Class Book ff45g ^ 3& OopigiitN . \1%3 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. / IReafciitQs for Stubents. fH^H JOAN OF ARC THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH BY THOMAS DE QUINCEY EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY J. M. HART itm ^y NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY i*93 N Copyright, 1893, HENRY HOLT & CO. ll-lliX3L • ' • THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS, RAHWAY, N. J. PREFACE. This volume of selections is not to be regarded as a contribution to the study of English literature in general, or of De Quincey in particular. Its aim is more modest : on the one hand, to interest the student and thereby engage him to make further acquaintance with the author for himself; on the other, to guide him to a better appreciation of prose style. The very brief statement of the salient points in De Quincey's life and character will be found adequate, I trust, for general needs. Whoever wishes to go more deeply into the subject must consult the works cited at p. v. I take the liberty of doubting whether we shall ever get the facts of De Quincey's life more precisely or much more fully than we now have them. His innate shyness, intensified by the opium habit with its attendant vagrancy, has succeeded in envelop- ing most of the details in an atmosphere of mystery. The remarks upon De Quincey's style are to be used in connection with Professor Minto's treatise. His treatment of the subject is too condensed to be abridged, and too good to be merely pillaged. In the matter of annotation I have been as sparing as possible. For explanations of words and phrases the new International Webster is the standard of IV PREFACE. reference. What is correctly and adequately given there is not uselessly repeated here. In like manner historical and literary allusions that can be traced in the usual books of English history and encyclopedias are passed over. Why should an editor tell his reader what the reader can readily discover with a little effort ? But there are allusions which demand special knowledge. These I have tried to elucidate fully enough to bring out the point of De Quincey's wording. Some, I admit, have baffled my best efforts. For instance, I am unable to trace the fawns and stag, p. 15 : 27, 29, or the female saint in armor, 38 : 10. Perhaps in a subsequent edition I may have better success. J. M. Hart. Cornell University, August 1, 1893. INTRODUCTION. He came, the bard, a little Druid wight Of withered aspect ; but his eye was keen, With sweetness mixed. In russet brown bedight, As is his sister of the copses green, He crept along, unpromising of mien. Gross he who judges so ! His soul was fair, Bright as the children of yon azure sheen. True comeliness, which nothing can impair, Dwells in the mind : all else is vanity and glare. — Thomson's Castle of Indolence. [Quoted by Mr. Shadworth Hodgson as an exact prophetic description of De Quincey's appearance.] LIFE OF DE QUINCEY.* Thomas De Quincey was born in Manchester, August 15, 1785. He was the fifth child and second son in a family of eight children. His infancy was passed in his father's residence called The Farm, then suburban but now absorbed in the " brick and uproar " of the great city. In 1791 or 1792 the family removed to Greenhay, which is now also within the limits of Manchester. The father, Thomas De Quincey, was a prosperous trader, having extensive transactions with Portugal, the West Indies, and America. He was a man of * For further particulars consult : H. A. Page, Thomas De Quincey, His Life and Writings, 2 vols., London, 1877 ; second ed., 1879 (Page is a pseudonym for Alexander Hay Japp) ; David Masson, De Quincey (in English Men of Letters Series); Encyclopedia Britannica ; Dictionary of National Biography. The latest materials, viz., Un- collected Writings, ed. Hogg ; Posthumous Works, ed. Japp ; Memorials, ed. Japp, are out of reach of the ordinary reader. VI IN TROD UC TION. literary taste and ability. The mother, a Miss Penson, was — in the discriminating language of her son — " still more highly gifted ; for though unpretending to the name and honors of a literary woman, I shall presume to call her (what many literary women are not) an intellectual woman." Beyond accumulating a good family library and a com- fortable estate, the father did nothing for the development of his son's gifts. During the son's infancy he was absent from Manchester, in Madeira, Lisbon, or the West Indies, partly on business, chiefly in the vain quest of health ; his trouble being pulmonary consumption. In 1792 he came home only to die. From 1792 to 1796 the widow remained with her children at Greenhay. Young Thomas's education was in charge of the Rev. Samuel Hall, curate in Salford, two miles dis- tant from Greenhay. The clergyman grounded his pupil well in Latin and the rudiments of Greek, and also in Biblical lore. The boy's favorite reading at this time was in Johnson, Cowper, and the Arabian Nights. But there came a disturbing element in the person of the elder brother, William, a robust lad, twelve years of age, that is, five years older than Thomas. William had been with his father in Lisbon and later at the grammar school of Louth. The two boys were in marked contrast. The elder was physi- cally precocious, strong, and daring; " his genius for mis- chief amounted to inspiration," to repeat our De Quincey's words. The younger was small and slight, even for his years, timid physically, shy, introspective. For nearly four years Thomas was the victim of a reign of terror, of which he has left the most amusing account in his Autobiographic Sketches. In his sixteenth year William, who had shown a talent for drawing, was entered as a pupil in the studio of Loutherbourg, a distinguished London landscape painter; but soon afterward he died of typhus fever. In 1796 Mrs. De Ouincey sold Greenhay and removed to Bath. Thomas entered the grammar school here, remaining as a pupil over two years, and acquiring a high reputation INTRODUCTION. Vll for proficiency in the classics. Being accidentally injured, he was removed and sent for a year to a private school at Winkfield. In the summer of 1800 he accepted the invita- tion of Lord Westport, a boy somewhat younger than him- self whose acquaintance he had made at Bath in 1799, to join him in a holiday tour. The two boys, in charge of -Lord Westport's tutor, visited Eton and Windsor Castle, (where they were presented to the king and queen), London, Wales, and Ireland. On the canal boat from Dublin to Tullamore they met the Countess of Errol and her sister, the beautiful Miss Blake, "and talked about the English poets for the whole afternoon." The impression made by the Irish beauty upon the intellectually precocious boy was profound ; " from this day I was an altered creature, never again re- lapsing into the careless irreflective mind of childhood." No less picturesque is the situation a few months later. In October of the same year, on his return from Ireland, he was sent to Laxton, Northamptonshire, to visit Lord and Lady Carbery. The latter, as Miss Watson, a handsome heiress, had been an intimate friend of Mrs. De Ouincey. She was at this time twenty-six. She appears to have been kindness itself to the boy ten years her junior, training him in the ways of the elegant world. On the other hand, being a woman of deep religious principles, a follower of the Evangelical School, she got her learned young protege to initiate her in the mysteries of Greek, that she might understand the New Testament in the original. One wonders why no English artist has yet bethought him of painting the stately young matron and her boy teacher holding their amiable morning lesson. We may linger here over two facts significant for De Quincey's entire future life. With Miss Blake he " talked about the English poets for the whole afternoon." The pas- sage is taken from De Quincey's letter to his mother, dated Westport, Ireland, August 20, 1800. The boy writer was to become, not many years later, the associate of Words- worth and Coleridge, the expounder of the new school, the Vin INTRODUCTION. lifelong defender of all good English poetry. Despite his signal classic attainments — he is said to have spoken Greek fluently at the age of fifteen — De Quincey's heart, from first to last, was with his beloved countrymen. His view of the Greek spirit and style is not perfectly just. The other fact is his early acquaintance with the wealthy and high-born. He never knew what it was to be rich, or even to be famous, in the ordinary sense. More than once in after years he felt the pinch of want, although more through his own careless- ness and ignorance of business ways than from actual need. His life, whether in city or in country, was passed in isola- tion. Yet his writings are permeated with the aroma of aristocracy. One feels that the writer is in touch at least with the rulers of the world. Yet his aristocratic bias does not prevent him at times from sharing the feelings and even understanding the prejudices of the other classes. For evi- dence of this one need only read his humorous description of the coachman, Fanny's grandfather, or, better still, that of the one-eyed Cyclops Diphrelates in the Vision of Sudden Death, or the meeting with the mother and her two daugh- ters, pp. jy, 78, in contrast with the middle-aged mother, pp. 81, 82. In fact, the whole of Joan of Arc is nobly demo- cratic. Of all the great authors upon this subject De Quincey is the only one that has thoroughly entered into and firmly maintained Joan's true peasant nature in its rugged simplicity and dignity. Others make her either a blatant Amazon or a love-sick Semiramis. By the end of 1800 De Quincey was a pupil in the Man- chester grammar school. The stay here became intoler- able to him. He complained that he could not stir out of doors without being " nosed by a factory, a cotton-bag, a cotton dealer, or something else allied to that detestable commerce." His school tasks were too mechanical and petty. After remonstrating in vain to his mother, he bor- rowed some money from Lady Carbery, who was ignorant of his intent, and — like many a schoolboy before and since —?-an away. It was on a July morning, 1802. He walked INTRODUCTION. ix the forty miles from Manchester to Chester, where his mother was then living. Fortunately for him, there was with her at the time her brother, Colonel Penson, an East Indian officer home on a furlough. The colonel, as a man of the world, saw nothing extraordinary in a bright boy of seventeen wearying of school life, and humored his vagrant nephew. It was arranged that the boy should have an allowance of a guinea a week, and roam at will for the summer. From July to November, 1802, he wandered about through North Wales, alternately lodging in an expensive inn and sharing the ridiculously cheap food and shelter of some Welsh rustic. Occasionally, even, he slept on the ground in the open fields. At last, even this gypsy life failed to satisfy him. In November he took the sudden resolve to essay the world of London. His idea, it cannot be called a plan, was to raise two hundred pounds from some money lender, on which sum he might maintain himself for four years, until he attained his majority, and could legally claim the annual ^allowance of one hundred and fifty pounds settled upon him by his father's will. The six months of his London life are still a puzzle to the biographer. Although De Quincey treats of them at length, and with singular force of language, in his memorable Confessions, he gives very few facts. All we know is that he led a life of desperate poverty, that his companions were the " peripatetics " of Oxford Street, the fallen women, who seem to have been fascinated by his innate goodness and refinement. One in particular, poor Ann, stands out as the good Samaritan to one even more destitute than herself. Whoever wishes to know the sad story, so far as it can be known, must read it in De Quincey 's own words. To attempt to restate or to abridge it would be fatuous ; the book of Confessions is an English classic. About the middle of 1803 De Quincey was discovered and reclaimed by his family ; in what way, we are not informed. He was sent to Worcester College, Oxford, on an allowance of one hundred pounds a year. Of the details of his Oxford life very little is known. He became remarkable for his X INTRODUCTION. range of information and his powers of conversation, but otherwise he attracted little attention. With the aid of a German acquaintance, Schwarzburg, he mastered that lan- guage well enough to make a serious study of its literature and philosophy. It was here, also, that he completed a sys- tematic study of English literature, going back as far as Chaucer. He entered into correspondence with Words- worth. Coleridge, for whom he had also a profound admira- tion, had gone to Malta in 1805. Last, but not least, it was at Oxford that De Quincey began the use of opium, that infirmity which is inseparably associated with his name. The exact date of his leaving Oxford is not known. It was probably in 1807 or 1808, although his name remained on the college books until 1810. He passed with distinction part of the written examination for B. A., but did not offer himself for the oral, and therefore did not receive the degree. He made frequent visits to London, associating there with various men of letters. In 1806 De Quincey came of age. From this time on for upward of ten years he appears to be in easy circum- stances. In 1807 he met Coleridge at Bridgewater and was carried away by his marvelous flow of thought and speech. A few weeks later De Quincey escorted Mrs. Coleridge and her three little children to the Lake country, Coleridge being busy with his arrangements for lectures in London. De Quincey, in his capacity of escort, enjoyed the privilege and happiness of passing two days in Wordsworth's cottage at Grasmere, in the society of the poet himself, his wife, and his sister Dorothy. A few days later he met Southey at Keswick Hall, where Mrs. Coleridge was to remain ; she and Mrs. Southey were sisters. The greater part of 1808 and 1809 De Quincey passed in London. In November, 1809, he took possession of Words- worth's former cottage, Townsend, Grasmere. For twenty- seven years he was to be its owner. For twenty of these years it was to be his home or, at least, his headquarters. From 1809 to 1816 he remained a bachelor, reveling in his IN TROD UC TIOA T . XI seclusion and his library (by 1816 he had accumulated five thousand volumes), and yielding more and more to the terrible opium. After Wordsworth and Southey, and Coleridge, who was frequently in the Lake country in 1810, De Quincey's most notable friend was young John Wilson, known subsequently as Professor Wilson of Edinburgh, the " Christopher North " of the Nodes Ambrosiance. De Quincey and North were a singular pair. The former undersized, timid, gentle of voice; the latter, a youthful Hercules, the hero of Oxford athletics and winner of prizes in the classics. Yet they became and ever remained firm friends. It is to be noted that De Quincey, although slight of frame, was always a good walker and had no difficulty in keeping up with Wilson in their numerous all-day fishing excursions. Wilson's home was in Edinburgh, where De Quincey visited him in 1814, making the acquaintance of the younger set of Scotch literary notabilities. In 1816 De Quincey married Margaret Simpson, the daughter of a Westmoreland " statesman " living near Gras- mere. " Statesman," in this sense, has been defined by De Quincey's daughter as a farmer whose family had farmed the same land for generations, the tenure being by special service. Mrs. De Quincey was eighteen at marriage. She was attractive in appearance, amiable in manners, a faith- ful wife, well educated, and sufficiently informed to appre- ciate and sympathize with her husband's remarkable gifts. De Quincey's description of the happy days of their early wedded life is in his best vein, and should be read by the side of Carlyle's account of Craigenputtock in his letter to his brother, Dr. Carlyle.* In the year before and the first year after marriage, De Quincey made strenuous efforts to shake off the opium habit. But he speedily relapsed, until in 1819 he was at his worst. The maximum dose, if we may trust his statement, was twelve thousand drops of laudanum, or about ten wineglassfuls. This is scarcely credible. In * November 26, 1828. In Letters of Thomas Carlyle, ed. C. E. Norton, 1889, p. 129. xii IN TROD UCTION 1 8 19 he made a second and fairly successful effort to reform. His resources, through carelessness and un- fortunate investments, had become seriously impaired, and he was confronted with the possibility of poverty. He emerged from the crisis with a shattered frame and nerves unstrung, but at all events the demon, if not act- ually slain, had been subdued. Thenceforth De Quincey was only a moderate opium taker, with an occasional excess. In 1819 his friends procured for him the editorship of the Westmorela?id Gazette, started in 181 8 as the local organ of the Tory party. He held the office for a little over a year. His editorship can scarcely be called successful, for De Quin- cey was not the man to embody practical views upon practical current matters. But it had one all-important result : it habituated De Quincey to seeing himself in print, it gave him "a liking for the sight of printer's proofs." Up to this time, although the most indefatigable reader of other men's writings, he himself had written nothing. He had been a consumer, not a producer. From this time on he was to be not only one of the most conspicuous writers, but even one of the most prolific. De Quincey 's first appearance as a magazine writer was in the London Magazine, then at the height of its fame. Among its contributors were Lamb (" Elia"), Hazlitt, Allan Cunningham, Procter ("Barry Cornwall"), and Thomas Hood. In the London Magazine for September, 1821, appeared the first part, in October the second part of the Confessions of an Opium. Eater. About a year later the publishers of the magazine brought out a separate volume of Confessions, including a so-called third part. In 1823 and 1824 articles from De Quincey 's pen came fast. Especially noteworthy are Walking Stewart, 0?i the Knocking at the Gate in Macbeth, Analects fro7n Jean Paul Richter, Goethe. The latter article was a sharp attack both on Goethe himself and on Carlyle as translator of his Wit- he I m I\ leister. INTRODUCTION. X1U In November, 1826, in Blackwood's Magazine, appeared Lessings Laocoon, Translated with Notes ; in February, 1827, the Last Days of Immannel Kant and On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts. From 1 82 1 to 1830 De Ouincey had still nominally his home at Grasmere. But much if not most of the time he was either in London or in Edinburgh, leading the life of a city recluse, seeing only occasionally an intimate friend like Lamb, or Charles Knight, or Wilson. In 1830 he removed himself and family to Edinburgh. Henceforth the great English writer is permanently identified with the Scotch capital. But although in Edinburgh he was not of it ; he did not form an appreciable element of its society, as did Wilson, Jeffrey, Sir William Hamilton, Brewster, and so many others. The shyness, the aloofness, born in him and confirmed by his terrible youthful vagrancy in London in 1803, grew from year to year until in the latter part of his life only his most intimate friends could get an interview without recourse to some stratagem. His habits of life grew more and more eccentric. Although exact data are want- ing, we know that he frequently, if not usually, had lodgings away from his family, sometimes even two or three different lodgings of his own. Like the Arab, he was incessantly shifting his tent. Yet he was sincerely attached to his family, and was beloved by them in turn. He took much pride in educating his children, and was the gentlest and most indul- gent of fathers. Indeed, aloofness and gentleness seem to have been the dominant traits in De Ouincey's character. In 1833 his youngest son died; in 1835 his eldest, William, in his eighteenth year, a youth of great promise, or, in the father's own words— " my firstborn child, the crown and glory of my life." And in 1837 died his wife. Delicate health, the care of a large family, and the still greater care of a man of genius, loving and attractive in many ways, it is true, but a hopeless burden of responsibility, were too much for one not of the toughest fiber. The recollection of her survives as of a gracious and beautiful woman. Her XIV INTRODUCTION. practical good sense and sweet temper she fortunately trans- mitted to her children. After two or three years of uncertainty, the children took the management of affairs in their own hands. The eldest daughter, Margaret, and the eldest son, Horace, formed the plan of removing with the others to Lasswade, seven miles out of Edinburgh, leaving the father to come and go at will. The plan appears to have worked well. For nine years Lasswade was the De Ouincey home, while the father occu- pied one set of lodgings after another in town, visiting his children frequently but fitfully. One of his practices is too amusing and characteristic to be omitted, even in the brief- est narrative. He accumulated books and papers so rapidly as to make his room uninhabitable. When thus " snowed up," he would move into fresh quarters, perhaps in another house, to begin the process all over again, but retaining and paying rent for the former room. It is known that in this way he was at one time chargeable for at least four sepa- rate sets of lodgings at once. When, in 1850, or somewhat later, De Ouincey undertook to bring out a collected edition of his works, the chief labor of his publisher, Mr. Hogg, a shrewd and persevering man of business, was to work out, almost after the manner of a detective, the traces of De Quincey's endless haunts, and gather together precious man- uscripts scattered over Edinburgh, and even as far as Glasgow. The following is quoted from Masson's Life, chapter x ; it reveals the man : " Once, in a hotel in High Street, into which he [Mr. Hogg] had taken De Quincey for refuge and a basin of soup during a thunder shower, the waiter, after looking at De Quincey, said : ' I think, sir, I have a bundle of papers which you left here some time ago,' and sure enough, a bundle was produced which De Quincey had left there about a year before. Another time, having gone to Glasgow once more on a visit to Professor Lushington, and having taken two tea.chests of papers with him, he had been obliged, by some refractoriness on the part of the porter, to leave them at a bookseller's shop on their way to the professor's INTRODUCTION. XV house. This he remembered perfectly; but, as he taken no note of the bookseller, or the number of the shop, or even of the name of the street, Mr. Hogg found him quite rueful on the subject after his return to Edinburgh. A letter to a friend and a round of inquiries among the Glasgow booksellers made all right, and Mr. Hogg had the pleasure of pointing out to him the two recovered boxes as they lay in his office." One of his daughters has given us this glimpse of the father at Lasswade of an evening : " The newspaper was brought out, and he, telling in his own delightful way, rather than reading the news, would, on questions from this one or that of the party, often including young friends of his children, neighbors, or visitors from distant places, illuminate the sub- ject with such a wealth of memories, of old stories, of past or present experiences, of humor, of suggestion, even of prophecy, as by its very wealth makes it impossible to give any taste of it." And she adds this touch : " He was not a reassuring man for nervous people to live with, as those nights were exceptions on which he did not set something on fire, the commonest incident being for some one to look up from book or work to say casually, ' Papa, your hair is on fire ; ' of which a calm 'Is it, my love? 'and a hand rubbing out the blaze was all the notice taken " {Mas- son, chapter ix). During the years from 1840 to 1849 De Quincey's contri- butions to Blackwood's Magazine and to Tait's were numerous. Noteworthy are Plato's Republic, Homer and the Homerida, Suspiria de Profundis, The English Mail Coach, Wordsworth's Poetry, Joan of Arc. In 1844 ap- peared also his Logic of Political Economy in book form. With the year 1849 De Quincey's productivity was practi- cally at an end. He wrote, it is true, an occasional short paper, but in the main his remnant of life and activity was consumed in the not easy task of bringing his scattered pro- ductions into one collected edition. The credit of planning this edition, and keeping the author's flagging energy up to the task, is due to the Edinburgh publisher, Mr. Hogg. xvi INTRODUCTION. The first volume appeared in 1853, the fourteenth and last in i860, the year after De Ouincey's death. Parallel with the Edinburgh edition appeared the Ticknor & Fields collec- tion, 1851-55, originally in eleven volumes, subsequently expanded to twenty. This is still the one most familiar to Americans. It contained several articles omitted from or condensed in the Edinburgh ; on the other hand the Edinburgh had the advantage of the author's revision and annotation. In 1861 the Edinburgh became the prop- erty of the Blacks, who reissued it in 1862, with a fif- teenth volume, containing the biographies written by De Quincey for the Encyclopedia Britannica. The new Edin- burgh, published by the Blacks in 1889-90, in fourteen volumes, is greatly superior to all its predecessors. It has been carefully revised by the well-known De Quincey scholar, Professor Masson, who has supplied much additional matter, partly from De Quincey, partly from his own researches. Although not quite an edition definitive, it meets all practical wants. The arrangement of contents has been improved, and it has the great merit of being cheap and even procura- ble in separate volumes. In 1853 De Ouincey's eldest daughter, Margaret, was married to Mr. Robert Craig, and removed with her husband to Ireland. In 1855 the second daughter, Florence, was married to Colonel Baird Smith, of the East India Engineers. In 1857 De Quincey, then in his seventy-third year, visited his daughter and her two little children in Ireland. The last great public event to arouse his interest was the East Indian mutiny of 1857-58, in the suppression of which his son, Paul Frederick, and his son-in-law, Colonel Smith, had a share. On December 8, 1859, he died in Edinburgh, attended by his unmarried daughter Emily and by Mrs. Craig, hastily summoned from Ireland. POSITION IN LITERATURE. De Quincey is the English essayist by eminence. He pro- duced only two books : Logic of Political Economy, 1 844, INTRODUCTIOX. XV ll and Klosterheim, or the Masque, 1832, both reprinted in the new Edinburgh edition. In this respect he differs from his great contemporaries, Macaulay and Carlyle. The first feature to strike the reader of De Ouincey is his immense range of subject and the multifariousness of his knowledge. Even the best read student finds it difficult to keep pace with his divagations. This accumulation of liter- ary material is not mere pedantry ; it is the result of unusual inquisitiveness and a tenacious memory, quickened by keen observation of life and character. Like Macaulay, whose memory was still more prodigious, De Quincey trusted too much to his recollections of what he had read ; he did not always take the pains to verify by consulting authorities. One or two instances of inaccuracy are pointed out in the Notes to this volume. In his biography of Shakspere he writes : " he [Milton] speaks of him [Shakspere] in his // Penseroso as the tutelary genius of the English stage." The lines in question are in L 'Allegro, and do not bear out the assertion. But such blemishes are rare. Furthermore, De Ouincey was endowed with an independ- ent and subtle intellect. To repeat Goldsmith's remark upon Burke, " he winds into a subject like a serpent." He does not rush at it dogmatically, like Johnson, or Carlyle, or Macaulay, but reaches the heart of the question only upon slowly converging lines. An impatient reader is tempted at first to regard him as prolix or digressive, until, reaching the conclusion, he discovers that the whole is a series of inevita- ble logical steps. The papers in the present volume, being mainly narrative and descriptive, do not illustrate De Ouin- cey 's method as forcibly as do his analytic and argumenta- tive writings. The dominant trait in his character is aesthetic intellect- uality. He is not a man of practical life, like Macaulay ; neither is he a prophet-teacher with a message, like Carlyle. He views the issues of life as questions to be studied by the intellect. But in him the intellect has for its constant com- panions imagination and sympathy. On the one hand, his xviil INTRODUCTION. imagination, like Burke's, transfigures the framework of his thought with a radiant atmosphere of figurative illustration. Simile, Comparison, Metaphor, Personification, Apostrophe, the whole domain of figurative speech, is at his beck ; and the figures seem to come spontaneously, instinctively ; the writer seems to be without any conscious rhetorical intent. Yet this is only the writer's art concealing itself; of all English prose writers De Quincey is the one who has blended most skillfully practice and theory. The impres- sion made upon the reader's mind is vivid, the truth is not merely stated but enforced. On the other hand, De Ouincey's sympathy is no less active. He identifies himself with all that is noble in life. Especially does he interest himself in those whom the world has despised, neglected, or mis- understood. He makes it his business to recall to our notice men and women whom otherwise we might forget. And this sympathy is so intense as to raise him at times to the highest pathos. A notable instance is the paper on Joan of Arc, unsurpassed in our prose literature. From the pathetic to the sublime is but a step. Yet it is a step rarely taken. How De Quincey took it may be learned, partially at least, from the Dream-Fugue, in the present volume. Better still, from the Confessions and the Suspiria de Profundis. Here De Quincey, after the manner of the Hebrew prophets, leaving behind him the mere facts of existence, or using them only as a text, gives himself up to musing on the eternal problems of life and death, human character and the soul, the finite in contrast with the infinite. Although he is not among our professed humorists, there is a vein of humor running through all his work except that of the order sublime. Even the pathos of Joan is tinged with it. His humor is not of the whole-souled kind that takes delight in the pure humanity underlying vulgar oddities ; it has no sympathy with such characters as Wil- kins Micawber and Captain Costigan, perhaps not even with Pistol and Mistress Quickly. But De Quincey had INTRODUCTION. XIX a keen eye for the incongruous, for the discrepancy be- tween assertion and fact, promise and performance. Often this perception takes the form of good-natured banter. See his attacks upon Michelet and the French in general, in the Joan. At times his humor assumes the form of irony. See the passage on Miss Haumette, on the woman and donkey, the stocking-darning, and junior lords of the admiralty, pp. 17, 18. At other times it assumes the form of jesting with the terrible, e.g., in Murder Co7isidered as one of the Fine Arts. Possibly De Quincey's egotism, his obtrusion of his personality in writings not professedly autobiographi- cal, may also be attributed to his sense of humor ; he heightens the effect by the contrast between his personal insignificance and the significance of the situation. This is evident throughout the Mail Coach. Even his frequent mention of kicking as a favorite mode of punishment, see 36 : 17, 49 : 25, 53 : 17, 90 : 16, must be self-irony, conscious or unconscious. One can scarcely imagine a man of De Quincey's physique and gentle refinement having any knowl- edge of the operation. Not the least of De Quincey's services to critical study is his strenuous enforcement of the distinction, due originally to Wordsworth, between the literature of knowledge and the literature of power. The one speaks merely to the under- standing, to our desire of knowledge, and its utterances are necessarily superseded by later discoveries and wider general- ization. The other speaks to the higher understanding, the reason (in Coleridge's sense), through the affections of pleasure and sympathy, and its utterances can never be superseded. De Quincey illustrates the difference by com- paring Newton's Principia, the power of which " has transmigrated into other forms," with the Iliad, the Pro- metheus of yEschylus, King Lear, Paradise Lost, which " never can transmigrate into new incarnations." The dis- tinction is just and helpful. Yet Professor Masson is right in suggesting that it is not free from danger. Besides, we should consider that scientific style, so to speak, is only XX INTRODUCTION. in its infancy. The great discoverers and investigators of modern times either wrote in a dead language, Latin, or, if they made use of their mother tongue, they gave no heed to the art of expression. But in our own day the consciousness is gaining ground that science and art are not at variance, but may be mutually helpful ; that the explorer of the secrets of nature need not ignore the language of man's heart and man's imagination. The artistic treatment that has charmed the present generation in the writings of Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, will survive after their scientific principles have " transmigrated." A thoroughly well-written book, whether of fiction or of fact, will always find readers. All the more is it to be deplored, therefore, that our present schools of science should ignore this side of training. They impart a wonderful deal of knowledge, they graduate pupils in a full panoply of facts and formulas. But these pupils are insen- sible to the beauty that inheres in all truth ; they have no appreciation of form, no gift of communicating themselves. They need to be introduced to the literature of power. And perhaps De Ouincey himself may best serve their need. Is he not the living contradiction of his own postulate that there is a wall of separation between knowledge and power? He is not a writer of pure imagination ; does not belong in the category of Homer, ^Eschylus, Shakspere, Milton. His basis is always that of fact, historical or biographical fact ; his imaginings are merely the adjuncts of this fact. Yet, by virtue of the illumining power of his treatment, he con- verts the dry facts into spiritual truth. He is our great teacher of form, perhaps our greatest teacher in prose. Compared with him, Macaulay is unimaginative. Carlyle has imagination enough, and in certain features of style is even superior to De Ouincey. But his imagination is not only bizarre at times, and confusing to the reader, but — a much more dangerous fault — is often the mere handmaid of arro- gant and illogical doctrines. His notorious article on Scott, for instance, is a masterpiece of constructive imagination, inculcating with preternatural energy what is at bottom a INTRODUCTION. XXI falsehood. De Quincey's imaginings, if not in every single instance consonant with the pure white light of reason, at least never willfully pervert the truth. STYLE. The most systematic treatment is to be found in the late Professor Minto's Manual of English Prose Literature. The following remarks, although influenced by Minto, are independent, being prepared with regard to the present texts. Grammar. De Ouincey seems to favor the vague rela- tive pronoun that at the expense of the more precise who or which. See " the poor shepherd girl . . . that " p. I : 3 ; " I, that have leisure to read," 4 : 31 ; " in those that . . . were always teasing her," 10 : 24 ; " Charlotte Corday, that in the bloom of youth, that with the loveliest of persons," 33 : 27; "English soldier — who had sworn to throw a fagot on her scaffold . . . that did so, that fulfilled his vow," 41 : 23. The change here from who to that is certainly not elegant. In the sentence : " But by her side . . . w r on at last," 117 : 17-23, the relative pronoun is that; the which, 117 : 21, is not a pronoun, but a pronominal adjective, and the conjunction that, 1 17 : 22, is superfluous. " But at inter- vals that sang together," 114 : 1, is unusual, for " but who at intervals sang together." A neat example of the old ethical dative is "Unhorse me, knock 7ne," 100 : 15. The of in the phrase " in comparison of ourselves," 98 : 32, sounds old-fashioned ; is it English in distinction from American ? In the phrases : " Coming forward on the eye," 13 : 21 ; " upon a sound from afar," no: 23 ; " upon the least shadow of failure," 103 : 2, the peculiar use of the preposition is very happy ; also in " armed into courage," 15:10; "relents into reasons," 1:13. Unusual is " on different motives," 20 : 15, for " from " or " with." With reference to the recent discussion of nor-or and the accompanying verb, it may be worth while to note: " Not xxil INTRODUCTION. a hoof nor a wheel was to be heard," 96 : 6 ; " could not dis- tinguish the tendencies nor decipher the forms," 13 : 12. " Some time or other," 4 : 30 ; " the three first," 122 : 5, are conversational turns rather than literary. The plural glooms, 13 : 10, 42 : 26, is unusual. It occurs in Savage's Wanderer, but that is scarcely an authority. As an Englishman of the English, De Quincey is scrupu- lous in the use of shall and will. Attention is called to the delicate discrimination in : "€he it is, I engage, that shall take my lord's brief. She it is, bishop, that would plead for you ; yes, bishop, SHE — when heaven and earth are silent," 45 : 21. Also to the expression : " Who have thrown them- selves boldly on the judgment of a far posterity, that should have had time to review, to ponder, to compare," 7:1. Professor Masson, ch. xi, end, criticises De Quincey 's use of such participial forms as supposing. A like expres- sion is " excepting one man," 25 : 12, where grammatical logic demands " one man excepted." But in America this use of " excepting," etc., is almost universal. In the arrangement of words and phrases De Quincey is usually faultless. However involved the sentence may be, each part is in its proper place. But occasionally one may detect a slight aberration. Thus, " as many a better man than D'Arc does," 18: 15, refers grammatically to making holes in stockings, whereas it is intended to refer to mending them. Again, 94:7, "this infirmity" does not refer to " thou snorest," but to " the vicious habit of sleeping," a few lines above. As it now stands, " this infirmity " seems to suggest that the Pagan Pantheon was given to snoring ; this was assuredly not in the author's mind. " She never sang together with the songs," etc., 2 : 20, and "For all, except this comfort," etc., 43 : 23, are not perfectly clear. Vocabulary. This is one of the richest in our literature ; in fact we may doubt if any writer in English had a greater variety of words at his command. This profusion is partly the result of De Quincey's extensive reading ; partly the INTRODUCTION. XXlll expression of his determination to be perfectly exact. He does not hesitate to go to any length, whether of erudition or of colloquialism, in his quest of a word that shall convey his meaning, no more, no less. Herein he differs from Macaulay, who rarely oversteps the conventional, and often contents himself with stating his thought halfway. On the other hand De Quincey is less barbaric than Carlyle ; he rarely coins a word outright, like Carlyle's famous " gigman- ity," or " Big-endian and Little-endian." His coinages are more scholarly; see sigh-born, 96 : 16, with the note. For samples of De Quincey's selection of homely but very technical words, see burgoo, 38:27; quartering, 99:15, 58:15; turrets, 68 : 4. For learned technical terms see radix of the series, 98 : 19 ; confluent, applied to roads, 93:21; decussated, 9:21; determinate and ample separation, 56 : 28 ; allocating, 55 : 9; equable transpareiicy, 97 : 16 ; diphrelatic, 91 ".27. De Quincey's remark upon this word, quoted in the note, gives the key to his method. Frequently De Quincey uses a word in its earlier etymo- logical sense ; e. g„ " saintly passion " (^suffering), 23 : 32 ; "piety to France" (=filial affection), 10:26; "false luxu- rious confidence " (^unjustifiable, wrong), 96: 7. " The right hemisphere for a peep at us," 33 : 14, is an apt illustration of the author's scientific accuracy and quaintness combined. In " lawny thickets," 65 : 8, " reedy gig," 101 : 19, " cany carriage," 106 : 1, De Quincey resorts to an adjective forma- tion which cannot be commended, and which gives to the diction a touch almost of effeminacy. His use of figurative language, especially for illustration, is very lavish. Thus, his comparison of the horse to a leopard, 61 : 8, 75 : 9 ; " the tiger roar of his [Death's] voice," 106 : 29 ; the " crane-neck " movement of the carters, 58 : 1 5. Of a much higher rhetorical order are " drank from the cup of rest," 2:19," bore each an orchestral part in this universal lull," 97 : 11, in which rest and silence, mere negations, are xxiv IN TROD UC TION. treated as positive entities. The entire sentence, " All these writers . . . nothing else to challenge," 4 : 22-30, is a mass of figure, yet without being " mixed." Whereas "wedge of native resources . . . rekindling national pride . . . plant- ing the dauphin on his feet," 24:22, is decidedly " mixed." The paragraph beginning "On the Wednesday," 34: 13, is a specimen of skill in passing from high pitch to sober statement ; it is abrupt but not awkward. The sentence, " The golde'n tubes of the organ . . . heart-shattering music," 117 126-30, at once so graphic and so mystic in its figurative expression, is one of many indica- tions of De Quincey's love of music. In truth the whole Dream-Fugue is a combination, unsurpassed except in cer- tain In Memoriam passages, of mystic vision and mystic harmony. De Ouincey was no follower of the school that would pro- scribe Latin-French terms and substitute for them homely Anglo-Saxon. In his eyes every word, of whatever origin, once admitted and sanctioned by use, was not only good but even indispensable. He needed all sorts and conditions of words to express his endless shades of meaning. Not the provenience of a word was his criterion, but its function. Yet no writer has known better than he that Latin-French and Anglo-Saxon have different functions, or known better how to combine them. The reader should note carefully the passage, " She might not prefigure . . . that she heard forever," 3:21-31, how long and short, foreign and native, commingle, how the words expressive of condition and men- tal state are foreign, the words of action native. Above all, De Quincey's style is continuous; to use a favorite term with him and Coleridge, sequacious. By this is not meant a sustained style, one that never lets itself down below a certain high level ; for every reader of De Quincey knows, and the foan gives abundant evidence, that he often drops nimbly enough from the pathetic to the ridiculous. A sequacious style is one that unfolds the writer's thought step by step, in due logical order, without haste and without IN TROD UC TION. XXV rest, without gaps and unexplained jumps ; in this style no one thought or feeling is uttered for its own sake alone, but everything is said with regard to the sequence, and the watchful eye of the master is upon the whole and upon every part. The master does not let himself be carried away by his own creations ; he restrains himself, he obeys the laws of art, says what must be said and suppresses everything that is not in keeping with the evolution of his thought. Certainly the Joan is a good example of the sequacious ; there is scarcely a word, certainly not a phrase, which is not there because the author, after careful deliberation, judges that it ought to be there, as an organic part of his art-work. The humorous touches heighten the effect ; the apparent digressions are parts of the general theme as the author conceives it. Objection has often been made to De Quincey's lavish use of slang. See his collection of terms from the prize ring in the paper on Sir William Hamilton, v. 325, or the passage on Longinus, quoted by Minto, Manual of Prose, p. 71. Akin to slang is his tone of affected patronage of the person whom he is discussing. Thus, 36:21, 24, 31, he dubs Thomas a Kempis " Tom." Going to the opposite extreme of affected politeness, 37 : 27, he speaks of him as " Mr." a Kempis. The Jewish historian, in another paper, he claps on the back familiarly as " Joe." From the purist's point of view these mannerisms are of course indefensible. But to the psychologist they are genuine revelations of the writer. De Quincey's mind was acute, refined, perhaps over-refined, over-loaded with life's burdens. It must have some vent, and this was the vent. It was his way of being a man with men, of echoing Faust's ejaculation : Hier bin ich Mensch, hier darf ich's sein. Of his slang it may be trenchantly said that it is harmless, because it does not lend itself to imitation. Coming from a man of learning, it can be understood and appreciated only by a reader who is alive to the graces of learn- ing. Being neither coarse nor vulgar, it has no attrac- xxvi INTRODUCTION. tions for the coarse and vulgar ; it is in the strictest sense esoteric. And being individual and characteristic, so char- acteristic indeed that we cannot imagine De Quincey without it, there is no temptation for any other writer to imitate it ; one might as soon venture to imitate the idio- syncracies of Carlyle. We should miss something from the make-up of our literary prose, were we deprived of this elfish " chaff." THOMAS DE QLJINCEY. JOAN OF ARC* What is to be thought of her ? What is to be thought of the poor shepherd girl from the hills and forests of Lorraine, that — like the Hebrew shepherd boy from the hills and forests of Judea — rose sud- 5 denly out of the quiet, out of the safety, out of the * "Arc." — Modern France, that should know a great deal better than myself, insists that the name is not D' Arc — i. e. , of Arc — but Dare. Now it happens sometimes that, if a person whose position guarantees his access to the best information will 10 content himself with gloomy dogmatism, striking the table with his fist, and saying in a terrific voice, " It is so, and there's an end of it," one bows deferentially, and submits. But, if, unhap- pily for himself, won by this docility, he relents too amiably into reasons and arguments, probably one raises an insurrection 1 5 against him that may never be crushed ; for in the fields of logic one can skirmish, perhaps, as well as he. Had he confined him- self to dogmatism, he would have intrenched his position in dark- ness, and have hidden his own vulnerable points. But coming down to base reasons he lets in light, and one sees where to plant 20 the blows. Now, the worshipful reason of modern France for disturbing the old received spelling is that Jean Hordal, a descend- ant of La Pucelle's brother, spelled the name Dare in 161 2. But what of that ? It is notorious that what small matter of spelling Providence had thought fit to disburse among man in the 25 seventeenth century was all monopolized by printers ; now, M. Hordal was not a printer. 2 DE QUINCE Y. religious inspiration, rooted in deep pastoral solitudes, to a station in the van of armies, and to the more perilous station at the right hand of kings ? The Hebrew boy inaugurated his patriotic mission by an act, by a victorious act, such as no man could deny. 5 But so did the girl of Lorraine, if we read her story as it was read by those who saw her nearest. Adverse armies bore witness to the boy as no pretender ; but so they did to the gentle girl. Judged by the voices of all who saw them from a station of good will, both 10 were found true and loyal to any promises involved in their first acts. Enemies it was that made the difference between their subsequent fortunes. The boy rose to a splendor and a noonday prosperity, both personal and public, that rang through the rec- 15 ords of his people, and became a byword among his posterity for a thousand years, until the scepter was departing from Judah. The poor forsaken girl, on the contrary, drank not herself from that cup of rest which she had secured for France. She never sang 20 together with the songs that rose in her native Dom- remy as echoes to the departing steps of invaders. She mingled not in the festal dances at Vaucouleurs which celebrated in rapture the redemption of France. No ! for her voice was then silent ; no ! for her feet 25 were dust. Pure, innocent, noble-hearted girl ! whom, from earliest youth, ever I believed in as full of truth and self-sacrifice, this was among the strongest pledges for thy truth, that never once — no, not for a moment of weakness — didst thou revel in the vision of coronets 30 and honor from man. Coronets for thee ! Oh, no ! Honors, if they come when all is over, are for those JO A A? OF ARC. 3 that share thy blood.* Daughter of Domremy, when the gratitude of thy king shall awaken, thou wilt be sleeping the sleep of the dead. Call her, king of France, but she will not hear thee. Cite her by the 5 apparitors to come and receive a robe of honor, but she will be found en contumace. When the thunders of universal France, as even yet may happen, shall proclaim the grandeur of the poor shepherd girl that gave up all for her country, thy ear, young shepherd iogirl, will have been deaf for five centuries. To suffer and to do, that was thy portion in this life ; that was thy destiny ; and not for a moment was it hidden from thy- self. Life, thou saidst, is short ; and the sleep which is in the grave is long ; let me use that life, so transitory, 15 for the glory of those heavenly dreams destined to com- fort the sleep which is so long ! This pure creature — pure from every suspicion of even a visionary self- interest, even as she was pure in senses more obvious — never once did this holy child, as regarded herself, 20 relax from her belief in the darkness that was travel- ing to meet her. She might not prefigure the very manner of her death ; she saw not in vision, perhaps, the aerial altitude of the fiery scaffold, the spectators without end, on every road, pouring into Rouen as to 25 a coronation, the surging smoke, the volleying flames, the hostile faces all around, the pitying eye that lurked but here and there, until nature and imperish- able truth broke loose from artificial restraints — these might not be apparent through the mists of the hurry. 30 ing future. But the voice that called her to death, that she heard forever. * " Those that share thy bloody — A collateral relative of Joanna's was subsequently ennobled by the title of Dn Lys. 4 DE QUINCE V. Great was the throne of France even in those days, and great was he that sat upon it ; but well Joanna knew that not the throne, nor he that sat upon it, was for her; but, on the contrary, that she was for them; not she by them, but they by her, should rise from 5 the dust. Gorgeous were the lilies of France, and for centuries had the privilege to spread their beauty over land and sea, until, in another century, the wrath of God and man combined to wither them ; but well Joanna knew, early at Domremy she had read that 10 bitter truth, that the lilies of France would decorate no garland for her. Flower nor bud, bell nor blossom, would ever bloom for her ! But stay. What reason is there for taking up this 15 subject of Joanna precisely in the spring of 1847 ? Might it not have been left till the spring of 1947, or, perhaps, left till called for ? Yes, but it is called for, and clamorously. You are aware, reader, that among the many original thinkers whom modern France has 20 produced, one of the reputed leaders is M. Michelet. All these writers are of a revolutionary cast ; not in a political sense merely, but in all senses ; mad, often- times, as March hares ; crazy with the laughing gas of recovered liberty; drunk with the wine-cup of 25 their mighty Revolution, snorting, whinnying, throw- up their heels, like wild horses in the boundless pampas, and running races of defiance with snipes, or with the winds, or with their own shadows, if they can find nothing else to challenge. Some time or3peu fort " ; and the mob of spectators might raise a scruple whether our friend the jackdaw upon the throne, and the dauphin himself, were not grazing the shins of treason. For the dauphin could not lend more than belonged to him. According to the popu- 2olar notion, he had no crown for himself ; consequently none to lend, on any pretense whatever, until the con- secrated Maid should take him to Rheims. This was the, popular notion in France. But certainly it was the dauphin's interest to support the popular notion, as he 25 meant to use the services of Joanna. For if he were king already, what was it that she could do for him beyond Orleans? That is to say, what more than a merely military service could she render him ? And, above all, if he were king without a coronation, and 30 without the oil from the sacred ampulla, what advan- tage was yet open to him by celerity above his com- 22 DE QUINCE Y. petitor, the English boy ? Now was to be a race for a coronation : he that should win that race carried the superstition of France along with him : he that should first be drawn from the ovens of Rheims was under that superstition baked into a king. 5 La Pucelle, before she could be allowed to practice as a warrior, was put through her manual and platoon exercise, as a pupil in divinity, at the bar of six emi- nent men in wigs. According to Southey (v. 393, bk iii., in the original edition of his " Joan of Arc,") 10 she " appalled the doctors." It's not easy to do that : but they had some reason to feel bothered, as that surgeon would assuredly feel bothered who, upon proceeding to dissect a subject, should find the subject retaliating as a dissector upon himself, espe- 15 cially if Joanna ever made the speech to them which occupies v. 354-391, bk. iii. It is a double impossi- bility : 1st, because a piracy from Tindal's " Chris- tianity as old as the Creation " — a piracy a parte ante, and by three centuries ; 2d, it is quite contrary to 20 the evidence on Joanna's trial. Southey's " Joan " of a. d. 1796 (Cottle, Bristol) tells the doctors, among other secrets, that she never in her life attended — 1st, Mass ; nor 2d, the Sacramental Table ; nor 3d, Con- fession. In the meantime, all this deistical confession 2 5 of Joanna's, besides being suicidal for the interest of her cause, is opposed to the depositions upon both trials. The very best witness called from first to last deposes that Joanna attended these rites of her Church even too often ; was taxed with doing so ; 3<> and, by blushing, owned the charge as a fact, though certainly not as a fault. Joanna was a girl of natural JOAN OF ARC. 23 piety, that saw God in forests and hills and foun- tains, but did not the less seek him in chapels and consecrated oratories. This peasant girl was self-educated through her 5 own natural meditativeness. If the reader turns to that divine passage in " Paradise Regained " which Milton has put into the mouth of our Saviour when first entering the wilderness, and musing upon the tendency of those great impulses growing within him- 10 self Oh, what a multitude of thoughts"at once Awakened in me swarm, while I consider What from within I feel myself, and hear What from without comes often to my ears, 15 111 sorting with my present state compared ! When I was yet a child, no childish play To me was pleasing ; all my mind was set Serious to learn and know, and thence to do, What might be public good ; myself I thought 20 Born to that end he will have some notion of the vast reveries which brooded over the heart of Joanna in early girlhood, when the wings were budding that should carry her from Orleans to Rheims ; when the golden chariot 25 was dimly revealing itself that should carry her from the kingdom of France Delivered to the Eternal Kingdom. It is not requisite for the honor of Joanna, nor is there in this place room, to pursue her brief career 3° of actio7i. That, though wonderful, forms the earthly part of her story ; the spiritual part is the saintly passion of her imprisonment, trial, and execution. It is unfortunate, therefore, for Southey's "Joan of 24 DE QUINCE Y. Arc" (which, however, should always be regarded as a juvenile effort), that precisely when her real glory begins the poem ends. But this limitation of the interest grew, no doubt, from the constraint insep- arably attached to the law of epic unity. Joanna's 5 history bisects into two opposite hemispheres, and both could not have been presented to the eye in one poem, unless by sacrificing all unity of theme, or else by involving the earlier half, as a narrative episode, in the latter ; which, however, might have been done, 10 for it. might have been communicated to a fellow- prisoner, or a confessor, by Joanna herself. It is suffi- cient, as concerns this section of Joanna's life, to say that she fulfilled, to the height of her promises, the restoration of the prostrate throne. France had 15 become a province of England, and for the ruin of both, if such a yoke could be maintained. Dreadful pecuniary exhaustion caused the English energy to droop ; and that critical opening La Pucelle used with a corresponding felicity of audacity and suddenness 20 (that were in themselves portentous) for introducing the wedge of French native resources, for rekindling the national pride, and for planting the dauphin once more upon his feet. When Joanna appeared, he had been on the point of giving up the struggle with the 25 English, distressed as they were, and of flying to the south of France. She taught him to blush for such abject counsels. She liberated Orleans, that great city, so decisive by its fate for the issue of the war, and then beleaguered by the English with an elabo- 30 rate application of engineering skill unprecedented in Europe. Entering the city after sunset on the 29th JOAN OF ARC. 25 of April, she sang mass on Sunday, May 8, for the entire disappearance of the besieging force. On the 29th of June she fought and gained over the English the decisive battle of Patay ; on the 9th of July she 5 took Troyes by a coup-de-main from a mixed garrison of English and Burgundians ; on the 15th of that month she carried the dauphin into Rheims ; on Sun- day the 17th she crowned him ; and there she rested from her labor of triumph. All that was to be done 10 she had now accomplished ; what remained was — to suffer. All this forward movement was her own ; excepting one man, the whole council was against her. Her enemies were all that drew power from earth. Her 15 supporters were her own strong enthusiasm, and the headlong contagion by which she carried this sublime frenzy into the hearts of women, of soldiers, and of all who lived by labor. Henceforward she was thwarted ; and the worst error that she committed 20 was to lend the sanction of her presence to counsels which she had ceased to approve. But she had now accomplished the capital objects which her own visions had dictated. These involved all the rest. Errors were now less important ; and doubtless it had now 25 become more difficult for herself to pronounce authen- tically what were errors. The noble girl had achieved, as by a rapture of motion, the capital end of clearing out a free space around her sovereign, giving him the power to move his arms with effect, and, secondly, 30 the inappreciable end of winning for that sovereign what seemed to all France the heavenly ratification of his rights, by crowning him with the ancient 26 DE QUINCE Y. solemnities. She had made it impossible for the English now to step before her. They were caught in an irretrievable blunder, owing partly to discord among the uncles of Henry VI., partly to a want of funds, but partly to the very impossibility which they 5 believed to press with tenfold force upon any French attempt to forestall theirs. They laughed at such a thought ; and, while they laughed, she did it. Hence- forth the single redress for the English of this capital oversight, but which never could have redressed it 10 effectually, was to vitiate and taint the coronation of Charles VII. as the work of a witch. That policy, and not malice (as M. Michelet is so happy to believe), was the moving principle in the subsequent prosecu- tion of Joanna. Unless they unhinged the force of 15 the first coronation in the popular mind by associating it with power given from hell, they felt that the scepter of the invader was broken. But she, the child that at nineteen had wrought wonders so great for France, was she not elated? 20 Did she not lose, as men so often have lost, all sobriety of mind when standing upon the pinnacle of success so giddy ? Let her enemies declare. During the progress of her movement, and in the center of fero- cious struggles, she had manifested the temper of 25 her feelings by the pity which she had everywhere expressed for the suffering enemy. She forwarded to the English leaders a touching invitation to unite with the French, as brothers, in a common crusade against infidels — thus opening the road for a soldierly retreat. 30 She interposed to protect the captive or the wounded ; she mourned over the excesses of her countrymen ; JOAN OF ARC. 27 she threw herself off her horse to kneel by the dying English soldier, and to comfort him with such ministra- tions, physical or spiritual, as his situation allowed. " Nolebat," says the evidence, "uti ense suo, aut 5quemquam interficere." She sheltered the English that invoked her aid in her own quarters. She wept as she beheld, stretched on the field of battle, so many brave enemies that had died without confession. And, as regarded herself, her elation expressed itself 10 thus: on the day when she had finished her work, she wept ; for she knew that, when her triumphal task was done, her end must be approaching. Her aspira- tions pointed only to a place which seemed to her more than usually full of natural piety, as one in which 15 it would give her pleasure to die. And she uttered, between smiles and tears, as a wish that inexpressibly fascinated her heart, and yet was half fantastic, a broken prayer that God would return her to the soli- tudes from which he had drawn her, and suffer her to 20 become a shepherdess once more. It was a natural prayer, because nature has laid a necessity upon every human heart to seek for rest and to shrink from tor- ment. Yet, again, it was a half fantastic prayer, because, from childhood upward, visions that she 25 had no power to mistrust, and the voices which sounded in her ear forever, had long since persuaded her mind that for her no such prayer could be granted. Too well she felt that her mission must be worked out to the end, and that the end was now at hand. 30 All went wrong from this time. She herself had created the funds out of which the French restoration should grow ; but she was not suffered to witness 28 DE QUINCE Y. their development or their prosperous application. More than one military plan was entered upon which she did not approve. But she still continued to expose her person as before. Severe wounds had not taught her caution. And at length, in a sortie from Com- 5 piegne (whether through treacherous collusion on the part of her own friends is doubtful to this day), she was made prisoner by the Burgundians, and finally surrendered to the English. Now came her trial. This trial, moving of course 10 under English influence, was conducted in chief by the Bishop of Beauvais. He was a Frenchman, sold to English interests, and hoping, by favor of the Eng- lish leaders, to reach the highest preferment. " Bishop that art, Archbishop that shalt be, Cardinal that may- 15 est be," were the words that sounded continually in his ear ; and doubtless a whisper of visions still higher, of a triple crown, and feet upon the necks of kings, some- times stole into his heart. M. Michelet is anxious to keep us in mind that this bishop was but an agent of 20 the English. True. But it does not better the case for his countryman that, being an accomplice in the crime, making himself the leader in the persecution against the helpless girl, he was willing to be all this in the spirit, and with the conscious vileness of a cat's- 25 paw. Never from the foundations of the earth was there such a trial as this, if it were laid open in all its beauty of defense and all its hellishness of attack. Oh, child of France ! shepherdess, peasant girl ! trodden underfoot by all around thee, how I honor 30 thy flashing intellect, quick as God's lightning, and true as God's lightning to its mark, that ran before JOAN OF ARC. 29 France and laggard Europe by many a century, con- founding the malice of the ensnarer, and making dumb the oracles of falsehood ! Is it not scandalous, is it not humiliating to civilization, that, even at this day, 5 France exhibits the horrid spectacle of judges examin- ing the prisoner against himself ; seducing him, by fraud, into treacherous conclusions against his own head ; using the terrors of their power for extorting confessions from the frailty of hope ; nay (which is 10 worse), using the blandishments of condescension and snaky kindness for thawing into compliances of grati- tude those whom they had failed to freeze into terror ? Wicked judges ! barbarian jurisprudence ! — that, sit- ting in y(*ur own conceit on the summits of social 15 wisdom, have yet failed to learn the first principles of criminal justice — sit ye humbly and with docility at the feet of this girl from Domremy, that tore your webs of cruelty into shreds and dust. " Would you examine me as a witness against myself ? " was the question by 20 which many times she defied their arts. Continually she showed that their interrogations were irrelevant to any business before the court, or that entered into the ridiculous charges against her. General questions were proposed to her on points of casuistical divinity ; 25 two-edged questions, which not one of themselves could have answered, without, on the one side, landing himself in heresy (as then interpreted), or, on the other, in some presumptuous expression of self-esteem. Next came a wretched Dominican, that pressed her 30 with an objection, which, if applied to the Bible, would tax every one of its miracles with unsoundness. The monk had the excuse of never having read the Bible, 3° DE QUINCE Y. M. Michelet has no such excuse ; and it makes one blush for him, as a philosopher, to find him describing such an argument as " weighty," whereas it is but a varied expression of rude Mohammedan metaphysics. Her answer to this, if there were room to place the 5 whole in a clear light, was as shattering as it was rapid. Another thought to entrap her by asking what language the angelic visitors of her solitude had talked — as though heavenly counsels could want poly- glot interpreters for every word, or that God needed 10 language at all in whispering thoughts to a human heart. Then came a worse devil, who asked her whether the Archangel Michael had appeared naked. Not comprehending the vile insinuation, Joarfna, whose poverty suggested to her simplicity that it might be 15 the costliness of suitable robes which caused the demur, asked them if they fancied God, who clothed the flowers of the valleys, unable to find raiment for his servants. The answer of Joanna moves a smile of tenderness, but the disappointment of her judges 20 makes one laugh exultingly. Others succeeded by troops, who upbraided her with leaving her father ; as if that greater Father, whom she believed herself to have been serving, did not retain the power of dis- pensing with his own rules, or had not said that for a 25 less cause than martyrdom man and woman should leave both father and mother. On Easter Sunday, when the trial had been long proceeding, the poor girl fell so ill as to cause a belief that she had been poisoned. It was not poison. No- 30 body had any interest in hastening a death so certain. M. Michelet, whose sympathies with all feelings are so JOAN OF ARC. 31 quick that one would gladly see them always as justly directed, reads the case most truly. Joanna had a twofold malady. She was visited by a paroxysm of the complaint called honiesickness. The cruel nature 5 of her imprisonment, and its length, could not but point her solitary thoughts, in darkness and in chains (for chained she was), to Domremy. And the season, which was the most heavenly period of the spring, added stings to this yearning. That was one of her 10 maladies — nostalgia, as medicine calls it ; the other was weariness and exhaustion from daily combats with malice. She saw that everybody hated her and thirsted for her blood ; nay, many kind-hearted crea- tures that would have pitied her profoundly, as re- 15 garded all political charges, had their natural feelings warped by the belief that she had dealings with fiend- ish powers. She knew she was to die ; that was not the misery ! the misery was that this consummation could not be reached without so much intermediate 20 strife, as if she were contending for some chance (where chance was none) of happiness, or were dream- ing for a moment of escaping the inevitable. Why, then, did she contend ? Knowing that she would reap nothing from answering her persecutors, why did she 25 not retire by silence from the superfluous contest ? It was because her quick and eager loyalty to truth would not suffer her to see it darkened by frauds which she could expose, but others, even of candid listeners, perhaps, could not ; it was through that im- 30 perishable grandeur of soul which taught her to sub- mit meekly and without a struggle to her punishment, but taught her not to submit — no, not for a moment — 32 BE QUINCE Y. to calumny as to facts, or to misconstruction as to motives. Besides, there were secretaries all around the court taking down her words. That was meant for no good to her. But the end does not always cor- respond to the meaning. And Joanna might say to 5 herself, " These words that will be used against me to-morrow and the next day, perhaps, in some nobler generation, may rise again for my justification." Yes, Joanna, they are rising even now in Paris, and for more than justification ! IO Woman, sister, there are some things which you do not execute as well as your brother, man ; no, nor ever will. Pardon me if I doubt whether you will ever produce a great poet from your choirs, or a Mozart, or a Phidias, or a Michael Angelo, or a great 15 philosopher, or a great scholar. By which last is meant — not one who depends simply on an infinite memory, but also on an infinite and electrical power of combination ; bringing together from the four winds, like the angel of the resurrection, what else 20 were dust from dead men's bones, into the unity of breathing life. If you can create yourselves into any of these great creators, why have you not ? Yet, sister woman, though I cannot consent to find a Mozart or a Michael Angelo in your sex, cheerfully, 25 and with the love that burns in depths of admiration, I acknowledge that you can do one thing as well as the best of us men — a greater thing than even Milton is known to have done, or Michael Angelo ; you can die grandly, and as goddesses would die, were god- 30 desses mortal. If any distant worlds (which may be the case) are so far ahead of us Tellurians in optical JOAN OF ARC. 33 resources as to see distinctly through their telescopes all that we do on earth, what is the grandest sight to which we ever treat them ? St. Peter's at Rome, do you fancy, on Easter Sunday, or Luxor, or perhaps 5 the Himalayas ? Oh, no ! my friend ; suggest some- thing better ; these are baubles to them ; they see in other worlds, in their own, far better toys of the same kind. These, take my word for it, are nothing. Do you give it up ? The finest thing, then, we have to 10 show them is a scaffold on the morning of execu- tion. I assure you there is a strong muster in those far telescopic worlds, on any such morning, of those who happen to find themselves occupying the right hemisphere for a peep at us. How, then, if it be an- 15 nounced in some such telescopic world by those who make a livelihood of catching glimpses at our news- papers, whose language they have long since deci- phered, that the poor victim in the morning's sacrifice is a woman ? How, if it be published in that distant 20 world that the sufferer wears upon her head, in the eyes of many, the garlands of martyrdom ? How, if it should be some Marie Antoinette, the widowed queen, coming forward on the scaffold, and presenting to the morning air her head, turned gray by sorrow — 25 daughter of Caesars kneeling down humbly to kiss the guillotine, as one that worships death ? How, if it were the noble Charlotte Corday, that in the bloom of youth, that with the loveliest of persons, that with homage waiting upon her smiles wherever she turned 30 her face to scatter them — homage that followed those smiles as surely as the carols of birds, after showers in spring, follow the reappearing sun and the racing 34 DE QUINCE Y. of sunbeams over the hills — yet thought all these things cheaper than the dust upon her sandals, in comparison of deliverance from hell for her dear suf- fering France ! Ah ! these were spectacles indeed for those sympathizing people in distant worlds ; and 5 some, perhaps, would suffer a sort of martyrdom themselves, because they could not testify their wrath, could not bear witness to the strength of love and to the fury of hatred that burned within them at such scenes, could not gather into golden urns some of 10 that glorious dust which rested in the catacombs of earth. On the Wednesday after Trinity Sunday in 1431, being then about nineteen years of age, the Maid of Arc underwent her martyrdom. She was conducted 15 before midday, guarded by eight hundred spearmen, to a platform of prodigious height, constructed of wooden billets supported by occasional walls of lath and plaster, and traversed by hollow spaces in every direction for the creation of air currents. The pile 20 " struck terror," says M. Michelet, " by its height " ; and, as usual, the English purpose in this is viewed as one of pure malignity. But there are two ways of explaining all that. It is probable that the purpose was merciful. On the circumstances of the execution 25 I shall not linger. Yet, to mark the almost fatal felicity of M. Michelet in finding out whatever may injure the English name, at a moment when every reader will be interested in Joanna's personal appear- ance, it is really edifying to notice the ingenuity by 30 which he draws into light from a dark corner a very unjust account of it, and neglects, though lying upon /OAM OF ARC. 35 the highroad, a very pleasing one. Both are from English pens. Grafton, a chronicler, but little read, being a stiffnecked John Bull, thought fit to say that no wonder Joanna should be a virgin, since her " foule 5 face " was a satisfactory solution of that particular merit. Holinshead, on the other hand, a chronicler somewhat later, every way more important, and at one time universally read, has given a very pleasing testi- mony to the interesting character of Joanna's person ioand engaging manners. Neither of these men lived till the following century, so that personally this evi- dence is none at all. Grafton sullenly and carelessly believed as he wished to believe ; Holinshead took pains to inquire, and reports undoubtedly the general 15 impression of France. But I cite the case as illustrat- ing M. Michelet's candor.* * Amongst the many ebullitions of M. Michelet's fury against us poor English are four which will be likely to amuse the reader; and they are the more conspicuous in collision with the justice 20 which he sometimes does us, and the very indignant admiration which, under some aspects, he grants to us. 1. Our English literature he admires with some gnashing of teeth. He pronounces it "fine and somber," but, I lament to add, " skeptical, Judaic, Satanic — in a word, antichristian." 25 That Lord Byron should figure as a member of this diabolical cor- poration will not surprise men. It will surprise them to hear that Milton is one of its Satanic leaders. Many are the generous and eloquent Frenchmen, besides Chateaubriand, who have, in the course of the last thirty years, nobly suspended their own burning 30 nationality, in order to render a more rapturous homage at the feet of Milton ; and some of them have raised Milton almost to a level with angelic natures. Not one of them has thought of look- ing for him below the earth. As to Shakspere, M. Michelet detects in him a most extraordinary mare's nest. It is this : he 3 6 DE QUINCEY. The circumstantial incidents of the execution, unless with more space than I can now command, I should be unwilling to relate. I should fear to injure, by imperfect report, a martyrdom which to myself appears does ' ' not recollect to have seen the name of God " in any part of 5 his works. On reading such words, it is natural to rub one's eyes, and suspect that all one has ever s^ en in this world may have been a pure ocular delusion. In particular, I begin myself to sus- pect that the word "la gloire" never occurs in any Parisian journal. " The great English nation," says M. Michelet, " has 10 one immense profound vice" — to wit, " pride." Why, really, that may be true ; but we have a neighbor not absolutely clear of an " immense profound vice," as like ours in color and shape as cherry to cherry. In short, M. Michelet thinks us, by fits and starts, admirable — only that we are detestable ; and he would 15 adore some of our authors, were it not that so intensely he could have wished to kick them. 2. M. Michelet thinks to lodge an arrow in our sides by a very odd remark upon Thomas a Kempis : which is, that a man of any conceivable European blood — a Finlander, suppose, or a Zan- 20 tiote — might have written Tom ; only not an Englishman. Whether an Englishman could have forged Tom must remain a matter of doubt, unless the thing had been tried long ago. That problem was intercepted forever by Tom's perverseness in choos- ing to manufacture himself. Yet, since nobody is better aware 25 than M. Michelet that this very point of Kempis having manu- factured Kempis is furiously and hopelessly litigated, three or four nations claiming to have forged his work for him, the shocking old doubt will raise its snaky head once more — whether this forger, who rests in so much darkness, might not, after all, be of English 30 blood. Tom, it may be feared, is known to modern English litera- ture chiefly by an irreverent mention of his name in a line of Peter Pindar's (Dr. Wolcot) fifty years back, where he is described as Kempis Tom, Who clearly shows the way to Kingdom Come. ge Few in these days can have read him, unless in the Methodist JOAN OF ARC. 37 so unspeakably grand. Yet, for a purpose, pointing not at Joanna, but at M. Michelet — viz., to convince him that an Englishman is capable of thinking more highly of La Pucelle than even her admiring country- 5 version of John Wesley. Among those few, however, happens to be myself ; which arose from the accident of having, when a boy of eleven, received a copy of the " De Imitatione Christi " as a bequest from a relation who died very young ; from which cause, and from the external prettiness of the book — being a Glasgow io reprint by the celebrated Foulis, and gayly bound — I was induced to look into it, and finally read it many times over, partly out of some sympathy which, even in those days, I had with its simplic- ity and devotional fevor, but much more from the savage delight I found in laughing at Tom's Latinity. That, I freely grant to 15 M. Michelet, is inimitable. Yet, after all.it is not certain whether the original was Latin. But, however that may have been, if it is possible that M. Michelet* can be accurate in saying that there are no less than sixty French versions (not editions, observe, but separate versions) existing of the " De Imitatione," how prodi- 20 gious must have been the adaptation of the book to the religious heart of the fifteenth century ! Excepting the Bible, but excepting that only in Protestant lands, no book known to man has had the same distinction. It is the most marvelous bibliographical fact on record. 25 3. Our English girls, it seems, are as faulty in one way as we English males in another. None of us men could have written the Opera Omnia of Mr. a Kempis ; neither could any of our girls * " If M. Michelet can be accurate.'' 1 — However, on consideration, this statement does not depend on Michelet. The bibliographer Barbier has abso- 30 lutely specified sixty in a separate dissertation, soixante traductions, among those even that have not escaped the search. The Italian translations are said to be thirty. As to mere editions, not counting the early MSS. for half a cen- tury before printing was introduced, those in Latin amount to 2000, and those in French to 1000. Meantime, it is very clear to me that this astonishing popu- 35 larity, so entirely unparalleled in literature, could not have existed except in Roman Catholic times, nor subsequently have lingered in any Protestant land. It was the denial of Scripture fountains to thirsty lands which made this slender rill of Scripture truth so passionately welcome. 3 8 DE QUINCE V. men — I shall, in parting, allude to one or two traits in Joanna's demeanor on the scaffold, and to one or two in that of the bystanders, which authorize me in questioning an opinion of his upon this martyr's firm- have assumed male attire like La Pucelle. But why ? Because, 5 says Michelet, English girls and German think so much of an indecorum. Well, that is a good fault, generally speaking. But M. Michelet ought to have remembered a fact in the martryrol- ogies which justifies both parties — the French heroine for doing, and the general choir of English girls for not doing. A female 10 saint, specially renowned in France, had, for a reason as weighty as Joanna's — viz., expressly to shie'ld her modesty among men — worn a male military harness. That reason and that example authorized La Pucelle ; but our English girls, as a body, have seldom any such reason, and certainly no such saintly example, to 15 plead. This excuses them. Yet, still, if it is indispensable to the national character that our young women should now and then trespass over the frontier of decorum, it then becomes a patriotic duty in me to assure M. Michelet that we have such ardent females among us, and in a long series ; some detected in naval hospitals 20 when too sick to remember their disguise ; some on fields of battle ; multitudes never detected at all ; some only suspected ; and others discharged without noise by war offices and other absurd people. In our navy, both royal and commercial, and generally from deep remembrances of slighted love, women have 25 sometimes served in disguise for many years, taking contentedly their daily allowance of burgoo, biscuit, or cannon-balls — any- thing, in short, digestible or indigestible, that it might please Providence to send. One thing, at least, is to their credit : never any of these poor masks, with their deep silent remembrances, 30 have been detected through murmuring, or what is nautically understood by " skulking." So, for once, M. Michelet has an errattim to enter upon the fly-leaf of his book in presentation copies. 4. But the last of these ebullitions is the most lively. We 35 English, at Orleans, and after Orleans (which is not quite so JOAN OF ARC. 39 ness. The reader ought to be reminded that Joanna D'Arc was subjected to an unusually unfair trial of opinion. Any of the elder Christian martyrs had not much to fear of personal rancor. The martyr was 5 chiefly regarded as the enemy of Caesar ; at times, also, where any knowledge of the Christian faith and extraordinary, if all were told), fled before the Maid of Arc. Yes, says M. Michelet, you did : deny it, if you can. Deny it, mon chef? I don't mean to deny it. Running away, in many cases, iois a thing so excellent that no philosopher would, at times, con- descend to adopt any other step. All of us nations in Europe, without one exception, have shown our philosophy in that way at times. Even people "qui ne se rendent pas" have deigned both to run and to shout " Sauve qui pent ! " at odd times of sunset ; 15 though, for my part, I have no pleasure in recalling unpleasant remembrances to brave men ; and yet, really, being so philosophic, they ought not to be unpleasant. But the amusing feature in M. Michelet's reproach is the way in which he improves and varies against us the charge of running, as if he were singing a catch. 20 Listen to him: They "showed their backs" did these English; (Hip, hip, hurrah ! three times three !) " Behind good walls they let themselves be taken." (Hip, hip ! nine times nine !) They " ran as fast as their legs could carry them." (Hurrah ! twenty- seven times twenty-seven !) They " ran before a girl" ; they did. 25 (Hurrah ! eighty-one times eighty-one !) This reminds one of criminal indictments on the old model in English courts, where (for fear the prisoner should escape) the crown lawyer varied the charge perhaps through forty counts. The law laid its guns so as to rake the accused at every possible angle. While the indict- 30 ment was reading, he seemed a monster of crime in his own eyes ; and yet, after all, the poor fellow had but committed one offense, and not always that. N. B. — Not having the French original at hand, I make my quotations from a friend's copy of Mr. Walter Kelly's translation ; which seems to me faithful, spirited, and 35 idiomatically English — liable, in fact, only to the single reproach of occasional provincialisms. 40 DE QUINCE Y. morals existed, with the enmity that arises spontane- ously in the worldly against the spiritual. But the martyr, though disloyal, was not supposed to be there- fore anti-national ; and still less was individually hate- ful. What was hated (if anything) belonged to his 5 class, not to himself separately. Now, Joanna, if hated at all, was hated personally, and in Rouen on national grounds. Hence there would be a certainty of calumny arising against her such as would not affect martyrs in general. That being the case, it 10 would follow of necessity that some people would impute to her a willingness to recant. No innocence could escape that. Now, had she really testified this willingness on the scaffold, it would have argued noth- ing at all but the weakness of a genial nature shrink- 15 ing from the instant approach of torment. And those will often pity that weakness most who, in their own persons, would yield to it least. Meantime, there never was a calumny uttered that drew less support from the recorded circumstances. It rests upon 11020 positive testimony, and it has a weight of contradict- ing testimony to stem. And yet, strange to say, M. Michelet, who at times seems to admire the Maid of Arc as much as I do, is the one sole writer among her friends who lends some countenance to this odious 25 slander. His words are that, if she did not utter this word recant with her lips, she uttered it in her heart. " Whether she said the word is uncertain ; but I affirm that she thought it." Now, I affirm that she did not ; not in any sense of 30 the word " thought " applicable to the case. Here is France calumniating La Pucelle ; here is England de- JOAN OF ARC. 4 1 fending her. M. Michelet can only mean that, on a priori principles, every woman must be presumed liable to such a weakness ; that Joanna was a woman; ergo, that she was liable to such a weakness. That is, 5 he only supposes her to have uttered the word by an argument which presumes it impossible for anybody to have done otherwise. I, on the contrary, throw the onus of the argument not on presumable tenden- cies of nature, but on the known facts of that morn- 10 ing's execution, as recorded by multitudes. What else, I demand, than mere weight of metal, absolute nobility of deportment, broke the vast line of battle then arrayed against her ? What else but her meek, saintly demeanor won, from the enemies that till now 15 had believed her a witch, tears of rapturous admira- tion ? " Ten thousand men," says M. Michelet him- self— " ten thousand men wept"; and of these ten thousand the majority were political enemies knitted together by cords of superstition. What else was it 20 but her constancy, united with her angelic gentleness, that drove the fanatic English soldier — who had sworn to throw a faggot on her scaffold as his tribute of abhorrence, that did so, that fulfilled his vow — sud- denly to turn away a penitent for life, saying every- 25 where that he had seen a dove rising upon wings to heaven from the ashes where she had stood ? What else drove the executioner to kneel at every shrine for pardon to his share in the tragedy ? And, if all this were insufficient, then I cite the closing act of her life 30 as valid on her behalf, were all other testimonies against her. The executioner had been directed to apply his torch from below. He did so. The fiery 42 BE QUINCE Y. smoke rose upward in billowing volumes. A Domini- can monk was then standing almost at her side. Wrapped up in his sublime office, he saw not the danger, but still persisted in his prayers. Even then, when the last enemy was racing up the fiery stairs 5 to seize her, even at that moment did this noblest of girls think only for /ii'm, the one friend that would not forsake her, and not for herself ; bidding him with her last breath to care for his own preservation, but to leave her to God. That girl, whose latest breath 10 ascended in this sublime expression of self-oblivion, did not utter the word recant either with her lips or in her heart. No ; she did not, though one should rise from the dead to swear it. Bishop of Beauvais ! thy victim died in fire upon a 15 scaffold — thou upon a down bed. But, for the depart- ing minutes of life, both are oftentimes alike. At the farewell crisis, when the gates of death are opening, and flesh is resting from its struggles, oftentimes the tortured and the torturer have the same truce from 20 carnal torment ; both sink together into sleep ; to- gether both sometimes kindle into dreams. When the mortal mists were gathering fast upon you two, bishop and shepherd girl — when the pavilions of life were closing up their shadowy curtains about you — let 25 us try, through the gigantic glooms, to decipher the flying features of your separate visions. The shepherd girl that had delivered France — she, from her dungeon, she, from her baiting at the stake, she, from her duel with fire, as she entered her last 30 dream — saw Domremy, saw the fountain of Domremy, JOAN OF ARC. 43 saw the pomp of forests in which her childhood had wandered. That Easter festival which man had de- nied to her languishing heart — that resurrection of springtime, which the darkness of dungeons had 5 intercepted from her, hungering after the glorious liberty of forests — were by God given back into her hands as jewels that had been stolen from her by robbers. With those, perhaps (for the minutes of dreams can stretch into ages), was given back to her io by God the bliss of childhood. By special privilege for her might be created, in this farewell dream, a second childhood, innocent as the first ; but not, like that, sad with the gloom of a fearful mission in the rear. This mission had now been fulfilled. The 15 storm was weathered ; the skirts even of that mighty storm were drawing off. The blood that she was to reckon for had been exacted ; the tears that she was to shed in secret had been paid to the last. The hatred to herself in all eyes had been faced steadily, 2ohad been suffered, had been survived. And in her last fight upon the scaffold she had triumphed glori- ously ; victoriously she had tasted the stings of death. For all, except this comfort from her farewell dream, she had died — died amid the tears of ten thousand 25 enemies — died amid the drums and trumpets of armies — died amid peals redoubling upon peals, volleys upon volleys, from the saluting clarions of martyrs. Bishop of Beauvais! because the guilt-burdened man 30 is in dreams haunted and waylaid by the most frightful of his crimes, and because upon that fluctuating mir- ror — rising (like the mocking mirrors of mirage in Arab- 44 DE QUINCE Y. ian deserts) from the fens of death — most of all are reflected the sweet countenances which the man has laid in ruins; therefore I know, bishop, that you also, enter- ing your final dream, saw Domremy. That fountain, of which the witnesses spoke so much, showed itself to 5 your eyes in pure morning dews ; but neither dews, nor the holy dawn, could cleanse away the bright spots of innocent blood upon its surface. By the fountain, bishop, you saw a woman seated, that hid her face. But, as you draw near, the woman raises her wasted 10 features. Would Domremy know them again for the features of her child ? Ah, but you know them, bishop, well ! Oh, mercy ! what a groan was that which the servants, waiting outside the bishop's dream at his bedside, heard from his laboring heart, as at this 15 moment he turned away from the fountain and the woman, seeking rest in the forests afar off. Yet not so to escape the woman, whom once again he must behold before he dies. In the forests to which he prays for pity, will he find a respite ? What a tumult, 20 what a gathering of feet is there ! In glades where only wild deer should run armies and nations are assembling ; towering in the fluctuating crowd are phantoms that belong to departed hours. There is the great English Prince, Regent of France. There 25 is my Lord of Winchester, the princely cardinal, that died and made no sign. There is the Bishop of Beauvais, clinging to the shelter of thickets. What building is that which hands so rapid are raising ? Is it a martyr's scaffold? Will they burn the child of 30 Domremy a second time ? No ; it is a tribunal that rises to the clouds ; and two nations stand around it, JOAN OF ARC. 45 waiting for a trial. Shall my Lord of Beauvais sit again upon the judgment-seat, and again number the hours for the innocent ? Ah, no ! he is the prisoner at the bar. Already all is waiting : the mighty audi- 5 ence is gathered, the Court is hurrying to their seats, the witnesses are arrayed, the trumpets are sounding, the judge is taking his place. Oh, but this is sudden ! My lord, have you no counsel ? " Counsel I have none ; in heaven above, or on earth beneath, counselor io there is none now that would take a brief from me : all are silent." Is it, indeed, come to this ? Alas ! the time is short, the tumult is wondrous, the crowd stretches away into infinity ; but yet I will search in it for somebody to take your brief ; I know of some- 15 body that will be your counsel. Who is this that cometh from Domremy ? Who is she in bloody coro- nation robes from Rheims ? Who is she that cometh with blackened flesh from walking the furnaces of Rouen ? This is she, the shepherd girl, counselor 20 that had none for herself, whom I choose, bishop, for yours. She it is, I engage, that shall take my lord's brief. She it is, bishop, that would plead for you ; yes, bishop, she — when heaven and earth are silent. THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. Section I — The Glory of Motion. Some twenty or more years before I matriculated at Oxford, Mr. Palmer, at that time M. P. for Bath, had accomplished two things, very hard to do on our little planet, the earth, however cheap they may be held by eccentric people in comets ; he had invented 5 mail coaches, and he had married the daughter of a duke.* He was, therefore, just twice as great a man as Galileo, who did certainly invent (or, which is the same thing, f discover) the satellites of Jupiter, those very next things extant to mail coaches in the two 10 capital pretensions of speed and keeping time, but, on the other hand, who did not marry the daughter of a duke. These mail coaches, as organized by Mr. Palmer, are entitled to a circumstantial notice from myself, 15 having had so large a share in developing the an- archies of my subsequent dreams; an agency which they accomplished, 1st, through velocity at that time unprecedented — for they first revealed the glory of *Lady Madeline Gordon. 2 wrapping them in uncertainty, than could have been effected by the sharpest definitions of the law from THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 59 the quarter sessions. We, on our parts (we, the col- lective mail, I mean), did our utmost to exalt the idea of our privileges by the insolence with which we wielded them. Whether this insolence rested upon 5 law that gave it a sanction, or upon conscious power that haughtily dispensed with that sanction, equally it spoke from a potential station ; and the agent, in each particular insolence of the moment, was viewed reverentially, as one having authority. 10 Sometimes after breakfast his majesty's mail would become frisky ; and, in its difficult wheelings among the intricacies of early markets, it would upset an apple cart, a cart loaded with eggs, etc. Huge was the affliction and dismay, awful was the smash. I, as 15 far as possible, endeavored in such a case to repre- sent the conscience and moral sensibilities of the mail; and, when wildernesses of eggs were lying poached under our horses' hoofs, then would I stretch forth my hands in sorrow, saying (in words too celebrated 20 at that time, from the false echoes* of Marengo), " Ah ! wherefore have we not time to weep over you ? " — which was evidently impossible, since, in fact, we had not time to laugh over them. Tied to post-office allowance, in some cases of fifty minutes for 25 eleven miles, could the royal mail pretend to under- take the offices of sympathy and condolence ? Could * "False echoes." — Yes, false ! for the words ascribed to Napo- leon, as breathed to the memory of Desaix, never were uttered at all. They stand in the same category of theatrical fictions as the 3° cry of the foundering line-of-battle ship Vengeur, as the vaunt of General Cambronne at Waterloo, " La Garde meurt, mais ne se rend pas," or as the repartees of Talleyrand. 60 BE QUINCE Y. it be expected to provide tears for the accidents of the road ? If even it seemed to trample on humanity, it did so, I felt, in discharge of its own more per- emptory duties. Upholding the morality of the mail, a fortiori I 5 upheld its rights ; as a matter of duty, I stretched to the uttermost its privilege of imperial precedency, and astonished weak minds by the feudal powers which I hinted to be lurking constructively in the charters of this proud establishment. Once I remember being on 10 the box of the Holyhead mail, between Shrewsbury and Oswestry, when a tawdry thing from Birming- ham, some Tallyho or Highflyer, all flaunting with green and gold, came up alongside of us. What a contrast to our royal simplicity of form and color in 15 this plebeian wretch ! The single ornament on our dark ground of chocolate color was the mighty shield of the imperial arms, but emblazoned in proportions as modest as a signet ring bears to a seal of office. Even this was displayed only on a single panel, whis- 2 ° pering, rather than proclaiming, our relations to the mighty state ; while the beast from Birmingham, our green-and-gold friend from false, fleeting, perjured Brummagem, had as much writing and painting on its sprawling flanks as would have puzzled a decipherer 25 from the tombs of Luxor. For some time this Bir- mingham machine ran along by our side — a piece of familiarity that already of itself seemed to me suffi- ciently Jacobinical. But all at once a movement of the horses announced a desperate intention of leaving us 30 behind. "Do you see that?" I said to the coach- man. " I see," was his short answer. He was wide THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 61 awake — yet he waited longer than seemed prudent; for the horses of our audacious opponent had a dis- agreeable air of freshness and power. But his motive was loyal ; his wish was that the Birmingham conceit 5 should be full-blown before he froze it. When that seemed right, he unloosed, or, to speak by a stronger word, he sprang, his known resources : he slipped our royal horses like cheetahs, or hunting leopards, after the affrighted game. How they could retain such a 10 reserve of fiery power after the work they had accom- plished seemed hard to explain. But on our side, besides the physical superiority, was a tower of moral strength, namely the king's name, " which they upon the adverse faction wanted." Passing them without 15 an effort, as it seemed, we threw them into the rear with so lengthening an interval between us as proved in itself the bitterest mockery of their presump- tion ; while our guard blew back a shattering blast of triumph that was really too painfully full of 20 derision. I mention this little incident for its connection with what followed. A Welsh rustic, sitting behind me, asked if I had not felt my heart burn within me during the progress of the race ? I said, with philosophic 25 calmness, No; because we were not racing with a mail, so that no glory could be gained. In fact, it was sufficiently mortifying that such a Birmingham thing should dare to challenge us. The Welshman replied that he didn't see that; for that a cat might 30 look at a king, and a Brummagem coach might law- fully race the Holyhead mail. "Race us, if you like," I replied, " though even that has an air of sedition ; 62 DE QUINCE Y. but not beat us. This would have been treason ; and for its own sake I am glad that the Tallyho was disappointed." So dissatisfied did the Welshman seem with this opinion that at last I was obliged to tell him a very fine story from one of our elder dram- 5 atists : viz., that once, in some far Oriental kingdom when the sultan of all the land, with his princes, ladies, and chief omrahs were flying their falcons, a hawk suddenly flew at a majestic eagle, and, in defiance of the eagle's natural advantages, in contempt also of 10 the eagle's traditional royalty, and before the whole assembled field of astonished spectators from Agra and Lahore, killed the eagle on the spot. Amaze- ment seized the sultan at the unequal contest, and burning admiration for its unparalleled result. He 15 commanded that the hawk should be brought before him ; he caressed the bird with enthusiasm ; and he ordered that, for the commemoration of his matchless courage, a diadem of gold and rubies should be solemnly placed on the hawk's head, but then that, 20 immediately after this solemn coronation, the bird should be led off to execution, as the most valiant indeed of traitors, but not the less a traitor, as having dared to rise rebelliously against his liege lord and anointed sovereign, the eagle. " Now," said I to the 25 Welshman, " to you and me, as men of refined sensi- bilities, how painful it would have been that this poor Brummagem brute, the Tallyho, in the impossible case of a victory over us, should have been crowned with Birmingham tinsel, with paste diamonds, and 30 Roman pearls, and then led off to instant execution." The Welshman doubted if that could be warranted THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 63 by law. And, when I hinted at the 6th of Edward Longshanks, chap. 18, for regulating the precedency of coaches, as being probably the statute relied on for the capital punishment of such offenses, he replied 5 dryly that, if the attempt to pass a mail really were treasonable, it was a pity that the Tallyho appeared to have so imperfect an acquaintance with law. The modern modes of traveling cannot compare with the old mail-coach system in grandeur and power. 10 They boast of more velocity — not, however, as a con- sciousness, but as a fact of our lifeless knowledge, resting upon alien evidence : as, for instance, because somebody says that we have gone fifty miles in the hour, though we are far from feeling it as a personal J 5 experience ; or upon the evidence of a result, as that actually we find ourselves in York four hours after leaving London. Apart from such an assertion, or such a result, I myself am little aware of the pace. But, seated on the old mail coach, we needed no evi- sodence out of ourselves to indicate the velocity. On this system the word was not magna loquimur, as upon railways, but vivimus. Yes, " magna vivimus "; we do not make verbal ostentation of our grandeurs, we realize our grandeurs in act, and in the very experi- 25 ence of life. The vital experience of the glad animal sensibilities made doubts impossible on the question of our speed ; we heard our speed, we saw it, we felt it as a thrilling ; and this speed was not the product of blind insensate agencies, that had no sympathy to 30 give, but was incarnated in the fiery eyeballs of the noblest among brutes, in his dilated nostril, spasmodic muscles, and thunder-beating hoofs. The sensibility 64 DE QUINCEY. of the horse, uttering itself in the maniac light of his eye, might be the last vibration of such a movement ; the glory of Salamanca might be the first. But the intervening links that connected them, that spread the earthquake of battle into the eyeball of the horse, 5 were the heart of man and its electric thrillings — kindling in the rapture of the fiery strife, and then propagating its own tumults by contagious shouts and gestures to the heart of his servant the horse. But now, on the new system of traveling, iron tubes and 10 boilers have disconnected man's heart from the ministers of his locomotion. Nile nor Trafalgar has power to raise an extra bubble in a steam kettle. The galvanic cycle is broken up forever ; man's imperial nature no longer sends itself forward through the 15 electric sensibility of the horse ; the inter-agencies are gone in the mode of communication between the horse and his master, out of which grew so many aspects of sublimity undier accidents of mists that hid, or sudden blazes that revealed, or mobs that agitated, 20 or midnight solitudes that awed. Tidings fitted to convulse alt nations must henceforward travel by culinary process ; and the trumpet that once an- nounced from afar the laureled mail, heart-shaking when heard screaming on the wind and proclaiming 25 itself through the darkness to every village or solitary house on its route, has now given way for ever to the pot-wallopings of the boiler. Thus have perished multiform openings for public expressions of interest, scenical yet natural, in great national tidings — for 30 revelations of faces and groups that could not offer themselves among the fluctuating mobs of a railway THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 65 station. The gatherings of gazers about a laureled mail had one center, and acknowledged one sole interest. But the crowds attending at a railway station have as little unity as running water, and own as many centers 5 as there are separate carriages in the train. How else, for example, than as a constant watcher for the dawn, and for the London mail that in summer months entered about daybreak among the lawny thickets of Marlborough forest, couldst thou, sweet 10 Fanny of the Bath road, have become the glorified inmate of my dreams ? Yet Fanny, as the loveliest young woman for face and person that perhaps in my whole life I have beheld, merited the station which even now, from a distance of forty years, she holds in 15 my dreams ; yes, though by links of natural associ- ation she brings along with her a troop of dreadful creatures, fabulous and not fabulous, that are more abominable to the heart than Fanny and the dawn are delightful. 20 Miss Fanny of the Bath road, strictly speaking, lived at a mile's distance from that road, but came so continually to meet the mail that I on my frequent transits rarely missed her, and naturally connected her image with the great thoroughfare where only I 25 had ever seen her. Why she came so punctually I do not exactly know ; but I believe with some burden of commissions, to be executed in Bath, which had gathered to her own residence as a central rendezvous for converging them. The mail-coachman who drove 30 the Bath mail and wore the royal livery* happened to *" Wore the royal livery." — The general impression was that the royal livery belonged of right to the mail-coachmen as their 66 DE QUINCE Y. be Fanny's grandfather. A good man he was, that loved his beautiful granddaughter, and, loving her wisely, was vigilant over her deportment in any case where young Oxford might happen to be concerned. Did my vanity then suggest that I myself, individually, 5 could fall within the line of his terrors ? Certainly not, as regarded any physical pretensions that I could plead ; for Fanny (as a chance passenger from her own neighborhood once told me) counted in her train a hundred and ninety-nine professed admirers, if not IO open aspirants to her favor ; and probably not one of the whole brigade but excelled myself in personal advantages. Ulysses even, with the unfair advantage of his accursed bow, could hardly have undertaken that amount of suitors. So the danger might have I5 seemed slight — only that woman is universally aristo- cratic ; it is among her nobilities of heart that she is so. Now, the aristocratic distinctions in my favor might easily with Miss Fanny have compensated my physical deficiencies. Did I then make love to 2 ° Fanny ? Why, yes ; about as much love as one could make while the mail was changing horses — a process which, ten years later, did not occupy above eighty seconds ; but then — viz., about Waterloo — it occupied five times eighty. Now, four hundred seconds offer a 2 5 professional dress. But that was an error. To the guard it did belong, I believe, and was obviously essential as an official warrant, and as a means of instant identification for his person, in the dis- charge of his important public duties. But the coachman, and especially if his place in the series did not connect him immedi- 3° ately with London and the General Post Office, obtained the scarlet coat only as an honorary distinction after long (or, if not long, trying and special) service. THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 67 field quite ample enough for whispering into a young woman's ear a great deal of truth, and (by way of parenthesis) some trifle of falsehood. Grandpapa did right, therefore, to watch me. And yet, as happens 5 too often to the grandpapas of earth in a contest with the admirers of granddaughters, how vainly would he have watched me had I meditated any evil whispers to Fanny ! She, it is my belief, would have protected herself against any man's evil suggestions. But he, 10 as the result showed, could not have intercepted the opportunities for such suggestions. Yet, why not ? Was he not active ? Was he not blooming ? Bloom- ing he was as Fanny herself. Say, all our praises why should lords 15 Stop, that's not the line. Say, all our roses why should girls engross ? The coachman showed rosy blossoms on his face deeper even than his granddaughter's — his being drawn from the ale cask, Fanny's from the fountains 20 of the dawn. But, in spite of his blooming face, some infirmities he had; and one particularly in which he too much resembled a crocodile. This lay in a monstrous inaptitude for turning round. The crocodile, I pre- sume, owes that inaptitude to the absurd length of his 25 back ; but in our grandpapa it arose rather from the absurd breadth of his back, combined, possibly, with some growing stiffness in his legs. Now, upon this crocodile infirmity of his I planted a human advantage for tendering my homage to Miss Fanny. In defiance 30 of all his honorable vigilance, no sooner had he pre- 6S DE QUWCEY. sented to us his mighty Jovian back (what a field for dis- playing to mankind his royal scarlet !), while inspecting professionally the buckles, the straps, and the silvery turrets* of his harness, than I raised Miss Fanny's hand to my lips, and, by the mixed tenderness and 5 respectfulness of my manner, caused her easily to un- derstand how happy it would make me to rank upon her list as No. 10 or 12 : in which case a few casualties among her lovers (and, observe, they hanged liberally in those days) might have promoted me speedily to 10 the top of the tree ; as, on the other hand, with how much loyalty of submission I acquiesced by antici- pation in her award, supposing that she should plant me in the very rearward of her favor, as No. 1994-1. Most truly I loved this beautiful and ingenuous girl ; 15 and, had it not been for the Bath mail, timing all courtships by post-office allowance, Heaven only knows what might have come of it. People talk of being over head and ears in love ; now, the mail was the cause that I sank only over ears in love — which, you 20 know, still left a trifle of brain to overlook the whole conduct of the affair. Ah, reader ! when I look back upon those days, it seems to me that all things change — all things perish. " Perish the roses and the palms of kings ; " perish 25 * " Turrets" — As one who loves and venerates Chaucer for his unrivaled merits of tenderness, of picturesque characterization, and of narrative skill, I noticed with great pleasure that the word torrettes is used by him to designate the little devices through which the reins are made to pass. This same word, in the same 30 exact sense, I heard uniformly used by many scores of illustrious mail-coachmen to whose confidential friendship I had the honor of being admitted in my younger days. THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 69 even the crowns and trophies of Waterloo ; thunder and lightning are not the thunder and lightning which I remember. Roses are degenerating. The Fannies of our island — thought his I say with reluctance — 5 are not visibly improving ; and the Bath road is no- toriously superannuated. Crocodiles, you will say, are stationary. Mr. Waterton tells me that the crocodile does not change — that a cayman, in fact, or an alligator, is just as good for riding upon as he was 10 in the time of the Pharaohs. That may be ; but the reason is that the crocodile does not live fast — he is a slow coach. I believe it is generally understood among naturalists that the crocodile is a blockhead. It is my own impression that the Pharaohs were also 15 blockheads. Now, as the Pharaohs and the crocodile domineered over Egyptian society, this accounts for a singular mistake that prevailed through innumerable generations on the Nile. The crocodile made the ridiculous blunder of supposing man to be meant 20 chiefly for his own eating. Man, taking a different view of the subject, naturally met that mistake by another ; he viewed the crocodile as a thing some- times to worship, but always to run away from. And this continued till Mr. Waterton* changed the rela- 25 * " Mr. Waterton." — Had the reader lived through the last generation, he would not need to be told that, some thirty or thirty-five years back, Mr. Waterton, a distinguished country gentleman of ancient family in Northumberland, publicly mounted and rode in top-boots a savage old crocodile, that was 30 restive and very impertinent, but all to no purpose. The croco- dile jibbed and tried to kick, but vainly. He was no more able to throw the squire than Sinbad was to throw the old scoundrel who used his back without paying for it, until he discovered a mode 70 DE QUINCE V. tions between the animals. The mode of escaping from the reptile he showed to be not by running away, but by leaping on its back booted and spurred. The two animals had misunderstood each other. The use of the crocodile has now been cleared up — viz., to be 5 ridden ; and the final cause of man is that he may improve the health of the crocodile by riding him a-foxhunting before breakfast. And it is pretty cer- tain that any crocodile who has been regularly hunted through the season, and is master of the 10 weight he carries, will take a six-barred gate now as well as ever he would have done in the infancy of the Pyramids. If therefore, the crocodile does not change, all things else undeniably do : even the shadow of the 15 Pyramids grows less. And often the restoration in vision of Fanny and the Bath road makes me too pathetically sensible of that truth. Out of the dark- ness, if I happen to call back the image of Fanny, up rises suddenly from a gulf of forty years a rose in 20 June ; or if I think for an instant of the rose in June, up rises the heavenly face of Fanny. One after the other, like the antiphonies in the choral service, rise Fanny and the rose in June, then back again the rose in June and Fanny. Then come both together, as in 25 a chorus — roses and Fannies, Fannies and roses, with- out end, thick as blossoms in Paradise. Then comes a venerable crocodile, in a royal livery of scarlet and gold, with sixteen capes ; and the crocodile is driving four-in-hand from the box of the Bath mail. And 3<> (slightly immoral, perhaps, though some think not) of murdering the old fraudulent jockey, and so circuitously of unhorsing him. THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 71 suddenly we upon the mail are pulled up by a mighty dial, sculptured with the hours, that mingle with the heavens and the heavenly host. Then all at once we are arrived at Marlborough forest, among the lovely 5 households* of the roe deer; the deer and their fawns retire into the dewy thickets ; the thickets are rich with roses ; once again the roses call up the sweet countenance of Fanny ; and she, being the granddaughter of a crocodile, awakens a dreadful host 10 of semi-legendary animate — griffins, dragons, basilisks, sphinxes — till at length the whole vision of fighting images crowds into one towering armorial shield, a vast emblazonry of human charities and human love- liness that have perished, but quartered heraldically 15 with unutterable and demoniac natures, while over all rises, as a surmounting crest, one fair female hand, with the forefinger pointing, in sweet, sorrowful admonition, upward to heaven, where is sculptured the eternal writing which proclaims the frailty of 20 earth and her children. GOING DOWN WITH VICTORY. But the grandest chapter of our experience within the whole mail-coach service was on those occasions when we went down from London with the news of 25 * " Households." — Roe deer do not congregate in herds like the fallow or the red deer, but by separate families, parents and chil- dren ; which feature of approximation to the sanctity of human hearths, added to their comparatively miniature and graceful pro- portions, conciliates to them an interest of peculiar tenderness, 30 supposing even that this beautiful creature is less characteristically impressed with the grandeurs of savage and forest life. 72 DE QUINCE Y. victory. A period of about ten years stretched from Trafalgar to Waterloo ; the second and third years of which period (1806 and 1807) were comparatively sterile ; but the other nine (from 1805 to 1815 inclu- sively) furnished a long succession of victories, the 5 least of which, in such a contest of Titans, had an in- appreciable value of position : partly for its absolute interference with the plans of our enemy, but still more from its keeping alive through central Europe the sense of a deep-seated vulnerability in France. 10 Even to tease the coasts of our enemy, to mortify -them by continual blockades, to insult them by cap- turing if it were but a baubling schooner under the eyes of their arrogant armies, repeated from time to time a sullen proclamation of power lodged in one 15 quarter to which the hopes of Christendom turned in secret. How much more loudly must this proclama- tion have spoken in the audacity* of having bearded * "Audacity" — Such the French accounted it ; and it has struck me that Soult would not have been so popular in London, at the 20 period of her present Majesty's coronation, or in Manchester, on occasion of his visit to that town, if they had been aware of the insolence with which he spoke of us in notes written at intervals from the field of Waterloo. As though it had been mere felony in our army to look a French one in the face, he said in more notes 25 than one, dated from 2 to 4 p. m. on the field of Waterloo, " Here are the English — we have them ; they are caught en flagrant de'lit.'" Yet no man should have known us better ; no man had drunk deeper from the cup of humiliation than Soult had in 1809, when ejected by us with headlong violence from Oporto, 30 and pursued through a long line of wrecks to the frontier of Spain ; and subsequently at Albuera, in the bloodiest of recorded battles, to say nothing of Toulouse, he should have learned our pretensions* THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 73 the elite of their troops, and having beaten them in pitched battles ! Five years of life it was worth pay- ing down for the privilege of an outside place on a mail coach, when carrying down the first tidings of 5 any such event. And it is to be noted that, from our insular situation, and the multitude of our frigates dis- posable for the rapid transmission of intelligence, rarely did any unauthorized rumor steal away a preli- bation from the first aroma of the regular dispatches. ioThe government news was generally the earliest news. From 8 p. m. to fifteen or twenty minutes later im- agine the mails assembled on parade in Lombard Street ; where, at that time,* and not in St. Martin's- 15 le-Grand, was seated the General Post Office. In what exact strength we mustered I do not remember ; but, from the length of each separate attelage, we filled the street, though a long one, and though we were drawn up in double file. On any night the spectacle 20 was beautiful. The absolute perfection of all the ap- pointments about the carriages and the harness, their strength, their brilliant cleanliness, their beautiful simplicity — but, more than all, the royal magnificence of the horses — were what might first have fixed the 25 attention. Every carriage on every morning in the year was taken down to an official inspector for ex- amination : wheels, axles, linchpins, pole, glasses, lamps, were all critically probed and tested. Every part of every carriage had been cleaned, every horse 30 had been groomed, with as much rigor as if they be- longed to a private gentleman ; and that part of the * " At that time" — I speak of the era previous to Waterloo. 74 BE QUINCE Y. spectacle offered itself always. But the night before us is a night of victory ; and, behold ! to the ordinary display what a heart-shaking addition ! — horses, men, carriages, all are dressed in laurels and flowers, oak- leaves and ribbons. The guards, as being officially 5 his majesty's servants, and of the coachmen such as are within the privilege of the Post Office, wear the royal liveries of course ; and, as it is summer (for all the land victories were naturally won in summer), they wear, on this fine evening, these liveries exposed to 10 view, without any covering of upper coats. Such a costume, and the elaborate arrangement of the laurels in their hats, dilate their hearts, by giving to them openly a personal connection with the great news in which already they have the general interest of patriot- 15 ism. That great national sentiment surmounts and quells all sense of ordinary distinctions. Those pas- sengers who happen to be gentlemen are now hardly to be distinguished as such except by dress ; for the usual reserve of their manner in speaking to the at- 20 tendants has on this night melted away. One heart, one pride, one glory, connects every man by the tran- scendent bond of his national blood. The spectators, who are numerous beyond precedent, express their sympathy with these fervent feelings by continual 25 hurrahs. Every moment are shouted aloud by the post-office servants, and summoned to draw up, the great ancestral names of cities known to history through a thousand years — Lincoln, Winchester, Portsmouth, Gloucester, Oxford, Bristol, Manchester, 30 York, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Perth, Stir- ling, Aberdeen — expressing the grandeur of the em- THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 75 pire by the antiquity of its towns, and the grandeur of the mail establishment by the diffusive radiation of its separate missions. Every moment you hear the thunder of lids locked down upon the mailbags. 5 That sound to each individual mail is the signal for drawing off ; which process is the finest part of the entire spectacle. Then come the horses into play. Horses ! can these be horses that bound off with the action and gestures of leopards ? What stir ! what 10 sea-like ferment! what a thundering of wheels! what a trampling of hoofs ! what a sounding of trumpets ! what farewell cheers ! what redoubling peals of brotherly congratulation, connecting the name of the particular mail — " Liverpool forever ! " with the 15 name of the particular victory — " Badajoz forever ! " or " Salamanca forever ! " The half-slumbering con- sciousness that all night long, and all the next day — perhaps for even a longer period — many of these mails, like fire racing along a train of gunpowder, will 20 be kindling at every instant new successions of burn- ing joy, has an obscure effect of multiplying the vic- tory itself, by multiplying to the imagination into in- finity the stages of its progressive diffusion. A fiery arrow seems to be let loose, which from that moment 25 is destined to travel, without intermission, westward for three hundred* miles — northward for six hundred; * " Three hundred." — Of necessity, this scale of measurement, to an American, if he happens to be a thoughtless man, must sound ludicrous. Accordingly, I remember a case in which an 30 American writer indulges himself in the luxury of a little fibbing, by ascribing to an Englishman a pompous account of the Thames, constructed entirely upon American ideas of grandeur, and con- 76 BE QUINCE Y. and the sympathy of our Lombard Street friends at parting is exalted a hundredfold by a sort of vision- ary sympathy with the yet slumbering sympathies which in so vast a succession we are going to awake. Liberated from the embarrassments of the city, and 5 issuing into the broad uncrowded avenues of the eluding in something like these terms: "And, sir, arriving at London, this mighty father of rivers attains a breadth of at least two furlongs, having, in its winding course, traversed the astonish- ing distance of one hundred and seventy miles." And this the IO candid American thinks it fair to contrast with the scale of the Mississippi. Now, it is hardly worth while to answer a pure fic- tion gravely ; else one might say that no Englishman out of Bed- lam ever thought of looking in an island for the rivers of a conti- nent, nor, consequently, could have thought of looking for the *5 peculiar grandeur of the Thames in the length of its course, or in the extent of soil which it drains. Yet, if he had been so absurd, the American might have recollected that a river, not to be com- pared with the Thames even as to volume of water — viz., the Tiber — has contrived to make itself heard of in this world for 20 twenty-five centuries to an extent not reached as yet by any river, however corpulent, of his own land. The glory of the Thames is measured by the destiny of the population to which it ministers, by the commerce which it supports, by the grandeur of the empire in which, though far from the largest, it is the most influential 25 stream. Upon some such scale, and not by a transfer to Colum- bian standards, is the course of our English mails to be valued. The American may fancy the effect of his own valuations to our English ears by supposing the case of a Siberian glorifying his country in these terms : " These wretches, sir, in France and 30 England, cannot march half a mile in any direction without find- ing a house where food can be had and lodging ; whereas, such is the noble desolation of our magnificent country that in many a direction for a thousand miles I will engage that a dog shall not find shelter from a snow storm, nor a wren find an apology for 35 breakfast." THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 77 northern suburbs, we soon begin to enter upon our natural pace of ten miles an hour. In the broad light of the summer evening, the sun, perhaps, only just at the point of setting, we are seen from every story of 5 every house. Heads of every age crowd to the win- dows ; young and old understand the language of our victorious symbols ; and rolling volleys of sympa- thizing cheers run along us, behind us, and before us. The beggar, rearing himself against the wall, forgets 10 his lameness, — real or assumed, — thinks not of his whining trade, but stands erect, with bold exulting smiles, as we pass him. The victory has healed him, and says, Be thou whole ! Women and children, from garrets alike and cellars, through infinite Lon- 15 don, look down or look up with loving eyes upon our gay ribbons and our martial laurels ; sometimes kiss their hands ; sometimes hang out, as signals of affec- tion, pocket handkerchiefs, aprons, dusters, anything that, by catching the summer breezes, will express an 20 aerial jubilation. On the London side of Barnet, to which we draw near within a few minutes after nine, observe that private carriage which is approaching us. The weather being so warm, the glasses are all down ; and one may read, as on the stage of a theater, every - "5 thing that goes on within. It contains three ladies — one likely to be " mamma," and two of seventeen or eighteen, who are probably her daughters. What lovely animation, what beautiful unpremeditated pan- tomime, explaining to us every syllable that passes, 3 ) in these ingenuous girls ! By the sudden start and raising of the hands on first discovering our laureled equipage, by the sudden movement and appeal to the 78 DE QUINCE Y. elder lady from both of them, and by the heightened color on their animated countenances, we can almost hear them saying, " See, see ! Look at their laurels ! Oh, mamma ! there has been a great battle in Spain ; and it has been a great victory." In a moment we 5 are on the point of passing them. We passengers — I on the box, and the two on the roof behind me — raise our hats to the ladies ; the coachman makes his professional salute with the whip ; the guard even, though punctilious on the matter of his dignity as an 10 officer under the crown, touches his hat. The ladies move to us, in return, with a winning graciousness of gesture ; all smile on each side in a way that nobody could misunderstand, and that nothing short of a grand national sympathy could so instantaneously 15 prompt. Will these ladies say that we are nothing to them ? Oh, no ; they will not say that ! They cannot deny — they do not deny — that for this night they are our sisters ; gentle or simple, scholar or illiterate servant, for twelve hours to come, we on the outside 20 have the honor to be their brothers. Those poor women, again, who stop to gaze upon us with delight at the entrance of Barnet, and seem, by their air of weariness, to be returning from labor — do you mean to say that they are washerwomen and charwomen ? 2 5 Oh, my poor friend, you are quite mistaken. I assure you they stand in a far higher rank ; for this one night they feel themselves by birthright to be daugh- ters of England, and answer to no humbler title. Every joy, however, even rapturous joy, — such is 30 the sad law of earth, — may carry with it grief, or fear of grief, to some. Three miles beyond Barnet, we THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 79 see approaching us another private carriage, nearly repeating the circumstances of the former case. Here, also, the glasses are all down ; here, also, is an elderly- lady seated ; but the two daughters are missing ; for 5 the single young person sitting by the lady's side seems to be an attendant — so I judge from her dress, and her air of respectful reserve. The lady is in mourning; and her countenance expresses sorrow. At first she does not look up ; so that I believe she is ionot aware of our approach, until she hears the meas- ured beating of our horses' hoofs. Then she raises her eyes to settle them painfully on our triumphal equipage. Our decorations explain the case to her at once ; but she beholds them with apparent anxiety, 15 or even with terror. Some time before this, I, find- ing it difficult to hit a flying mark when embarrassed by the coachman's person and reins intervening, had given to the guard a Courier evening paper, contain- ing the gazette, for the next carriage that might pass. 20 Accordingly he tossed it in, so folded that the huge capitals expressing some such legend as glorious victory might catch the eye at once. To see the paper, how- ever, at all, interpreted as it was by our ensigns of triumph, explained everything ; and, if the guard were 25 right in thinking the lady to have received it with a gesture of horror, it could not be doubtful that she had suffered some deep personal affliction in connec- tion with this Spanish war. Here, now, was the case of one who, having for- 3omerly suffered, might, erroneously perhaps, be dis- tressing herself with anticipations of another similar suffering. That same night, and hardly three hours 8o DE QUINCE V. later, occurred the reverse case. A poor woman, who too probably would find herself, in a day or two, to have suffered the heaviest of afflictions by the battle, blindly allowed herself to express an exultation so unmeasured in the news and its details as gave to her 5 the appearance which among Celtic Highlanders is called />. This was at some little town where we changed horses an hour or two after midnight. Some fair or wake had kept the people up out of their beds, and had occasioned a partial illumination of the stalls 10 and booths, presenting an unusual but very impressive • effect. We saw many lights moving about as we drew near ; and perhaps the most striking scene on the whole route was our reception at this place. The flashing of torches and the beautiful radiance of blue I5 lights (technically, Bengal lights) upon the heads of our horses ; the fine effect of such a showery and ghostly illumination falling upon our flowers and glittering laurels*; whilst all around ourselves, that formed a center of light, the darkness gathered on 20 the rear and flanks in massy blackness ; these optical splendors, together with the prodigious enthusiasm of the people, composed a picture at once scenical and affecting, theatrical and holy. As we stayed for three or four minutes, I alighted ; and immediately from a 25 dismantled stall in the street, where no doubt she had been presiding through the earlier part of the night, advanced eagerly a middle-aged woman. The sight of my newspaper it was that had drawn her attention * " Glittering laurels" — I must observe that the color of green ?ia), on the very evening be- fore his assassination, when the minutes of his earthly career were numbered, being asked what death in his judgment, might be pronounced the most eligible, replied, " That which should be most sudden." On 25 the other hand, the divine Litany of our English Church, when breathing forth supplications, as if in some representative character, for the whole human race prostrate before God, places such a death in the very van of horrors: "From lightning and tempest ; 30 from plague, pestilence, and famine ; from battle and 84 DE QUINCE Y. murder and from sudden death — Good Lord, deliver us." Sudden death is here made to crown the climax in a grand ascent of calamities ; it is ranked among the last of curses ; and yet by the noblest of Romans it was ranked as the first of blessings. In that differ- 5 ence most readers will see little more than the essen- tial difference between Christianity and Paganism. But this, on consideration, I doubt. The Christian Church may be right in its estimate of sudden death ; and it is a natural feeling, though after all it may also 10 be an infirm one, to wish for a quiet dismissal from life, as that which seems most reconcilable with medi- tation, with penitential retrospects, and with the humilities of farewell prayer. There does not, how- ever, occur to me any direct scriptural warrant for 15 this earnest petition of the English Litany, unless under a special construction of the word " sudden." It seems a petition indulged rather and conceded to human infirmity than exacted from human piety. It is not so much a doctrine built upon the eternities of the 20 Christian system as a plausible opinion built upon special varieties of physical temperament. Let that, however, be as it may, two remarks suggest themselves as prudent restraints upon a doctrine which else may wander, and has wandered, into an uncharitable super- 25 stition. The first is this : that many people are likely to exaggerate the horror of a sudden death from the disposition to lay a false stress upon words or acts simply because by an accident they have become final words or acts. If a man dies, for instance, by some 3° sudden death when he happens to be intoxicated, such a death is falsely regarded with peculiar horror ; as THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 85 though the intoxication were suddenly exalted into a blasphemy. But that is unphilosophic. The man was, or he was not, habitually a drunkard. If not, if his intoxication were a solitary accident, there can be 5 no reason for allowing special emphasis to this act simply because through misfortune it became his final act. Nor, on the other hand, if it were no accident, but one of his habitual transgressions, will it be the more habitual or the more a transgression because 10 some sudden calamity, surprising him, has caused this habitual transgression to be also a final one. Could the man have had any reason even dimly to foresee his own sudden death, there would have been a new feature in his act of intemperance — a feature of pre- i 5 sumption and irreverence, as one that, having known himself drawing near to the presence of God, should have suited his demeanor to an expectation so awful. But this is no part of the case supposed. And the only new element in the man's act is not any element 20 of special immorality, but simply of special mis- fortune. The other remark has reference to the meaning of the word sudden. Very possibly Caesar and the Chris- tian Church do not differ in the way supposed— that 25 is do not differ by any difference of doctrine as between Pagan and Christian views of the moral tem- per appropriate to death ; but perhaps they are con- templating different cases. Both contemplate a violent death, a BiaSavatoS— death that is fiiawZ, or in 30 other words, death that is brought about, not by inter- nal and spontaneous change, but by active force hav- ing its origin from without. In this meaning the two S6 DE QUINCE V. authorities agree. Thus far they are in harmony. But the difference is that the Roman by the word '' sudden " means un/i/igering, whereas the Christian Litany by " sudden death " means a death without warning, consequently without any available summons 5 to religious preparation. The poor mutineer who kneels down to gather into his heart the bullets from twelve firelocks of his pitying comrades dies by a most sudden death, in Caesar's sense ; one shock, one mighty spasm, one (possibly not one) groan, and all is over. 10 But, in the sense of the Litany, the mutineer's death is far from sudden ; his offense originally, his imprison, ment, his trial, the interval between his sentence and its execution, having all furnished him with separate warnings of his fate — having all summoned him to 15 meet it with solemn preparation. Here at once, in this sharp verbal distinction, we comprehend the faithful earnestness with which a holy Christian Church pleads on behalf of her poor departing children that God would vouchsafe to them 20 the last great privilege and distinction possible on a deathbed, viz., the opportunity of untroubled prepara- tion for facing this mighty trial. Sudden death, as a mere variety in the modes of dying where death in some shape is inevitable, proposes a question of 25 choice which, equally in the Roman and the Christian sense, will be variously answered according to each man's variety of temperament. Meantime, one aspect of sudden death there is, one modification, upon which no doubt can arise, that of all martyrdoms it is 30 the most agitating — viz., where it surprises a man under circumstances which offer (or which seem to THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 87 offer) some hurrying, flying, inappreciably minute chance of evading it. Sudden as the danger which it affronts must be any effort by which such an evasion can be accomplished. Even that, even the sickening 5 necessity for hurrying in extremity where all hurry seems destined to be vain — even that anguish is liable to a hideous exasperation in one particular case, viz., where the appeal is made not exclusively to the in- stinct of self-preservation, but to the conscience, on 10 behalf of some other life besides your own, accidentally thrown upon your protection. To fail, to collapse in a service merely your own, might seem comparatively venial ; though, in fact, it is far from venial. But to fail in a case where Providence has suddenly thrown 15 into your hands the final interests of another — a fel- low-creature shuddering between the gates of life and death ; this, to a man of apprehensive conscience, would mingle the misery of an atrocious criminality with the misery of a bloody calamity. You are 20 called upon, by the case supposed, possibly to die, but to die at the very moment when, by any even par- tial failure or effeminate collapse of your energies, you will be self-denounced as a murderer. You had but the twinkling of an eye for your effort, and that 25 effort might have been unavailing ; but to have risen to the level of such an effort would have rescued you, though not from dying, yet from dying as a traitor to your final and farewell duty. The situation here contemplated exposes a dread- 3oful ulcer, lurking far down in the depths of human nature. It is not that men generally are summoned to face such awful trials. But potentially, and in 88 DE QUINCE Y. shadowy outline, such a trial is moving subterrane- ously in perhaps all men's natures. Upon the secret mirror of our dreams such a trial is darkly projected, perhaps, to every one of us. That dream, so familiar to childhood, of meeting a lion, and, through languish- 5 ing prostration in hope and the energies of hope, that constant sequel of lying down before the lion, pub- lishes the secret frailty of human nature — reveals its deep-seated falsehood to itself — records its abysmal treachery. Perhaps not one of us escapes that dream; 10 perhaps, as by some sorrowful doom of man, that dream repeats for every one of us, through every generation, the original temptation in Eden. Every one of us, in this dream, has a bait offered to the infirm places of his own individual will ; once again 15 a snare is presented for tempting him into captivity to a luxury of ruin ; once again, as in aboriginal Para- dise, the man falls by his own choice ; again, by infi- nite iteration, the ancient earth groans to heaven, through her secret caves, over the weakness of her 20 child. " Nature, from her seat, sighing through all her works," again " gives signs of woe that all is lost " ; and again the counter-sigh is repeated to the sorrowing heavens for the endless rebellion against God. It is not without probability that in the world 25 of dreams every one of us ratifies for himself the original transgression. In dreams, perhaps under some secret conflict of the midnight sleeper, lighted up to the consciousness at the time, but darkened to the memory as soon as all is finished, each several 30 child of our mysterious race completes for himself the treason of the aboriginal fall. THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 89 The incident, so memorable in itself by its features of horror, and so scenical by its grouping for the eye, which furnished the text for this reverie upon Sudden Death, occurred to myself in the dead of night, as 5 a solitary spectator, when seated on the box of the Manchester and Glasgow mail, in the second or third summer after Waterloo. I find it necessary to relate the circumstances, because they are such as could not have occurred unless under a singular combination of 10 accidents. In those days, the oblique and lateral communications with many rural post offices were so arranged, either through necessity or through defect of system, as to make it requisite for the main north- western mail (/. e., the down mail) on reaching Man- 15 Chester to halt for a number of hours ; how many, I do not remember ; six or seven, I think ; but the re- sult was that, in the ordinary course, the mail recom- menced its journey northward about midnight. Wearied with the long detention at a gloomy hotel, I 20 walked out about eleven o'clock at night for the sake of fresh air ; meaning to fall in with the mail and re- sume my seat at the post office. The night, however, being yet dark, as the moon had scarcely risen, and the Streets being at that hour empty, so as to offer no 25 opportunities for asking the road, I lost my way, and did not reach the post office until it was considerably past midnight ; but, to my great relief (as it was im- portant for me to be in Westmoreland by the morning) I saw in the huge saucer eyes of the mail, blazing 30 through the gloom, an evidence that my chance was not yet lost. Past the time it was ; but, by some rare accident, the mail was not even yet ready to 9° DE QUINCE Y. start. I ascended to my seat on the box, where my cloak was still lying as it had lain at the Bridgewater Arms. I had left it there in imitation of a nautical discoverer, who leaves a bit of bunting on the shore of his discovery, by way of warning off the ground the 5 whole human race, and notifying to the Christian and the heathen worlds, with his best compliments, that he has hoisted his pocket handkerchief once and forever upon that virgin soil ; thenceforward claiming the jus dominii to the top of the atmosphere above it, and 10 also the right of driving shafts to the center of the earth below it ; so that all people found after this warning either aloft in upper chambers of the atmos- phere, or groping in subterraneous shafts, or squat- ting audaciously on the surface of the soil, will be 15 treated as trespassers — kicked, that is to say, or de- capitated, as circumstances may suggest, by their very faithful servant, the owner of the said pocket hand- kerchief. In the present case it is probable that my cloak might not have been respected, and the jus 20 gentium might have been cruelly violated in my per- son — for, in the dark, people commit deeds of dark- ness, gas being a great ally of morality ; but it so happened that on this night there was no other out- side passenger ; and thus the crime, which else was 25 but too probable, missed fire for want of a criminal. Having mounted the box, I took a small quantity of laudanum, having already traveled two hundred and fifty miles — viz., from a point seventy miles beyond London. In the taking of laudanum there 30 was nothing extraordinary. But by accident it drew upon me the special attention of my assessor on the THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 9 1 box, the coachman. And in that also there was noth- ing extraordinary. But by accident, and with great delight, it drew my own attention to the fact that this coachman was a monster in point of bulk, and that he 5 had but one eye. In fact, he had been foretold by Vergil as Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum. He answered to the conditions in every one of the items : i, a monster he was ; 2, dreadful ; 3, shape- 10 less; 4, huge ; 5, who had lost an eye. But why should that delight me ? Had he been one of the Calenders in the " Arabian Nights," and had paid down his eye as the price of his criminal curiosity, what right had / to exult in his misfortune ? I did not 15 exult ; I delighted in no man's punishment, though it were even merited. But these personal distinctions (Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) identified in an instant an old friend of mine whom I had known in the south for some years as the most masterly of mail-coachmen. 20 He was the man in all Europe that could (if any could) have driven six-in-hand full gallop over Al Sirat — that dreadful bridge of Mohammed, with no side battle- ment's, and of extra room not enough for a razor's edge — leading right across the bottomless gulf. 25 Under this eminent man, whom in Greek I cognomi- nated Cyclops Diphrelates (Cyclops the Charioteer), I, and others known to me, studied the diphrelatic art. Excuse, reader, a word too elegant to be pedan- tic. As a pupil, though I paid extra fees, it is to be 30 lamented that I did not stand high in his esteem. It showed his dogged honesty (though, observe, not his 9 2 DE QUINCE Y. discernment) that he could not see my merits. Let us excuse his absurdity in this particular by remember- ing his want of an eye. Doubtless that made him blind to my merits. In the art of conversation, however, he admitted that I had the whip-hand of him. On this 5 present occasion great joy was at our meeting. But what was Cyclops doing here ? Had the medical men recommended northern air, or how ? I collected, from such explanations as he volunteered, that he had an interest at stake in some suit at law now pending 10 at Lancester ; so that probably he had got himself transferred to this station for the purpose of connect- ing with his professional pursuits an instant readiness for the calls of his lawsuit. Meantime, what are we stopping for ? Surely we *5 have now waited long enough. Oh, this procrastinat- ing mail, and this procrastinating post office ! Can't they take a lesson upon that subject from me ? Some people have called me procrastinating. Yet you are witness, reader, that I was here kept waiting for the 20 post office. Will the post office lay its hand on its heart, in its moments of sobriety, and assert that ever it waited for me ? What are they about ? The guard tells me that there is a large extra accumulation of foreign mails this night, owing to irregularities caused 25 by war, by wind, by weather, in the packet service, which as yet does not benefit at all by steam. For an extra hour, it seems, the post office has been engaged in threshing out the pure wheaten correspondence of Glasgow, and winnowing it from the chaff of all baser 30 intermediate towns. But at last all is finished. Sound your horn, guard ! Manchester, good-by ! we've THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 93 lost an hour by your criminal conduct at the post office ; which, however, though I do not mean to part with a serviceable ground of complaint, and one which really is such for the horses, to me secretly is an 5 advantage, since it compels us to look sharply for this lost hour among the next eight or nine, and to recover it (if we can) at the rate of one mile extra per hour. Off we are at last, and at eleven miles an hour ; and for the moment I detect no changes in the energy or ioin the skill of Cyclops. From Manchester to Kendal, which virtually (though not in law) is the capital of Westmoreland, there were at this time seven stages of eleven miles each. The first five of these, counting from Manchester, terminate 15 in Lancaster ; which is therefore fifty-five miles north of Manchester, and the same distance exactly from Liverpool. The first three stages terminate in Preston (called by way of distinction from other towns of that name, Proud Preston) ; at which place it is that the 20 separate roads from Liverpool and from Manchester to the north become confluent.* Within these first three stages lay the foundation, the progress, and termination of our night's adventure. During the first stage I found out that Cyclops was mortal ; he 25 was liable to the shocking affection of sleep — a thing **' Confluent ." — Suppose a capital Y (the Pythagorean letter): Lancaster is at the foot of this letter ; Liverpool at the top of the right branch ; Manchester at the top of the left ; Proud Preston 30 at the center, where the two branches unite. It is thirty-three miles along either of the two branches ; it is twenty-two miles along the stem — viz., from Preston in the middle to Lancaster at the foot. There's a lesson in geography for the reader ! 94 DE QUINCE Y. which previously I had never suspected. If a man indulges in the vicious habit of sleeping, all the skill in aurigation of Apollo himself, with the horses of Aurora to execute his notions, avails him noth- ing. " O Cyclops!" I exclaimed, " thou art mortal. 5 My friend, thou snorest." Through the first eleven miles, however, this infirmity — which I grieve to say that he shared with the whole Pagan Pantheon — betrayed itself only by brief snatches. On waking up, he made an apology for himself which, instead of 10 mending matters, laid open a gloomy vista of coming disasters. The summer assizes, he reminded me, were now going on at Lancaster ; in consequence of which, for three nights and three days he had not lain down in a bed. During the day he was waiting for his own 15 summons as a witness on the trial in which he was interested, or else, lest he should be missing at the critical moment, was drinking with the other witnesses uuder the pastoral surveillance of the attorneys. During the night, or that part of it which at sea would 20 form the middle watch, he was driving. This expla- nation certainly accounted for his drowsiness, but in a way which made it much more alarming ; since now, after several days' resistance to this infirmity, at length he was steadily giving way. Throughout 25 the second stage he grew more and more drowsy. In the second mile of the third stage he surrendered himself finally, and without a struggle, to his perilous temptation. All his past resistance had but deepened the weight of this final oppression. Seven atmos- 30 pheres of sleep rested upon him ; and, to consummate the case, our worthy guard, after singing " Love among THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 95 the Roses " for perhaps thirty times, without invita- tion and without applause, had in revenge moodily resigned himself to slumber— not so deep, doubtless, as the coachman's, but deep enough for mischief. 5 And thus at last, about ten miles from Preston, it came about that I found myself left in charge of his majesty's London and Glasgow mail, then running at the least twelve miles an hour. What made this negligence less criminal than else 10 it must have been thought was the condition of the roads at night during the assizes. At that time, all the law business of populous Liverpool, and also of populous Manchester, with its vast cincture of popu- lous rural districts, was called up by ancient usage to 15 the tribunal of Lilliputian Lancaster. To break up this old traditional usage required, 1, a conflict with powerful established interests, 2, a large system of new arrangements, and 3, a new parliamentary statute. But as yet this change was merely in contemplation. 20 As things were at present, twice in the year* so vast a body of business rolled northward from the south- ern quarter of the county that, for a fortnight at least, it occupied the severe exertions of two judges in its dispatch. The consequence of this was that every 25 horse available for such a service, along the whole line of road, was exhausted in carrying down the multitudes of people who were parties to the different suits. By sunset, therefore, it usually happened that, through utter exhaustion among men and horses, 30 *" Twice in t/ie year."— There were at that time only two assizes even in the most populous counties — viz., the Lent Assizes and the Summer Assizes. 96 DE QUINCE Y. the road sank into profound silence. Except the exhaustion in the vast adjacent county of York from a contested election, no such silence succeeding to no such fiery uproar was ever witnessed in England. On this occasion the usual silence and solitude 5 prevailed along the road. Not a hoof nor a wheel was to be heard. And, to strengthen this false luxuri- ous confidence in the noiseless roads, it happened also that the night was one of peculiar solemnity and peace. For my own part, though slightly alive to IO the possibilities of peril, I had so far yielded to the influence of the mighty calm as to sink into a pro- found reverie. The month was August ; in the middle of which lay my own birthday — a festival to every thoughtful man suggesting solemn and often 15 sigh-born* thoughts. The county was my own native county — upon which, in its southern section, more than upon any equal area known to man past or present, had descended the original curse of labor in its heaviest form, not mastering the bodies only of 20 men, as of slaves, or criminals in mines, but working through the fiery will. Upon no equal space of earth was, or ever had been, the same energy of human power put forth daily. At this particular season also of the assizes, that dreadful hurricane of flight 25 and pursuit, as it might have seemed to a stranger, which swept to and from Lancaster all day long, hunting the county up and down, and regularly sub- siding back into silence about sunset, could not fail * "Sigh-born." — I owe the suggestion of this word to an obscure 30 remembrance of a beautiful phrase in Giraldus Cambrensis — viz., suspiricsce cogitationes. THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 97 (when united with this permanent distinction of Lan- cashire as the very metropolis and citadel of labor) to point the thoughts pathetically upon that counter- vision of rest, of saintly repose from strife and sorrow, 5 towards which, as to their secret haven, the profounder aspirations of man's heart are in solitude continually traveling. Obliquely upon our left we were nearing the sea ; which also must, under the present circum- stances, be repeating the general state of halcyon 10 repose. The sea, the atmosphere, the light, bore each an orchestral part in this universal lull. Moon- light and the first timid tremblings of the dawn were by this time blending ; and the blendings were brought into a still more exquisite state of unity by a slight 15 silvery mist, motionless and dreamy, that covered the woods and fields, but with a veil of equable transpar- ency. Except the feet of our own horses — which, running on a sandy margin of the road, made but little disturbance — there was no sound abroad. In 20 the clouds and on the earth prevailed the same majes- tic peace ; and, in spite of all that the villain of a schoolmaster has done for the ruin of our sublimer thoughts, which are the thoughts of our infancy, we still believe in no such nonsense as a limited atmos- 25 phere. Whatever we may swear with our false feign- ing lips, in our faithful hearts we still believe, and must forever believe, in fields of air traversing the total gulf between earth and the central heavens. Still, in the confidence of children that tread without 30 fear every chamber in their father's house, and to whom no door is closed, we, in that Sabbatic vision which sometimes is revealed for an hour upon nights like 98 DE QUINCE Y. this, ascend with easy steps from the sorrow-stricken fields of earth upward to the sandals of God. Suddenly, from thoughts like these I was awakened to a sullen sound, as of some motion on the distant road. It stole upon the air for a moment ; I listened 5 in awe ; but then it died away. Once roused, how- ever, I could not but observe with alarm the quickened motion of our horses. Ten years' experience had made my eye learned in the valuing of motion ; and I saw that we were now running thirteen miles an hour. 1 10 pretend to no presence of mind. On the contrary, my fear is that I am miserably and shamefully deficient in that quality as regards action. The palsy of doubt and distraction hangs like some guilty weight of dark unfathomed remembrances upon my energies when the 15 signal is flying for action. But, on the other hand, this accursed gift I have, as regards thought, that in the first step toward the possibility of a misfortune I see its total evolution ; in the radix of the series I see too certainly and too instantly its entire expansion ; in the 20 first syllable of the dreadful sentence I read already the last. It was not that I feared for ourselves. Us our bulk and impetus charmed against peril in any collision. And I had ridden through too many hun- dreds of perils that were frightful to approach, that 25 were matter of laughter to look back upon ; the first face of which was horror, the parting face a jest — for any anxiety to rest upon our interests. The mail was not built, I felt assured, nor bespoke, that could betray me who trusted to its protection. But any 30 carriage that we could meet would be frail and light in comparison of ourselves. And I remarked this THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 99 ominous accident of our situation — we were on the wrong side of the road. But then, it may be said, the other party, if other there was, might also be on the wrong side ; and two wrongs might make a right. 5 That was not likely. The same motive which had drawn us to the right-hand side of the road — viz., the luxury of the soft beaten sand as contrasted with the paved center — would prove attractive to others. The two adverse carriages would, therefore, to a certainty, be 10 traveling on the same side ; and from this side, as not being ours in law, the crossing over to the other would, of course, be looked for from us* Our lamps, still lighted, would give the impression of vigilance on our part. And every creature that met us would rely i 5 upon us for quartering.f All this, and if the separate links of the anticipation had been a thousand times more, I saw, not discursively, or by effort, or by sue cession, but by one flash of horrid simultaneous intuition. 20 Under this steady though rapid anticipation of the evil which wig/itbe gathering ahead, ah ! what a sullen mystery of fear, what a sigh of woe, was that which stole upon the air, as again the far-off sound of a wheel was heard ! A whisper it was — a whisper 25 from, perhaps, four miles off — secretly announcing a * It is true that, according to the law of the case as established by legal precedents, all carriages were required to give way before royal equipages, and therefore before the mail as one of them. But this only increased the danger, as being a regulation very im- 30 perfectly made known, very unequally enforced, and therefore often embarrassing the movements on both sides. f " Quartering." — This is the technical word, and, I presume, derived from the French cartayer, to evade a rut or any obstacle. 100 DE QUINCE y. ruin that, being foreseen, was not the less inevitable ; that, being known, was not therefore healed. What could be done — who was it that could do it — to check the storm-flight of these maniacal horses ? Could I not seize the reins from the grasp of the slumbering 5 coachman ? You, reader, think that it would have been in your power to do so. And I quarrel not with your estimate of yourself. But, from the way in which the coachman's hand was viced between his upper and lower thigh, this was impossible. Easy, 10 was it? See, then, that bronze equestrian statue. The cruel rider has kept the bit in his horse's mouth for two centuries. Unbridle him for a minute, if you please, and wash his mouth with water. Easy, was it? Unhorse me, then, that imperial rider ; knock me 15 those marble feet from those marble stirrups of Charlemagne. The sounds ahead strengthened, and were now too clearly the sounds of wheels. Who and what could it be ? Was it industry in a taxed cart ? Was it youth- 20 ful gayety in a gig ? Was it sorrow that loitered, or joy that raced ? For as yet the snatches of sound were too intermitting, from distance, to decipher the character of the motion. Whoever were the travelers, something must be done to warn them. Upon the 25 other party rests the active responsibility, but upon us — and, woe is me ! that us was reduced to my frail opium-shattered self — rests the responsibility of warn- ing. Yet, how should this be accomplished ? Might I not sound the guard's horn? Already, on the first 30 thought, I was making my way over the roof to the guard's seat. But this, from the accident which I THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. lot have mentioned, of the foreign mails being piled upon the roof, was a difficult and even dangerous attempt to one cramped by nearly three hundred miles of out- side traveling. And, fortunately, before I had lost 5 much time in the attempt, our frantic horses swept round an angle of the road which opened upon us that final stage where the collision must be accom- plished and the catastrophe sealed. All was appar- ently finished. The court was sitting ; the case was io heard ; the judge had finished ; and only the verdict was yet in arrear. Before us lay an avenue straight as an arrow, six hundred yards, perhaps, in length ; and the umbra- geous trees, which rose in a regular line from either i 5 side, meeting high overhead, gave to it the character of a cathedral aisle. These trees lent a deeper solemnity to the early light ; but there was still light enough to perceive, at the further end of this Gothic aisle, a frail reedy gig, in which were seated a young man, 26 and by his side a young lady. Ah, young sir ! what are you about ? If it is requisite that you should whisper your communications to this young lady, — though really I see nobody, at an hour and on a road so solitary, likely to overhear you,— is it therefore 25 requisite that you should carry your lips forward to hers ? The little carriage is creeping on at one mile an hour ; and the parties within it, being thus ten- derly engaged, are naturally bending down their heads. Between them and eternity, to all human calculation, 30 there is but a minute and a half. Oh, Heavens ! what is it that I shall do ? Speaking or acting, what help can I offer ? Strange it is, and to a mere auditor of 102 DE QUINCE Y. the tale might seem laughable, that I should need a suggestion from the Iliad to prompt the sole resource that remained. Yet so it was. Suddenly I remem- bered the shout of Achilles, and its effect. But could I pretend to shout like the son of Peleus, aided by 5 Pallas? No ; but then I needed not the shout that should alarm all Asia militant ; such a shout would suffice as might carry terror into the hearts of two thoughtless young people and one gig-horse. I shouted — and the young man heard me not. A 10 second time I shouted — and now he heard me, for now he raised his head. Here, then, all had been done that, by me, could be done ; more on my part was not possible. Mine had been the first step; the second was for the young 15 man ; the third was for God. If, said I, this stranger is a brave man, and if indeed he loves the young girl at his side — or, loving her not, if he feels the obliga- tion, pressing upon every man worthy to be called a man, of doing his utmost for a woman confided to his 20 protection — he will at least make some effort to save her. If that fails, he will not perish the more, or by a death more cruel, for having made it ; and he will die as a brave man should, with his face to the danger, and with his arm about the woman that he sought in 25 vain to save. But if he makes no effort — shrinking without a struggle from his duty — he himself will not the less certainly perish for this baseness of pol- troonery. He will die no less ; and why not ? Where- fore should we grieve that there is one craven less in 30 the world ? No ; let him perish, without a pitying thought of ours wasted upon him ; and, in that case, THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 103 all our grief will be reserved for the fate of the help- less girl who now, upon the least shadow of failure in him, must by the fiercest of translations — must with- out time for a prayer — must within seventy seconds — 5 stand before the judgment-seat of God. But craven he was not ; sudden had been the call upon him, and sudden was his answer to the call. He saw, he heard, he comprehended, the ruin that was coming down ; already its gloomy shadow darkened 10 above him ; and already he was measuring his strength to deal with it. Ah! what a vulgar thing does courage seem when we see nations buying it and selling it for a shilling a day. Ah ! what a sublime thing does courage seem when some fearful summons on the 15 great deep of life carries a man, as if running before a hurricane, up to the giddy crest of some tumultuous crisis from which lie two courses, and a voice says to him audibly, " One way lies hope ; take the other, and mourn forever ! " How grand a triumph if, even 20 then, amidst the raving of all around him, and the frenzy of the danger, the man is able to confront his situation — is able to retire for a moment into solitude with God, and to seek his counsel from him! For seven seconds, it might be, of his seventy, the 25 stranger settled his countenance steadfastly upon us, as if to search and value every element in the conflict before him. For five seconds more of his seventy he sat immovably, like one that mused on some great purpose. For five more, perhaps, he sat with eyes 30 upraised, like one that prayed in sorrow, under some extremity of doubt, for light that should guide him to the better choice. Then suddenly he rose ; stood 104 BE QUINCE Y. upright ; and, by a powerful strain upon the reins, raising his horse's fore feet from the ground, he slewed him round on the pivot of his hind legs, so as to plant the little equipage in a position nearly at right angles to ours.. Thus far his condition was not 5 improved, except as a first step had been taken towards the possibility of a second. If no more were done, nothing was done ; for the little carriage still occupied the very center of our path, though in an altered direction. Yet even now it may not be too 10 late ; fifteen of the seventy seconds may still be unex- hausted ; and one almighty bound may avail to clear the ground. Hurry, then, hurry ! for the flying moments — they hurry. Oh, hurry, hurry, my brave young man ! for the cruel hoofs of our horses — they 15 also hurry ! Fast are the flying moments, faster are the hoofs of our horses. But fear not for him y if human energy can suffice ; faithful was he that drove to his terrific duty ; faithful was the horse to his com- mand. One blow, one impulse given with voice and 20 hand, by the stranger, one rush from the horse, one bound as if in the act of rising to a fence, landed the docile creature's fore feet upon the crown or arching center of the road. The larger half of the little equipage had then cleared our overtowering shadow : 25 that was evident even to my own agitated sight. But it mattered little that one wreck should float off in safety, if upon the wreck that perished were embarked the human freightage. The rear part of the car- riage — was that certainly beyond the line of absolute 30 ruin ? What power could answer the question ? Glance of eye, thought of man, wing of angel, which THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 105 of these had speed enough to sweep between the question and the answer, and divide the one from the other? Light does not tread upon the steps of light more indivisibly than did our all-conquering arrival 5 upon the escaping efforts of the gig. That must the young man have felt too plainly. His back was now turned to us ; not by sight could he any longer com- municate with the peril ; but, by the dreadful rattle of our harness, too truly had his ear been instructed 10 that all was finished as regarded any effort of his. Already in resignation he had rested from his struggle ; and perhaps in his heart he was whispering, " Father, which art in heaven, do thou finish above what I on earth have attempted." Faster than ever mill-race 15 we ran past them in our inexorable flight. Oh, raving of hurricanes that must have sounded in their young ears at the moment of our transit ! Even in that moment the thunder of collision spoke aloud. Either with the swingle-bar, or with the haunch of our near 20 leader, we had struck the off-wheel of the little gig ; which stood rather obliquely, and not quite so far advanced as to be accurately parallel with the near wheel. The blow from the fury of our passage resounded terrifically. I rose in horror, to gaze upon 25 the ruins we might have caused. From my elevated station I looked down, and looked back upon the scene ; which in a moment told its own tale, and wrote all its records on my heart forever. Here was the map of the passion that now had 30 finished. The horse was planted immovably, with his fore feet upon the paved crest of the central road. He of the whole party might be supposed untouched 106 DE QUINCE Y. by the passion of death. The little cany carriage— partly, perhaps, from the violent torsion of the wheels in its recent movement, partly from the thundering blow we had given to it — as if it sympathized with human horror, was all alive with tremblings and 5 shiverings. The young man trembled not, nor shivered. He sat like a rock. But his was the steadi- ness of agitation frozen into rest by horror. As yet he dared not to look round ; for he knew that, if any- thing remained to do, by him it could no longer be 10 done. And as yet he knew not for certain if their safety were accomplished. But the lady But the lady Oh, Heavens ! will that spectacle ever depart from my dreams, as she rose and sank upon her seat, sank and rose, threw up her arms 15 wildly to heaven, clutched at some visionary object in the air, fainting, praying, raving, despairing ? Figure to yourself, reader, the elements of the case ; suffer me to recall before your mind the circumstances of that unparalleled situation. From the silence and 20 deep peace of this saintly summer night — from the pathetic blending of this sweet moonlight, dawnlight, dreamlight — from the manly tenderness of this flatter- ing, whispering, murmuring love — suddenly as from the woods- and fields — suddenly as from the chambers 25 of the air opening in revelation — suddenly as from the ground yawning at her feet, leaped upon her, with the flashing of cataracts, Death the crowned phantom, with all the equipage of his terrors, and the tiger roar of his voice. 30 The moments were numbered ; the strife was finished ; the vision was closed. In the twinkling of THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 1 07 an eye, our flying horses had carried us to the termina- tion of the umbrageous aisle ; at the right angles we wheeled into our former direction ; the turn of the road carried the scene out of my eyes in an instant, 5 ind swept it into my dreams forever. Section III — Dream-Fugue : FOUNDED ON THE PRECEDING THEME OF SUDDEN DEATH. Whence the sound 10 Of instruments, that made melodious chime, Was heard, of harp and organ ; and who moved Their stops and chords was seen ; his volant touch Instinct through all proportions, low and high, Fled and pursued transverse the resonant fugue. 15 Par. Lost, bk. xi. Tumultuosissimamente. Passion of sudden death ! that once in youth I read and interpiaed by the shadows of thy averted signs !* rapture of panic taking the shape (which among 20 tombs in churches! have seen) of woman bursting her sepulchral bonds — of woman's Ionic form bending forward from the ruins of her grave with arching foot, with eyes upraised, with clasped adoring hands— wait- ing, watching, trembling, praying for the trumpet's 25 call to rise from dust forever ! Ah, vision too fearful * "Averted signs."— I read the course and changes of the lady's agony in the succession of her involuntary gestures ; but it must be remembered that I read all this from the rear, never once catch- ing the lady's full face, and even her profile imperfectly. 108 DE QUINCE Y. of shuddering humanity on the brink of almighty abysses ! vision that didst start back, that didst reel away, like a shriveling scroll from before the wrath of fire racing on the wings of the wind ! Epilepsy so brief of horror, wherefore is it that thou canst not die ? Passing so suddenly into darkness, wherefore is it that still thou sheddest thy sad funeral blights upon the gorgeous mosaics of dreams ? Fragment of music too passionate, heard once, and heard no more, what aileth thee, that thy deep rolling chords come up at intervals through all the worlds of sleep, and, after forty years, have lost no element of horror ? I Lo, it is summer— almighty summer ! The ever- lasting gates of life and summer are thrown open 15 wide ; and on the ocean, tranquil and verdant as a savanna, the unknown lady from the dreadful vision and I myself are floating — she upon a fairy pinnace, and I upon an English three-decker. Both of us are wooing gales of festal happiness within the domain of 20 our common country, within that ancient watery park, within the pathless chase of ocean, where England takes her pleasure as a huntress through winter and summer, from the rising to the setting sun. Ah, what a wilderness of floral beauty was hidden, or was 25 suddenly revealed, upon the tropic islands through which the pinnace moved ! And upon her deck what a bevy of human flowers ; young women how lovely, young men how noble, that were dancing together, THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 109 and slowly drifting toward us amid music and in- cense, amid blossoms from forests and gorgeous corymbi from vintages, amid natural caroling and the echoes of sweet girlish laughter. Slowly the pinnace 5 nears us, gayly she hails us, and silently she disappears beneath the shadow of our mighty bows. But then, as at some signal from heaven, the music, and the carols, and the sweet echoing of girlish laughter — all are hushed. What evil has smitten the pinnace, 10 meeting or overtaking her? Did ruin to our friends couch within our own dreadful shadow ? Was our shadow the shadow of death ? I looked over the bow for an answer, and behold ! the pinnace was dis- mantled ; the revel and the revelers were found no 15 more ; the glory of the vintage was dust, and the forests with their beauty were left without a witness upon the seas. " But where " — and I turned to our crew — " where are the lovely women that danced be- neath the awning of flowers and clustering corymbi ? 20 Whither have fled the noble young men that danced with them ? " Answer there was none. But suddenly the man at the masthead, whose countenance dark- ened with alarm, cried out, " Sail on the weather beam ! Down she comes upon us ; in seventy seconds 2 5 she also will founder." II. I looked to the weather side, and the summer had departed. The sea was rocking, and shaken with gathering wrath. Upon its surface sat mighty mists, 30 which grouped themselves into arches and long no DE QUINCE Y. cathedral aisles. Down one of these, with the fiery pace of a quarrel from a crossbow, ran a frigate right athwart our course. " Are they mad ? " some voice exclaimed from our deck. " Do they woo their ruin ?" But in a moment, as she was close upon us, 5 some impulse of a heady current or local vortex gave a wheeling bias to her course, and off she forged with- out a shock. As she ran past us, high aloft among the shrouds stood the lady of the pinnace. The deeps opened ahead in malice to receive her, towering surges 10 of foam ran after her, the billows were fierce to catch her. But far away she was borne into desert spaces of the sea ; while still by sight I followed her, as she ran before the howling gale, chased by angry seabirds and by maddening billows ; still I saw her, as at the 15 moment when she ran past us, standing among the shrouds, with her white draperies streaming before the wind. There she stood, with hair disheveled, one hand clutched among the tackling — rising, sinking, fluttering, trembling, praying ; there for leagues I saw 20 her as she stood, raising at intervals one hand to heaven, amid the fiery crests of the pursuing waves and the raving of the storm ; until at last, upon a sound from afar of malicious laughter and mockery, all was hidden forever in driving showers ; and after- 25 ward, but when I know not, nor how III. Sweet funeral bells from some incalculable distance, wailing over the dead that die before the dawn, awak- ened me as I slept in a boat moored to some familiar 30 THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH III shore. The morning twilight even then was breaking; and, by the dusky revelations which it spread, I saw a girl, adorned with a garland of white roses about her head for some great festival, running along the 5 solitary strand in extremity of haste. Her running was the running of panic ; and often she looked back as to some dreadful enemy in the rear. But when I leaped ashore, and followed on her steps to warn her her of a peril in front, alas ! from me she fled as from 10 another peril, and vainly I shouted to her of quick- sands that lay ahead. Faster and faster she ran ; round a promontory of rock she wheeled out of sight ; in an instant I also wheeled round it, but only to see the treacherous sands gathering above her head. 15 Already her person was buried ; only the fair young head and the diadem of white roses around it were still visible to the pitying heavens ; and, last of all, was visible one white marble arm. I saw by the early twilight this fair young head, as it was sinking down 20 to darkness — saw this marble arm, as it rose above her head and her treacherous grave, tossing, faltering, rising, clutching, as at some false deceiving hand stretched out from the clouds — saw this marble arm uttering her dying hope, and then uttering her dying 25 despair. The head, the diadem, the arm — these all had sunk ; at last over these also the cruel quick- sand had closed ; and no memorial of the fair young girl remained on earth, except my own soli- tary tears, and the funeral bells from the desert 30 seas, that, rising again more softly, sang a requiem over the grave of the buried child, and over her blighted dawn. 112 DE QUINCE V. I sat, and wept in secret the tears that men have ever given to the memory of those that died be- fore the dawn, and by treachery of earth, our mother. But suddenly the tears and funeral bells were hushed by a shout as of many nations, and by 5 a roar as from some great king's artillery, ad- vancing rapidly along the valleys, and heard afar by echqes from the mountains. " Hush ! " I said, as I bent my ear earthward to listen — " hush ! This either is the very anarchy of strife, or else" — and then 10 I listened more profoundly, and whispered as I raised my head — "or else, oh Heavens ! it is victory that is final, victory that swallows up all strife." IV. Immediately, in trance, I was carried over land and 15 sea to some distant kingdom, and placed upon a triumphal car, among companions crowned with laurel. The darkness of gathering midnight, brooding over all the land, hid from us the mighty crowds that were weaving restlessly about ourselves as a center ; we 20 heard them, but saw them not. Tidings had arrived, within an hour, of a grandeur that measured itself against centuries ; too full of pathos they were, too full of joy, to utter themselves by other language than by tears, by restless anthems, and Te Deums reverber- 25 ated from the choirs and orchestras of earth. These tidings we that sat upon the laureled car had it for our privilege to publish among all nations. And already, by signs audible through the darkness, by •■ THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 113 snortingsand tramplings, our angry horses, that knew no fear of fleshly weariness, upbraided us with delay. Wherefore was it that we delayed ? We waited for a secret word, that should bear witness to the hope of 5 nations as now accomplished forever. At midnight the secret word arrived ; which word was — Waterloo and Recovered Christendom / The dreadful word shone by its own light ; before us it went ; high above our leaders' heads it rode, and spread a golden light over 10 the paths which we traversed. Every city, at the presence of the secret word, threw open the gates. The rivers were conscious as we crossed. All the forests, as we ran along their margins, shivered in homage to the secret word. And the darkness com- 15 prehended it. Two hours after midnight we approached a mighty Minster. Its gates, which rose to the clouds, were closed. But, when the dreadful word that rode before us reached them with its golden light, silently they 20 moved back upon their hinges ; and at a flying gallop our equipage entered the grand aisle of the cathedral. Headlong was our pace ; and at every altar, in the little chapels and oratories to the right hand and left of our course, the lamps, dying or sickening, kindled 25 anew in sympathy with the secret word that was flying- past. Forty leagues we might have run in the cathe- dral, and as yet no strength of morning light had reached us, when before us we saw the aerial galleries of organ and choir. Every pinnacle of the fretwork, 30 every station of advantage among the traceries, was crested by white-robed choristers that sang deliver- ance ; that wept no more tears, as once their fathers H4 DE QUINCE V. had wept ; but at intervals that sang together to the generations, saying, Chant the deliverer's praise in every tongue, and receiving answer from afar, Such as once in heaven and earth were sung. 5 And of their chanting was no end ; of our headlong pace was neither pause nor slackening. Thus, as we ran like torrents — thus, as we swept with bridal rapture over the Campo Santo* of the cathedral graves — suddenly we became aware of a 10 vast necropolis rising upon the far-off horizon — a city of sepulchers, built within the saintly cathedral for the warrior dead that rested from their feuds on earth. Of purple granite was the necropolis ; yet, in the first minute, it lay like a purple stain upon the horizon, so 15 mighty was the distance. In the second minute it trembled through many changes, growing into terraces and towers of wondrous altitude, so mighty *'■' Campo Santo." — It is probable that most of my readers will be acquainted with the history of the Campo Santo (or cemetery) 20 at Pisa, composed of earth brought from Jerusalem from a bed of sanctity, as the highest prize which the noble piety of crusaders could ask or imagine. To readers who are unacquainted with England, or who (being English) are yet unacquainted with the cathedral cities of England, it may be right to mention that the graves within-side the cathedrals often form a flat pavement over 25 which carriages and horses might run ; and perhaps a boyish remembrance of one particular cathedral, acro-s which I had seen passengers walk and burdens carried, as about two centuries back they were through the middle of St. Paul's in London, may have 30 assisted my dream. THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH, 1 15 was the pace. In the third minute already, with our dreadful gallop, we were entering its suburbs. Vast sarcophagi rose on every side, having towers and turrets that, upon the limits of the central aisle, 5 strode forward with haughty intrusion, that ran back with mighty shadows into answering recesses. Every sarcophagus showed many bas-reliefs — bas-reliefs of battles and of battlefields ; battles from forgotten ages, battles from yesterday ; battlefields that, long 10 since, nature had healed and reconciled to herself with the sweet oblivion of flowers ; battlefields that were yet angry and crimson with carnage. Where the terraces ran, there did we run ; where the towers curved, there did we curve. With the flight of i 5 swallows our horses swept round every angle. Like rivers in flood wheeling round headlands, like hurri- canes that ride into the secrets of forests, faster than ever light unwove the mazes of darkness, our flying equipage carried earthly passions, kindled warrior 20 instincts, among the dust that lay around us — dust oftentimes of our noble fathers that had slept in God from Crecy to Trafalgar. And now had we reached the last sarcophagus, now were we abreast of the last bas-relief, already had we recovered the 25 arrow-like flight of the illimitable central aisle, when coming up this aisle to meet us we beheld afar off a female child, that rode in a carriage as frail as flowers. The mists which went before her hid the fawns that drew her, but could not hide the shells and tropic 30 flowers with which she played — but could not hide the lovely smiles by which she uttered her trust in the mighty cathedral, and in the cherubim that looked Ii6 DE QUINCE Y. down upon her from the mighty shafts of its pillars. Face to face she was meeting us ; face to face she rode, as if danger there was none. " Oh, baby ! " I exclaimed, " shalt thou be the ransom for Waterloo ? Must we, that carry tidings of great joy to every 5 people, be messengers of ruin to thee ! " In horror I rose at the thought ; but then also, in horror at the thought, rose one that was sculptured on a bas-relief — a Dying Trumpeter. Solemnly from the field of battle he rose to his feet ; and, unslinging his stony 10 trumpet, carried it, in his dying anguish, to his stony lips — sounding once, and yet once again ; proclama- tion that, in thy ears, oh, baby ! spoke from the battle- ments of death. Immediately deep shadows fell be- tween us, and aboriginal silence. The choir had 15 ceased to sing. The hoofs of our horses, the dreadful rattle of our harness, the groaning of our wheels, alarmed the graves no more. By horror the bas-relief had been unlocked unto life. By horror we, that were so full of life, we men and our horses, with their 20 fiery fore legs rising in mid air to their everlasting gallop, were frozen to abas-relief. Then a third time the trumpet sounded ; the seals were taken off all pulses ; life, and the frenzy of life, tore into their channels again ; again the choir burst forth in sunny 25 grandeur, as from the muffling of storms and dark- ness ; again the thunderings of our horses carried temptation into the graves. One cry burst from our lips, as the clouds, drawing off from the aisle, showed it empty before us — "Whither has the infant fled? 30 is the young child caught up to God ? " Lo ! afar off, in a vast recess, rose three mighty windows to the THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. "7 clouds ; and on a level with their summits, a height insuperable to man, rose an altar of purest alabaster. On its eastern face was trembling a crimson glory. A glory was it from the reddening dawn that now 5 streamed through the windows ? Was it from the crimson robes of the martyrs painted on the windows ? Was it from the bloody bas-reliefs of earth ? There, suddenly, within that crimson radiance, rose the apparition of a woman's head, and then of a woman's 10 figure. The child it was — grown up to woman's height. Clinging to the horns of the altar, voiceless she stood — sinking, rising, raving, despairing ; and behind the volume of incense that, night and day streamed upward from the altar, dimly was seen the x 5 fiery font, and the shadow of that dreadful being who should have baptized her with the baptism of death. But by her side was kneeling her better angel, that hid his face with wings ; that wept and pleaded for her ; that prayed when she could not; 20 that fought with Heaven by tears for her deliverance ; which also, as he raised his immortal countenance from his wings, I saw, by the glory in his eye, that from Heaven he had won at last. V. 25 Then was completed the passion of the mighty fugue. The golden tubes of the organ, which as yet had but muttered at intervals— gleaming among clouds and surges of incense — threw up, as from fountains unfathomable, columns of heart- shattering 30 music. Choir and anti-choir were filling fast with Il8 DE QUINCE Y. unknown voices. Thou also, Dying Trumpeter, with thy love that was victorious, and thy anguish that was finishing, didst enter the tumult ; trumpet and echo — farewell love, and farewell anguish — rang through the dreadful Sanctus. Oh, darkness of the grave ! that : from the crimson altar and from the fiery font wert visited and searched by the effulgence in the angel's eye — were these indeed thy children ? Pomps of life, that, from the burials of centuries, rose again to the voice of perfect joy, did ye indeed mingle with the IO festivals of Death ? Lo ! as I looked back for seventy leagues through the mighty cathedral, I saw the quick and the dead that sang together to God, together that sang to the generations of man. All the hosts of jubilation, like armies that ride in pursuit, moved x 5 with one step. Us, that, with laureled heads, were passing from the cathedral, they overtook, and, as with a garment, they wrapped us round with thunders greater than our own. As brothers we moved together ; to the dawn that advanced, to the stars that 2 ° fled ; rendering thanks to God in the highest — that, having hid his face through one generation behind thick clouds of War, once again was ascending, from the Campo Santo of Waterloo was ascending, in the visions of Peace; rendering thanks for thee, young 25 girl ! whom having overshadowed with his ineffable passion of death, suddenly did God relent, suffered thy angel to turn aside his arm, and even in thee, sister unknown ! shown to me for a moment only to be hidden forever, found an occasion to glorify his3o goodness. A thousand times, among the phantoms of sleep, have I seen thee entering the gates of the THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 119 golden dawn, with the secret word riding before thee, with the armies of the grave behind thee — seen thee sinking, rising, raving, despairing ; a thousand times in the worlds of sleep have seen thee followed by 5 God's angel through storms, through desert seas, through the darkness of quicksands, through dreams and the dreadful revelations that are in dreams ; only that at the last, with one sling of his victorious arm, he might snatch thee back from ruin, and might io emblazon in thy deliverance the endless resurrection of his love ! AUTHOR'S POSTSCRIPT. "The English Mail Coach." — This little paper, according to my original intention, formed part of the " Suspiria de Profundis"; from which, for a momen- tary purpose, I did not scruple to detach it, and to 5 publish it apart, as sufficiently intelligible even when dislocated from its place in a larger whole. To my surprise, however, one or two critics, not carelessly in conversation, but deliberately in print, professed their inability to apprehend the meaning of the whole, or to 10 follow the links of the connection between its several parts. I am myself as little able to understand where the difficulty lies, or to detect any lurking obscurity, as these critics found themselves to unravel my logic. Possibly I may not be an indifferent and neutral judge 15 in such a case. I will therefore sketch a brief ab- stract of the little paper according to my original de- sign, and then leave the reader to judge how far this design is kept in sight through the actual execution. Thirty-seven years ago, or rather more, accident 20 made me, in the dead of night, and of a night memo- rably solemn, the solitary witness of an appalling scene, which threatened instant death in a shape the most terrific to two young people whom I had no means of assisting, except in so far as I was able to give them 25 a most hurried warning of their danger ; but even that THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 121 not until they stood within the very shadow of the catastrophe, being divided from the most frightful of deaths by scarcely more, if more at all, than seventy seconds. 5 Such was the scene, such in its outline, from which the whole of this paper radiates as a natural expan- sion. This scene is circumstantially narrated in Sec- tion the Second, entitled " The Vision of Sudden Death." 10 But a movement of horror, and of spontaneous re- coil from this dreadful scene, naturally carried the whole of that scene, raised and idealized, into my dreams," and very soon into a rolling succession of dreams. The actual scene, as looked down upon 15 from the box of the mail, was transformed into a dream, as tumultuous and changing as a musical fugue. This troubled dream is circumstantially re- ported in Section the Third, entitled " Dream-Fugue on the theme of Sudden Death." What I had beheld 20 from my seat upon the mail — the scenical strife of action and passion, of anguish and fear, as I had there witnessed them moving in ghostly silence — this duel between life and death, narrowing itself to a point of such exquisite evanescence as the collision neared ; all 25 these elements of the scene blended, under the law of association, with the previous and permanent features of distinction investing the mail itself ; which features at that time lay — 1st, in velocity unprecedented, 2d, in the power and beauty of the horses, 3d, in the official 30 connection with the government of a great nation, and, 4th, in the function, almost a consecrated function, of publishing and diffusing through the land 122 BE QUINCE Y. the great political events, and especially the great battles, during a conflict of unparalleled grandeur. These honorary distinctions are all described circum- stantially in the First or introductory Section (" The Glory of Motion." ) The three first were distinctions 5 maintained at all times ; but the fourth and grandest belonged exclusively to the war with Napoleon ; and this it was which most naturally introduced Waterloo into the dream. Waterloo, I understand, was the par- ticular feature of the " Dream-Fugue " which my 10 censors were least able to account for. Yet surely Waterloo, which, in common with every other great battle, it had been our special privilege to publish over all the land, most naturally entered the dream under the license of our privilege. If not — if there 15 be anything amiss — let the Dream be responsible. Ihe Dream is a law to itself ; and as well quarrel with a rainbow for showing, or for not showing, a secondary arch. So far as I know, every element in the shifting movements of the Dream derived itself 20 either primarily from the incidents of the actual scene, or from secondary features associated with the mail. For example, the cathedral aisle derived itself from the mimic combination of features which grouped themselves together at the point of approaching 25 collision — viz., an arrowlike section of the road, six hundred yards long, under the solemn lights de- scribed, with lofty trees meeting overhead in arches. The guard's horn, again, — a humble instrument in it- self, — was yet glorified as the organ of publication for 30 so many great national events. And the incident of the Dying Trumpeter, who rises from a marble bas-re- THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 123 lief, and carries a marble trumpet to his marble lips foi the purpose of warning the female infant, was doubtless secretly suggested by my own imperfect effort to seize the guard's horn and to blow a warn- 5 tng blast. But the Dream knows best ; and the Dream, I say again, is the responsible party. THE END. NOTES. The text of both pieces here printed follows that of the latest Edinburgh edition. The footnotes are by De Quincey himself. JOAN OF ARC. (Composed early in 1847 ; see p. 17 : 14.) The literature on this much vexed question is already extensive and is still growing. See Larousse, Grand Dictionnaire Uni- versel du XIXe Steele, sub Dare, Jeanne. In imaginative litera- ture the best known pieces are, for English : Southey's Joan of Arc and Vision of the Maid of Orleans; for German, Schiller's Jungfrau von Orleans; for French, Voltaire's La Pucelle. The Maid appears also in 1 Henry VI.; it is impossible to believe that Act I. scene 2, and Act V. scenes 3 and 4 are by Shakspere. Of Southey, Schiller, and Voltaire it may be safely asserted, once for all, that their conception of the Maid is unworthy of them- selves and of her ; as treated by them, she is an historic and artistic impossibility. De Quincey is the first imaginative writer to portray the Maid in the true light. His article, published in Tait's Magazine, March and August, 1847, is a spontaneous effusion, inspired by perusal of Michelet's History. It begins with the abruptness of an epic poem. In the Revue des Deux Mondes, February 15, 1893, is an article by the Count G. de Contades, entitled La Jeanne d 'Arc de Thomas de Quincey, which may be useful for introducing the English essayist to the French public, but which adds nothing to our knowledge. The Count has a low opinion of English humor : Englishmen, unfortu- nately, are " heavy in their badinage, rude and sometimes sinister in their jesting." Poor De. Quincey ! 125 126 NOTES. No attempt is made in the present volume to give the real his- tory of the Maid and her times ; the subject is too difficult and complicated for anything but a special historical monograph. Only such explanations are given here as seemed necessary to make the ordinary reader feel the full significance of De Quincey's allusions. 2:5, act. Compare : Im Anfang war die That, Faust, 1237. — 10. Station of good will. De Quincey seems to use station here in the surveyor's sense, " the place selected for planting the instru- ment with which an observation is to be made," Cent. Diet. 70. — 17, scepter . . . Judah. See Gen. xlix. 10. — 23. Vaucouleurs. In view of the spelling Vaucouleur, adopted by Southey and others, it may not be amiss to state that the s is an organic part of the P'rench form. The Latin is oppidujji de Vallecoloris, see Quicherat, Proces, etc., i. 53 and passim. 3:7, even yet may happen. De Quincey believes that Joan may yet be exalted to the rank of a national heroine and perhaps even canonized. The first has been almost, if not quite, accomplished ; as to the second, present indications all point that way. The character of Joan was vindicated centuries ago ; by decree, July 7, 1456, of a papal commission under the presidency of the arch- bishop of Reims, the sentence pronounced and executed upon Joan was reversed and her memory exonerated from all taint of heresy. 4:9, wither them. Allusion to the Revolution of 1789, in consequence of which the jleur de lis ceased to be the national emblem. — 25, recovered liberty. Allusion to the Revolution of July, 1830, which expelled the restored Bourbons. De Quincey is writing just before the Revolution of 1848, the mutterings of which were already audible. 5:5, Michelet. Born 1798, died 1874. See Larousse. In 1838 was appointed professor of history and ethics in the College de France. In his lectures, which were very popular, he attacked savagely the Jesuits. The substance of the lectures appeared in book form as follows : Des Je'suites, 1843 ; Du Pritre, de la Femme, et de la Famille, 1844 ; Du Peuple, 1 845. In 1847 he was suspended from lecturing, by order of the Orleanist govern- JOAN- OF ARC. 127 ment. The revolutionary government of 1848 offered to restore him to his functions, but he declined the offer, preferring inde- pendent authorship. His Histoire de France, in six volumes, appeared 1835-1844. The part relating to Joan is in Vol. V., published 1841. — 28, Chevy Chase. The early version of the lines, here parodied runs in Bishop Percy's folio : the stout Erie of Northumberland a vow to God did make, his pleasure in the Scottish woods 3 som;«ers days to take. See edition by Hales and Furnivall, II., p. 7. 6 : 30, note. Refers to Quicherat, Proces de Condamnation et de Rehabilitation de Jeanne d'Arc, 1841-49. Five volumes, com- plete and indexed. 7:18, Delenda est, etc. Imitated by De Quincey after the maxim of Cato the Elder : Delenda est Carthago, with which he is said to have concluded every speech of his in the Roman Senate. 8 : 1, Suffren. In the Boston edition of De Quincey the name is misspelled Suffrein. Pierre Andre de Suffren, 1726-88, was a conspicuous figure in the naval contest between France and England. His chief exploits were in the East Indies. According to Doniel, Histoire de la Participation de la France a V Etablisse- ment des Flats Unis, IV. 558, note 1, Suffren was in De Grasse's fleet when it left Brest for Yorktown, 1781, but off the Azores was detached with five vessels on an expedition against the Cape of Good Hope. He was thus very nearly a participant in the siege that led to the surrender of Cornwallis. — 7. magnani- mous. The treatment of Joan in Henry VI. is anything but magnanimous. 12 : 24, Papal interdicts. De Quincey has probably in mind such an interdict as that pronounced in 1200, by Innocent III., against France. All ecclesiastical functions were suspended and the land was in desolation. See Hart, German Universities, p. 210. — 24, tragedies, etc. The Emperor is Konradin, the last of the Hohenstaufen, beheaded by Charles of Anjou at Naples, 1268. The subsequent cruelties of Charles in Sicily caused 128 NOTES. the popular uprising known as the Sicilian Vespers, 1282, in which many thousands of Frenchmen were assassinated. — 28, flight from earth. The battle of Cre'cy, in which the English archers (yeomen or plebeians) were completely victorious over the French horsemen (knights and squires), is usually taken to be the beginning of the downfall of mediaeval feudalism and its peculiar military system. 13 : 1, double Pope. The great "schism of the West," during which the rival Popes at Avignon and Rome fought each other with pen and sword, lasted about forty years. At one time, in fact, there were three claimants to the tiara. Peace was at last established in 141 7, with the installation of Martin V. in the Vatican. See Student's Gibbon, ch. xxxix, £^ iS, 19. — 5, rents which no man should ever heal, i. e., Lutheran or Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. De Quincey means that all the disturbances in the mediaeval church were only a preparation for the final disruption effected by Luther. 1 5 '• l 5- The Vosges, in German Vogesen t were again the scene of terrible fighting in the Franco-German war of 1870. 16 : 13. 1 >e Quincey's memory is here at fault ; the remark is not made by Sir Roger but to him. In the paper called Sit at the Assizes, at the end, Sir Roger a>ks his friend's opinion of a tavern sign, originally his (Sir Roger's) face, but now altered into a Saracen's head, whether it is more like him or the Saracen, to which the friend replies: "That much might be said on both sides." 17: 10, Bergeteta. Very lace Latin, coined from the French bergerette, shepherdess. — 20-30. The practice of yoking women with animals for field-work is still in vogue on the Continent. The flogging (of the women) is perhaps mythical. 18: 19, Friday. The attendant of Robinson Crusoe. 19: 1-5, as-tn donne* au cochon a manger t I hue you fed the pig; as-ln saiti'e les fleurs-de-lys, Have you saved the kingdom ; see 4 : 9,. and note. 20 : 3, So ut hey s Joan. The poem was the very crude perform- ance of Southey's youth. For a fuller statement of De Quincey's estimate of it, see his paper on Charles Lamb, new Edinburgh ed., V. 238-242. — 21, f>rieks for sheriff. " The Lord Lieu- JOAN OF ARC. 129 tenant [of the county] prepares a list of persons qualified to serve, and returns three names. . . The list is then sent to the sover- eign, who, without looking at it, strikes a bodkin among the names, and he whose name is pierced is elected," Cent. Diet. De Quincey must be wrong in saying that the sovereign "pricks for two men out of three." There is only one sheriff for a county. — 25, Lady of the Orient. The additional title Empress of India was assumed by Victoria in 1S76 ; she was proclaimed such at Delhi, January 1, 1877. 21 : 15, tin pen fort, going too far, coming it rather strong. — 18-20, dauphin . . . no crown. At the death of Charles VI. (see p. 12 : 4) in 1422, his son was proclaimed his suc- cessor, as Charles VII. But the English declared him illegiti- mate and contested his claim, setting up the infant Henry VI. Being in possession of the greater part of Northern France, they prevented the consecration of Charles VII. at Reims, then regarded as an essential feature of the royal suc- cession. 22:i, the English boy. At this time (1429) Henry VI. was only in his ninth year. — 4, ovens of Rheiins. The city is well known for its cake bakeries. But De Quincey seems to have in mind a French popular saying ; it has not been traced. — 18, Matthew Tindal, one of the English deists, 1656-1733. His Christianity as Old as the Creation, or the Gospel a Republi- cation of the Religion of Nature, was published 1730. — 22, Joseph Cottle, bookseller and publisher of Bristol. A friend and admirer of Southey and Coleridge in their youth. He wrote also some poetry ; but his best known work is his Reminiscences of Coleridge and Southey, 1847. 23:11-20, Par. Reg., i. 196-205. — 26, France Delivered. Imitated by De Quincey from the title of Tasso's poem, Jerusalem Delivered. 25:12, excepting one man. This is ambiguous. If De Quincey refers to Joan's first appearance before the Dauphin at Chinon (p. 20 : 10), her steadfast supporter was the Due d'Alencon (Michelet, V. 63) ; if he refers to the march from Orleans to Patay, Troyes, and Reims, the president of the council, Macon, seems to be the man (Michelet, V. 87). In popular accounts *3° NOTES. Dunois, the Bastard, is her stanchest admirer. Schiller represents him in love with her. See Jtmgfrau, Act IV. scene 12. 27 : 4, Nolebat uti t etc. , she was loath to use her sword or slay anyone. 28: 15, Bishop that art, etc. De Quincey is here echoing the prophecy of the witches to Macbeth, Act I. scene 3, and Lady Macbeth's soliloquy, Act I. scene 5. For fuller account of Bishop of Beauvais see note to pp. 43-45. — 18, triple crown, the pope's tiara. 29 : 5. Criminal procedure in France is still open to the charges here brought against it. It may be said to act upon the theory that the accused must prove his innocence. — 29. Dominican. The prosecution was conducted by two of this monastic order : Jean Le Maitre, prior of the convent of St. James, in Rouen, and Jean Graverent, Grand Inquisitor of France. Which of the two De Quincey means is not clear. Nor will any one of the interrog- atories in the full text of Quicherat, or in Michelet's summary, answer to De Quincey 's " objection." Again his memory seems to have played him false. 32 : 20. See Ezekiel xxxvii. 1-10. 33 : 25, daughter of Casars. Marie Antoinette was the daughter of the German emperor, Francis I. The official title of the (old) empire was The Holy Roman Empire of Germany, resting upon the political fiction of a transfer of the empire from the ancient Romans to the Germans in the person of Charlemagne, and its transmission through his German successors, until its dissolution, in 1806, by Napoleon. 35 : 24, Judaic, Satanic. English poetry, indeed English litera- ture in general, from its frequent Old Testament allusions and sentiments, has been called Judaic by more than one Continental critic. The epithet Satanic was applied by Southey, in the preface to his Vision of Judgment, 182 1, to the younger set of writers then prominent. No names were mentioned, but it was generally known that the thrust was aimed at Byron, Leigh Hunt, Shelley, etc. 36 : 27. The question of the authorship of the Imitation of Christ is still in dispute. 38 : 27, burgoo. A thick oatmeal gruel or porridge used chiefly JOAN OF ARC. 131 by seamen. The Phil. Diet, adds " derivation unknown." According to London A then., October 6, 1888, the word is a cor- ruption of Arabic burghul, see Dozy, Suppl. anx Diet. Arabes, I. 73, 74- 39 : 4, personal rancor. De Quincey's estimate is not perfectly true. In the Neronian persecution certainly the Christians were treated as miserable outcasts, the personal enemies of the gods, the emperor, and the commonwealth. Nero tried to fasten upon them the responsibility for the burning of Rome. — 13, qui ne se rendent pas. See note to p. 59 : 31. — 34. Michelet's History of France, translated by Walter K. Kelly ; London, Chapman & Hall ; 2 vols., 1844-46. 42 : 13, rise from the dead. See Lnke, xvi. 31. 42 : 15, 44 : 14 (see also p. 28 : 15). Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais and Rector of the University of Paris. Appropriately called by Quicherat I'dme damne'e des princes de Lancastre. Made bishop of Beauvais in 1420. Expelled from his bishopric in 1429, by the people, as a traitor, he followed the fortunes of the English party, with the promise from them of being made Archbishop of Reims. But the promise was never kept. When Joan was captured at Compiegne, he claimed jurisdiction over her, that town being in the Beauvais diocese. As presiding judge he resorted to every means, however infamous, for securing her condemnation. After his death, 1442 or 1443, the people dug up his remains and threw them in the public sewer. De Quincey represents him as dying in bed, 42 : 15, haunted with the vision of his victim. This is not historical. According to Quicherat, iii. 165, he died suddenly while getting shaved: "mortuus est subito, faciendo fieri barbam suam." — 25, English Prince, Regent. John, Duke of Bedford, brother of Henry V., and leader of the English interests in France. — 26, Lord of IVm- chester. Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, half-brother of Henry IV. Made cardinal in 1426. The most active and in- fluential English prelate of his day. Member of the court that tried Joan. For the story that he " died and made no sign " see 2 Henry VI, Act III. scene 3, end. It is in the old chronicles, but is not supported by contemporary evidence. 45: 16, see Isaiah lxiii. 1. Exactly what De Quincey means 132 MoteS. • by " bloody coronation robes from Rheims" is not as clear as one might wish. There seems to be a tacit assumption on the part of all modern writers that Joan appeared in armor at the consecration of Charles VII. at Reims ; if she did, this armor may very well have been stained with blood, for there was hard fighting at the capture of Troyes, only a week before. But there is no contem- porary mention of Joan's habiliments at the consecration ; the only point certain is that during the ceremony she held her famous standard. At her execution at Rouen she was dressed in female attire, Michelet, V. 167. THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. (In revising the original Blackwood articles for the Edinburgh edition, 1854, the author made many changes. For a full account of them the reader must consult the new Masson edition, XIII. 270-330. The present text follows Professor Masson's, omitting, however, his notes). r. Glory of Motion. 46 : 20. Professor Masson corrects this statement. Lady Made- lina Gordon, daughter of the Duke of Gordon, was first married to Sir Robert Sinclair, subsequently to Mr. Charles Palmer, not to Mr. John Palmer of mail-coach renown. — 24. The inventio sancta crucis, or finding by the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, of the true cross in Jerusalem upon which Christ suffered, is a celebrated church legend. See Smith, Dic- tionary of Christian Antiquities, I. 504. The calendar day for the Western Church is now May 3. 48 : 20. De Quincey's language is, to say the least, provoking. If by college he means dormitory or the like, the universities of the Continent, and also of Scotland, have none. In fact " college," in the Anglo-American sense, is scarcely known save in England proper and America. — 26. According to the Cent. Diet., sub Terms, the four periods of the college year at Oxford are now Michaelmas, Hilary, Easter, and Trinity. De Quincey seems to THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. i$3 use Lent= Hilary. Trinity was formerly called Act, because of the act or thesis submitted for a degree ; see Phil. Diet, sub Act, 8. 49 : 32, Pariahs. A favorite word with De Quincey from childhood ; see Masson, Life, ch. i. 50 : 32. In full : de non apparentibus et non existentibus eadem est lex. 51 : 29. In the strikes of those days the workmen who accepted lower wages were called snobs; those who held out for higher, nobs. £2 : 12, attics, garrets. This use of plural form with singular meaning is not common in England. At least no example is given in Phil. Diet., sub attic, nor in Cent. Diet., sub garret. It is heard occasionally in the United States. — 18, Great wits jump. Probably used in the Shaksperean sense of " agree, coincide," e. g., " both our inventions meet and jump in one," Taming of Shrew, Act I. scene 1, 195 ; " they jump not on a just account," Othello, Act I. scene 3, 5, i. e., the reports of the Turkish fleet do not agree in the number of ships. — 19. The point of the irony lies in the circumstance that one of the names for China is Tien Chan, Heavenly Dynasty, usually translated Celestial Empire. 53 : 9» fi rs * ? or d °f th e treasury. In England, the Prime Minister. De Quincey's application of the title to Chinese affairs is burlesque. — 27, jury-reins. Coined by De Quincey in imitation of jury-mast, a temporary mast, in place of the regular mast that has been carried away or broken. According to Skeat's letter of March 8, 1884 (in London Academy) jury is for ajury, from Anglo-French ajuere=\ J $X\n adjuvare " to aid." A jury-mast is thus an aid-mast, an adjutory mast. 54 : 8, ca ira. The burden of a French song extremely popular in the Revolution of 1789. According to Larousse, Grand Diet., etc., it originated probably in 1790, author unknown, and was at first merely a popular theme and air expressive of hope and exulta- tion in the new freedom. Later, in the struggle between the Jacobins and the adherents of royalty, it was accentuated by the terrible refrain : Les aristocrates a la lanterne ! Les aristocrates on les pendra ! 55 • J 8, noters. Since noters and protesters are coupled together as persons who make the debtor's life miserable, the word cannot 134 NOTES. mean the maker of a promissory note. Can it be for noterer, an archaic form of notary ? 56 : 4, parliamentary rat. Epithet applied to one who goes over to the other party. 57:16, sEneid, ii, 312. 58 : 15, qnarterings. See 99 : 15, note. — 21, benefit of clergy. "Originally the privilege of exemption from trial by a secular court, allowed to, or claimed by, clergymen arraigned for felony ; in later times the privilege of exemption from the sentence, which, in the case of certain offenses, might be pleaded on his first con- viction, by everyone who could read. Abolished ... in 1827. The ability to read, being originally merely the test of the 'clergy,' or clerical position, came at length to be in itself the ground of the privilege." Phil. Diet., sub clergy, 6. As a term of ordinary literature, a felony "without benefit of clergy " means practically a criminal charge for which the offender must stand his trial, and — if convicted — his punishment. 59 : 31. The legendary answer made by Cambronne, commander of the Old Guard, when summoned to surrender. The real answer is given by Victor Hugo in Les Mistfrables. The legend of the Vengeur is that the crew refused to surrender in the fight off Ushant, June I, 1794, and fired a last broadside, sinking with the shout, Vive la Rdpnblique. In fact the ship sank while the crew were crying for help. 60:23. See "false, fleeting, perjured Clarence," Richard III., Act I. scene 4, 55. 61 : 13. See " Besides the King's name is a tower of strength, Which they upon the adverse party want," Richard III., Act V. scene 3, 12. 62:8, omrahs. An Anglo-Indian term, from Arabic omara, pi. of amir (ameer), a Mohammedan court-grandee. The // is a clumsy attempt to represent the long a vowel ; while the s is the addition of an English plural sign to a word that is already plural, like banditties for Ital. bandit?', pi. of bandito. — 31, Roman Pearl "An imitation pearl made of a ball of alabaster or similar mineral substance, upon which is spread pure white wax, which in its turn is coated with oriental-pearl essence," Cent. Diet., sub pearl, 14. THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 135 63 : 1. De Quincey is making fun of the Welsh obtuseness to a joke. Coaches in Plantagenet England were as unknown as snakes in Iceland, 56 : 3. Also making fun of the reader, who is not supposed to know that the Statute 6 Edward I. has only- fifteen chapters ! 64 : 12, Nile, i. e., the battle of the Nile (or Bay of Aboukir), Nelson's victory, August 1, 179S. — 28, Pot-walloping. " The sound made by a pot in boiling," Cent. Diet. 66 : 14. For the slaying of the wooers of Penelope see Odyssey, xxii. 67:14. See "But all our praises why should lords engross, Rise, honest Muse ! and sing the Man of Ross," Pope, Epistle on Use of Riches, 249. 68 : 26, Turrets. De Quincey probably has in mind the "torets fyled rounde " of the Knight's Tale, 1294. If the word is indeed the same, it has changed its meaning. The Chaucerian term is applied to a dog's collar, not to the trappings of a horse, and means an eye in which a ring will turn round. In Eliza- bethan English it meant an amulet or little ring by which a hawk's lure was fastened to the jesses. Skeat's note on Knighfs Tale, 1294. 69 : 32, Sindbad (Es Sindibad). See The Thousand and One Nights, translated by E. W. Lane. 3 Vols., London ; 1865. Vol. III. ch. xx. The "old scoundrel" is the Old Man of the Sea, who rides Sindbad nearly to death. At last Sindbad makes him drunk with wine, the Old Man falls off to the ground, and Sindbad breaks his skull with a stone. 71 ': 24, down from London. Englishmen invariably speak of the direction away from London as going down into the country ; the reverse is going up to London. 73 : 17, attelage, team of horses. 75 : 30, American writer. The name is not ascertainable, apparently. It is quite possible that the writer in question may have indulged in some harmless ridicule of English brag, and that De Quincey has taken him too seriously. 76 : 26, Columbian standards. Perhaps a covert sneer, imply- ing that America is not much more civilized now than when discovered by Columbus. I3 6 NOTES. 80 : 7, fey. De Quincey implies that the word is Celtic. This is not correct ; it is a genuine English word, Anglo-Saxon fage, doomed, fated. 2. The Vision of Sudden Death. Bearing in mind De Quincey's mention of laudanum, 90 : 28, one is tempted to speculate upon the ratio of fact to fiction in the following narrative. The incident is of course possible. But it would be hard to draw a clear dividing line between this Vision and the Dream-Fugue. 85 : 29, fiiadavaros. De Quincey has evidently taken this from John Donne's treatise : BIAGANATOS, A Declaration of that Paradoxe or Thesis, That Self- homicide is not so naturally Sin, that it may never be otherwise, 1644. See his paper on Suicide, etc. , Masson's ed. VIII. 398. But not even Donne's precedent justifies the word-formation. The only acknowledged compounds are fiiaiodavacta, " violent death," and fiiaioQavaroq , " dying a violent death." Even (3ta davarog, " death by violence," is not classical. 88: 21, Nature . . sighing, Paradise Lost, IX. 782. 89 : 14, down mail. See p. 71 : 24 note. — 28. The date sug- gested by 89 : 6 is vague ; the summer in question may be 18 17 or 1818. De Quincey was married in the end of 1816. 90: 28, laudanum. De Quincey was at his worst from the middle of 1817 to the middle of 1819 ; see Masson's Life, ch. vi. — 30, beyond London, i. e., to the south of London. Which one of De Quincey's numerous southern flittings is here meant is hardly possible now to determine. 91 : 7. See Aineid, III. 658. The monster is Polyphemus. — 12, Calender. " Also Kalender. Persian qalandar, of unknown origin One of a mendicant order of dervishes in Turkey and Persia," Phil. Diet. For the story of the Three Calenders (mendicants), with shaven chins, each blind of the left eye, see Lane, The Thousand and One Nights, I. ch. 3, and note 24. — 21, A I Sir at, "the bridge over which all must pass on the day of judgment, extending over the midst of Hell, finer than a hair and sharper than a sword," Lane, The Thousand and One Nights, II., ch. 15, note 41. The tradition is not in the Koran. — 27, 28, After the phrase "too elegant to be pedantic," the. THE ENGLISH MAIL COACH. 137 original article in Blackwood added : ' ' And also take this remark from me as a gage d' ami tie — that no word ever was or can be pedantic which, by supporting a distinction, supports the accuracy of logic, or which fills up a chasm for the understanding." See Introduction, p. xxiii. 94 : 30, seven atmospheres of sleep. De Quincey is indulging in jocular arithmetic. The three nights plus the three days, 94 : 14, plus the present night equal seven. 99 : 2, 6. De Quincey, it will be observed, speaks of the right side of the road as the wrong. In England the law is to drive to the left. — 15, quartering. Used also 58 : 15. 100 : 20, taxed cart. Now usually tax-cart. A little spring- cart. "Vehicles not over the value of ^21, formerly termed taxed carts, and, since their exemption from tax, usually called in the provinces tax-carts," Cent. Diet. Not the heavy American cart, for hauling earth, etc., but a light open two-wheeled vehicle for driving, similar to the present dog-cart. 102:4, shout of Achilles. See Iliad, XVIII, 228 [Achilles is standing on the wall of the Greek camp] : ' ' Thrice great Achilles spake, And thrice (in heat of all the charge) the Trojans started back. Twelve men, of greatest strength in Troy, left with their lives exhaled. Their chariots and their darts, to death with his three summons called." Chapman's translation. 103 : 13, shilling a day, i. e., the pay of a private soldier. 3. Dream- Fugue. 107:15, Par. Lost, IX. 558-563. — 21, woman's Ionic form. An allusion to the old story of the origin of the styles of Greek architecture, as told by Vitruvius, IV. ch. 1: "They measured a man's foot, and finding its length the sixth part of his height, they gave the column a similar proportion, that is, they made its height six times the thickness of the shaft measured at the base. Thus the Doric order obtained its proportion, its strength, and its beauty, from the human figure. With a similar feeling they after- ward built the temple of Diana. But in that, seeking a new proportion, they used the female figure as a standard ; and for the purpose of producing a more lofty effect, they first made it eight times its thickness in height. Under it they placed a base, after / 1 yf.\r 138 NOTES. the manner of a shoe to the foot ; they also added volutes to its capital, like graceful curling hair hanging on each side, and the front they ornamented with cytnatia and festoons in the place of hair. On the shafts they sunk channels, which bear a resemblance to the folds of a matronal garment. Thus two orders were invented, one of a masculine character, without ornament, the other bearing a character which resembled the delicacy, ornament, and proportion of a female. The successors of these people, improving in taste, and preferring a more slender proportion, assigned seven diameters to the height of the Doric column, and eight and a half to the Ionic." Gwilt's translation. 113 : 14. " And the light shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not." John i. 5. — 30, station of advantage. Compare "coign of vantage," Macbeth, Act I. scene 6, 7. De Quincey probably uses advantage here in an obsolete sense — rising ground, commanding position. See Phil. Diet., advantage, 3. author's postscript. This is the heading introduced by Professor Masson, who says : "What is now printed properly as a ' Postscript ' was printed by De Quincey himself as a portion of the Preface which he prefixed in 1854 to the volume of his Collected Writings containing The English Mail Coach." In the Edinburgh ed. of 1862 it is found pp. xii-xiv of Vol. VI. LRB S '21