sides of which are all but perpendicular, and covered with hanging oak and hazel. Evans in the "Cam- brian Itinerary," describes it as an abode of damp and horror, and adds that the whole cataract cannot be seen in one view, as the sides are too steep and slippery to admit of climbing up, and the tip of the upper fall is invisible from below. Mr. Evans seems to have laboured under a small degree of alarm, which prevented accurate investigation, for I have repeatedly climbed this unattemptable rock, and obtained this impossible view; as he or anyone else might do with very little difficulty, though Dr. Gryffyth, the other night, trusting to a rotten branch, had a fall of fifteen feet perpendicular, and but for an intervening hazel, would infallibly have been hurled to the bottom. But a similar mistake is not likely to occur in daylight. Let me ad- vise you, while I think of it, to provide your- self for your journey with nails in the heels of your shoes, which may save you from the mis- adventures of the jolly miller who lived on [37] the river Dee, who, according to the old song, had a bump upon his rump. I make due allowance for the brevity of your epistles, in consideration that this is the depth of the London winter, and the Tramez- zani and Catalani must fill the King's Theatre on every night of performance, and that you are consequently knocking about the bones & skulls most furiously; but when you can find time to peep out of your grave, I shall be glad to know when "The Genius of the Thames" will be published, and when I may expect Kirwan, Berkley, Spence, &c. I just mention these, from an apprehension that your attention to my last list may induce you to forget the first, which consisted of these and of the Critical and Edinburgh Reviews, Dec, Jan., Feb., March; Massinger, and the mathe- matical instruments. Euclid would be a neces- sary accompaniment to the latter, and if you have not disposed of Ireland's "Wye and Medway," I shall now be glad to have them. I should be much pleased if you could make it convenient to send me a small box, or parcel, punctually every month, with the Crit- ical Review, Graphic Illustrations, and what others you think proper; a certain regular literary novelty of this description is a thing to which I look forward with inconceivable satisfaction — it is one of my hobby-horses. [38] There Is more truth than poetry in the remark of Wordsworth that "as high as we have mounted in delight, In our dejection do we sink as low." You saw this exemplified In me last summer when I was sometimes skipping about the room, singing, and playing all sorts of ridiculous antics, at another doling out staves of sorrow, and meditating a dagger and laurel water. Such is the dispositions of all votaries of the Muses, and, in some manner, of all metaphysicians; for the sensitive and the studious are generally prone to melan- choly, and the melancholy are usually subject to intervals of boisterous mirth. Poor Cowper was a lamentable Instance, and Tasso, and Collins, and Chatterton — a list that might be prolonged almost ad infinitum. I do not mean to say that the effects of this morbid disposition are always so fatally exemplified as In the four I have mentioned, of whom three were driven to Insanity, and one to suicide. Cratlnus, Democrltus, Horace, and others, have opined that a certain degree of non-composity Is essential to the poetic character, and I am Inclined to think that there is considerable justice In the observation. Oblige me by sending a copy of "The Genius of the Thames" neatly tied up in a parcel and directed — R. Walrond, Esq. — [39] on searching for the address I find I have mis- laid it — Oh my eggregious carelessness ! My packages are now at Dolgelly. They will arrive here tomorrow morning. Pray write soon, and excuse all the faults and fol- lies of T. L. Peacock. Maentwrog, Aug. 1 8, 1810. You will begin to think me a caput mor- tuum. In fact, I have been very much in- disposed, and am so still. Your anecdote of Johnson shows him off to the life. Have you finished your rustication at Wargrave's, or have you not yet commenced it? Let me know. The Satirist, I see, has done its best to pul- verise me, and has brayed me without mercy in his leaden mortar. Lord help him! The fellow's ignorance is equal to his malevolence. He terminates with the most hackneyed of all hackneyed quotations, and applies it in such a manner as shows him totally unac- quainted with its meaning. I shall adopt Hume's plan, and never reply in any manner whatever to any attack that may be made upon me. Payne Knight is fond of paper war, and trims up the British Critic and the Edinburgh Review most glo- [40] riously. But I think silent contempt in these cases is the most effectual weapon. Richardson's bill — the expense of poetry — the little probability of encouragement from the trade to a work of which the first edition was strangled in its birth — and many other considerations induce me to think that it will be better to defer the re-publication of "Palmyra" till some other work of mine shall have obtained a degree of popularity, which I do not expect will be the case in the course of the ensuing winter. The Temple of Fame must be gained by slow approaches, not taken by storm. What think you? Tre-Madoc races, last week, I am told were very gay. I did not go near them. Mr. M. P. Madocks told some of my acquaintances he expected me. As no communication has passed between us since the winter I am at a loss to conceive what he meant by this. Dolgelly assizes are now going forward. Three balls are given, one last night, one tonight, and one on Monday. Whilst I am writing here, — a miserable invalid, by my solitary lamp, — all the beaux and belles of Merioneth are capering away to the harp of Cadwallader, the fiddle of Llewellyn, and the fife and tabor of Shankin Ap-Morgan Ap-Owen Ap-Rhys. It is to be feared that many of the lasses will have their leeks dressed in a way that old [41] St. David would not have patronized. Pray write me as soon as possible. T. L. Peacock. The aforesaid M. P. sent his compliments to me the other day, and hoped he should have the pleasure of seeing me at Dolgelly assizes. I recollect once taking a bottle of ale in the pocket of a post chaise to Ascot Heath. The cork was extracted with a tre- mendous report, and every drop of the con- tents went off in froth. A happy emblem of Mr. William Alexander Madocks. I had enough of him last winter. I shall take care to let it be long enough before I put myself in his way again. Machynlleth, April 9, 181 1. Your letter arrived on Sunday morning. I then gave my landlord the bill, and walked up to the parson's, as I could not leave the hall without taking leave of Jane Gryffyth — the most innocent, the most amiable, the most beautiful girl in existence.^ The old lady being in the way, I could not speak to her there, and asked her to walk with me to the Lodge. She was obliged to dress for church immediately, but promised to call on the way. She did so. I told her my intention * He married her nine years afterwards. — R. G. [42] of departing that day, and gave her my last remaining copy of the "Genius." She advised me to tell my host. I did so, and arranged matters with him in a very satisfac- tory manner. He will send my remaining bills under cover to you. As I told him my design of walking home through South Wales, he will probably not send them for three weeks. If they arrive before me, which I do not think they will, have the goodness to lay them quietly by. This is coming off with flying colours. I then waited my lovely friend's return from church, took a final leave of her, started at three in the afternoon, and reached Dolgelly — eighteen miles — at eight. Yesterday morning I walked through a suc- cession of most sublime scenery to the pretty little lake, Tal-y-llyn, where is a small public house, kept by a most original character, who in the triple capacity of publican, school- master, and guide to Cadair Idris, manages to keep the particles of his carcase in contact. I ascended the mountain with him, seated myself in the Giant's Chair, and "looked from my throne of clouds o'er half the world." The view from the summit of this mountain baffles description. It is the very sublimity of Nature's wildest magnificence. Beneath, the whole extent of Cardigan Bay; to the right, the immense chain of the Snowdonian [ 43 ] mountains, partly smiling in sunshine, partly muffled in flying storm; to the left, the wide expanse of the southern principality, with all its mountain summits below us. The excur- sion occupied five hours. I then returned to Minffordd Inn, as he calls it, took some tea, and walked hither through a romantic and beautiful vale. The full moon in a cloudless sky illumined the latter part of my march. I shall proceed to Towyn this morning, hav- ing promised Miss Scott to call at her uncle's seat on my way to England. I have a clean shirt with me, and Luarch and Tacitus. I am in high health and spirits. On the top of Cadair Idris I felt how happy a man may be with a little money and a sane intellect, and reflected with astonishment and pity on the madness of the multitude. T. L. Peacock. Note. — These early letters of Peacock show his style unformed and natural, with the eager in- terest of a youth of iive-and-twenty in the poetry of the day, to which he was contributing in the routine fashion of his period, but with powers of observation that soon afterwards found a more personal and peculiar form of expression. His ac- quaintance with men of letters seems to have been limited. His most intimate friend was a young bookseller, who was ready to supply him with reading matter on easy terms. Peacock at this [44] outset of his literary life shows little of that strange humor, and almost nothing of the lyrical facility for which he afterwards became distin- guished. His classical and French learning seems to be ample; he reads much Latin and French by himself, and with ease and relish. He is also in- clined to dip into philosophy and history with some attention; but what evidently interests him most is travel and life in the open air, and amid beautiful scenery. He plainly has no fond- ness for the sea, which he quits as soon as possible; and from travel beyond the narrow seas he seems to be withheld by lack of money, — the tour of Europe being then reserved for the wealthy. But he is making himself familiar with the picturesque parts of Great Britain, and is storing his fancy with those natural images that will be useful to him when he begins to write more like a master than like a journeyman, which he literally is in these youthful years. He has but few associates, and values proportionately such as he has. He was approaching English society from below rather than on the level of the young noble or university graduate, as Byron and Shelley did; and is hardly of the social rank of the Lake poets. He scoffs at Wordsworth, and seems to value Southey more than Wordsworth or Coleridge, esteeming Scott above them all. Byron had not yet begun to dazzle and eclipse his contempora- ries, and is not named in these early letters. He will come into some knowledge of Byron in later years, through his acquaintance with Hobhouse (Lord Broughton) who had travelled in Greece with Byron at the very time Peacock was making his modest tours in England, Scotland and Wales. [45] But now we approach a more ambitious poem than The Genius of the Thames, for which he has been reading up histories ^ of Persia and travels of Chardin and others in that land of romance. — F. B. S. [46] LETTERS TO SHELLEY Introductory Note by F. B. Sanborn These letters date from the place (Marlow on the Thames) where Shelley and Peacock had lived and rambled together in the pre- ceding year, and in the early months of 1818. The letters of Shelley are of far more literary importance than the communications and replies of Peacock; yet the latter supply some quite needful information concerning the erratic poet and his friends. The letters to Shelley in 18 18, which this period covers, were ten in number, beginning in March, 18 1 8, and continuing April 2, probably April 16, May 14, May 30, June 13; probably June 27, July 19, August 9, August 30 and Sep- tember 13. It may be that the letter of April 2 was the first of the series, of which the tenth was written September 13. The time between the sending and the receipt of the letters varied greatly, by reason of the journeying of Shelley in Italy, — but the shortest time seems to have been eighteen days, — the letter of Shelley dated July 25 being received [47] by Peacock at Marlow, August 12. Dr. Garnett states that some of the letters were lost. Those of Shelley that still exist are included in the full collection of Mr. Ingpen (London, 1909). At the end of the first letter of Peacock's here printed, he says, "I shall write invari- ably every second Sunday;" but he did not quite keep to that methodical resolve; for between July 19 and August 9, twenty days had elapsed, and between August 9 and 30, twenty-one days passed. Mrs. Shelley's Frankenstein had been published about the time that the Shelleys left England (March, 181 8), and notices of the book, friendly or otherwise, were appearing in the summer of 18 1 8. The "Marianne" mentioned in the correspondence was Mrs. Leigh Hunt, with whose husband Shelley occasionally corre- sponded, as he did with a few other English friends. He regarded himself as having but few in England, or the whole world, who cared for him, and in one of his letters to Peacock (April 6, 1 8 19), he says, "I am regarded by all who know or hear of me, except, I think, on the whole, five individuals, as a rare prodigy of crime and pollution, whose look even might infect. This is a large computa- tion, and I don't think I could mention more than three." In the letter of Peacock dated [48] May 31, 1818, he refers back to Shelley's letter of April 20, which said, — I have devoted this summer, and indeed the next year, to the composition of a tragedy on the subject of Tasso's madness, which I find, upon inspection, is admirably dramatic and poetical. But you will say I have no dramatic talent; very true, in a certain sense; but I have taken the resolution to see what kind of a tragedy a person without dramatic talent could write. It shall be better morality than "Fazio" and better poetry than "Bertram" at least. You tell me nothing of Rhododaphne, — a book from which, I confess, I expected extraordinary success. To this hint about his "nympholeptic" poem, Peacock made no response, unless in some letter that is lost. The Tasso subject was pursued by Shelley for a few months, and then given up, — perhaps because Byron had adopted it. In his letter to Peacock from Ferrara, of November 8-9, 18 18, Shelley said, — Some of the MSS. of Tasso here were sonnets to his persecutor, Duke Alfonso, which contain a great deal of what is called flattery, written from his prison. To me there is more to pity than con- demn in these entreaties and praises of Tasso. It is as a bigot prays to and praises his god, whom he knows to be the most remorseless, capricious and inflexible of tyrants, but whom he knows also to be omnipotent. . . . Tasso's situation was widely dif- [49] ferent from that of any persecuted being of the present day; for, from the depth of dungeons, public opinion might now at length be awakened to an echo that would startle the oppressor. But then there was no hope, ... in an age when the most heroic virtue would have exposed its pos- sessor to hopeless persecution, and — such is the alliance between virtue and genius, — which un- offending genius could not escape. At this time Shelley had not begun his reading of Goethe, and was not aware that the German poet had written a reasonably successful drama on Tasso's misfortunes, which was translated by Margaret Fuller and published by her brother, Arthur Fuller, after her death in 1850. William Cobbett, mentioned in this corre- spondence, had been, in America, a virulent opponent of Jeffersonian democracy; but on his return to England became one of the most vigorous writers against the Tory administra- tion, and had the sympathy, to some extent, of Peacock (who was a radical) and of Shel- ley. The censure of Byron's Fourth Canto of Childe Harold in the letter of May 30, and a later one, drew forth from Shelley, some months after (December 22, 1818), this comment: I entirely agree with what you say about Childe Harold. The spirit in which it is written [50] is, If Insane, the most wicked and mischievous In- sanity that ever was given forth. It is a kind of obstinate and self-willed folly, in which he hardens himself. I remonstrated with him in vain [at Venice] on the tone of mind from which such a view of things alone arises. For its real root is very different from its apparent one. Nothing can be less sublime than the true source of these expressions of contempt and desperation . . . He is heartily and deeply discontented with him- self; and contemplating in the distorted mirror of his own thoughts the nature and the destiny of man, what can he behold but objects of contempt and despair.'* But that he is a great poet I think the address to Ocean proves. I do not doubt, and for his sake I ought to hope, that his present career must end soon in some violent circumstance. It did end in his liaison with the Countess Guiccioli, and in his removal to the neighbor- hood of Shelley, at Pisa, who always exercised a good Influence over him, and to whom By- ron, though pecuniarily mean, was more just than most of his literary contemporaries. In the letter of June 14, 18 18, Peacock quotes for Shelley some of the most offensive passages in Southey's review of Mrs. Shel- ley's first novel, and speaks of Leigh Hunt. ^^Ut Huntice loquar^' means, of course, "to speak in Hunt's style." "Clare" is Jane Clalrmont, who lived with the Shelleys for years after her affair with Byron, though in no way related to Mrs. Shelley. She was the [51] brilliant daughter of the second Mrs. God- win, by a former marriage with an English- man named Clairmont. She wrote admirable letters to Shelley, Trelawny and others; and long outlived all the Shelley and Byron circle in Switzerland and Italy, — dying at Florence in 1879. Several of the autograph manu- scripts of Shelley, given by her to an American friend, Edward Silsbee, of Salem, are now in Harvard College Library. She was the mother of Byron's daughter Allegra, as Mrs. Musters of the Chaworth family may have been of the daughter called Medora Leigh, of whom Mrs. Leigh assumed the care and was charged with the parentage. In the letter of July 5, the list of books sent shows the miscellaneous nature of Shelley's reading. The Proces de Fualdes was the stenographic report of a remarkable mur- der trial in southern France, which was pub- lished in the Paris dailies in 1817, and again, in a volume, in 18 18, — perhaps the most celebrated of criminal trials in France during the Restoration of the Bourbons. Nightmare Abbey was not read by Shelley for nearly a year after the announcement of it. He then wrote from Leghorn (June 20, 1819):- Enough of melancholy! Nightmare Ahhey, though no cure, is a palliative. I have just re- [52] ceived a parcel containing it, by the way of Malta. I am delighted with it. I think Scythrop a char- acter admirably conceived and executed; and I know not how to praise sufficiently the lightness, chastity and strength of the language of the whole. It perhaps exceeds all your works in this. The catastrophe is excellent. I suppose the moral is contained in what Falstaff says, — "For God's sake, talk like a man of this world." And yet, looking deeper into it, is not the misdirected en- thusiasm of Scythrop what Jesus Christ calls "the salt of the earth"? Considering that Scythrop was a friendly caricature of Shelley himself, this comment is curious. Peacock's next letter, of July 19, dwelt upon the unwonted warmth and dry- ness of the English summer; very similar, I fancy, to the summer of 1893, when I was in London for three weeks without seeing a drop of rain; and the heat, for England, was ex- cessive. The political news in this letter was little, but continued the attack of a fort- night before on Wordsworth and his Tory friends. Brougham was an acquaintance of Shelley's, and had been consulted in some of his law- suits. A letter of August 11 from Peacock seems to be missing; the next one in this series is dated August 30, and acknowledges the receipt of one from Shelley, written from the Baths of Lucca, July 25, in which there is [S3] this mention of Nightmare Abbey, before he had seen it: — You tell me that you have finished the novel. I hope you have given the enemy no quarter. Re- member it is a sacred war. We have found an excellent quotation in Ben Jonson's Every Man in his Humour. I will transcribe it, as I do not think you have these plays at Marlow. [Here the pas- sage, Act III, scene I.] This last expression, "Have you a stool there to be melancholy upon?" would not make a bad motto. Accordingly Peacock made it his motto for the novel, then printing. Shelley also said in the same letter that he was translating the Symposium of Plato, which he did in ten mornings, and to which he wrote a prefatory essay, — both now printed, though the latter was but a fragment. The Essay mentioned in this letter of August 30, was an attack on en- thusiastic poetry, — to which Shelley's "De- fence of Poesy" may be taken as the answer. The Latin quotation, Hoc sublime candens, etc. "That Brilliancy on high which we all entitled Jove," is from Ennius, the ancient poet, and is quoted by Cicero in his Nature of the Gods. Ambrogettr and Miss Milanie were opera singers and dancers, whom Shelley had heard in Don Giovanni before he left London. The comments on Frankenstein, Mrs. Shelley's most successful novel, whose authorship was [54] a mystery for a time, were agreeable to both the Shelleys. Walter Scott had treated it handsomely in "Blackwood." Peacock's next letter, of September 13, is in some sense a reply to both Shelley's of July 25 and August 16, and gives the fullest account of Nightmare Abbey available, till the book itself should arrive, in the edge of winter. The Butler from whom its first motto is taken was Samuel Butler, who wrote Hudibras and other pieces in prose and verse, and who was an author more to Peacock's liking than to Shelley's. Morris Birkbeck, whose book was new in 1818, was an English- man who had visited the States west of Ohio after the war with England ended in 181 5; and whose observations there led to a considerable emigration of English farmers, as the earlier book of St. John de Crevecoeur had done at the close of our Revolutionary War. The "Northwest Territory" then in- cluded all west and northwest of the State of Ohio, and General Harrison, afterwards President for a month in 1 841, was its first Governor. A few of Peacock's letters are now missing; one must have been written at the end of September, and another in October, 1818; one, we know, was written November i, for Shelley mentions receiving it. The next after [55] this Is that dated at Marlow, November 29, in which he repHes to Shelley's observations on Tasso's imprisonment (already quoted), written November 9. The allusions to the shooting of Marshal Ney and General Labe- doyere in France, were events already three years old; the proceedings of Castlereagh in Ireland were twenty years before. "Night- mare Abbey" is mentioned at last, as having left London before the middle of November, along with the other books and Reviews named in this letter. The extent of Shelley's charities may be guessed at (they were never known) from passages in this letter and the next one, of December 15. Five years before, when visiting his mother at Field Place, in the absence of his father. Sir Timothy Shelley, the poet, then not quite twenty-one, met with a young army officer, four years younger. Captain Kennedy, who afterwards gave a faithful description of Shelley's looks and manners, with minor particulars : — He received me with frankness and kindliness, as if he had known me from childhood, and at once won my heart. His eyes were most expres- sive, his complexion beautifully fair, his features exquisitely fine; his hair was dark, and no pecu- liar attention to its arrangement was manifest. In person he was slender and gentlemanlike, but [56] inclined to stoop; his gait was decidedly not mili- tary. There was an earnestness in his manner, and such perfect gentleness of breeding, and freedom from everything artificial as charmed every one. The generosity of his disposition and utter unselfishness imposed upon him the neces- sity of strict self-denial in personal comforts; consequently he was most economical in his dress. He one day asked how we liked his coat, the only one he had brought with him. We said it was very nice; it looked as if new. "Well, it is an old black coat which I have had done up, and smart- ened with metal buttons and a velvet collar." . . . He reasoned and spoke like a perfect gentle- man, and treated my argument, — boy as I was, — with as much consideration and respect as if I had been his equal in ability and attainments. He soon left us, and I never saw him after, but I can never forget him. He was an amiable, gentle being. Shelley's generosity was constantly mani- fested in giving away his money (of which his father's churlishness allowed him but a scant supply), to any poor person whose case appealed to him. It is not to be doubted that Peacock's friend Warton got his share of Shelley's disposable funds, — all the more, because he was at Marlow (which Shelley loved) and was Peacock's friend. Shelley gave little direct attention to the items of news, general or literary, which Pea- cock gave him in these letters ; indeed, he did [57] not receive them, often, till their news was old, because he was rambling about Italian towns, visiting picture galleries, climbing Vesuvius, exploring Pompeii, of which, as well as of the paintings and statues, he gave Peacock admirable descriptions. At Bologna he was specially pleased with the Guidos to be seen in the gallery where Raphael's Saint Cecilia is: — I saw many of Guido, — one a Samson, drink- ing water out of an ass's jaw-bone, in the midst of the slaughtered Philistines. Why he is sup- posed to do this, God who gave him this jaw-bone alone knows; but certain it is that the painting is a very fine one. The figure of Samson stands in strong relief in the foreground, colored, as it were, in the hues of human life, and full of strength and elegance. Round him lie the Philistines in all the attitudes of death. In the distance more dead bodies; and still further beyond, the blue sea, and the blue mountains, and one white and tran- quil sail. Writing again from Leghorn, August 22, 1 8 19, Shelley said he had got nothing from Peacock since the letter of March 26, and added, — I most devoutly wish I were living near London. My inclinations point to Hampstead; but I do not know whether I should not make up my mind to something more completely suburban. What [58] are mountains, trees, heaths, or even the glorious and ever-beautiful sky, with such sunsets as I have seen at Hampstead, — to friends ? Social enjoyment, in some form or other, is the Alpha and Omega of existence. . . . What is it you do at the India House? Hunt writes and says you have got a "situation" in the India House: Hogg that you have an "honorable employment:" Godwin writes to Mary that you have got "so much" or "so much:" but nothing of what you do. The devil take these general terms ! Not con- tent with having driven all poetry out of the world, at length they make war on their own allies, — nay, on their very parents, dry facts. If this had not been the age of generalities, any one of these people would have told me what you did. A few weeks after, it seems that the five persons who valued Shelley's authorship had increased to eight; for he instructed his London publisher, Charles Oilier, to "send, whenever I publish, copies of my books to the following people from me: Mr. Hunt, Mr. Peacock, Mr. Horace Smith, Mr. God- win, Mr. Keats, Lord Byron (at Murray's), Mr. T. J. Hogg, Mr. Thomas Moore." September 9, 18 19, he sends Peacock his tragedy of The Cenci; but no letters from Peacock answering those questions, or ac- knowledging the books, appear in our collec- tion. In November, 1820, Shelley wrote to Peacock from Pisa, and said in part: — [59] The box containing your Essay against the cul- tivation of Poetry has not arrived; my wonder, meanwhile, in what manner you support such a heresy in this matter-of-fact and money-loving age, holds me in suspense. Thank you for your kindness in correcting "Prometheus," which, I am afraid, gave you a great ^ deal of trouble. Among the modern things which have reached me is a volume of poems by Keats; in other re- spects insignificant enough, but containing the fragment of a poem called "Hyperion."^ I dare say you have not time to read it; but it is cer- tainly an astonishing piece of writing, and gives me a conception of Keats which, I confess, I had not before. To this, in December, Peacock replied in the letter dated the 4th, and plainly implied that he saw no great merit In Hyperion; and he spoke very slightingly of Landor, styling him, "this frothy personage." Of Barry Cornwall (B. W. Procter) he spoke even more contemptuously, and of poetry In general, angrily. Shelley's letter dated September 25, 1821, of which Peacock speaks in his rather chilling letter In October, 1821, has not been preserved; but Its commissions seem to have been faith- fully performed by Peacock. "Jane" in this letter Is Mrs. Peacock (Jane Griffiths), to whom Peacock had been married a year or two, after an engagement of many years. [60] The child mentioned afterwards became the wife of George Meredith, if I am not mis- taken. Shelley had suggested to Peacock that he would like to go out to India in some capacity, — perhaps at the court of a native prince; hence the decided negative given in this letter, and the friendly, but rather con- descending, offer to find some practical occu- pation for the visionary poet, who often felt the need of more income. The "Elegy on Keats" was Adonais, of course, which in Peacock's letter of February 28, 1822, he briefly criticises. Shelley valued this poem highly, and in September, 1821, wrote to his publisher, Oilier, — "'Adonais,' in spite of its mysticism, is the least imperfect of my compositions; and as the image of my regret and honor for poor Keats, I wish it to be so. I am especially curious to hear the fate of 'Adonais.' I confess I should be sur- prised if that poem were born to an immortal- ity of oblivion." To Peacock, in the letter of January 11, 1822, which was answered Feb- ruary 28, Shelley said: "You will have seen my * Adonais,' and perhaps my 'Hellas,' and I think, whatever you may think of the sub- ject, the composition of the first will not dis- please you. I wish I had something better to do than to furnish this jingling food called verse, for the hunger of oblivion; but I have [61] not, and since you give me no encourage- ment about India, I cannot hope to have." ^ The Maddocks affair, of which Peacock wrote in this last letter to Shelley (who died in the following July), grew out of the resi- dence of the family at Marlow, near Maddocks, in the autumn of 1817, when Shelley, who was much in debt, was desirous of leaving England (which he did early in 18 18), wrote from London to his wife at Marlow: "I would ad- vise packing up all the books which we deter- mine to take with us, in a large box; I would then lock up the library; first seeing Mad- docks, and putting the safety of the whole in his charge." What afterwards happened, and what was the amount of Shelley's debt to Maddocks in 1822, we are not informed. Maddocks prob- ably had sustained losses, and had good reason to insist on the payment of what was due him from Shelley. In the rest of this last letter, Peacock tells what he has done in literature, in the three years past. Rhododaphne had been published in 18 17, and Shelley had written an enthusiastic notice of it for Hunt's "Examiner," but it did not get in. * Peacock afterwards wrote: "He had expressed a desire to be employed politically at the court of a native prince, and I had told him that such employment was restricted to the regular service of the East India Company." [62] Letters to Shelley Marlow, May 30, 181 8. My dear Shelley, — Since I wrote last I have received a number of Constable's "Edin- burgh Magazine," containing a notice of Frankenstein, very favourable, though not so much so as that in "Blackwood's," and not so good in any respect. It is not worth post- age, but I will include it in the parcel. If you remain at Pisa, or near it, the proximity of Leghorn will facilitate the receipt of the quarterly packet. There were some things in your longer letter which I intended to speak of; but, to tell you the truth, that letter gave me so much pleasure that I was unwilling to keep it to myself, and sent It to Marianne [Hunt], who has it still. I remember, how- ever, you mentioned your design of writing a Tragedy on Tasso's madness. I know little of the subject, but I cannot think it possible that it can be at all theatrical, though in the Greek sense perhaps it may be dramatic. The renewal of the Bank Restriction Act, which it is now generally acknowledged must be an annual measure as long as the "system" lasts, appears in some instances to have "touched monled worldlings with dismay." Cobbett is indefatigable. He gives us a [63] full close-printed sheet every week, which is something surprising, if we only consider the quality, more especially if we take into ac- count the number of his other avocations. America has not yet dimmed his powers, and it is impossible that his clear exposures of all the forms of political fraud should fail of pro- ducing a most powerful effect. The "Courier" calls fiercely for a censor- ship of the weekly press. The Queen has been very ill, but is better, to the great joy of this loyal nation. I have no idea and no wish remaining to leave Marlow at all, and when you return to England you will find me still here, though perhaps not in the same house. I have almost finished "Nightmare Abbey." I think it nec- essary to "make a stand" against the "en- croachments" of black bile. The fourth canto of "Childe Harold" is really too bad. I cannot consent to be au- ditor tantum of this systematical "poisoning" of the "mind" of the "reading public." We have had since I wrote last a continued series of cloudless sunshine and delightful warm weather. I have sufficiently conquered my out-of-door propensities to confine my- self systematically in my study all the fore- noon, and I consider this something of an achievement in the beginning of summer. I [64] have not heard from you since my last, and am very anxious to know where you are and what you are doing. I wish I could write you more interesting letters ; but there is a great dearth of political news, and my own mode of life admits of no varieties worth detailing. A solitary study, a sail, a walk in the woods — all delightful things, and wanting only the participation of a congenial mind — are yet, though infinitely various in their minutiae, very little capable of diversity in narration. My very kindest remembrances to Mary and Clare. Ever most sincerely yours, T. L. Peacock. I shall write invariably every second Sunday. Marlow, June 14, 1818. My dear Shelley, — Frankenstein is re- viewed in the new number of the "Quar- terly," but in no very friendly style. Hunt's "Foliage" is roughly handled, and In speak- ing of his friends you are alluded to, but not named. To the words, "When we consider the compositions of many of those with whom he [Hunt] has recorded his sympathy and agreement in this volume," this note is sub- joined: "One of these is now lying before us, [65] the production of a man of some ability, and possessing in itself some beauty; but we are in doubt whether it would be morally right to lend it notoriety by any comments. We know the author's history well. At Eton we re- member him notorious for setting fire to old trees with burning glasses; no unmeet em- blem for a man who perverts his ability and knowledge to the attacking of all that is an- cient and venerable in our civil and religious institutions." In the next page they allude to you again, and to your having written dBeo'i under your name in the Swiss Album. The "Gentleman's Magazine" has a brief commendatory notice of Frankenstein. But you will see all these things in the packet which I am now preparing. I write under some degree of doubt of your receiving my letter. I know not where you may be, and this is the third I have written since I received one from you. I communi- cate with you like a parson with his congre- gation, who has the talking all to himself. I have finished "Nightmare Abbey." We have this year a genuine and bona fide summer. The cloudless sunshine which I mentioned in my last has continued another fortnight. The heat is intense, and the woods are most delightful in the thickness of their shade, for the heavy rains of the spring brought out an [66] unusually luxuriant foliage, which now the bright suns of summer set forth in all invit- ingness — ut Huntice loquar. I never see Hunt, of course, nor hear of him. I shall not see London again, unless something new and strange should compel me, till 1 8 19. Hogg is coming down on Wednesday and we are going up the river together to Oxford. We think too of walking to Chalgrove Field, where Hampden was killed, and to Chequors, the seat of Cromwell, in the Chiltern Hills. Tell Clare I cannot write a history of Miss Milanie till I revisit the sources of informa- tion in London. Pray write, and give me an account of your wanderings. You must have so much to tell, and can tell it so delight- fully, that it is a double privation not to hear from you. My very kindest remembrances to Mary and Clare. All parties concur in praising the scenery of Frankenstein. Ever most sincerely yours, T. L. Peacock. I shall number my letters in future, and shall be glad if you will do the same, and write, as I do, every second Sunday. Marlow, July 5, 1818. My dear Shelley, — I have sent off a small box directed to Mrs. Gisborne for you, [67] containing the "Cobbett's" and "Examiner" from your departure to the present time; the "Edinburgh" and "Quarterly Reviews," the fourth canto of "Childe Harold," the little work of Moore which I mentioned to you, the Fudge Family in Paris, Beppo, Le Proces de Fualdes, "Constable's Magazine," which con- tains a notice of Frankenstein; the pins, and the sealing-wax, which formed a part of Mary's commission. The tortoise-shell comb I could not procure here, nor the nail-brush like Mrs. Hunt's, from want of access to the model; but as I heard from Oilier that he was going to send you a package, I requested him to send them. The "Examiner" can only be sent through the medium of the London Post Office; the person to apply to is Mr. Thornhill, at Mrs. Freeling's office, in Sherbourne Lane, Lom- bard Street. I have written to Oilier to tell him this, and requested him to execute the commission. If I were to put it into the post here, without a cover, it would not be sent; and with a cover I should have to pay eighteen guineas a year postage with it; and you would have to pay not much less, if there be any pro- portion in postage here and abroad. In the other way of sending it, the expense will fall very short of this. Perhaps Oilier will not attend to me; therefore, if you still wish to [68] receive it by post, you had better write to him, and repeat the information of the manner of sending it. I wrote to him also concerning the linen, and requested him to include it in his package. I cannot find the reviews or magazines of this month contain anything of personal interest to you or Mary; but my distance from town renders my in- formation tardy, though I usually obtain it eventually. I procured the books contained in the box I have just sent off. Ollier's note, informing me that he was going to send you a package, is the only information I have had from him. We have been very tranquil in our rotten borough amidst the bustle of the general elec- tion, which has been attended in one or two places with very riotous proceedings. Sir William Curtis has been thrown out in the City, and Barclay, in Southwark, has been displaced by Sir Robert Wilson. Hood, Waithman, Thorpe, and Mr. Wilson, all oppositionists, are the four members for the City; Calvert, as before, and Sir R. Wilson for Southwark; and Romilly and Burdett for Westminster. The latter, having been shorn of his beams of popularity by Cobbett, was hard run by Captain Maxwell, who com- manded the "Alceste," who was at one time very far ahead of Sir Francis; but the dread [69] of having the representation of Westminster disgraced by a Government nominee recon- ciled minor differences, and Sir Francis gained his election. So that of all the eight members returned by the Metropolis the Government could not get in one. "No country," saj^s the "Quarterly Review," "was ever in a more combustible state than England is at this moment," and it proposes, as you will see, a remedy, which, as usual with the nostrums of that party, is an exasperation of the disease. Our fine weather continues. We have such a summer as we have heard our grandfathers talk of, from the traditions of their progenitors, most glorious indeed and most delightful. — Sol trouchi tanta givia tu che di noi ti sunpagni. I have completed Nightmare Abbey, but it will not be published till October. You will find me, on your return to England, in the same town, but in another house. I am glad that your thoughts went to the Thames with so much kind remembrance even from the poetical Arno. I do not despair of your yet living on one of these bordering hills. You are very much regretted here and very much wished for; but you must not live again in the valley. However, this is perhaps throw- ing too long a glance into futurity. If Italy is beneficial to your health, far be it from me to tempt you home. Hogg has passed a week [70] with me, and we have had some long walks — one to Virginia Water; one to Cromwell's house at Velvet Lawn, which Hogg said must be one of the folds of Parnassus transplanted to Buckinghamshire. Brougham is contesting Westmoreland against the Lowthers. Wordsworth has pub- lished an Address to the Freeholders, in which he says they ought not to choose so poor a man as Brougham, riches being the only guarantee of political integrity/ He goes farther than this and actually asserts that the Commons ought to be chosen by the Peers. Now there is a pretty rascal for you. Southey and the whole gang are supporting the Lowthers, per fas et nefas, and seem in- clined to hold out a yet more flagrant speci- men of the degree of much degradation to which self-sellers can fall under the dominion of seat-sellers. The example will not be with- out its use. Of course, during election, Wordsworth dines every day at Lord Lons- dale's. My very kindest- remembrances to Mary and Clare. Yours ever most faithfully, T. L. Peacock. * This is a misrepresentation of Wordsworth's warn- ing against "carpetbag " candidates; and the assertion in the next sentence is not justified by anything in his pamphlet. — R. G. [7>] Marlow, July 19, 1818. My dear Shelley, — I suffered three weeks to elapse between my two last letters; but I now write again on the second Sunday, and shall continue to do so as systematically as possible. I have changed my habitation, hav- ing been literally besieged out of the other by horses and children. I purpose to remain in the one I am now in till death, fortune, or my landlord turns me out. It is cheap, and ex- ceedingly comfortable. It is the one which Major Kelley lived in when you were here, facing the Coiting Place, in West Street. The weather continues dry and sultry. I have been very late on the river for several even- ings, under the beams of the summer moon, and the air has been as warm as the shade by day, and so still that the tops of the poplars have stood, black in the moonlight, as motion- less as spires of stone. If the summer of last year had been like this, you would not, I think, be now in Italy; but who could have foreseen it? Do not think I wish to play the tempter. If you return to England, I would most earnestly advise you to stay the winter in a milder climate. Still I do not speculate on your return within two years as a strong probability, and I think where you are likely to take up your abode. Were I to choose the [72] spot, I would fix you on one of the hills that border this valley. Your own taste, and Mary's, would perhaps point to the Forest. If ever you speculate on these points among yourselves I should be glad to understand the view you take of them. It is pleasant to plant cuttings of futurity, if only one in ten takes root. But I deem it a moral impossibility that an Englishman, who is not encrusted either with natural apathy or superinduced Giaourism, can live many years among such animals as the modern Italians. No number of "Cobbett" has been pub- lished for three weeks; it is said he is coming home. Brougham has lost the Westmoreland election by a small difference of number. The Cumberland Poets, by their own conduct on this occasion, have put the finishing stroke to their own disgrace. I am persuaded there is nothing in the way of dirty work that these men are not abject enough to do, if the blessed Lord (Lonsdale) commanded it, or any other blessed member of the holy and almighty seat- selling aristocracy to which they have sold themselves, body and soul. I hope to have another letter from you soon. I shall be glad to hear that you have received the box. There is nothing new under the political sun, except that the forgery of Bank notes increases in a compound ratio of progression, and that the [73] silver disappears rapidly, both symptoms of inextricable disarrangement in the machinery of the omnipotent paper-mill. My very kindest remembrances to Mary and Clare. Ever most faithfully yours, T. L. Peacock. Marlow, Aug. 30, 1 81 8. ' My dear Shelley, — Your letter of the 25th July has given me extreme pleasure; it came the very day after I had sent off my last. I judge from it that you enjoy better health than usual, and a not inconsiderable portion of happiness. Your quotation from Jonson is singularly applicable, and I shall certainly turn it to account, either in Night- mare Abbey or in a Critical Essay which I am now writing. I am also scheming a Novel which I shall write in the winter, and which will keep me during the whole of that season at home, in despite even of Ambrogetti and Miss Milanie. I do not find this brilliant summer very favourable to intellectual ex- ertion. The mere pleasure of existence in the open air is too absorbing for the energies of active thought, and too attractive for that resolute perseverance in sedentary study, to which I find the long and dreary winter so [74] propitious. To one who has never been out of England, the effect of this season is Hke removal to a new world. It is the climate of Italy transmitted to us by special favour of the gods; and I cannot help thinking that our incipient restoration of true piety has pro- pitiated the deities, and especially hoc sublime candens quod vocamus omnes Jovem. You have done well in translating the "Sympo- sium," and I hope you will succeed in attract- ing attention to Plato, for he certainly wants patronage in these days, when philosophy sleeps and classical literature seems destined to participate in its repose. I passed a day or two with St. Croix and his bride this last week. I went to the races. I met on the course a great number of my old acquaintance, by the reading portion of whom I was asked a multitude of questions con- cerning Frankenstein and its author. It seems to be universally known and read. The criticism of the "Quarterly," though un- friendly, contained many admissions of its merit, and must on the whole have done it service. It seems the discovery ships have failed in their object, and are returning re conclamata. I have lately read the Thehais of Statius, which, though too ornate and inflated, con- tains many fine passages, and is certainly well [75] worth reading. I read Nonnus occasionally. The twelfth book, which contains the "Meta- morphosis of Ampelus," is very beautiful, and concludes with an animated picture of the dance of the inebriated Satyrs when Bacchus made his first wine-press, by digging a hole in a rock, and horn (afterwards sacred in consequence) was used instead of cups. For the most part, my division of time is this: I devote the forenoon to writing; the afternoon to the river, the woods, and classical poetry; the evening to philosophy — at pres- ent, the Novum Organum and the Histoire NaturelUy which is a treasury of inexhaustible delight. My reading is, as usual at this sea- son, somewhat desultory. I open to myself many vistas in the great forest of mind, and reconnoitre the tracts of territory which in the winter I propose to acquire. My very kindest remembrances to Mary and Clare. Ever most sincerely yours, T. L. Peacock. Marlow, September 13, 181 8. My dear Shelley, — A letter from you is always a joyful advent to my solitude. That of the 1 6th August came a day or two after I had sent off my last. I have not heard from [76] oilier, nor seen any of the proofs you mention. Much as I regret your absence, I think you will do well at least to winter in Italy. A cold and stormy autumn has succeeded, with very sudden change, to our brilliant summer, and gives no favourable promise of the coming winter. I thought I had fully explained to you the object of Nightmare Abbey, which was merely to bring to a sort of philosophical focus a few of the morbidities of modern literature, and to let in a little daylight on its atrabilarious complexion. I have prefixed to it as a motto the following lines of Butler : — There's a dark lantern of the spirit Which none see by but those who bear it, That makes them in the dark see visions, And hag themselves with apparitions; Find racks for their own minds, and vaunt Of their own misery and want. Your extract from Jonson follows on a separate leaf, with the omission of Knowell's interlo- cutions. I shall send it in your Michaelmas box, which I am only waiting the publica- tion of the "Quarterly Review" to prepare. I send these little packages by sea, and a vessel is sometimes three months on its voyage; but from the time of the arrival of the first in Italy you will receive them in pretty regular quarterly succession. [77] Birkbeck's^ Notes on America have fixed the public attention on that country in an un- precedented degree. He has emigrated, with his whole family, from a farm which he occu- pied in Surrey to the North-western territory, where he has purchased a prairie of four thou- sand acres, at the usual Government price of two dollars an acre. Multitudes are follow- ing his example, even from this neighbour- hood. I shall include this work in the box. He is a man of vigorous intellect, who thinks deeply and describes admirably. The temp- tation to agriculturists with a small capital must be irresistible; and the picture he pre- sents of the march of cultivation and popu- lation beyond the Ohio is one of the most wonderful spectacles ever yet presented to the mind's eye of philosophy. The "Edinburgh Review" just published has an article on the "State of Parties," the cream of which is that the grand panacea for the national grievances is to bring the Whigs again into power, without reforming the Par- liament! The people must be the swinish multitude indeed if they can believe this. You remember that the grand remedy for ^ Morris Birkbeck, author of Notes of a Journey in America from the Coast of Virginia to the Territory of Illinois, London, 1817. This book reached a fifth edi- tion by 1819. — R. G. [78] pauperism proposed by this same " Review " was to imbue every man with his Bible. Ben- tham has laid a mighty axe to the root of superstition in a work which I shall also send.^ My very kindest remembrances to Mary and Clare. Yours ever most faithfully, T. L. Peacock. Marlow, November 29, 1818. My dear Shelley, — I have again al- lowed a month to elapse without writing to you, or rather without sending a letter which I did write, and which I thought so very un- interesting that I hoped to amend it by a day or two's delay, and the day or two, as usual, has grown to a fortnight. However, I have now got into such a train of good habits that I think I can promise to be punctual in future; and were I not fearful of the risk of such a malediction, I would say, "May Pan never be propitious to me if I be not in all coming fortnights as regular as the dial." I have your very interesting letter from Ferrara, and have laid up in consecrated paper the morsels of Tasso's dungeon-door. I am * Probably his Church of Englandism and its Cate- chism examined, London, 181 8; but printed privately in the previous year. — R. G. [79] afraid you judge too well of the modern world in saying that no similar iniquity could happen now. Think of the dungeons of the Spanish Patriots alone; but I could accumulate a pile of instances in which public opinion is power- less. Think of Ney and Labedoyere and the murder of Derby, and Castlereagh in Ireland. In the hurry of writing my last, I fell into a numerical error. I should have said 1,500 for 1,3 3 3 J^. The result will be more conclu- sive, and you can easily supply it. Since my last, Sir Samuel Romilly has destroyed him- self, in a paroxysm of grief for the death of his wife. I dispatched, more than a fortnight ago, the second box to the Ship Agents, with posi- tive directions to send it by the very first opportunity for Leghorn direct. The con- tents are: — "Examiner," to November 9. "Cobbett," eight numbers, all that had been published between Midsummer and November 9. Cobbett's Yearns Residence in America. Birkbeck's Notes on America. Birkbeck's Letters from Illinois. Tales of my Landlord, second series. Nightmare Abbey. I suppose I shall be able in my next to send the name of the Ship and Master. There is a new number of the "Irish Melodies" pub- [80] lished; and a posthumous work of Madame de Stael, — Considerations on the French Revo- lution. Should you like me to send these? I have the volumes of Lord Byron concerning which you enquire. I see by the papers that Castle Goring has been let, on a repairing lease, for twenty-one years, at £20 a year, to the Dowager Mar- chioness of Lansdowne. I have heard no more of the affairs which took me to London last month. I adhere to my resolution of not going there at all, unless particular business should call me, and I do not at present foresee any that is likely to do so. I am writing a comic Romance of the Twelfth Century ^ which I shall make the vehicle of much oblique satire on the oppressions that are done under the sun. I have suspended the Essay till the completion of the Romance. The political pamphlet I shall publish about the meeting of Parliament. I have thought of an historical work, which would be more useful than any I have yet planned. When I have time and materials, I shall set about it in earnest; so that, with so much occupation, present and future, I feel no regret for the charms of the Metropolis. I rise every morning at half-past 5, and write before breakfast, by lamplight. * Maid Marian. [81] MlUy's relations have often enquired for her of Maddocks. I have sent them word by him that I will give them £i at Christmas In the manner you desire. As to remitting It, you may as well defer doing so till you have some other commission, when you may write a draft on Brooks for both. Perhaps, If you are not very poor, you will be inclined to make a com- mission on the following ground : a young man of the name of Warton, a grandson of the Dr. Warton who wrote on Pope, has come to this town In a state of great destitution. He has a wife and two children, and not a six- pence In the world. His object is to keep a day-school, in which he Is likely to succeed, if he can keep his neck above water till his undertaking becomes productive. Having no money to purchase furniture, he hired about £4 worth of wretched things of Crake, for which he pays 45. a-week, that Is 260 per cent, per annum. I have spoken to Maddocks, who is getting some articles of furniture together, which he has offered to lend them gratui- tously. I have him to dinner occasionally, and render him what other little service I can, which you know is little enough, and I apply in all quarters I can think of to raise a small subscription for him. He appears to me to deserve assistance. He is an energetic and intelligent man, with many of those liberal [82] qualities which are more beneficial in general to all who come in contact with the man than to the possessor himself. I shall be able to prevail on one or two of the tradesmen to send their children to him; but my voice will not be good for him in many cases. There were some ladies in Eeles's shop who observed to young Tyler that they were much pleased with Mr. Warton's appearance, but did not know that they could venture to send their children to him, for they were doubtful of his principles, from seeing him so much with Mr. Peacock, "who keeps everybody from going to church." He is a man who must have done well if he had not married. However, that is past praying for; and a wife is an Indispen- sable qualification to a schoolmaster; and, as I have said, I think he has a good chance of eventual success; and If you can spare any- thing for him, I am of opinion that It will be well bestowed. My very kindest remembrances to Mary and Clare. Yours ever most sincerely, T. L. Peacock. Marlow, Tuesday, Dec. 15, 181 8. • My dear Shelley, — Since I wrote last I have received your two letters from Bologna [83] and Rome. Your descriptions of paintings are truly delightful; they make pictures more visible than I thought they could be made through the medium of words. I read them to everyone who calls on me — not many to be sure; but the general pleasure they give convinces me that if you bring home a journal full of such descriptions of the remains of art, and of the scenery of Italy, they will attract a very great share of the public attention, and will be read with intense interest by everyone che sente il hello, but who, like my- self, is rooted like a tree on the banks of one bright river. An important event has occurred during the last week. There have been four capital trials for forgery of Bank Notes, and the Jury has found the prisoners Not Guilty, expressly declaring that they could not believe the evi- dence of hired informers, who betrayed men into crime; that they could not themselves distinguish the forged notes from the true; and that unless they were furnished with some certain criterion, they would not take the ipse dixit of the Bank Inspectors that the notes were forged. This is saying that they will hang no more men for the murderous paper- mill, and that, if its wheel continues to turn, it shall be by other means than blood. The myrmidons of corruption are aghast. Every [84] i new step of the sounding foot of Time makes their rotten edifice tremble; it is dislocated in all its joints, and will very soon fall to pieces amid the shouts of the world. I have altered my day of writing from Sun- day to Tuesday, for Tuesday is news-day with me, and I can thus give you the latest intelligence.^ Maddocks has behaved in the kindest manner to Warton; he has lent him gratuitously a number of articles of furniture and linen, something, in short, of everything that is necessary, and has even left money on his mantel-piece, and kept him supplied with provisions. I grow a complete fixture here, and as me- thodical as the clock. You can have no conception, from what you have seen of its outside, how comfortable this house is. I never before inhabited one so much to my mind, nor in a place so well adapted to all my purposes. You much amuse me by telling me to part your letters from the "Cobbett's," more especially as on the following Saturday arrived a packet of "Cobbett's" which were lying on my table on Sunday morning when your last letter arrived, and was inadvertently laid upon them. However, no explosion en- ^ He seems to imply that he received the London Saturday newspaper on Tuesday, and saw no other. How unlike present conditions! — R. G. [85] • sued. Cobbett has published his Grammar, which I have not received. I shall send it to you, of course. Yours ever most faithfully, with kindest remembrances to Mary and Clare, T. L. Peacock. London, January 13, 1819. My dear Shelley, — I have your letter No. 13 from Naples. We are now — my mother and myself — in lodgings here, No. 5, York Street, Covent Garden; but you had better direct your letters for the present "New Hummums, London." I now pass every morning at the India House, from half past ten to half past four, studying Indian affairs. My object is not yet attained, though I have little doubt but that it will be. It was not in the first instance of my own seeking, but was proposed to me. It will lead to a very suffic- ing provision for me in two or three years. It is not in the common routine of office but is an employment of a very interesting and intellectual kind, connected with finance and legislation, in which it is possible to be of great service, not only to the Company, but to the millions under their dominion. I have seen Hunt twice, and was at his Twelfth-night party. I do not see how he [86] could visit Italy without being utterly ruined; for what in the interval would become of his paper? For my part, it would give me the most extreme pleasure to visit you anywhere, though I have no aspirations in other respects toward any foreign land, and as little towards Italy, per se, as to almost any other, France always excepted. But the project is incom- patible with what is at least a very strong probability, that I shall be an integral por- tion of Leadenhall Street for fifteen years to come. "Admirable" Coulson dined with me last Sunday. I thought to puzzle his omniscience with a question concerning In- dian finance; but I found him quite at home in the subject, and he talked as fluently of Zemindars,^ Ryots,^ Mokuddims,^ Putwar- ries,^ &c., as if he had thought of nothing else for the last half-year. It is time to send you a third parcel; but I have as yet nothing towards it but a soli- tary number of the "Edinburgh Review." There is a very splendid Pantomime at Covent Garden, founded on the Adventures of Baron Munchausen. I have seen it twice; but I shall not be so much, in proportion, as I used ' Landholders. ^ Cultivators. ^ Head Cultivators of Villages. * Village Accountants. [87] ^ to be at the theatres. I believe the Saturday- operas will be the extent of my outgoings for some time forward. I cannot dine sooner than six, and by the time I wake in the even- ing it is too late to go anywhere; so I sit up reading half the night, and occasionally writ- ing, as now to you, at one in the morning. Lord Ellenborough is dead. The Queen of Spain is dead. Some suspect that she was poisoned by the holy conscience-keepers of the wretch Ferdinand, in consideration of her having possessed some virtues which inter- fered with their projects. I will attend to Mary's little commission about the brush, comb, scissors, penknife, pencils, &c. What an idea it does give one of Italy, being obliged to send for such things from Rome and Naples! I have sent a pound to Milly's relations at Little Marlow. I have corrected the first sheet of Rosalind and Helen. My very kindest remembrances to Mary and Clare. Ever most faithfully yours, T. L. Peacock. India House, December 4, 1820. My dear Shelley, — It has given me much pleasure to hear from you again, tarn [88] longo post tempore. I have had the piano with me in London from the first, and have kept it regularly tuned. I will deliver it as you desire. The person has not yet called. I perceive today, in the "Times," a vapouring letter, dated Pisa, signed "Walter Savage Landor." I marvel if you have seen this frothy personage. I have just heard a pleasant anecdote: there are four missionaries at Serampore, who are translating the Scriptures into twenty- seven languages. The way in which they do it is this: one of the quaternity sits at a desk with a Bible before him; under him sits a native who understands English and Hindostanee. At a table before them sit twenty-seven natives, each understanding Hin- dostanee and another language. The Mis- sionary reads a few words in English, the interpreter below him repeats them in, Hin- dostanee, and the twenty-seven write them down, each in a different language. From this ingenious device slight differences of idiom have led to essential misprisions of mean- ing. "Judge not, lest ye be judged," appears in the majority of these translations, "Do not justice, lest justice should be done to you." If I should live to the age of Methusalem, and have uninterrupted literary leisure I [89] should not find time to read Keats's Hyperion, Hogg and I are now reading Demosthenes. Hogg is at present in town, and will leave for a week or two at Christmas. I do not know where the Boinvilles are; I have not seen them for some time. Considering poetical reputation as a prize to be obtained by a cer- tain species of exertion, and that the sort of thing which obtains this prize is the drivelling doggerel published under the name of "Barry- Cornwall," I think but one conclusion pos- sible, — that to a rational ambition poetical reputation is not only not to be desired, but most earnestly to be deprecated. The truth, I am convinced, is, that there is no longer a poetical audience among the higher class of minds; that moral, political, and physical science have entirely withdrawn from poetry the attention of all whose attention is worth having; and that the poetical reading public, being composed of the mere dregs of the in- tellectual community, the most sufficing pass- port to their favor must rest on the mixture of a little easily-intelligible portion of mawkish sentiment, with an absolute negation of rea- son and knowledge. These I take it to be the prime and sole elements of Mr. Barry Corn- wairs "Madrigals." Yours ever most faithfully, T. L. Peacock. [90] My kindest remembrances to Mary and Clare. Mary has chosen a rich and diversi- fied field. I wish her and you all success from its cultivation. India House, October (1821). My dear Shelley, — I have been holiday- making among my old haunts in the terres- trial paradise, Merionethshire, from the 8th of September to the beginning of October; and after being so long in populous city pent, I have derived the greatest benefit from my excursion. I am now once more immersed in Indian MSS. Your letter from Pisa, September 25th, has just reached me. I am glad to find that you are likely to have a pleasant addition to your society there, and I think your recent fixed- ness to one spot a good sign both for it and you. I wrote to you on the 2nd of August (directing to Livorno), enclosing a box, &c., from Beck and English. If you have not re- ceived it you will perhaps cause enquiry to be made for it. I understand the Gisbornes are in town. I have not seen them. Oilier has lent my copy of the Elegy on Keats to some third party, and I have applied for it in vain. I assure you I did not mention the £45 with any other motive than I have already given. Nevertheless, Christmas will be such [91] a trying time to me, that, as you have sent me a draft for that sum, I shall be constrained to employ it. I should not like your Indian project (which I think would agree neither with your mind nor body), if it were practicable. But it is altogether impossible. The whole of the Civil Service of India is sealed against all but the Company's covenanted servants; who are inducted into it through established gradations, beginning at an early period of life. There is nothing that would give me so much pleasure (because I think there is noth- ing that would be more beneficial to you) than to see you following some scheme of flesh and blood — some interesting matter connected with the business of life, in the tangible shape of a practical man; and I shall make it a point of sedulous enquiry to dis- cover if there be anything attainable of this nature that would be likely to please and suit you. We have a charming little girl (now eleven weeks old), who grows and flourishes delight- fully in this fumose and cinereous atmosphere. She prevented Jane from accompanying me in my rustication. This time twelvemonth we passed our holiday at Marlow. I can take four or five weeks every year, and think on one of these occasions I shall peep into France, though for the most part I shall pay an annual visit to Wales. I will see what can be done for Maddocks, who, I am afraid, is in very — [letter torn] My kindest regards to Mary and Clare. Yours ever, T. L. P. I. H., February 28, 1822. My dear Shelley, — I was wishing to write to you before I received your last letter, containing the papers for Beck and English; but, simultaneously with that letter, there came upon me such a press of business that I have not had a moment to spare before to-day. I will send you almost immediately all your books which I have in London. The boxes which I left with Maddocks he will not give up. I have tried fair means with him, to the extent of offering him money, but he will not be satisfied with less than the total payment of your debt to him; and I have tried foul means with him, to the extent of setting Star- ling upon him, but he is determined to stand an action, with which he has been menaced, thinking perhaps that I shall not be willing to incur so great an expense; more especially as he is insolvent; and all the expenses would therefore fall upon me, whether I should gain or lose the cause. The law is clearly on my [93] side; but it is too expansive and precarious an ocean for my frail vessel to embark on. He has the impudence to say, in one of his letters to Starling, "Mr. Peacock's assurance in demanding books very much surprises me; he knows very well that he never left any in my care; Mr. Shelley, indeed, left some with me, as collateral security for a debt, which he has not paid;" and a great deal more to the same effect. Of course I should not have left the books with Maddocks if I could have sup- posed him capable of such complicated vil- lany and lying. As it is, I really know not what to do in the matter. Fortunately, I have a good quantity of the best of them in my own keeping, and will send them to you without more delay. You once mentioned some pamphlet that Lord Byron supposed me to have written. I never even heard of it. I have published nothing since you left England but Nightmare Abbey and the Four Ages of Poetry. Cain is very fine; Sardanapalus I think finer; Don Juan is best of all. I have read nothing else in recent literature that I think good for any- thing. The poetry of your "Adonais" is very beautiful; but when you write you never think of your audience. The number who un- derstand you, and sympathise with you, is very small. If you would consider who and [94] what the readers of poetry are, and adapt your compositions to the depth of their un- derstandings, and the current of their sym- pathies, you would attain the highest degree of poetical fame. Your "Hellas" I have not yet seen. My very kindest remembrances to Mary and Clare. Yours ever most faithfully, T. L. Peacock. Our little star is cloudless. [95] AHRIMANES "Do you," says Shelley, writing to Peacock from Chamouni, July 22, 1816, "who assert the supremacy of Ahriman, imagine him throned among these desolating snows?" It has not hitherto been known when or how Peacock "asserted the supremacy of Ahri- man," and the remark may well have passed for a mere chance sally. Great point, how- ever, is now given to it by the discovery of an unfinished epic from Peacock's pen on the contention between Ormuzd and Ahriman, conceived on a larger and bolder scale than any of his other poems, and, although, like the generality of his more ambitious efforts in verse, revealing more artifice than inspiration, is undoubtedly adapted to exalt his reputa- tion as a poet. Its main interest, notwith- standing, is less in connection with Peacock than with Shelley, — it having evidently been read by the latter, and having left visible traces of its influence in his Alastor and The Revolt of Islam. The original MS. of Ahrimanes in the British Museum is a fair copy entirely in Pea- [97] cock's handwriting. The date of the water- mark of the paper, which it is generally safe to accept as not very remote from the period of composition, is 1810. There is also a tran- script, in an unidentified female hand, of much later date, and there are two arguments in the same handwriting. These transcripts are now the property of The Bibliophile Society. The date of the poem most likely lies be- tween 1 81 2, when Peacock published The Philosophy of Melancholy, and 18 14, when he probably began to write Headlong Hall. The adoption of the metre of Childe Harold would alone justify the conjecture that it was written after the publication of that poem in March, 1 81 2, even if the last line of stanza 26, canto I, were not apparently a reminiscence of a line in Childe Harold, — Vainly his incense soars, his victim bleeds. Shelley, as will be seen, knew Ahrimanes when he wrote Alastor in September, 1815. The note on the first stanza of canto II may allude to one of the prosecutions of D. I. Eaton in 181 2 and 181 3 for selling irreligious books. Peacock has deservedly won high poetical reputation in the song, the ballad, and the lyrical utterance of subjective feeling; but [98] his more ambitious efforts with the exception of the too little known Rhododaphne have been with equal justice pronounced frigid, pedantic, and devoid of the essential aroma of poetry. Ahrimanes must modify this judg- ment. It is indeed not the poetry of inspira- tion but of reflection. The poet has manifestly sat down to write. It could not be said of him, as it might have been of Shelley when he composed The Revolt of Islam in the same metre, — His own mind did like a tempest strong Come to him thus, and drive the weary wight along. But it evinces no small imagination, a real gift for picturesque description, and a sur- prising power of handling the difficult Spen- serian stanza. Edgar Poe has justly praised the melodious versification of Peacock's Rho- dodaphne, but the metre of Rhododaphne is comparatively simple, and we were not pre- pared to find the Spenserian form so plastic in hands to which it was deemed a stranger. The conception of Ahrimanes Is grandiose, but does not seem to have assumed a defi- nite shape in the author's mind. It will be observed that the two arguments printed are irreconcilable with each other. According to one, Ahrimanes triumphs, according to [99] the other, he is repelled; and the existing fragment of the poem seems to agree with neither. It is clear that this could not have been intended to be the final form, for we are suddenly plunged in medias res, with no explanation as to who the hero is, or why he is an object of interest to the genius Aretina. The main interest of Ahrimanes is not so much in the poem itself as in the evidence it aifords of a hitherto unsuspected influence of Peacock upon two of Shelley's principal poems, Alastor and The Revolt of Islam. The susceptibility which endowed Shelley with such power to reproduce external and internal impressions rendered him open to the influ- ence of other poets. "Do you observe," he says in sending Gisborne a copy of Adonais, "any traces of 'Faust' in the poem I send you? Poets — the best of them — are a very chameleonic race; they take the colour not only of what they feed on, but of the very leaves under which they pass." It would be extremely natural that he should be impressed by a composition so much in the vein of his early favourites, Thalaha and Kehama. The influence certainly did not extend to verbal imitation, but it seems clear that neither Alastor nor The Revolt of Islam would have been precisely what it is if Ahrimanes had [ 100 ] never been perused by him. In both poems a voyage plays a considerable part. Part of the scenery of Alastor corresponds to that of Ahrimanes. Peacock's hero sails down the Araxas to the Caspian, and Shelley's, after voyaging on the Caspian, emerges from it by another river. Various verbal resemblances show that when Shelley wrote Alastor, the memory of Ahrimanes was still with him, though vaguely and perhaps unconsciously. Ahrimanes The stars grow pale, and o'er the western verge Of heaven the moon her parting orb suspends. She sinks behind the hill. Alastor His last sight Was the great moon, which o'er the western verge Of the wide world her mighty horn suspended. With whose dim * beams inwoven darkness seemed To mingle. Ahrimanes The light acacia blooms along the strand. ^ All the editions read dun, but we feel no hesitation in adopting James Thomson's emendation, chronicled by Professor Woodberry. The scene revealed by the moonbeam might well be dun; not so the beam itself. Dun and dim would hardly be distinguishable in Shel- ley's writing. — R. G. [lOl] Alastor The ash and the acacia floating hang Tremulous and pale. The resemblance of The Revolt of Islam to Ahrimanes is greater than that of Alastor, and the more important inasmuch as it is a resemblance of conception and structure. This especially applies to the first argument as here printed, the second proceeding on different and much inferior lines. Both poems are founded on the conception of the perpetual conflict of the good and evil prin- ciples; in the one personified as Ormuzd and Ahriman; in the other typified by the Eagle and the Serpent. In both the principle of evil is represented as for a time triumphant on earth, but impotent in heaven. In both the followers of Virtue are depicted as youthful lovers, who after extraordinary adventures, in which the powers of evil have vainly attempted their utmost to separate them, are borne away in an enchanted boat to an ideal paradise. The "oasis, inhabited by an old philosopher and his daughter," in Ahrimanes corresponds to the retreat to which Laon, in The Revolt of Islam, is conveyed by the ancient hermit. Direct verbal resemblances are few, but the "barrier rock" of Ahrimanes (canto I, stanza twelve) seems to reappear in the [ 102] *' rock-built barrier of the sea" {Revolt, canto IV, stanza four); and Shelley may well have been thinking of Peacock's — For him on earth unnumbered temples rise, And altars burn, and bleeding victims die; Albeit the sons of men his name disguise In other names, that choice or chance supply. To him alone their incense soars on high. The god of armies — the avenging god — Seevah or Allah — Jove or Mars — they cry — when he wrote, — And Oromaze, Joshua and Mahomet Moses and Buddh, Zerdusht and Brahm and Foh, A tumult of strange names, which never met Before as watchwords of a single woe. The same notion of a contest for the dominion of the universe between the powers of good and evil reappears in Shelley's next great work; but whereas in The Revolt of Islam Evil is left in possession of the terrestrial world, and Good only preserves itself by withdrawal to another, Prometheus celebrates the com- plete overthrow of Ahriman's counterpart, Jupiter. There is therefore small room for an influence from Peacock's poem, of which, nevertheless, a faint echo seems to linger still. Shelley's — Which walk upon the sea, and chant melodiously, [ 103] is the antetype in rhythm of Peacock's — All but the eternal stream, that flows melo- diously.^ We have remarked in another place that Disraeli's Revolutionary Epic, compared with the works of Shelley after which it is mod- elled, affords a perfect exemplification of the distinction between false poetry and true. This would not hold good of Ahrimanes, which is not false poetry but true poetry of rather an inferior order. It is the production of a really poetical mind, but of a mind on this occasion obeying no irresistible impulse to composition, and consequently, while dis- playing much beauty of a literary kind, de- void of that magical felicity of diction which is the constant companion, and the only sure criterion of the highest order of poetry. * In another of Peacock's poems there Is a curious echo of a passage in Shelley's Rosalind and Helen — And hear, half doubting, half deceived, The songs our simple sires believed. Peacock, Translation from the Hippolytus of Euripides. . . . all, though half deceived, The outworn creeds again believed. Rosalind and Helen. [104] AHRIMANES — THE ARGUMENT Canto I Necessity governs the world. Subordinate to her are four principal genii — the creating, the preserving, the destroying and the restor- ing spirits. Obediently to her first command the creating spirit. El Oran, poured light on chaos, from which mysterious union arose Primogenital Love. Under his vivifying in- fluence Nature originated and existed in purity. This being accomplished in its des- tined period, the preserving spirit — Oro- mazes — assumed his delegated empire and ruled the infancy of Nature when all was equality and happiness. This destined period being likewise accomplished, the destroyer — Ahrimanes — assumed his sway. He brought with him into the world every species of moral and physical evil, and first corrupted the nature of man by making him a hunter, and giving him a thirst for blood, whence originated war and discord and turbulence, the selfish thirst of unbounded possession, the atrocities of avarice and tyranny, and superstition. Under his iron reign we live, anticipating the des- tined period of the restoring power. , When the reign of the preserving Spirit was [105] ended he retired with his genii to the ex- tremities of the South, where he drew an impenetrable veil around the bowers of his re- pose. There the mariner glides over a bound- less ocean, and seeks in vain the shores of the Southern world. But from time to time some of his genii come forth to mingle with mankind, knowing that through their ministry must the reign of the Restorer be brought on. Thus the world is never totally abandoned by the spirits of good. Few indeed are the favored mortals that can know and feel their influence; but to them is given an impulse and a power of mind which rises triumphant over all the tyranny of Ahrimanes. They fix their eyes on the heights which futurity promised to their posterity, and hold their steady course through the evils of life, like that iron bark of the enchanter, through the waves of the storm; which remained one and indissoluble amid the wildest conflicts of wind and sea; which might be submerged by superior power, but could be neither changed nor broken. Such is the picture of the virtuous man struggling with calamity, a picture which the Preserver contemplates with joy from his Southern paradise, which the Restorer hails with anticipative delight as the omen of his terrestrial reign. [io6] When Ahrimanes first assumed his sway- over man and the world, his genii rapidly effected their task of misery and corruption. Blood flowed in feuds and in war, at the beck of tyrants, and on the altars of superstition, where he was worshipped under unnumbered names by the abject and terrified race of man. He delighted in the spectacle of war and deso- lation; he sent forth beasts of prey, and signalized his dominion by storms and earth- quakes and volcanoes. Men fell prostrate before him, and only seemed emulous who should be his most effectual votaries. But as he threw his glance over the world he dis- covered that some of the genii of Oromazes still lingered among mankind in the mountain- vales and by the shores of the lonely torrent, and that some individuals of the human race still resisted his power. In particular he distinguished an island in the Araxes, where the inhabitants yet lived in primitive simplicity. To this island he de- spatched a chosen number of his genii. They effected their task of corruption with rapid- ity; but two lovers, Darassah and Kelasris, remained incorruptible. Against these there- fore they directed the full torrent of their vengeance. The genii of Oromazes watched over their fate; but the power of the evil genii became gradually superior. [107] Discord and violence and rapine now reign among the islanders. The father of Kelasris tears her from Darassah to give her to an- other. She flies to her lover's cottage, whither she is pursued; but he succeeds in conveying her to the shore of the Araxes, where they find a boat in which they embark. Descending the stream they take refuge among some peasant worshippers of Oromazes. Canto II Reflections on instability of human things. An inundation of the river destroys the village. Driven from their asylum they wander a long and weary way and at length arrive at a city, where they observe innumerable pictures of misery and vice. The sultan sees Kelasris, for- cibly takes her from her lover, and confines her in his seraglio. Darassah ineffectually attempts to defend her, and is conveyed to a prison. At midnight the city is besieged by a hostile force — taken and sacked — the prison is broken open — the seraglio is on fire. Daras- sah enters it, kills the sultan, finds Kelasris and escapes with her to the desert. They live peacefully in an oasis. They discover a vast body of sand rushing towards them from a distance. They escape, but the oasis is buried. [io8] They fall into the power of robbers who sell them as slaves. Darassah is sent to labour in a diamond mine. The Ahrimanic genius of the mine ad- dresses him. He escapes from the mine and enters a deep forest. Despair and meditated suicide. He meets Kelasris accompanied by a beautiful female who has escaped with her from the seraglio to which the Arabs had sold her. The noise of pursuit is heard. They fly. A temple of Oromazes appears in view. The high priest makes his appearance. They ap- peal to his protection, which he promises. The sultan appears. The priest says he can- not oppose God's vicegerent on earth, and is about to deliver up his suppliants when the female companion of Kelasris discovers herself as an Oromazic genius. She reprobates the priest for profaning the name of Oromazes by calling himself his minister, when he is in reality the slave of Ahrimanes; but as the dedication of the temple to his name gives Oromazes power over it, she will destroy it and its pernicious minister. She destroys the temple, but an Ahrimanic genius inter- poses and saves the priest, saying that priests and kings are the peculiar objects of the care of Ahrimanes, and that while they serve him faithfully they shall be safe. [ 109] The lovers escape to a city on the shore of the Persian Gulf. The city is afflicted with famine and pestilence. Darassah is seized by the latter. Kelasris attends him. He recovers. They embark on board a vessel in the port, and sail into the Pacific Ocean. Storm and shipwreck. Darassah is thrown on shore, and afterwards Kelasris, apparently dead. She revives. Other bodies and fragments of wreck washed on shore. Here they find a simple people — a variety of the Lotophagi. A vol- canic eruption devastates the island. An Ahrimanic genius appears and desires them to pay homage to Ahrimanes. They refuse. "Perish then," says the genius, "with the sinking isle which the waves of the sea shall soon overwhelm." She vanishes. The Oro- mazic spirit appears, commends them, and tells them they are worthy to participate in the happiness of the Southern world; inter- mingling her speech with a prophecy of the reign of the Restorer. She then directs them to embark in a small boat which will bear them to the dwelling of Oromazes. The poem concludes by depicting the submersion of the island and the departure of the lovers for the Southern world. The boat sails securely on though assailed by violent tempests, raised by Ahrimanic spirits, imaging the course of virtue through the storms of life. [I.O] AHRIMANES CANTO THE FIRST I In silver eddies glittering to the moon Araxes rolls his many-sounding tide. Fair as the dreams of hope, and past as soon, But in succession infinite supplied, The rapid waters musically glide. Now, where the cliff's phantastic shadow laves, Silent and dark, they roll their volumed pride. Now, by embowering woods and solemn caves. Around some jutting rock the struggling tor- rent raves. II Darassah stands beside the lonely shore, Intently gazing on the imaged beam, As one whose steps each lonely haunt explore Of nymph or naiad, — grove, or rock, or stream — Nature his guide, his object, and his theme. Ah no — Darassah's eyes these forms survey As phantoms of a half-remembered dream; His eyes are on the water's glittering play; Their mental sense is closed — his thoughts are far away. [Ill] Ill But central In the flood of liquid light, A sudden spot Its widening orb revealed. Jet black among the mirrored beams of night, Jet black and round as Celtic warrior's shield, A sable circle in a silver field. With sense recalled and motionless surprise, Deeming some fearful mystery there concealed. He marked that shadowy orb's expanding size. Till slowly from Its breast a form began to rise: IV A female form; and even as marble pale Her cheeks; her eyes unearthly fire Illumed; Far o'er her shoulders streamed a sable veil. Where flowers of living flame inwoven bloomed; No mortal robe might bear them unconsumed ; A crown her temples bound; on such ne'er gazed Eyes that had seen primeval kings entombed; Twelve points It bore; on every point up- raised A star — a heavenly star — with dazzling radiance blazed. V Lovely she was — not loveliness that might In mortal heart enkindle light desire — [112] But such as decked the form of youthful Night, When, on the bosom of her anarch sire, With gentler passion she did first inspire The gloomy soul of Erebus severe; Ere from her breast, on wings of golden fire. Primordial love sprang o'er the infant sphere, And bade young Time arise and lead the ver- nal year. VI Her right hand held a wand, whose potent sway Her liquid path, the buoyant waves obeyed. Still as she moved, the moon-beams died away, And shade around her fell — a circling shade — That gave no outline of the wondrous maid. Her form — soft gliding as the summer gale — In that portentous darkness shone arrayed; Shone by her starry crown, her fiery veil. And those refulgent eyes that made their radiance pale. VII "Why — simple dweller of the Araxian isle" — Thus, as she pressed the shore, the genius said — "Seek'st thou this spot, to muse and mourn the while, [113] Beside this river's ever-murmuring bed, When gentle sleep has her dominion spread On every living thing around, but thee? The silent stars, that twinkle o'er thy head, Shed rest and peace on hill, and flower, and tree; All but the eternal stream, that flows melo- diously." VIII Solemn her voice, as music's vesper peal From distant choir to cloistered echo borne, Where the deep notes through pillared twi- light steal. Breathing tranquillity to souls that mourn. The awe-struck youth replied: "Of one so lorn Canst thou, empyreal spirit, deign require The secret woes by which his soul is torn ? Sure from the fountain of eternal fire Thy wondrous birth began, great Mithra's self thy sire. IX "Through many an age amid these Island- bowers The simple fathers of our race have dwelt; To them spontaneous Nature fruits and flowers. By toil unsought, with partial bounty dealt; [114] At Oromazes' sylvan shrine they knelt; And morn and eve did choral suppliance flow From hearts that love and mingled reverence felt. To him who gave them every bliss to know That simple hearts can wish, or heavenly love bestow. X ''But years passed on, and strange perversion ran Among the dwellers of the peaceful isle; And one, more daring than the rest, began To fell the grove, and point the massy pile; And raised the circling fence with evil wile. And to his brethren said: 'These bounds are mine;' And did with living victims first defile The verdant turf of Oromazes' shrine; Sad offering sure, and strange, to mercy's source divine. XI "And ill example evil followers drew; Till common good and common right were made The fraudful tenure of a powerful few; The many murmured, trembled, and obeyed. Then peace and freedom fled the sylvan shade, [115] And care arose, and toil unknown before; And some the hollowed alder's trunk essayed, And left, with tearful eyes, their natal shore. Swift down the stream they went, and they returned no more. XII "And I too, oft, beyond that barrier rock, That hides from view the river's onward way — Where, eddying round its base with ceaseless shock. The waves that flash, and disappear for aye, Their parting murmurs to my ear convey — In fancy turn my meditative gaze. And trace, encircled by their powerful sway. Some blooming isle where love unfettered strays, And peace and freedom dwell as here in earlier days. XIII "But one there Is for whom my tears are shed; A maid of wealthier lot and prouder line; With her my happy infant hours I led; And sweet our mutual task, at morn to twine The votive wreath round Oromazes' shrine. — She mourns, a captive in her father's home — Alone I rove, to murmur and repine — [n6] Alone, where sparkling waves symphonlous foam, I breathe my secret pangs to heaven's em- pyreal dome." XIV " Leave tears to slaves " — the genius an- swering said, — "Adventurous deed the noble mind beseems. Oh shame to manhood! thus with listless tread, In tears and sighs and inconclusive dreams To waste thy hours by groves and murmuring streams. I bring thee power for weakness, joy for woe. And certain bliss for hope's fallacious schemes, Unless thou lightly thy own weal forego. And scorn the splendid lot thy bounteous fates bestow. XV "This gifted ring shall every barrier break; The maid thou lovest thy wandering steps shall share. When night returns with her this isle forsake. From this thy favored haunt; my guardian care To waft thee hence, the vessel shall prepare. The monarch of the world hath chosen thee High trust, and power, and dignity to bear. [117] I come, obedient to his high decree, To set from error's spell thy captive senses free. XVI "Deem'st thou, when blood of living victims flows, 'Mid incense smoke, in denser volumes curled. That Oromazes there a glance bestows, A glance of joy, to see the death-blows hurled? No — far remote, in orient clouds enfurled, Nor prayer nor sacrificial rite he heeds. His reign is past; his rival rules the world. From Ahrimanes now all power proceeds; For him the altar burns; for him the victim bleeds. XVII "Parent of being, mistress of the spheres, Supreme Necessity o'er all doth reign; She guides the course of the revolving years. With power no prayers can change, no force restrain; Binding all nature in her golden chain. Whose infinite connection links afar The smallest atom of the sandy plain And the last ray of heaven's remotest star. That round the verge of space wheels its re- fulgent car. [ii8] XVIII " She to two gods, sole agents of her will, By turns has given her delegated sway; Her sovereign laws obedient they fulfil; Inferior powers their high behests obey. First Oromazes — lord of peace and day — Dominion held o'er nature and mankind. Now Ahrimanes rules, and holds his way In storms; for such his task by her assigned, To shake the world with war, and rouse the powers of mind. XIX " She first on chaos poured the streams of light And bade from that mysterious union rise Primordial love; the heavenly Lion's ^ might Bore him rejoicing through the new-born skies. Then glowed the infant world with countless dyes Of fruits and flowers; and Virgin nature smiled, Emerging first from ancient night's disguise And elemental discord, vast and wild. Which primogenial love had charmed and reconciled. * This zodiacal mythology, so far as it goes, pre- cisely corresponds with the theories of Mr. J. T. Newton as expounded in Peacock's recollections of Shelley. — R.G. [119] XX "Then man arose; to him the world was given, Unknowing then disease, or storm, or dearth; The eternal Balance, in the central heaven, Marked the free tenure of his equal birth. And equal right to all the bounteous earth Of fruit or flower, his pristine good, might yield. Nor private roof he knew, nor blazing hearth. Nor marked with barrier-lines the fruitful field. Nor learned in martial strife the uprooted oak to wield. XXI "Then Oromazes reigned. — Profoundly calm His empire, as the lake's unruffled breast, When evening twilight melts in dews of balm, And rocks and woods in calm reflection rest. As if for aye indelibly imprest Were those fair forms, in waveless light arrayed. — No sigh, no wish, the peaceful heart confest; Save when the youth, beneath the myrtle shade. Wooed to his fond embrace the easy-yielding maid. [ 120] XXII "No pillared fanes to Oromazes rose; For him no priest the destined victim led. The choral hymn, in swelling sound that flows, Where round the marble altar streaming red The slow procession moves with solemn tread, His empire owned not; but his bounty grew, By prayer or hymn nor sought nor merited; No altar but the peaceful heart he knew — His only temple-vault, the heaven's ethereal blue. XXIII "Such was the infant world, and such the reign Of cloudless sunshine and oblivious joy; Till rose the Scorpion in the empyreal plain, In fated hour, their empire to destroy, And with unwonted cares the course alloy Of mortal being and terrestrial time; That man might all his god-like powers employ The toilsome steep of wealth and fame to climb. To rugged labor trained and glory's thirst sublime. [I2I] XXIV "To Ahrimanes thus devolved the power, Which still he holds through all the realms of space. He bade the sea to swell — the storm to lower — And taught mankind the pliant bow to brace, And point the shaft, and urge the sounding chase. And force from veins of flint the seeds of fire; Till, as more daring thought found gradual place, He bade the mind to nobler prey aspire, Of wai^ and martial fame kindling the high desire. XXV "For him on earth unnumbered temples rise, And altars burn, and bleeding victims die; Albeit the sons of men his name disguise In other names, that choice or chance supply, To him alone their incense soars on high. The god of armies — the avenging god — Seevah or Allah — Jove or Mars — they cry; 'Tis Ahrimanes still that wields the rod; To him all Nature bends, and trembles at his nod. [ 122] XXVI "Yea, even on Oromazes' self they call, But Ahrimanes hears their secret prayer. Not in the name that from the lips may fall. But in the thought the heart's recesses bear, The sons of earth the power they serve de- clare. Wherever priests awake the battle strain, And bid the torch of persecution glare, And curses ring along the vaulted fane — Call on what god they may — their god is Ahrimane. XXVII "Favor to few, to many wealth he shews; None with impunity his power may brave. Two classes only of mankind he knows. The lord and serf — the tyrant and the slave. Some hermit-sage, where lonely torrents rave, May muse and dream of Oromazes still; Despised he lives, and finds a nameless grave. The chiefs and monarchs of the world fulfil . . . Ahrimane's behests — the creatures of his will. XXVIII " Say, — hadst thou rather grovel with the crowd. The wretched thing and tool of lordly might, [123] Or, where the battle-clarion brays aloud, Blaze forth conspicuous in the fields of fight, And bind thy brow with victory's chaplet bright. And be the king of men? — Thy choice is free. — Receive this ring. — Observe the coming night. — The monarch of the world hath chosen thee To spread his name on earth, in power and majesty." XXIX She said, and gave the ring. The youth re- ceived The glittering spell, in awe and mute amaze; Standing like one almost of sense bereaved. That fixes on the vacant air his gaze. Where 'wildered fancy's troubled eye surveys Dim-flitting forms, obscure and undefined. That doubtful thoughts and shadowy feelings raise. Leaving no settled image on the mind; Like cloud-built rocks and towers, dissolved ere half combined. XXX Nor stayed she longer parle; but round her form A sable vapor, thickly-mantling, drew [124] Its volumed folds, dark as the summer's storm. It wrapped her round, and in an instant flew. Scattered like mist, — though not a zephyr blew, — And left no vestige that she there had been. The river rolled in light. The moonbeams threw Their purest radiance on the lonely scene;" And hill, and grove, and rock, slept in the ray serene. AHRIMANES CANTO THE SECOND I Spake the dark genius truly, when she said, That Ahrimanes rules the mundane ball .? That man, in toil and darkness doomed to tread. Ambition's slave and superstition's thrall. Doth only on the power of evil call. With hymn, and prayer, and votive altar's blaze ? Alas ! wherever guiltless victims f all,^ ' It is possible to sacrifice victims — human victims — without cutting their throats or shedding a drop of their blood, and that too under the name and with the specious forms of justice. It is possible to display the sword of strife and be a very effective member of the church militant without the visible employment of tem- poral weapons. [125] Wherever priest the sword of strife displays, Small trace remains, I ween, of ancient Oro- maze. II Yet If on earth a single spot there be. Where fraud, corruption, selfishness and pride Wear not the specious robes of sanctity, With hypocritic malice to divide The bonds of love and peace by nature tied 'Twixt man and man, far as the billows roll, — Where Idle tales, that truth and sense deride. Claim no dominion o'er the subject soul, — There Oromazes still exerts his mild control. Ill But not in fanes where priestly curses ring — Not in the venal court — the servile camp — Not where the slaves of a voluptuous king Would fain overwhelm. In flattery's poison- damp Truth's vestal torch and love's Promethean lamp — Not where the tools of tyrants bite the ground, 'Mid broken swords, and steeds' ensanguined tramp. To add one gem to those that now surround Some pampered baby's brow — may trace of him be found. [126] IV The. star of day rolled on the radiant hours, And sank again behind the western steep; The dew of twilight bathed the closing flowers; The full-orbed moon, amid the empyreal deep. Restored the reign of silence and of sleep. Again Darassah seeks the moonlight shore. But comes not now in solitude to weep; He leads the maid his inmost thoughts adore. To tempt with him the stream, and unknown scenes explore. V A bark is on the shore; the rippling wave With gentle murmur chafes against its sides. Shrinks not the maid that barrier-rock to brave. Whose jutting base the eddying river chides? Fear finds no place where mightier love presides. They press the bark; the waters gently flow; The light sail swells, the steady vessel glides; The favoring breeze still follows as they go; They pass the barrier-rock; they haste to weal or woe. [127] VI He holds the helm; beside him sits the maid; Her arms around her lover's form are twined; Her head upon her lover's breast is laid; Pressed to his heart, in tenderest rest reclined, Lulled by the symphony of wave and wind. To lonely isles and citron-groves she flies (By fancy's spell in fondest dreams enshrined), Where love, and health, and peaceful thoughts suffice. To renovate the bowers of earthly paradise. vn Less pure Darassah's thoughts; ambition's spell Has touched his soul, and dreams of power and fame. But feeble yet and vague; nor knew he well. Whence those disturbed imaginations came. That touched his breast with no benignant flame; No state too proud, no destiny too high For her he loved, his wildest thoughts could frame. What might not that mysterious ring supply, That now had given her love, and life, and liberty? [128] VIII But the calm elements — the placid moon — The stars that 'round her rolled in still array — The plaintive breeze — the stream's respon- sive tune — The rapid water's silver-eddying play, That tracked in lines of light their onward way; The solemn rocks, in massy shade that frowned, The groves, where light and darkness chequer- ing lay. Breathed on his mind the peace that reigned around, And checked each turbid thought that erst had entrance found. IX The nightingale sang sweetly in the shade; The dewy rose breathed fragrance on the air; Who now more blest than that fond youth and maid. Whom the swift waters of Araxes bear. One common lot, or good or ill, to share? If ill — light falls the shaft of adverse fate. When mutual love assuages mutual care; If good — can bliss the feeling mind await. Unless one tender heart its joys participate? [129] So thought Kelasris, wrapped in dreams of hope, Nor deemed how soon, in time's delusive reign, The brightest tints of youthful fancy's scope Fade in the vast reality of pain. That speaks the omnipotence of Ahrimane. But while the light bark glided fast and free. And not a cloud 'obscured the ethereal plain, The gale — the stream — the night-bird's melody — Touched in her soul the chords of tender harmony. XI The stars grow pale, and o'er the western verge Of heaven the moon her parting orb suspends. She sinks behind the hill. The eddying surge Reflects the deepening blush that morning lends To eastern mountain's top, where softly blends Its misty outline with the reddening sky. Tow'rd heaven's high arch the lark exulting tends; Lost in the depth, invisible on high. He makes the rocks resound with his sweet minstrelsy. [ 130] XII The sun comes forth upon the mountain-top; The dewy flowers unclose and every drop Light trembling on the leaf — the moss — the spray — Beams like a diamond in the streams of day; The scattered mist flies far, to heaven up- borne, Like earth's glad incense to the shrine of morn. XIII The bark glides swiftly on; new scenes expand The light acacia blooms along the strand; Deep groves of pine, where laurels wave between, Rear their dark tufts of everlasting green; Now the vast oak o'er-canopies their way. And now the beetling crag, with sapless lichens gray. [131] XIV Far on the left the lessening rocks recede; A plain extends, a wide luxuriant plain; One fair expanse of grove and flowery mead And field, wide-waving with unripened grain; Of industry and peace the blest domain ! The tinkling sheep-bell gave a pleasant sound; And youths and maids were there, a cheerful train, And rosy children gambolled on the ground. Where peeped the cottage forth from many a sylvan mound. [Here the verses end. The resemblance to Shel- ley's Alastor will be seen at once in the spirit of the poem; while the verse is a more prosaic form of Shelley's Spenserian stanza in The Re- volt of Islam. The mutual influence of the two friends upon each other in their composition is very evident. — F. B. S.] ANOTHER ARGUMENT [Which continues the fragmentary verse.] Canto 1st. — The island. The Genius Aretina. Canto 2nd. — The voyage down the river. An extensive and cultivated plain on the left — a cave surrounded with fruit trees and [ 132] embosomed among rocks, on the right. The lovers rest in this cave. Looking on the plain opposite they think of Oromazes. A violent storm comes on. The river swells and inundates the opposite plain. The boat is carried away by the torrent. The cottages, vineyards and fields are overwhelmed. Canto ^rd. — The Genius Aretina directs them to proceed on foot to a city on the shore of the Caspian Sea. They arrive there. The miseries of a city are depicted. While they are making their observation the Sultan passes and sees Kelasris, whom he afterwards forcibly takes from her lover, and shuts up in his seraglio. Darassah resists and is im- prisoned. Prison described. He is on the point of destroying himself, but the Genius appears, sets him at liberty, and directs him to proceed to the desert. Canto 4th. — He arrives at an oasis, inhabited by an old philosopher and his daughter. The philosopher -delivers his opinion on the past and future condition of the human race. The next morning the phi- losopher is found dead. Darassah consoles the girl. She loves him. He feels unwilling to leave her. By degrees he loves her and for a time forgets Kelasris. He lives with his new love in the oasis. Canto ^th. — One day he walks alone to [ 133 ] the farther extremity of the oasis. He sees a caravan at a distance. It approaches. A shower of sand rises. It buries the caravan. It rolls to the oasis and buries the greater part of It, together with his new love. In his agony the Genius appears, tells him it was not hither she directed him, and gives him in- structions to proceed. Canto 6th. — He falls in with a tribe of wandering robbers. He harangues them and holds out the temptation of splendid plunder. They make him their chief. He leads them to the city In which Kelasrls had been taken from him. His spells unclose the gates. They sack the city and set it on fire. He kills the Sultan with his own hand. He can discover no trace of Kelasrls. He is made Sultan. Canto Jth. — He discovers the tomb of Kelasrls in the garden of the seraglio. He becomes miserable and by degrees tyrannical. Famine and pestilence assail the city. He consults the oracle and is ordered to attack an unoffending nation on the north shore of the Caspian, and build a temple there to Ahrl- manes under the name of Havohje.-^ Canto Sth. — He fits out a fleet and sets sail. The beauty of a sunset at sea softens his heart; he thinks of the days of his youth, of the simple rites of Oromaze and the Inno- * Evidently an anagram of Jehovah. — R. G. [134] cent love of Kelasris. He shrinks from the accomplishment of his present object. A storm comes on and scatters his fleet. He is wrecked, and preserved by a simple people dwelling near the sea-shore, a variety of the Lotophagi. He is pleased with their mode of life, finds a third love, and is becoming [calm] and happy, when their country is destroyed by a volcanic eruption and an earthquake. Canto gth. — Flying, he meets the Genius who leads him to his army, which she had saved and collected. He obeys her orders and conquers the country he was directed to attack. Finds a diamond mine and a gold mine and compels the conquered people to work them. Entering the diamond mine he sees the Genius of it, who addresses him. Canto loth. — He builds a temple to Ahri- manes and orders all persons to worship in it. One girl disobeys. She is brought before him and he falls in love. Finding her deaf to his persuasions he shuts her up in his palace. Canto nth. — His captive escapes he knows not how. He orders diligent search to be made for her. He joins the pursuit himself. He enters a deep forest. He loses his attend- ants. It is the season of autumn. At length he discovers her alone, reclining under a tree. He approaches her. She reasons with him. He attempts to seize her. She flies. [135] A temple appears in view in which she seeks an asylum. Canto i2th. — The high priest of Oromazes makes his appearance. The young female ap- peals to his protection, which he promises. Darassah addresses him and tells him he is the Sultan and the conqueror of that country. The priest says he cannot oppose God's vice- gerent on earth, and is about to deliver up the fugitive, when she manifests herself to be one of the genii of Oromazes, who, in considera- tion of their ancient love of mankind, had still lingered on the earth; but who will henceforth, disgusted at its total wickedness and corruption, abandon it to Ahrimanes. But before she goes she will execute an act of justice by destroying the temple and the priests. She destroys the temple, but the Genius Aretina interposes and saves the priest, saying that priests and kings are the peculiar objects of the care of Ahrimanes, and that while they serve him faithfully they shall be safe. The other genius replies by foretelling the period of the return of the reign of Oromazes. The Genius Aretina exults in the penal dominion of Ahrimanes. [136] THE POETRY OF PEACOCK By F. B. Sanborn Concerning the rank and merits of Peacock as a poet there have been widely varying estimates. Perhaps that of Mr. Saintsbury in the preface to his edition of Rhododaphne in 1897, is, on the whole, the best. He said, — This poem has never been popular, but is a very interesting example of that section of the Ro- mantic poetry of the first quarter of the nine- teenth century which was written by men who were not, first of all, poets. In this section "Rhodo- daphne" takes very high rank. Peacock's scholar- ship, in which he was far superior to all his great poetical contemporaries, including even Coleridge so far as exactness is concerned, may have "sick- lied o'er" his poetical vein; his eighteenth century pecuUarities also appear. But it is an immense advance on his only other long poem, "The Genius of the Thames," published six years earlier; and we see in it the great contagion of Shelley, in whose company at Marlow, Peacock in 18 17 had been living. Rhododaphne is exactly contemporary with Nightmare Abbey, which Shelley in a very different way had also inspired. Observe how en- tirely the note of persiflage is kept out of the poem, — how omnipresent it is in the novel. [137] No publication was made of Shelley's critique in 1817 of Rhododaphne , but he thought more highly than Saintsbury of the two earlier poems {Genius of the Thames and Palmyra), as appears by his letter to Peacock's publisher in August, 18 12, in which he said, — I shall take the liberty of retaining Mr. Pea- cock's two poems. They abound with a genius, and information, the power and extent of which I admire, In proportion as I lament the object of their application. Mr. Peacock conceives that commerce Is prosperity; that the glory of the British flag Is the happiness of the British people; that George III, so far from having been a warrior and a tyrant, has been a patriot. To me It ap- pears otherwise, and I have accustomed myself not to be seduced by the liveliest eloquence, or the sweetest strains; to regard with Intellectual toleration that which ought not to be tolerated by those who love liberty, truth and virtue. I mean not to say that Mr. Peacock does not love them; but he regards those means Instrumental to their progress, which I regard Instrumental to their destruction. (See "Genius of the Thames," pp. 24, 26, 28, 76, 98.) At the same time, the poem appears to be far beyond mediocrity in genius and versification, and the conclusion of "Palmyra" the finest piece of poetry I ever read. Of course I am only half acquainted with that genius and those powers, whose application I should consider myself rash and Impertinent In criticising, did I not conceive that frankness and justice demand it. [138] This letter speaks more for young Shelley's courtesy and moral sense than for his critical talent, which at the age of twenty was not well ripened, as we see by his own verse and prose In 1 812. But when he came to know Peacock, he found so much sympathy in his own revolt against the English conventionalities that they formed a close friendship, which in- fluenced favorably the writings of both. Pea- cock inspired Shelley with his own love of Greek and Latin, and gave him that sense of the ludicrous which, except in a crude form, was almost unknown to the youthful poet. Shelley in turn inspired in Peacock something of his own strong love for the marvellous and the magical, so little akin to his friend's lighter and more sensible turn of mind. The fragment of Ahrimanes has a singular likeness and unlikeness to Shelley's Alastor and Revolt of Islam ; and though Shelley had a power of constructiveness which was denied to Peacock, who could hardly ever frame a coherent plot; yet those flashes of fancy and wit so native to Peacock, with a fundamental pessimism which he had, even in youth, seem to have set the deeper imagi- nation of Shelley working most fruitfully. The tiresomeness observed in the earlier long poems of Shelley would doubtless have been [ 139] more noticeable, but for the light stimula- tion of Peacock; while his deeper sense of the wrong in the world held Shelley down from some of those enthusiastic flights that were too often but Icarus-downfalls in his youthful career. With all his levity, Peacock had that English religion which consisted, according to Emerson, in the belief that "God will not treat with levity a pound ster- ling." This difference of view, which in later years might have broken off his friendship with Shelley, only made Peacock the more attracted and serviceable to the generous poet. Shelley's early death kept the chain of friendship bright, although Peacock in later years took a more severe view of some of his friend's actions than he seems to have held at the time they occurred. The gift of Peacock was for lyric verse, — and this he shared with Shelley, but in a wholly different manner. Seriousness — even melancholy — is apt to mark Shelley's lyrics; while Peacock's are of a gaiety without coarseness, less frequently found in English poesy than in the continental languages. This quality hardly appears in Ahrimanes, and it is perhaps the reason why Peacock could never finish it; his genius being only momentarily, or by way of satire, directed to those woes of life which his argument required [ 140] him to put forward and denounce. In poetry he was of a Greek or French type, rather than of that mood which best befits an English moralist; for most of the poets of that lan- guage are moralists, as the Latin poets were. Of Rhododaphne, when it appeared in 1817, Shelley said it was like "a voice heard from some Pythian cavern in the solitudes where Delphi stood" — [I have been in those soli- tudes, and heard no such voice.] "We are transported," he added, "to the banks of the Peneus, and linger under the crags of Tempe, and see the water-lilies floating on the stream" — [I was there, too, and bathed in the muddy and swift Peneus, but saw no water-lilies, though plenty of crocuses, in the pass above the river, — for it was in March, 1893.] "We are with Plato by old Ilissus, under the sacred Plane-tree, among the sweet scent of flower- ing sallows; and above, there is the nightin- gale of Sophocles, in the ivy of the pine, watching the sunset so that it may dare to sing." THE FRAGMENTS OF NOVELS (Preface by Doctor Richard Garnett) Besides Peter of Provence, which his cousin Harriet Love understood him to say he had completed, — but of which only one faint [HI] and dubious vestige remains, — Peacock com- menced five romances which he left unfinished. One of these, Calidore, belongs to an early- period; three others, Boosahout Abbey, Cots- wold Chace, and Julia Procula, are among his last productions. The present editor, who for the first time published a portion of Cali- dore in his collective edition of Peacock's writings, then thought that it had imme- diately succeeded Melincourt, which would give a date of 1 8 17-18. He is now inclined to consider it prior to Melincourt, and to date it in 1815-16. The question does not admit of conclusive decision, nor is it of much impor- tance. Calidore belongs to the author's period of adolescent vigour, but is deficient in the urbanity which he subsequently attained by commerce with the world. The observation that the Vicar had not seen a gold coin for twenty years (1797 being the year of the Bank of England's suspension of cash payments) shows that the date cannot be very remote from 1 8 17, and paper and handwriting sup- port the same conclusion. It cannot be later than 1 8 17, since early in 18 18 Peacock is known to have been engaged on Nightmare Abbey. On the whole, 18 16 seems the most probable date. Calidore is an instance of a phenomenon not infrequent in imaginative composition, the [142] Inadequacy of a ground-idea, excellent in itself, to support the superstructure sought to be erected upon it. The visit of the Ar- thurian prince to Britain, in quest of a wife and a philosopher, is an admirable notion, but only for a short story or for an unbridled extravaganza. So long as the action passes among medieval or mythological person- ages all is well, but the introduction of the Arthurian stranger to the society of the nineteenth century creates such violent im- probabilities that the author might well despair of bringing his story to a satisfactory conclusion. This was probably the reason for its discontinuance, for the story is through- out written con amore. The editor has else- where pointed out its affinity to Heine's Gods in Exile; and it may be added that the princely toper Seithenyn, and the charming Anghared of The Misfortunes of Elphin seem prefigured in the drunken Welsh parson and his exemplary daughter. The recovery of a missing portion of the MS. allows Calidore now to be considerably extended ; but it still remains a mere fragment. The other fragmentary tales, Boosahout Abbey, Cotswold Chace, Julia Procula, and the unnamed fragments, are of much less compass than Calidore^ but more highly finished, being, so far as they go, polished to the uttermost in [143] diction, and perfectly ready for publication. The character of the handwriting and of the paper shows three of them to belong to a late period of the author's life. They were prob- ably written between his retirement from the India House in March, 1856, and 1859, when he must have been fully occupied with Gryll Grange, the last of his novels, of which Cots- wold Chace seems to offer some adumbration. The story is attractive as far as it goes ; but the author probably found it an insuperable diffi- culty to devise any plausible means of bring- ing his fair recluse upon the scene. Those usually resorted to by novelists in like cases must have appeared hackneyed and conven- tional. Even had this difficulty been sur- mounted, the continuation of the novel would have presented great obstacles to a writer of Peacock's peculiar vein. Miss Dorimer is a commanding figure, and must evidently domi- nate the story. But the Peacockian novel, when the scene is laid in modern times, re- quires a crowd of eccentric persons, in per- sonation of particular crotchets. Provision has indeed been made for such an assemblage, but amid its various humours the heroine must have been effaced. The title Boosahout Abbey savours of bac- chanalian comedy, but so far as the tale has proceeded, it is one of the most serious of Pea- [144] cock's novels. The reflections of Friar John with which it opens are fine and strikingly just, and the general course of the conversa- tion between him and the Abbot seems to tend towards a plot of tragic interest. Pea- cock may well have felt that such a situation was likely to grow beyond his management. For the plot of Julia Procula, Peacock is indebted to an old Latin play, which he had himself been the means of introducing to English literature. The first of his Horae Dramaticae, published in "Fraser's Maga- zine," is devoted to the Querolus, a Latin comedy probably of the fourth Christian cen- tury. The subject of the Querolus, which de- rives its name from the principal character, is the guardianship exercised over him by his Lar familiaris, or household deity. The Lar, provoked into activity by his complaints, en- riches him in spite of himself by the revela- tion of a buried treasure. This novel would have followed substantially the same lines, but Proculus, the exponent of the author's own philosophy, could not have been repre- sented so easy a prey as Querolus to knavish impostors; and the action would have been enriched by the introduction of his daughter and her lover, — an interesting, but, until the Lar's intervention, an impecunious pair. This intervention would also have conciliated [145] the opposition of the swain's father, Cams Atlllus, who would have opened his heart as soon as he found It needless to open his purse. We have here all the elements of a charming little comedy, provided only that means could be found to account for the existence and concealment of the treasure, and to keep up suspense for awhile respecting Its destination; the machinery of the Latin play not being applicable. These productions of a septuagenarian writer are almost Inevitably deficient in the racy humour and masculine vigor of his zenith of literary power; but there is no de- cline In the "lightness, chastity, and strength of language" which, fifty years before, Shelley "knew not how to praise sufficiently." The fragment of an unnamed story follow- ing Julia Procula, which we have ventured to entitle The Lord of the Hills, is perhaps the most Interesting of any. It is the only one of Peacock's fictions of which the scene is laid In a foreign country; and, although he frequently introduces a ghost story with evi- dent relish, this Is his only tale based upon the supernatural. The original MS. Is In pencil, seeming to Indicate a first draft, but there Is little alteration. Nothing can be more easy and masterly than the progress of the story up to the point where, without any [146] preliminary warning, Pegasus suddenly lays back his ears, furls his pinions and refuses to move another yard. The author had probably discovered that his original scheme for con- tinuation would not answer, and was unable to devise another. There is no internal evi- dence of date, but the water-mark on the paper is 1833. In July, 1836, Peacock be- came Chief Examiner at the India House, and the addition to his cares and responsi- bilities would probably disincline him to un- dertake any fresh work of fiction. The composition of the fragment, therefore, may perhaps be placed in 1836, or possibly 1835. [147] CALIDORE CALIDORE Notwithstanding the great improvements of machinery in this rapidly improving age, which is so much wiser, better, and happier than all that went before it, every gentleman is not yet accommodated with the conve- nience of a pocket-boat. We may therefore readily imagine that Miss Ap-Nanny and her sister Ellen, the daughters of the Vicar of Llanglasrhyd, were not a little astonished, in a Sunday evening walk on the sea shore, when a little skiff, which, by the rapidity of its mo- tion, had attracted their attention while but a speck upon the waves, ran upon the beach; from which emerged a very handsome young gentleman, dressed not exactly in the newest fashion, who, after taking down the sail and hauling up the boat upon the beach, carefully folded it up in the size of a prayer-book, and transferred it to his pocket. After which he turned himself to the sea, and, scooping up some water in the hollow of his hand, poured it down again in the manner of a libation; calling on the names of Neptune and Jupiter [151] and Proteus and Triton and the Nereids. Then turning towards the rocks he spread open his arms and invoked the Nymphs, the mountains, the rivers, the lakes, the fields, the springs, the woods, and the sea shore, by their several appellations of Oreads, and Naiads, and Limniads, and Limoniads and Ephydriads, and Dryads and Hamadryads. He did not notice the young ladies till he had completed this operation; and when he looked round and discovered them, he seemed a little confused, but made them a very courteous bow in a fine but rather singular style of an- cient politeness. From the moment of his first landing, and the commencement of the curious process of folding up his boat. Miss Ap-Nanny had been dying with curiosity, and had consulted her sister Ellen as to the propriety of addressing the stranger; having, however, fully made up her mind beforehand as usual with young ladies when they ask advice. The stranger spared Ellen the trouble of giving her opinion by advancing and politely enquiring if there were any such thing as a town or inn in the neighbourhood? these being things, he said, for which he was in- structed to enquire. Miss Ap-Nanny in- formed him, in fifty times as many words as were necessary, that there was no town [152] within many miles, but a very good inn for the accommodation of picturesque tourists, kept by a very polite well-behaved accommo- dating old woman, named Gwyneth Owen, whose poor, dear husband was gone to Abra- harii's bosom. "I hope he will not stay there long," said the stranger, touched apparently with sympathy by the rueful aspect with which Miss Ap-Nanny deemed it expedient to pronounce these latter words. The hawk's eyes of Miss Ap-Nanny distended with amaze- ment, but she proceeded to point out the way to the inn, observing at the same time: "You seem to be a stranger here, sir." "Per- fectly, sweet lady," was the reply, which left Miss Ap-Nanny's curiosity as unsatisfied as before, though her wide mouth was pursed up into a smile by the courteous appellative; for she was not esteemed a beauty in this sin- ful generation, though she had eyes like the fish-pools by the gate of Bath-rabbim, and a nose like the tower of Lebanon which looks towards Damascus. These prepossessing fea- tures, with the sub addition of two thin colour- less lips, like faded shreds of pink silk, set altogether in a complexion of smoky yellow, like the wood of the Barberry tree, over- shaded with inflexible masses of coarse copper- coloured hair, and mounted on a neck not perhaps very unlike the Tower which David [153] built for an armoury, formed altogether a combination of feminine charms that was doomed "to waste its sweetness on the desert air" among the tasteless squires of Cambria. "Your way to the inn," she pursued, "lies to the left of that rocky peak; where you will see a narrow path that will bring you into the public road, where you will first pass by the house of my papa, the vicar." This was said to give the stranger a notion of her conse- quence; but he astonished her again by ask- ing: "Pray, what is a vicar?" "A vicar, sir," said Miss Ap-Nanny, "Lord bless me! don't you know what a vicar is?" The stranger had too much politeness to press any further enquiry into a subject which the lady seemed either unable or unwilling to explain, as to what a vicar might be; and he diverted his attention to her companion. All the mild and modest simplicity of Cambrian beauty concentered its gentle graces in the beautiful Ellen. The soft light of her dark brown eyes indicated a rare and happy union of sprightliness and gentleness; her com- plexion, delicately fair, was tinged with the natural roses of juvenility and health; her black hair curled gracefully round her ivory temples, under the becoming Welsh costume of a black hat and feather; and her sym- metrical figure sustained no disadvantage [154] from the pressure of the sea breeze upon her drapery. Nature had gifted our youth with a very susceptible spirit; and the contemplation of this beautiful creature fanned the dormant sparks of his natural combustibility into an instantaneous conflagration. When we add to this that these were the first unmarried girls he had ever seen, it will not appear sur- prising that he with difficulty restrained him- self from falling at the feet of the lovely Ellen, and proffering himself to her acceptance as her true and devoted Knight; but calling to mind some prudent counsels that had been carefully engraven on the tablets of his memory, touching the Importance of time and place, he tore himself away with a very polite bow and an inarticulate valediction; and, following the directions of Miss Ap- Nanny, arrived at the hospitable doors of mine hostess Gwyneth Owen. The inn was filled with picturesque tourists who had arrived in various vehicles by the help of those noble quadrupeds who confer so much dignity on the insignificant biped, that if he venture to travel without them and rest his reception on his own merits the difference of his welcome may serve to show him how much more of his imaginary Importance be- longs to his horse than to himself. Our [155] traveller arriving alone and on foot was re- ceived with half a courtesy by the landlady, and shown into the common parlour where the incipient cold of the autumnal evening was dispelled by an immense turf fire, by which were sitting two elderly gentlemen of the clerical profession, recumbent in arm chairs, with their eyes half shut, and their legs stretched out so that the points of their shoes came in contact at the centre of the fender. Each was smoking his pipe with contempla- tive gravity. Neither spoke nor moved, ex- cept now and then as if by mechanism, to fill his glass from the jug of ale that stood be- tween them on the table, and the moment this good example was set by one the other followed it instantaneously and automatically as the two figures at St. Dunstan's strike upon the bell to the great delight of Cockneys, amazement of rustics, and consolation of pickpockets. The stranger made several at- tempts to draw them into conversation, but could not succeed in extracting more than a "hum" from either of them. At length one of the reverend gentlemen, having buzzed the jug, articulated, with slow and minute em- phasis: "Will you join in another jug?" "Hum!" said the other. A violent rattling of copper ensued in their respective coat pockets; two equal quantities of half-pence [156] were deliberately counted down upon the table; the bell was rung, and the little, round, Welsh waiting-maid carried out the money, and replenished the jug in silence. They went on as before till the liquor was exhausted, when it became the other's turn to ask the question, and the same eventful words, *'Will you join in another jug?" were repeated, with the same ceremonies and the same re- sults. Our traveller, in the meanwhile, looked over his tablets of instruction. These two reverend gentlemen were the Vicar of Llan- glasrhyd and the Rector of Bwlchpenbach. The rector performed afternoon service at a chapel twenty miles from his rectory, and Llanglasrhyd lying half-way between them, he slept every Sunday night under the roof of Gwyneth Owen, where his dearest friend, the Vicar of Llanglasrhyd, met him to smoke away the evening. They had thus passed together every Sunday evening for forty years, and during the whole period had scarcely said ten words to each other beyond the usual forms of meeting and parting, and "Will you join in another jug?" Yet were their meetings so interwoven with their habitual comforts that either would have regarded the loss of the other as the greatest earthly misfortune that could have befallen him, and would never, perhaps, have mustered sufficient firmness of [157] voice to address the same question, "Will you join in another jug?" to any other human being. It may seem singular to those who have heard the extensive form of Welsh hos- pitality that the vicar did not invite the rector to pass these evenings at his vicarage; but it must be remembered that the Rector of Bwlchpenbach was every week at Llanglasrhyd in the way of his business, and that the Vicar of Llanglasrhyd had no business whatever to take him on any single occasion to Bwlch- penbach; therefore the balance of the con- sumption of ale would have been entirely against the vicar, and as they regularly drank three quarts each at a sitting, or one hundred and fifty-six quarts in a year, the Rector of Bwlchpenbach would have consumed in forty years six thousand two hundred and forty quarts of ale, without equivalent or com- pensation, at the expense of the Vicar of Llanglasrhyd, a circumstance not to be thought of without vexation of spirit. Our traveller folded up his tablets, rung the bell, and inquired what he could have for supper, and what wine was to be had? The landlady entered with a tempting list of arti- cles, and enumerated several names of wine. The stranger seemed perplexed, and at length said he would have them all, for he liked to see a well-covered table, having always been [158] used to one. The landlady dropped a double courtesy, and the reverend gentlemen dropped their pipes; the pipes broke, and the odorous embers were scattered on the hearth. When the supper smoked, and the wine sparkled on the table, the stranger pressed the reverend gentlemen to join him. They did not indeed require much pressing, and assisted with great industry in the demolition of his abundant banquet: but still not a syllable could he extract from either of them except that the Vicar of Llanglasrhyd, when his heart was warmed with Madeira, invited the rector and the young stranger to breakfast with him the next morning at the vicarage, which the latter joyfully accepted, as he very well by this time understood that his lively and jovial companion was the father of the beautiful creature who had charmed him on the sea shore. He sate from this time in contented silence, contemplating the happy meeting of the following morning while the reverend gentlemen sipped the liquid so far and only till with their usual felicitous sympathy they vanished at the same instant under the table. The landlady and her household were summoned to their assistance. The Vicar of Llanglasrhyd was carried home by the postil- ions, and the Rector of Bwlchpenbach was put to bed by the ostler. [159] CHAPTER II Our youth was not unmindful of his en- gagement, and rising betimes, sent up his compliments to the Vicar of Bwlchpenbach to know if he was ready to accompany him to the vicarage. The ostler, by dint of knocking at the door and shouting "Ho! Ho! Ho! your reverence!" succeeded in waking the re- luctant rector, and in extracting a response very oracular in its brevity, the purport of which was that he was too queasy to rise. The stranger therefore proceeded to the vicarage without him, where he found the lovely Ellen in the parlour alone, to whom he found himself under the awkward necessity of explaining that he came to breakfast by the vicar's invitation; for the vicar had been carried home in a state of profound sleep and had continued in the same state sans inter- mission; so that his family naturally remained in complete ignorance of his appointment. Ellen ran upstairs and knocked at her father's door to announce the stranger's arrival; but the vicar sympathised in queasiness with his friend the rector, and murmured an injunc- tion to his daughters to do the honours of the house. Miss Ap-Nanny, hearing her sister's communication, skipped down stairs by three [i6o] steps at a time, determined not to let the stranger escape again without gratifying her curiosity about himself and his boat. Mrs. Ap-Nanny, a grave and solemn matron, as silent as her husband, next made her appear- ance, and the beautiful hands of Ellen pre- pared the tea. "Ellen, my dear," said Miss Ap-Nanny, "perhaps Mr. I beg the gen- tleman's pardon, I have not the pleasure of knowing his name." "My name," said the stranger, "is Calidore." "A foreign name, I presume," said Miss Ap-Nanny. "Probably," said the stranger. "But, dear me, sir, surely you must know something about your own name!" "Certainly," said Calidore, stealing glances all the while at Ellen, and perfectly distrait. "Allow me to hand you some toast: you must have had a very pleasant sail yester- day." "Very pleasant!" "Did you come far?" "Very far." "From Ireland perhaps." "Not from Ireland." "Then you must have come a long way in such a small boat, such a very small boat." "Not so very small: it is one of our best sea boats." "Do you carry your best sea boats in your waistcoat pockets ? Then I suppose in your great-coat pockets you carry your ships of the line! But, dear me, sir, you must come from a very strange place." "I come from a part of the world which is known to the rest by the name of [i6i] Terra Incognita. I am not at liberty to say- more concerning it." "But, sir, if it is a fair question, what has brought you to Wales?" "I have landed on this shore by accident. My present destination is London. I am to remain in this island twelve months, and re- turn with a wife and a philosopher." "God bless me! what can Terra Incognita want with a philosopher, and how are you to take them away ? " " In the same boat that brought me." "Why, who do you think will trust her- self? You would like some more tea? Ellen, my dear, do you think any lady would trust herself?" "If she had love enough," said Ellen. "Cream and sugar," said Miss Ap- Nanny. "The boat is perfectly safe," said the stranger, looking at Ellen. "I could go through a hurricane with it." "Love, to be sure, will do anything," said Miss Ap-Nanny, "but. Lord bless me! I may take an egg, and to be sure it would be worth some risk just in the way of curiosity to see Terra In- cognita. They must be very strange people, but what they can want of a philosopher I cannot imagine. I hope if you bring him this way you will keep him muzzled, for my papa says they are very terrible monsters, fiends of darkness and imps of the devil. I would not trust myself in a boat with one for the world. Would you, Ellen, my dear?" "I should not [162] be much afraid," said Ellen, smiling, "if he were in the hands of a safe keeper." "We have a philosopher or two among us already," said the stranger, "and they are by no means such formidable animals as you seem to sup- pose." "But my papa says so," said Miss Ap-Nanny. "I bow acquiescence," said the stranger, "but perhaps the Welsh variety is a peculiarly fierce breed." "I am happy to say there is not one in all Wales," said Miss Ap-Nanny. "I hear they run tame in Lon- don," said Ellen. "Then you are not so much afraid of them as your sister," said the stranger. "Not quite," said Ellen, smiHng again, "I think I would venture into the same room with one even if he were not in an iron cage." "Oh, fie, Ellen," said Miss Ap-Nanny, "that is what you call having liberal opinions. I cannot imagine where you got them. I am sure you did not learn them from me. Do you know, sir, Ellen is very heterodox. My papa actually detected her in the fact of reading a wicked book called 'Principles of Moral Science,' which, with his usual sweet temper, he put, without saying a word, behind the fire. He says liberal opinions are only an- other name for impiety." " Dear, good man ! " said Mrs. Ap-Nanny, opening her mouth for the first time, "he never was guilty of a liberal opinion in the course of his life." [163] Mrs. Ap-Nanny left the room shortly after breakfast to superintend the affairs of the household; and Miss Ap-Nanny, who was her secretary of state for the culinary department, was called out to assist in consultation whether leek-porridge or buttered ale should be ad- ministered to the queasy vicar; for, though the old gentleman preferred the latter, Mrs. Ap-Nanny was of opinion that the former was more medicinal; and the vicar was one of that numerous class of Benedicts of whom their wives take so much care in their indis- positions, that they are never suifered to con- sult their own tastes in any of the essential practice of the science of dietetics. On this occasion, however, the vicar was roused to exertion, and was so Athanasian in his invec- tives against the leek-porridge, and so Jere- mitaylorically pathetic in his entreaties for the buttered ale, that the heart of Mrs. Ap- Nanny was softened, and the ale was prepared accordingly. Whether it was owing to the exertion he had used in obtaining the ale, or to the ale itself, or to both in conjunction, we are not prepared to say, but the vicar found himself suddenly better, rose, dressed and descended. Opening the parlour door, he recoiled several paces in amazement to see the stranger on his knees before his daughter Ellen, in the [164] act of making passionate love, and Ellen, in the simplicity of her heart, listening to him with interested if not delighted attention! "Heyday!" exclaimed the vicar, who was destined this morning to exert his energies more than he had done for twenty years; "Why, what on earth? — Is this your return for my old Welsh hospitality? To begin by seducing my daughter, the staff of my life, now that I am stricken in years?" "I assure you, sir," said Calldore, "I have none but the most honourable motives." "How can that be, sir, when you never saw her before this morning?" "Indeed, sir, I beg your pardon. I saw her yesterday." "Oho! then you came here by appointment, and this was a scheme between you to lay a trap for my sobriety, and make me an accomplice. And now I recollect, I do not recollect that I gave you an Invitation, as you want to make me believe I did." "Nay, sir, your friend the rector can witness it." "Sir, what can a young man of your figure — you look like a courtier — mean by making love at first sight to my daughter? What can you mean, sir? Perhaps you have heard that she will have a thousand pounds, and that may be a temptation." "Money," said the stranger, "is to me mere chaff," and, producing a bag from his pocket, and shaking it by one [165] corner, he scattered on the floor a profusion of gold. The Vicar, who had seen nothing but paper money for twenty years, was astonished at these yellow apparitions, and picking up one inspected it with great curiosity. On one side was the phenomenon of a crowned head with a handsome and in- telligent face, and the legend Arthurus Rex. On the reverse, a lion sleeping at Neptune's feet, and the legend Redibo. "Here is a foreign potentate," said the Reverend Dr. Ap-Nanny, "whom I never remember to have heard of. Pray, is he legitimate by the grace of God, or a blasphemous and seditious usurper whom the people have had the im- pudence to choose for themselves?" "He is very legitimate and has an older title than any other being in the world." "Then I reverence him," said the Vicar. "Old Au- thority, sir, old Authority, there is nothing like old Authority. But what do you want with my daughter?" "Candidly, sir," said the stranger, "I am on a quest for a wife, and am so far inspired by the grace of Venus, Cupid, and Juno, that I am willing my quest should end where it begins — here." "On a quest," exclaimed the Vicar, "Venus, Cupid, and Juno! Ah! I see how it is. Rich, humoured, and touched in the head. Pray, what do you mean by Juno?" "Juno Pro- [i66] nuba," said the stranger, "the goddess of marriage." "I see, sir, you are inclined to make a joke of both me and my daughter. Sir, I must tell you this is very unbecoming levity." "Mydearsir, I assure you — " "Sir, it is palpable. Would any man make a serious proposal to a man of my cloth for his daughter, and talk to him of the grace of Venus and Cupid and Juno Pronuba, the goddess of marriage?" "I swear to you, sir," said the stranger, earnestly, "by the sacred head of Pan." "Pan!" exclaimed the vicar. "Sir! this is most outrageous ! Ellen, my love, fetch me another mug of buttered ale, for my exertions exhaust me." Ellen disappeared, glad of the momentary relief, for she had been sitting in a state of extreme embarrassment, with her hands crossed on her lap, and her looks fixed on the carpet. The vicar threw himself into his great arm chair, and fanned himself with his handkerchief. The stranger stood silently watching the door for the re-appearance of Ellen, who shortly returned with the mug, which the vicar, taking, presented to the stranger, saying: — "Come, sir, my wrath, which is great, must not make me unmind- ful of old Welsh hospitality." Calidore took the mug, and sipped it to please the vicar, having first poured a small quantity of it [167] on the floor, saying: — "iX'qOt, Ba/cxe! ("Be propitious, Bacchus!") "Really, sir," said the vicar, after a copious draught, — "this is most monstrous and incomprehensible; I wax warm, sir, in wrath." The truth was that the vicar was really angry with the stranger's words and actions, but as often as he cast his eyes on the golden shower on the floor he felt his wrath suddenly mollified. But hav- ing broken the ice of his voice he went on like a general thaw, to the great amazement of Mrs. and Miss Ap-Nanny, who, hearing the unusual rimbombo of his guttur-nasal elo- quence, burst Into the room to ascertain what was the matter. "I declare," said Mrs. Ap- Nanny, "here is the floor covered with money." "I declare," said Miss Ap-Nanny, "here is papa in a passion." "I am so," said the vicar, "and with very orthodox reason. I am in a great and very exceeding passion. I found this young man in the act of seduc- ing Ellen." "My very dear papa — " said Ellen deprecatingly. "Oh! the monster!" said Miss Ap-Nanny. "Oh! horrid!" said Mrs. Ap-Nanny. "And with his gold, I sup- pose," said Miss Ap-Nanny. "Did he throw all the gold on the floor?" "Yes," said the vicar; " he threw everything on the floor. He threw himself on the floor; he threw his money on the floor; he threw my buttered [i68] ale on the floor — " "And greased the carpet, I protest!" screamed Mrs. Ap-Nanny. "And had the impudence to talk to me about Bac- chus," continued the vicar; "and called Pan to witness that he wanted to marry my daughter by the grace of Venus and Cupid, and Juno Pronuba, the goddess of marriage; which I think composes altogether the most atrocious outrage that was ever offered to a man of my cloth." "I am so inexperienced in the manners of this country," said Calidore, "that I did not know the greatest outrage one gentleman can offer to another is to pro- pose to marry his daughter. I should have acted with more circumspection if I had been aware of this fact." "Sir," said the vicar, "there is no such fact but in your own head, which seems to be a repository for everything that is nowhere else, and for nothing that is elsewhere. Sir, the vial of my wrath over- flows." "Jupiter!"— "Certainly," said Miss Ap-Nanny, "it is a most extraordinary pro- ceeding for a gentleman to land one evening on a strange coast, and begin the next morn- ing by making love to one of the first two pretty girls he sees. But Ellen knows better than to listen to such a flyaway offer, — don't you, Ellen, my dear?" Ellen was silent. "Why, bless me, the girl is bewitched. What have you done to her, you wicked wretch, to [169] bewitch her so completely in such a short space of time?" And combining this idea of Ellen's bewitchment with those of the gold and the pocket-boat, the conviction flashed upon her that the stranger was one who had sold himself to the devil; and unable in her panic to give utterance to the idea, she fell back in a chair kicking and screaming in a fit of violent hysterics. "Water! water!" cried the vicar, and in his hurry and alarm poured over her forehead the remainder of his buttered ale. Ellen slipped away in the confusion, sent in the servant with water, and made her escape into the garden. The stranger snatched his opportunity and pursued her, while Dr. and Mrs. Ap-Nanny were engrossed with the fainting spinster. After a short search among the thick shades of the garden, he found her by the banks of a little torrent that flung itself in rapid descent down a sloping hollow of rock. She was sitting on a rustic bench under a trellis wreathed with clematis, which she had planted and reared. He threw him- self at her feet. Ellen was exceedingly dis- composed. Her acquaintance with the youth of the other sex had been limited to the jolly squires and hunting parsons of Cambria, and a young and handsome stranger, kneeling at her feet, and breathing passionate love, made [170] a very dazzling impression on her inexperi- enced and susceptible mind. Calidore, on the other hand, who had come to England on a quest for a wife, had been prepared to fall in love at a moment's notice, and being thus prepared on both sides the ignition was easy and the combustion rapid. Ellen, however, could not feel perfectly convinced that she had really made so sudden a conquest; nor, if she had been so convinced, could she have supposed that a flame so lightly kindled would not be as easily destroyed. She there- fore, as usual on similar occasions, assured the enamoured youth that she had no other attachment; that if he were what he ap- peared to be she might in time feel kindly disposed towards him, but entreated him to take a little time to ascertain if his momentary partiality were likely to continue permanent; exhorted him to proceed to London, as that was his destination, and assured him that if he re-visited that part of Wales she should be happy to see him again. Calidore could not but acquiesce in the propriety of all she said; and, encouraged by these sweet words, and much sweeter looks, he tore himself away from the garden of the vicarage, returned to the inn, threw himself into a post-chaise, and set forward for the metropolis. We shall leave him to enjoy the music of hoofs and [171] wheels, while we give some account of his birth, parentage and education. CHAPTER III King Arthur, after the fatal battle in which so many of his knights perished, and he him- self was dangerously wounded by the traitor Mordred, was conveyed by the Ladies or Nymphs of the Waters on board a small vessel, which made from the land in the sight of Duke Lukyon of Gloster. Fatigue and ex- haustion overcame the pain of his wound, and he fell into a deep sleep. When he awoke, under the midnight moon, he found himself miraculously well. Merlin was standing by him on the deck with a small bottle. He had just poured a few drops from it upon King Arthur's wound, which had healed imme- diately. Looking round, the King found him- self in the midst of familiar faces. He recog- nised his dear Queen Guenevere, and her dear friend Sir Launcelot, and Sir Gamline and his lady, and Sir Gawaine and Sir Kay, and many other valiant and courteous Knights and ladies bright. And last and not least in love his butler Bedevere. "Honest Bede- vere," said King Arthur, "if there be anything in this vessel analogous to a buttery and a cellar, do thy office and let us eat and drink. [172] This Is a merry meeting Indeed, for I thought we were all dead." "The will of fate," said Merlin, "seconded by my art and this vital elixir, has wrought this effect. You must for- sake your kingdom for the present, but you shall return to It by-and-by with a numerous chivalry and reign glorious and victorious In Britain. Meanwhile we must live on a soli- tary island, on a sea hitherto unexplored, where we must enjoy ourselves as well as we can till the fated hour of your return." "Very well," said King Arthur; "and for the present, illuminate Bedevere with your art, to assist him in procuring us a supper, for none of us have eaten anything since we were killed." Merlin led the whole party to the cabin, where they feasted joyously till sunrise, and continued to live a very merry life during the whole of their voyage. When they approached the destined island they were delighted to perceive that its as- pect presented a most promising diversity of mountain, valley, and forest reposing in the sunshine of a delicious climate. Two very sin- gular persons were walking on the seashore; one in the appearance a young and handsome man with a crown of vine-leaves on his head; the other a wild and singular figure in a fine state of picturesque roughness with goat's [173] horns and feet and a laughing face. As the vessel fixed its keel in the shore and King Ar- thur and his party landed, the two strangers approached and inquired who they were, and whence they came? — "This," replied Merlin, *'is the great King Arthur; this is his fair queen, Guenevere: and I am the potent Mer- lin: these are the illustrious knights of the round table: and this Is the King's butler, Bedevere." "The butler," said the first stran- ger, "shall be welcome." "And so shall the ladies," said the second. "But as to the rest of you," pursued the first, "we must know you a little better before we accord you our permission to advance a step In this island. I am Bacchus." "And I," said the other, "am Pan." "So," said Sir Launcelot, "I find we have to contend with the evil powers." "If you mean us by that appellation," said Bacchus, "you will find us too strong for you. This island is the retreat of all the gods and goddesses, genii and nymphs, who formerly reigned in Olympus, and dwelt in the moun- tains and valleys of Greece and Italy. Though we had not much need of mankind, we had a great affection for them, and lived among them on good terms and in an interchange of kind offices. They regaled us with the odours of sacrifice, built us magnificent temples, and especially showed their piety by singing and [174] dancing, and being always social and cheerful, and full of pleasure and life, which is the most gratifying appearance that man can present to the gods. But after a certain time they began to change most lamentably for the worse. They discontinued their sacrifices; they broke our images, many of which we had sate for ourselves; they called us fright- ful and cacophonous names — Beelzebub and Amaimon and Astaroth: they plundered and demolished our temples, and built ugly struc- tures on their ruins, where, instead of dancing and rejoicing as they had been used to do, and delighting us with spectacles of human happiness, they were eternally sighing and groaning, and beating their breasts, and dropping their lower jaws, and turning up the whites of their eyes, and cursing each other and all mankind, and chaunting such dismal staves that we shut our eyes and ears, and, flying from our favourite terrestrial scenes, assembled in a body among the clouds of Olympus. Here we held a council as to what was to be done for the amendment of these perverted mortals; but Jupiter in- formed us that Necessity, his mistress, and that of the world, compelled him to acquiesce for a time in this condition of things; that mankind, who had never been good for a great deal, were now become so worthless, and [175] withal so disagreeable, that the wisest course we could adopt would be to leave them to themselves and retire to an undisturbed island for which he had stipulated with the Fates. Here, then, we are, and have been for ages. That mountain on which the white clouds are resting is now Mount Olympus, and there dwell Jupiter and the Olympian deities. In these forests and valleys reside Pan and Silenus, the Fauns and the Satyrs, and the small nymphs and genii. I divide my time between the two, for though my home Is Olympus, I have a most special friend- ship for Pan. Now I have only this to say, that if you come here to make frightful faces, chaunt long tunes, and curse each other through the nose, I give you fair warning to depart in peace: if not, we shall find no trouble in expelling you by force, as Jupiter will testify to you." Jupiter gave the required testification by a peal of thunder from Olympus. Merlin and King Arthur fell on their knees, and the rest of their party followed the ex- ample. "Great Bacchus and mighty Pan," said Merlin, "pity our ignorance and take us under your protection, for if you banish us from this happy shore, our vessel must wander over the seas for ever, like the Flying Dutchman that is to be, and we are very ill [176] victualled for such a navigation." "Speak," said Bacchus: — "Will you drink, and join with me In midnight feast and revelry And songs whose notes shall take their pace From an Olympic chariot race Till Echo from our social mirth Shall learn there still are souls on Earth And with her hundred tongues repeat The tale to Jove's own mountain seat?" "That will we," exclaimed King Arthur and Merlin. "That will we," shouted the Knights of the Round Table. "That will we," vociferated the butler, with a voice like the voice of three. "Speak," said Pan; "Will ye dance and bound with me At evening round the old oak tree. Or round the tall and tufted pine, With woodbine wreathed and eglantine. While Fauns shall pipe, and wood-nymphs sweet The cymbals clash, the timbrels beat; Knights and damsels, fair and free. Will ye join these sports with me.?" "That will we," exclaimed the ladles of King Arthur's court. "That will we," ex- claimed the King and the Knights and Merlin and the butler. "Rise, then," said Bacchus; "Rise, then," said Pan, courteously assisting the ladies. [177] Mercury came flying from the clouds on Olympus, and presently alighted among them. *'I come," said he, "to propose a treaty of holy alliance between the powers of Olympus and those of Fairy-Land. What says Merlin?" "It is my dearest wish," said Merlin. "Then stretch forth your hand." Merlin stretched forth his hand. Bacchus touched it with his thyrsus. A vessel simultaneously appeared in the offing, which landed Oberon and Titania, and the whole of the fairy court. Pan blew his horn, and a chorus of Fauns, Satyrs, Nymphs and Genii came dancing from the woods. Apollo and Venus came down from Olympus. The happy alliance was con- cluded immediately. Oberon raised on the spot a palace for King Arthur. Bacchus made a fountain of wine spring up on the hill, and gave it in charge to the butler Bedevere. Pan spread a sumptuous banquet, and the whole assembly of Gods, Nymphs, Genii, Fairies, Knights and Ladies, entered at once into the full spirit of festal harmony, feasting, singing and dancing till Iris came down to inform Apollo that the Hours were looking for him, as it was near the time of sunrise. It was the virtue of this island that Its In- habitants were exempt from age and mortal- ity; but they did not (as a great philosopher has conjectured that persons similarly cir- [178] cumstanced would do) "cease to propa- gate;" on the contrary the ladles deemed themselves bound in loyalty to raise an army for King Arthur, that when the time should come for him to revisit his kingdom, he should do so with glory and power. Merlin assum- ing, by means of a purely anticipated cogni- tion (as the transcendentalists express it) the figure of Mr. Malthus, made them an oration on the evils that might result from a too rapid increase of population, on an island where no one could die, and where they might possibly be under the necessity of remaining some ages; expatiating with great eloquence on the virtue of moral restraint; but his elo- quence was thrown away; les chose s allaient leur train, and one morning, being thrown Into 'a panic by the squeal of a new born child, Merlin called his flying chariot, and waited upon Jupiter to entreat his interference in checking the impending dangers of a super- abundant population. Jupiter consulted with Juno, and sent Mercury with a message to Necessity, the Queen of the World. On the return of Mercury, Jupiter assured Merlin that there should be only three children to a marriage, and that no marriage should take place before the parties were twenty years of age; and he might satisfy himself by an easy calculation that this judicious arrange- [179] ment would restrain the population of the island within the capacity of its produce, for a much longer period of ages than King Arthur and his followers were likely to in- habit it. Thus the islanders increased in numbers only by slow and regular production, and lived much the same kind of life as Pindar, in his tenth Pythian, ascribes to the Hyper- boreans ; — a life eternally diversified by songs and festal dances, the breathing of pipes and the resonance of lyres; and banquets of pro- tracted festivity, at which they bound their hair with golden laurel in honour of Apollo. Our islanders were less exclusive in their gar- lands, and forgot neither "the myrtle of Venus nor Bacchus's wine." Bacchus be- came so fond of them that he was almost a stranger in Olympus, and seldom lost sight of King Arthur; and in his turn the butler Bedevere seldom lost sight of Bacchus. But, as Ulysses grew weary in the island of Calypso, and cast a longing look towards the shores of Ithaca, so King Arthur often found himself much too comfortable where he was, and longed for the time to come when he should return to his kingdom, and flourish again his good sword Escalaber. It would sometimes happen, at long and rare intervals, that there was an odd male child; and as it [i8o] could not be expected that this unfortunate person should live without a wife, and be held up as a solitary shining example of the beauty of moral restraint, Merlin deemed it more prudent, when he arrived at the mar- riageable age, to provide him with a fairy boat, and send him, under restrictions of secrecy, to England, to choose a wife for him- self. On these occasions King Arthur en- joined him to examine accurately the state of the country, that he might judge from his report if there were a good opening for his return. Merlin took the same opportunity of procuring all remarkable philosophical books, that he might have an accurate view of the progress of human knowledge; and the ladies were always most unmerciful in their com- missions for trinkets and jewellery. To detail the results of all the expeditions would lead us too far from our present subject. On one oc- casion King Arthur was informed that Eng- land was at that time governed by a cowardly braggadocio, whom the barons had just pent up in a little island on the Thames, and were making him do and say just whatever they pleased. "They must treat Kings with more ceremony," said King Arthur, "before I trust myself among them." On another occasion he heard that peoples' faces had grown longer by an inch and a half; that they were always [i8i] psalm-singing and "seeking the Lord," and not finding Him so readily as they expected, had amused themselves en attendant with cutting off the King's head, and that a French wag had made this epigram on the occasion : — The English, in their way of managing things, Dock the tails of their horses, the heads of their kings; But the French, among whom more politeness prevails. Let their kings wear their heads and their horses their tails. "Very facetious indeed," said King Ar- thur, "but I have a great aversion to long faces, and have too much regard for my horse's tail to trust it among them at present." On another occasion he was told that the peo- ple had risen with one voice against the doc- trine of divine right; had turned out a legiti- mate fanatical Scotchman, and had imported a grave Dutchman, to whom, and his lawful heirs, they had made over themselves and all their posterity forever, and this they called a "glorious revolution." "I see," said King Arthur, "I must bestir myself, or my legiti- macy will stand but a poor chance." "Wait a little," said Merlin, "and you will see the doctrine of divine right rise from its ashes like a plump Phoenix, and fatten itself on the [182] food and treasure of England, to the great delight and glory of the nation." Many years now passed by without an odd male child; and they would have re- mained in total ignorance of what was pass- ing in the old world but for an accident which never before had happened on these shores. King Arthur and his Knights and Ladies were leading the midnight revelry, in company with Bacchus and Pan in the royal palace, careless of the roar of the midnight storm; when the butler Bedevere entered and in- formed them that a vessel had been cast away on the shore, and that only one person had escaped, who was soliciting shelter and re- freshment. "Refresh him," said King Ar- thur, "then bring him in and let us see him." "I will soon set him to rights," said Bacchus. All eyes were fixed on the door, and when Bedevere opened it the whole party recoiled in surprise and alarm from the strange ap- parition that entered. A thin figure, in a close suit of black, which stuck to him the closer from being wet through with salt water; a face artificially stretched into preposterous elongation; eyes of which little more than the whites were visible; long straight hair that hung like ends of black rope on each side of a hollow and saffron-coloured face, com- pounded altogether such a phenomenon as [183] none of the party had ever before seen or imagined. The apparition paused on the threshold, and stretching out his hands and spreading his long thin fingers, exclaimed: — "Satan avaunt! Hast thou spread thy snares for me in the wilderness? Sons and daughters of Belial! leave your abominations and lewd meetings and revelries, and fall on your knees and humble yourselves before the Lord, with fasting and mortification and godly groans." "Leave your grimaces," said King Arthur, "and eat, drink, and be merry." "If any be merry," said the apparition, "let him sing psalms." "Drink," said Bacchus, "here is a cup of Chian for you. I am the soaring Bacchus." "Avaunt! Beelzebub!" said the spectre. "Touch me not. Children of Belial, I say unto you — " "Stop," said Arthur: — " Now say what manner of man art thou. And whither wouldst thou rove, And why hast thou that clouded brow, And is it for some evil vow. Or for thy lady love?" "I am one," said the stranger, "whose feet are joyful on the mountains, for he bringeth good tidings." "So it should seem," said Sir Launcelot, "by your pleasant physiognomy." "I am a missionary of the New Light," said the stranger. "The spirit has moved me to [184] wander and call back the stray sheep, the heathen and the gentile, unto the fold of sanctificatlon. But the wind hath whirled me about, and the sea hath cast me forth among you. You are the children of Belial, and shall be cast Into outer darkness." "I understand this fellow," said Bacchus. "He is one of the same caste as the old Cov- enanters, whose dismal faces and frightful noises compelled us, as a mere matter of taste, to forsake the ancient world. Let me talk to him. You are a missionary of the New Light?" "Verily I am a chosen vessel." "We are all staunch heathen here. You would like to convert us?" "Truly I would baptise you In Jordan, and whitewash your Inward man." "Very well. There is a prophetess who lives just by In a cave in the wood. She is an oracle. Convert her, and we will all follow. You have only to get the best of the argument with her, and your vic- tory Is complete." "I will buckle on the armour of controversy and beat down Satan under my feet." Pan undertook to show him the way, and conducted him to the cave of a beautiful wood nymph, with whom he left him. A month passed away, and they heard nothing of him, till one night, while the palace was resounding with the sounds of [185] music and the feet of the dancers, the wood- nymph appeared among them, followed by the Chosen Vessel. It was with difficulty that they recognised him, for he was in the dress of a Bacchanal; his hair was curling and bound with a wreath of vine leaves; his face was round; his eyes sparkled; his right hand brandished a thyrsus, and in his left he carried a goblet, which he held out with a significant Bacchic gesture to Bedevere. Bed- evere filled it with wine, and the missionary, advancing to Bacchus, poured a libation be- fore him and knelt on one knee. Bacchus raised him up, embraced him with delight, and said: — "The nymph, I see, had the best of the argument." "She has converted me, I confess," said the missionary. "By what process of logic," said Bacchus, "we will not enquire too closely." The proselyte smiled, the nymph blushed, and, taking him by the hand, led him into the mazes of the dance, where he frolicked the gayest of the gay. "I protest," said Queen Guenevere, "he is really a handsome fellow. Who would have thought it.f*" "Such is the difference," said Bacchus, "between cheerful and gloomy creeds. Cheer- fulness is the great source and fountain of beauty; but the ugliest object in nature is a human visage distorted by a fanatical faith." King Arthur learned from this new comer [i86] that all Europe was in an uproar; that the swinish multitude had broken loose, and was playing at cup and ball with sceptres and crowns. "Well," said King Arthur to Merlin, "what say you?" "I say," said Merlin, "as I have always said: — 'Patience!'" "You have said so," said King Arthur, "any time these thousand years." "But you see very clearly," said Merlin, "things are continu- ally getting better." "I maintain," said King Arthur, "that they are continually getting worse; for I am certain that though in my time there were many monsters whom I and my good knights did slay, there were no such monsters as these Chosen Vessels, of whom it seems there are swarms in that coun- try now." "That is an oscillation," said Merlin, "or accidental variation, or, to speak more correctly, a secular moral equation, as I will prove:" and Merlin being a perfectivi- tive and King Arthur a deteriorationist, they immediately lapsed into an argument on a point which they had argued for a thousand years, and were of the same opinions still. The Chosen Vessel became a new light among the Gentiles, and an especial darling of Bacchus and Pan. The first fruit of his theological controversy with the wood-nymph was our hero Calidore; and the year which placed Calidore on the marriageable list, the [187] number of males exceeding that of females by- one, the lot fell on him to set sail and choose a wife for himself in England. He was charged with the usual commissions from the ladies and Merlin, with this addition from the latter, that being desirous to understand the progress of things viva voce from a philoso- pher, he commissioned him to bring over, on any terms, the finest philosopher he could buy. CHAPTER IV The first object of Calidore on arriving in London was to change some of his gold Ar- thurs into the circulating medium of the country, and on making inquiry at his hotel, he was directed, for this purpose, to a spacious stone building with high walls and no windows. Alighting from his hackney-coach, with a money-box in his hand, he wandered through a labyrinth of paved courts and spacious rooms filled with smoky-faced clerks and solid globes of Jews, through some of which he had great difficulty in forcing his way. After some time, he discovered the office he wanted, presented his gold, which was duly tried, weighed, and carefully removed from his sight. The sum was enounced with very distinct articulation, and a piece of paper [i88] was given to him, with which he was sent to another place. "How would you like it, sir?" said a little sharp-nosed man with a quill be- hind his ear. "In the circulating medium of this city," said Calidore. "But I mean, sir, in what portions?" "In no portions: I wish to have it all at once," "Thousands, sir?" said the little man. "The specified sum, sir," said Calidore. The little man put into his hand several slips of paper. "Well, sir!" said Calidore, "what am I to do with these?" "Whatever you please, sir," said the little man, smiling. "I wish I could say as much for myself." "I am much obliged to you," said Calidore; "and I have no doubt you are an exceedingly facetious and agreeable person; but, at the same time, if you would have the goodness to direct me where I can receive my money — " — "Sir," said the little man, "that is your money." "This!" "Certainly, sir; that. What would you have?" "Gold coin, to be sure," said Calidore. "Gold coin! I am afraid, sir, you are a disaffected man and a Jacobin, or you would not ask for such a thing, when I have given you the best money in the world. Pray, sir, look at it — you are a stranger, perhaps — look at it, sir; that's all." Calidore looked at one of the pieces of paper, and read aloud: "I promise to pay to Mr. Henry Hare — One Thousand Pounds — [189] John Figginbotham. — Well, sir; and what have I to do with John Figginbotham's promise to pay a thousand pounds to Henry- Hare?" "John Figginbotham, sir, having made that promise, and put it upon that paper, makes that paper worth a thousand pounds." "To Henry Hare," said Calidore. "To any one," said the little man. "You overlook the words: or bearer. Now, sir, you are the bearer." "I understand. John Figginbotham promises to pay me a thou- sand pounds." "Precisely." "Then, sir, if you will have the goodness to direct me to John Figginbotham I will thank him to pay me directly." "But, good God, sir! you mis- take the matter." "Mistake, sir!" "Yes, sir! John Figginbotham does not pay; he only signs. We pay: we, who are here; I and my chums." "Very well, sir; then why can you not pay me without all this circum- locution?" "Sir, I have paid you." "How, sir?" "With those notes, sir." "Sir, these are promises to pay, made by one Figgin- botham. I wish these promises to be per- formed. You send me round in a circle from Hare to Figginbotham, and from Figgin- botham to yourself, and I am still as much in the dark as ever, as to where I am to look for the performance of their very liberal promises." "Oh! the performance, sir, — [ 190] very true sir, — as you say; but, sir, promises are of two kinds, those which are meant to be performed, and those which are not, the latter being forms used for convenience and dispatch of business." "Then, sir, these promises are not meant to be performed." "Pardon me, sir, they are meant to be performed, not literally, but in a manner. They used to be performed by giving gold to the bearer, but that having been found peculiarly inconven- ient has been laid aside by Act of Parlia- ment ever since the year Ninety-Seven, and we now pay paper with paper, which simpli- fies business exceedingly." "And pray, sir, do these promises to pay pass for realities among the people?" "Certainly they do, sir; one of those slips of paper which you hold in your hand will purchase the labour of fifty men for a year." "John Figginbotham must be a person of very great consequence; there is not much trouble I presume in mak- ing one of these things." "Not much, sir." "Then I suppose, sir, John Figginbotham has all the labour of the country under his abso- lute disposal. Assuredly this Figginbotham must be a great magician, and profoundly skilled in magic and demonology: for this is almost more than Merlin could do, to make the eternal repetition of the same promise pass for its eternal performance, and exercise [191] unlimited control over the lives and fortunes of a whole nation, merely by putting his name upon pieces of paper. However, since such is the case, I must try to make the best of the matter: but if I find that these talismans of the great magician Figginbotham do not act upon the people as you give me to under- stand they will, I shall take the liberty of blowing my bugle in his enchanted castle, and in the meantime, sir, I respectfully take leave of your courtly presence." "Poor, deranged gentleman!" exclaimed the little man after Calidore was gone, "did you ever hear a man talk so in all your life, Mr. Solomons?" "Very much cracked," said Mr. Solomons, "very much cracked in the head; but seems to be sound in the pocket, which is the better part of man." Calidore finding the talismans of Figgin- botham sufficiently efficacious, proceeded to establish himself in a magnificent house, en- gaged numerous servants, purchased an equi- page, and lived like an ambassador. He suffered so much of his object to be known as might facilitate its accomplishment; and it was soon buzzed about the town and signifi- cantly told in dashes by the Morning Post that a stranger of great consequence was ar- rived from Terra Incognita, whither he would shortly return, and take with him from Eng- [192] land a wife and a philosopher; which would be a very good speculation for any unmarried lady and literary gentleman, as on their arrival in the stranger's country, the former would receive a most splendid allowance of pin money, and the latter would sit down for life as an Honourable Pensioner, with such a pension in his single person as in this more economical nation would keep in pay two whole gangs of Legitimate Reviewers. This intelligence threw into a state of complete fermentation all the disinterested beauty and liberal talent of the metropolis, and all the seats of the Carlisle mails were engaged every night for a week in bringing up shoals of em- bryo laureates and poetical philosophers from Cumberland. Calidore persuading himself that he had already made up his mind in the choice of a wife, prosecuted with great assiduity his search for a philosopher, and made dili- gent enquiries of several eminent booksellers, and among the rest of the fashionable Mr. Macquire. "A philosopher. Sir," said Mr. Macquire: "really the article is rather plenti- ful in the market, but I have not a sample on hand. A critic, indeed — I could spare you a fine lively critic on reasonable terms, as I have several in my pay; but they are all sworn enemies to the very name of philos- [ 193] ophy, and if it be mentioned in their hear- ing, one of them faints, another cries, another swears terrible oaths, and a fourth falls into such a fit of raving that I am obliged to call for a strait-waistcoat. To be sure there is a Mr. Crocodile, the lay-preacher, who looks in upon me now and then, and talks a great deal about old philosophy; perhaps he might do, and I should think he would go cheap; he is worth little to us, and I never could hear that he was worth anything to anyone else; but here Is a gentleman who knows more about these things; allow me to Introduce Mr. In- dex." And he presented to Calidore a very smart, lively looking little man, dressed In the pink of fashion. "Sir," said Mr. Index, "I am proud of the opportunity of this In- troduction. From the moment I heard of your arrival In London I have longed for the honour of your acquaintance." [ 194] BOOSABOUT ABBEY BOOSABOUT ABBEY "These walls will survive their founda- tion," said a stalwart friar, standing by the side of the mitred Abbot Ernulph, as he leaned down, with a trowel in his hand, to lay the first stone of Boosabout Abbey. The Abbot did not understand the remark, but thought it not the time and place to notice it. The older Abbey was a poor inconvenient structure, partially in decay. The brother- hood had extensive lands, and a full treasury; and had determined to do honour to the faith, by providing a more spacious and convenient habitation for their own at once ghostly and substantial persons. There was on the occa- sion a numerous assembly of portly eccle- siastics and jolly laymen, who loved the church well, and gave largely to it. The cere- mony was followed by a jovial festival. The refectory of the old Abbey was too small to accommodate the party, and as it was a bright calm summer day, the tables were spread under the shade of a circle of gigantic [197] elms, of which the wide-spreading branches mingled from side to side, excluding the sun, and leaving ample space for the feast. The sun had not long passed the meridian when the party sat down, and was not far from the north-western horizon when they rose from their seats. All but the friars de- parted for their homes. Some rode, oscillat- ing on their horses like inverted pendulums reflected on water; others walked, describing every possible variety of curve. Some reached home; others made to themselves temporary hostelries under trees by the way-side, and on the following morning had very advantageous views of the rising sun. Brother John, and some of the more hard-headed friars, piously carried the Father Abbot to bed. Some of the brethren went to bed of themselves; some slept quietly within the circle of elms. The whole affair passed off with great deco- rum. In the morning, the Abbot had a con- fused recollection of something having been said by Brother John, and asked him to re- peat his remark. "I said," replied Brother John, "These walls will survive their foundations." "You are always speaking in riddles, Brother John," said the Abbot, "and when they are explained, there is always a touch of heresy in them. I recommend you a little [198] caution, or you may find yourself In a di- lemma with the Heads of the Church." "I have no fear of that," said Brother John. "I am ready with a most orthodox profession of faith, and a most sturdy denial, or peni- tential retraction, of any errors that may be charged against me. I have tried it more than once, and have been always not only absolved, but extolled and honoured as a pillar of the faith." "You may try it once too often. Brother John," said the Abbot. "But what is this new riddle of yours, which seems to be nonsense, about walls surviving their foundation?" "Their foundation is faith," said Brother John. "The walls will be standing, when the faith has departed. I have been a Crusader and a Pilgrim. I have seen many temples of the old world, without a single votary of the divinities to whom they were raised." "They were false divinities," said the Abbot. "All is one for that," said Brother John. "True or false, after a lapse of centuries, the result will be the same. I have seen Pagan temples become Christian churches, and Christian churches become Moham- medan mosques. That which has been is that which shall be. There is nothing new under the sun." [199] "The foundation will last our time," said the Abbot. "No doubt," said Brother John. "Then look to your own charge," said the Abbot, "which is the cellar. See it well stocked with choice vintages. You have in your day drained many flasks — " "Casks," said Brother John. "Casks, if you please," said the Abbot, "and you were not very scrupulous how you came by them. You were a Pilgrim, you say. You used your Pilgrim's staff as a collector of revenue, to pay the cost of your pilgrimage." "I collected," said Brother John, "no more than I wanted for the poor needs of the day. I took no thought of the morrow." "You were a Crusader, too," said the Abbot. "You took some questionable fol- lowers to the Holy Land, and brought them back no better than they went." "Much better," said Brother John, "much better, for what they had to do." "After your return," said the Abbot, "how did you employ them?" "In very efficient public service," said Brother John. "I occupied a stronghold over a great public highway, and kept it clear of thieves." "Paying yourself for your public service," said the Abbot, "by levying toll on travellers." [ 200 ] "A fair and equitable tariff," said Brother John. "An ad valorem duty on their baggage." "You lived," said the Abbot, "like Rinaldo di Montalbano. They say, you sometimes took young women in commutation of tax." "Only with their own consent," said Brother John. "If one of my followers wanted a wife, and a young maid was willing to stay and marry him, where was the harm in retaining her, with the concurrence of all parties concerned?" "That was not all," said the Abbot. "They say you were not over scrupulous in retaining another man's wife." "Always with her own consent," said Brother John, "and sometimes with her hus- band's. When there was an ill-assorted pair, I acted as a High Court of Divorce, and re- lieved them of one another." "Condemning the husband in costs," said the Abbot, "confiscating his baggage to pay them, and taking his wife to yourself." "Only once," said Brother John. "Only one wife." "One at a time, I suppose," said the Abbot. "No," said Brother John. "Only one once for all. I divorced her lawfully, and I mar- ried her lawfully." "By your own code," said the Abbot. [201 ] "As good a code as any," said Brother John, "and better, inasmuch as it had the advantage of brevity." "Of course," said the Abbot, "you enjoyed your life in your stronghold." "Indeed I did," said Brother John, "and so did all about me. My wife was an excel- lent wife. Her first husband did not appre- ciate the blessing he possessed." "So you appreciated her for him," said the Abbot. "But how came you to give up this moral and agreeable life?" "The King," said Brother John, "grew jealous of my keeping better order in his dominions than he could do, and invested my stronghold with a large force. I kept him at bay till my provisions fell short. Then I capitulated and was allowed to march out with the honours of war." "And what then?" said the Abbot. "Why, then," said Brother John, "my men dispersed." "And what then?" said the Abbot. "You and your wife — " A sudden change came over the face of Brother John. He smote his forehead with his clenched fist, and walked silently away. "There is some mystery," said the Abbot to himself, "about my good son John. He is a good fellow at bottom, with all his aberra- [ 202 ] tions. He has never been so communicative as he has been today. He has often seemed disposed to be so; but he has always stopped short. Today he has gone a step further. He has had a wife and has lost her, and the remembrance is painful. I will not press him on the subject, but no doubt in due time he will be more confidential. I am inclined to think he exaggerates his natural joviality to conceal a hidden sorrow, and suffers most at heart when he is most hyperbolically merry." [203 ] JULIA PROCULA JULIA PROCULA In a retired street of Rome stood the house of Julius Proculus; a man of an old family and a small patrimonial estate; a widower, with an only daughter. Julia was pious, and especially devout to her Household God, on whose altar she placed every morning her offering of fruits and flowers. Proculus was an Epicurean; he respected his daughter's feel- ings, but had no sympathy with her devotion. Julia had a young lover, Marcus Atilius, a son of a rich family, who refused their sanction to his suit, because the damsel had no dowry. The reversion of the small estate, on which Proculus barely maintained his household, oifered no temptation to his wealthy neighbors, who, as usual, having more than enough already, wanted more. Proculus, in the principles of his philosophy, aimed at tranquillity of mind, and to a certain extent succeeded in attaining it; but he was of a social and festive disposition; he liked the moderate enjoyment of the good things of this world; he was fond of good company, [207] and preferred Falernlan to Sabine wine. In the principles of his philosophy, also, he was prudent, and contracted no debts; but when his larder and cellar were ill-stocked, and his purse deficient in gravity, he could not always preserve himself from feelings of dis- content, which would sometimes break out into a good hearty railing against Fortune, and occasionally into an expression of as- tonishment at his daughter's devotion to the Lar, to whom he thought himself and his family under very small obligation. In one of these moods, he said one morning to his daughter: "I cannot imagine a Lar who has had better opportunities of taking care of the family entrusted to him, or who has made a worse use of it. My father, and grandfather, and great-grandfather were all men of penurious habits; my father, es- pecially, was a genuine miser; he was more- over addicted to commerce; his dealings were understood to be prosperous; he died in Syracuse, and intelligence of his death was duly conveyed to me; but not a sesterce of coin have I inherited from him; nothing but this poor old estate, which may, for anything I know, have belonged to my namesake, who was the only person that ever had the honour to see Quirinus, after his deification, and who may, for anything I know also, have been my [208] thirtieth great-grandfather." Julia, who was fond both of her Lar and her father, made no reply. Proculus went on: "And here is this Atilian family, which ought to think itself honoured by having such a daughter-in-law as you would be in yourself, to say nothing of my possible ancestor, who was the only per- sonal friend Quirinus has ever had in this world; at any rate we have better claims than anyone else to be descended from him; but will not suffer their son's suit to you be- cause you have no dowry. Now I say your Lar, with his opportunities, ought to have taken care that you should have had a dowry." "I think he will do so yet, father," said Julia. "He has promised me as much in a dream." "A dream indeed," said Proculus. "There is no more chance than of the flower buds in that garland which you have suspended to him bursting into full blossom." The father and daughter fixed their eyes on the garland, and the flowers suddenly expanded. "There is an omen, father!" said Julia. "A strange coincidence," said Proculus. "But the flowers must have been ready to open when you gathered them." Julia shook her head at her father's scep- ticism, but she smiled at the omen, for she certainly thought it a good one. [209 ] II Julia had retired, and Proculus was alone. He fell into a reverie, with his eyes fixed on the garland. By degrees the marble behind the altar of the Lar seemed to assume human lineaments, till at length a figure like a draped statue stood before him. "You are ungrateful, Proculus," said the Lar, "and I am come to convince you of your ingratitude." "I shall be much obliged to you," said Proculus, "if you will begin by informing me if I am awake; or whether I am dreaming of you, as my daughter did." The Lar. — "I visited your daughter in a dream; but you are wide awake. I promised her a dowry, and I shall keep my word. And you are dissatisfied with your condition in life. I will place you in any other that you m^y like better." Ill Proculus had a rich neighbor, Caius Sul- picius, who gave good suppers. Proculus was one of his favourite guests. Sulpiclus had one virtue which did not belong to all the magnates of the time; he treated all his com- pany alike. There was no mortification for [210] a poor client; all had the same wine, the same bread, the same cooled water as the master of the feast. There was nothing to check the expansion of good spirits, and in general, at a supper of Sulpicius, all was joy and jollity. There was also a due intermix- ture of philosophical discussion, in that pleas- ant form of successive questions on particular points, which give so great a charm to the several symposia which antiquity has con- signed to us. Proculus was at one of these suppers on the evening after his interview with the Lar. His scepticism had been so disturbed, and his mind thrown into such a state of per- plexity by his adventure of the morning, that he remained absent and absorbed; not taking, as customary, a prominent share in the conversation, till his attention was aroused by a turn in the argument, which had fallen on supernatural appearances, and a guest in his immediate vicinity was narrating a mar- vellous tale. This chimed in with the current of his thought, and he gave all his attention to the narrator. The lovers knelt together before the altar of the Lar. A bright light shone on it for a moment, and a voice whispered in Julia's ear, — "Withdraw from the altar." She [211] caught her lover's hand, and retired to the side of the hall. Presently they heard from without a cry resembling that in Aristo- phanes's Comedy, The Frogs, when Charon gives rowing time to Bacchus: — "O — op, op! o — op, op! o — op, op!" and simulta- neously with the last "op" a ponderous stone vase was projected through the window, and lighted with a loud crash on the altar of the Lar, where it broke into a thousand pieces, and scattered all round the altar a shower of gold. The same voice whispered to Julia: — "This is your dowry." We must now look back a little in our nar- rative, to trace the origin and progress of this marvellous projectile. Julius Proculus walked to the Forum, and the first person he met was Caius Atilius, the father of Marcus, who accosted him abruptly. Caius Atilius. — "They tell me, Julius Pro- culus, that you admit my son to visit your daughter." Julius Proculus. — "They tell you the truth, Caius Atilius." Caius Atilius. — "It is very unbecoming that when a young man's father has pro- hibited his addresses to a young woman, the young woman's father should permit him to visit her." [212] Julius Proculus. — "I do not see the un- becomingness. It is for you to enforce your own prohibition. I like him, and my daughter likes him, and shut my door in his face I most assuredly will not." Caius Atilius. — "You cannot suppose that I shall allow my son to marry a girl without a dowry." Julius Proculus. — "You have said so often enough to ensure its not being forgotten." Caius Atilius. — "Then what do you expect?" Julius Proculus. — " Nothing. It pleases them to meet, and no harm comes of it." Caius Atilius. — "That is more than you know." Julius Proculus. — "I can trust my daugh- ter. But to guard against evil tongues Psecas never quits them." Caius Atilius. — "Psecas! A slave girl! A piece of furniture!" Julius Proculus. — "A piece of furniture with a heart and a head which many a patri- cian lady would be the better for. No harm comes of it, and that is enough for today. I shall legislate for tomorrow when it arrives." Caius Atilius. — "I know my right. I shall find means to control him." Julius Proculus. — "Do so. That is your affair. Only do not pretend to control me. [213 ] You are only richer than I am; neither better nor nobler. There was no Atilius in Rome when there was a Julius Proculus, the only living being who ever saw Quirinus." Caius Atilius. — "That is your old joke." Julius Proculus. — "No more a joke than any other old stemma." Caius Atilius. — "At any rate his peculiar intimacy with Quirinus has not much bene- fited his posterity." Julius Proculus. — "So I told my daughter this morning, who insists that Quirinus's friend is our own particular Lar. I think he might take better care of us. She says he will yet. But take care you do not make yourself a Heautontimoroumenos.^ There are still kings in Asia who want soldiers." Caius Atilius. — "What do you mean?" Julius Proculus. — "Only to give you a hint not to push things too far. Nothing will be done without your concurrence. Persuade him to give up Julia, and I will persuade her to give up him. But I will use no compul- sion. And as to the dowry, perhaps my an- cestor may yet make interest with Quirinus on the subject." * A character in one of Terence's comedies. [214] THE LORD OF THE HILLS THE LORD OF THE HILLS A travelling carriage stopped at a little inn near the foot of the mountains which sepa- rate Silesia from Bohemia. The accommoda- tions were not externally very promising, and the party in the carriage were divided be- tween the expediency of staying till the morning or proceeding by night. The land- lady, a round, plump, motherly little body, seemed very indifferent which way they de- cided; promising, however, to do her best for them if they determined to remain. Before deciding the question they alighted and walked Into the best, and indeed only, par- lour^ where the accident of a blazing fire fixed their wavering resolution, and they pro- ceeded to arrange themselves around It. It was an evening on the confines of summer and autumn, and chilly enough to make a fire agreeable. The party consisted of Monsieur and Madame de VIrelai, their daughter Adeline, and Elise, a young girl of humble origin, who had been brought up in the family; and she, [217] with the nominal office of lady's maid, was more a friend than a domestic, but suffi- ciently of the latter to be the factotum of the party, and to be extremely useful to persons who had never found it necessary, and therefore had never learned, to do any- thing useful for themselves. Monsieur was solicitous about his supper, Madame about her bed. Elise followed the landlady to attend to these important matters, and Mademoiselle Adeline, who gave herself little concern about either, sat watching the crackling of the faggots. Elise returned with a favourable report, and was shortly followed by the landlady, who placed on the table some coffee, en at- tendant le souper. The coffee was found ex- cellent, and taken by Monsieur as a good omen. Dismissing all anxiety about his night's entertainment, he proceeded to talk about their journey. "I am glad we stopped here," said Mon- sieur. "We shall travel more comfortably over the mountains by daylight." "And shall see the scenery, which we should otherwise have lost," said Mademoiselle. "And have less fear of thieves or spirits," said Madame. "These mountains have been haunted by both, whatever they may be now." "I take it," said Monsieur, "the plains [218] have more thieves than the mountains, but perhaps the mountains have more spirits than the plains. And the reason is, that the plains grow rich, and the mountains remain poor. Theft follows riches, and superstition remains with poverty." "Be that as it may," said Madame, "I had rather pass these mountains by day than by night." "So would I, mamma, for the sake of see- ing them," said Adeline. "But I should like of all things to fall in with the mountain spirit in these regions. I should not be at all afraid, and would willingly go on by night for the chance of them, even one." "It is just that chance," said Madame, "that I prefer to avoid by staying here." "You must excuse me," said Monsieur, "but I cannot help laughing again that a lady from Paris, at this time of the nineteenth century, should regulate her motions by the possibility of those of Numbernlp." "You may as well," said Madame, "as we are about to pass through his territory, speak of him with more respect. He does not like his nickname. Call him the Lord of the Hills." "The Lord of the Hills if you please," said Monsieur, laughing again. "I beg his Lord- ship's pardon." [219] "And I do not see," said Madame, "why what is not true in Paris should be not true anywhere else. The beaux esprits there have talked me out of belief in any thing but a chaos of abstract doctrines, which are to set all the world to rights when those who have muddled them together can agree how to disembroil them. In the meantime, in the circles of Paris, the existence of a mountain cataract is just as improbable as the existence of a mountain spirit. A man emerging from that world into this world would be just as much unprepared for the first as the second." "Very likely," said Monsieur, "but the Paris circles have at least information of mountain cataracts on living and credible testimony, and they have none such of moun- tain spirits." "Nobody," said Madame, "speaks in Paris, with all its free discussion, of anything which would subject the speaker to be laughed at. The shame of being laughed at is as formi- dable to that enlightened society as the shame of mocking the Lord of the Hills is to me. Therefore there may be living testimony, though the Parisians do not receive it." "One would almost think," said Monsieur, "that you had fallen in with such testimony." "If I had," said Madame, "I should keep it to myself in sceptical company." [ 220] "There are still," said Monsieur, "plenty of people in the world of very enlarged and liberal credulity." "No doubt," said Madame, "but they will only believe en masse. The sceptical and the credulous are equally intolerant of an opinion not countenanced by numbers." "Perhaps," said Monsieur, "in the place where we now are the belief in the Lord of the Hills may be countenanced by numbers." "Oh! I should like of all things," said Ade- line, "to know what the people here think about it. Let us ask the landlady when she comes in with the supper." An earlier opportunity presented itself, for the landlady made her appearance to re- quest permission for three new arrivals to join the party; two military officers and a benighted sportsman. Permission being ob- tained, the guests were introduced. The two officers were companions, and evi- dently warm friends, notwithstanding a great disparity in their ages; one being a man of about sixty, and the other of not more than twenty-five. The sportsman was a merry looking man on the youthful side of the middle age. The carriage party, who had been somewhat disconcerted at the prospect of chance company, which in an inn with but one good room could not well be avoided, [221 ] were reconciled by a single glance at the new- comers, and returned their salutations with cheerfulness and cordiality. Mademoiselle took the opportunity to put her question to the landlady. "We have been talking," she said, "about the traditions of this neighbourhood. Is the Lord of the Hills still in existence?" "I never saw him," answered the landlady smiKng, "nor ever heard of anyone who did." "But I mean," said Adeline, "do the people here believe in his existence?" "There are people who will believe any- thing," said the landlady, smiling again. "Very true," said Monsieur, smiling at Madame. "It is something new," he added, when the landlady had retired, "to bring faith from Paris to a local superstition which has died on its own ground." Madame was mute. She did not choose to speak on the subject before strangers. "Scarcely died," said Adeline. "It seems there are still some believers." "Many," said the elder officer, "If you speak of the celebrated Numbernip. Local superstitions do not easily die, especially in the mountains, where solitude and fantastic sights and sounds tend so strongly to keep [ 222 ] them alive. I have myself three times passed these mountains. I have never seen anything strange, but have heard sounds that have puzzled me, to say the least of it." "Oh! pray tell us," said Mademoiselle. "There is little to tell," said the officer, "but a singular repetition of the same thing in the same place. In my young days I was an enthusiast for liberty, and on the out- breaking of the French Revolution I hurried to Paris alone and on foot, to be a witness of the regeneration of man. My home was not distant from the foot of these mountains, and my route led over them. On gaining the summit of the road, I paused to rest, and look back on the fields of my youth. I could leave them for the first time without regret. I had no kindred to mourn for me; but there was one pair of bright eyes which I thought would miss me and watch for my return. Sitting on a fragment of stone, and thinking as I have often done aloud, I broke out into a rhapsody in anticipation of the progress of light and liberty, and the downfall of tyranny and superstition. My vision was broken by a loud laugh of derision which echoed and re- echoed among the rocks. I looked every- where around but saw nothing but barren crags and the short mossy verdure of the mountain summits. The sound was not re- [223] peated. I concluded that my excited im- agination had deceived me, and I proceeded on my way." The entrance of supper suspended the progress of the narration. The supper far surpassed Monsieur's expectations. It con- sisted chiefly of fowl and game in great abun- dance and variety, with several bottles of most excellent wine. Monsieur expressed his surprise. The sportsman acknowledged that he had furnished the game, and that, being on his rambles an occasional visitant of the inn, he kept a small cellar of his own there for the entertainment of himself and his friends. Monsieur was delighted, and the company grew into high good humour with themselves and each other. When the main business of the table was completed, Adeline asked the officer if he had completed his story. "By no means," answered the officer. "Time passed on. The dreams of liberty passed away, and changed into dreams of conquest and universal empire. I was then an officer of the French army. I re-passed the same mountains to look on the scenes of my youth. I sat on the same stone and, thinking aloud as before, I indulged in a new rhapsody about the Augustan age, uni- versal peace under an enlightened head, and [224] the diffusion of science, which would prepare mankind for universal liberty. "Again the same loud laugh of derision echoed and re-echoed among the crags. Still I saw nothing, and the sounds were not repeated. "I visited my native valley. The bright eyes which I had thought would miss me had long since beamed kindly on another. I found them overlooking the operations of a farm and shining on a jolly husband and half a dozen chubby children. I was recognized and heartily welcomed. I felt that all was as it should be, and that I ought to be as de- lighted as my host, but I was not. I could not help thinking that the honest farmer had the best of it. "On my return, I sat down on the stone, but I was in no mood to rhapsodise, and my reverie was undisturbed. "Once more I passed these mountains. The sceptre of the mighty had been broken, and the rabble of the nations was shouting at the heels of barbarian monarchs, who had quickly turned round and set their feet upon their necks; but time had passed on, and brought the three glorious days.^ Once more I sat on the same stone, and rhapsodised of the march of mind and the final triumph of * Of July, 1830, a revolution in Paris. [225 ] reason, and once more the same loud laugh of derision, issuing I know not whence marred my meditations. I visited the farm. There I found the diiference which time had made. My first love was a widow and a grandmother. Her son-in-law was the farmer, and the eldest grandchild was much such a girl as she had been when I sallied forth in my visions of liberty, forty years before. Tomorrow I shall pass the mountains perhaps for the last time. I am returning to re- visit the farm; and if the family will receive me as an inmate, I shall finish my days in my native valley. My young friend accompanies me; partly from friendship, partly for an excursion, and partly to hear what he calls the echo that laughs at illusions; but if that be its char- acter I shall furnish no food for it; for all my illusions are over." "It will be enough to say that," said the sportsman. "Man cannot live without illu- sions. His life is nothing else. The echo that laughs at illusions will laugh as heartily as ever at the idea of a featherless biped with- out them. You have followed liberty. I follow a hare. Either serves as a spell to draw us through the day. Lose it or win it, we resume the chase of the same thing, or something else, to-morrow. The game which I can pass the whole day in pursuing, I would [226] scarcely pick up if it lay in my way. As an end it is everything. As a possession it is nothing." "It is something," said Monsieur, " with currant jelly. But this echo of yours; it must have been an echo, however excited." "I should like of all things to hear it," said Adeline. "We can muster illusions among us enough to wake it." "If it was an echo," said the officer. "I tried it with shouts, and obtained no answer." "And if it is even a spirit," said Monsieur, "it might not choose to speak to a large party." It turned out on inquiry that they were going the same road, and the officer under- took to bear them company so far, on the following day, and point out the place. Mon- sieur was very glad of the prospect of a mili- tary escort over the mountains. The party set forward after a comfortable breakfast, and Monsieur was very bountiful to the landlady, both in money and praise, for the excellence of her accommodations. The sportsman had started at daybreak on his favourite pursuit. The two oificers ac- companied the carriage on horseback. It was past noon when they reached that part of the summit of the mountain road which overlooked the plains of Bohemia. [227 ] The road was narrow, and bounded by pre- cipitous crags with fragments of stone scat- tered at their base. "This is the spot," said the old officer. "And this is the identical stone, looking neither younger nor older than it did when I was as young as my fair companions." "Oh," said Madame, "I would not sit on it for the world." "I will with pleasure," said Mademoiselle, "but I am afraid I have no illusions worth the echo's notice, though I do most firmly believe I shall marry the handsomest, noblest, most amiable and most constant husband in all the world. Bless me, surely I heard a titter at least." No, it was but fancy. There was not the shadow of a sound. "Well," said Adeline, "I am clearly not worth laughing at. Pray try yourself, sir." "It is in vain," said the officer, sitting down. "I have no longer any illusions. Did you hear?" "Nothing." "Not even a half stifled laugh?" "No." "The charm is broken. Will you try, Mademoiselle?" "I, too, have no illusions," said Elise. "Will you, my young friend?" [228] "My illusions," said the young officer, "are of a very commonplace kind, not worth the echo's notice." "Monsieur," said the officer. "I will try my chance," said Monsieur, "and to recur to the subject of your three illusions, I will say that I think the progress of reason and liberty are certain though slow, and that there is much more of both now in the world than there was in the twelfth century." A loud laugh ran echoing and re-echoing along the rocks. Monsieur jumped up in amazement, and Madame fell down in a swoon. Suddenly the sportsman made his appearance, and sprinkled some cold water on her forehead, while Monsieur held a smelling bottle to her nose. "Ah! Monsieur le chasseur^'' said Mon- sieur de Virelai, "I suspect this is a mauvaise flaisanterie of yours. You have got here before us to laugh at us behind the rocks." "Indeed," said the sportsman, "you give me credit for magnificent lungs. But I have been here before you with a less mischievous intent. My purpose was simply to invite you to a collation which I have had spread for you in a grotto close by." This invitation was irresistible to Mon- sieur. Leaving the carriage and horses in [229] charge of their servants, they followed the sportsman along a rocky path which after a short winding through precipices, opened into a little amphitheatre of basaltic columns, with a dark brown lake in the center, on the shore of which, in a shadowy nook which the sun had just quitted — a natural grotto of surpassing beauty — was spread a collation of great variety and abundance. The party felt very grateful for the sports- man's attention. The collation had some- thing of the effect of the lotus. It made them forget their journey, and they sat dis- cussing the past, present and future, over wine of astonishing flavour. Monsieur was very full of the laughing echo, as he called it, though he admitted that if nobody had laughed to set it going it could not be an echo. He suspected the sportsman, but the old officer maintained that the sounds were the same as he had heard forty years before, when the sportsman would not have been born. Madame said little, but she was clearly convinced that the laughter was Numbernip; but she seemed to have got rid of her fears, whether by the charm of the collation or by the exercise of reason we know not; or rather we do know it was reason of course, as every- thing is in our time and as nothing was in [230] the time of our forefathers. Perhaps it was because her two new military acquaintances had seated her between them; but the younger officer had contrived to have Ade- line on the other side of him. The conversation often recurred to the echo, and from the echo to Numbernip. "Of all the tales that I have heard of the moun- tain spirit," said Mademoiselle, "I most de- light in his adventure with the Countess Cecilia, whom he rescued from a robber, and entertained so magnificently in a castle, un- der the semblance of Lord Giantdale." "It is very singular," said the sportsman, "that my worthy grandfather should have been taken for Numbernip. I am now Lord Giantdale, and practice, I hope, the hos- pitality of my ancestors; but I never knew that any of us had been suspected of being goblins. I have heard him speak of the Countess Cecilia, and wonder she did not keep an engagement she had made to pay him a second visit." "She could not find him," said Adeline. "Nobody knew anything about him." "She must have gone strangely out of her way then," said the sportsman. "Ask the first man you meet; I will be bound he knows me." "But," said Adeline, "he introduced her [231 ] to a large company, the whole of whom she met again at Carlsbad, and not one of them recollected her." "Very likely," said the sportsman. "Your dearest friend in one place does not know you in another." "But there could be no reason for not knowing the Countess," said Adeline. "I cannot tell," said the sportsman. "I know that Giantdale Castle has stood on terra firma, ever since I was born." "I know one of the Countess's daughters," said Madame. "I have heard the story from her, though they talked little of it, for fear of the beaux e sprits.'''' "I like the heaux esprits,^^ said the sports- man. "I have had many such among my visitors at . But they have laughed me out of placing Implicit trust in my own senses. I think the Carlsbad company must have been in a conspiracy to mystify the Countess Cecilia." They went on discussing till the sky darkened, when this and a rising wind an- nounced a coming storm. The surface of the solitary pool was crisped over with little eddies. "We had better," said the sportsman, "make an experiment for the evening on the hospitality of [blank]. It is not far off, and [232] you have otherwise before you a long journey through the tempest which is coming." Monsieur, who, having been once puzzled, had grown extremely curious, gladly availed himself of an opportunity to pause in a locality in which he might investigate the mystery of the echo. Madame had got rid of her apprehensions, and all the rest of the party were very willing to participate in the hospitality of [blank]. It was not long before the travelling carriage rolled under the arch of the castle gates. [233 ] COTSWOLD CHACE COTSWOLD CHACE One winter afternoon, under a bright sunny- sky, with ice on the water, and snow on the ground, a young gentleman alighted at a railway station, and asked if a post chaise were awaiting him, as a visitor to Cotswold Chace. The answer being affirmative, he took his seat, and the chaise drove off. He passed first through a tract of cultivated country; then through a tract of woodland; then across a wide space of undulating land; then past a tract of woodland clothing a hill- side and bordering the road, which rose by a continuous ascent to the summit of open un- dulating land; then arrived at a lodge with a pair of iron gates, through which he entered on another woodland tract, which continued unbroken till he arrived at his destination. The chaise stopped at the door of a large ancient mansion, which seemed to stand as the representative of three hundred years ago. To the right and left of it were several gigantic cedars, wide apart In single majesty. Before these again were oak and beech, chestnut [237] and wild cherry, and ash; all Insulated like the cedars, showing their old trunks, one be- yond the other, till they were masked by their numbers; diverging from the house on both sides till they met in a deep mass of woodland at some distance in front, which bounded the prospect. Entering a spacious hall, he was ushered through a door on the left into a large room, of which the sides were composed of alterna- tions of tapestried panels and dark oaken bookshelves, with a large stained-glass win- dow in the middle of each of three sides, the middle of the fourth being assigned to the fireplace. This was of great width, with enormous logs of wood burning on and- irons; above it was an old carving of oak, representing the arms of the family, with figures on each side as large as life; on the one a forester, with bow, arrows and bugle, and a hound at his feet; on the other a lady, in forest apparel, with a falcon on her wrist. On each side of the fire was a large old arm chair, in one of which was seated a young gentleman, the only modern article in the apartment, who, on the announcement of his visitor, rose to welcome him, which he did very cordially. Refreshment having been offered to the new-comer, and declined on the ground that [238] he had taken care of himself with a basket of sandwiches and Madeira on the railway, they took their seats on the opposite chairs. *'I rejoice to meet you again, Richard," said the visitor. "We have not met since we were boys. You have been a fixture, while I have been a wanderer; and here you are, sole lord and master of an extensive property — Cotswold of Cotswold; but I rather wonder at the name; for I have always understood a wold to be a place bare of trees and this place is all trees." Richard Cotswold. — "There are places with- out trees, which are still called forests, and a wold may have been planted, and retained its name after the trees grew up. But, in fact, there is still a belt of wold all round the Chace, and the part may stand for the whole. And, though a place of some extent in itself, it oc- cupies but a small portion of the Cotswold Hills." Charles. — "I passed, then, over a part of the Wold, a perfectly bare tract; and on the other side of it, just as I emerged from the woodland, I saw a pair of iron gates, with a lodge; almost the only sign of habitation in the whole way, excepting a small village, and a few scattered cottages. So you have a neighbour within carriage distance." Richard. — "Yes, but it is a fair spinster, [239] who has come at an early age into possession of a large property, which has gone through many revolutions. There is a great deal of woodland, still in a primitive state, but the house and all about it are things of yesterday." Charles. — "You call her a fair spinster, and you say she is young. Is she handsome?" Richard. — "Very handsome." Charles. — "Can you describe her?" Richard. — "I think I can, for there is nothing complicated about her. The ele- ments of the description are few and simple. She dresses almost always in very fine cloth, usually blue; with a black hat and feather, and very neat boots, laced over a small and very pretty foot. She wears no crinoline, and, if I might venture to divine, no stays. In short, she is like a Greek statue, only in thicker, but still fine and graceful, drapery, and all her movements are graceful. Her dress closes round her neck, and descends to her ankles. Her features are as regular as sculpture could make them. Her complexion is, I imagine, naturally fair, but slightly em- browned by air and exercise; and there is over it a pure roseate glow of health, that makes her literally radiant. Her hair is very fine, and slightly darker than her eyes, which are hazel, and there Is a brilliancy of expres- sion about them that seems to emanate from [240] a very high order of mind. Her voice in speaking is at once soft and full, sweet and distinct; the natural articulation of graceful and unruffled thoughts. I imagine that she sings, and that her singing voice is no less charming, but I have never heard her." Charles. — "No! That is strange." Richard. — "It is so, however. I some- times meet her, and exchange salutations; but I have never been in her house." Charles. — "That is still more strange. Have you never presented yourself at her doors?" Richard. — "No, for I have the most dis- tinct assurance that I should not be ad- mitted. No man is; nor woman either, her own servants excepted, so far as I can learn. She neither visits nor receives visitors. And she has neither man nor boy as indoor ser- vants, though she has a sufficient establish- ment of them for outdoor work." Charles. — "Well, but have you never taken any step towards intimacy? Being, as no doubt you are, in love — " Richard. — "That is just what I am not." Charles. — "Indeed! You described her as I should have thought none but a lover could do. And so, you are contented with exchang- ing salutations. How did you get so far as that?" [241] Richard. — "Our acquaintance, such as it is, began with a letter from her, which I will show you. Here it is." Charles. — "Beautiful handwriting." Richard. — " Like herself. She is all beauty." Charles. — "And you are not in love with her?" Richard. — "No. Read the letter." Charles (reading). — "' Sir, your people and mine are frequently in dispute about our re- spective manorial rights on the wold. I pro- pose that we should meet on the spot, with two or three of the oldest tenants on each side, and draw a line of demarcation. I am disposed to make all reasonable concessions. Your obedient Servant, Cecilia Dorimer.^ Short, and conciliatory. Well?" Richard. — "I answered, that I should be happy to meet her. We met accordingly. I offered her the boundary claimed by her own people. She offered me that claimed by mine. Neither of us would accept the concession, and we ended by drawing a middle line." Charles. — "Now, I am as sure as I can be of anything, that she cared nothing about the boundary, and would have ordered her people not to dispute it, if she had not found it a good pretext to make your acquaintance. Had your people and hers been fighting like the servants of Capulet and Montague?" [242] Richard. — "The first I heard of the dis- pute was from her letter. And I should have conceded the point at once, if I had not wished to meet her." Charles. — "A clear case of pretext, made by her, and accepted by you." Richard. — "Possibly. I am delighted to have seen her. *A thing of beauty is a joy forever.'" Charles. — "When you exchange saluta- tions, how does she look ? Serious or smiling ? " Richard. — "Neither, exactly. Something like a smile. The dawn before the sun, such as might precede, though it does not: — ' II lampeggiarde 1' angelico riso Che sembra aprire in terra un paradise' " Charles. — "You apply to her what Pe- trarch says of Laura, and you are not in love with her.?" Richard. — "I am not in love with her." Charles. — "This is a riddle." Richard. — "No. It is merely a fact." In due time they dined in a corresponding apartment on the opposite side of the hall, and, over Madeira and claret, talked of their earlier days, with occasional recurrence to the present, and especially to the lady on the other side of the wold. Charles renewed the subject from time to time, and found that, as [243 ] the wine sunk in the bottles, his host grew more eloquent and expansive in praise of his beautiful neighbor; still persisting most emphatically that he was not in love with her. There was on each side of the hall a large oaken staircase. They ascended together the one nearest to the dining room, and, as they were parting for the night, at the door of Charles's apartment the visitor suddenly said to his host: — "Though you are not in love with the young lady, I am, with your description of her. Have you any objection to my trying my fortune in that quarter?" "A decided objection," answered Richard, and walked off hastily. "A curious speci- men," said Charles to himself, laughing as he closed his chamber door, "of a man who is not in love." Richard and Charles were first cousins by the mothers' side. They had often met in their early days, but Richard had been brought up in seclusion and Charles at a public school and university. They had met at the house of Charles's parents, but through a feud between the two brothers-in-law, Charles had never been at Cotswold. Richard had been little less than a fixture on his paternal estate; Charles had wandered over half the world. Returning after a long ab- [244] sence, his first thought was to propose a visit to his cousin, and the proposal having been cordially accepted, he made his ap- pearance at the Chace. On the day after his arrival, Richard showed him over his house and partly over his grounds. There were on the upper floor, — for there was only one, — many large and lofty chambers on each side of two wide corridors, with doors at each end, leading to the apartments of the male servants on one side and to those of the female servants on the other. At the end of the hall opposite the main entrance were large folding doors; above them was an organ-loft, with a large organ. The folding doors led to a suite of three rooms communicating by double doors at the sides. Everything wore the same ap- pearance of antiquity, though there was not an absolute rejection of all modern appliances to domestic comfort; the number of these which were worth adopting having been, nevertheless, in the opinion of the proprietors past and present, exceedingly few. Of the rest of the building it will be suffi- cient to say that the kitchen would have done honour to the Abbot of Glastonbury. Local attachment had always been very strong in the Cotswold family, and from father to son, during three centuries, every [245] successive proprietor had carefully abstained from altering that which his predecessor had left. The few novelties in the house were chiefly in books and music. The three rooms above mentioned were ap- propriated in the morning, one to ladies, one to gentlemen, and the middle room to both. In the evening the three were common to all. But the present young proprietor had not as yet had any lady visitors. He had medi- tated on the means of inviting them through some matronly friend; but he had not fixed on one to his mind, nor prearranged in his thoughts whom he should like to invite, scarcely venturing to acknowledge to himself that he thought only of one. "I have been thinking," said Charles in the evening after dinner, "of what you have told me of the Lady of Beechwoods, and I can- not reconcile the admiration you express of her with the total absence of love." Richard. — "There is a mystery about her, and I hate mystery." Charles. — "How do you know there is a mystery?" Richard. — "How can it be otherwise.'* A young woman living in absolute solitude, never visiting, never receiving a visit from one of her own sex. It is not natural; it is not rational. There must be a mystery. [246] Affable to all who speak to her out of doors, kind to her dependents, generous to her tenants, bountiful to the poor; yet to all appearance without a friend in the world. There must be a mystery." Charles. — "I will soon ascertain if there is one, and if there is, I will be bound to solve it." Richard. — "No, Charles, you must not interfere between her and me." Charles. — "How interfere? You are not in love, and your intercourse consists in ex- changing 'How d' ye do' on the wold. I shall not interrupt your 'How d' ye dos.'" Richard. — "Charles, Charles, do not tor- ment me. The world is wide enough, and there are plenty of women in it besides Miss Dorimer. I like to contemplate her as she is; the one rose of my wilderness; the one star of my twilight; the one enigma of my study; the — " Charles. — "The one divinity of your tem- ple, the one goddess of your idolatry. May I not worship at the same shrine with the same unpresuming and unpretending adoration .»* May I not even say: — 'Great is Diana of the Ephesians'?" Richard. — "It is not an unpresuming wor- ship to seek to penetrate the heart of her mystery. I cannot think of your doing what I have not myself dared to attempt." [247] Charles. — "Well, Richard, if you are not in love, you have a sort of feeling in its place which it would puzzle you to analyse. Set your heart at rest for me: I will not inter- fere. But I hope if we meet her on the wold, you will introduce me, and allow me to raise my hat." Richard. — "I am not in love, Charles; but I have no wish to analyse my feelings. I dare say I am very absurd, but I am satisfied with your assurance that you will respect my absurdity." Charles. — "I will not only promise it, but swear it." He filled a bumper of claret, and making a libation of a few drops on the floor said, "To Diana!" Then lifting up the glass he exclaimed : " By Bacchus ! " And having drunk the wine with much apparent solemnity, he turned down his empty glass and replaced it on the table in its proper position. The Beomonds were invited and accepted the invitation. The lady was the youngest sister of Richard's father. The register of her birth made her forty; her looks showed her scarcely more than thirty. She had been married at an early age. Her husband was only two years her senior. He had been passionately in love with her, and was still a conspicuous example of a man in love with [ 248 ] his wife. The lady was unimpassioned but affectionate, even-tempered, uniformly cheer- ful, the same to-day as yesterday. Her hus- band would have wished her to be as much in love with him as he was with her; he wanted something more than affection; there was no place in her heart for more; she gave it frankly and truly, but the hope of more ardent love supplied him with a perpetual pursuit. His married life was one long court- ship, and his home a happy one. The lady had retained little taste for the antiquities among which she had been brought up; and would have preferred society as it is to society as it was, if the world as it is could have given her the choice of both. Her husband and herself were alike fond of company, joining in all the gaieties of the London season; roaming about the Conti- nent in the autumn; passing the winter in the country, visiting other country houses or receiving visits at their own. They had one daughter, whom they had educated at home, who accompanied them everywhere, and whom they brought with them on this oc- casion; a pretty, merry, tripping, skipping, light-hearted damsel, whose voice was often heard on the stairs or in the hall, announcing her approach by scraps of cheerful melody. Mrs. Beomond gladly undertook the task [249] of filling the house with company, and suc- ceeded in doing so with an ample party; leaving one suite of rooms for the Lady of Beechwoods; which were to remain unoc- cupied if not graced by the presence of Miss Dorimer. Cotswold of Cotswold scarcely knew himself and his house, under this irrup- tion of the modern world. Now the great difficulty remained, or rather the series of difficulties; to obtain access to Miss Dorimer; to invite her to the Chace; to induce her to accept the in- vitation. Richard could not suggest an idea on the subject; Charles was not to interfere. It devolved on Mrs. Beomond not only to conduct the intricate and delicate business, but to devise the means of doing so with any prospect of success. To attempt introducing herself by calling at the young lady's house she was aware would be hopeless. She would not be told that Miss Dorimer was not at home; the lady's maid would receive her very cour- teously, and inform her with all imaginable civility that Miss Dorimer did not receive visitors. To write seemed scarcely more promising, but she could think of no third course. [250] 31^77-11. Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date; April 2009 PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066 (724)779-2111