Ex Libris [ C. K. OGDEN THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES MORE MEMORIES OF DEAN HOLE. MOEE MEMORIES: THOUGHTS ABOUT ENGLAND SPOKEN IN AMERICA. BY THE VERY REV. S. REYNOLDS HOLE, DEAN OP ROCHESTER. LONDON: EDWARD ARNOLD, 37, BEDFOKD STKEET, STRAND, W.C. to tijc JEirtfta Office. 1894. (All rights reserved.) DA J TO THE KIND FRIENDS, ON EITHER SIDE OF THE ATLANTIC, WHO SUGGESTED THIS BOOK, IT IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOE. 1 C57547 PKEFACE. EECEIVING simultaneously requests for " More Memories " and invitations to give Lectures in America, I have endeavoured in this volume to combine my compliance, with a very grateful appre- ciation of the honour conferred upon me. S. REYNOLDS HOLE. CONTENTS. i. PERSONAL. PAGE Fear and hope Some misapprehension as to our appreciations of America General Washington American authors Subjects and objects of addresses ... ... ... ... ... 1 II. ECCLESIASTICAL. The American Episcopate Bishops of to-day The Church of Eng- land fifty years ago In the villages The fabric Services Sermons Music The transformation ... ... ... 12 III. PREACHING AND PREACHERS. Earnest preaching and written sermons The education of the memory Simplicity and brevity Pusey and Newman Wilber- force Canon Liddon Living preachers ... ... ... 34 IV. CHURCH SERVICES AND MISSIONS. American admiration of English cathedrals Hawthorne Wendell Holmes Lowell "A petrified Religion," fifty years ago Vlll CONTENTS. PAGE Recent progress, structural and devotional Elaborate and con- gregational music Multiplication of services Foreign and Home Missions Plan and progress of the latter, occasional and permanent Organization and successful work of the Universities' and Public Schools' Missions ... ... 59 V. OUR PERPLEXITIES. Drunkenness Includes all who are " worse for drink " Some of the causes The remedies Total abstinence and temperance Doctors differ Prevention better than cure America foremost in the crusade Decrease of drunkenness 82 VI. OBSERVANCE OF SUNDAY. Causes of disregard and desecration Who are most to blame ? Dif- ferences of opinion as to the manner of observance The open- ing of galleries and museums The Bishop of New York and Dean Stanley on the subject Cremation : not popular in England When expedient Discontinued by the Romans when converted to Christianity Funeral reform ... ... ... ... 94 VII. CHURCH PROGRESS. Imperishable faith The sword of the appressor is the pruning- knife of the Vine Sacrilege The Higher Criticism The old paths Church and State Zeal and humility Toleration and unity ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 108 VIII. EDUCATION. The chief contention A mere secular education has not been a success Evidence at home and abroad Effects of the " cramming " system Adaptation The classics Technical schools Ladies and gentlemen ... ... ... ... ... ... 114 CONTENTS. IX IX. MARRIAGE. PAGE Its happiness The Rose looking in at the window Early instincts My first lover's lay Some sad mistakes A caution to lovers Old customs ... ... ... ... ... ... 137 X. OUR ARISTOCRACY. A mixture, as in all other sorts and conditions of men Injustice of sweeping condemnations Noblesse oblige " Drunk as a lord " Rebuke of an unjust steward ... ... ... ... 145 XI. THE WORKING-MEN. Two kinds of working-men accurately described The dignity and the happiness of work Timoleon d'Ecossais The contest between industry and indolence Sympathy between rich and poor Lying prophets who would dissuade from work The smoke nuisance and sanitary laws ... ... ... ... ... ... 151 XII. POLITICS. A disagreeable subject Party-spirit Early recollections, politics and port wine Protection and Free Trade Charles Dickens on patriotism Lord Rosebery's brighter hopes Analogous temp- tations Gladstone O'Connell Peel Daniel Webster John Bright Palmerston D'Israeli ... ... ... ... 161 XIII. WHY ARE SPEAKERS SO MANY AND ORATORS SO FEW? Vain excuses No effort of preparation Daunted by failure Earnest- ness the indispensable element of success Cor paratum The speaker must be master of his subject, and must make a clear plan of his argument Utterance and manner ... ... ... 176 X CONTENTS. XIV. FLOWERS AND FLORISTS. PAGE The love of flowers from childhood to old age Why and how it should be encouraged Among schoolboys by cottage-garden societies in public parks and grounds Window plants ... 187 XV. THE DESIGN AND THE DELIGHTS OF A GARDEN. The love of famous men for their gardens Milton, Bacon, Sir W. Temple, Pope, Addison How to make, and how to mar, a garden A large proportion of grass indispensable .. ... ... 195 XVI. ABOUT ROSES. A memorable conversation Confession of failure Flora autocratic and capricious Love the first element of success Pare air Shelter, not shade Soil Form Standards and bushes Stocks Manetti and briar varieties Exhibition and garden roses Summary of experience "Where to purchase ... ... ... 204 XVIL MY VERSES. God help our Men at Sea ! Peace A Tale of Pride and Punishment Waiting at table . 217 XVIII. THE DRAMA. Number of actors and actresses Dignity and degradation of the Drama How to distinguish? The Church and the Stage Re- ligious plays Ober-Ammergau Use and abuse Teaching of the Drama, ancient and modern Who are responsible ? ... ... 230 CONTENTS. XI XIX. BORES. PACK The gnats and wasps of society The bore selects a subject in which you have no interest How he defeats your attempts to escape He must be severely snubbed Example The parasite The pessimist The malade imaginaire The man with one idea The bore epistolary On board ship In carriages, doorways, etc. ... 239 XX. IMPOSTORS. Excusable Clever Impudent Transparent Spiritualists Addison on witchcraft Masculine women Ancient beaux and belles Religious impostors Misrepresentations Tracts Formalists New religions ... ... ... ... ... ... 255 XXI. OUR SPORTS AND GAMES. Gain and loss Less cruelty Reigns of Elizabeth and Mary Bait- ing of bears and bulls Proceedings in Parliament Scene at Madrid Hunting : the most popular of all our sports The meet The find Incidents of the chase ... ... ... ... 277 XXII. HORSES AND RACING. Their beauty and their use Horsemen on either side of the Atlantic Cavaliers and cowboys Dr. Johnson with the Brighton Harriers Breeding and testing horses Racing in itself harmless, but abused and degraded Americans at Epsom Worse men than Welshers ., 29 ^ ( xii ) ILLUSTRATIONS. THE DEANERY, EOCHESTER (From a Photo by J. J. Eastmead, Rochester) ... ... ... ... Frontispiece BOCHESTER CATHEDRAL, WEST FROST Vignette on Title-page MORE MEMORIES. i. PERSONAL. Fear and hope Some misapprehension as to our appreciations of America General Washington American authors Subjects and objects of addresses. IF I am presumptuous in obtruding upon your notice so large an amount of British humanity, if I should fail to evoke your interest, and to win your appro- bation, I can only call upon those who, privately, suggested my visit by their cordial invitations, and publicly encouraged it by their genial praise of my books, to retire with me into the wilderness to share and to solace my despair. But I will not anticipate such a doleful disaster. The kindness which I have already received, my earnest anxiety to please, the object of my enterprise, the sympathy which has always responded to my love for my fellow-men, to my " enthusiasm of humanity," these all combine to assure me that you will minimize my faults, which B 2 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. are many, and will magnify my merits, which are few. In the days of my boyhood there was a custom in our English homes, when a new little brother or a new little sister was given to our love, to trace with pins on a large white pincushion this shining salutation -Tr.TVv" .--<-:. -"-"I 1" T:T:"":T T.~ Qrf"""J A ~.T ~ f :"":-T" f V v .ij.-.L:V. A../.!A:Cl JIL: .J.. JJ. 1 J. .UJJ;.: iO .-. .iTui^.:. * '^.X'j,'.:* IV and as I seem to read a similar reception, in the bright eyes and smiling faces before me, I am inspired with the hopeful, happy ambition, that the little stranger may grow in your esteem, and enlarge him- self to your affectionate regard. I am here, ladies and gentlemen, not only in response to the kindly inducements which I have mentioned I may add that your reviewers have almost made me of Jefferson's mind, when he said, " that if it were left for him to decide whether there should be a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, he should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter"- but I come to realize my lifelong desire to see your wonder- ful country, its cities, and its scenery, its rivers,. " broad, and deep, and brimming over, making their waves a blessing as they flow," the splendid glories of your forests in " the fall," the triumphs of your inventive and industrial power. You come to us to venerate the past ; we come PERSONAL. 3 to you to admire the present and to anticipate the future the progress of a mighty people, which, while all the other nations of the world are armed to the teeth, yet ever seeking new armaments, amid wars and rumours of wars, work on in peace, practising that which your great poet preached " Were half the power that fills the world with terror, Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, Given to redeem the human mind from error, There were no need of arsenals and forts." It has been said by an American bishop, that all we English people knew about American history was the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers upon Plymouth Rock, and that he became so wearied by monotonous references to this particular embarkation, that he began to wish that the arrangements had been reversed, and that Plymouth Rock had landed on the Pilgrim Fathers ! Such a KaTaa-Tporj would not only have been fatal to the Fathers, but would have deprived America of some of her most famous men, and certainly of one of her most famous institutions ; for it was Elihu Yale, the son of one of these Pilgrim Fathers, whose munificence to the Newhaven College at Connecticut induced the trustees to rename it " Yale College." I have seen his monument in the churchyard at Wrexham, North Wales, and remember part of the inscription " Born in America, in Europe bred, In Africa travell'd, and in Asia wed, Where long he lived and thrived, In London dead. 4 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. Much good, some ill, he did, So hope all 's even, And that his soul, through mercy, 's gone to heaven." To the same purport I read, not many months ago, in Harper, that " when an Englishman came to the States, all that he brought was himself." I am constrained to acknowledge that there is too much truth in this impeachment. Insularity does not tend to enlighten ignorance, or to enlarge ex- perience, and riches and honour rarely promote humility. I have read of a certain Emperor of Tartary, who, when he proceeded to dine, princi- pally on horse-flesh, sent a herald to announce, out- side his tent, that all the other emperors, kings, presidents, and plenipotentiaries throughout the world had his permission to feed, and he made himself believe, with the assistance of his courtiers, that all these rulers were waiting, with their knives and forks in their hands, and their dinner napkins tucked under their chins, for his authority to begin. England for a time was fascinated by a somewhat similar delusion, and still has children who are dis- inclined to believe that any other nation can prosper without her permission and patronage. They regard it as a waste of time to study carefully any history except their own, and they close their eyes and shut their ears to any records which seem to contradict their creed, that Britannia rules all seas and shores. I need not remind you that there are incidents in the annals of America which do not lend themselves quite PERSONAL. 5 gracefully to this idea of an English monarchy over all creation ; accounts of battles, which are not such pleasant reading as those of Trafalgar and Waterloo ; songs and tunes, which are not harmonious in our ears ; a doctrine, in short, and spirit of independence, which will accept no Bull of Infallibility, whether John Bull from England or some other Bull from Rome. But these bigots, believe me, of whom it has been said, " that they have made Britain the most detested power in Europe," are, on the other side of the Atlantic, as few as they are feeble, and our educated men and women have, as a rule, an intelligent appreciation of your political, social, intellectual, and commercial history. We see that " the position of America is unique in the history of nations. The world has seen no similar example of a people, which has sprung at a bound into full maturity without passing through the centuries of alternate fortune, by which existing European nations have been developed. With no great military despotism advancing upon her borders ; with no envious neighbour to regard her progress with timorous or angry jealousy ; with a boundless territory for the expansion of her growing population ; with a climate so varied and salubrious as to render her independent of the products of other nations ' Ipsa suis pollens opibus, nihil indiga nostri ; ' with all the arts of civilization gathered round her cradle, born in the full light of Christian truth, brought up in the free atmosphere of unrestrained liberty, and heir to the painfully-gathered social and political 6 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. experience of ancient and modern history what people ever entered the community of nations with such singular advantages as the American Common- wealth ? " Even now her position is unique, for while it has been observed Europe is an armed camp, and Asia and Africa have fields of their rivalry, America is at peace with all. That history is taught in our schools, from the discoveries of Columbus (it was cleverly said, that as the first new world was discovered by La Colombe and the second new world by Columbus, so the one came from Noah and the other from Genoa), of John and Sebastian Cabot, to the Presidency of Cleveland. Let me quote two extracts from Doctor Free- man's "Historical Course for Schools," to show the spirit in which it is written : "In the art of sub- stituting machinery for human labour, the Americans have far surpassed all the people of Europe. The greater part of the inventions for saving labour in farming, and in the everyday tasks of life, come from the United States." And to prove that our children learn, as yours have learned, to revere and admire your famous men, we read of Washington, that " never in all history were feelings of love, grati- tude, and esteem better deserved. From first to last no selfish ambition, no desire for aggran- disement, had ever led him astray from the duty which he owed to his country. Successful leaders of revolutions have always been exposed to special temptations, and have seldom altogether resisted PERSONAL. 7 them. Few have ever been more tempted than Washington, yet none has ever passed through the ordeal, not only free from guilt, but from the faintest suspicion." Much the same eulogy as that which Lord Kussell wrote of him (in his " Life of Charles James Fox ") " To George Washington alone in modern times has it been given to accomplish a wonderful revolution, and yet to remain to all future times the theme of a people's gratitude, and an ex- ample of virtuous and beneficent power." Not long before I left England, a book was sent to me, containing the account of a personal interview, with which the writer, Mr. Thomas Twining, was honoured, nearly a century ago. "While I was engaged in conversation, but with my thoughts turned to the expected arrival of the General, the door opened, and Mrs. Washington, rising with me, said, ' The President,' and introduced me to him. Never did I feel more interest than at this moment, when I saw the tall, upright, venerable figure of this great man, advancing towards me to take me by the hand. There was a seriousness in his manner, which seemed to contribute to the impressive dignity of his person, without diminishing the confidence and ease which the benevolence of his countenance and the kindness of his address inspired. There are persons in whose appearance we look in vain for the qualities which they are known to possess, but the appearance of General Washington harmonized in a singular manner with the dignity and modesty of his life." 8 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. Personally, I remember among the first books which impressed me with those mysterious alterna- tions of intense delight and terror, known only to childhood, which " believeth all things," Washington Irving's "Tales of a Traveller" I have the first edition in my library, published by John Murray just seventy years ago and Fenimore Cooper's "Spy," "Pioneers," and "Pilot." From youth to old age I have found delight in the pathos and the humour of your authors, their poetry and prose. " How often, oh how often, in the days that are gone by," have I quoted to the multitudes of working men, whom it has been my privilege to address, the grand psalms in which Longfellow teaches " the nobility of labour, the long pedigree of toil," and bids us all to " learn what a noble thing it is to suffer and be strong." Tragic or comic, historical or inventive, your writers have our admiration, from Prescott and Motley to Artemus Ward and Mark Twain. As dear to us as to you are the names of Nathanael Haw- thorne, James Kussell Lowell, and Wendell Holmes, Bryant, Bret Harte, Will Carleton, and many more. No book of recent publication has been received with such an enthusiasm of grateful admiration as that written by an officer of the American Navy, Captain Mahan, upon Sea Power and Naval Achievements. It simply supplants all other books on the subject, and takes its place in our libraries as the standard work. In May last he received an ovation from a large company of our most distinguished men at a PERSONAL. 9 banquet given to Admiral Erben, himself, and other officers of the United States' cruiser Chicago, and only one day before the British Admiral and his officers had been welcomed at Boston by a magnificent entertainment. Happy unions of the two great sec- tions of the Anglo-Saxon race. Policy may be stronger than sentiment, but sentiment has a good deal to do with policy. It was the saying of an American sailor, " Blood is stronger than water ; " and your own ambassador, the Hon. Mr. Bayard, wrote to me, the day after we met on board that same ship CJticago, at a reception given by the Admiral, "This grip of the hand between the two nations is good for all honest men." ***** Permit me to speak a few words now as to the subject and object of my addresses. It is thought by those at whose call I come, that, having lived a long life amid circumstances different to your own, and also different from each other, in castles and in cottages, in cities and villages, with all sorts and conditions of men, prince and peasant, with eccle- siastics and sportsmen, with authors and artists, soldiers and sailors, farmers, gardeners, artisans, rich and poor, old and young, I might interest you in some of the incidents and individuals which have impressed me most ; and that I might offer to you from my observation and experience information, which you are desirous to receive, or you would hardly be here to-night, concerning our men and 10 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. women, our habits and customs, our institutions and avocations, our gravities and gaieties in the small island over the sea. It may amuse and entertain you to notice the similarities and the divergences, the contrast and the congruity between our surround- ings and your own. The final and financial purpose of my addresses is to help the Restoration of the Cathedral, of which I am Dean, and if I have good success, some religious work in America also. We have lost from agricul- tural distress nearly half our income, and are turned into mendicant friars on behalf of our beautiful churches. One little incident, suggested by the association of a Dean and cathedral restoration, I am constrained to narrate, before I enter seriously upon the subject of my first lecture ; and let me entreat you to forgive me, and not to denounce me as frivolous, or in my anecdotage, if I am carried away now and then by my irresistible love of the humorous, because I can no more suppress a good story when it rises to my lips, than a moneyless schoolboy can repress a sigh when he passes a confectioner's shop. " Well ! be the graceless lineaments conf est ! I do enjoy this beauteous, bounteous earth ; And dote upon a jest, Within the limits of becoming mirth." My centre of gravity is the pulpit, but I hold my- self free on the platform to pass at will from grave to gay, from lively to severe. I am an optimist (I made PERSONAL. 1 1 this statement at a public meeting some little time ago, and the local reporter informed the public that " the worthy Dean went on to say that he was an oculist "), and I oft remember with admiration Haydn's answer to the question of Carpani, How is it that your music is so bright and happy ? Because, replied Haydn, all things around me, all GOD'S works, are so bright and happy, with beauty, and goodness, and love. And so, once upon a time, there was a Dean, so fond and proud of his cathedral, that he came by degrees to think and speak of it, as though he were the sole proprietor ; and one evening, just before the conclusion of a lecture on Thought-Beading, at which he presided, he came upon the platform, with much dignity of demeanour, with his arms crossed upon his breast, and said, " Ladies and gentlemen, I have much pleasure in informing you that Mr. Cumberland has intimated to me his most kind intention to devote any profits, which may accrue from his lecture, to the restoration of my western front." 12 MORE MEMOE1ES BY DEAN HOLE. II. ECCLESIASTICAL. The American Episcopate Bishops of to-day The Church of England fifty years ago In the villages The fabric Services Sermons Music The transformation. You will acknowledge, I am sure, a grace of congruity, when as an ecclesiastic I address you, in the first instance, concerning the Church to which I belong, and may I not add to which so many of you, her great, great-grandchildren, belong also? Ten years ago it was my privilege to be present at Aberdeen to celebrate the centenary of the consecration of Dr. Samuel Seabury, as first Bishop of Connecticut. His successor was there, with other bishops of your Protestant Episcopal Church. " We took sweet counsel together, and walked in the House of GOD as friends ; " and the words of the Psalmist made music in our ears, "Behold, how good and joyful a thing it is, brethren, to dwell together in unity." In 1787, Dr. Provost, Bishop of New York, and Dr. White of Pennsylvania, were consecrated by Dr. Moore, the Primate of all England, and other bishops ; in 1790, ECCLESIASTICAL. 13 Dr. Mattison, Bishop of Virginia. And so, in the century that is past and in the ages to come, there has been and there shall be this intercourse of holy love. In the year 1872, as a sign of this sacred sympathy, a magnificent alms-dish for the offerings of the faithful was sent from the Church of America to the Church of England by the hands of Bishop George Augustus Selwyn, with the inscription, Or bis veteri novus, occidens ori enti, filia matri. This offer- ing was presented in St. Paul's Cathedral by Bishop Selwyn and Bishop Mcllvaine of Ohio, to the Arch- bishop of Canterbury, and on the following day, the famous Fourth of July, the day on which the great American nation achieved its political freedom, Bishop Selwyn telegraphed to Bishop Potter of New York, " The Alms-basin has been presented. Independence is not disunion." Moreover, I have the happiness of a personal acquaintance with several of your bishops (" The American bishops," Archbishop Trench said, during a Pan- Anglican Conference, " seem to me about the ablest body of men I ever met "), have had the honour of welcoming some to my home, and have received from them many most genial invitations to visit them while I am in the States. And it was a clergy- man in the diocese of New York from whom I received the earnest entreaty to come over and give these lectures, which finally confirmed my desire. He wrote from Kochester to Rochester, as Rector of the Church of St. Andrew in America, to the Dean of the 14 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. Cathedral of St. Andrew in England (for such was our original dedication), and when I sent my reply it seemed as if heart spoke to heart, and brother clasped the hand of brother " One the object of our journey, One the gladness of rejoicing, On the far eternal shore." Wherefore I commence with information, which I trust will be interesting, as to the National Church in England. Don't be afraid of a sermon, for I am not going to preach to you here, although I may have that privilege elsewhere, and shall have something to say about preachers. I shall discuss no doctrinal or other subjects, on which we may differ. I shall not intrude within the borders of the spiritual life "the heart knoweth its own bitterness, and a stranger doth not intermeddle with its joy." I shall keep aloof from doubtful disputations, the mysteries of iniquity and of grace, confining my observations to those external aspects and historical facts, which, while they indicate, of course, the principles and motives of their existence, and may in themselves be admired or disliked, are no longer matters for discussion or controversy, but realities, which will enable you to understand our present status and aspirations, our strength and weakness, our hopes and fears, and then, if you will, to compare them with your own. I speak that which I know, and testify that which I have seen, as one who has lived alongside, as it were, of the great revival of religion in the ECCLESIASTICAL. 15 Church of England, a thankful witness of the trans- formation it has wrought. "It is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes." Let me take you in imagination to the village in which I lived, and my fathers before me, so long as there are any records of the place, as it was fifty years ago. There stands the massive old church of grey stone with its ivy-mantled tower, some of it six centuries old. The children, just let loose from school, are shouting and running, the young barbarians all at play, and " Turning to mirth all things of earth, As only boyhood can," over the graves of their ancestors. Suddenly there is a jubilant cry, " Here's Churchwarden's 'oss ! let's make him flollop ! " And the huge heavy agricul- tural quadruped, excited by shrill clamour, and pelted with sticks and caps, goes lumbering among the broken headstones, the mounds, and cavities, con- cealed by rank grass and weeds, and begins at once to flollop, and to fall. Only one part of the sacred ground was com- paratively quiet, the northern, sunless side, in which were buried the suicide and the unbaptized. Even in the daylight it was avoided, and though the pathway, which went through it, was to many the shorter route, it was rarely, and at night-time never, used. It is told of a vicar, whose churchyard was sadly 16 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. overcrowded, except en this northern side, that, while visiting a poor old woman, who was nigh unto death, and having first assured her that the aversion to sepulture in any particular portion of the ground, which had been all set apart and conse- crated, was silly prejudice, fancy, and superstition, he besought her as a personal favour to himself, and as an example to others, to permit her inter- ment in this unfrequented plot. The old lady took a few moments for consideration, and then made answer " Well, sir, as you seem to think as one part of the churchyard is as good as another, and that it makes no difference where we be put, perhaps you'll gie us a lead." But he did not seem quite to grasp the argument. Shall we look into the church, of all the buildings in the parish the dirtiest and most desolate? The walls, once a gay gamboge, have acquired from the damp and the drip a green and yellow melancholy. The bats, which dwell in the rotten timbers of the roof, float silently to and fro ; the impudent sparrow twitters his disdain ; the corpulent spider darts up his lift to his lair ; and the church mouse, and the earwig, and the beetle, the moth, and all manners of flies, scared by our strange intrusion, are agitated by a sudden conviction that there's no place like home. The font, never used for its sacred purpose, the babes being baptized at home in the yellow basin, generally associated with the porridge or the pudding, ECCLESIASTICAL. 17 is filled with the broad ropes, by which coffins are let down into the grave, with an assortment of candle-ends, and a tin box containing the only instru- ments of ignition then in common use, the flint and the steel, which produced by quick attrition the spark, which, smouldering in the timber, set aflame the brimstone on the wooden match. The altar was scantily draped with an ancient baize, patched, and faded. I remember distinctly its only ornaments, the overcoat, hat, and whip of the curate, who had ridden five miles to his work. The ground floor was covered with pews of all sizes and shapes, except where in damp and distant corners a few of the old oak benches still remained, and the poor, like the publican, worshipped afar off. Diotrephes, the squire, loved to have the pre- eminence, and maintained it in a huge high quad- rilateral, which occupied half the chancel, with table, and carpets, and fireplace, and soft seats, and comfortable corners, suggesting and inducing " that repose, Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere." Zeba and Zalmunna, the parson and the clerk, in their triple tier of boxes, with a few farmers, and the more prosperous parishioners, took the rest of the edifice in possession, except where a wooden gallery hid with obtrusive ugliness the exquisite proportions of the tall western arch, and held our village choir. These high wooden walls not only 18 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. invited slumber from the sleepy, but a mischievous activity from the wide-awake. The boys got upon the seats, and peeping over, exchanged those little acts of personal intercourse, such as pulling the hair and pricking with pins, which seem to bring them such intense delight. I remember the confession of a very earnest and solemn preacher, that once, and once only, he had lost his self-command in the pulpit, and had astonished his hearers by the signs and sounds of irrepressible mirth. He saw one of two boys, who sat dos-a-dos in adjoining pews, taking a survey over the partition of his neighbour's hair, in colour of a brilliant red, then very slowly approxi- mating his forefinger, as though he feared, but was constrained to pass, the fiery ordeal, then in the moment of contact withdrawing it with a painful rapidity, and putting it in his mouth to cool ! The services were few and frigid. The congrega- tion took no audible part. The parish clerk made all the responses, sometimes with quaint interpolations and new versions of his own, as for example on the acces- sion of Queen Victoria, he changed the masculine to the feminine prefix, and read with a loud voice, " and blessed be the name of Her Majesty for ever, and all the earth shall be filled with Her Majesty, Amen, Amen." And when the Archdeacon made his annual visitation at a neighbouring town for the admission, or swearing in, as it was termed, of the Church- wardens, one of this fraternity gave notice, " that the ECCLESIASTICAL. 19 Venerable the Archdeacon would attend on Thursday next at Southwell to swear at the Churchwardens." The sermon, very rarely composed by the man who wrote it, was read in a monotonous formal tone, which expressed no anxious interest in the heart of the preacher and suppressed it in others. Enthu- siasm was not regarded as genteel, and any abnormal excitement about such matters as the salvation of the soul was bad taste, and only fit for dissenters. There was a general sympathy with the complaint of the farmer's wife, though few expressed it so freely, " That young man we've got roars so loud that John canna sleep comfortable." The occupants of the gallery were permitted to roar, because they had an absolute monopoly of the music, and because they were unanimous in the con- viction that the main ambition and success of the musician was to be realized in the abundant pro- duction of sound ; and this they signally achieved. " The wedding guest," of whom we read in " The Ancient Mariner " that " he beat his breast, for he heard the loud bassoon," would have been sorely exercised, if he had listened to our bricklayer, who was the strongest man in the parish, when he per- formed on that instrument ; but he had a powerful rival in the blacksmith, who, though he may not have been so " harmonious " as Beethoven's (we had no monarchs, no autocrats, in our choir, and every man did his independent best), would, I am sure, have astonished that sublime composer with the resonance 20 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. of his clarionet. I always think of him when I read Lear's words, " Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks ; " and passing swiftly as our thoughts do from gay to grave, the uncertain glories of an April day, how can I speak of our " Village Smith " in this land of Longfellow without recalling those lines of most tender pathos : " He goes on Sunday to the Church, And sits among his boys ; He hears the parson pray and preach, He hears his daughter's voice, Singing in the village choir, And it makes his heart rejoice. " It sounds to him like her mother's voice, Singing in Paradise ! He needs must think of her once more, How in the grave she lies ; And with his hard rough hand he wipes A tear out of his eyes." And the faith and the hope, expressed in these lines, commands the utterance of another sweet and sacred thought, that " if there be first a willing mind it is accepted according to that a man hath and not according to that he hath not," and that amid all this neglect and indolence of clergy and laity, for the people loved to have it so, there was a great company, who in quietness and confidence, in the purity, simplicity, and affection of family life, were steadfast in the faith, who, though their pastors " ate of the fat, and clothed themselves with the wool, but did not feed the flock," followed the Good Shepherd, for they ECCLESIASTICAL. 21 heard His voice ; and, with them, those whom you and I believe that we shall meet, when " With the morn those angel faces smile, Which we have lov'd long since, and lost awhile." The question which I have to answer, as it seems to me, is this : am I a better Christian, in proportion to all the helps and inducements which have been given to us Churchfolks in England since those dismal days ? and I would ask you, in illustration of the progress made, to imagine the church, which has been described as it was fifty years ago, with the same church as I saw it, not many months ago. All is changed except the outer walls. The churchyard, God's acre, is now a garden. The silver maple grows side by side with the sombre yew human sorrow and Christian hope. The elm with its long drooping branches weeps over the tombs, and the birds sing among the bright green leaves and sweet white flowers of the acacia, roses, and honeysuckle, and that beautiful Ampelopsis, which we call the Virginian creeper, climb up the old gray walls. There is neither speech nor language, but its sacred silence brings thoughts of rest and peace. Sometimes you will see the widow placing flowers upon her husband's grave, or the sister, like Mary of Bethany, " going there to weep." Epitaphs are no longer the dismal lamentations of despair, but the utterances of Faith and Hope. They testify that " Praises on tombs are words but idly spent, A man's good deeds are his best monument." 22 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. And confessions of unworthiness and prayers for mercy no longer suggest the little child's inquiry, " Mother, where are the bad people buried ? " The doors and gates are no longer bolted and locked, as they were, from Sunday to Sunday, but are " open continually." And when you enter, you will find that, as in the good days of Joash and Jehoiada, they have " set the House of God in its state." The menagerie is extinct. The sleeping cars are shunted to a siding, and left to perish from the dry rot, which had long set in. Uniform benches verify George Herbert's words : " All equal are within the church's gate," and Hood's " One place there is, beneath the burial sod, Where all mankind are equalized by death ; Another place there is, the Fane of God, Where all are equal who draw living breath." And those of one of your own bishops, Coxe of Cleve- land, that " Our mother the Church hath never a son To honour before the rest, But she singeth the same for mighty kings And the veriest babe at her breast; And the Bishop goes down to his narrow bed As the plowman's child is laid; And alike she blesses the dark-brow'd serf And the chief in his robe arrayed." The opposition to this uniformity came somewhat unexpectedly, not so much from the upper as from the so-called middle classes of society. In a certain ECCLESIASTICAL. 23 Lincolnshire village there was a movement in favour of restoring and reseating the parish church, which so sorely exercised the mind of the principal farmer, that he wrote to the Bishop of the Diocese, protesting against the socialistic character of the alterations, and concluding his letter thus : " I know, my lord, that in heaven we shall all be equal, but so long as I am upon earth I claim the privilege of keeping myself respectable." Whereas the Duke of Wellington, when some member of the congregation pushed a poor man aside, and said, " Make way for His Grace," as he was going up the church to receive the Sacrament, declined to precede, and protested, " We are all equal here." The pulpit, which towered, like Babel, upward (behind one of these erections, the very man who raised it had written in chalk, and where it would not be seen, his protest " A proud young parson and a silly squire Made me to put this pulpit higher ! ") has come half-way down, to suggest to the congrega- tion that they must not think of preachers exclusively, because this is the House of Prayer. The gallery also has humbled itself to the dust, and from the basement of the tower, which it disfigured, the singers, robed, in robes clean and white, come forth and take their places in the choir, where the bassoon and the clarionet and the fiddles and flutes are all combined in one instrument, for which we owe large gratitude to you, the American Organ. Great indeed has been our gain in these later 24 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. years as to the devotional character of our Church music, instrumental, vocal, and verbal, in the earnest reverence of our musicians, for it seldom happens now that the odour of peppermint overpowers the odour of sanctity ; and above all in the attainment of that which should ever be the highest ambition of a choir not the ambition of " One, whom the music of his own sweet voice Doth ravish like enchanting harmony " nor his, whose interest is absorbed in the harmony, and who " tolerates Messiah for Handel's sake," but his, who, singing with the spirit and with the under- standing also, evokes in other hearts the enthusiasm which glows in his own, and encourages a congrega- tion with one mind and one mouth to glorify God. We have, moreover, in these later years got rid of those vain repetitions, which made our hymns so tedious, and sometimes ridiculous, as when they sang, " turn my pi , turn my pi , turn my pious soul to Thee." When your first Bishop of Connecticut, Dr. Samuel Seabury, visited the parish of Middletown, a local musician composed some tunes and chants for the occasion. In the singing of the 133rd Psalm, the words, " ran down his beard," were repeated eight times. At a dinner afterwards, the Bishop was asked, at the suggestion of the composer, what he thought of the music. " Oh," he replied, " I dare say it was very good, but I sympathized so with Aaron, that I could not attend properly. I thought ECCLESIASTICAL. 25 that the running down of the ointment eight times could hardly have left a hair upon his head." Nevertheless, as in every great victory, there is loss with the gain, and peril with the success. The influence of music is almost always good, and it brought brightness into the lives and contentment into the homes of these simple musicians. I remember the sad expression upon the countenance of our village mason, when he offered to accompany our new organ, and was gently informed that it had a bassoon stop. Then as to the danger : difficulties and disasters attended the introduction of our organs. An experi- ment was made with self-acting mechanical instru- ments, and one of them declined to cease playing, as soon as it had finished one tune commencing another, until it was ignominiously carried out of the church by some stalwart labourers, and was faintly heard performing the Evening hymn under an ancient yew-tree about 12 o'clock in the day Even as the Japanese, many years ago, having purchased one of our steam-ships, insisted on managing it by a native crew exclusively, and when, in the presence of an admiring multitude, they had triumphantly circum- vented Yokohama Bay, and proposed to ease her and stop her, that they might receive the congratulations of their countrymen, were unable to make the neces- sary arrangements, and were constrained to continue their voyage until the plaudits of the spectators were changed into derisive cheers. Bellows were tried, and again I recall a catastrophe 26 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. induced by a brawny young rustic, who had more muscle than discretion. The number of the hymn was given out, and the first lines read, but; no sound came from the organ. After a second announcement, again " grim silence held her solitary reign." The clergyman looked wistfully and reproachfully for an explanation, and after a few anxious moments of suspense it was given by the strong-armed youth, who came from the rear to the front of the organ, and said, " If you please, sir, she's bust." But of all incidents known to my experience and associated with organs, the most deplorable occurred at Oxford. A most accomplished musician, and a man highly esteemed in the University, un- happily yielded to alcoholic proclivities, " put an enemy into his mouth to steal away his brains," and sacrificed his manhood, his self-respect, his self- control, his friendships, his music, to his accursed craving for drink. The college authorities bore with him, pleaded with him, long and kindly, but in vain. One evening, during service in the chapel, strange discords, " out of- tune and harsh," astonished the congregation, and when some of its members hurried to the organ-loft to ascertain the cause, they found the wretched organist sitting on the keys, and, imbecile and impotent in his silly stupor, performing on the music-stool ! Not long time ago, a quaint story came to us across the Atlantic concerning organists : namely, that in one part of the States, where there was a ECCLESIASTICAL. 27 somewhat exuberant use of firearms, a notice was put up in one of the churches, " Don't shoot the organist, because he is doing his best." But let me say, with all seriousness, that in this matter of Church music our zeal in many instances has overflowed our prudence.^ A feverish, insatiable craving for organs has become an organic disease. No one admires that glorious instrument, reverently played by a skilled musician, more than I do. It is indispensable in our cathedrals and large churches ; but when you find a huge second-rate erection, occupying a large space in a small church, like a cuckoo in a sparrow's nest, thumped by an amateur, with all the stops out, overpowering, drowning the most beautiful of all music, the human voice, instead of assisting and encouraging by a clear, sweet, but subordinate harmony, why then, though we would on no account injure the organist, we should not weep if a six-shooter should transfer its contents to the bellows. But I must revert to our village church and its transformation. We have a daily .service, and four on the Sunday, instead of one in the week ; fifty-four celebrations of the Holy Communion, instead of three in the year ; a resident vicar, instead of a fugitive curate, to teach the ignorant, to sympathize with suffering, to visit the sick, the fatherless, and widow, in their affliction. If you ask the origin, the human agencies, whence this blessed revolution sprang and spread, I can only 28 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. answer, the kingdom of God cometh not with obser- vation. Of the Spirit, which breathed life into those dry bones, thou canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. I can give you my own impressions. Sixty years ago the only public manifestations of religious enthusiasm, which were accredited by all candid persons as the evidence of sincere conviction, as the testimony of earnest men, that they were not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, were made by those clergy of the Church of England, who were called Evangelical, and by those Christians, who, though they had formed a society outside the Church, were still in partial communion with her, and were known as Wesley an Methodists. The majority of the clergy were men of good education, and good manners, gentle, and easy to be entreated, but they were satisfied with a minimum of work. This occupied a brief portion of Sunday, and they went to the sick when they were summoned, but the rest of their time was mainly devoted to social amenities, to their gardens, and their horses, their dogs, and rods, and guns. There were many pluralists and many absentees. Then a voice rang throughout the land, " Awake, thou that sleepest," and an angel came down, and troubled that stagnant pool. I refer to " the Oxford Movement," which dates from the publication of " The Christian Year" by John Keble in the year 1827, and of the " Tracts for the Times " in 1833, by Newman, Keble, Pusey, Froude, and others. They called upon ECCLESIASTICAL. 29 all the baptized to look to the Rock, from whence they were hewn, to realize their privileges, and to discharge their duties, as members of that Holy Church, which had been built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the head cornerstone. Without controversy, it is patent to all that the doctrine of these teachers not only acquired and maintains a chief influence in our English Church, but that their sound is gone out into all lands, and their words unto the end of the world. These devout and learned Oxonians at first en- countered a general and vigorous opposition. The majority of the clergy, who were described by their critics as " High and Dry," high in their self-esteem, and " dry as a Monday bun " in their discourses, resented the suggestion of severer service, and the Evangelicals were more suspicious than ever as to the introduction of forms and ceremonies, and as to approximation to the errors of Rome. As time went on, the more earnest and thoughtful among the former were convinced by the arguments and by the saintly lives of the new reformers, by their appeals to history, and to the teaching of the Prayer-book, and though the latter consistently kept aloof, the little leaven began gradually to leaven the whole lump, and it may, I think, be confidently affirmed, that there is not now a church or a service in England which has not, in some degree, acknow- ledged its power. 30 MOKE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. We have still in the Church two principal " Schools of Thought" as they are termed, High and Low, Catholic and Protestant. The Catholics may be sub- divided into those who are satisfied with such ritual as they believe to be plainly prescribed by the rubrics, and those who assert that many ancient practices are lawful, because they are not forbidden, and were not ordered in the Prayer Book, because all acknowledged their propriety, and accepted them as a matter of course. High and Low differ (and those, who are thoroughly in earnest, agree to differ and to respect each other's convictions) as to what is meant by "the Church," as to the Grace of Holy Orders, the Virtue of the Sacraments, the observance of fasts and festivals. They represent those two dispositions of the religious mind, which, however incongruous, are alike sincere, the one deriving help in its devotions from things beautiful to the eye and sweet to the ear, ornate and stately buildings, with all the appliances of sculpture, colour, and music (as Divinely ordered by the Great Architect of the universe, when "Solomon built Him an House"); the other loving simplicity, desiring only to worship in spirit and in truth, and regarding all else not only as superfluous, but as distracting the mind, and divert- ing the attention, from the one thing needful. There is a third section, of recent origin, amphi- bious, unstable, colourless, benignly patronizing High and Low, without the faith, or the zeal, or the sympathy, of either. It is called "Broad," but its ECCLESIASTICAL. 31 ways are not so pleasant in my eyes as the Broadway of New York. If you come to England you will recognize the disciples of these three schools by their outward appearance, for " the apparel oft proclaims the man." The High Churchman is close-shaven, with a collar, high vest, and long coat, like " yours sincerely " ; the Low Churchman, with whiskers, and neckerchief, is neatly attired in customary suit of solemn black, desir- ing to appear, and appearing, more as the minister than the priest ; while the Broad Churchman disports himself in a straw hat and short jacket, which always reminds me of Kobert Lowe's reply to a deputation which consulted him as to the name of a new district in New Zealand. " Well," he said, " gentlemen, you've got Q-tag-o, and you've got 0-rag-o, allow me to suggest 0-bobtail-o,"- sometimes adorning his countenance with a huge moustache, and looking like a dragoon on furlough. What vagaries and caprices there have been throughout the ages as to the abrasions and arrange- ments of the hair ! The Greeks, you know, made marble wigs for their statues, so that their gods and goddesses and defunct celebrities might always be in the height of the fashion. Pope Julius the Second, and King Francis the First, of France, are said to have encouraged by their example the wearing of beards ; but I read in a memoir of Lord Eokeby, published in 1708, that his beard formed one of the most conspicuous traits of his person, and that he 32 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. was the only peer, perhaps the only gentleman in Great Britain or Ireland, who was so distinguished ; nor do I remember in my boyhood or youth more than one or two examples of this capillary and now common appendage. The moustache was restricted to cavalry officers ; and a Lancashire gardener exclaimed, on seeing for the first time a Skye terrier, and hearing from his master that it had been given to him by a gentleman in the Eleventh Hussars, " I guessed as much ; it favvers (favours) 'em i' th' face." We must not dwell on these minute distinctions, nor indeed on far more important differences, within and without the Church. Of the latter (I don't know how many religious communities you have in America, but we have over two hundred, fully justifying the remark of Ude, the 'great French cook, that " the English were a strange people, they had fifty religions and only one sauce ! ") I will only express my con- viction that they are very largely the result of apathy and neglect, that the sheep wandered from the fold in search of the food which they could not find there ; that no reunion will ever be effected by the bitterness of debate, or by mutual recriminations ; that we should try to see what is best in each other ; to treasure in thankful hearts the great truths which we believe in common ; and to set before us, as our chief emulation, who shall do the best service for his Master and his fellow-men. I was greatly impressed by the description of a dramatic incident, which was given to me by the chief ECCLESIASTICAL. 33 performer. He was one of a very large party in a London drawing-room, when a sceptic approached him, with an expression of cheerful scorn upon his countenance, and said, "I've been wondering how you Christians can expect us rational men to accept your doctrines, when you are so ridiculously unable to agree among yourselves. I see here to-night English Churchmen, High, Broad, and Low, a Roman Catholic, a member of the Greek Church, a Presbyterian, a Wesleyan, a Baptist, a Congregationalist, an Irvingite, and a Quaker where, and what, is Truth ? " " If I can obtain our host's permission," it was answered, " to make an experiment which has come into my thought, you shall hear what I have to say to Pilate's question." This permission was conceded, silence was requested, and my informant earnestly besought the company to give their most serious attention to a few words of supreme importance, which he had leave to speak. " I appeal to you," he said, " in the cause of our common Christianity, and I solemnly call upon those, who believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and the Son of Mary, that He came into the world, was made flesh, and was crucified to save sinners, that He rose again from the dead, ascended into Heaven, ever liveth to make intercession for us, and will come again at the end of the world to judge the quick and the dead, I ask you to kneel and repeat with me the prayer, which He has taught us." And all knelt but one. 34 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. III. PREACHING AND PREACHERS. Earnest preaching and written sermons The education of the memory Simplicity and brevity Pusey and Newman Wilberforce Canon Liddon Living preachers. THE laity are sometimes said to be cruel critics of sermons. " You expect us," I have heard the clergy reply, "to be all of us ready and impressive orators, but when you yourselves are called upon for a speech, five out of six begin to cough, and hesitate, and stammer, and fail." But I agree with the laity. I have known instances of undue severity on their part, as when in a time of great drought the inhabitants of a country village requested their vicar to offer the Prayer for Eain, but when, soon afterwards, the rain came and continued to come, a farmer met his neigh- bour and said, " Well, John, we're having a sup too much of this," and John made answer, " Yes, it's just like our parson ; he overdoes everything." But, in this matter of preaching, I go with the laity. I remember, when I read my sermons, copying largely, that I regarded any indications of drowsiness, closing PEEAOHING AND PREACHERS. 35 of the eyes, gradual declension and sudden elevation of the head, like a float when some apathetic fish is indolently nibbling at the bait, as symptoms of a reprobate mind ; but when I had to listen to others, many of whom were as stale and tame in the matter as they were monotonous in the delivery of their discourse, I modified my views, for, though I struggled bravely, I struggled oft in vain, when an exposition of sleep came upon me. " The placid hearers felt no thrill, But sat in sleepy comfort still ; And Jack demurely glanced at Jill, And parents nodded." Many years ago, my neighbour in Nottingham- shire, the late Speaker in our House of Commons, told me as authentic an incident, which has since been largely circulated with alterations, that when old Lord Lauderdale was suffering from insomnia, and his doctor said that if he did not sleep he would die, one of his little grandchildren asked, " Why don't they send for the Rector ? Grandpa always goes to sleep when he hears the Rector." There was no need to send, for the pastor happily arrived to see his sick parishioner, and sure enough at the sound of his soothing voice, and, let us hope, of the words of comfort, a peaceful calm came upon the troubled waters, and the nobleman began to nod. Again, it is told of a quaint old man in one of our cities that, although he listens very reverently and anxiously to the curate, who preaches without book 36 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. and impressively, he will sometimes take off his boots, when the vicar begins one of his long and dreary discourses, and put them outside the door of his pew, as though it were his bedroom, and he was to be there for the night. I think that the laity have a right to say, " Though we don't expect you to possess the fascinations of fluent and elegant speech, the oratory ' of Athens and free Eome,' we do desire that earnestness of heart, concerning the highest, holiest, and most interesting of all subjects, which never fails to command atten- tion, expressed in language which all can understand, and with a careful and clear pronunciation." No preacher moves the hearts of his hearers if he has not earnestness in his own. Abraham Lincoln said, " I hate a cut and dried sermon. I like to see a man preach as though he were fighting trees." When Rowland Hill was asked, " Are you not unnecessarily loud and excited ? " he replied, " I was walking I on the cliffs overlooking the sea, and I saw a man loitering on the sands below, unconscious that the tide was coming in with great rapidity, and that if he did not get round a projection within two or three minutes he would be hemmed in and drowned. I called to him loudly, but he did not hear. At last I made a supreme effort ; my voice reached him ; he turned, and saw from my gestures the peril of his position, and rushed round the rock to safety. And do you tell me, when I see souls perishing from ignorance or forgetfulness, that I am to address them PREACHING AND PREACHERS. 37 in mellifluous whispers of mild expostulation, and not to use every power I possess to startle and arouse and entreat them, ' Escape for your life ' ? " Rowland Hill remembered, and all of us preachers should remember, our Divine instructions, " Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins." Water cannot rise above its own level ; and if there is no intense faith, hope, or charity in the preacher, he will convert no unbelief, he will comfort no sorrow, he will kindle no fire of love. You must not expect me to weep, says Horace, if you have no tears of your own to shed. I think that the laity have a right to say that reading from manuscript does not correspond with their ideal of preaching, and that the custom is not apostolic, primitive, or catholic. I know that a large majority of the laity, including the poor, prefer to have the gospel preached to them without book. They agree with the rough backwoodsman in Vir- ginia, who, when he heard Bishop Meade preach, expressed his approbation, " because," he said, " he was the first he ever saw of those petticoat fellows who could shoot without a rest ! " They take the same view as the Scotch Elders, who expostulated with their preacher for reading his sermons, and when he said that his memory was too weak to permit the disuse of his manuscript, " Weel thin, Ministeer, ye be nae blame us for forgetting what ye canna 38 MOSE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. remember yourseL" I think that they have a right, when they are told that it is impossible, except in rare instances, to dispense with a written sermon, to ask whether the experiment has been vigorously made, and how it comes to pass that the senator does not read his speech, nor the actor his Shakspere, nor the banister his brief ; that every man and woman, when they are deeply interested, have abundant words with which they can express their gratifications, or recount their wrongs, whereas he who has, now the most glorious of all glad tidings, and now the most awful of all warnings, to proclaim to his fellow-men, must read them all from a book ! " Impossible " so I once thought and said ; and if you had met me one night, many years ago, when, after some delay of the service, I went into my church, and told me that I must preach without my written sermon, I should have said impossible. But the light had suddenly failed, and I found when I opened my beautiful case, gleaming like the cohorts of the Assyrians with purple and gold, that I could not read a single word ! I shall never forget those moments of agony, the silence, the expectation ; but they were very few, for I seemed at once to hear the voice of the Divine Master, Be not afraid, for I am with you. Remember the promise, which I made to my servants in their times of tribula- tion, it shall be given unto you what ye shall speak. I know not what I said, but I do know, and was astonished to hear, that my words made an unusual PREACHING AND PREACHERS. 39 impression, and that I began from that date to preach without book. And I do not mention the result for the glorification of the preacher (I have associated with him too long and know him too well, to think more highly of him than I ought to think), but for the encouragement of others, namely, that whereas before that night, to be much remembered, and when I was only a reader in the temple, I was not favoured with invitations to occupy the pulpits of my brother clergy, I have preached since in nearly all the cathe- drals, in the two greater universities, and in the principal churches of the land. When I am sometimes told that I have a special gift, my inquiry is, how do you know that it is special ? how do you know that you have not got it ? Some- times it is said, " I could not remember. I've no memory." And I have seen, again and again, clergy- men, who could not repeat a creed or a command- ment without a book nay, I remember a Venerable Archdeacon, who always removed from the Holy Table a hugh folio, which he could hardly hold, when he pronounced the brief blessing, which concluded the service. This objection evokes a similar reply. You have a memory, but it has not been sufficiently educated. You can remember with accurate precision any pleasant engagement, any money due to you, any compliments paid to you, pretty poetry, or funny prose, but you have not exercised it in greater matters. Seek, and ye shall find. I know it from many, who have thanked me, by letter and by voice, for urging 40 MOBE MEMOEIES BY DEAN HOLE. them to make the experiment. Of course they have found, as I found, that success in preaching, as success in every other endeavour, depends upon hard work, upon the most thoughtful, prayerful, studious pre- paration, which it is in the preacher's power to bestow. Cicero prepared his speeches laboriously. John Bright wrote the greater part of his beautiful orations. A good sermon should be like an oratorio, de- scriptive, instructive, warning, persuading, sad and plaintive, joyous and triumphant, as it sets before those who listen the hopes and the fears, the perils and the promises, of our probation here. Like a picture, it should have beautiful combinations and contrasts of colour, light, and shade ; whereas some sermons seem to be more in accord with the Quaker's suggestion, that the universe would have presented a neater appearance if it had been painted a quiet, economical, uniform, and universal drab. Of course, a sermon should be at once understood by those to whom it is preached. Let it be theo- logical, by all means, if it is preached to theologians ; scientific, if addressed to men of science ; let it abound with military illustration, if it is spoken to soldiers ; but if the appeal is made to a general congregation, let the preacher remember St. Paul's fear for the Corinthians, " lest by any means their minds should be corrupted from the simplicity of Christ." It is recorded of Him, that the multitude (6 TroXvs 0^X05) heard Him gladly, not only because all could under- stand Him who tried, all whose hearts were not PREACHING AND PREACHERS. 41 hardened, but because He enforced and fixed His meaning upon them by associating it with the familiar and common incidents and surroundings of their daily life, taught them by object lessons, parables, as they were called, whereby they and we, and all Christians for ever, might be reminded by those things, which are inseparable from our existence, the light which lighteth every man, the bread we eat, the water we drink, of Him who giveth all. Simplicity. The preacher need not be a great scholar, though the more he knows the better. The apostles were unlearned and ignorant men, and yet one of them by a single sermon converted three thousand hearers. " They were inspired," it may be said. Yes, and the preacher now has not only the grace of his orders, but that promise of inspiration, in answer to his earnest prayers, which is given to us all. If ye being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them which ask Him. I remember that when I was first invited to preach to a very aristocratic congregation in the most fashionable part of London, I wrote to express my sincere conviction, that I should not be the right man in the right place, that my intellectual attainments were not remarkable, that I used great plainness of speech, and that I was more at home with the hewers of wood and drawers of water than with the proprietors of forests and lakes. The reply was to the effect that 42 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. he who invited me had a long and thorough acquaint- ance with his congregation, and that no class of society had greater need to hear the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, tempted as they were by the deceptions of flattery, and by the enervating fascinations of admiration, luxury, and ease. And yet I have known and know preachers, who prefer abstruse disquisition and magniloquent utter- ance, rather to display their own erudition than to teach the ignorant, as though they would nourish babes with dainty dishes instead of with the sincere milk of the Word. " Your Master sent you to feed sheep," Mr. Spurgeon said to some of his young men who were inclined to hifalutination ; "you preach as if you were feeding giraffes." " The hungry sheep look up and are not fed." I went one day with a brother clergyman into a great London church where a canon, of high repute for his learning, was address- ing a small congregation of young men ; and when we came out I inquired from my companion what he thought of the discourse. I was powerless, he said, to apprehend the meaning, and I am quite sure that those excellent young men, though they opened their mouths wide enough, as well as their eyes and their ears, were equally unable to catch it. I thought sadly of another preacher's words, " Except ye utter by the tongue words easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken ? I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in PREACHING AND PREACHERS. 43 an unknown tongue." And again of that earnest cry, ever rising from the human heart " Tell me the old, old story of things unseen above, Of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and His love ! Tell me the story simply, as to a little child, For I am weak and weary, and helpless and denied. Tell me the old, old story, Of Jesus and His love." There is one adjunct of a sermon, which nearly all who hear admire, and which all who preach may possess if they please brevity. Unhappily, the speakers, whom this virtue would most gracefully become, do not seem to be aware of its existence ; like Nelson, they put the telescope to the blind eye, when signals are made to "cease firing." They decline to notice manifest indications of weariness, yawns, sighs, readjustment of limbs, ostentatious inspection of watches ; and they seem rather to be soothed than offended by soft sounds of slumber, as though it were music from La Somnambula. One of these tedious preachers went away for his holiday, and the clergyman who took his duties in his absence apologized one Sunday to the clerk in the vestry, when the service was over, for the short- ness of his sermon : a dog had been in his study, and torn out some of the pages. " Oh, sir," said the clerk, a bright beam of hope on his countenance, " do you think that you could spare our vicar a pup?" You will not misunderstand me to mean that no sermons are admirable, convincing, converting, which 44 MOEE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. are read from manuscript, with little or no variation of voice or manner, which are occasionally profound, in which, as St. Peter wrote of St. Paul's epistles, are some things hard to be understood, and which are of long duration. On the contrary, we have reason to believe that a large proportion of the grandest sermons in our language were read, without much outward show of emotion, though with a most intense earnestness of faith and purpose, such as those, for example, of Jeremy Taylor, and Andrewes, and Barrow ; and we know that every Sunday thoughtful, truthful discourses, of the highest dignity, both as to style and argument, are read in our pulpits. There never was a time in England in which we had so many writers of good sermons ; but the proportion of good preachers, though they be many and multiplying, as yet is small. Can preaching be taught as an art, or is it with the preacher, as Horace says of the poet, " nascitur non Jit " ? Very little has been done with us to answer this question by experiment. When I was at Oxford, not a word was said on the subject to my knowledge to those who intended to take Holy Orders. We had a Public Orator, who once in the year made a Latin speech to the great delight of the undergraduates, who encouraged him with a loud exuberance of sympathy, assuring him that he was getting on very nicely, that Cicero wasn't in it, but that he must not overtax his strength, and that Mrs. Orator would make things unpleasant if he was late PREACHING AND PREACHERS. 45 for lunch. There were no teachers of elocution, and the only preliminary practice was the reading at long intervals of a lesson in the College Chapel. Latterly the students in our theological colleges have received helpful instructions in the composition and delivery of sermons ; but these are comparatively few, and the majority of our clergy go to the prayer- desk, lectern, pulpit, and altar, with none of those aids and admonitions which they might have received from experts, as to the use or abuse of the voice. Much more ought to be, could be done. We want more technical schools for our candidates for the ministry, schools of the prophets, wherein according to their gifts they may be taught to prophesy, and to wait on their ministering. We want men like Mr. Henry N. Sage, of Brooklyn, who gave ten thousand dollars to the corporation of Yale College, for the foundation of a lectureship on preaching, to be filled by those who had been signally successful in this work of the Christian ministry. If this lectureship had not been established, we might never have had the excellent " Lectures on Preaching," by Phillips Brooks. And now permit me one word of caution to you who listen, having spoken so many to those who preach "Take heed how ye hear;" don't be too critical. Remember George Herbert's words : " Judge not the preacher The worst speak something good ; " and Jeremy Taylor's, "Accept the message. If the 46 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. preacher be a weak person, the text is the doctrine to be remembered ; " and Sir Walter Scott's description, in "The Talisman," "of one of those men, through whom the rays of heavenly grace dart like those of the sun through a burning glass, while the glass itself remains cold and uninfluenced ; " and Ruskin's words in " The Stones of Venice," " There are two ways of regarding a sermon, either as a human composi- tion or as a Divine message." The harvest does not depend upon the skill of the sower, but on the condi- tion and culture of the soil. He that doeth the will shall know of the doctrine. Nevertheless, the preacher appreciates sympathy. He has many disappointments. A worthy brother, who was about to preach in St. Paul's Cathedral, went with his wife and her friends to inquire how long they should arrive before the service in order to secure good places; and they were respectfully in- formed that there would* be ample accommodation, whenever they arrived, as the preacher was nobody in particular. I was honoured, as a dean, by an invitation to preach in one of our royal chapels, and I addressed a congregation of nine personages. I was told by the verger, that it was an unusually large attendance, that royalty was represented, and that my informant and myself were the only persons not mentioned in the peerage ; but I was much de- pressed, and when my friend, Sir John Hassard, who had the arrangements in this matter, invited me to repeat the performance, I wrote to him, "Dear Sir PREACHING AND PREACHERS. 47 John, There is a strawberry called Arbutus Unedo, because no man, who has once tasted it, ever asks, like Oliver Twist, for more. I have preached at Whitehall." I ask no consideration for those, who, having the most important of all work to do, are manifestly not doing their best. I ask no consideration for the blustering Sir Oracle, who, wise in his own conceits, makes his declarations, as though he were an oecu- menical council. I remember the expression of mingled mirth and indignation when, at the meeting of a committee authorized to make preparations for an important function, a bumptious Boanarges inti- mated his willingness to take the place of a famous preacher, whom it was proposed to invite, should he be unable to come. His proposal suggested some pert little glowworm, intimating to the moon, that he didn't mind sitting up for the night, if she would like to go off duty. I hope that it may interest you to hear a few recollections of our most famous preachers, from one who has heard them preach. When I was an under- graduate of Oxford, fifty years ago, the two great preachers of the University were Doctor Pusey, the Kegius Professor of Hebrew, and John Henry New- man, Vicar of St. Mary's, and afterwards Cardinal of Rome. The eye was attracted and fixed, and an attentive interest was communicated to the mind, before a syllable was uttered in the church. You might have met either of them in the street, without 48 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. any special notice, but when they stood apart, and on duty, they were most remarkable men. Pusey's demeanour, as he went to preach, was in itself a sermon. No actor could have imitated, no painter could have portrayed, the expression of humility, the sense of unworthiness, which was not meant to be seen, but could not be hid. The drooping head reminded of one who would not so much as lift up his eyes to heaven, or rather in this case of the old proverb, " The corn stalk which bends the lowest hath ever the most grain in the ear." The voice was soft and low, but the tone was so earnest, the utter- ance so clear, that it was audible and most impressive to -all, and though sometimes his sermon lasted nearly an hour, it never seemed too long. The characteristics of his preaching were an absolute faith in the Saviour, the Scriptures, the Church, and the Sacraments, a terror of sin, but a most tender sympathy with the sinful, to whom he appealed with all the persuasive promises of Divine and Infinite Love. He was an accomplished scholar, a profound theologian, a skil- ful linguist, in those three languages, especially, which were inscribed upon the Cross, in letters of Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin, but he was never in his preaching and teaching, in his books and conversa- tion, abstruse or obscure. As to ritual, he said, " We have too much to do to keep sound doctrine, and the privileges of the Church, to be able to afford to go into the question about dresses." And again, "We clergy have often PREACHING AND PEEACHEES. 49 need to forego in ritual, or ornament, or worship, our own tastes and inclinations, in that which we regard as beautiful, becoming, and reverent. Truth has suffered more from the immature introduction of ancient forms, which are misunderstood, and so to our congregations soulless ritual, than from the gain- saying of the world. It furnishes a plea for despising us, as engaged about externals, rather than as con- tending for eternal truth. We may not outrage the world, if we would win it. We have to exhibit the truth to it on the side upon which it will best re- ceive it." And this was the man, holy and harmless, who was denounced, silenced for two years, condemned without a trial * by his brethren at Oxford, derided, caricatured, and burnt in effigy ! I rejoice to re- member that the prince of our humorist artists, John Leech, not only abstained from any bitterness of satire, but he besought his colleagues on the staff of Punch, too often, as he told me, in vain, not to bring contempt upon sincere religion. Where it was only a sham, he unmasked it as Dickens " The Shepherd ; " * " The accused was not allowed to defend or explain himself ; he was refused the knowledge of the definite charges against him ; he was refused, in spite of his earnest entreaties, a hearing, even an appearance in the presence of his judges." The Oxford Move- ment, by Dean Church. Mr. Gladstone wrote to express his surprise and regret, and was " quite at a loss to account for steps which seemed so groundless." Sir Roundell Palmer, afterwards Lord Chancellor of England, "had a very strong opinion that what the Vice-Chancellor had done was quite illegal, and should be set aside by appeal." See Liddon's Life of Puseij, ii. 348. E 50 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. but I can only recall one allusion to Dr. Pusey, the drawing which displays to us two very small children, playmates by the gutter of a London street, making their declaration of faith to a companion, " Me and Sairey Jane is Puseyites ! " They knew about as much of the meaning of the word as the Lincolnshire ploughman, who, living in a district where the plovers are called " piwipes," being somewhat " hard of hear- ing," and being asked by an inquisitive stranger, " whether they had many Puseyites in that neighbour- hood ? " made answer, " There's nothing like so many as there used to be we takes their eggs ! " Although Newman wore, when I saw him first, the costume of the clergy then in use, but now relegated to the respectable waiter, dresscoat, low waistcoat, and white neckerchief, clumsily tied, a brief inspection con- vinced you that he was a man of exceptional power and purpose. Intellect looked out of the windows of his eyes, ere it came forth from the door of his lips. The expression of the thin ascetic face was grave and thoughtful, but ever and anon a brief smile of humour came, like sunshine on dark waters in our April days. You saw at once that he must be an ecclesiastic, and if you had met him for the first time in his shirt- sleeves, you would have said, that man is a priest. He preached with a plaintive pathos, that tone which the French describe as " tears in the voice," which fascinates like the notes of the nightingale, when he presses his breast against the thorn and sings. Never- theless we undergraduates were more permanently PREACHING AND PBEACHERS. 51 impressed by the sermons of Doctor Pusey. We understood them more readily, and while they aroused an anxious fear, they were bright with the consola- tions of hope. The rainbow was always on the cloud. Newman was too severe for us. In the days when i/ we were, it may be, too scrupulous as to the cut and colour of our raiment and " Youth no less becomes The light and graceful livery it wears Than age its furs and sables " we did not seem quite to grasp the idea of sackcloth and ashes. Or, again, when we were all of us in a sweet agony of love with " the face that was the fairest that e'er the sun shone on," we were altogether powerless to understand the meaning of a celibate life. And hereby hangs a tale. A lady leaving & London church, inquired from a verger, " whether the preacher was married ? " and was informed, " No, ma'am, our rector is a chalybeate." But seriously, Dr. Pusey was always the greater man of the two. One of the examiners for honours said, that he was the man of the greatest ability whom he had ever examined or known. He placed him far above Newman. Certainly, he was his superior in the patience and in the courage of his steadfast loyal faith. He was never fretful, querulous, or bitter. " I remember," he wrote, " that Newman once said to me, ' Oh, Pusey, we have leant upon the bishops, and they have broken down under us.' I thought to myself, I never leant upon the bishops, 52 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. I leant upon the Church." His rule was, in quietness and confidence shall be your strength ; and in the Church of his baptism he lived and died. It was never my privilege to see or to hear John Keble, but I have prayed in the beautiful Church which he built from the profit of his books, have stood by his grave, and stolen a Christmas rose from his garden. Manifestly an admiring student of George Herbert and Bishop Heber, he wrote, in 1827, " The Christian Year," and seven years afterwards, " on the 14th July, 1833" (Cardinal Newman writes in his " Apologia "), " Mr. Keble preached the Assize Sermon in the University Pulpit. It was published under the title of National Apostasy, and I have ever con- sidered and kept the day as the start of the religious," that is to say, of the Oxford " movement." You might suppose that all educated persons, having to do with ecclesiastical affairs in the Church of England, would know that John Keble wrote " The Christian Year," but a most reliable friend of mine assured me, that, while inspecting the monuments in Westminster Abbey, his attention was directed by a junior verger to one, "which had been erected in memory of John Keble, Editor of the Christian World!" The Christian World is a clever Non- conformist newspaper, but its principles are not in harmony with those of " The Christian Year." Perhaps the question may occur to some, " Was it the habit of these three great preachers, this trium- virate, which exercised such a wonderful power in the PRE ACHING AND PREACHERS. 53 Church of England, to read their sermons, or to deliver them without book ? If these illustrious, impressive teachers used their manuscripts, from the text to the ascription, what becomes of your argument, that men should speak to their fellow-men from a full heart and a well -stored memory, and not from paper and desk ? " Every rule is proved by its exception. These men had to preach "before the University," to the most astute, learned, and thoughtful men of their day. Speaking to a critical, polemical audience, they were afraid lest by the omission of an argument, the quotation of evidence, they might drop a link, and so dissolve the chain. Had they possessed the power of one of our bishops, Boyd-Carpenter, who delivered his Bampton Lectures without notes, they would undoubtedly have used it, and so gained additional force. I do not suppose that it ever occurred to Dr. Pusey's humble mind, that he could have spoken in public, if he had tried, as fluently and as convincingly as he spoke in private. Newman preached from writing, but what was his conviction as to the relative merits of reading and speaking ? " For myself," he writes, " I think it no extravagance to say, that a very inferior sermon delivered without book, answers the purpose, for which all sermons are delivered, more perfectly than one of great merit, yet written and read." And what of Keble ? I have in my possession the notes of one of his sermons, which he preached at Hursley, given me by his godson, and you might write them on a visiting card. 54 MORE MEMOEIES BY DEAN HOLE. Next, in order of time, of the famous preachers whom I have heard was Samuel AYilberforce, Bishop, first of Oxford, and then of Winchester. I never met a man more sympathetic in voice and manner, and though some of the cold and callous doubted that e> sincerity in another which they found not in them- selves, I believe that he spake the impulse of a most tender heart. He possessed the rare and delight- ful gift of making you feel at your best, of evoking a desire to shout " Excelsior," and mount the steep. He followed the rule of one of his ancestors, " I have always tried to find some good in my fellow-men and have failed but twice " even as your great Arctic explorers discovered a valley green with vegetation surrounded by huge glaciers of ice. He represented Christianity in its most attractive and, to my mind, its truest phase, as the sure source of all happiness, the source, and the river widening as it flows on to the sea. I had never more welcome words communicated to me, than those of an old verger in one of our English cathedrals, who said to my friend after a visit which I made as preacher, " He recommends religion." His meaning was that he thought I had found joy and peace in believing, and his thought, thank GOD, was true. Wilberforce wrote, when Archdeacon of Surrey, a " History of the American Protestant Episcopal Church," in which he was kindly helped by competent contributors on this side of the Atlantic ; but it has lost the interest, owing to more recent developments, PEEACEING AND PREACHERS. 55 which it possessed when published fifty years ago, and is superseded by Canon Benham's Epitome, which, though brief, is full of authentic information and affectionate respect, and has for its frontispiece a charming portrait, from the original picture, in the vestry of the Church of St. Andrew, Aberdeen, of good Bishop Samuel Seabury. I was privileged to know and hear two other of those famous preachers, who now " have crossed the flood," Bishop, afterwards Archbishop, Magee, and Canon Liddon of St. Paul's. The former made an oration in the House of Lords, in defence of his native Church, which was pronounced by Lord Salisbury to be " the finest speech ever delivered by any living man in the Houses of our Parliament," and he was a most eloquent and convincing preacher. He had an inexhaustible supply of wit and humour, severe some- times, as when he declared that a bishop must know how " to suffer fools gladly," but kind and genial almost always, as when he described himself as being " in such a gentle mood, that even a curate might play with him ! " Canon Liddon, from his marvellous combination of spiritual, intellectual, and oratorical power, was the greatest preacher in England. I always think of him when I read in the sacred history the description of Apollos, " an eloquent man, and mighty in the Scriptures, who, being instructed in the way of the Lord, and being fervent in the spirit, spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord." But the Christian 56 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. had, of course, a more Divine inspiration and wisdom than the Jew ; and as he stood up to preach, with the light of love upon his face, as it had been the face of an angel, and the music of love in his sweet, pathetic voice, and brought from the treasuries of his thoughts, his wisdom, and his prayers, things new and old, truths, which no adversaries were able to gain- say nor resist, terrible warnings, tender sympathies, touches sometimes of exquisite humour, an incisive irony, never used but to expose sin and expel it, we who saw and heard were reminded of the scenes when the Baptist preached on the banks of the Jordan, and St. Peter preached on the day of Pentecost, and St. Paul from Mars' Hill, and great multitudes came and confessed their sins, and were pricked at the heart, and cried out, Men and brethren, what shall we do ? He won our confidence at once, and absorbed our attention, by the conviction, which assured us of his simple faith, his pure sincerity, his intense anxiety to comfort others with the comfort wherewith he himself was comforted of GOD. The mouth spake from the fulness of the heart, and the speaker was unconscious of the manner and the tone which came spontaneously with his words. Reality needs no rehearsals and despises imitation. " imitatores, servum pecus, ut mihi saepe Bilem, saepe jocum, vestri movere tumultus ! " And where that earnestness is absent, how all attempts to copy it collapse and fail. There is a lugubrious twang, affected by certain preachers and speakers, PREACHING AND PREACHERS. 57 which, I regret to confess, always arouses in my bosom feelings unbecoming a dean. As to our living preachers, I have only time to say, that they have excellent examples set before them by our two Archbishops of Canterbury and York. Every sermon delivered by the Primate is an embarras des richesses ; and if I might compare natural with spiritual food, I should say, that each sentence is like a small piece of Liebig's Essence. You feel an impulse to plead, " Oh, please, wait a while, your Grace, that I may enjoy and digest that good, nutritious thought," and it seems as though you were travelling by an express train through a great gallery of precious pictures ! Although I have not had the advantage of hearing all our bishops, I have listened with great admiration to the sermons of the Bishops of Lincoln, Winchester, Bipon, Manchester, Rochester, Wakefield, Derry (Ireland), St. Andrew (Scotland), and St. Asaph (Wales). The sarcastic commentary, " He really preaches rather nicely for a bishop," is no longer more appropriate to our Episcopate than to yours, which includes some of the most famous of modern preachers. I remember that when I attended some forty years ago a great function in an adjoining diocese at which the bishop was to preach, my cousin, who was the vicar of the parish, said to me, " Our excellent bishop has only three sermons, designated by certain satirists as ' Lullaby,' ' Mesmeric,' and ' ^Ether.' We like ' Lullaby ' the best : the process is slower, but there's less pain." 58 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. Among deans, great is the company of the preachers, in alphabetical order, Eliot, Forrest, Ingram, Lefroy, Luckock, Paget, Pigou, Spence, and Vaughan. Strange to say, I have only heard one of those archdeacons who are famous as preachers, " but you must remember," as the lioness said to the fox, when they were conversing on the relative number of their families, " that this one of mine is a lion ! " Arch- deacon Farrar. He is well known in the States, and therefore I need not enlarge on his brilliant endow- ments, his power of word-painting, which, to quote a quaint Oriental notion, turned the ears of his audience into eyes, his infinite and apt illustration. Listening to him, I seem to be as one of those, whom Goldsmith describes in his " Deserted Village " " While words of learn'd strength and thundering sound Amazed the gazing rustics ranged around ; And still they gazed, and much the wonder grew, How one small head contained all he knew." Preaching canons are numerous as when, through that miserable mistake, the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava " Cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them, Yollied and thundered " so numerous that I can name but two, Canon Knox Little, who attracts larger congregations than any other preacher, and Canon George Body, the most successful of all our mission priests. IV. CHURCH SERVICES AND MISSIONS. American admiration of English cathedrals Hawthorne Wen- dell Holmes Lowell "A petrified Religion," fifty years ago Recent progress, structural and devotional Elaborate and congregational music Multiplication of services Foreign and Home Missions Plan and progress of the latter, occasional and permanent Organization and success- ful work of the Universities' and Public Schools' Missions. BUT there are better things than sermons. They are only prescriptions, and the patients, as a rule, don't like the medicine, and then, of course, there is no cure. Sometimes the physician does not inspire confidence ; he is in flabby condition, or in a doleful mood. We preachers are intended to be something more than wooden posts by the roadside, pointing the way and informing the traveller that he is far away from home. It is a journey which should be personally conducted, and we are sent to be guides, not milestones. He, who teaches the most momentous of all truths, should teach by object-lessons, and the object should be his own example. George Herbert had his prayer-desk and pulpit side by side and of equal height, because, 60 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. he said, " praying is the end of preaching ; " and in this matter we have made some progress during the last half century in England. In many instances the House of Preaching for the rich has been made the House of Prayer for all people. For forty years the village church, of which I spoke to you, as only open for two hours in the week, has not only been used for a daily service, but has never been closed from sunrise to sunset, and there has been neither sacrilege nor theft, although the church adjoins the public road. Another church, I remember, which had been locked up from Sunday to Sunday, was thrown open during the week by a very simple but impressive incident. One afternoon, when the great door stood ajar, in consequence of some repairs which were being made within, the children, playing in the rectory garden close by, saw a poor man in vile raiment pass within, and astonished by this strange and profane intrusion, at once betook themselves to announce in the rectorial study, " Oh, pa ! there's a man gone into the church ! " The bell was rung, and the butler was ordered to eliminate the intruder. He returned shortly, with a grave expression on his face, and, when asked why he had not carried out his instructions, he replied, " I did not like to disturb him ; he was on his knees in prayer." No more words were said ; but, ever since, those gates have been open continually, and there " the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest." And we can count our churches now by the CHURCH SERVICES AND MISSIONS. 61 thousand, which are open for private prayer. And again I think of Longfellow's beautiful poetry : " Oft have I seen at some cathedral door A labourer, pausing in the dust and heat, Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet Enter and cross himself, and on the floor Kneel to repeat his Pater Noster o'er, Far off the noises of the world retreat . . . Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray." And so we rise, like the labourer, to something better still, suggested by sermons, and inseparable from prayer Work. Let me speak first of that in which I am now engaged. When you, ladies and gentlemen of America, come from your great continent to our little island, you see nothing which you admire so much as the ancient cathedrals. Your authors and your artists rejoice to make them the subject of pen and pencil. Nathaniel Hawthorne expressed his conviction that a Gothic Cathedral was surely the most wonderful work which mortal man had yet achieved, so vast, so intricate, and so profoundly simple, with such strange delightful recesses in its grand figure, so difficult to comprehend within one idea, and yet so consonant that it ultimately draws the beholder and his universe into its harmony. It is the one thing in the world which is vast enough and rich enough. Oliver Wendell Holmes told Archdeacon Farrar that the two hours which he spent in Westminster Abbey were among the most memorable of his life ; 62 MOKE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. and another of your illustrious countrymen, James Eussell Lowell, in whose honoured and beloved memory a window has just been placed in that same mausoleum of our heroes, was often heard to express his admiration of our ancient churches and abbeys. And now we have an excellent guide to English cathedrals from the pen of a well-known American writer, Mrs. Schuyler Van Eensselaer, beautifully illustrated with drawings by Mr. Joseph Pennell.* You are impressed, as we, who live within their shadows, never cease to be impressed, not only by their solemn beauty, their massive grandeur, their exquisite carving, but by their historical associations, their monuments, and records. When your grandfathers and grandmothers saw them, there was much cause for depression also. Externally, they were crumbling in decay; internally, there was a musty, fusty mouldiness, a dreariness, and desolation, such a gloom as fell when the lamp of GOD went out in the Temple of the Lord, or when the voice of the angel was heard at Jerusalem, " Let us go hence." There was a large ecclesiastical staff highly polished without, but wooden and worm-eaten within. Well-educated, well-mannered, well-dressed sports- men, gentlemen (as the term was then understood), scholars and artists (some of them), making them- selves most agreeable during their three months' residence in the cathedral city to their selected * See Church Quarterly Review for April, 1894. CHURCH SERVICES AND MISSIONS. 63 guests, and preaching to them, and to those who supplied and served at their banquets, sermons, of which this praise must be spoken, that they never imperilled the equanimity of their hearers by sentimental or controversial excitement, never harassed them with an anxious thought, or a pang of compunction, but were received in the same calm spirit of self-respect and contentment, with which they were imperturbably recited. But now a cathedral no longer suggests, as to Coleridge, " a petrified Religion " ; the dry bones live. From 1873 to 1892, 10,609,627 18s. Id. (fifty-three millions of dollars) were spent on the restoration of churches in England and Wales, of which a large portion was bestowed on the cathedrals ; and it has been with us, as it was at Jerusalem nigh 3000 years ago, in the days of Joash the king and Jehoiada the priest, when they " hired masons and carpenters to repair the house of the Lord, and also such as wrought iron and brass to mend the house of the Lord ; so the workmen wrought, and the work was perfected by them, and they set the house of God in its state and strengthened it." And when you come to see these glorious Temples, which were raised by the common ancestors of those who speak our common language (with a special welcome awaiting you at Rochester), you will not only find them, like the Religion which is taught within, restored to the pristine beauty in which the builders left them, but to the more frequent, 64 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. reverent and faithful worship for which they were designed. The cathedral is no longer a musical mausoleum ; a place in which you might hear an anthem " And tolerate Messiah for Handel's sake " ; having not seldom, in lieu of Handel, a composition by the local organist, which resembled in its vain repetitions the worship of those who cried all with one voice, about the space of two hours, Great is Diana of the Ephesians ; or as a necropolis, in which you might read and reflect upon the deeds and misdeeds of the dead. We have made marvellous progress in Church Music. It is no longer a subject only of science, thorough-bass, exercises, and manipulation ; it is the language of devotion, singing and making melody in the heart, the only music which rises higher than the roof, and reaches His ear to Whom it is sung : " Non vox, sed votum, non chordula musica, sed cor, Non clamans sed amans, cantat in aure DEI." Thanks to such men as Sir John Stainer (pre- eminently Sir John Stainer, for did not Gounod declare that " the Midday Celebration at St. Paul's was the finest service in Europe " ?), Monk, Helmore, Ouseley, Sullivan, Barnby, Bridge, and many others, to our precentors, choir-masters, organists, choral festivals, our psalms and hymns and spiritual songs are sung with the spirit and with the understanding also, and we are gradually eliminating the Boanerges, who is never happy until he has pulled out all his CEURCH SERVICES AND MISSIONS. 65 stops ; the vocalists, who stare and whisper, " peep and mutter," like the wizards of Isaiah, who loll when they should stand, and squat when they should kneel ; and the rude boys, who smell of peppermint, and prick each other with pins. Nevertheless in one attainment, the most im- portant of all, we are still defective, although we are improving I mean congregational singing. There still exists in England (I trust it is not so in America) a multitude of church-going people, who can sing out of it for their own amusement, or for the enjoyment of others, but who won't sing in it. Some say they cannot sing ; but the man, who " only knew two tunes, one was God save the Queen, and the other wasn't," or who, yet more deaf to harmony, like one of our famous ecclesiastics, Dean Stanley, only recognizes our National Anthem, when the rest stand up to sing these are very rare exceptions. There is some element of modesty in the plea of unworthiness, unwillingness to hear our own inferior utterance, but there is more of that self-conceit which sacrifices duty to the fear of failure, and forgets that, if there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not according to that he hath not. Better to sing faultily than not to sing at all even to incur the rebuke which was administered to one of our bishops, who went in plain clothes to a fishermen's service at Brixton, and, while singing lustily and with good courage in the midst of the congregation, 66 MOBE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. was reproachfully informed by one of the trawlers, " You've gotten the wrong tewn." There is another apology, just and true, and exciting our righteous indignation. I mean the introduction of novel and difficult tunes, which not more than one in a hundred can sing. They have inflicted upon me painful, I may say shameful, dis- appointment, when preaching to large congregations. I recall an occasion, when some two thousand wor- shippers were gathered together in one of our largest cathedrals, and hardly a dozen voices could sing two of the three hymns which were selected. I remon- strated after the service with the clergyman, who made the selection, and was informed that he was educating the taste of the people. I told him that I thought he had about the same hope of success as the man who was employing his leisure hours in teaching a weathercock to crow ! It is meet and right that when there is the talent and the culture, as in our cathedrals, the science of music should offer the highest achievements of genius and patient pre- paration ; and though, as in the elaborate anthem, the congregation may be unable to join, they will listen to their edification, if the music be spiritual and reverent, as well as artistic and refined. But, as a rule, the songs of Sion, our psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, plaintive or jubilant, should be set to music which either impresses us by its sweet and simple pathos with a sad humility, or by its trumpet tone of victory evokes a braver faith. It is my CHURCH SERVICES AND MISSIONS. 67 happy experience to listen to both these examples of sacred music. I hear, in the choir, the voices chosen for their excellence from a crowd of candidates, carefully trained, singing together twice every day> bass, and alto, tenor, countertenor, and treble, their elaborate services and anthems ; and on the Sunday, in the nave, I can join with a thousand of all sorts and conditions of men, high and low, rich and poor, and sing with them to Him, Who is the Father, and the Saviour, and the only True Comforter of all. Sometimes in our cathedrals these two kinds of music, the scientific and the simple, may be happily united in a service of sacred song. Selections from the great masters may be intermixed with hymns for the people. So we finished our services at Eochester on the night of Good Friday last. Numbers were unable to obtain admission into the densely-packed cathedral. All present seemed to be touched and taught. Two or three collects, a chapter from the Bible, five minutes' address from a preacher, help greatly to explain and enforce the intention of the service, and a word spoken in such a season, to many who rarely, and to some, it may be, who never come to church, may take root in the heart, softened to receive it by the sorrowful story of the Passion, may blossom abundantly, and break forth with joy. And yet, not many years ago, no word of praise or prayer, no note of music was heard outside the Choir. Where now the multitude keep holy day, grim silence held her solitary reign. It is told that a 68 MORE MEMOEIES BY DEAN HOLE. verger, lord of the aisles, and monarch of all he surveyed, espying a pious visitor on his knees, hastened, in a state of indignant excitement, to inform him " The services in this cathedral are at ten in the morning, and at four in the afternoon, and we don't have no fancy prayers." Was it the same man, I wonder, who, when he was asked, some twenty years later, whether they had many services, heaved a deep sigh, and said, " Services ! The place is just like Clapham Junction," one of our busiest railway depots. We have not only multiplied our services- including the revival of daily prayers, I should say, fourfold but there has been a great improvement as to the times and methods of their performance. Although in many churches the worshippers still describe themselves as safely brought to the beginning of this day, when the sun has been shining for six hours upon the earth, and pray for light upon their darkness, and deliverance from the perils and dangers of the night, about three in the afternoon, there are hundreds of churches in which prayers are said soon after daybreak, and again, " When in the crimson clouds of even The lingering light decays, And Hesper on the front of Heaven His glittering gem displays." We have abolished, to a large extent, that combina- tion of Morning Prayer, Litany, and " Ante-Com- munion Service," which hypnotized the apathetic, and CHURCH SERVICES AND MISSIONS. 69 exhausted the devout. A majority ever increasing now join in worship, repeat the responses, " Stand for praise, and kneel for prayer." Outside the Church great progress has been made by Missions abroad and at home. Of the former, it will suffice to say, that the amount of voluntary contributions to Foreign Missions raised by the Church of England alone amounted in twenty-five years to 10,100,000, that is, to 50 millions and a half of dollars, which I trust for a small impoverished island may be considered as respectable. With regard to Home Missions, I find these societies, the Additional Curates', the Pastoral Aid, and the Curates' Augmentation Fund, contributing annually 100,000 to the increase and support of clerical work half a million of dollars ; but I pass on to speak of another form of mission, in which I had for many years a practical experience. A few earnest Christian men and women, believing that a new and united effort may help, after thoughtful and prayerful preparation, to arouse the careless, to raise the fallen, and to strengthen such as do stand, invite the sympathy and co-operation of all that are willing to assist, and then select and summon a missioner to come to them, six months after date, with one or two coadjutors. In many of our dioceses there is a Society of Missioners, or a Canon Missioner, to whom applica- tion may be made. During the interval announce- ment is made of the time and purpose of the Mission, 70 MOEE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. and one or two preliminary visits paid by the Missioner. The Mission usually continues for ten or twelve days, commencing each day with a celebration of the Holy Communion, followed at intervals by special services, sermons, addresses, litanies, and intercessory prayers. Bequests for the latter are put in a box placed near the main entrance of the church, and I have known them to number nearly 200, and to occupy twenty minutes in repeating, before the end of a Mission. Some are most pathetic and stir the soul with pity, from the mother, of all mothers, so Tennyson writes, most sorrowful, " who hath a son, and sees him err," from the wife with a drunken husband, from those who are sorely tempted, from those who have lost their faith, for those who live in a house divided against itself, from the afflicted in mind, body, and estate. I have known several instances, in which these prayers have been answered during the Mission itself. The concluding service at eight in the evening consists of short prayers and familiar hymns, the sermon, and instruction. During the Mission leaflets are distributed to those leaving the church, having printed upon them, " I wish to be Baptized. I wish to be Confirmed. I wish to join a Communicants' Guild, or a Bible Class. I am willing to teach in the Sunday School, to join the Choir, to do some work for Christ and His Church," to be underlined by the recipient, and subscribed with name and address. CHURCH SERVICES AND MISSIONS. 71 All who wish are invited to consult the missioners at fixed hours in the church, and at the close of the Mission to receive and sign Memorial Cards, expres- sive of their godly resolutions. The Missioner's work is not only in the church, but wherever he is invited to go. I have repeatedly given addresses in prisons, workhouses, reformatories, in factories, in railway sheds, in barracks, on board ships, in a theatre. I have spoken to all conditions and colours of men. White men, who occupied their business with flour, cement, and lime ; black men, who toiled in mines, drove engines, or stoked their fires ; yellow men, when I gave addresses in Colman's mustard manufactory ; red men, to soldiers ; and blue men, to the police. I spoke to a large number of the latter, one day during a Mission at Hull, and the Chief Constable afterwards informed me, that, when I had departed, he heard one of his men say to another, " Well, and what did you think of the Canon ? " and the answer was this, " He'd make a splendid policeman ! " Gratifying to the man, but disappointing to the preacher. So permit me to record a few from countless happy incidents, which have encouraged missions. A dear and eloquent friend of mine was conducting a Mission in a great seaport city, and one night a gentleman followed him into the vestry in a state of great excitement, and declared that he had been made the subject of personal allusions during the sermon. My friend replied, " It is simply impossible : I never 72 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. saw you, never heard of you. What do you mean ? " " I mean this," said the indignant visitor, " that I knew, and many more of your hearers knew, that you were preaching at me. When you were speaking about true religion being in the heart and not in the head, that a man might be very talkative about religion, loud in condemnation of other people's re- ligion, frequently writing letters to the newspapers about religion, prominent on platforms at religious meetings, ready with certain texts and tracts, and yet might be all the time a mere professor, debater, and partisan, destitute of the faith, which worketh by love. Every one knew that religion is the subject, uppermost in my mind and conversation, especially the abominations of Popery and Kitualism, that I am a constant correspondent in the newspapers, chairman and speaker at religious meetings, and that I give away numerous tracts. You must have had me in your mind." Constrained finally to confess his mis- take, and to withdraw his accusation, he had a long and very solemn conversation with the preacher. He seemed to be deeply impressed by the interview, sore troubled with great searchings of heart, and then he said with a most profound humility, " I believe it to be a message from God." Twelve months afterwards my friend came again to the same city, and asked information from the clergyman, with whom he was staying, as to his indignant accuser. " I will take you to see him," said his host. It was Sunday, and they went CHURCH SERVICES AND MISSIONS. 73 together to the school, where he found the scribe and disputer meekly teaching the least of the pupils the alphabet of the gospel. He rose to meet the Missioner with a smile of loving welcome, and grasping his hand, he said, " Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of God." At another Mission, a young woman came after the sermon to him who had preached it, and told him that she felt her sinfulness, that she believed in the Saviour, and was most anxious to serve Him, but that no work was given her to do, whereby she might prove her love. "Tell me about your home," he said. " Oh," she answered, " there's nothing to be done there. I live with my old mother, who has been bed-ridden for many years. She is deaf and irritable, and very hard to please." "Nothing to be done ! " exclaimed the Priest ; " listen ! " And he opened his Bible and read, " I was a hungred, and ye gave Me meat. I was thirsty, and ye gave Me drink. I was naked, and ye clothed Me. I was a stranger, and ye took Me in. Sick and in prison, and ye visited Me. Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these My brethren, ye did it unto Me." " Nothing to be done ! why, you have Christ in your home, and for His sake, if not from natural affection, go there, and wait lovingly upon your mother." Towards the end of the Mission, she came again to the Missioner, and said that mother would like 74 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. to speak to him ; and when he went, the poor old woman took one of his hands in hers, and pointing upward with the other, she said, " I've sent for you, sir, that you may hear me thank God for the comfort and the kindness which He has been pleased to send me through you and my poor girl." He Who stands at the door of every heart and knocks had been welcomed, and light and love had come with His Benediction, " Peace be to this house ! " I have seen, on several occasions, more than two hundred of the poorest of the workers in our manu- facturing towns met together before daybreak, on the last morning of a Mission, and have thought, when the light dawned upon them, as they knelt before the Altar, of that glorious morning which shall have no night " And with the morn those angel faces smile, Which we have loved long since, and lost awhile." I have seen a church at Northampton, at the time of a Mission, so crowded with shoemakers, that I had to force my way from the vestry to the pulpit. These men came daily, giving up one-fourth of their dinner-hour, and some of them emptying their un- finished pipes, tapping them against the walls of the porch, as they entered, and not one of them attempting to smoke within. When the short service was over, the church was filled with a most powerful perfume, a rich " blend " of leather and tobacco, not gratifying to the ordinary sense of smell, but sweeter than costly incense to mine ! CHURCH SERVICES AND MISSIONS. 75 The Missioner knows that the Kingdom of God cometh not with observation, and has learned to labour and to wait ; but encouragements come to him just when he needs them most, and it was so in the case to which I have just referred. It was told to me by the relations and friends of those who attended these midday services, that one of them, who had been living for weeks in idleness on the earnings of his family, surprised them by quietly taking down his bag of tools, and resuming his work ; that another was found on his knees in prayer by his wife for the first time since their marriage, nine years ago ; and that a third, who had long been prominently connected with a revolutionary, anarchical, and atheistic society, on being asked the cause of his absence from the club, made answer., that " he had served the devil long enough, and had got another Master." One more incident. The curate of a parish, in which I had conducted a Mission, met me some twelve months afterwards, and said, " I have a message for you from a dying man, since dead. I want," he said, " Canon Hole to know that I heard him say one night at the Mission, what a glorious thing it would be if he could persuade only one man to give his heart to Christ, and he repeated the words about saving a soul from death and so hiding a multitude of sins. Tell him, I am that man" No braver or better work has been done, or is 76 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. doing, in the Church of England than that which has been organized and is continued by the members of certain colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, and of our public schools. Their sacred ambition is to maintain a crusade against the miseries and degrada- tions of sin and ignorance, where they most do congregate. The knights-errant are young men, who have been educated at the college or school, which supports the Mission, and who go forth in a district assigned to them by the Bishop some of them in Holy Orders, and some laymen, having other work, professional or commercial in the most densely populated parts of London. They hire ordinary houses, in which they live together, and also buildings, in which they can conduct their services, and use for other good purposes of their Mission. I can speak from personal observation concerning the system and the success of the Missions established by the two most famous of our colleges, Christ Church, Oxford, and Trinity, Cambridge. The former was commenced some fourteen years ago, and has now a church holding five hundred persons, in which are three daily services and eight on Sunday, and there are also open-air services, and services illustrated by lantern slides. There are clubs for men, women, girls, and boys ; communicants' and Bible classes, savings bank, temperance society, soup kitchen. Five Sisters of Mercy live in a house provided for them, and spend their lives in teaching CHURCH SERVICES AND MISSIONS. 77 the ignorant, nursing the sick, relieving the desti- tute, and comforting others with the comfort whereby they themselves are comforted of God. They have silenced long ago the outcry, which was raised by a stupid bigotry against their vocation and dress, by their faith and love. " How could they wait in the wards, if the Hope of the world were a lie ? How could they bear the sight, the hateful smell of disease, But that He said, Ye do it to Me, when ye do it to these." Some three years ago, a Sister came to Rochester, and failing to find the accommodation which she had anticipated in the house of an absent friend, went for two nights and days to a small hotel in the neighbourhood. Meeting the landlord on the morn- ing of her departure, she asked for the sum of her debt, and was greatly delighted when he said, with a respectful bow, " I could not think of making any charge to a lady who is engaged in such a charitable work." And yet I have met those who regard the publicans, selling beer in the nineteenth century, as contemptuously as the proud Pharisee despised the publican, who collected taxes, in the first. The Mission of Trinity College, Cambridge, is engaged in fulfilling, upon the same principles, and with the same success, the Divine intention of the Great Mission er, that the poor should have the Gospel preached to them, not only by words, but by works. And like Him, with all reverence be it spoken, it was 78 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. born a little Babe in a stable. In a stable were com- menced its first Mission services,* and with that building is associated one of the most interesting events in its history. It was from the first in an advanced stage of decomposition, and in the second year of its transformation it collapsed and fell. You will imagine the dismay and the despair of the Chief Missioner, when, like Marius weeping over the ruins of Carthage, he surveyed the scene ! Their funds had been exhausted. What were they to do ? Quickly, to their grateful glad surprise, the answer came. Soon after the catastrophe, a deputation of working men called at the Clergy House to express their sympathy and their willingness, in common with a large number of their fellow-workmen, to undertake the erection of a more commodious build- ing, if the clergy and their friends would find the materials. The offer was joyfully accepted, and at such times and with such contributions as they could spare they built the far more suitable and spacious structure, which remains to this day, a monument of their generous self-denial. It was a co-operation to be happily remembered by those who were thus happily united by brotherly goodwill. It brought a testimony to the beautiful immutable law that love creates love, that the * Another Mission was begun by the Rev. A. B. Goulden, without church or schools, in part of a stable. This was ex- changed for a disused skittle alley, and finally developed into the spacious and beautiful church of St. Alphege. CHURCH SERVICES AND MISSIONS. 79 charity, which hopeth and endureth all things, is in the end irresistible, and that Christianity, and Christianity alone, has the power to overcome evil with good. " They tell me," a working man said, " and I believe it, that some of these gentlemen, who come among us, and who live very much as we do, and work as many hours as we do, are the sons of lords, and dukes, and squires, and have been brought up in fine houses and gardens and parks, with servants, and carriages, and horses, and all sorts of wine and cookeries, and that, if they liked, they need do no work, leastwise no more than those parsons as only opens shop on Sundays, and might go a hunting, and a shooting, and a fishing, a racing and a betting, just as much as they pleased, but that they think it's their duty to God and to their fellow- men to do all the good they can, that idleness is sinful, because the Master of us all has given every man his work to do, and that unless we bear one another's burdens we cannot fulfil the law of Christ. I've heard them say so, and what they say they do." " When they first came," another said, " I could not make out what they wanted ; and when gentlemen cultivate our acquaintance, they mostly want some- thing. They seemed to care nothing about politics. They did not want us to hate any one in particular, or to destroy existing institutions, to groan, or to howl, or to rise as one man, and hurl the tyrant from his throne. They never told us that we were the cream of creation or the backbone of the universe, 80 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. or better than other folks. They went quietly about in their long black coats, with their cheery faces and kindly words, and seemed so anxious to help us, that we were forced to like, and hear, and believe. Then I found out what it was they wanted : they wanted us to know the Truth, ' the Truth as it is in Jesus.' They desired that we might share the happiness, which made them happy. I remember how one of them set this plainly and persuasively before us in a sermon upon the text, * We seek not yours, but you,' and ever since I have prayed and tried to follow whither he leads." There is a charming garden in one of our midland counties. The sweet flowers glow upon bank and lawn, " Stars, which on earth's firmament do shine," the fountains glitter in the sun, the birds sing in the trees, the mellow ouzel fluting in the elm, the gay butterfly and the busy bee pass each other, as when it might be some gaudy tourist meets the diligent worker in the street. A fair ground, a goodly heritage, yet it was once a wilderness, treeless, flowerless, a barren and dry land, where there was no water. The noble owner, a man of artistic taste, observed the capabilities of the site, made, and realized his plans. And there, in a conspicuous part of this delightful scene, was placed a statue of the artist, and on the pedestal these words inscribed, " He made the desert smile" CHURCH SERVICES AND MISSIONS. 81 And so it may be said of every man, who lives for others and not only for himself, who tries to make some home brighter and some heart lighter ; of every man, who, not satisfied with sentimental sighs, and mean subscriptions, which he will never miss, visits the fatherless and widows in their affliction, who obeys the inspired mandates, be pitiful, be courteous, " tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you ; " of such shall those words be spoken, " He made the desert smile ; " he changed " the desert into the garden of the Lord ; " "he hath dispersed abroad, and given to the poor, and his righteousness re- maineth for ever." 82 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. V. OUR PERPLEXITIES. Drunkenness Includes all who are " worse for drink " Some of the causes The remedies Total abstinence and temper- ance Doctors differ Prevention better than cure America foremost in the crusade Decrease of drunkenness. WITH all our progress we have, of course, our per- plexities. We build, as they builded, in the days of Nehemiah, the ruined walls of Jerusalem in one hand the weapon of warfare, in the other the mason's tools. There is that terrible foe, drunkenness, which maddens the brain, petrifies the heart, enfeebles the strength, cripples the limbs, dims the sight, confuses the speech, disfigures the countenance, wastes millions of money in debauchery, and millions of years in indolence, degrades whatsoever is noblest in manhood, and utterly destroys that which is most beautiful in womanhood, the " shame which is a glory and a grace." It brings the religion, which is professed by the drunkard, into contempt and ridicule. It makes us to be rebuked of our neighbours, to be laughed to scorn and had in derision of them that are round OUR PERPLEXITIES. 83 about us. It makes us to be a byeword among the heathen, so that the people, whom we so call, ask, " Is this Christianity ? " when they see the drunken stranger on their shores. " You come to us," they say to our missionaries, " with your Gospel in one hand, but in the other there is a cup of deadly wine. You preach about temperance and sobriety, you tell us that no drunkard can enter your Heaven, but you place, at the same time, within our easy reach, the intoxicating use of opium." Drunkenness ! how it darkens the sunshine of happy homes, estranges man and wife, puts an end to the mutual society, help, and comfort, which the one ought to have of the other ; brings disease and want, where there might have been health and abundance ; and strife, where there should be peace ! How it ruins body, and mind, and soul ! Ever and everywhere, since the days of Noah and Lot, it has multiplied sin and sorrow. Not only the chosen people, but all the civilized world despised it. The Greeks set a drunken slave as an object-lesson before their children ; and the Roman poet, Horace, though he was no puritan, has described the results of excessive drinking in words " Corpus, onustum Hesternis vitiis, animam quoque praegravat una, Atque affigit humo divinam particulam aurae " which present the wretched inebriate as vividly to our imagination as the pencil of Hogarth has placed before our eyes the Rake when ruin came. He speaks of the body limp, sickly, communicating its depression to 84 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. the mind and temper, debasing the Divine element, making the man a nuisance to himself and to all around him. What a contrast between the uproarious defiant Bacchanalian of the night and the flabby, dejected dummy of the day ! I met one of our villagers, staggering from one side of the road to the other, as though he were on deck in a storm, and singing, or rather shouting, that " Britons never would be slaves," but I had no difficulty in con- vincing him next morning that he was in bondage to the most cruel of all tyrants, and to the meanest of all masters, for the wages of sin is death. Such is the consequence ; what is the cause ? Some say that this dipsomania is a disease, a physical infirmity, a constitutional defect. Yes, it is a disease, of which the germs are inherent, and the proximity infectious, but it may be prevented, avoided, and suppressed. Both reason and religion warn us, through our conscience and experience also. "We can remember our astonishment, and disgust, and fear when we first saw a drunken man. We can recall, some of us, the abject misery and humiliation which followed when in boyhood we were overcome by excess. A similar degradation in manhood suffices, as a rule, to keep all rational beings within the border-lines of moderation during the rest of their lives ; but, alas ! there are multitudes who seem never to have been guided by reason, or impressed by religion, and multitudes who, having once known the way of righteousness, have loved darkness rather OUR PERPLEXITIES. 85 than light. There are multitudes who have been accustomed to regard drunkenness as a comedy rather than a crime, to make a jest of it, and never to speak of it by its own opprobrious name, or else to regard it with disgust and aversion, as a low, contemptible habit, a helpless insanity, for which there is no remedy, no hope. Some, again, have always lived in communities which regard the introduction of wine, spirits, or beer, not as suggesting intoxication, but as emblems of hospitality, and tokens of good-fellowship. The two inquiries, " How do you do ? " and " What will you take ? " are addressed not seldom without a comma between, and there are thousands of men who cannot make a bargain, cannot pay or receive money, cannot meet each other in the street, without asking, " What will you drink ? " It would be absurd and false to brand all such men as drunkards, but they are all in perilous proximity, and many must be so described, because drunkenness does not mean only those who have lost such mental power as they possess, the control of their limbs and speech, but all who are, to use an expression common in England, " the worse for drink." There are drunkards more odious than those, bad as they are, who have what they call " a bout," are " on the spree," " on the rampage," go the whole hog, and look the hog they go, at intervals, and then return, in sodden stupidity, 'but quite harmless, to their regular employment, and behave as other men ; those, I mean, who distribute their drunkenness, who 86 M ORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. sip and nip continually in place of the occasional swill, and who, though they are never manifestly drunk, are always more or less under the influence of alcohol. And this influence often develops in them irritable, impatient, suspicious, sullen moods, which dispel the happiness, darken the light, and silence the music in countless hearts and homes. There are many men who are ever gay and genial, pleasant and witty companions at the club and in society, who make efforts to gain the approval of strangers, but collapse when they are with those who are nearest and should be dearest to them, and in the reaction of their excitement, are melancholy, morose, sudden and quick in quarrel, selfish, despotic, ugly as Quilp. Others, again, are tempted to the excessive use of stimulants by surroundings from which they cannot escape the impure air of a dense population, packed in small dwellings, with defective ventilation and drainage. Some years ago I conducted a Mission in one of the poorest districts of London. There were several instances in which two families lived in a room, and one of the curates repeated to me a tradi- tion, that four groups had been found occupying each a corner of the same apartment, and that when the visitor expressed his sorrowful dismay, he was in- formed, " Oh, we got on well enough, until No. 2 would take in lodgers ! " And they who work in heated rooms, by the furnace of the foundry, and by the fire of the engine, are specially attracted, in their OUR PERPLEXITIES. 87 thirst and exhaustion, by the allurements of strong drink. Whatever may be the source or the symptoms, the disease is deadly if it be not stayed. What is the remedy ? Is there a cure ? You, gentlemen of America, have been foremost among the nations of the earth in your noble efforts, your commissions of inquiry, such as that of Dr. Gould under the Labour Department, your thoughtful and bold experiments to confront and confound this satanic foe ; and we, over the water, reading with a great interest, admira- tion, and respect, your legislative enactments, have been encouraged by their success, grieved by the oppo- sition, by which they have been derided, and instructed by both. We are following your example, and co- operating with you in practical efforts to promote sobriety, to reclaim the intemperate, and to remove the causes of intemperance. Whatever may be our opinions as to total prohibition, local prohibition, local option, Sunday closing, high licenses, increased taxation of spirits and beer, we are united in our detestation of drunkenness, and in our determination to put it down. We must not only agree to differ, but must render to the convictions of others the respect which we expect for our own, remembering that there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit, and differences of administration, but the same Lord. It is the extremists who do far more harm than good, who mistake intolerance for zeal, bigotry for faith, self-conceit for Divine approbation, "who think they're 88 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. pious, when they're only bilious." On the one hand, I have heard these fanatics say, that total abstainers, except in the case of a converted drunkard, were men of weak intellect, that they were greedy eaters, gorging themselves with jams and sweets, that they smoked like lime-kilns, that they trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others. " I prefer the drunkards," it has been said, " because they have hours of humiliation, which bring the opportunity and the hope of repentance, but the total abstainers feel no need of it, and are blind because they say, ' We see.' ' On the other hand, we hear bitter words and railing accusations against those who decline to abstain. I could give you the names of three monomaniacs (clergymen, I regret to say), who have said, " No man who was not a tee- totaller has ever defiled my pulpit ; " " No moderate drinker has a right to use the Lord's Prayer ; " "If my wife were dying, and I knew that brandy would pre- serve her life, I would not give it to her." " The moderate drinker," it has been repeated again and again, " is the worst enemy of the temperance cause." I decline to associate myself with either of these belli- gerents. I see no wit in ordering casks of spirits, dozens of wine, and barrels of beer to be sent to Sir Wilfrid Lawson, an enthusiastic champion of total abstinence, or in forwarding a rope to a great London brewer, with a recommendation, that " having caused many to be -hanged, it was quite time that he hanged himself!" OUR PERPLEXITIES. 89 I admire zeal and delight in enthusiasm, but they must be regulated by the Apostolic rule, " Let your moderation be known unto all men." I have small faith in sudden transitions, in medicines which pro- fess an immediate and complete restoration, to cover bald heads with glossy curls, and to make elderly ladies beautiful for ever. I do not believe in St. Macrarius, who having been a confectioner all his life, according to the legend, was enlightened by the discovery that it was sinful to eat sweet things, and, closing his shop, proceeded at once into a desolate wilderness, and lived for seven years upon raw herbs. One day having killed, in a moment of irritability, a gnat which had stung him, he was afterwards so overcome by remorse, that he betook himself to a marsh, which was infested by gigantic gadflies, and there remained until he could only be recognized by his voice. On these principles, although I am not myself a total abstainer, any more than the man who described himself as a rabid teetotaller, with lucid intervals, which came on regularly at dinner, I reverence those, who, to avoid temptation, or believing that they shall induce others to follow their example, entirely abstain. I only ask them to give me credit in turn for the sincerity of my convictions, that temperance means moderation, and that the moderate use of alcohol is a blessing and not a curse. Abuse does not necessitate disuse ; and I fail to see why I should shave my head, because another man has brain fever, or 90 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. rather water on the brain ; why I should discard raiment, because some do not pay their tailors ; or why I should abstain from horse-exercise, because others have ruined themselves by racing. So please don't say, " Because I don't, you mustn't." If I am told that the effects of alcohol are denounced by the medical profession, I reply that doctors differ, and I cite, in proof, the declaration of two of the most famous in Europe, Sir James Paget and Sir Dyce Duckworth. Sir James says, " I would maintain that, so far as I can judge of the brain- work of different persons, they have done the best and the most, who have habitually and temperately used alcoholic drinks ; " and Sir Dyce affirms, " that while drunkards and their children, and all persons of an ill-balanced nervous system, would do well to abstain altogether from alcohol, the moderate use of it, together with sound food, was beneficial, and had always been so regarded by the most enlightened nations of the world." We shall do little by constraint : it will be defied and evaded. It is but lost labour to filter the stream, if impurities corrupt it at the fountain-head. Only quacks and empirics attack the symptoms of a disease, and make no effort to ascertain and to suppress the cause. And drunkenness is a disease, a terrible disease. It has a strong hold upon the whole man, affecting heart and head, his physical, mental, and spiritual life. It requires long, patient, thoughtful, prayerful treatment. We must not only show unto OUE PERPLEXITIES. 91 the lost wanderer the more excellent way, but we must help and encourage him to go bravely on. Prevention should, of course, be our first ambition ; the teaching of self-respect and of responsibility to our children, the beauty of holiness and the ugliness of vice, the joy and peace of innocence, the fear and the unrest of sin. And then, by example, and by bearing one another's burdens, we should do our utmost to help them to be doers, and not hearers only. It has been said, by Mr. Gladstone, that " the end of true legislation is to make it easier to do right, and harder to do wrong ; " and it should be the endeavour of every champion of temperance to make it easier to keep sober, and harder to get drunk. Purer air, brighter homes, playgrounds, parks and gardens, gymnasiums and baths, galleries, libraries, reading-rooms, lecture-rooms, bands and concerts, will be powerful antidotes and attractions. What right have we to denounce the idleness and folly of those who, when the great engine stops, or the store is closed, have no resources and few friends ? "I looked on my right hand, but there was none to help me, and no man cared for my soul." What right have we to reproach them (any windbag can rant and rail) if we make no provision for their amusement or instruction, if we do not diminish temptations to excess, if we do not give a fair trial to all honest rational schemes for the promotion of temperance ? " Abolition," I quote one of the most eloquent and able of our statesmen, 92 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN SOLE. the Right Hon. Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, " abolition is impossible, and prohibition is absurd, and there- fore we would try experiments." At his suggestion, but mainly in consequence of and in accordance with the proposals of the Bishop of Chester, a Society has been formed, to be called the Public House Reform Association, and our Government will be petitioned to institute an inquiry as to the working of the Scandinavian system of public-house reform, with a view to the application of similar principles in such town and country districts as may desire to adopt them. Years ago I established a club in my village, in which the members could read the newspapers, when work was done, play games, smoke their pipes, and have one glass of beer, if they liked to pay for it, and I shall never forget my satisfaction, when one of the company, who was somewhat notorious for his alcoholic proclivities, turned to me with a cue in his hand, and said, in an apologetic tone, as though he had omitted a duty, or done himself an injustice, " I don't know how it is, but somehow I get so keen about these games, I quite forget the drink ! " " And when you go home to-night," I replied, " you will meet with a smile instead of a sigh, and there will be no headache to-morrow morning." And, apropos of home, I would say here, that I have a strong faith in cookery. The wives and daughters of working men should be taught how to roast, and boil, and fry, and make the best of their food. If a wife will give her husband a good supper in a clean house, and fill OUR PERPLEXITIES. 93 his pipe, as he sits down by the fireside in a com- fortable chair after it, she will do much in directing him where to find the truest happiness at home. And in great things as in small, the faith that no honest endeavour to do good, no self-sacrifice, can eventually fail, has always confirmation for him who waits. There have been many mistakes and dis- appointments, but the Great Temperance Crusade, like a mighty army, is moving onward. A decrease of drunkenness is proved by official reports and statistics in many parts of England. In my own county, the Chief Constable states, that as regards Nottingham, one of our largest towns, it is very gratifying to observe that there is a decided decrease in the number of persons proceeded against for drunkenness, com- pared with ten years ago. The prosecutions in the year which ended in August, 1883, were 2116; in the year which ended in August, 1893, 1123. the decrease being 993 ! " Onward, Christian soldiers," and though you may not wear the same arms or uniform, and may differ in your method of attack, you shall be more than conquerors. Faith, hope, and charity, these three, religion and reason, example and help, self-respect and common sense, the removal of temptation, the reward of virtue, and the punishment of vice, shall overcome evil with good. 94 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. VI. OBSERVANCE OF SUNDAY. Causes of disregard and desecration Who are most to blame ? Differences of opinion as to the manner of observance The opening of galleries and museums The Bishop of New York and Dean Stanley on the subject Cremation : not popular in England When expedient Discontinued by the Romans when converted to Christianity Funeral reform. THE observance of Sunday is another subject of dis- cussion, which causes great searchings of heart. The disregard and desecration of the Lord's Day may be readily traced to their sources self-indulgence, ignorance, and indifference. The chief culprits, as it seems to me, are they who, having the most influence from their prominent position, their wealth, and authority over others, and the least excuse for profanation, professing and calling themselves Chris- tians, faring sumptuously every day, and living at their ease, will make no pause in their pursuit of pleasure for worship or for rest, but must have their coaches in the Park and their barges on the Thames, their billiards and tennis, their banquets OBSERVANCE OF SUNDAY. 95 and concerts, so that on Sunday, as on every other day, their men-servants and maid-servants and their cattle may do all manner of work. The Irish preacher, who expressed his belief that such people were the lineal descendants of those who perished in the flood, was constrained to modify his statement, when he was reminded of their extinction, and he did this adroitly by his plea that, although he could not prove the pedigree, there was a strong family like- ness. The gambler must have his cards and roulette, read his sporting paper, and study his betting-book without compunction, except in one remarkable instance, when the apology was more quaint than convincing. A clergyman called upon the wife of a professional bookmaker, and reminded her that her husband had promised to be in church on the preceding Sunday, but had not made his appearance. " Well, sir," she said, " the fact is, he was obliged to go from home on a little racing business, but he left word that he should be with you in spirit."* There is some excuse for the toilers, who rise * I have given, in "The Memories of Dean Hole," some quaint examples of these startling combinations, made in ignorance, between religion and sport, but I omitted an incident, which occurred near to my home, and to one whom I knew intimately. He was the vicar of a mining district, had been stroke of his University boat, and was a famous boxer. A collier came to him, and informed him in confidence, that he had made an engagement to fight a brother workman, and that if he, the vicar, would undertake to train him, he on his part would promise, if he won the battle, to " gie 'im a pound for the new church winder." 96 MORE MEMOELES BY DEAN HOLE. up early, and so late take rest, and eat the bread of carefulness, or for those who have never been taught by example or by instruction to remember the Sabbath day, and to keep it holy, some excuse when they spend the only day at their disposal in idleness or amusement; but there is no defence for those libertines, who neither fear God nor regard man, who serve Mam- mon, and, like the Cretans, only sacrifice to self. But even among those who deplore this in- difference, and are anxiously contending against it, among those who are unanimous in their reverence of Sunday, as a day which the Lord has made, for the relief of our necessities and for the setting forth of His own glory in creation and redemption, we find that, although thus far united, they differ in their ideas as to the best method of observance, and therefore in their schemes and suggestions for persuad- ing others. They differ as to the spirit in which we should regard Sunday, whether it should be a day of gloom and austerity, or a day of cheerful- ness and joy ; and so they become adverse and polemical, and Gallio, who careth for none of these things, politely declines to listen to arguments, which contradict each other. Again in this matter, as in the matter of temper- ance, it is the Company of Extremists (limited) who block the way. There is the strict, stern Sabbatarian, who forgets that the Christian's Sunday has far more gracious associations and fewer restrictions than the Sabbath of the Jew, that the Fourth OBSERVANCE OF SUNDAY. 97 Commandment must be kept in the spirit on the first day of the week, and not in the letter on the seventh. The Son of Man declared that He was Lord also of the Sabbath, but the Jews, and the Pharisees, whom He denounced as hypocrites, more especially sought to kill Him, because He performed miracles of mercy, and taught that it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath day, bade one man to stretch forth his withered hand, and another to take up his bed and walk. There is no limit to the combination of fanaticism and hypocrisy. Cannibalism is said to have been practised in the court of King Ethelforth, and Gwrge, a Welshman, had a male and female Kymry killed for his own eating (only certain portions being selected) daily, except on Saturday, when he slew two of each, so that he might not be guilty of breaking the Sabbath. In oior own time a man, drunk with whiskey, has been heard to reprove a companion for whistling on the Sabbath. The severe Sabbatarian grimly declines to co- operate with those who would multiply inducements, and remove obstacles, to the better observance of the Lord's Day. If he is asked, Do you not think that by certain relaxations we might refine the taste, exalt the desires, and lead the minds of some of our fellow-men, break up the fallow ground, and soften it to receive the heavenly seed ; and that if we can persuade a man to admire the beautiful colours of a butterfly's wing, or the plumage of a bird, or the 98 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. marvellous mechanism of a shell, and to desire to know about Him who made these, to look through nature up to nature's God, to be moved by concord of sweet sounds, shall we not be far more likely to lead him from the museum, the library, the gallery, to a place of worship, than from the bar of a drinking saloon ? Too often the answer is this, " Oh, you want to make all days alike, to get in the thin edge of the wedge, and to introduce the Continental Sunday. You will create additional labour ; the working men are unanimously against it ; you can- not draw the line at the museums, galleries, and gardens, you must open the theatres also." As to making all days alike, they who bring the accusation know that it is false, and that the design is to make one day holier and happier than the rest ; nor is there any desire to imitate the Continental Sunday, except in this, that thousands of churches on the continent are crowded with reverent worship- pers when they, the objectors, are in bed. They, who would open museums and galleries on Sunday, expressly protest against additional labour. They propose to appeal for voluntary attendance, as well as amateur guides and lecturers, and they believe that they shall succeed in obtaining them. Should paid service be unavoidable, it would be divided into short periods, and would be compensated by special re- muneration, or by exemptions in the work of the week. So far from the working men being unanimously against the opening of museums and galleries on OBSERVANCE OF SUNDAY. 99 Sunday, I read in The Times newspaper that when the loan exhibition of the Art Gallery of the Corpora- tion of London was opened to the public on Sunday, April 22, 1894, from three to six p.m., it was thronged for most of the time. In the first hour 1342 persons passed through the turnstile, and, in addition to many who turned away on hearing that the place was full, large crowds walked about Guildhall, until they could be admitted. The director and attendants gave their services voluntarily. There is no intention of opening the theatres, or of allowing any entertain- ments for making a charge for admission, and I have Mr. Beerbohm Tree's authority for saying, that the actors are opposed to such a project. I believe that the opening of theatres on Sunday in England would arouse the same spirit of indignation, though it might take a different form of expression, of which it is recorded, that on September 27, 1631, being Sunday, " The Midsummer Night's Dream " was privately performed in the Bishop of Lincoln's house in London. An investigation was made, and punish- ment was inflicted upon a Mr. Wilson, as the acting manager. He had performed the part of Bottom the Weaver, and was ordered to sit in the Porter's Lodge of the Bishop's house, wearing the ass's head, with his feet in the stocks, with a truss of hay before him, and these words on his breast " Good people, I have played the beast, And brought ill things to pass ; I was a man, but thus have made Myself a silly ass." 100 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. The use of the bicycle on Sunday offends the rigid Sabbatarian. Personally I am not enamoured of bicycles. I am too old and too heavy to enjoy them. They alarm young horses, and occasionally knock over bipeds ; but the pleasure, the refreshment of body and mind, which they give is, compared with the harm they do, as Niagara to a lemon-squash I How can we refuse to those, who have been working for six days in offices and stores, this, their rare opportunity of manly, healthful, exhilarating exercise, this innocent recreation, this complete change of scene and employment ? Is the man at the wheel incapacitated from saying his prayers, reading his Bible, or going to church, when he is off it? May he not do all in rotation ? I rejoiced to welcome a large Society of Cyclists, from different parts of the county of Kent, who assembled at Eochester, and asked for a service in the Cathedral. I never had a more reverent or attentive congregation, and I took for my text, " Let no man therefore judge you . . > of the Sabbath Day." There are other extremists. They who persuade themselves that if they go to a service, especially to an Early Celebration, they may ignore religion for the rest of the day. They substitute * for y in holy day, and forget Jerusalem in their mirth. Alas ! we are all of us inclined towards a Gospel made easy, a Christianity without a Cross, and we turn away from Micaiah, the son of Imlah, that we may listen to those who prophesy unto us smooth things. OBSERVANCE OF SUNDAY. 101 The difficulty is to draw the line, to find the apicrrov, the in medio tutissimum, between those who would turn the Lord's Day into such a dreary, weary visitation, as made Charles Dickens vow in his boy- hood, that, whenever he had the power, he would keep such Sabbaths no more,* and those who would eliminate the sacred obligations of the great Resur- rection Day. Wherefore the utmost caution must be practised, lest he who removes barriers should be as one who letteth in water, although I can see no peril of failure, but confident anticipations and happy intimations of success, in those instances of a larger freedom, to which I have referred. And I rejoice to know that what I have ventured to state and to suggest is corroborated by the ex- perience and by the sympathy of many in the United States, who take the deepest interest in this matter, and have the best information. The Bishop of New York, Bishop Potter, who is greatly beloved and respected in England, writes to my own Bishop, that you have also a wide diversity of opinion and practice concerning the observance of Sunday, which ranges all the way from the most puritanical rigour to the * " Heaven forgive me and those who trained me, how I have hated that day ! The dreary Sunday of childhood, the sleepy Sunday of boyhood, the interminable Sunday of nonage, the resentful Sunday of a little later, when he sat glowering and glooming through the tardy length of the day, with a sullen sense of injury in his heart, and no more real knowledge of the beneficent history of the New Testament than if he had been bred among idolaters." 102 MOKE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. extreme of laxity. This laxity and removal of re- strictions he attributes, in an article which appeared some two years ago in The Forum, to two causes the large immigration of those from other lands, to whom the American idea of Sunday is unintelligible and distasteful, and the usage and example of people claiming social precedence, who, whether from personal preference, or from the influence of foreign customs, have chosen to disregard the traditions in which they were nurtured. He refers to a pressure for the opening of museums and libraries, and he adds that under certain restrictions the request has his cordial sympathy. By another gentleman, a lay- man, of high position in New York, we are assured, that the opening of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in this city has been so successful that the attendance on Sunday is more than double that on any other day. The crowds are orderly, and no damage has been done. Those employed at the museum render such service only every third Sunday, and have one day in each week entirely at their own disposal. The number of visitors, which has already reached 17,000 in one day, is increasing, and the feeling of the working classes is strongly in favour of this gratuitous exhibition. I will only add Dean Stanley's words : " In our great cities must we not feel that there are vast numbers of the humbler classes to whom that day furnishes the only, or nearly the only, opportunity for those innocent and, at the same time, elevating OBSERVANCE OF SUNDAY. 103 recreations and studies which we of the higher classes enjoy, or may enjoy, not only on the Sunday, but on every day in the week ? The breathing of the fresh air, the sight of flowers in the fields, the gazing on noble works of art, the insight into God's works as revealed by science or by Nature all these blessings, which those who have means and leisure so highly value, are the very gifts which, if they can be bestowed on our humbler brethren without inter- ference with the sacred and solemn character of the day, and without entrenching on the hours of repose so dear to every working man, we should most desire to place within their reach. We should advocate such enlargement of the opportunities of Sunday, both in the direct interests of religion and also in the interests of morality which is, after all, only religion under another name in the direct interests of religion, because it is important that the greatest religious institution of the country should not suffer in the estimation of the young or the uneducated in the estimation, I will add, of the hostile, or the indifferent by being associated merely with enforced gloom or listless idleness. The observance of Sunday, more than any other single religious question, touches the heart and conscience of the whole community ; and our object should be, on the one hand, to main- tain the value and importance of the English Sunday, and, on the other hand, to do the best we can to improve it." 104 MOEE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. A few words upon cremation and funerals. The advocates of cremation have persuaded but few in England to give their bodies to be burned, and none of these, so far as my information goes, however estimable for other attainments, were con- spicuous as champions of the Christian Faith. All rational men, whether they be Christians or no, must agree that cremation would be expedient in excep- tional cases of positive necessity, in the visitation of a plague, for example, or in the time of a sudden and wide-spread annihilation of human life ; but we, who still believe in the Holy Scriptures as written for our instruction and guidance, must surely prefer in all other instances the burial of the body in the earth. We find not one single example in the Old Testament of any other process, but of interment only. To be deprived of this burial was regarded as a most terrible punishment and disgrace, and the burning of a body is mentioned by the prophet (Amos ii. 1) as a transgression, provoking the Divine wrath. We cannot forget the anxiety of one, who was called " the Friend of God," to secure a place in which to bury his dead, of Jacob and of Joseph, that their bodies should be laid by those of their forefathers in their graves in the Promised Land. Thus, in obedi- ence to the commandment, they " returned unto the ground." The civilized nations, the Greeks and the Romans, believed in the immortality of the soul, but not in the sacredness or resurrection of the body, and one OBSERVANCE OF SUNDAY. 105 chief cause of the origin of cremation was to keep the bodies of those slain in battle from mutilation by the enemy, and in times of foreign warfare to bring home the ashes of their heroes. But when Rome was con- verted to Christianity and learned to reverence the sanctity of the body, which had been washed and made clean by the Sacraments, the funereal piles were gradually extinguished, until in the earlier part of the fifth century they disappeared altogether ; and now the catacombs of Rome with their Christian emblems are, as many of us know, among the most interesting sights of the Eternal City. The rapid increase of population and the crowded state of our churchyards has no doubt created in certain districts a wise anxiety, but it may be allayed by the provision of more spacious cemeteries, and, yet more extensively and economically, by the disuse of those brick graves and leaden cases, which prevent the natural and rapid reduction of earth to earth. For the embalming of the body there is the highest authority and precedent ; it was a token of tender reverence and affection, and it had a marvellous power of preservation, which we witness after the lapse of thousands of years even in this our day ; but otherwise to oppose the process, which follows inhu- mation, and is divinely suggested to us, is a deplorable mistake, a fond thing vainly invented by the under- taker, the plumber, and the mason, and accepted by many simply because it was the fashion at the time to give orders that no expense should be spared. Better, 106 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. ten thousand times better, the wicker-basket and the fresh fragrant herbs, as soon as may be after death. Is there not a natural instinct as well as a reli- gious argument against this modern innovation, which would substitute the oven and the urn for the reve- rent committal of the body to the consecrated ground of God's acre ? Are there to be no more graves in the quiet green churchyard, and shall it be no more said, as of the sister of Lazarus, she goeth to his grave to weep ? Everywhere, as at Athens where Paul preached, there is a yearning for novelties and a few enthusi- astic, unstable advocates may be always found for plausible schemes and speculations, but there is an overwhelming antipathy, as deep as it is still, against this fiery furnace. " Because half a dozen grass- hoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, while thousands of great cattle repose beneath the shadow of the oaks and chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that they who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field, that of course they are many in number, or that after all they are other than the little, though loud and troublesome, insects of the hour." * The earth to earth system, as it is called, commends itself more and more to our Christianity and common sense. At the same time, and from the same religious and rational considerations, a great improvement has * Burke's " Reflections on the Revolution in France," vol. iii. p. 344. OBSERVANCE OF SUNDAY. 107 been happily made in our funereal arrangements. The days are departed, never to return, in which the mourners drowned their sorrows in the bowl, when the tankard of mulled ale was passed round with a piece of crape tied on the handle, and cakes made in the form of a coffin were offered to the company. The huge and terrible hearse with its black forest of plumes, which looked as though a flight of carnivorous birds had swooped down and were fighting for their prey, has been discarded for a brighter conveyance, and the horses are no longer disfigured by the hideous headgear and dismal draperies of yore. The lych- gate, the bier, and seemly pall have been restored ; the white-robed choir sing hymns of love and hope to Him Who is the Resurrection and the Life ; and the mourner takes this solace home, as though an angel spoke it, " Not lost, but gone before." 108 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. VII. CHURCH PROGRESS. Imperishable faith The sword of the oppressor is the pruning- knife of the Vine Sacrilege The Higher Criticism The old paths Church and State Zeal and humility Tolera- tion and unity. HEAR the conclusion of the whole matter, so far as my observation and experience teach. Despite the agnostic, the rationalist, and the critic, the young gentleman who informs us that " Christianity is played out," and the young lady who is " awfully gone on Robert Elsmere," despite the sneer of the cynic, and that which is yet more hard to bear, the patronizing smile of His Serene Highness the Infidel, who is " charmed with the sweet Galilean story," the faith once delivered to the saints still lives in the hearts and exalts the lives of those who are our truest patriots, our most generous benefactors, our best and bravest, whom we honour most. They have put their trust in Him Who will not suffer His truth to fail, and they do not fear what man can do to them. They are not afraid of the fury of the oppressor, CHURCH PROG BESS. 109 because they know that the sword of the tyrant has been always the pruning knife of the Vine. It is written, " No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that is raised up in judgment against thee thou shalt condemn." They know that no power can disestablish faith, or dis- endow it of the riches of Christ. Working men were chosen to convert the world, and he was only a poor fisherman who said, " Silver and gold have I none : ... in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." The enemies of the Church in England may pur- chase a brief popularity, may propitiate voters, and obtain votes by appropriating her property for the payment of rates and taxes, but the history of sacri- lege will be repeated. As for the Higher Criticism, it causes no alarm to the believer. We have this treasure of Divine Revelation in earthen vessels, and there may be errors of translation or interpretation, as St. Austin wrote to St. Jerome, and the Church has never taught her children to insist on verbal inspiration. " I hope you will not be offended," a Jew said to me, " but we are not much impressed by the commentaries of your Hebrew scholars. A little learning is a dangerous thing." In this her Second Reformation the Church, of which I am a member, has begun to build on the strongest of all foundations. She has been advised by a number of architects, builders, contractors, and 110 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. engineers, but she has followed a plan of her own. When there is an eclipse of the sun in China, the Chinese think, or used to think, that it is attacked by some terrible monster, and they go through a ceremony of beating their heads upon the ground, and other insane gymnastics, which they call " saving the sun." And so, when Christianity is assailed and is overshadowed by some passing cloud of persecution or unbelief, there is always a coterie of blockheads who seem to think that the obscurity can only be removed by the exercise of their craniums, and that in times of danger there is no road of escape except upon this wooden pave- ment. But the old path, where is the good way, is the patient continuance in well-doing, the faith which worketh by love, love which endureth all things, and learns what a noble thing it is to suffer and be strong. There are already firstfruits on this deeply-rooted tree. The Church of England was aristocratic and exclusive ; she is becoming more and more democratic and social. She was the Church of the rich ; it is her chief enterprise, her most prayerful ambition, now, that the poor should have the Gospel preached to them, and that the multitude should hear her, as they heard her Master, gladly. She knows that " a peasant may believe as much As a great clerk, and reach the highest stature " ; and that He, who made all, is no respecter of persons. CHURCH PROGRESS. Ill She was identified with one side only of our legisla- tive chamber ; she puts piety before politics now. She is loyal and true, because the powers that be are ordained of God, and will render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, but she will put God first. " Honour alike," wrote Dean Hook, " your Father, the State, and your Mother, the Church ; but if your Father strike your Mother, you must take your Mother's part." There was a time when she relied upon her riches, and loved titles and ease ; but she is labouring now in the streets and lanes of the city, in sick rooms and mourners' homes, in the orphanage, and the penitentiary, for an inheritance which fadeth not away. She is ceasing to believe in constraint, intimida- tion, interdict, and excommunication. I remember when rates for the ordinary expenses and repairs of the church were paid grudgingly and of necessity, through legal constraint, by those who were not of her communion ; now she bids her children, as St. Paul bade them, to make their offertory on the first day of the week, as every man is disposed in his heart, and the amount collected is increased a hundred-fold. More and more she is proving, as well as teach- ing, the reality of those great truths which are so commonly professed in precept, but so rarely exemplified in practice, the power of the Word, of the means of grace, the ministry, and intercessory 112 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. prayer. Her fasts and festivals are once again some- thing more than names. She is removing the Mitre from her forks and spoons, from the liveries of the footman and the groom, and placing it, where it ought to be, upon the head of the Bishop. In this spirit, this combination of zeal and humility, we may hope to conciliate those who are only more and more estranged by the bitterness and rancour of debate. Such charity not only hopeth, but obtaineth all things. There is a story of one of our country squires, a great sportsman, and something of an autocrat, not only at his break- fast table, but everywhere else, that he indignantly denounced the introduction by a new vicar of additional and more reverent services. He declared the restoration of a daily service to be popish and preposterous, but when his attention was drawn to the words at the beginning of the Prayer Book, " The Order of Morning Prayer to be said daily throughout the year," being a just man he with- drew his condemnation. More than this, when he saw his pastor daily engaged in tending his sheep, and when he heard of him, as time went on, as winning " golden opinions from all sorts of men," he began not only to esteem him very highly in love for his work's sake, but to like the way in which his work was done. " He's too high," he said to a friend, "but he's so good and so earnest (and he can ride, you know), and he has so much to say for what he does, that I mean to give him all the CHURCH PROGRESS. 113 support in my power ; but," he added, checking himself, as though some restraint must be placed upon his ardour, " I should like to shoot that Server." But he did not shoot him. It may be that some of our younger clergy are a little too fond of illumina- tions, and, as we called it in childhood, dressing up, but excess of light is better than gross darkness, and Samuel in his linen ephod, standing as appointed before the company of the prophets, invites the reverence which is repelled by the wild words and profane behaviour of Saul. In all things forbearing one another and forgiving one another, we shall learn not only mutual toleration, but mutual respect and affection ; and they who love the Saviour in sincerity will repeat His prayer that we may all be one in the good time of the Almighty, and here and now may, in unity of spirit work together, despite the strife of tongues, and the roar of the battle, and the sighs of poverty, and the cries of pain, in sure and certain hope. " Through the dark future, through long generations, The echoing sounds grow fainter, and then cease, And, like a bell, with solemn sweet vibrations, I hear once more the voice of Christ say, ' Peace ! ' ' 114 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. VIII. EDUCATION. The chief contention A mere secular education has not been a success Evidence at home and abroad Effects of the " cramming " system Adaptation The classics Technical schools Ladies and gentlemen. EDUCATION is the subject next in importance to Religion, and though in our estimation, who believe, as Christians, that we are to be educated in this world for a better, the two are inseparable, there is a fierce disputation now in England, not only how far this combination is essential, but whether it should be maintained or dissolved. The main object of contention is not to eliminate Christianity, not, like the Gadarenes, to beseech its Founder to depart out of our coasts, but to decide how much and by whom it shall be taught. It is not, in reality, for the suppression of principles, but for the supremacy of parties. Men are still of like passions with those disciples, of whom it is recorded that, more than 1800 years ago, there was a strife among them, which should be the greatest. There are many who EDUCATION. 115 disbelieve, and more who dislike Keligion ; the Cross is still unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness, but it is graven indelibly on the heart of our nation, and though the disciples of anti- Christ may rejoice in our divisions, our doubts, and disobedience, in the bitterness of debate, in the inconsistencies of conduct and diversities of creed, they will find that beneath this turbid and dis- coloured surface the stream of Faith flows deep and clear, springing out of the Eock of Ages, and travelling ever onwards, in the greatness of its strength, unto the Eternal Sea " labitur et labetur, in omne volubili* cevum." So far as a severance between a secular and a sacred education has been tried in England, it has not been a success. No sane man would ever question the advantages, so far as they go, of mental culture, the exercise of reason, the acquisition of knowledge. Again and again, we hear those men, who have not had, or have refused, the opportunities of instruction, deploring in after life the disadvantage which has ensued, and in these days of keen competition, a man who goes forth into the world untaught is like a soldier who marches unarmed to battle ; but that which Faith affirms and experience confirms is this, that as no equipments will make a soldier brave in battle, so no scholarship, no proficiency in science or in art, will make homes brighter or hearts lighter, will teach men to be more generous in prosperity, more patient in pain, more resigned in sorrow, or less afraid to die. 116 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. We have, on the contrary, plain proofs, from the governors and chaplains of our prisons, from the reports of our chief constables, and other sources, that education which ignores morality and religion does not diminish vice in the aggregate, though it diversi- fies the component parts. There has been some ful- filment of the Duke of Wellington's prophecy. " If you leave out religion, in teaching your children, you may have a nation of clever devils." You may put sharp weapons in a madman's hand. You may veneer worm-eaten wood, and cover bare metal with electro- plate. You may have large heads and little hearts. Cases of forgery and cooking of accounts have greatly increased, notably in Manchester. And is it not written in all history, that righteousness alone ex- alteth a nation ? The Bishop of Manchester, formerly Bishop of Melbourne, reports of the Australian Colony of Victoria : " Secular education is universal. It was reported that it would diminish crime. It has been powerless to do so. Criminals have increased in number out of all proportion with the population. And there is this sad and most important statement to be made, that the most serious crimes are com- mitted by the best educated criminals." Apart from religious considerations we are be- ginning to suspect in England that we have been making egregious mistakes in our system of education. I have known parents, who, in selecting schools for their children, have attached more importance to the social rank of the pupils than to the efficiency of the EDUCATION. 117 teachers, and have exulted in proclaiming to their neighbours that their sons and daughters were the dearest Mends of certain noble scions who would very speedily forget their existence. I have known the sons of those who had limited incomes learn expensive habits in expensive schools, that their parents might talk about my boy at Eton or my boy at Harrow. I have known fathers who gave much heartier en- couragement to athletic than to intellectual success, forgetful that, however admirable this agility may be, it must be secondary and subordinate, because in after life you cannot achieve much distinction with an oar, or feed a wife and family with footballs. The body must not say to the mind, I have no need of thee, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you ; yet both these extremes are common, the scholar despising the sportsman, and the pedestrian disparaging the pedant. We want mens sana in corpore sano a wise tenant in a well-built house. The schoolmaster should be a physician of the body as well as a teacher of the mind a trainer and a tutor in the full sense of the words. He should know the just proportions of study and recreation, because not only does all work and no play make Tom a dull boy, but it may enfeeble permanently his physical and intellectual power. It makes one's heart sad to see the number of boys and girls using spectacles for their weakened sight, and the " cramming " system, which is now in vogue for competitive examinations, is followed, not 118 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. seldom, by deplorable results. A friend of mine, who is an officer in one of our most distinguished regi- ments, informed me that the mental labour undergone by the candidates for admission, together with the intense anxiety and fear of failure, had in many instances within his cognizance manifestly impaired the faculties and the energies of his brothers-in-arms. " I know young fellows," he said, " in whom this perpetual drudgery, though it has been successful, has created an insuperable disgust for book-learning ; and I know others, who seem, like ships, which have lost anchor and rudder in the storm, to be ever drifting to and fro, tossed about by every wind of doctrine. It is, of course, a silly exaggeration that we, the officers of the Royal Engineers, ' are either Methodists or mad,' but it is so far a fiction founded upon fact, inasmuch as the ambition of enrolment in our corps has overworked the brain, and has thereby suggested eccentric deviations from the common highway of thought and action." Again, there is an abuse of education, in a want of proportion, of adaptation to the circumstances and capacities of the pupil. Here, again, the fault may be in the parent, who sends his children to schools in which they may learn to disparage their home surroundings, or in teachers who will not conform their instructions to the possibilities and necessities of their scholars. We have an example of the former in the son who returned to inform his father that he did not like his occupation, and should prefer EDUCATION. 119 something in the post-office. " Post-office !" exclaimed the indignant and disappointed sire, for his business was lucrative, though it was lowly, " what could you do in the post-office ? All you're fit for is to stand outside with your tongue out so that the public may moisten their stamps ! " It is of primary im- portance to teach a boy, in accordance with that first and best of lesson-books, which our forefathers learned, to get his own living. When some one said to Cobbett, " I hope that the time will come in England when every agricultural labourer will appreciate the philosophic arguments of Bacon," Cobbett replied, " Don't you think it would be kinder to place before him first, not the rationality, but the rasher of Bacon ? " We are making, I can assure you, some splendid discoveries in the old country with regard to educa- tion. It has been suggested, and the proposition is gaining ground, that it might be quite as advan- tageous to learn the languages which are now spoken by the nations as those which are no longer under- stood, in their ancient form, by the descendants of those who spoke them. Oxford has even gone so far as to establish an award of honours for proficiency in the study of English, and it has been hinted that as not more than one man in fifty interests himself in Greek or Latin books after leaving the University, it might be well to teach him something more likely to engage his attention. Statesmen are beginning to suspect that a knowledge of modern history and 120 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. statistics would have been more helpful than Hero- dotus or the composition of Latin verses. Lawyers learn their indebtedness to Greece and Rome, but their sense of obligation would be greatly enhanced if they had been introduced to some more recent jurisprudence. Soldiers and sailors do not seem to derive any military or naval advantage from their reminiscences of chariots, battering-rams, bows and arrows, and triremes. Landowners, coming into the possession of their estates without a notion as to their management, hardly regard the Idylls of Theocritus or the Bucolics of Virgil as satisfactory guides in agriculture ; and even we clergy, patterns though we be of humility, meekness, and long-suffer- ing, are not quite sure that some practical instruction as to reading and preaching, music, sanitation, and medicine might not have been more helpful to our work even than the Ethics of Aristotle, or the Frogs of Aristophanes. I would in no wise depreciate or discontinue the study of the ancient writers, but I would restrict it to those who manifestly derive edification from it. The theologian who searches the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the Fathers and learned doctors of the Church, should be conversant with those languages, which were inscribed upon the Cross, with Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin. Rulers, and states- men, and soldiers will be instructed by their records, and orators and authors will find in them models of style. Sydney Smith affirmed that the two ancient EDUCATION. 121 languages of Greece and Rome were incomparably more beautiful than any of the modern languages of Europe ; and I would adduce in corroboration two magnificent specimens of poetic genius composed upon subjects closely similar, and therefore suggestive of comparison the Lighting of the Beacon Fires, as described by ^Eschylus in " The Agamemnon," and the similar illumination, as described by Lord Macaulay in his verses on the Spanish Armada. Both are thrilling, as a march played on silver trumpets, or a glorious roll of drums, but there is a transcendent majesty and grandeur in the Greek which absorbs and enthralls the ear. All who have read must admire this classic literature ; and I am only maintaining that it is altogether inappropriate in countless cases, where we have made it imperative, and that we are beginning to be convinced of our mistake. And so we have got our technical schools and our object-lessons, and the anvil of the smith and the bench of the carpenter at our public schools. There was something after all in the practical scheme of education adopted by Mr. Squeers, at Dotheboy's Hall in Yorkshire, when the young disciple, having succeeded in spelling horse, was sent to the stable, that he might clean the quadruped in question. We do not propose this precedent to our headmasters for their imitation, but we may venture to remind them, and the parents of their pupils, that it was the custom of the chosen people to teach their sons some useful trade, that Paul went out of the synagogue at Corinth 122 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. and helped to stitch the strong leathern tents with Aquila and Priscilla, and that the Highest, the only Perfect Example which is set before us, held the saw and the hammer in His hand. I was talking to a friend about my visit to the States, and he said, " I have received kindness and help from the Americans which I shall never forget. If they meet with a man whom they can trust and see that he means to work, they'll give him a lift if they can ; but they have told me again and again, ' We don't quite know what to say to some of your young countrymen, who come to us with introductions which command respect. They are bright and genial, well-mannered, and well dressed, active and strong. They can shoot with shot-guns at rabbits and pheasants, but they know nothing of rifles and big game. They can ride horses that have been well broken, but they don't know how to break them. They don't know how to handle an axe, or a spade. They would like a ranche, but they have no experi- ence of cattle. They don't know the component parts of an engine. They are ignorant as to accounts. They are most willing, most anxious to learn, but who is to teach them? Their parents and tutors, have never heard, or never heeded, the answer of Agesilaus, when he was asked, " What sort of educa- tion was the best for boys ? " " The knowledge," he said, " of those things which they will have to do as men." " What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba," who in the sweat of his face must eat bread ? ' " EDUCATION. 123 We have not your inventive genius, and we are very deliberate in our alterations, but " the old order changeth," and the stream sweeps us struggling on. The improvement, to which I have referred, in our edu- cational policy, partly compelled by our necessities, the increase of our population, and the competition of the world, and partly the result of a thoughtful wisdom, has enlarged and enlightened our ideas on a subject which has, I know, perplexed and amused the American mind, I mean the subject of Ladies and Gentlemen. Sixty years ago there rose a high parti- tion wall between those who assumed these titles, and those who did not dare to claim them broadly speaking, between those who had nothing to do and those who had some employment. The former graciously received to their side of the wall, officers of the army and navy who were their own kith and kin, judges and barristers on the same principle, and a few favoured physicians and bankers, who ministered to their bodily and financial needs. Now and then a man who had accumulated wealth by his industry climbed the wall on a golden ladder, and was admitted by large payments to a chilly reception, made to feel hopelessly uncomfortable, remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow, about "as happy as a salmon on a gravel walk." He began to doubt whether a man who did not possess a portrait of his great-grand- father was morally entitled to exist, and with a miser- able self-contempt invested in a small collection of ancestors in armour, and bagwigs, silk coats, and 124 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. satin gowns. Then he betook himself to the Herald's Office, for how could a man present himself among ladies and gentlemen who had no crest, no griffin, or other fabulous animal engraven on his spoons, his carriage, or his livery -servants ? and the benevolent heralds on the receipt of a small acknowledgment of a few hundred dollars were enabled, after a long and laborious research, to assure their happy client, that, although his name had been sadly disfigured by the wear and tear of the ages, it was originally borne by a particular friend of William the Conqueror, and entitled him to armorial bearings, which would be at once prepared, and for which he would be charged two guineas annually. The humour of the proceeding was enough to make the eyes of those old portraits wink, because a large proportion of those who regarded with supercilious disdain these nouveaux riches were them- selves exalted through the commercial success of their forefathers ; and though there were many families whose founders had nobly deserved their honours, there were some who had done nothing for them, but as descendants of some favourite at court were still enjoying the spoils of the spoiler. It will sound strangely to you, who have never been deceived by a similar hallucination, when I recall a time in which it would have been regarded as a degradation by those ladies and gentlemen if any member of their family had associated himself with a trade, however lucrative and indispensable to the commonweal. He might perhaps receive EDUCATION. 125 absolution if he allied himself with the wine business, because wine was genteel, but this was an exceptional act of condescension. I remember a case in which the Ducal Lord-lieutenant of a Midland county positively refused to make a gentleman, thoroughly qualified and universally respected, a Justice of the Peace, because he was engaged in business ; and I have seen another magnate receive certain guests whom he had invited to dine with a solemn inclina- tion of the head, lest any presumptuous sin should get the dominion over them. " What the Bishop of London likes in his Clergy," said the witty Dean of St. Paul's, " is a sort of drop- down deadness ; " and I am bound to state that in numerous instances the people loved to have it so. The men stood bare-headed, the women courtseyed to the ground, and we spake to each other with bated breath in the presence of the Marquis of Carabbas ! But when riches rapidly increased, and the descendants of those gentlemen, who had acted as travelling- companions to the Norman King, were discovered in large numbers through the indefatigable zeal of the heralds ; when facilities of locomotion brought all grades into proximity, and the eye was accus- tomed to coronets, and the ear to titles, and squires became as common as silver in the days of Solomon ; when the idols were closely scrutinized and found to be of the same material as their worshippers, there arose aspirations for a further equality ; and every man in England is now a gentleman, about 70 per cent, are esquires (without any assistance from the 126 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. heralds), and all the women are ladies. " Jemimerann," said a robust mother to her daughter of some seven summers, " if yer don't drop them naughty tricks " (the playful little damsel was filling her sweet little bucket from the sands at Margate, and emptying it into the coat-pockets of an elderly gentleman who was dozing on a bench hard by) " and come here and behave like a lady, I shall smack your chops." And a witness giving evidence in a court of justice stated, " When I see that gentleman in the handcuffs a pummelling that lady with the black eye, I says to my missus, ' Them's ways I don't hold to,' and ' Billy,' she says, ' you'd better not.' ' How shall we discern between the false and the true ? Of whom shall we speak Tennyson's words " And so he bore without abuse The grand old name of Gentleman, Defamed by every charlatan, And soil'd with all ignoble use." What makes a gentleman ? It is said in England of a man belonging to the upper ranks of society, " He's a gentleman by birth." What of that, if he is not a gentleman by behaviour ? He may say, "The lot is fallen unto me in a fair ground, I have a goodly heritage," but without cultivation this fair ground will soon be overgrown with thorns and weeds, and that goodly heritage wasted in riotous living. There will be a reversion to type, a descent from civilization to barbarism, the apple dwindling into the crab, and the plum to the sloe. EDUCATION. 127 Income does not make gentlemen. I remember that when I was at school one of the boys had twice as much pocket-money as the others, and this he not only spent upon himself, but was continually negotiating loans with his smaller companions ; and when little Billy Wilson pressed him for the payment of threepence, and received more cuffs than halfpence, William's elder brother challenged Master Dives to single combat, and disfigured and defeated him with a vigorous rapidity, which delighted all the school. All the universities of America and Europe cannot make a gentleman. Why ? Because he must be a gentleman at heart. " For what is it to be a gentle- man ? " asks Thackeray in his " Book of Snobs." " It is to be honest, to be gentle, to be generous, to be brave, to be wise, and having all these qualities, -to exercise them in the most graceful outward manner." A gentleman is one who thinks about the wants of others as well as about his own. " Blessed is he that considereth the poor and needy," who delights in helping others, those especially who cannot help themselves, who makes allowances for the erring, and tries to raise the fallen, who cannot be bribed to do a dirty action, or bullied to tell a lie. Good Bishop Wilson wrote, " He is a gentleman who has a good estate and authority, and makes use of them to promote the glory of God, the good of his country, and to help those that are in need ; " but to these must be added a multitude of others who have neither wealth nor power. I have seen the full 128 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. dignity of manhood, I have met with a graceful courtesy, in very humble homes. I have admired a sweet patience and resignation within bare walls and by fireless grates, and a much wider sympathy for pain and sorrow from those who have been suffering themselves. Gentleness and manliness, the child's heart in the brave man's breast these make a gentleman. No idle man can be called a gentleman a drone in the hive, a dumb note in an organ, a barren tree in an orchard, a dead fish drifting down the stream. Bichter said that every man resembled a hill which sloped northward and southward. On the sunny side it had a fruitful soil, which, under careful management, produced an abundance of large luscious grapes, but the produce of the other side was naught and vile, rank weed and thorny briar. The idle man neither digs nor prunes ; the thistledown floats over him as he slumbers; the garden is a desert, and the wilderness more wild. " Could you not do some- thing, however small," it was asked of one of these imbeciles, " if only to give Providence an excuse for your existence ? " But where, you will ask, are they learned these attributes of a gentleman ? If no social position, no greenbacks, no erudition can impart them who is to make a man a gentleman ? I will tell you in two words his mother. His mother, teaching him lessons which she has learned from Heaven, and by her own good loving life. We have had fathers, whom we old EDUCATION. 129 men remember with fond affection, and with the sure and certain hope that the hoary head wears its crown of glory, but they were occupied in their various occupations, and it was the mother that taught us in those first dear days of life the truths which have been best for us to know. " Happy he With such a mother ! faith in womankind Beats with his blood, and trust in all things high Comes easy to him, and though he trip and fall He shall not blind his soul with clay." Have not the holiest of the saints, the wisest of statesmen, the bravest of heroes, thanked God, as Washington thanked God, for the prayers and the lessons which he learned at his mother's knee ? I am not prepared to state that all our English mothers, past, present, and future, represent this splendid influence. I am constrained, on the con- trary, having expressed my admiration of those who possess and use it, to deplore its absence in many examples ; and I am emboldened, having pre- viously placed the Atlantic between myself and those who do not fulfil their obligations, to dis- criminate, and to denounce. All the mothers in Israel are not Deborahs ; Ruth and Orpah are sisters still. There are two kinds of mothers who do not de- serve the name : the one, which relegates her children to the nursery and the nursemaid, using them now and then as playthings, but angrily dismissing, 130 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. when they fret, or tire ; and the other, which pet and pamper, and adorn with preposterous finery, and ultimately produce that most obnoxious of all nuisances and saddest of all spectacles a spoiled child ! I do not object to the free-spoken child, preferring, of course, that he should speak freely at somebody else's expense. I am gratified by the little boy, who runs from one side of the luncheon-table to the other, and exclaims, " Oh, please, Mr. Toper " (Mr. T. is raising his wineglass to his lips), "wait, and let me see you drink ! Uncle Tom said you drank like a fish, and I want to see how you do it." I enjoy the perplexity, when another communicative child, a bright little damsel of six summers, presents herself to a gentleman, visiting in a country house, and says, " I know who you are you're Blanch's last chance. I heard Pa say so ; " and I do not feel the sorrow, which I know that I ought to feel, for poor Aunt Isabella, when her small niece remonstrates in her presence with another lady, complaining at the breakfast-table of dental distress in the night, " Why don't you take out your teeth, and put them on your dressing-table, as Aunt Bella does, before you go to bed ? " I am large-hearted in the matter of naughty boys. I freely forgive myself when at my first school and being sent a prisoner to the beer-cellar I turned the tap of one of the barrels, because I was opposed to solitary confinement, and because I lost no time in announcing my misdemeanour through EDUCATION. 131 the keyhole i of the upper door. Not only to myself, but to those who co-operated with me, I have been graciously pleased to grant a free pardon for pro- ducing on each other's arms and legs with a steel pen and red ink a faithful representation of the measles, in order that we might be removed from the distasteful drudgeries of the school to the restful peace of the sanatorium. That third-master was such a bully, that I always think of the cracker which we tied to his gown as the sweetest and richest thing I ever saw in fireworks ; and though the agony on Uncle John's face was painfully intense it was very brief, and I remember with glee the cause how we caught a number of sparrows in a net, and, having decorated them with bright bits of worsted, set them loose in the garden, and then, tapping at his study window, suggested to our venerable kinsman our anxious fears that all the foreign birds in his aviary had regained their freedom. But the spoiled child ! hair unbrushed, black finger-mark on cheek still moist with tears, remnants of confectionery around the pouting lips, with their limited vocabulary, " Sharn't, Won't, Want some more, Shall tell Ma" this sticky, struggling, screaming, pugnacious pigmy, which might have been a fairy and is a fiend, how angry we should be with her who wrought this miserable transformation, were not our indignation restrained by the foresight of a retri- bution, which must surely come. If you do not break a colt thoroughly he may possibly break your 132 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. neck. Plato said that every man was like a driver of two horses, the one was white and winged and ever strove to go straight onward ; the other was black, vicious, jibbing, rearing, kicking, making for the edge of the precipice, and trying to upset the coach. If you give this black horse too many beans, if you don't keep hold of his head, and if your heir is a person you would like to oblige, I would advise you to insure your life. What I mean is, that spoiled boys and girls make spoiled men and women, wilful, obstinate, extra- vagant, greedy, bumptious, wise in their own conceits, but not in the conceits of other people. The youths grow into dunces, duffers, gamblers, and mashers of a ridiculous type. One night when I was dining with John Leech at the Garrick Club, a specimen of the dandy division lounged in with his hat on the back of his head, his hands in his pocket, and his mouth half open, with an expression on his face of hopeless mental and bodily exhaustion, and after in- forming a brother swell that he had just returned from some races, he didn't know where, and won a lot of money, he didn't know what, and was bored to death, he didn't know why, he proceeded to ask a waiter what he could have for dinner. When a beef-steak was suggested, he replied with a shudder, admirably assumed, " that he was not a wild beast," and ulti- mately condescended to refresh himself with a wood- cock and a bottle of champagne. The eccentricities of young womanhood, connected EDUCATION. 133 more or less with early neglect or indulgence, assume a variety of fantastic forms. The young lady, who is devoted to mysteries and meta- physics, " thoughts from the visions of the night," apparitions ignoring realities, the duties and the beauties of this commonplace world, she lives her dreamy life amid vain imaginations, drifting in her phantom ship without helm or compass upon ever- changing and shoreless seas. There is the exuberant, gushing young lady, for whom everything is " too awfully too-too," who " never saw such a delicious, darling duck of a bonnet, such tremendous strawberries, such a magnificent canary, such a lovely button-hook ! " Her adjectives and substantives are never appropriate, have never any grace of congruity. She was heard to exclaim, after a thousand voices had sung the most glorious of all songs, the Hallelujah Chorus in the Messiah, " How very pretty ! " and he who heard made this remark upon the observation, " I should as soon have thought of calling an earthquake genteel ! " Her letters, of course, are in the superlative style, half the words ending in est, underlined, and so full of vain repetitions that they remind me of an invitation written, it is said, in Wales, many years ago, when the people of that country were much given to tautology : "Mr. Charles Morgan, Mrs. Charles Morgan, and Miss Llewellyn Jones present their compliments to Mr. Walter Norton, Mrs. Walter Norton, and the Governess, whose name Mr. Charles 134 MORE MEMOEIES BY DEAN HOLE. Morgan, Mrs. Charles Morgan, and Miss Llewellyn Jones do not recollect, and Mr. Charles Morgan, Mrs. Charles Morgan, and Miss Llewellyn Jones request the pleasure of the company of Mr. Walter Norton, Mrs. Walter Norton, and the Governess, whose name Mr. Charles Morgan, Mrs. Charles Morgan, and Miss Llewellyn Jones do not recollect, to dinner on Thursday next. Should it be agreeable to Mr. Walter Norton, Mrs. Walter Norton, and the Governess, whose name Mr. Charles Morgan, Mrs. Charles Morgan, and Miss Llewellyn Jones do not recollect, to remain for the night, it will give Mr. Charles Morgan, Mrs. Charles Morgan, and Miss Llewellyn Jones great pleasure to pro- vide beds for Mr. Walter Norton, Mrs. Walter Norton, and the Governess, whose name Mr. Charles Morgan, Mrs. Charles Morgan, and Miss Llewellyn Jones do not recollect." A far more objectionable result of this cruel apathy as to the teaching and training of children is the young person who calls licence liberty, and affects to ridicule the shame which is a glory and a grace. She reads and sometimes writes those detestable stories in which " evil men and seducers wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived." Ugliness is concealed under wigs and rouge, and vice will lie with such volubility, that you would think truth was a fool. This is the damsel who said of a questionable drama that " for herself she enjoyed it immensely, but that it was not quite the sort of play to which you would take your mother." It was of one of this sisterhood that a quaint critic from this side of the Atlantic remarked at a ball, with a most solemn and sorrowful countenance, that he had often heard how sadly the incomes of the English landlords had been diminished by agricultural depression, but that he had never realized the stress of their poverty, until EDUCATION. 135 he beheld with tearful eyes the inadequate clothing of their beautiful wives and daughters. Greatly as I admire the maxim, " Honi soit, qui mal y pense," and Dr. Johnson's rebuke to Boswell, when he asked, " Do you not consider that statue indecent?" "No, sir ; but your question is," I am equally convinced that " Est modus in rebus, Sunt certi denique fines ; " and I admire the quaint, quiet satire of another American, when in describing a great aquatic festival on the Thames he says, " America is a fine free country in many ways, but England is much more free in one, and allows her subjects and the strangers within her gates to dress as they please and when they please." I should like to know the author of that criticism ; I feel that it would be gratifying to exchange cigars and smiles. I think he must be the same commentator who, when he came to Eochester Cathedral and saw some heraldic lions which are painted upon the walls thereof, hideous, attenuated, with no bodies to speak of, turned to the verger, and said, " You seem to keep your lions rather short." There are other proofs that the soil which is neither ploughed nor sown will produce weeds, not wheat. There is the young lady who pays to us men the greatest of all compliments imitation. She wears the hat, the collar, the tie, the waistcoat, the jacket, the stick, the case for cigarettes, and even the book for bets. She has a large dog, a horse that can 136 MOEE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. gallop and jump, and a sweet- little rifle for rooks and rabbits. She sometimes indulges in sporting terms, and may probably inform you, when you inquire about her health, that she is " very fit." The admiration which she creates is fugitive, except with a few enthusiastic young gentlemen who have reced- ing foreheads and are much addicted to gaiters. I am compelled to confess that we have in Eng- land fifty silly young men to one silly young woman, and I must add, to our further shame, that whereas we are cruelly severe in condemning our brethren, we are infinitely kind in criticizing our sisters, when they are good-looking. In America, I think, this unblush- ing partiality is altogether unknown if only for this reason, that as the American ladies are, to quote the description of Charles Dickens, " decidedly and un- questionably beautiful," the barriers between wisdom and folly would fall flat as the walls of Jericho. Max O'Rell writes, in his book on " Jonathan and his Continent," " I do not remember to have seen one hopelessly plain woman during my six months' ramble in the States." ( 137 ) IX. MARRIAGE. Its happiness The Eose looking in at the window Early instincts My first lover's lay Some sad mistakes A caution to lovers Old customs. I CANNOT leave this delectable society without a few words upon a subject most deeply interesting, not only to " young men and maidens," but to " old men and children." I mean, Marriage. Yes, to us old men, who have found, and find, the happiness of life from those who have soothed its sorrows and purified its joys " There's a Rose looking in at the window, In every condition of life ; In days of content and enjoyment, In hours with bitterness rife. " Where'er there's the smile of a true wife, As bright as a beam from above, 'Tis the Rose looking in at the window, And filling the dwelling with love." Happiness with them and from them, their children, and children's children. I must be speaking to some who, though the long shadows of eventide are falling 138 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. upon their path as upon mine, are rejoicing, as I am, to revive their own childhood with the little ones of a third generation. When I hear those tiny feet, as I sit in my study, pattering overhead, I am powerless, however grave, however interesting, the subject of which I read or write, to remain in my seat, and hasten to refresh my spirit with the sight of that small pedestrian, who, according to his grand- father's clock, has " beaten the record." That is manifest, you say, but how is Marriage interesting to the children themselves ? I don't know ; they don't know ; but so it is. "Whatever may be the date of that process, which is known as " falling in love," in America, we lose no time in England. I see one of the little grandchildren, of whom I spoke, putting her doll to bed with a most maternal and loving care, and sweetly, patiently, endeavouring to sing it to sleep, in spite of two enormous eyes, which stare unblinking defiance. As for boyhood, I really cannot remember any period in which I was not in love with somebody ; and I recall affecting verses which I wrote soon after I had entered on " the teens " " When first I saw the golden curls Of "William Barlow's youngest sister, I loved her most of all the girls, And more and more I sadly miss'd her. " And though Bill Barlow, when I praised, And told him that I loved, his sister, Came at me with a stick, and raised Upon my arm a horrid blister ; MARRIAGE. 139 " And though I struck him on the nose, I still adored his youngest sister ; And after that exchange of blows, More madly for my wife I wished her. " Again we met, so sweet, so shy She called me ' Sir,' and likewise ' Mister ' : I never saw such modesty As that of William Barlow's sister. " We shared each other's hopes and fears, We smiled, and sighed, and spoke in whispers, And did not heed the silly jeers Of William Barlow's other sisters. " And it was Christmas-time, you know, And she was kind, that youngest sister ; And so, beneath the mistletoe, I offered her my hand and " [Here the manuscript is illegible.] But seriously, for this subject of Matrimony suggests most serious considerations, it becomes us elderly folk to caution our juniors, whether they will hear or whether they will forbear, that this early romance, these nuptial anticipations, must be accommodated, as time goes on, to the counsels of reason and the possibilities of facts ; that sentiment must have an interview with common sense, and not only the hymeneal priest, but the banker, and the upholsterer, and the butcher, and the baker, must be regarded as important factors in this momentous transaction. Many a man and many a woman have brought the chill shadow of disappointment upon their lives, because they entered that holy estate of 140 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. Matrimony, which Christ adorned and beautified with His Presence and first miracle that He wrought in Cana of Galilee, unadvisedly, lightly, and wantonly. Who can tell the misery which may ensue, when pique, or love of money, luxury, society, popularity, or mere passion, contaminate the purity of love? Shakespeare writes, " Love which has nothing but beauty to keep it in good health is short-lived and apt to have ague fits," and there is sometimes too much truth in the sarcastic severity of the Canon, who, being asked for an appropriate text by a younger clergyman about to preach a wedding sermon, selected Psalm Ixxii. 7 : " Yea, and abun- dance of peace, so long as the moon endure th." " I married," it was said to me under no seal of confession, " not because I loved the man, but because he proposed to me just when I had discovered that he whom I did love cared not for me. I sowed the wind, and have reaped the whirlwind." Not seldom it is the rank and not the character, the income and not the intellectual endowments, which the damsel is taught to regard as primary. " I have just heard of your daughter's engage- ment," a gentleman said to a lady ; " allow me to offer my hearty congratulations." " Oh, thanks," was the reply, " you are very kind. Jenny hates the man but there's always a something ! " "I think it my painful duty, as an old friend, to ask you," another gentleman said to a mother, "whether you are aware that the man to whom MAEBIAGE. 141 your daughter is said to . be engaged, belongs to a family every member of which has more or less been afflicted by insanity ? " " Oh yes," said Mama, " we know all about them. They are eccen- tric, but we have all of us our weak points. Please let us change the subject." He saw that interference was hopeless, but he knew, and she knew, that the eccentricities and weak points associated with the kinsfolk of her future son-in-law included one murder, three suicides, two idiots, and all the minor forms of insanity. The gentleman took his leave, but .he could not refrain, in his disgust and indignation, from advising the merciless mother to " include Uncle John among the wedding guests. He has just returned to England on ticket-of -leave" Lovers should really be more cautious. A small child said the other day to her brother and sister, " Now let us play at Gwendoline and Captain Wilson. You, Bobby and Ethel, must sit together, as close as you can, at the end of the garden-seat, and then, Bobby, you must look at Ethel as if you were very hungry, and she were something good to eat, or as if something had got into her eye, and you were trying to find it ; and then, when I come round the shrubbery, Bobby must dart to the other end of the seat, and put his hands in his pockets and whistle, and Ethel must look up into the sky, as if she saw an eagle, and then Bobby must say, 'Hollo, Miss Augusta ! it must be about your bed- time.' " Sub- sequently, and on the wedding-day of the elder 142 MORE MEMOEIES BY DEAN HOLE. sister aforesaid, Miss Augusta gave a spirited repre- sentation in the night nursery of the marriage cere- mony, wearing " the trailing garments of the night " (Longfellow) for a surplice, and uniting Bobby and Ethel with great solemnity as man and wife. A resonant nuptial peal afterwards rung with remark- able vigour on the dinner-bell by the bridegroom in person was not appreciated by the parents of the corps dramatique, and was abruptly discontinued. I wonder whether you retain in America any of the quaint customs still connected in the old country with weddings ? I do not mean the pelting of the happy pair with rice, a process of heathen derivation, and an objectionable nuisance I know one bride who suffered intense pain for some hours from a sharp particle lodged in the eye but such practices as that to which Tennyson refers when he wrote " And wheresoe'er thou goest, good luck Shall fling his old shoe after." Not many years ago I witnessed a memorable incident in connection with this performance. The bride and bridegroom were starting in their carriage for the railway, when two of her younger brothers appeared on the scene with a number of old white satin ball shoes, and began to fling them at the departing vehicle. One of these missiles had a hard sharp heel, which should have been removed, and this unhappily struck the coachman on the temples, and severed the great artery. In a few seconds his white livery was crimsoned with the blood which MARRIAGE. 143 gushed forth, and left him pale as death. We had a clever doctor among the guests who quickly staunched the issue, but he told me that if no surgeon had been there the result might have been fatal. Whence originated this curious custom ? Probably from a practice which prevailed some centuries ago, when the father of the bride presented his son-in-law with one of his daughter's shoes as a token of the transfer of authority, and the bridegroom administered a tiny tap upon her head to indicate his supremacy. But it will be highly imprudent for the husband to repeat such indications of his autocracy. We have still a wholesome practice in our English vil- lages, which I have seen and heard on several occasions, of assembling men and women, with cowhorns, frying - pans, fire - shovels, tongs, and pokers, in front of the house in which it is known that the husband was in the habit of beating his wife, and of assailing him, as they clanged their instruments, out of tune and harsh, and blew dismal notes from the horns, which were used to frighten birds from the corn, with opprobrious epithets, derisive jeers, threats of punishment, groans, and yells. Some of these rough and ready administrations of lynch law were, I can assure you, very effectual. For example, notices were set up at the entrance to many towns, "All vagrants will be whipped," and posts to which they were secured for flagellation were common throughout the land. I have preserved 144 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. in the grounds of my old home in Nottinghamshire the parish stocks, which had been long disused. The culprit condemned to this ordeal, in most cases an obnoxious drunkard, was seated on a low bench, with an oak plank, some five feet in length by two in depth, before him. This board was fixed between strong posts, was perforated by two holes in the centre, and was divided into two halves, the upper moving up and down the posts in grooves made for the purpose, descending upon the ankles of the occupants, and making escape impossible. I shall never forget my son's delight, when, in his very early childhood, having persuaded his mother to show him the process of captivity, and having her helplessly secured, he danced and shouted in triumphant ecstasy, and ridiculed her entreaties for release. He is now a bigger man than his father, and wears a barrister's wig and gown, but I see once again the little legs capering under the short white frock, and I hear the merry ring of his voice, and see the joyous smile beneath his golden curls, as he exults in this sudden transposition of authority, and in the strange sense of complete control over her whom he loves the best. ( 145 ) X. OUR ARISTOCRACY. A mixture, as in all other sorts and conditions of men Injustice of sweeping condemnations Noblesse oblige "Drunk as a lord " Rebuke of an unjust steward. I HAVE referred, chiefly for illustrations of the subjects on which I have been permitted to speak to you, to the class to which I myself belong ; and I would speak now of those who, in conventional phrase, are above and below me. We are divided into three classes, speaking generally the nobles and landlords, men engaged in the professions and in business, and men under their employment. This classification is, of course, inexact, in some instances only nominal. An aristocrat may be ignoble, an ecclesiastic may be of the earth earthy, a master or an officer incapable, a working man may be idle. It is with them as with all other sorts and con- ditions of men give them what names you please, dress them in soft raiment or coarse common stuff, put their feet in patent leather or wooden clogs, and their skulls in coronets or paper caps, you will have 146 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. an intermixture of good and bad, heroes and humbugs, knaves and honest men. And so there is always injustice in sweeping con- demnations of large divisions of society, and this error is made signally manifest by those who, in England or elsewhere, denounce our nobility as bloated aristocrats, brigands, vultures, hyaenas, leeches, " glutted, gorged, and full," who are ever quoting Burns's lines, beginning, " Ye see yon birkee call'd a lord," and seeking to abolish his order. I am not arguing the question, whether or no it is expedient for a country to bestow titles upon its most distinguished benefactors, and to secure those titles to their descendants, whether they may be worthy or not, but I desire to affirm and there are many American gentlemen who will corroborate my statement that the large majority of our titled folks realize the obligation that noblesse oblige, that the rank is but the guinea's stamp, that kind hearts are more than coronets, and that, so far from deserving the satire of the poet * " Men should press forward in Fame's glorious chase ; Nobles look backward, and so lose the race," they are rather of his mind f who was one of them- selves, and wrote " Not to the past, but to the future, looks true nobility, And finds its blazon in posterity." Once, it is true, the words " as drunk as a lord " * Young. f Lord Lytton. OUR ABISTOCKACY. 147 were commonly used in England, but now they are almost obsolete, and it is long since, on a memorable occasion, I last heard their utterance. A large party were seated at luncheon in the house of their noble host, when the loud voice of a man, shouting and singing in a state of wild excitement, came from the adjoining park. A footman was sent out to make inquiries, and communicated on his return the results to his master " The man is as drunk as a lord, my lord ! " I shall never forget the expression of remorse and perplexity which fell upon the countenance of the messenger almost before the words were spoken, " volat irrevocabile verbum"-noY the discomfiture of his exit, when, solvuntur risu tabulae, the laughter could not be restrained. I need hardly remind you that this severe allusion to the inebriety of the peerage originated at a time when alcohol, as repre- sented by Old Port, had special fascinations for our upper classes. In those days of my boyhood, when, at the time of a dinner-party, we descended from our nurseries with silent, stealthy, very stealthy, steps, like young brigands from the mountains, to help ourselves from dishes in anterooms, which were going to or coming from the banquet, I remember, after we had retired loaded, at times somewhat over- loaded, with spoils to our lair, that " There was a sound of revelry by night," a loud and frequent use of the word " Tally-ho," as indicating, though etymologists do not tell us why, 148 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. the appearance of a fox, followed by resonant announcements that he was " gone away," vehement exhortations to " hark forward," and finally by such a frenzied scream of " who-op ! " as suggested a sudden retrograde movement of the highly educated gentleman to " the poor savage of untutored mind." Only one class of men in the higher walks of life seem to have maintained on all occasions a steady gait, and while the intemperate man was denounced to be drunk as a lord, the temperate man was declared, with respectful admiration, to be "as sober as a judge." This does not mean that the high officers of the law were rigid total abstainers, or Thomas Hood would never have told us that " Good Judges in the Law are they, Of Sherry, Claret, and Tokay ; And when their lordships deign to joke, And banish Lyttelton and Coke, They order that the best Old Port Shall henceforth be the Rule of Court, That case shall be the fate of asses, Their only Circuit be of glasses. So happy on such Terms as these, They seem in Court of Common Please." There was a time, I have intimated, when there was a considerable amount of hauteur, reserve, and dignity, in the reception by certain aristocrats of the other lords of the creation. It was a time, when the population was comparatively small, and owing to the expense and tardiness of locomotion men saw little of each other. There were thousands who never saw a lord, thousands who only saw him now OUR ARISTOCRACY 149 and then. So that he became in his neighbourhood an Alexander Selkirk, " monarch of all he surveyed, whose right there was none to dispute," and the people loved to have it so. They uncovered their heads, and bowed them low, and spoke with bated breath, and my lord was constrained to patronize and bless his worshippers, whether he liked it or not, and, being a man, as a rule he liked it. Even then, with all these provocations to pride and selfishness, he was a generous landlord to tenants who had held the same farms for generations, and a kind, thoughtful master to servants whose forefathers also had been affectionately attached to his house. Let me quote an example. Many years ago the new steward of one of our Nottinghamshire earls was more anxious to ingratiate himself with his master than to promote the welfare of his neighbours, and accordingly proposed to make a reduction in the wages of the servants and work-people employed on the estate. The payments, he declared, were greatly in excess of the necessary expenses of those who received them. My lord heard him patiently, and replied, " You make a very great mistake in supposing that I would prevent an honest man from laying by a few pounds to comfort him when he wants them most, and I advise you not to repeat it. You may depend upon it, that if ever I make reductions, / shall begin with you." There are, of course, exceptions, dismal degrada- tions. The greater the height, the more visible and disastrous the fall, and of all men are they most 150 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. despicable who bring dishonour upon a noble name and tarnish a splendid reputation, who squander and cumber fair estates for the selfish gratification of evil passions, and impoverish and embarrass their children for generations. What sight was ever so sad as the young prodigal, who had wasted his substance in riotous living, in his soiled finery feeding the swine ? Where will you find me a sermon upon the text, " Be sure your sin will find you out," so impressive as Hogarth's picture of the ruined Rake, simpering in his helpless imbecility at the wreck which he has made ? But this diversity, this combination of tares and wheat, of alloy with the purer metals, is inseparable from our humanity. All along the line, officers and rank and file, are there not in our bravest armies some faint hearts like those of the children of Ephraim, who, being harnessed and carrying bows, turned themselves back in the day of battle ; who, if they made a free and full confession of their feelings, would express them in words very similar to his who sang " Should I e'er come back to thee, dear mother, Never more from thee I'll roam ; But I'll stay, and whack my youngest brother, In tranquillity at home" ? And so, when we come down the ladder from the highest to the lowest rungs, from the millionaire to the mendicant, from the lords of the forests and the lakes, to the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, from those who pay to those who receive wages, we find the same incongruities. XL THE WORKING-MEN. Two kinds of working-men accurately described The dignity and the happiness of work Timoleon d'Ecossais The contest between industry and indolence Sympathy between rich and poor Lying prophets who would dissuade from work The smoke nuisance and sanitary laws. ARE not the working-men, as we designate those who receive wages in England, as if there was not mental as well as manual labour (ah, there are times, God knows, when the burdens on the brain seem the cruelest and most crushing of all !), are they not divisible into the conscientious and the compulsory, reliable and evasive ? In Scribner's Magazine for July, 1894, and in an article upon "American Types of the Working-Man," I find two examples, which seem to me to comprehend the whole body, on both sides of the Atlantic : (1) the class of workmen who respect their work more than their wages, who are loyal to their craft and proud of good work, however humble it may be, who save money, have tidy homes, give their children the best education 152 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. in their power, and belong distinctly to the law- supporting and not law-upheaving members of society ; and (2) the class who take no interest in their work, and are always trying to do as little as they can for their wages. I find no grander specimen of our race than the man who goeth forth to his work and to his labour until the evening, be his occupation what it may, in dutiful obedience to the Divine instruction, " Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." I do not read in history of a braver courage, a truer wisdom, or withal of a surer happiness. He lives in loyal obedience to the immutable law, " In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread," to that innate instinct which urges the little child to minister to others, and the boy to delight in his boxes of miniature tools and bricks, and in digging with his tiny spade. The wisest of men, who had made experi- ment of every method which promised happiness, has told us that we must earn it, that there is no harvest for those who neither plough nor sow. It is good and comely, he writes, for every man, poor or rich, to rejoice in his labour. And all must own the obliga- tion, even those who shirk it, or seek to satisfy themselves with subterfuge, like the great French Duke, who thus addressed the reflection of himself, as he sat before a looking-glass, razor in hand : " Timoleon D'Ecossais, God has made you a gentleman, and the Emperor has made you a Duke ; neverthe- less, it is necessary that thou shouldest have some TEE WORKING-MEN. 153 occupation, and therefore thou shalt shave thyself." Some there are to whom even this light handiwork is irksome, from the rich man who transfers it to his valet, to the lazy loafer with three days' bristles on his cheeks and chin the sort of man of whom it was said, that in all the animal world he and the camel differed most from each other, because the camel would work six days in the week without drinking, and he would drink, whenever he could, six days in the week without working. We need not go where men most do congregate, we need not " Expatiate wide o'er all this field of man," to explain these discrepancies ; we find them, we men, here within our own waistcoats, and though the accommodation seems somewhat limited for two rivers, a carriage-and-pair, and a deadly combat, we are con- scious here in the heart " That rivers twain are rushing still, And pour their mingled flood, Good in the very midst of ill, 111 in the heart of good ; " that Plato's two horses, of which I spoke, are com- peting for the mastery, the white horse to draw us onward and upward, and the black down the precipice ; and that here we have that law of the members, of which St. Paul wrote to the Romans, warring against the law of the mind. Should not this conviction make us more sympathetic ? "If," writes a Kempis, " thou canst not make thyself such as thou wouldest 154 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. be, how shalt thou expect another to be exactly to thy mind ? " Only that sympathy, which sighs, " Alas, my brother," and not, " Fie on thee, fie on thee, we saw it with our eyes," " Now that he is down, let him rise up no more ; " which goes and binds up the wounds, instead of passing by on the other side ; only that love, which constrains us to bear each other's burdens, ten thousand times more powerful than all the acts and edicts of senates and parliaments, of unions and federations, this only, when the times are out of joint, can reset them and keep the machinery of the world in working order. If one touch of nature makes the whole world kin, how much more one touch of Divine compassion. I have a friend who is a working-man in a foundry at Derby. His son his only son was crushed to death in his eighteenth year by a mass of iron, which fell accidentally upon him. But pale death, as Horace wrote, visits not only the log-hut (taberna) of the woodman, but the stately palace towers, and when the eldest son of the Prince of Wales died, my friend, the foundryman, wrote thus to our future King "MY DEAR AFFLICTED PRINCE, " Amongst the millions that are sympa- thizing with you and your dear wife in your great trouble, please accept the sympathy of a Derby work- ing-man. Having lost my eldest and only son at a moment's notice by a fatal accident a short time TEE WORKING-MEN. 155 since, I can feel deeply for you in your great bereave- ment. No one but themselves can tell the sorrows of those who have lost their dear ones. I hope that God will give you health and strength to bear up under your- great trial, not only for your own sake, but for the sake of your dear wife and family. You must think that your dear son is not lost, but gone before. For on that Easter morning all the graves their dead restore father, mother, sister, brother, meet once more. " Yours faithfully, " GEORGE HENRY POWELL." A reply soon followed by telegram from Windsor Castle, " I thank you for your sympathy." And if from the poor to the rich, how much more from the rich to the poor. When Sir Francis Crossley, a wealthy manufacturer in Yorkshire, presented a spacious park to the working-men at Halifax, he said, " I attribute the success, which has enabled me to offer these grounds to my fellow-towns- men, mainly to this incident, that, when we passed through the gates of the great mill yonder, my mother said, ' If the Lord prosper us in this place, the poor shall taste of it.' How could the poor taste of it more sweetly than in fresh air and fair surroundings ? " In this golden chain of human sympathy, one of the brightest and strongest links is an appreciation of the beauty, and the dignity, and the happiness of 156 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. work. Bees love the hum of the hive. " Do you know why I came to your church ? " a working-man said to a clergyman. " Because I saw and heard of you at work early and late. We don't believe in bedroom blinds down at nine a.m. We don't believe in stores that are only open once a week." Satan has very few agents so intelligent and successful, the father of lies has no children with a more striking family likeness, than those who would persuade the working-men that there is something mean, and dishonourable, and unmanly, in those forms of labour which seem to be of such small im- portance, but which are absolutely essential to the sustenance and comfort of our daily life ; that they are mere slavery and drudgery, and bring no pleasure, profit, nor praise. These deceivers cannot or will not understand that there is no greater man than he who does his best, and that no higher praise can be spoken of any man than that which is inscribed upon the grave of one of our famous soldiers, " Here lies Henry Laurence, who tried to do his duty." Have they never read how, under the Old Covenant, and by Divine Commandment, they who were ordered to march to battle, and they who were commanded to tarry by the stuff, divided the spoils of victory ? and how, under the New Covenant, we are taught by the religion of the Carpenter that those members which seem to be more feeble are necessary, and that fishermen and others, ignorant and unlearned, were commissioned to convert the world ? THE WORKING-MEN. 157 And yet, it has been too truly said,* working- men are perpetually assured that toil and pleasure exist in perpetual divorce, that work is intolerable. But does any thoughtful man fail to admit, at least in the secrecy of his own heart, that what is really intolerable is this false and misleading clap-trap ? The only really happy man in this world is he who finds pleasure in the accomplishment of his daily task, and he who cannot find it there will seek it elsewhere in vain. Who that has lived an indolent and then an active life does not despise the one and cling to the other, because it has taught him to respect himself and to be respected by others, to discover that for men at work a " good digestion waits on appetite, and health on both ; " that the sleep of a labouring man is sweet, for " Weariness Can snore upon the flint, when restive sloth Finds the down pillow hard ; " that constant honest work is the best cure for all the ills that flesh is heir to, because, according to the Chinese proverb, " the dog that is idle barks at his fleas, but he that is hunting feels them not " ? I remember a large employer of labour near my home used to intimate to those who he thought were shirking, " that there was only room for one idle man in his establishment, and that, if he wanted a tenant, he thought he should occupy it himself." * P. Anderson Graham. 158 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. I have spoken of kindnesses conferred by the rich upon the poor, by the employer upon the employed, in England ; and the more generously and wisely these are bestowed in a spirit of brotherly Christian love, the feebler will be the cry of injustice, the fewer will be the encroachments of those who through their numbers are " masters of the situation," upon those who have recognized their responsibilities, and have won the respect and confidence of their fellow- men. But there are many ways in which working- men, despising idleness, and fretfulness, and rebellion, and brute force, may keep the rule and win the reward, " aide toi, Dieu t'aidera," and yet they have made no effort. For example, it must surely be a matter of supreme importance that we should breathe the pure air and enjoy the pure light which God has designed for us all ; and yet there are hundreds of thousands of men and women and children in Eng- land who never inhale the one, or behold the other. There are thousands of acres in the most favoured parts of our land in which vegetation is blasted, the fish are poisoned in the streams, and, ten thousand times worse than this, human growth is stunted and dwarfed, and the hues of health seen no more on the sallow cheek, from sooty exhalations which darken the earth, and chemicals which pollute the waters. One might suppose that this corruption of the atmosphere was a necessity for our manufacturing in- dustry, and could not be removed without serious loss THE WORKING-MEN. 159 to proprietors. It lias been practically demonstrated, on the contrary, by those who have made the longest and largest experiments, that the users of smokeless appliances are not only under no disadvantage as to economy, but find a reward quite sufficient to warrant any one in the use of similar apparatus, even when the prevention of smoke is entirely disregarded. One might suppose that the Acts which have been passed for the preservation of the Public Health, the Sani- tary Authorities, the Nuisance Inspectors, in our cities and towns, would have overcome this evil ; but some are reluctant to prosecute their neighbours, some are acclimatized and to the manner born, some fear to offend employers and customers, and some, who have overcome these scruples, and brought the guilty to justice, have been disgusted by the smallness of the fines inflicted, not infrequently by magistrates who were simultaneously punishing and practising disobe- dience to the law ! Fines of two-and-sixpence and five shillings upon wealthy millowners do more harm than good. There are many appliances for the prevention of the smoke nuisance ; fuel which is almost smokeless, such as the Welsh coal chiefly used in London, hollow bars, fans, air-tubes, coking-stokers, etc. The latest invention has been successfully tested for more than a year in the mint at Birmingham. A fan, making three thousand revolutions per minute, and placed at the lower part of a chimney-stack, ninety feet high, drives the smoke into a large chamber containing 160 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. water, in which the carbon is condensed and de- livered into a trough in front, and the liquor, charged with the sulphates of iron, copper, and ammonia, is converted into a powerful disinfectant, already used extensively. The carbon also has a ready sale for electrical and other purposes. The working-men have only to inform candidates for Parliament that they will not vote for them unless they pledge themselves to abolish the smoke nuisance, and there will be an exodus from darkness into light. XII. POLITICS. A disagreeable subject Party-spirit Early recollections, politics and port wine Protection and Free Trade Charles Dickens on patriotism Lord Eosebery's brighter hopes Analogous temptations Gladstone O'Connell Peel Daniel Webster John Bright Palmerston D'Israeli. SPEAKING of drunkenness and of that polluted atmo- sphere which largely conduces to inebriety, and sug- gesting the interference of those who are chosen by the people to legislate for the common-weal, I seem to enter the portals of Politics, and I may be expected to say something about them. Very little, if you please, because I don't like them. They make people so very irritable. They interfere with digestion. They separate very friends. I have known two men, who were playmates at school, fellow-collegians, faith- ful associates for many years, cut each other in the street after an election, in which they took different sides. Again I recall those dinner-parties of sixty years ago, which we watched from an upper stair- case, descending ever and anon, clad in robes of virgin M 162 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. white, but, I regret to say, with furtive intentions upon dishes passing to and fro ; I remember the uproar of wrangling voices which followed the banquet, for, as at Brussels on the eve of Waterloo, the sound of revelry preceded the thunder of battle, and the disciples of Peel or of Cobden, Protection or Free Trade, commencing their second bottle of good old port, simultaneously denounced each other as traitors, lunatics, and rogues. Again, in boyhood how scared we were, when our elder mates threw open the window of our dormitory, and as the procession of " Blues " went by with torch and tar-barrel, shouted, " Ked for ever," and in a minute every pane was smashed, and we lay chattering with cold and consternation in our little beds ! And ever since, though I have known many of our famous statesmen, not only in their public capacity but in their private life, and thoroughly believe in them as devoted patriots, yet how few they are in comparison with those who regard politics as a contest for the supremacy of their party, a battle between the ins and the outs ! Charles Dickens was a reporter to one of our morning newspapers for three years and a half in the House of Commons, and he gives us his experi- ence thus : " Night after night I record predictions that never come to pass, professions that are never fulfilled, explanations that are only meant to mystify. I wallow in words. Britannia, that unfortunate female, is always before me, like a trussed fowl, skewered through and through with office pens, and POLITICS. 163 bound hand and foot with red tape. I am sufficiently behind the scenes to know the worth of political life. I am quite an infidel about it, and shall never be con- verted." I do not know whether he would be less severe in his commentaries, were he to revisit the Reporters' Gallery, but he would certainly find a change in the menu, whatever he might think of the cooks. The latter are no longer absorbed in roasting and basting the British fowl, but they are engrossed in a preparation of Irish stew, which is at present too peppery for the English palate. There are many who claim to be patriots even convicts have said " True patriots we, for be it understood, We leave our country for our country's good." Sir Robert Walpole wrote, "It is easy to make a patriot. I have made many. You have only to refuse a man an unreasonable request, and he poses as a patriot." Our Prime Minister, Lord Rosebery, has spoken wise words concerning true statesmanship, and we may be quite sure that he will make every effort to test the principles of his conscience in their effect through legislation on the common- weal. " I believe," he has said, " that the people are now inclined to think that politics is not merely a game, in which the pawns are too often sacrificed to the knights and castles, but is a living and ennobling effort to carry into practical politics 164 MOEE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. and into practical life the principles of a higher morality. I am certain that there is a party in this country, unnamed as yet, that is disconnected with any existing political organization, a party inclined to say, ' A plague on both your Houses, a plague on all your politics, a plague on all your parties, a plague on your unending discussions, which yield so little fruit. Have done with this unending talk, and come down and do something for the people.' " Righteous words, bravely spoken, but as old as all truth, and as hard now as through all the ages to enforce and realize in action. Sacred aspirations, noble intentions, valiant endeavours, but sore let and hindered by the animosities of party, the jealousy of rivals, the selfishness of private interests, the ignorance and indifference of those who oppose themselves as to the welfare of their fellow-men. There is a sad foreboding in the Premier's words, that the party, which is to be independent of all other parties, and do something for the people on principles of a higher morality, is unnamed as yet. Will it ever be named, and in working order ? or will those who desire to establish it be so thwarted and embarrassed by the unscrupulous resistance of their adversaries, so disgusted by the greed and so de- ceived by the exaggerations of those whom they most wish to serve, that they become disheartened almost to despair ? Indeed, I have seen several instances, in which, if I may compare momentous with meaner occupations, POLITICS. 165 the politician has closely resembled in his career the man who delights in breeding and racing horses. The one is devoted to his country, and desires to place it foremost among the nations of the world. The other adores his horses, and designs their victory over all other studs. This supremacy is to be achieved, in the one case by purity of motive, by the power of truth, by overcoming evil with good, and in the other by superior speed of the horse and the skill of his honest rider. All for a time goes well. Then, in the one case, there come concessions of principle to expediency, fears of offending supporters, and so losing votes and office. Those in high places are threatened and warned. There are deviations, accommodations, ex- cuses. Scruples and protests are requested to wait upon opportunity ; the people must be educated, and private convictions must give place to the ex- igencies of party. And so there ensues not seldom a coaxing of the conscience, a tampering with justice, an inclination to do evil that good may come. " And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pith and moment, With this regard, their currents turn away And lose the name of action." The glow of political ardour begins to pale its ineffectual fire, the voice which was designed by its owner to bid " the Romans mark him, and write his speeches in their books," grows fainter, until it dies 166 MORE 'MEMOEIES BY DEAN HOLE. in the silent vote, and he, who meant to be, and might have been, a patriot, collapses into the mere partisan. So, descending from the Senate to the stable, he who aspires to be numbered among the heroes of the hippodrome, proposes to achieve distinction and accumulate riches upon the strictest principles of honour and fair play ; but as time goes on he is harassed by a suspicion, which gradually becomes a conviction, that the best horse does not always win ; that there are occasions on which the owner of the horse which has been beaten has made a more lucrative arrangement than the owner of the horse which has won ; that he has been misled by those whom he trusted ; and he has been disgusted to discover, when some racing companion has offered in a benevolent spirit to "put him up to a good thing," that the good thing is simply a fraud. He begins to think with lago, that " to be discreet and honest is not safe." A spirit of vendetta, a desire to be avenged of his adversaries, excites and inflames him, and tempts him to alter the grand old lesson of his childhood, " Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you," into, " Do others, who wish to do you." Thus instigated, hundreds of gentlemen have started on the downward grade, the facilis descensus Averni, and have associated themselves with those whom once they denounced, and always must despise, who do their best, or rather their worst, to debase a manly sport and pleasant recreation, POLITICS. 167 to make themselves and others believe that the most admirable of all the sciences and the most splendid proof of consummate sagacity is to cheat and pauperize your neighbour. They stand in awe of but one commandment, " Thou shalt not be found out," and the narrower their escapes the greater is their reputation. Alas, there is an ingredient in human nature which brings them many disciples, for " most men," as South says, " rather brook their being reputed knaves, than for their honesty being accounted fools ; knave, in the mean time, passing for a term of credit." How much higher, then, must be our appreciation of those who, whether in the serious business or in the relaxations and amusements of life, refuse to hear the voice of the charmer, temptation, charm he never so wisely ; who at work or at play are sans peur et sans reproche, who look the whole world in the face and owe not any man ! These men are patriots, an honour to their nation, the salt and leaven of the world. Of this stamp only, with more brilliant endowments and with more propitious opportunities, are made the champions and heroes of history the examples for all time having a conscience void of offence, and therefore faithful unto death in what- ever form it came, because they knew that " men never fail, who die In a great cause : the block may soak their gore ; Their heads may sodden in the sun ; their limbs Be strung to city gates and castle walls But still their spirit walks abroad. Though years 168 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. Elapse, and others share as dark a doom, They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts Which overpower all others, and conduct The world at last to freedom." Some sixty years ago, I was strolling with some schoolfellows through the streets of Newark-upon- Trent, when we saw a small but select company of our potent, grave, and reverend seigniors, passing from house to house, with a youth of some twenty summers, who had just won the highest honours which Oxford could bestow upon him, and was canvassing the electors under the auspices of the Duke of Newcastle, who had large possessions in the borough, as their future representative in the House of Commons. Even to us boys, not much interested in physiognomy, his appearance was remarkable, and I have never forgotten the intellectual, thoughtful, benign expression of his face. His name was William Ewart Gladstone. He had already distin- guished himself as a debater in the Society which has long existed at Oxford as a training ground for the undergraduates in oratory and argument, and soon became, and continued almost to the end of his political career to be, the most accomplished speaker of his country, if not of his age ; and it was, prob- ably, the early indication of this marvellous power which induced the father to suggest the vocation of a statesman rather than that of a clergyman, to which his son was inclined. Nor has he ever lost that fascination of manner POLITICS. 169 and utterance which made so much impression upon minds which are seldom stirred to emotion except through the confectioner or the cane. Whatever men may think of Mr. Gladstone as a statesman and no politician has ever been so enthusiastically applauded, or so bitterly assailed no one who has ever enjoyed the privilege disputes the charm of his conversation, or doubts, however much he may disagree with his measures, the sincerity of his motives. With a multitude of his disciples, I ceased some years ago implicitly to confide in his counsels ; I am constrained to say that we thought he was unconsciously making a sacrifice of principles to expediency, of firmness to popularity ; but it never occurred to me to suspect that he was not fully persuaded in his own mind that what he tried to do was the best that could be done for his country. I sat one night at dinner by the side of one of his oldest and dearest friends (I must not mention his name), and he said to me, " I have known Mr. Gladstone very intimately for many years, as a political colleague and as a private friend. I differ with him in some matters of great importance, with regard, for example, to the disestablishment of the Church, but this I am bound to say, that I never met such a truly religious man in my life." f About the same time, that is, in my school-days, Newark was honoured by a visit from the great Irish agitator, Daniel O'Connell. I saw and heard him a stout man of middle height in a double- 170 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. breasted overcoat and a fur travelling-cap, distinctly national in aspect and articulation. He spoke very quietly to a small audience from the balcony of the hotel at which he was staying. How surprised he would have been, could he have foreknown that Mr. Gladstone, the Tory member of the place, would one day advocate Home Rule for Ireland ! Afterwards, in my undergraduate days, I had the honour of being the guest of Sir Robert Peel, at Drayton. He too possessed that graceful urbanity, that sincere politeness, which belongs only to an unselfish desire to make others happy, and rarely fails to succeed. Indeed, I was treated by my illus- trious host with so much consideration and sympathy that I began to think that I had been brought up in ignorance of my own merits, and that I must lose no time in asserting my dignity and importance. It was a time of intense political anxiety, and a decisive battle was being fought between Protection and Free Trade ; but I recall the man who had most to do with the denouement, the Prime Minister of England, dancing a " Country Dance " to a merry tune with the activity and enjoyment of youth. It must have been shortly before this visit that I met in the house of my neighbour Mr. Denison, afterwards Speaker of our House of Commons and Lord Ossington, one of the most famous of your countrymen, Daniel Webster. If I had never been told that he was the greatest orator and lawyer of POLITICS. 171 his day, I should have recognized at once that he was avag av&puv, a king among men ; and the crown which he wore, the grand head upon his broad shoulders, was composed of materials more precious than rubies, not to be valued with the gold of Ophir. There were but two small jewels in it, but these were brighter than diamonds, illumined with celestial fire. Though he was so great a statesman, he acknowledged and honoured other forms of patriotism, outside of legislation, other instruments quite as efficacious in educating the character, and promoting the honour of a nation ; and, amongst these, the pen of a ready writer, protesting against oppression, and pleading for the weak. No greater compliment was paid to Charles Dickens than this by Daniel Webster " Dickens has done more already to ameliorate the condition of the English poor than all the statesmen Great Britain has sent into Parliament." And this reminds me of another compliment, an act of homage paid to Dickens by another man of renown, which has not been published, but which came to me through one who was present on the occasion a testimony of admiration, which, to quote the words of Mrs. Nickleby, when one of her insane lovers persisted in carving her initials on the pew door during Divine service, was " gratifying but embarrassing." Hans Andersen was staying at Gad's Hill, and came in one day from a country walk with an ill-shaped wreath of straggling, half-withered 172 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. hedgerow flowers in his hand. Approaching his host, who was quietly seated in his chair, with reverent solemnity, and making obeisance and genu- flection, he placed the garlands (earwigs included) upon his head. The countenance of Dickens, again to quote his own words, as uttered by Mrs. Jarley, must have been "well worthy of hobservation," somewhat resembling the lineaments of an Oxford friend of mine, who, having won a steeplechase at Pau, was ornamented with a coronet of wild olives ! Dickens ! the name is ever music in my ears. I was reading the other day some letters which he wrote to "Our Mutual Friend," John Leech. He proposes a visit to the Britannia Saloon. " The bill," he writes, " announces a gentleman with a wooden leg to dance the Highland Fling, and contains a portrait of the performer, with his wooden leg profusely adorned with rosettes. This," he adds, " demands our attention." In another note he writes, with reference to their meeting on the Great Western Eail " On Tuesday next a youth of noble form, and stately but not severe presence, will be discovered on the steps of the first-class booking-office at the Paddington terminus, as the bells of the great city chime half- past ten. In the features of that noble youth the observer will descry the features of the Inimitable, Dickens" Again " Can you help me to find an inaccessible cave, to which I can retire from the memory of POLITICS. 173 Prince Albert, and testimonials to the same ? We have nothing solitary enough or deep enough in this part of the country." And once more " If I am not at the Athenseum at four, consider me here at sixes and sevens." The most accomplished orator among Mr. Glad- stone's contemporaries in the House of Commons was John Bright. His eloquence was like a stream of waters whose waters fail not, now flowing onward, like some exulting and abounding river " Broad, and deep, and brimming over," and now rippling and glittering over the shallows, but always pure and clear. He had the courage of his opinions. No mere party ties or considerations, no private friendships, however long and dear, could induce him to halt or to swerve upon the road which he had resolved to tread. Demosthenes betrayed his country for a bribe, received a large sum of money to defend a prisoner, and then appeared in court with his throat muffled, and pretended that he had lost his voice ; and he ran away from the battle of Cheronsea. Caesar, when he was poorly, whined, " Give me to drink, Titinius," like a sick girl ; but John Bright's oratory was like the wife of the latter, " above suspicion." Bright was a Liberal in the best sense of the word, not liberal at the expense of others, least of all of his country, but large-hearted in his desire and unselfish in his effort to promote the happiness of his fellow-men. I can give an 174 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. illustration, known to few. A poor clergyman in his neighbourhood, who was making great efforts to rebuild his church, applied to Mr. Bright for a dona- tion. Mr. Bright replied that, being a member of the Society of Friends, he could hardly be expected to build churches for other communions. The per- sistent parson quaintly represented that a consider- able sum was required for the removal of the ruins, and that, though it might not be quite in accordance with Mr. Bright's principles to build up churches, there could be no inconsistency in pulling them down. Whereupon the kindly Quaker sent him a cheque for 10. Lord Palmerston and Mr. D'Israeli were " Arcades ambo, Et cantare pares, et respondere parati," and I remember a very pretty duet, which I heard in the House of Commons. Towards the end of a session, Lord Palmerston, who was then Prime Minister, proclaimed with that manifest self-satisfac- tion, which inflated Master Horner's bosom, when he put in his thumb and pulled out a plum, and said, " What a good boy am I ! " a long list of the parliamentary proceedings, measures proposed and passed by the Government. D'Israeli listened with an expression of placid and supreme indifference, which must have been trying to his adversary, and rose, when his turn came, to say, that "he hoped the world would duly appreciate the inestimable blessings conferred upon it by the noble lord, who POLITICS. 175 had so kindly and fully described them, Providence, of course, having had nothing to do with it, but that he ventured," etc., etc. His look of imperturbable apathy was far more aggravating than any sign or sound of irritation, and when he yawned in the midst of a speech of vehement denunciation from Mr. Gladstone, and that illustrious statesman seemed as though he would like to jump down his throat, he put his hand upon the broad table which separated them, and after- wards expressed his gratitude for such a barrier to protect him from the fury of his adversary. He had been laughed at by the members of the House when he made his first speech ; he had vowed, with that true courage which learns to conquer from defeat, and rides harder after a fall, that one day he would make them hear him, and now that he was master of the situation, he took care to let them know it. But very rare is this brave spirit, which " learns to labour and to wait," and therefore it is easy to answer the question I propose now to consider. 176 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. XIII. WHY ARE SPEAKERS SO MANY AXD ORATORS SO FEW ? Vain excuses Xo effort of preparation Daunted by failure Earnestness the indispensable element of success Cor paratum The speaker must be master of his subject, and must make a clear plan of his argument Utterance and manner. THERE is no real effort. Men essay to speak without a thoughtful preparation, and when they fail, they plead that eloquence is a natural gift, and cannot be acquired such a man, they say, is a born orator, nascitur nonjit. " While yet a child, nor yet a fool to fame, He lisp'd in numbers, for the numbers came." "They have not the talent." How do they know? They have never tried to " stir up the gift." When the Irishman was asked, " whether he could play the fiddle," he answered, " that he did not know, because he had never tried ; " but these men seem to have had a more robust confidence that they could succeed without previous experiment, and when they dis- covered that the mere approximation of the bow to SPEAKEES AND ORATORS. 177 the strings only resulted in discord, they were dis- couraged unto despair. Some make a small effort to succeed. They think for a few minutes, write down their thoughts, and read, if they cannot remember, them. Then, because they were a little confused, or their hearers were not deeply impressed, they too are disheartened, and " One good deed, dying tongueless, Slaughters a thousand waiting upon that." Some seem never to find out that they are boring their audience with platitudes and vain repetitions, and their speech drags its slow length along like a ponderous barge on some sluggish, straight-cut canal, crawling, with no wind in its sails, through a desolate and barren land. Sometimes there are long pauses between sentences and words, like the intervals of a passing bell : the whole process is, in short, funereal. The pace reminds one of an apology, which Canning made to his hostess, when he was late for dinner, that " he had been listening to a speech from Addington, and Addington, you know, always travels with his own horses." Others, on the contrary, speak with great rapidity, but, as Sam Weller said of the rail, surrounding objects are rendered " inwisible " by extreme velocity, and their elocutions, like inferior champagne, are principally froth. Their words sound like hailstones pattering on a zinc roof. They go off like the rocket, but they come down like the stick. As Archbishop 178 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. Whately said, "Many a wandering discourse one hears, in which the speaker aims at nothing, and hits it." The nervous speaker is a cruel embarrassment to himself and to his hearers, with his gasps and twitches and stammerings, never reaching the purport of his mind, like the awkward rustic ascending and descending the greasy pole, but never touching the leg of mutton. Sometimes he mixes his sentences, makes a mess of his grammar, transposes his initial letters, as when the churchwarden, who, intending to speak of his clergyman as a loving shepherd, referred to him as " a shoving leopard ; " or the candidate who, designing to address a multitude of working-men as Sons of Toil, began by congratulating himself " that he saw before him so many Tons of Soil ; " recalling an addition, whispered to his neighbour by a would- be member of Parliament, as he sat down after an appeal to the electors " Gentlemen, I feel confident that I could not leave my cause in better hands or in dirtier" I was once involved in a similar confusion, when, referring in a sermon, and by way of illustration, to the harbour lights, shining in the night as the ship, after her long voyage, nears the shore, I meant to say, " How they tell the sailor," but by an unhappy lapsus linguce I exclaimed, "How they sell the tailor!" What are the indispensable elements of successful public speaking ? Don't think me bumptious, or given to hifalutination, for I am not a disciple of " the Big SPEAKERS AND ORATORS. 179 Bow-wow School," as Sir Walter Scott terms it, say- ' / ing, " I am Sir Oracle, and when I speak let no dog bark ; " but I have had a certain amount of success, which I venture to hope justifies me in suggesting to others auxiliary helps and hints. First of all, the speaker must be thoroughly in earnest ; he must be fully persuaded in his own mind, or he will never persuade others. " You must weep yourself to draw tears from me," says the Latin poet. " Cor paratum, my heart is fixed, therefore, Cantabo, I will sing," said the greatest singer of all. Does not common sense tell us this the experience of our daily life, our observation of others, the records of history that nothing can be well done, that there can be no excellence, no permanent success, unless the doer puts his heart in his deed ? How comes it, as a rule, that one man does his daily work better than another, whatever that work may be work of the body or work of the mind, and whoever the workman debating in Parliament, marshalling an army, com- manding a fleet, pleading in courts of law, managing a business, writing a book, painting a picture, or engaged in the more ordinary occupations of life, doing manual labour in the factory, the warehouse, or the store, ploughing, sowing, reaping in the fields, down in dark mines, or out on glittering seas how comes it that one man does his work so much better than another ? It is not, as a rule, because he is more clever, because he has more brains in his head, or more strength in his body. We see but too many 180 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. examples of those who, with superior gifts of mental and physical power, with every capacity for success, yet achieve no victories. No ; it is because he gives his whole self to his work, his mind is set on it, he has determined to do his best, not to be daunted by difficulties, not to be overcome by temptations, not to be disheartened by failures, not to sleep in the sunshine, not to slink home in the storm, but to go straight on in his journey, until he reaches the end. I say, and you know, that the source of all sure success is found in this manly and noble resolution. It is written again and again in the biography of our heroes, " Lives of great men all remind us," that they achieved greatness because they had made up their minds, as we say, not to rest until they won it, to fail and to fall, but to rise again, staggering, it may be, but staggering onwards ; " faint, yet pursuing ; " persecuted, but not forsaken ; cast down, but not destroyed. What is it, on the other hand, which makes men, the majority of men, so much alike, ordinary and inert, just the same day by day, saying the same words, doing the same actions, neither more nor less, just sufficient pulse to indicate that life is not quite extinct, an occasional snore to caution friends against premature interment ? How is it, in all seriousness, that we see so many without enterprise or ambition, no thought of improvement for themselves or for others, no apprehension of the dignity, the power, and purpose of their manhood no heart in anything ? SPEAKERS AND ORATORS. 181 Or how is it that we see men with good abilities and fair opportunities, more inclined to activity than idleness, following first one occupation and then another, and yet succeeding in none, "everything by turns, and nothing long," unstable as Eeuben, always ready with an excuse for failure, blaming others, adverse circumstances, as though the stars in their courses fought against them, bewailing their misfortune and bad luck ; waiting, like Mr. Micawber, for something to turn up, sanguine of prosperity, but making no real effort to secure it ? Is it not because the heart is attracted now here and now there ; because such men spend their time, like the Athenians in Paul's day, telling or hearing some new thing, carried to and fro with every wind of doctrine ? Such men are always going to do exploits. "I really intend to make such and such an experiment. I've almost made up my mind to such and such a sacrifice. I should like to plunge into the stream, but the water looks very cold," so there he stands, shivering on the bank, while another plunges into the deep water " With lusty sinews throwing it aside, And stemming it with arts of controversy." The speaker who is thoroughly in earnest will not only get all the information within his reach, but will study how he may communicate it to his audience in words most likely to impress them. Dimidium facti, qui bene ccepit, habet, c'est le premier pas qui coute, and a good start is a grand thing in a race. Sincerity of purpose, anxious and working hard to 182 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. succeed, will attract sympathy, like a magnet, and will readily evoke good humour. A clerical friend of mine invited a countryman of yours, who was staying in his house, to accompany him to one of those village meetings at which we " sometimes counsel take, and sometimes tea." Asked to say a few words (those terrible few words, which are to one unprepared, but with a reputation to sustain, as the last straw which breaks the back of the camel), the American gentleman said, " My friends, I am not equal to the occasion, but as I utter these words I am reminded of an incident which you may, perhaps, hear with interest. I had a neighbour in the States who was afflicted with a most irritable temper, sudden and quick in quarrel ' Iracundus, inexorabilis, acer,' loud, scurrilous, raving in abusive, vindictive, blas- phemous words against those who incurred his displeasure. There were some mischievous boys, you will be shocked to hear, who seemed to find a delectable relish and satisfaction in exciting the ire, and in listening, at a safe distance, to the objurga- tions of this impetuous man ; and once, when he was about to start with a cart-load of potatoes up a steep hill outside our town, they silently approached the vehicle, and adroitly removed the board at the end. It is unnecessary to state that as the conveyance ascended, the vegetables descended, the incline, until, turning on the summit to rest his horse, which had performed the journey with abnormal agility, the SPEAKERS AND ORATORS. 183 driver saw the last potato slowly trickling down. And then, as he heard shouts of exultation, and peals of derisive laughter, and enlarged his survey in the direction from which they came, he beheld a score of youthful faces grinning with delight, leaning forward to listen, with the right hand raised to the ear, lest one precious word should be- lost. It was too much for him. He turned deadly pale ; his lips quivered ' And then his eyes grew very dim, and his throat began to swell, And with a hoarse, changed voice, he cried ' ' Gentlemen, I am not equal to the occasion.' " It was indeed an awful ordeal. There are times when the best of men are overwhelmed. It is even re- ported that a Bishop, when a waiter emptied a tureen of lobster-sauce over his best suit, went so far as to suggest that " perhaps some layman would say something." To make a good speech, the speaker must be master of his subject and quite sure of his facts. After Mr. Pitt had made an elaborate oration in our House of Commons upon naval matters, Lord Anson, who was then First Lord of the Admiralty, rose and said, " The right honourable gentleman is most eloquent and plausible. I am no orator, as Brutus is, and all I have to say is this, that he knows nothing at all of the subject of his speech." And the House believed the sailor rather than the landsman, and voted accordingly. Finally, a good speaker will arrange his arguments 184 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. in a clear, connected course, never losing sight of the object of his speech, and taking special pains with his peroration " Servetur ad imum Qualis ab incepto processerit, et sibi constet ; " to begin vigorously, and to finish feebly, is to paint an Apollo, a Mercury, an Adonis, with a wooden leg, or, as Horace puts it, "a mermaid on a dolphin's back." As to attitude and utterance, that same earnest- ness, which alone can induce anxious preparation, and inspire with eloquent words, will confer a natural grace and an impressive tone. I do not believe in any rehearsals of action or pronunciation, and I was greatly surprised to read in some kindly comments upon my preaching in one of our magazines, " He suits . the actions to the words with gestures which have all been studied." But " quot homines, tot sententice" and I was consoled to read a few days afterwards that " there was nothing of the copyist about me, all was perfectly natural," because I never designed a single movement in any speech or sermon which I ever made ; and you will perceive at once that the only abnormal evolutions in posture, which I can remember, were evidently unpremeditated. I was preaching one night in the beautiful Cathedral at Hereford, when I noticed a strange expression of intense anxiety on some of the faces beneath, for which I could not account ; it seemed to me as if, every now and then, some of my SPEAKERS AND ORATORS. 185 hearers were about to rise from their seats. After- wards I heard that, when I raised my arms, the sleeves of my surplice all but touched the lighted candles on either side of the pulpit. This perilous proximity made me careful in the future, and was productive of another incident which had a very different effect upon my congregation, and must have sorely exercised their powers of self-control. About to preach in one of our city churches, my place, during the prayers, was in the Choir, where I could not see the pulpit. Towards the end of the service a verger ascended the steps (as I was subsequently informed) and lit a candle on either side. From some cause or other, these lights almost immediately went out. Eelighted, they flamed awhile, and then a second time were extinct. The verger made a third and triumphant effort ; the candles burned with a sure and brilliant sheen ; and in due time the preacher mounted the stair, and, as quietly and modestly as he knew how to do it blew them out ! The sum of the whole matter is, that to speak well a man must mean well, and must devote much time and thought to his speech ; and then, though he may not attain to supremacy of excellence, he will by perseverance impress others and command attention. Non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum, (a great number of people never see New York), and of the man endowed with extraordinary genius it 186 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. must be said, as Tully said of Antony, " in eo facetiae erant, quce nulld arte tradi possunt," he had a witty mirth, which was not to be acquired by art ; but there are prizes for all who strive, and though, " 'tis not in mortals to command success, they may do more, deserve it." ( 187 ) XIV. FLOWERS AND FLORISTS. The love of flowers from childhood to old age Why and how it should be encouraged Among schoolboys by cottage- garden societies in public parks and grounds Window plants. WITH some of us the earliest and happiest periods of our lives are associated with " The young day, when first our infant hands Plucked witless the wild flowers," with groves, and gardens, and green fields, with banks of the violet, carpets of the cowslip, and hedges of the rose, with meadow flowers, when we blew the down from the dandelion (Dent de Lion, the leaf being formed like the tooth) " And we did question of the down-balls, blowing To know if some slight wish would come to pass ; If storms we feared, we sought where there were growing Some meadow flower, which was our weather-glass," such as the scarlet pimpernel, which, on the approach of rain, allies itself with the Early Closing Association. It was then, as we gathered that exquisite gem, with which no turquoise can compare, the forget-me-not, 188 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. that we heard from a voice, which has long been silent, but will be forgotten never, the pretty legend, how a lady, walking with her lover by a stream, longed for the bright blue flowers which glowed on the opposite bank, how the brave knight plunged into the swiftly flowing water, and returning with the posy, was over- powered by the current, and how " The blossoms blue to the bank he threw, Ere he sank in the eddying tide ; And, ' Lady, I'm gone, thine own knight true. Forget me not? he cried." How fair and fragrant were then the most common flowers ! Why, even the sow-thistle was precious in our sight, as welcome food to the huge white doe, with her pink eyes and incessant progeny at home ! And then the first plant which I could call my own, the salvia, which I bought for sixpence from the nurseries near to our school ! I have grown and shown a multitude of specimens in the greenhouse and the stove since then ; I have won prizes of gold and cups of silver, but I have never exhibited nor seen others exhibit anything half so precious as that tiny pet, no colour which could compare with its splendid crimson flowers. And it is not only for their visible charms, their grace and loveliness, their tints, their form, and fragrance, that flowers should be so dear to us, but because their influence tends to exalt and purify, to " keep the child's heart in the brave man's breast," Emollit mores. You cannot altogether dissociate the FLO WEES AND FLORISTS. 189 flowers from Him " Whose breath perfumes them, and Whose pencil paints." There is neither speech nor language, but their voices are heard among them. So from first to last, from childhood to old age, they refresh and refine us. " Nature never did betray The heart that loved her : 'tis her privilege Through all the years of this our life to lead From joy to joy." Rivers, the Arch-Rosarian, said to me in my youth, " You may, you must, lose your present enjoy- ment of recreations, which require physical strength and power of endurance, but you will never lose your delight in the garden." I have fulfilled his prophecy, and, more than that, I regard the success which I have had in my humble but hearty efforts to persuade others to believe in this doctrine, with a gratitude which I cannot express, as the best work which I have been permitted to do. To know that we have been graciously used to communicate happiness fills the heart, as it sings, " Non nobis, D online" with con- solation and with hope. Unhappily, this love of flowers, innate in the descendants of " the grand old gardener and his wife," is liable to be displaced by the games and sports of boyhood and youth, by the busy occupations of our manhood, and the dazzling attractions of the world. It should be more practically encouraged and assisted. By such arrangements, for example, as I rejoice to see in different parts of England, and which provide small 190 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. gardens for boys in close vicinity to their schools, with an expert to superintend and teach, and with occa- sional exhibitions and prizes. Societies for the improvement of cottage gardens are very numerous, and largely on the increase. At their annual shows there is evidence of a remarkable development both as to the diversity, quantity, and quality of their produce. Where the gilly-flower had almost a monopoly of the space devoted to flowers, you will now see roses, and lilies, carnations, and other belles of the border ; and he, whose ambition in the culinary department was once restricted to potatoes, small and few, now exhibits " a collection of vege- tables," including potatoes in variety, peas and beans, carrots and turnips, kale, cabbage, cauliflower, onions, lettuce, celery, vegetable-marrows, artichokes. More help should be given from societies, organized for the purpose, by distribution of the best varieties of fruit- trees and seeds, and it would be kind to add some instructions, not only as to culture, but in the matter of esculents as to cookery. Such a society might enlarge its beneficence by giving, or by supplying at a cheap rate, trees and shrubs for planting in churchyards, cemeteries, roads, and streets. They might beautify our waste places, our railway embankments, our dreary barracks, and other public buildings. Why should they be so bare and bald? There are natural suggestions as to the floral ornamentation of our railway banks, whereon we see the heather and the gorse with wild flowers in FLOWERS AND FLORISTS. 191 many varieties. On one of our lines, the South- eastern, you pass, in the months of June and July, through a long avenue all aglow on either side with the roseate hues of the Valerian ! How it cheers and refreshes the traveller to stop at a station, or at an hotel, with a pretty garden ! I have read, never- theless, a record of results which were not felicitous. A station-master, by name Jinks, on a railway, notable for the infrequency and tardiness of its trains, was not only anxious to promote the growth of flowers, but of virtue also, and endeavoured to achieve this combination by sowing, in the form of letters, such short precepts as, " Seek Peace" " Love as brethren," " Watch and pray" " Be pitiful," on the bank adjoining his home. Alas ! he had a malignant enemy, who, being also a skilful florist, sowed seeds of a much stronger growth and ostentatious hue, and these, overpowering and obliterating those pre- viously inserted, ultimately informed the passengers, " Jinks is a Tiidiot" The historian proceeds to say, that this railing accusation, more than once repeated, so preyed upon the sensitive mind of Jinks, that he finally resolved upon self-destruction, that he placed his poor distracted head upon one of the rails waiting for the express, but that the train in question was so dilatory in its movements that Jinks was starved to death ! Much too has been done for those who dwell in cities. The Latin poet, Varro, wrote, " Divina natura dedit agros, ars humana cedificavit urbes" which the 192 MORE MEMOEIES BY DEAN HOLE. English poet, Cowper, truly translated, " God made the country and man made the town ; " and I suppose that the more man makes the town to resemble the country, so that the oppidans may have fresh air, abundant light, pure water, trees, and flowers, so much the better for the town. " Who, that hath Reason and his smell, "Would not with rose and jasmine dwell, Rather than let his spirit choke With exhalations, dirt, and smoke ? Let cities boast that they provide For life the ornaments of pride, But 'tis the country and the field That furnish it with staff and shield." Much has been done and is doing to enliven our cities and towns. Our London Parks have been trans- formed into beautiful gardens of spring and summer flowers. Hundreds of miles of trees, chiefly planes and chestnuts, have been planted in our streets and suburbs, extensive grounds for recreation have been presented by generous benefactors in different parts of the country, and the love of flowers ever increasing is shown by the number of floral depots and of itinerant hawkers. The poor artisan, cherishing his few window plants in the more densely populated cities, receives new encouragements. He has friends who bring him suitable plants, and other friends who are bringing him something infinitely more precious, a brighter, happier, because more healthful home. And this reminds me of a debt of gratitude, which FLOWERS AND FLORISTS. 193 we most heartily acknowledge, and which England owes to America, London to Mr. Peabody. I went one day to an Exhibition of Window Plants, grown by working-men in the neighbourhood of Westminster, and held in the Abbey Yard. The names and ad- dresses of those who had won the prizes were inscribed on cards attached to their specimens, and I noticed that a very large majority of the successful exhibitors were inhabitants of " Peabody's buildings," houses built by that munificent philanthropist for the better accommodation of the working-classes. There could be no more delightful or conclusive proof that he had attained his object than was testified by these plants in bloom ; and on those huge blocks of masonry it should be proclaimed in golden letters " Praises on tombs are words but idly spent A man's good deeds are his best monument." Only those who have seen much of poor men's homes know the interest which is felt in their window plants, alike in the village and the town, or recognize the power of beauty, even on so small a scale, for good. It has been said again and again by clergymen, and others who sympathize in the temporal and spiritual welfare of their fellow-men, that they never meet with a rude reception where flowers are seen in the casement. A touching incident is recorded in metrical and musical lines, which my memory does not retain in their integrity, but the history is this : A little girl lay sick, as it seemed unto death, in the dark room of a narrow court, where the sunlight o 194 HOME MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. rarely entered through the panes, which were covered with cobwebs. Into this place of sorrow and of the shadow of death a Christian lady came to see the child, and brought her a plant in flower to cheer her with its scent and beauty. But the plant began to droop for want of light and air, and so the window was washed and opened from time to time ; and then was seen the need of further cleanliness. The walls and floors were scoured ; the father came back from his work to mend the broken furniture instead of going to the drink, and saved money to buy better food for the little daughter, whom he dearly loved. " So the pale sick child, With light, and air, and strong nutritious food, Grew strong and healthy, and true happiness Now reigned, instead of misery, supreme ; And to their great surprise, the father said, * We owe it all to that bright little flower It is the Fairy which hath wrought the change.' " ( 195 ) XV. THE DESIGN AND THE DELIGHTS OF A GARDEN. The love of famous men for their gardens Milton, Bacon, Sir W. Temple, Pope, Addison How to make, and how to mar, a garden A large proportion of grass indispensable. I NEED not remind you of the many famous men of various professions who in all times and climes have verified Lord Bacon's words, that " gardening is the purest of human pleasures, and the greatest refresh- ment to the spirit of man," or of the many authors who in prose and in verse have celebrated Flora's charms. Hence it appears (Warton writes in his Essays) that the enchanting art of modern garden- ing, in which this kingdom claims a preference over every nation in Europe, chiefly owes its origin and its improvements to two great poets, Milton and Pope. He who sang of Paradise Lost, not only sang also of Paradise Regained, but he also tried to set before us the nearest approximation to the latter, which we can see on earth, a beautiful garden of trees, and flowers, and fruits, and sunshine, and singing birds. You will remember his description of 196 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. " delicious Paradise," with its " inclosure green," its " insuperable height of loftiest shade, cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm," and other goodliest trees, loaden with fairest fruit, blossoms and fruit at once of golden hue, appeared, with gay enamelled colours mixed. Pope not only sang the praises of a beautiful garden and expounded the truest principles and laws for its formation, such as this " In all let Nature never be forgot ; " and this " He wins all points, who pleasingly confounds, Surprises, varies, and conceals the bounds ; " but he realized in their living growth the visions of his fond imagination and the principles of an ex- quisite taste. Horace Walpole tells us that "Pope had twisted and twirled, and rhymed and harmonized his five acres of ground at Twickenham, till he had formed two or three sweet little lawns, opening and opening, one behind the other, and the whole surrounded with thick impenetrable woods." Here in the sunlight, on the soft and level sward, or in the cool shade of the neighbouring trees, amid graceful outlines, fair and fragrant flowers, and while " The mellow ouzel fluted in the elm, The redcap whistled, and the nightingale Sang loud, as though he were the bird of day," the poet passed sweet hours of rest and meditation happily without forebodings of a disaster, when, after TEE DESIGN AND TEE DELIGHTS OF A GAEDEN. 197 his decease, Sir William Stanhope bought the house and grounds, hacked and hewed the trees and shrubs, wriggled a gravel-walk through the midst of them, and in short so destroyed the privacy of the place that, as Walpole writes, "There was not a Muse could walk there, but she was spied by every country fellow with a pipe in his mouth, and the owner was finally compelled to protect himself from public scrutiny by an unsightly wall." And, ever since, the difference between gardeners good and bad has been this the former have copied, in humble admiration, the outlines, formations, and embellishments of the natural world, while the latter have preferred the novel inventions, absurdities, and vulgarities of their own self-conceit. While the one have repeated to the best of their power the graceful curves and deflections, the infinite but harmonious diversities, the exquisite symmetry and adaptation, of the scenes around them, the other have set to work with measuring tapes and compasses to mark out and define in exact proportions, walks in straight lines, and geometrical beds, in precise correspondence and proportion. In the one case, you have a succession and variety as you stroll among the beds with your view restricted to their separate charms ; in the other you see all that is to be seen, the moment you enter the garden. It is the difference between a sweet, modest, gentle woman who welcomes you with an unaffected smile and a voice which is soft and low, and the loud, gaudy, ostentatious, haughty dame, who seems to 198 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. say, with a patronizing nod, " You're a very lucky fellow to see so much beauty for nothing ; be thankful, and pass on." Addison thought that he should be described as "a humorist in gardening," because he mixed together his flowers and vegetables and fruit-trees, but there is nothing incongruous in this combination of things pleasant to the eye and good for food. Who does not admire the blossoms of the peach and the almond, the apple, the cherry, and the plum ? Vegetables do not inspire me with the poetical sentiments of the author of "LINES FOE MUSIC. " The Radish. " There is beauty in the radish, Though it lives below in gloom, For its leaves are gay and gladdish, Though its heart is in the tomb. Chorus Though its heart is in the tomb ; " but when they are well grown they are gratifying to the sight as well as to the palate, for example, the plumes of the asparagus with its scarlet berries, and the rich red foliage of the beet. Wherever there is a garden, and whatever may be the size, there must be a large proportion of grass. " The part next the house," Sir William Temple wrote more than two hundred years ago, " should be a grass plot bordered with flowers." And again, " in a fine garden the first thing that should present itself to the sight should be an open lawn of grass, which in THE DESIGN AND THE DELIGHTS OF A GARDEN. 199 size should be proportionate to the garden. The width of it should be considerably more than the front of the house, and if the depth be one half more than the width, it will have the better effect." On this point there is unanimity among all our great landscape gardeners. "The chief object of all the imitative arts," writes Loudon, " is the production of natural or universal beauty." Few scenes have a more beautiful effect in pleasure grounds than a velvet lawn, presenting a surface of uniform smoothness and verdure. Grand trees, tastefully, that is naturally, planted on these fair lawns, were the primary objects which my dear old friend, Robert Marnock, the best landscape gardener of his day, had in view, when he formed his plans. Mr. Kemp, in his excellent instructions, " How to Lay Out a Garden," writes, "'A garden will always look mean without a good open lawn. One broad glade of grass should therefore stretch from the best windows of the house to within a short distance of the boundary, with as little interruption from walks as possible. The plants and groups may be arranged irregularly on either side of this opening, and, where the space will permit, there may be smaller glades through and among these at varied intervals." If such a broad expanse of green- sward can be had on two, or even three, sides of the house, the effect of size will be still more fully realized. This arrangement, suggesting any extent of addi- tional attractions, a rose-garden, a rock-garden, a pinetum, a fernery, a winter-garden, a Japanese 200 MORE MEMORIES BY LEAN HOLE. garden, a bog-garden, nooks and corners, grottoes and bowers, wherein children may play their happy games, and young men and maidens may dream Love's young dream, and old men may see visions of eternal peace, such an arrangement is to my mind the most perfect of all the plans which I have seen. " There are writers of great distinction, who have made it an argument for Providence, that the whole earth is covered with green rather than with any other colour, as being such a right mixture of light and shade, that it comforts and strengthens the eye instead of weakening or grieving it. For this reason several painters have a green cloth hanging near them to ease the eye upon after too great an applica- tion to their colouring ; " and I once excited the ire of an arrogant gardener, who asked my opinion of a gorgeous but monotonous display of scarlet gera- niums and yellow calceolarias, at which the carriage- horses shied as they approached the house, by reply- ing, that I should like to retire into the kitchen garden, and cool my eyes on the parsley ! Sir Isaac Newton tells us, " All colours that are more luminous overpower and dissipate the animal spirits that are employed in sight ; those, on the contrary, that are more obscure do not give the animal spirits sufficient exercise ; whereas the rays that produce in us the idea of green, fall upon the eye in such a due proportion, that they give the animal spirits their proper play, and by keeping up the THE DESIGN AND THE DELIGHTS OF A GARDEN. 201 struggle in a just balance, excite a very pleasing and agreeable sensation." A green lawn not only delights the eye, but it invigorates the body, and promotes the social inter- course of those neighbours who delight to behold what a good and joyful thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. Here tennis exercises the muscles and croquet the temper of the young, while the elders look on, or roll the biassed bowls, as calm and as hopeful of victory as our great Admiral Drake, who, holding " the Jack " in his hand, when the announcement was made to him, that the Spanish Armada was in sight, quietly remarked, "We will finish the game, gentlemen." Here, too, are convened the assemblies recently, but most successfully organized, and known ~as garden-parties, which enable the hospitable to invite a multitude of guests at a small outlay; and economy, I can assure you, has become not only acceptable but imperative in this our day of diminished income. The English hostess, whether she likes it or not, must follow the example of Mrs. John Gilpin, who " Though on pleasure she was bent, Yet had a frugal mind." And they may be dedicated, these grass-plots and gardens, to a higher, happier, holier intention. They may help us to obey the Divine injunction, " When thou makest a feast, call the poor." To their children, who live in the uniform houses of uniform streets, 202 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. and learn the same lessons in the same uniform schools, to young men and women in factories and stores, and to poor old men and women, who rarely go beyond their humble homes, a beautiful garden is a new heaven and a new earth. God cheers their hearts, and I thank Him as I see it in their smile. They are dazed awhile, like horses brought up from the gloomy mine, and turned into the open, sunny pasture-field. At first, they cannot believe in their freedom, and even when they are convinced of its reality, their embarras de richesses, their ecstasy of doubt, whether they should browse on the green grass, or gallop over it, is as delectable as the oscilla- tions of a divided affection, now intent upon the fair surroundings of the garden, and now on the abundance of the feast. The boys soon lose their shyness, and old Jacob's benediction, " Bless the lads," is in our thoughts, as they scamper away, and Hood's lines on our lips " 'Twas in the prime of summer time, An evening calm and cool, And four and twenty happy boys Came bounding out of school : There were some that ran and some that leapt, Like troutlets in a pool. " Away they sped with gamesome minds, And souls untouched by sin ; To a level mead they came, and there They drave the wickets in : Pleasantly shone the setting sun Over the town of Lynn. THE DESIGN AND THE DELIGHTS OF A GARDEN. 203 " Like sportive deer they coursed about, And shouted as they ran, Turning to mirth all things of earth, As only boyhood can." Among their elders I have seen young women from London who never were in a garden before, and I remember one girl saying to her friend, who was about to sit upon the daisies, " Sally, you mustn't sit down there, all on them beautiful flowers ; " and another exclaiming, as she saw some red peonies on the tea-table, " Oh, look at the pickled cabbage ! " Thus much of flowers generally. I must speak specially, as some of you will expect me to speak, concerning the Queen of them all the Rose. 204 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. XVI. ABOUT ROSES. A memorable conversation Confession of failure Flora autocratic and capricious Love the first element of success Pure air Shelter, not shade Soil Form Standards and bushes Stocks Manetti and briar varieties Exhibi- tion and garden roses Summary of experience Where to purchase. MANY years ago, in the palmy days of the Garrick Club, when Dickens, and Thackeray, and John Leech, and A'Beckett, and Douglas Jerrold, and Shirley Brooks, and many other bright stars no longer visible in this firmament, were its constant inmates, I was engaged there one evening, like a good gardener, in the act of Fumigation I was destroying a weed. I had two companions, and a conversation arose between them concerning a work which had been recently published, and had created a great interest- Buckle's " History of Civilization in England." The dialogue ultimately resolved itself into an argument as to the future achievements of science and philo- sophy : one of the speakers, who was then among the most brilliant writers of The Times newspaper, ABOUT ROSES. 205 prophesying unlimited power and happiness from the victorious March of Intellect ; the other expressing far less confidence in the capacities of human reason, maintaining, with Newton, that it always had been, as it was and would be, but as a little child picking pebbles on the great sea's shore, and that for himself, the chief result of his knowledge was to show him how little he knew. My humble sympathies were all with him who expressed these latter views of the question his name was William Makepeace Thackeray and my humble sympathies are with him now, when, after half a century of enthusiastic love among the Eoses half a century of daily observation, anxious inquiry, careful culture I come to com- municate results. I feel much as I felt when, travelling one day on the underground rail, I misunderstood directions, and, crossing the wrong bridge, found myself, after forty minutes' absence, at the station from which I started. I go back fifty years nay, to a yet more distant period, for there is a tradition in my family that my love of the rose began with babyhood, and that I made a clutch at an artificial specimen which adorned my nurse's cap (I can't say whether the rose was a monthly rose, but I have a strong idea the nurse was), and tried to devour it, and so to die of a rose, without the aromatic pain and I recall the same unsatisfied craving for the rose in its perfection which I feel to-day ; and though since that distant date I have grown roses by the thousand, and instituted 206 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. rose shows, and won silver cups by the score, and walked through miles of roses as a judge, and written a book about roses, I am here after all to confess that my knowledge, as compared with my ignorance, is as a penny squib to a comet, as an unfledged tomtit to a flying eagle ; that I have made mistakes innumer- able ; that I have planted too deep and too shallow, pruned too long and too short, too early and too late, manured too much and too little, exhibited flowers which were superannuated, and flowers which had not arrived at rosehood ; that I have succeeded where I expected to fail, and failed where I hoped to succeed. The explanation is, that the Rose, like the only object of our admiration which excels her in beauty, that Flora, like the rest of the fair sex, is delightfully mysterious and difficult to understand. From the variableness of our climate, from differences of soil, from delicacy of constitution, lovely roses, like lovely ladies, are by no means easy of cultivation. In both cases you may be too attentive, and then the objects of your affection exalt themselves unduly, or, as we gardeners term it, " run to leaf." On the other hand, if you have been neglectful or indifferent, when you go to gather roses you will find thorns. You must be devoted, but not too demonstrative hopeful, but not presumptuous ; and then, when your loyalty and love are proved, you may win the smile of beauty ; even then uncertain and capricious, coming some- times when we least expect it, and suddenly changing ABOUT ROSES. 207 into a frown, without a glimpse of explanation. How graciously and beautifully that Marie Baumann came out on the eve of the show, when you had given up hope ; and how, on the contrary, that Marie Finger (will any one inform me whether Marry Finger means the third of the left hand ?), on whom we relied so confidently, shut herself up, and remained motionless, as though in a swoon, despite every effort which was made to rouse her, by blowing into her face, and putting her feet in hot water. But you will begin to murmur internally, " Surely this man is not come all the way to America to tell us that he knows nothing," if not to express your remonstrance, as when the Blue Ox of Artemus Ward rubbed off some of his paint against the central pole of the exhibition tent, and the spec- tators openly declared that " that sort of thing would not go down in their enlightened district." I hear you say, " Let us have the results of your experience, however small they may be ; " as when an Oxford Examiner, being told by an undergraduate who had failed dismally, that he had not been questioned upon the subjects which he knew the best, tore off a tiny scrap from the paper before him, and handed it to the plaintiff, saying, "Be so good as to write what you know on that." Gladly and unreservedly I offer you the results of my experience with regard to the cultivation of the Rose. In the first place, as I have already intimated, your heart must be in your enterprise. There is a 208 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. good deal of "mere verbiage " frothy effervescence, humbug in some of those gushing expressions of delight and admiration which we hear so often. " Oh, Dean Hole, what a heavenly duck of a rose ! " " Well, it's not quite in its best form as you see it there." " No ; but isn't it too awfully jollily not quite ? " Misled on one occasion by these professions of adora- tion, I presented a lady with a lovely rose, and, not long after, when she became intense upon some other topic, she began to pick off the petals ! I stood astounded, like Launcelot when "The Queen Brake from the vast, oriel-embowering vine Leaf after leaf, and tore, and cast them off, Till all the place whereon she stood was green ; " and then I remembered that I had business in another direction, and I went to it, a sadder and a wiser man. Then there are not a few professed admirers of roses who only want them to show, or to cut, or to make their neighbours jealous. They have no true appreciation of the flower as a thing of beauty and a joy for ever, but regard it as ornamental furniture, and the sort of thing one likes to have, you know. They come into your garden, and you show them some specimen of perfect loveliness, and they turn away, saying disdainfully, " We have heaps of those " (as if they were coals or potatoes) ; or, should it happen to be something which they do not possess, they condescend to take a note of the name, and they ABOUT EOSES. 209 seem to think that they are conferring a great honour, not only upon you, but upon the whole vegetable kingdom, when they make the announcement, " We must have that." Supposing the love to be sincere and the inten- tions hearty, what next? Pure air. And with a most unaffected sorrowful sympathy I speak those words, because to hundreds who love the Rose as well as I do they mean, no hope. Every year, and many and many a time in that year, "when the bloom is on the rye," and on the rose, I wish from my heart, as I wander in my peaceful, pleasant garden, that my brothers born and bred some of them 'mid gardens and green fields, but now toiling in dusky lane and wrangling mart, and having only caged birds and window plants to remind them of the past could share my happiness. I have seen good roses, it is true, which were grown within three miles and a half of St. Paul's Cathedral, and were exhibited at the first Crystal Palace Rose Show by the grower, my friend Mr. Shirley Hibberd. But the disappoint- ments are so many, and the successes so few, that I should say to all persons proposing to grow roses within six miles of a smoky manufacturing town or city, as Punch said to all persons about to marry "Don't." This pure air must nimbly and sweetly recommend itself to the Rose, but must not visit her cheek too roughly. Roses must have shelter, but not shade- free trade in sunshine, but protection from storms. 210 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. They should have a screen of shrubs or of walls, but it must not be placed too near them. They dislike wind : and as all things else which are fresh and clean, from a fair reputation to a leg of mutton, they must not be blown upon. Let your rose trees have all the sun (it is not much) which can be had in our cloudy clime. As to soil, I have seen roses growing, and have grown them, in all kinds of earth, from a heavy moist red clay to a light marly loam in everything except gravel. If you have not a good soil naturally, you must have it artificially : if it's too heavy, make it light with lime, ashes, burnt earth ; if it's weak, strengthen with turf, leaf-mould, etc. Unbounded nonsense is emitted concerning soil. If roses were good to eat, we should have no more of it ; but, as it is, you will hear persons who grow delicious aspara- gus, the mealiest of potatoes, and the biggest of strawberries, maintaining that it is simply impossible to grow roses in such a soil as theirs. The best soil which I have ever possessed was a rich old pasture, broken up some six years ago. It was " double dug," and having been well manured and manipulated ever since, it is now most friable, mellow, and nutritious- good enough for pot roses without any addition, except the crocks for drainage. What form of rose tree shall we grow ? Our fathers were in ecstasies when Mr. Lee of Hammersmith, and Mr. Rivers of Sawbridgeworth, introduced from Bel- gium (I think) the tall standards, and they bought ABOUT MOSES. 211 them at a guinea apiece. Their children denounce them as mops and broomsticks unnatural, and there- fore unsightly : they are gradually disappearing, but a few old fogies, including yours sincerely, will plant these standard briers now and then, and bud them in some quiet corner, because when there is a genial frostless May a phenomenon which occurs in this country about twice in a long lifetime those buds will produce the loveliest roses which the rosarian can hope to see. They will probably disappear, with us (the fogies), until like single dahlias, stage coaches, short waists, and cracked china they are reproduced by Fashion as delectable novelties, and Vox Populi shouts, " Bravo ! Beautiful ! " The bush is beyond a doubt the prettiest form in which we can grow the Rose, and this we obtain by grafting, or budding, or by striking cuttings from the parent plant. You have all the beauty of flower, foliage, and form under your eye, with this additional and supreme advantage over the standard tree, that, when you have placed a thick blanket that is, a good covering of straw manure over your sleeping beauties towards the end of November, you may go to bed with the thermometer at zero, and dream of rose shows. A bed of these dwarf roses, with the long laterals pegged down one year, and blooming from laterals of their own the next, is one of the most charming sights in a garden. The bed should be round or oval, raised in the centre, and with a large surrounding of well-kept weedless grass. 212 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. On what foundations shall we build ? This de- pends much upon the soil. Make experiment. Pro- cure rose trees on the brier, on the manetti, and on their own roots, from the nurseries, and also brier and manetti stocks for budding in due season. Try your hand at striking also, and note results. In my own case, the foreigner (it takes its name from Signor Manetti, who raised it from seed at Monza, gave it to Signor Crivelli, of Como, and he sent it to my beloved friend the beloved friend of all rosarians Thomas Rivers, of Sawbridgeworth, about the year 1833), the manetti in my strong soil is worthless ; the indigenous brier, the English Dog Eose, is always a success. Nevertheless, I am more and more inclined by my experience to the belief that the favourite rose tree of the future will be the rose tree on its own roots. Meanwhile, give me the brier, whether it be grown from seed, struck from cuttings, or taken from the hedgerow or the wood. What sorts, what varieties of roses shall we grow ? All sorts. Single and double, large and small. And in all forms trailing along banks or towering on walls ; making fountains, arches, and aisles ; glimmer- ing in plantations like " stars which in earth's firma- ment do shine ; " rising from beds of shrubs, or encircling them. He is no true rosarian who does not love all the roses ; and we make our indignant protest against an accusation which has been laid to our charge, that, because we believe those roses which we grow for exhibition to be of all the most beautiful, ABOUT ROSES. 213 we are indifferent as to the other varieties, and it has been suggested that, because the National Rose Society proposes to publish a catalogue of roses most suitable for exhibition,* it may be necessary to establish a rival institution to watch over the interests of roses for the garden only. I think and it is such " a happy thought " as even Burnand himself never excogitated that I know more rosarians, and more of the rosarian mind, than any other living man, and what I know most surely is this, that he who loves one rose loves them all. Only the other day, when I had left in my garden some of the loveliest roses I ever grew, and was on my way to the station, that I might adjudicate next day at the Crystal Palace aforesaid, I surprised a servant who was with me by stopping my dogcart to gaze at a garland of Dog Roses drooping down the roadside hedge, and I believe that most of my brethren would have been as charmed as I was. Where is the exhibitor of roses who does not grow roses which are not available for exhibition ? Name the writer on roses who writes about show roses only. Thomas Rivers gives us half a dozen pages in his " Rose Amateur's Guide " as to the exhi- bition of roses in pots. William Paul, in " The Rose Garden," the same quantity on cut roses for show, the remainder of the three hundred pages being devoted to garden roses. Shirley Hibberd, in the " Amateur's * The National Rose Society now publishes selected lists, both of exhibition and garden roses. 214 MOEE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. Hose Book," gives a similar space to the subject of exhibition, and even he, who wrote specially upon it, " How to Show the Kose," occupies not less than two- thirds of his book in discoursing upon the garden rose. What is the main result of my long and varied experience in this matter ? It is that I find myself, as upon the Metropolitan Eailway, at the place from whence I came. The system which I followed fifty years ago I propose to follow so long as I am attached to this machine, and have the happiness of growing roses namely, to give them a liberal supply of farm- yard manure about the third week in November, which will act both as food and clothing also ; to dig this in early in March, and afterwards to apply occasionally liquid from the tank or some other of the refreshments to which I have referred. From bird or beast, bovine, ovine, porcine, equine, animal or vegetable, dust of bone or barley, I recommend all to your experiment, and leave to you the selection of the fittest. But the young rosarian must not place his main reliance on these enrichments, beneficial, indispensable, as they are formose puer, nimium ne crede manure heap but must regard his soil and its culti- vation as of primary and perpetual importance. Success in rose culture can only be attained in accord- ance with the universal and eternal law you must work. There must be draining and digging, hoeing and weeding, and a watchful loving patience, which ABOUT EOSES. 215 defends the Rose from its enemies, as well as surrounds it with friends. Hence the paucity of rosarians worthy of the title. There are numbers who gush at shows, take down names, give orders, plant rose trees, but who never stoop to pull up a weed, and as for ex- tracting the grub from his leafy bower and handling him somewhat severely between finger and thumb, why that is " simply disgusting ! " These are the sort of people who think, when they have signed a cheque, that roses should immediately spring up around them about the size of punch-bowls, and that thankful nightingales should sing in them night and day. Somehow this firework won't go off. He who would grow roses must not be afraid of dirtying his fingers of resembling that clergyman of whom Sidney Smith said, that he "seemed to have a good deal of his glebe on his own hands ; " or of a likeness to Martin Burney, to whom Charles Lamb remarked over a rubber, " Oh, Martin, Martin, if dirt were trumps, what a hand you'd have ! " Where shall we buy our rose trees ? From any extensive rose nursery which is nearest to you, and has a soil most like your own, or from any of those professional rosarians who have shown you what the Rose can be. I say can be, because you must not expect to achieve perfection at once, and your first flowers may perhaps disappoint you. Only be not discouraged; work at your model bravely, and you shall reproduce it. And I advise amateurs to visit some of the 216 MOEE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. renowned homes of the Rose. They will find a far more genial welcome than the mere commercial spirit can give to a customer, because the hearts of our rose merchants, whose friendship I have enjoyed for so many happy years, are with the Rose ; and they will learn more as pupils, and please themselves more completely as purchasers, than by any amount of reading or correspondence. And, on behalf of these visitors, may I express the hope that my professional brothers will take into consideration whether, in addition to their standard and dwarf rose trees, they might not exhibit the Queen of Flowers in some other form of beauty, showing us, for example, the best varieties of climb- ing and pillar roses, roses for a shrubbery, roses for beds, uniform or in contrast, roses for edging, roses for bouquets, etc. ? The National Rose Society, of which I have the honour to be President, or, as Mr. Swiveller would describe the office, " Perpetual Grand," has done much to extend the enjoyment of " Roses not suitable for Exhibition," by publishing a selection of the best, and by giving prizes for specimens ; but it would be a further gain if we could see established plants at the nurseries to guide us as to their adaptation and posi- tion in our own gardens. ( 217 ) XVII. MY VERSES. God help our Men at Sea ! Peace A Tale of Pride and Punish- ment Waiting at table. CONFIDING in your gentle indulgence, anxious to make the most of myself that I may win your appro- bation, " I give thee all, I can no more, though poor the offering be," I appear before you now as a Poet. I cannot say that I am lost in admiration, when I regard myself in the capacity of a Bard. I am unable to observe in my features any resemblance to " the Poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling," and when I compare my dedications to the Muse with those of more accomplished votaries, I am constrained to regard them as shabby. Nevertheless, I have had suc- cess, and I therefore venture to hope for the specimens, which I now introduce to you, some echoes, however faint, of the kind words which were spoken of them by our English critics. (By Mr. Thackeray, for ex- ample, of verses published in the Cornhill Magazine, of which he was editor, and entitled " Mabel.' 1 *) * See " The Memories of Dean Hole," chap. vii. 218 MOEE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. Some verses, which began with " God hdp our men at sea" were first published in Once A Week, and were transferred to other publications, including those of our Royal National Life-Boat Institution. God help our men at sea ! In firelit, pictured rooms, 'mid wine and flowers, And gleesome company, The wild winds awe us, in our blithest hours, To sigh this prayer ; And, lonely, with clench'd hands, at night 'tis ours, " Lord of the waves, spare ! " God help our men at sea ! I had a brother once. Our love ne'er failed In its intensity. Smiling on our sweet mother, as he sailed, I saw him last. Ah me ! how that sweet mother droopM and paled, Ere one brief year was past ! God help our men at sea ! They saw him, who outlived that deathful night, In his extremity, Kneeling, and looking in the stonnfire's light To Heaven for grace. And angels' glory was upon him, bright As upon Stephen's face. God help our men at sea ! Those pilgrim fathers, who leave all to teach Their Saviour's charity. Stretch forth Thine hand, gracious Lord, to reach The soul dismayed ; Walk o'er the waves, and let them hear Thy speech, M Tis I; be not afraid." MY VERSES. 219 God help our men at sea ! The workers, who at home can find no spheres For work, whose poverty Drives from their birthland, strong, despite those tears, To toil and win ; And then, please God, return for peaceful years To their old home and kin. God help our men at sea ! If lust of power, or greed of wealth, set sail To enslave the free, Eight over might shall in the end prevail, As oft before, And Israel see the proud Egyptians pale, And dead, on the sea-shore ! Permit me to recite some verses which I wrote on hearing from a friend, who had been travelling over the ground of the Franco-Prussian war, that he had seen and heard a song-bird, perched upon the decaying framework of a gun. PEACE. "How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished!" Sing on, sweet bird, thy thankful psalm of peace, Sing on to Him Who maketh wars to cease ! Armed men came trampling down the corn and flowers, Silenced thy mirth, and scared thee from thy bowers ; And where God's Beauty held its ancient reign, Hate maimed and murdered, and thieves stripped the slain. Sing on ! Once more, by His eternal love, Where swooped the vulture, cooes the happy dove, Where shot-torn banners swayed 'mid battle cries, The fruit-trees blossom 'neath the deep blue skies, The shepherd whistles, where the soldier fell Once more 'tis Eden, where it seemed as hell. 220 M ORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. Sing to us men, that death shall die, and Life And Peace prevail, and Victory after strife. Sing on, sweet bird, sing to our Faith and Hope, That they shall conquer who with sin shall cope " Peace at the last " proclaim it in thy song For all who love the right and hate the wrong. Passing from grave to gay, from the sedate and solemn dignity of the Tragic to the lively hilarities of the Comic Muse, I would repeat to you some lines which I wrote, and which were published in Punch, at a time when I was suffering from a series of demoralized men-servants, who seemed to have formed a conspiracy against the peace of my daily life. Then, as an occupation for a restless spirit, and for the admonition of my fellow-men, I wrote MY BUTLER. A Tale of Pride and Punishment. Part I. Pride. Now if, as I almost believe, Grim spirits in the air Rejoice to see us mortals grieve, And dance at our despair, They must have had a special treat, And shrieked with prescient fun, When, in a somewhat obscure street, I sought for Mrs. Grun- -dy's office, where, my Paper said, I could not fail to find . Servants, in every virtue bred, Both man and womankind. MY VERSES. 221 And when " come in " my rat-tat-tat Evoked at Seventy-three, There in a pleasant parlour sat Dame Grundy at her tea. Ah, never since, in days long fled, My boyhood did perspire, Applying surreptitious bread To unpermitted fire ; Never such toast my wistful eyes Had lit with hunger's glow, And, in my gladness and surprise, I told Dame Grundy so. " Might she presume ? " " Oh, surely, yes, Nor formal words begin ; One sniff of buttered toast like this Doth make the whole world kin." She pointed to a cushioned chair, And from her mantel-shelf She took, and wiped with dainty care, A cup of shining delf . Then, in a cozy corner snug, I gave myself to tea, Till, like the cat upon her rug, I purred with pletho-ry. And then to business first we had A plaint of dole and woe, Of servants going to the bad As fast as they could go. So changed, so lapsed to foul disgrace, From that more virtuous age, When no one ever left their place, And rather liked low wage. 222 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. We spoke of Butlers, who had past Their lives in one pan-try, And left their little all at last To the Infirma-ry. Of cooks, high-principled, whom gay Butchers could ne'er allure, Who weighed each joint, and gave away Their dripping to the poor. Cooks, who ne'er scowled with sullen ire When friends to dine dropped in, But smiled, their faces all afire With labour, not with gin. Of happy housemaids, passing fair, But as cold Dian chaste, Who nor by lads nor laces were Compressed about the waist. No charm from nature's lovely lines They ever sought to rob, Nor added to what she defines, Save that sweet cap, called " Mob." And then from those pure halcyon days, In which Dame Grundy served, To modern servants' wicked ways Our conversation swerved. I spoke of ladies' maids I'd met On other people's stairs, And bowed to them as of " our set," They gave themselves such airs. I quoted Punch what pencil could On " Flunkeyana " preach Sermons in stones, or rather wood, Like thine, delicious' Leech ? MY VERSES. 223 But when I asked, " "Was Virtue dead, And whether Grundy knew Of any honest folk ? " she said, " Well, yes, there was a few. There was a few, and though, perhaps, She didn't ought to say, And meant no nasty sneers nor snaps At * Smith's ' across the way, But fax was fax, and scorn she should A gentleman deceive, And, asking pardon, hoped I would A widdy's word believe, That of all servants most renowned For conduct, and good looks, The names and ages would be found On Martha Grundy 's books." What joyful news ! My tongue, inspired By trustfulness and tea, " Could she then find," at once inquired, " A Butler fit for me ? " " First, would I kindly please to state What wages there was guv ? For " (with a smile said Grundy's mate) " The best won't sarve for luv." A transitory smile, for when Of " Forty Pounds " I spake, Her lineaments relapsed, and then She gave them all a shake. " Nothink, fust rate," she, pitying, sighed, " Which well beknown it is, Could at that figure be supplied, So salaries was riz ! " 224 MOEE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. She " did know one, perhaps I might At fifty pounds engage. A tip-top man, a treasure quite, She know'd him from a page. Know'd him as footman, valet, in The best of families ; An under-butler last he'd bin, Right Hon. the Earl Ah, woe fraught words ! for one of those Grim spirits in the air, Who love to gloat upon our throes, And dance at our despair, Heard them, and stooped, with fiendish hate, To whisper in my ear, " You'd like to have a man to wait, Who'd waited on a Peer ! You'd like to see your table set, And envious friends to view, In newest style, reserved as yet For noblemen and you. You'd like your buckskins soft and white, Instead of hard and stained ; You'd like your boots to gleam as bright As laurels, when it rained. You'd like ah 1 offices performed, As for la haute noblesse, Your champagne iced, your claret warmed, Your ' things ' put out to dress. You'd like -- " He paused ; the Angler saw His float to bob and dip His bait was in my wretched maw, His hook was in my lip ! MY VEESES. 225 Part II. Punishment. I have a cart, a homely cart, "Which carries to and fro My servants when they come, depart, Or on a visit go. For my new man I sent that same, And sore perplexed was I, When piled with luggage back it came, But he came in a fly. I went to scold, but when I met My Butler, courteous, bland, Obsequiously polite, and yet Extinguishingly grand, More calm, more self-possessed, more neat From foot to well-brush'd hair, Than certain of my guests he'd meet, And wait behind their chair ; And when he bow'd and spoke to me, With voice so soft to soothe, " To-day's Times would I please to see ? " Just ironed, dry, and smooth, I could not chide perhaps I'd best At once the truth declare, And own, a coward fool confest, To chide I did not dare. No ; from the very first he took Me as his lawful prize, And though my slave in look and tone, Began to patronize. In tone : yet something in mine ear Still said, with quiet ease, " Of course, you will not interfere, I'm from the Earl of G.'s." 226 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. In look : yet did I of fctimes see The question in his face, " How could you bring a man like me To such a poky place ? " The way he moved, his stately tread, Made all my rooms look small ; I could have punched that builder's head Who planned my narrow hall. I showed him o'er my cellars, stocked With wines and eau de vie, And, when we left, he calmly locked The door, and kept the key. He " puts out " what he likes, each day My best Lafitte doth flow, And yet I dare not say him nay ; My Lord of Gr. does so. I have two suits of evening clothes, The one for common wear, And one, by Poole, which only goes Out on occasions rare. Or rather used to go, for now It comes out every day, " The worn-out blacks," he told me how, " Of course, he'd put away." My " tops," 'tis true, are white as snow, My boots like Scarborough jet, My buckskins all I wish, but oh, The bills for paste I get ! * * * * In every country neighbourhood Presides some gorgeous swell, Who doth by wealth or noble blood All meaner folk excel. MY VERSES. 227 Our grandees are exalted high By their abundant means. In house, dress, equipage, none vie With the De Wynton Greenes. Such glass, such crockery, and plate ! A m&nu so refined ! My cook for days I seem to hate When at their board I've dined. And when, with condescension sweet, They come to dine with us, These potentates we ever treat With great parade and fuss. And knowing the great love they bear To their high-sounding name, Our butlers we instruct with care How to give out the same. They came one night begemmed, and flounced, And grand as Kings and Queens ; " Mr. and Mrs." he announced, " And two Miss Winter Greens ! " And though with much simplicity, And mock respect 'twas done, The truth still twinkled in his eye, " I'll rile these snobs for fun ! " And then to see, all dinner through, The supercilious stare With which my Butler deigned to view The other servants there. Gazing with cold disdain, as though He said, " 'Twixt you and me, There's no resemblance, union, no Butler's Analogy" 228 MOEE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. As for the Reverend Jones's man, A fresh-caught country lout, Before the second course began He promptly turned him out. I marked in Reverend Jones's mien A change, I saw him wince, And on our friendship there has been A shadow ever since. Oh, if there be, as I believe, Grim spirits in the air, Who grin to see us mortals grieve, And dance at our despair, How must they chuckle to proclaim, And glory to deride, The anguish, punishment, and shame, Of my poor, fallen pride ! Apropos of the Eeverend Jones's attendant, I must repeat an incident which amused me much when I heard it from an old college friend, who took a curacy, on leaving Oxford, in a rural district, " far from the madding crowd." A poor boy in the village school was anxious to become a domestic servant, and so the clergyman brought him to his home, that he might there learn his future duties. When he had made some progress in his vocation, and could wait at table, his master, wishing to enlarge his experience, took him to a large dinner-party in the neighbourhood. On his return he communicated his impressions to the house- keeper, who repeated them to my friend in the strictest confidence, as he to me, and I to you. " Oh," he said, " it wor grand ! We stood in the hall, me MT VERSES. 229 and the other gentlemen in livery, and they flung open the folding doors, and out come the nompions, lords and ladies, and such, two and two, arm in arm. I wor quite surprised at mestur ! He come out with a skimpy old girl, almost old enough to be his grand- mother, and there was Miss Johnson a-looking so beautiful, with flowers and feathers, and bits o' glass a-sparkling ! I never made no mistakes, except giving one old gentleman mustard wrong side, and just a few drops of gravy down a unbeknown lady's back " ! 230 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. XVIII. THE DRAMA. Xumber of actors and actresses Dignity and degradation of the Drama How to distinguish ? The Church and the Stage Religious plays Ober-Ammergau Use and abuse Teach- ing of the Drama, ancient and modern Who are responsible ? WE are informed, in the third volume of the Govern- ment Eeport of the last Census of England and Wales, that, when it was taken, there were in these countries 3625 actors and 3696 actresses ; and the powerful influence of the Drama for good or evil is acknow- ledged by us all. Whoever, accordingly, is really anxious to overcome evil with good should give his sympathy and support to those who are endeavouring to maintain the dignity of the Stage, and should not hesitate to express his antipathy and to offer, as best he may, his resistance to those who degrade and defame it. If I am asked, Where do you draw the line of distinction ? my answer is, Between those ladies and gentlemen who appeal to the higher instincts of our manhood and womanhood, and those mere actors and THE DRAMA. 231 actresses who appeal to the lower ; between those who evoke and enlarge our admirations of whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, of religion, of honour, of courage, generosity, fidelity, self-sacrifice, and those who seem to think that men must be either villains or fools, that a chief purpose of life is for the villains to circumvent the fools, that happiness mainly consists in eating and drinking, the dinner being the summum bonum of the day, and that all spiritual, intellectual, artistic, domestic affections must fall down and worship those animal passions, which we share with the sparrow and the ape. I say that all who profess and call themselves Christians, we, especially, who are officers in the Church militant, holding the King's commission, are bounden to admire and respect those who, whether as tragedians they "stir the soul with pity," or as comedians make the sides shake with laughter, will not stoop to be profane or obscene. It was my privilege to offer them this homage at a great meeting in London, and I shall never forget the enthusiastic welcome which they gave to my words. The heartier, perhaps, because the Church still inherits and cherishes the prejudice which arose from the cruelty and depravity of the Eoman Stage. The Drama was then altogether corrupt and abominable. Actors were excluded from all civil honours, and Trajan banished them absolutely from 232 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. Rome. The first Christians would not associate with them. They were refused baptism, unless they re- nounced their vocation, and if they returned to it they were excommunicated. This severity relaxed when the majority of the people, who delighted in games and performances, in the ludi Circenses, which were almost their only amusements, became pro- fessedly Christian ; and when it was found impossible, after a long opposition, to abolish these dramatic performances, the Church strove to eliminate the offensive elements, and finally sanctioned in their stead the religious plays of the Middle Ages. It seems to us, who know the marvellous influence which has been evoked by the representation of the Tragedy of the Cross at Ober-Ammergau, that such impressions even exceed the power of preachers, because Segnius irritant animos demissa per aures Quam quse sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, and that it would have been wiser to have made this experiment at a much earlier date. Some denounce and would do away with the Drama, because it may be abused. If a tree " runs to leaf " instead of fruit, if it is attacked by blight or caterpillar, such folk have only one remedy " fetch the axe; down with it, down with it, even to the ground." May I not listen to the music of Handel, Beethoven, or Mozart, because there's a fiddler play- ing out of tune in the street? May I shave no TEE DRAMA. 233 more, because a poor maniac cut his throat with a razor? Am I to cast off my clothing, like Saul, because some run into debt with their tailors ? Must I never mount a horse again, because some silly fellow has ruined himself by racing ? No one denies the existence of abuses, but are these restricted to the dramatic vocation ? Are there no knaves, quacks, and place-hunters in any other professions? And I maintain that, whatever de- flections there are and have been, the main object of the Drama has been to ring out the false and ring in the true, to condemn the tyrant, and to commend the just. It was the intention of the Greek tragedians, in accordance with the teaching of Aristotle, to purify the emotions, and not only so, but, as Gibber wrote " In ancient Greece the Comic Muse appeared, Sworn foe to vice, by virtue's friends revered." And so, with all the literature of the ages for selection before us, we have chosen the Greek Drama for the education of our sons, not only that they may learn the glorious language in which it is written, but might be taught the great principles of worship, patriotism, and faithful love. Their godlike men and manlike gods were, as Kingsley writes, a preparation for the Christian faith in Him Who was both human and Divine. Then as now, to quote words written by the king of all writers, though he was only an actor, the purpose of playing was, and is, to hold the mirror up 234 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. to Nature, to show Virtue her own features, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and pressure " The Play's the thing, Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King." And are not his plays, illustrating these principles, by themselves an education ? Yet are there men, speaking the language in which he wrote, who would pull down the Stage for which he wrote them. I find, again, in those British dramatists who wrote between his time and ours, and of whose plays I have a large collection, that, although there are passages coarse and irreverent, the main intention of the author is to honour virtue and to punish vice ; and so Macklin wrote in Love d la Mode, "in the catastrophe of a stage-play knaves and fools are disappointed, and honest men get their reward." The dramatic instinct is born in us ; you can't eradicate it ; treat it, then, as a flower and not as a weed ! Children begin to play at marriages, and christenings, and even funerals, almost as soon as they can walk and talk. " All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." They never lose their love of a play. The Puritans tried to close the theatres, and they succeeded for a time ; but the fire, smouldering awhile, broke out at the Eestoration in lurid flames of profane obscenity. I know, of course, that in our day there are theatrical performances sensual, hurtful, pernicious. THE DRAMA. 235 Who is to blame ? The performers only ? or is the supply suggested by the demand? If so, the chief culprits are the audience. There will always be authors and actors who will write and play to please the popular taste, as Garrick said, in a prologue written by Johnson, nigh upon one hundred and fifty years ago at the opening of Drury Lane Theatre " The Drama's laws the Drama's patrons give, For they, who live to please, must please to live." The prophets prophesy falsely, because the people love to have it so ; and what will ye do in the end thereof ? Plays are good, bad, and indifferent, and so are players, like other men. When I go from Rochester to London, I pass, always with admiration, the beautiful buildings and grounds of Dulwich College, founded some 280 years ago, as an hospital for the succouring of poor old people, and for the education of the young, and endowed with 800 a year, a sum at that date largely munificent, by Edward Alley n, the actor ! the friend of Shakspere and of " rare Ben Jonson," who eulogized him in verse, as Cicero had lauded Roscius and ^Esop in prose, declaring that he had excelled them both. Fuller writes, that there were some of the special Elect who declared that this fair College at Dulwich was built on foundations of sand, being paid for by ill-gotten gains ; " but perchance," he adds, " some of them have as bad shillings at the bottom of their own bags, if search were made." There was no hesitation 236 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. in those who denounced the Stage in recommending their needy friends and poor relations to his charity. It pleased Alleyn, in admitting inmates to his hospital and school, to give a preference to those who came from the same parish, St. Botolph, in which he was born, and we find from the papers of the College that one Stephen Gosson, Vicar of that parish, who had been a most bitter opponent of poets, and players, " and such like caterpillars of a commonwealth," as he was pleased to term them, was indefatigable in his presentation of candidates. So, some may re- member, in Bickerstaffe's play of The Hypocrite, Dr. Cantwell says, " The seeds of wickedness spring up everywhere, but the Playhouse is the devil's hotbed." Colonel Lambert replies, " And yet, doctor, I have known some of the leaders of your tribe, scrupulous as they are, quite willing to gather fruit there for the use of the brethren, as in the case of a benefit." And then Cantwell out-Stiggins Stiggins, and all who hear must wish that Mr. Weller had him at the horse- trough, " The charity covereth the sin, and it may be lawful to turn the wages of abomination to the comfort of the righteous ! " In more recent, in very recent times, a clergyman was told by one of his parishioners, that, work as hard as he could, he would never succeed so long as he frater- nized with a certain member of his congregation, who was a performer in music-halls. The Vicar made answer, " That beautiful and costly window which has just been placed in our church is his offering : I hope THE DRAMA. 237 you will not be the first to cast a stone at it." And I am acquainted with many other instances in which the actor and the actress have shown, not only in gifts to churches, but in practical work and personal visitation, their Christian charity, and have ventured to make, undaunted by the Pharisees, their meek confession of faith. What evil propensity could be more at variance with the spirit of this Faith, with the life and the lessons of its Founder, or more ostensibly suggested by " the accuser of the brethren," than this indis- criminate condemnation of communities and vocations, high or low ? Who art thou that judges t another ? and how do you know that, when all the surroundings and temptations are considered, he is not a better man than yourself ? When Mr. Barnum brought his great exhibition to London, I heard one of these captious censors say, " I am told that a distinguished Bishop has invited Barnum to his house, but I cannot believe that the prelate would associate himself with any member of that beery brotherhood." " I can dis- solve your doubt," I said, " for I met the Showman at the episcopal table, and he took my wife in to dinner. You will be surprised to hear that he is a pleasant, well-mannered, well-spoken gentleman, and that, so far from being beery, he drinks water only. More than this, he insists that the men in his employment, occupied as they are in perilous exploits, which require all their physical and mental 238 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. power, should be specially pledged to temperance ; and he told us that there was not a woman in his establishment who had not with her a father, husband, or brother." The critic listened with an expression of dis- appointment and incredulity mixed. It is a very severe trial to some to hear the praise of their neighbours. A lady, one of those whom St. Paul de- scribes as wandering about from house to house, and not only idle but tatlers also, and busy-bodies, in- quired of a friend of mine, a quaint old Canon in the North, whether he could tell her anything about another lady, a young widow, who had recently taken a house in his parish. " I am afraid," he answered, " that I have no information which you would care to know : I have heard nothing of her but good." I so rarely have the pleasure of seeing a play, that I can tell you little or nothing as to the relative merits of the actors. Beerbohm Tree and Barrett are the tragedians whom I most admire, and Tree's presentation of Hamlet is, me judice, the best which my generation has seen. ( 239 ) XIX. BORES. The gnats and wasps of society The bore selects a subject in which you have no interest How he defeats your attempts to escape He must be severely snubbed Example The parasite The pessimist The malade imaginaire The man with one idea The bore epistolary On board ship In carriages, doorways, etc. WHILE I protest against these railing accusations, by which certain classes of the community are consigned to transportation for life, I would as earnestly de- nounce, and, in each individual and convicted case, condemn to exile or extinction, those bores, and im- postors, and otherwise objectionable persons who infest and irritate society, like wasps at a picnic, or mosquitos " Oft in the stilly night, ere slumber's chain has bound us," or gnats, when we have just made every arrangement to fish in our favourite pool. They must be anni- hilated (like the wasps) by the sulphurous and torment- ing flames of the squib (our fiery indignation), choked (like the mosquito) by the fatal fumes of Keating's 240 MOEE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. insecticide (the pungent powder of our satire), and left to themselves (like the gnats) by the process of going elsewhere. They must be snubbed, cold-shouldered, received with one finger, frozen to death by frigid politeness, petrified by dropping monosyllables at stated intervals when you converse with them ; they must be asked to sit upon the box with the coachman ; you must not introduce them to the Duke with whom you are talking, though you notice their anxious, long- ing look ; they must, in short, be treated like the guinea-pig in "Alice in Wonderland," shut up and sat on. You must shoot at them with powder and ball : arrows break or rebound from their impenetrable self-esteem. In vain you preach to them the Wise Man's words, " Withdraw thy foot from thy neigh- bour's house, lest he be weary of thee, and so hate thee ; " in vain you fidget and sigh. Moloch's is the only successful policy " open war." One would almost prefer to meet a herd of buffa- loes in a blizzard than some of these stupendous bores. You feel a shrinking, a loss of vital power, as they approach. Like the rabbit, fascinated by the glitter- ing eye of the weasel, you are powerless to escape. He gloats upon you as some famished spider upon an obese bluebottle, entangled in his mesh, and he tells you, that " you are the very man he most wished to see," just as a hawk might say in his swoop, " Of all the dear little sparrows in the universe, I love thee best." He always chooses for his abominable and BORES. 241 excruciating discourse some subject in which I have no interest whatever a family quarrel, or a local meet- ing, his investments or, of which I am profoundly ignorant, bimetallism, the last new thing in torpedoes, archaeology. I have no taste, I have no time, for archaeology. When an antiquarian wrote to ask me whether I could give him any information as to the nailing of Danish skins to the great door of the cathedral, I was constrained to reply, that I was too much occupied with the bodies and souls of living Christians to inquire about the epidermis of the Danes. My letter, I must admit, was more curt than courteous, but when a man is overwhelmed with correspondence he is irritated by superfluous encroachments ; and so I recall another more recent communication, which I wrote, in answer to a London clergyman, kindly but injudiciously complying with the request of one of his parishioners, that I would endeavour to obtain the amount of a debt due to him from a citizen of Rochester, both creditor and debtor being unknown to me, even by name "DEAR SIR, I have received your communication of the 18th inst., and desire to inform you that I am a Dean and not a Dun. " Faithfully yours, " S. EEYNOLDS HOLE." Oh that we could rid -ourselves of the bore loquacious, who attacks us vivd voce, as easily as of the bore epistolary, who assails us currente calamo ! No ; he holds you by the coat ; he plays with you, 242 MOEE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. as a cat with a mouse ; he mouths you, and lets you go awhile, and, when you think there's an opportunity of escaping and make a movement accordingly, down comes his paw. As he goes prosing on, the brain seems to soften ; as with the mouse, the position is altogether embarrassing. Our sensations resemble those of the poultry of whom Mark Twain says, that they wandered with felonious intentions into the garden of a neighbour ; that the neighbour, antici- pating their visit, had placed in the middle of a large bed, in which the seed of the radish had been recently sown, a gigantic rocket, manufactured ex- pressly for the occasion, with numerous lines and hooks, baited with moist maize, suspended ; that when each uninvited guest had transferred the grain to his maw, their host applied a lighted match to his monster firework ; and that when the fowls were swishing among the constellations, they began to doubt the stability of earthly things. If you raise your hand, as though to take leave, he has "just reached a point, which concerns you personally, or on which he must have your invaluable opinion " (not to be noticed for a moment, unless it coincides with his own), and then on he goes, " and so I said to my solicitor," etc., etc., etc., and you try to solace yourself, as you accept the inevitable, with Byron's lines " Society is now one polished horde, Formed of two mighty tribes, the bores and bored." You can only deliver yourself from the bore by BORES. 243 fighting him with his own weapons ; you must return to him a portion of the annoyance which he has so abundantly bestowed upon you. Once upon a time I knew two young farmers, who were cousins, and who lived some six miles apart, with a large midland town between them. The one was unassuming, affectionate, attached to his home, interested and industrious in his work. The other was proud, boastful, disobedient to his parents, disdainful to his equals, ever seeking to ingratiate himself with those whom he admired for their greater riches or higher position, as he regarded it, in the social grade, and then proclaiming his intimacy to excite, as he hoped, the envy of his neighbours. Thus he became an intolerable bore ; and on a certain afternoon, having nothing to do, or rather, if the truth be told, having plenty to do, but being too idle to do it, he mounted his horse, and inflicted himself on his kinsman for a large portion of the remaining day. He played the old tune, " See the conquering hero comes," on his own trumpet. He related how he had been shooting with the Duke of Staleybridge (forgetting to mention that he had attended in the capacity of a beater), how he and another fellow (the other fellow being the head keeper) had killed twenty brace of partridges on one of Sir Paul Piccadilly's farms, how he had lunched with Squire Buckskins (railway restaurant), and danced the Lancers with Lady Mignonette de Coverley (in the same set, he should have said), etc., etc., etc. " He 244 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. bored me," to quote the words of the unhappy host, " until it was nearly dark, keeping me from my work, and bragging about himself as he smoked my cigars and drank my whisky, and I got more and more out of temper, and finally determined to relieve my mind before he departed, and to give him one for himself. And so I asked him, just as he was riding away, whether he knew the workshop of the cooper in the town through which he would pass. Of course he did the place where they made barrels. ' Well, then,' I said, ' if you will take my advice, you will dismount from your horse when you arrive at the place where they make the barrels, and you will request the cooper to fix a couple of strong hoops round your waist, or you may burst with self- importance.' Having uttered this friendly admonition, I withdrew to enjoy the peaceful silence of my home." A good and joyful thing it is to see those whom Solomon describes as " having haughtiness of eyes and proud hearts," under such wholesome discipline ; and happy are they who have the power and the prudence to enforce these lessons of humility, like the sagacious Sultan, who, being oppressed by the arrogance of a bumptious Vizier, gave orders for that functionary to be sent to the slave-market and to be sold by auction to the highest bidder. He was knocked down for eightpence, repurchased, brought back, and reinstated in his office ; but if he ever afterwards displayed any symptoms of pride, any indiscreet affec- tations of self-importance, the Sultan had only to BORES. 245 whisper " Eightpence," or to outline the figure 8 with his finger in the air, and the poor Vizier recalled the disgusting indifference, the reluctance to bid, when he was appraised by the public, and the mercury in his barometer of self-esteem went down to zero. I had a friend at Oxford, who, with many good qualities, had one foolish infirmity, by no means uncommon, an idolatry of titled folks. He sent me a letter, commencing with " My dear Countess," but he had drawn his pen lightly through the words, and had written over them, " Dear Hole." I lost no time in responding with, " My dear Prince Albert," copying his erasure, and substituting, in place of His Royal Highness, the salutation, " Dear Dick." A mutual friend said to me, " That Dick is an awful bore in London. He gets himself up regardless of expense, with a new hat at one end and patent leather shoes at the other, and thinks that he is the pink of fashion, and the mould of form, and he pretends to know the occupants of every swell carriage he sees, and looks as solemn as if he were in church ; and if I want to gaze into a shop- window he won't wait, but remarks scornfully, ' They'll think you've never been in London before ' (as if I cared what they thought !), but I generally get rid of him by putting my hat at the back of my head, and assuming an expression of mental debility, addressing the policeman as ' Sir,' and asking him to show us a nice little public-house, where we can be supplied at a small outlay with tea and shrimps. If these 246 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. experiments fail, I begin to whistle some melody, beloved by the people, rattling my stick against the area railings as an accompaniment, and then he sud- denly remembers an engagement to meet a Marquis." The pessimist, the dreary, doleful, stern, gloom- pampered pessimist, ever " Like the hoarse raven on the blasted bough," presaging grief, the man, who has never heard or never heeded the inspired warning, " Fret not thy- self, lest thou be moved to do evil," but has as many wrongs to redress, and sorrows to bewail, as there are " quills upon the fretful porcupine," is one of the most depressing of bores. He revels in disasters, and gloats upon malformations. He goes in quest of dis- agreeable and discreditable incidents, as a pointer hunts a partridge, and when he finds he stands and points. If you have a crack in your ceiling, or a worn place on your carpet, or a pimple on your countenance, thereupon he fixes his melancholy gaze. You thought that tiny scar on your horse's knee was invisible to every eye but your own : he has hardly been in the stable two minutes before you hear him exclaim, " Been down, I see," with evident satisfaction to himself. He is so absorbed in contemplating a broken pane in your library window, that you cannot induce him to look at your books. If you admire a beautiful face, he only grunts, " Awful figure ! " If you praise one of your fellow-men, all you hear is, " Pity he drinks ! " The weather with him is always BOEES. 247 " beastly." His cook is an idiot, and his butler is a thief. All statesmen are place-hunters, all parsons are hypocrites, all lawyers are knaves, all doctors are quacks. Brave men are mad, generous men are spend- thrifts. Chastity is an icicle, and honesty dare not cheat. The world is occupied by tyrants, rogues, and fools bad men and silly women. He calls himself a Christian, but he resembles much more closely those " murmurers and com- plainers," of whom St. Jude wrote. John Wesley said, " I no more dare to fret than I dare to curse and swear ; " but this grumbler feeds on his dis- content like a moth fretting a garment, and seems to glory in his shame. He is disappointed to find you in good health, and he regards any demonstration of cheerfulness with an expression which is ghastly, though it is meant for a smile. Like an owl, he blinks in the sunshine, and can only hoot in the dark. To evoke his interest, you must be in pain or sickness, and then he states, with unintentional veracity, that " no one would believe how grieved he is to see you so sadly changed, in such a serious condition. Your symptoms seem to be exactly identical with those of his uncle Eobert, deceased. He earnestly hopes you have a clever doctor." "Yes, Doctor Coffin." "Oh, indeed has not much faith in Coffin, but he has no doubt gained experience since that sad mistake at the Hall. Should recommend you to telegraph to London." 248 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. A friend of mine was standing at the door of a shop in Northampton, when two men met on the pavement in front. One of them was deaf, and, unable to hear the voice of his companion, produced from his pocket a large case, containing an elaborate ear-trumpet, which occupied some time and care in its arrangement. Finally, one end of the ingenious machine was applied to the defective organ, and the other was presented to the impatient neighbour. He put his mouth close to the aperture, and then bellowed at the top of his voice, " You 1 re breaking very fast " As for himself, when he is in the most perfect health, he will never allow that he is well, and if the slightest ailment affects him, it is a case of moriturus te salutat. What a bore he is, that malade -imagi- nairel who repudiates with a solemn shake of the head your suggestion that he " looks all right," in- forming you that just now he may be somewhat flushed by fever or by over-exertion, but that he is a very poor creature (carried unanimously) and suffers agonies. I remember that the elder Grossmith, a man of most delectable humour, gave an account in one of his admirable lectures of a conversation between one of these lugubrious nuisances and his next-door neighbour, whom he irritated continually with his fanciful afflictions : Neighbour. " Well, Dumps, how are you to-day?" Dumps. " Oh, thanks, much worse, worse than BORES. 249 ever. Last night, between eleven and twelve, I was at Death's door." Neighbour. " At Death's door ! Oh, Dumps, why didn't you go in f " Then there is the bore who is always playing the same tune on the same fiddle. I like a man to have a hobby, but I don't care for him who never gets off his back. " I'm going to stay with Bobby Wilson," a friend said to me " you remember him at Oxford good fellow, Bobby, very fond of him, but he has set up a beastly (opprobrious but appropriate adjec- tive) model farm, and he goes round and round it, from morn to dewy eve, like a gold fish in a bowl. I can do it twice for Bobby's sake, though I don't know Short Horns from Long Horns, nor South Downs from North Downs, nor mangolds from turnips, nor Brahmas from Cochins ; my nostrils derive no gratifi- cation from the odour, nor mine ears from the utterance, of swine ; I hate those reaping-machines, which shave the ground so closely that a partridge can see you half a mile off; and yet more abominable wire-fences, in place of the beloved hedges, which we jumped over on horseback, in which the partridge aforesaid hatched her young, and from which the nimble coney fled from the terrier and the sportsman's gun ; and though I am perturbed in spirit by the farm bailiff, who appeals to me as though I were one of the judges of the Royal Agricultural Show, as to the relative merits of sires and bulls and rams, of animal and chemical manures, as to the culture and 250 MOEE MEMORIES EY DEAN HOLE. rotation of crops ; and though I feel thoroughly ashamed of myself as I am perpetually repeating, ' Oh, splendid, grand, first rate, Al, magnificent,' I can go through the ordeal twice ; but when I have done it on the second morning of my visit, and Bob proposes that after luncheon we should just have another quiet stroll, I am constrained by ' awful arrears of correspondence' to tear myself from the fascinating scheme. ' Robert, toi que f crime, I affix myself to the desk in your library, as Ulysses to the mast of his ship, that I may resist the allurements of your Syren song ! Dear old Bob ! I wish you had a wife and children ! So much affection wasted, comparatively, on those Clydesdale horses, those lovely heifers, steam-ploughs, and Berkshire pigs ! ' The word " correspondence," which I used just now, is richly suggestive of bores. If they cannot speak, they will write to you. Wherever you are they can reach you, and, literally, annoy you with their tongue. For it is the bore who, as his synonym, the serpent, lubricates the rabbit, sends you an envelope, so hermetically salivated, that you require the force of the burglar, or the delicate manipulation of his light- fingered brethren, to effect an entrance. They may not be able to hold you by the coat, when you sigh in vain for the wings of a dove. They may be powerless to nudge you in the ribs with their thumb as they enunciate some flabby, mawkish sentiment, or some feeble, vapid joke, but with that same hand SORES. 251 sometimes illegible in execution, sometimes impossible or offensive in purpose they can vex and persecute still. " Will you kindly look over the enclosed " (three or four hundred pages, badly written on foolscap, your own table being covered with papers and your- self writing against time), " and will you make any alterations or additions which you think desirable, and forward the manuscript to a publisher whom we can trust? As the book is written for a charitable object " (the charitable object being, as a rule, the writer), " I shall be glad if you will make as good a bargain as possible, and remain," etc. Sometimes they send you a bulky volume, con- taining the names and addresses of many hundred subscribers to some Benevolent Institution, " and will you oblige them by looking through the list, and by writing to those members with whom you may have influence, and soliciting their votes at the next election for the candidate named herewith ? " Would you obtain for the applicant, whose name you never heard before, who is out of work and in delicate health, a clerkship, or other occupation, which would not necessitate any arduous exertion ? " Imogene " would be so awfully grateful, if you would write a few original verses, or a short story, or, if you are an artist, would contribute a drawing or a picture, in the album enclosed. " Dean Hole would much oblige Mrs. - - by for- warding letters from Charles Dickens, W.M.Thackeray, 252 MOEE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. John Leech, and any other of the distinguished authors and artists which are mentioned in his Memories" I did not respond to this petition, being indisposed to comply, and was, therefore, perplexed to receive a second letter from Mrs. thank- ing me most heartily for my great generosity." I subsequently discovered that a facetious friend, to whom I had read the application, had thought him- self justified, by the impudence of the request, in manufacturing the compositions which the lady desired, and had magnanimously added contributions from Milton, Grimaldi, Byron, Blondin, Felicia Hemans, Fieschi, Adelaide Proctor, and Tom Crib. Then there is the bore, aggravating, though in a minor degree, who sends you a huge local newspaper with a supplement, containing some reference to him- self, which you are expected to find without mark or clue. He follows you wherever you go. He comes to you on the deck of the steamer, when you are not feeling quite so well as you could wish, and he assails you with mere verbiage, until you feel like the bride- groom in Leech's sketch of " Love on the Ocean," when the bride remarks, " Oh, is there not something, dear Augustus, truly sublime in this warring of the elements ? " But Augustus's heart was too full to speak. He sits opposite to me in a waggonette, and seems to think that I have an eye in the middle of my back, or that my head revolves on its own axis, like a BORES. 253 geographical globe, as he persists in inquiring, " What buildings are those in the far distance ? Did I ever see such a lot of turkeys ? What can that fellow be doing in the boat ? " If this curiosity were expressed by a beautiful young lady, or by an aged, wealthy, and childless uncle, every effort should be made, but who has reached such a height of self-sacrifice as to dislocate his neck for a bore ? " There is the distinguished potentate, the peer, the mayor, the rector, or the squire, who has condescended to preside at my lecture. It becomes him to intro- duce me to the audience with a few kind prefatory words. If he happens to be a member of the Bore family, what does he do ? Ransacks dictionaries and encyclopaedias, collects all the information he can find, makes long extracts, and anticipates my favourite facts, and takes the wind out of my sails, and goes murmuring on, like Tennyson's Brook, until his hearers are weary, and the husbands are longing for a pipe, and the wives are wondering whether the dear little baby is asleep. There is the broad gentleman and the broad lady I find no fault with their breadth ; it is not for me to be hypercritical on the subject of size but I refer only to those of our more extensive brothers and sisters who will stand in doorways, when supper is announced, in front of the best pictures, and at the entrance of the railway cars. That entrance suggests a pathetic story. A gentleman travelling on the underground rail in London was addressed by a very large lady, who 254 MOEE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. sat near him, as follows : " The next station at which we arrive, sir, will be Sloane Square, and I shall feel greatly obliged if you will kindly assist me to leave the carriage on our arrival. I have already been twice round London, having made unsuccessful efforts to leave the train. Being, unfortunately, very heavy and clumsy in my movements, I find it easier to descend from the doorway backwards, and I have twice been occupied in my awkward endeavour, when a porter, under the misapprehension that I was enter- ing the compartment, has not only addressed me, ' Now, miss, be quick, train's going,' but has propelled me onwards." But the name of the bore is Legion, and we have only time, as we pass through the crowd, to glance indignantly at the man who divides the pages of your new uncut book or magazine with his finger; who wants to know what everything costs, and where you bought it ; who keeps on walking backwards and forwards, or wears a tall hat, or puts up his umbrella, at a cricket- match ; who talks when your daughter is singing ; who shoots pheasants running, and hares sitting, when he thinks that nobody sees ; who is always disappointed, and says, when he surveys Niagara, that " any water could fall from that height ; " who has a chronic laugh, with which he concludes each sentence, whether the subject be grave or gay ; who will walk on the rims of rivers and the tip-ends of precipices, deriding your preference for the usual route et id genus omne ferarum. ( 255 ) XX. IMPOSTORS. Excusable Clever Impudent Transparent Spiritualists Addison on witchcraft Masculine women Ancient beaux and belles Religious impostors Misrepresentations Tracts Formalists New religions. THERE are defensible impostures, impostures performed for self-preservation, or from exuberance of high spirits. Professor Stewart, the eminent naturalist, at a recent meeting of the Linneean Society, exhibited several British crabs, showing their remarkable habit of more or less completely covering their bodies with frag- ments of seaweed, and low-typed animals outwardly resembling plants (zoophytes). In varying propor- tions, different species of crabs with their nippers detach bits of marine plants, which they fasten to various exposed parts of their bodies. Continued even when they are blind, this inherited habit is not due to vanity, but results from instinctive, protective, and effective concealment, which escapes, by exact mimicry of surrounding objects, the notice of their predatory enemies. And so have men in all ages, by a clever 256 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE, disguise, eluded the vigilance and escaped the per- secutions of their foes. Sometimes the motive is so apparent and insignifi- cant, and yet there is so much humour in the process of attainment, that you rejoice in co-operation ; it is a case of populus vult decipi et decipiatur. A friend of mine frequently conversed with some men who were engaged in making a railway outside his park, and he was addressed during one of his visits by an Irish " navvy," " And so, Sir Charles, they tell me you're an Anderson. Shure the Andersons they're gintlemen entirely. We've got 'em down in Sligo. There's one Dick Anderson ; he's a chandler. He gives without asking youve a look of him!" I remember some very charming impostors, whom I met at Folkestone by the sea. They were colle- gians, members of a " Beading Party," preparing, without any perilous pressure upon the brain, for the examination which would follow the Long Vacation, and were full to overflow with health and merriment. But it pleased them, on the occasion to which I refer, to present themselves on the public promenade three of them as being so prostrated by extreme debility that they required invalid chairs, in which they joined the procession of veritable cripples, aged ladies, and gouty old gentlemen, each accompanied by an attend- ant nurse, surveying his recumbent comrade with looks of tender compassion and sad anxiety, suddenly and strangely exchanged for broad grins and unseemly laughter. " How are you feeling now, dearest ? " IMPOSTORS. 257 I heard one of them say to his patient, who was ex- tracting an immense cigar from his case. " Agonies ! " was the answer. " Give us a light." This little drama recalls another, performed in the University. Gavazzi was lecturing at Oxford, and had offended a large number of his hearers by his attacks on Dr. Pusey. To bring discomfiture and derision upon the obnoxious and apostate Italian, one of the undergraduates affected a most profound interest in his discourse, and became violently agitated by uncontrollable emotions. He uttered loud commen- taries, " Too thrilling ! Is it possible ? Oh, don't ! " and when the lecturer proceeded to describe the horrors of the Inquisition, he first shook with terror, chatter- ing his teeth, and calling for stimulants, and then he rose, shaking his fist, and howling with indignation, and calling upon all the members to rise as one man and to hurl the Pope into the Tiber, subsequently proposing three cheers for Guy Fawkes, and expressing his confident hope that no member of Christ Church College, then present, would retire to rest that night before he had tied a cracker to Dr. Pusey's door. Then he sank into his seat in a condition of complete collapse, buried his face in a large red pocket-hand- kerchief, and sobbed aloud. But when he raised his countenance, to smile his acknowledgments of the loud applause, which followed his performance, and saw the Senior Proctor, who had suddenly appeared upon the scene to restore order, and had quietly approached him saw those velvet 258 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. sleeves, which are a terror to all evil-doers, and met his solemn gaze " A moment o'er his face A tablet of unutterable thoughts was traced," and then the kindly Don joined in the universal and irresistible mirth, and the lecturer, not liking that particular phase of protestantism, abruptly concluded. From the same considerations, we not only excuse but admire the harmless, impossible exaggerations of certain advertisements, which are imposing, without being impostures, from their brilliant inventive genius. We have not implicit confidence, for example, in those pictorial announcements of Cures for the Toothache, which represent to us, on the one side, a gentleman in great dental distress, whose swollen countenance suggests the concealment in either cheek of a large Newtown pippin, and, on the other side, the same face, minus the inflammation, radiant with joy and health and beauty, and underneath we read the words of happy exultation, " Ha ! ha ! cured in an instant ! " Nor do those portraits obtain our immediate and steadfast faith, although, in accord with their intention, they may encourage hope, which present to us first a head hairless as a cannon-ball, as it appeared before the proprietor was induced to try the celebrated Golden Oil, and then the same pericranium covered, after a few applications, with an abundance of glossy curls ! To show that it is possible to>dopt abnormal and IMPOSTORS. 259 attractive modes of advertisement without straining the reader's credulity, I would cite the following examples : " What made me lay awake at night, And ache from eve to morning light, Till I could scarcely see aright ? Neuralgia. " What made me howl and yell with pain, To gnash my teeth and groan again, Till sometimes I was nigh insane ? The Toothache. " What eased my troubled nerves of pain, Eestored me to condition sane, And set me on my legs again ? A consultation with Mr. Barker, Surgeon Dentist, Town Hall Street, Grimsby." And, again, the poetic advertiser pleasantly and cleverly induces an inclination to purchase, when, having reminded us how refreshing it is " To come with jaded spirit home at night, And find the cheerful fire, the sweet repast, At which, in dress of happy cheeks and eyes, Love sits, and smiling lightens all the board," he proceeds to inform us that for fifty years Horniman's Pure Tea, rich, strong, delicious, has been sold by 4000 agents in 1000 towns. Descending from honest men and venial romance to the impostors, I was going to say pur et simple, but they are neither one nor the other, to the rogues, whose designs are evil and their methods base, even 260 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. among these we find instances, now and then, of a bold audacity and consummate skill, which constrains us to admire the adroit ability, while we deplore its perversion, and condemn its abuse. A good- looking, well-dressed man came one day into the depot of a London jeweller, and wished to see some of his best diamonds. These were shown to him, and while he was examining them, now leaning over the counter to scrutinize, now holding them up to the light and comparing them, a watchman, who was placed where he could see without being seen, detected him in the act of secreting in the pocket of his coat some of the most precious "brilliants." The watchman quietly approached to secure and accuse the thief, and at the same time a policeman entering the shop put his hand on his shoulder, and said, " You are my prisoner I've been wanting you some months." " I'm not surprised," said the watch- man ; "he has got some of our best diamonds in the pocket of his coat." " All the better," remarked the constable, producing a pair of handcuffs. " I'll take him just as he is he can't get at the jewels with these bracelets on him. I've got a hansom cab outside, and one of your establishment can follow us to Scotland Yard to make the charge, and bring back the diamonds. You had better come to-morrow morning at ten o'clock, when a magistrate will be there to take the depositions." The jeweller's clerk came punctually to Scotland Yard, but the man who stole the diamonds, and his IMPOSTOES. 261 confederate, dressed up for the occasion in the uniform of the police, had engagements elsewhere. The mendicant order of impostors includes many highly accomplished artists, many of them educated from childhood, but none of them, I venture to say, exhibiting an earlier development of genius, a more precocious combination of impudence and cunning, than a boy not yet in his teens, whom a lady found sobbing wofully in a public park, and who told her a most pathetic story, that a gentleman had promised his father, who lived at Chatham, to give him employment, but that another boy had got the situation when he arrived in London. He wanted to get home, but the fare was half a crown, and he'd only got threepence. She generously presented him with three shillings. Ten days afterwards, turning the corner of a street, she suddenly came upon this juvenile scamp, chanting in the same dolorous tone his beggar's opera to a benign old gentleman, mani- festly impressed. The lady lost no time in denouncing the impostor ; and you may, perhaps, anticipate that such an unexpected and complete exposure would cause some confusion and shame to the culprit. For a few seconds he was slightly disconcerted, and then, turning to his accuser with a look of righteous indignation and disgust, he bade her, " Ger on, sneak ! " The old gentleman went off in quest of a policeman, but the boy did not await the result of his investigations. 262 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. I must confess that this subject brings to me a slight sensation of soreness, a shrinking, such as a child who has burnt his fingers is said to feel when brought into proximity with fire, a twinge and throb from the scar of an ancient wound. I was the victim of a mis- placed confidence. I had a visit from an elderly and comely dame, neatly dressed in mourning garb, with a widow's cap upon her silvery hair, and she told me that, soon after her husband's death, a valuable cow, her chief means of subsistence, had been poisoned by eating berries of the yew, and that she was en- deavouring, with the assistance of kind neighbours, of whom she shewed me some names, to replace it. My pity and my purse were moved to the amount of two dollars and a half, and I felt the happy satisfac- tion of a generous act, until our rural policeman called to inform me, that he was instructed by his sergeant to warn all persons within his beat against certain impostors, who were endeavouring to extort money, as having lost their cattle, accidentally poisoned by eating the berries of the yew, and to request them, should they come in contact with any of the gang, to communicate at once with the police. I thanked him for the caution, but did not feel quite equal to informing him that it seemed to me rather late. It was, nevertheless, opportune, for, strange to say, not many days after, and owing to some defective arrangement among the conspirators, a male applicant brought me the same petition, and was promptly transferred by legal authority to six IMPOSTORS. 263 weeks, hard labour, on the treadmill of the county jail. Not only in the lower, but in all the grades of society we meet shams and hypocrites, in politics, in business, in art, mere professors, stump-orators, blowing bubbles, promising to make every one rich and happy. As a rule, they are not acceptable. When Professor Kay Lankester stated at a meeting of the British Association in Sheffield that some of our ancestors were probably transparent, his sugges- tion evoked incredulity, but it may, nevertheless, be confidently affirmed that it is by no means difficult to see through some of our brothers in the human family. One of those would-be demagogues, whose orations are always followed by a collection, was impressing upon the inhabitants of a village in Kent the equal rights of men, suggesting an immediate division of property, and that we should have all things common as in apostolic times. At the close of his harangue, one of his hearers solemnly proposed that the links of the massive gold chain worn by the lecturer should be distributed among the audience, and that, in accordance with the sacred injunction, " he that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none," the elegant upper-garment in which he was attired should be presented to old Sammy Smith, who was sorely out at elbows. There has undoubtedly been a large amount of imposture in the matter of Spiritualism. The chosen people were commanded by the Levitical Law to 264 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. " regard not them which have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards ; " and it was Saul, the suicide, who disobeyed. Paul cast out the spirit of divination, and it has always been held by the Church, as Bishop Jewel writes, that "it is not good, nor standeth with Christian reverence, to be contentious and busy in searching out or reasoning of matters, which the wisdom of God hath hid from our knowledge, the secret things which belong to Him." " What profit had ye in those things, whereof ye are now ashamed ? " What beneficial results have been gained from all those rappings, and tappings, and playing of tambourines ? Messrs. Maskelyne and Cook will tell you how all their best tricks are done. How is it that certain allegations of im- morality have not been answered ? Are the zealots of Spiritualism men of mark, or mind, or muscle ? The men whom you would select as soldiers or sailors, to join an expedition, to work among the poor, to assist at a fire, to save from drowning, to play football according to the Kugby rules, or to hit to square leg for six ? And the feminine associates. Are you particularly anxious that your mother, or your wife, or that perfect peerless fairy who is going to be your wife, or your sister, or your daughter, should know them ? Do they realize your idea of grace and sweetness, or are they not the rather to be included in the company of " silly women," of whom the Apostle wrote, fanciful, visionary, hysterical, and frail ? And who has not been disgusted by the profane IMPOSTORS. 265 vulgarity of certain conversations which have been reported as held between the living and the dead that, for example, when a daughter inquires from her mother, " Are you in heaven, and is it a nice place ? " And the answer is conveyed through the medium, " Yes, but it isn't Boston." I do not for a moment doubt that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy. I do not doubt the existence of evil spirits, but I do not desire to have any nearer intercourse with them than that which is inevitable. I regard Spiritualism, as Addison regarded witchcraft. " When I hear," he writes,* " the relations, which are made from all parts of the world, not only from Norway and Lapland, from the East and West Indies, but from every particular nation in Europe, I can- not forbear thinking that there is such an intercourse and commerce with evil spirits as that which we express by the name of witchcraft. But when I consider that the ignorant and credulous parts of the world abound most in these relations, and that the persons among us, who are supposed to engage in such an infernal commerce, are people of a weak understanding and crazed imagination, and at the same time reflect upon the many impostures and delusions of this nature that have been detected in all ages, I endeavour to suspend my belief till I hear more certain accounts than any which have yet come to my knowledge. In short, when I * Spectator, No. 117. 266 MOEE MEMOEIES BY DEAN HOLE. consider the question, whether there are such persons in the world as those we call witches, my mind is divided between the two opposite opinions, or rather (to speak my thoughts freely), I believe in general that there is, and has been, such a thing as witch- craft, but at the same time can give no credit to any particular instance of it." All who pretend to be that which they are not must be classified with the impostors, including, with some extenuations, those ladies of whom I have spoken as sadly diminishing their charms by wearing the habiliments and imitating the habits of the ruder sex shooting, cricketing, smoking, and betting ; and comprehending, with no modifications whatever, those elderly persons, male and female, who vainly .en- deavour, by the aid of cosmetics and dyes, and powders and pads, to efface all signs of senility, and to retain the freshness of perpetual youth. It is remarkable that this preference for male attire has shown itself among our sisters at different periods and in distant climes. We read that in the fourth century, while some of the ladies at Constanti- nople appeared in the churches gorgeously attired in gold, stuff and silks, and covered with chains and rings, others again affected masculine attire, cutting short their hair, and seeming to blush for their womanhood. And again, coming nearer to our own time, and to our own land, Pepys writes in his Diary, June 12, 1666, " at noon to dinner, and then to White Hall. Walking in the galleries, I find the Ladies of IMPOSTORS. 267 Honour dressed in their riding garbs, with coats and doublets, just for all the world like mine, with perriwigs and with hats, so that only for the long skirts, dragging under their men's coats, no one would take them for women which was an odde sight, and one which did not please me." Nor would the sight please him of those antiquated Beaux and Belles, who evoke ridicule instead of admiration, and deceive none but themselves, assuming the dress, imitating the manners and conversation, attempting the activities, of the young, wearing wigs, dyeing whiskers, rouging cheeks, counterfeiting plumpness with auxiliary pads, vainly endeavouring to repress the irrepressible, and hopelessly invoking the chemist, the hairdresser, the tailor, and the milliner to expel Nature and to enthrone Art. Just as we say of the men and women, whom we respect and love the most, that they are " so un- affected, genuine, and sincere," so do we desire to see our fellow-creatures, young and old, free from counterfeit of those customs and costumes which are unsuitable to their occupation or their age. Few sights are more comic than a little child in the coat and hat of his father, or a stout old gentleman in a short jacket and cap ! " Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth," says the Chief Justice to Falstaff, " that are written down old with all the characters of age ? Have you not a moist eye ? a dry hand ? a yellow cheek ? a white beard ? a decreasing leg ? an increasing 268 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN SOLE. waist ? your chin double ? your wit single ? and will you yet call yourself young ? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John ! " And yet, though " age be an ill layer-up of beauty," it has a beauty of its own " As a lusty winter, Frosty, but kindly." " What is this world ? a dream within a dream ! As we grow older each step is an awakening. The youth awakes, as he thinks, from childhood. The full-grown man despises the pursuits of youth, as visionary. The old man looks on manhood as a feverish dream. Is the Grave the Last Sleep ? No ; it is the last and final Awaking." I need not say that the most odious of all impostors are those who use Religion as the cloke of their covetousness, whited sepulchres full of all un- cleanness, ravening wolves disguised in the fair fleeces of the sheep the only men, whom the meek and gentle Saviour denounced in His righteous wrath, " Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! " There may be some apology for those who are depressed by a weakly constitution, or by sorrowful surroundings, and are tempted to regard their melan- choly moods as indications of that severe and solemn spirit, which they affirm to be inseparable from true religion, and who are misled to " think that they are pious, when they are only bilious." But it is an ex- cuse which is only pleaded by ignorance, and is never made by those who believe in the promise, " I will IMPOSTOBS. 269 never leave thee, nor forsake thee," and who can always say, " In the multitude of sorrows, which I had in my heart, Thy comforts refreshed my soul." They do grievous harm who misrepresent religion, which is the best, and brightest, and happiest of all things ; which means in this world, love and pity, and pardon, and hope, and help, on earth peace, goodwill towards men, and in the next, reunion, rest, and felicity. I cannot understand the religion which makes a man always sad often ashamed, oppressed, afraid, he must be, but ever looking up, and never failing to see the bow upon the cloud ; always listening for the voice, and never failing to hear it, " It is I ; be not afraid ; " " sorrowful, yet always rejoicing ; " " troubled on every side, yet not distressed ; perplexed, but not in despair ; persecuted, but not forsaken ; cast down, but not destroyed." It is told of a Greek philosopher, that while con- versing with his friends on some subject which ex- cited their mirth, he suddenly paused, and bade them " Be serious ; here comes a fool ! " And he, too, must be void of understanding, and has yet to learn that " the voice of joy and health is in the dwellings of the righteous," who would rebuke, and suppress if he could, the cheerfulness and gladness of heart which come to those who have a good conscience in all things, and the happiness of making others happy. How many anxious aspirations for the higher and better life have been discouraged and suppressed by those who clothe their religion in sackcloth and ashes, 270 MOEE MEMOBIES BY DEAN HOLE. and would have us believe that for good Christians all joy is darkened, and the mirth of the land is gone ! They evoked the somewhat profane declaration from Goethe, " that if all the people, who expressed them- selves as sure of heaven, were correct in their anticipa- tions, he should not care to be one of the company : " they make a desert, and they call it peace. How many, on the other hand, have been attracted and attached to religion, because they have seen it in its truer form, not only receiving but imparting to others the joy and gladness of its faith ! How many, who have never been impressed by the stern threats of the monitor, or the dry arguments of the theologian, have been won by the friendly approaches, the gentle words, the kindly acts, of the simple charity, which hopeth all things ! How many, who will not listen, or who only pretend to listen, to serious discourse, and who resent any rebuke as impertinence, will re- spond to the genial manner, the pleasant tone, the tenderness, the sympathy, the humility, of those who are learning the mind that was in Christ ! One of our greatest divines, Isaac Barrow, has affirmed, that even facetious discourse may be com- modious for reproving some vices and reclaiming some persons. " It commonly procureth a more easy access to the ears of men, and worketh a stronger impression upon their hearts than other discourse could do." It profits little to be serious with those who have no serious thoughts, or to be demure with the scornful, but they will hearken to those who address them IMPOSTORS. 271 good-humour edly in their own style of conversation, and so may be lured to interest themselves and make inquiries, and give their reason a more worthy em- ployment. The severity of reproof may be tempered by wit, and that which pleases the ear and is received with a smile may stir and sting the conscience. And why should not these weapons of wit, and satire, and ridicule, which are used so freely against religion, be employed in its defence, and those who have been led away by smart sayings and pungent raillery, be reclaimed in the first instance by the same instruments dedicated to the nobler use. St. Paul warns us against foolish talking and jesting, which is not convenient, just as he warns us, not against drink- ing wine, but against drinking to excess, condemning not the use but the abuse, and being all things to all men, so that he might save some. It is the sign of a corrupt mind to imagine that there is something specially amusing in the jests which are too commonly made in disparagement of religion and virtue ; and it argues a marvellous poverty of wit, and barrenness of invention, no less than a strange defect of goodness, and want of discretion, in those who can devise no other subjects for their mirth- ful humour besides those which are of all most perilous and profane. We have in England I hope that you are spared in America another obnoxious form of religious im- postors. I venture to designate them as impostors, 272 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. because, as Mr. Chillip remarked, " that he did not find authority for Mr. and Mrs. Murdstone in the New Testament," so I fail to discover any raison d'etre in the Gospels for certain persons, who, having re- solved themselves into a commission of inquiry, are perpetually startling the rest of their fellow-creatures with the question, " Are you saved ? " Having^by some process, not revealed by the Scriptures nor recognized by the Church, been relieved of all anxiety as to their own souls, they have ample time to interest themselves in the condition of others, whom they un- doubtedly regard as in a very precarious state. If you reply that you hope to be saved, or that you believe yourself in a state of salvation, they have no hesitation in informing you that you are in a poor way until you know, as they know, for certain that St. Peter was mistaken in exhorting Christians to use all diligence to make their calling and election sure, because it was assured already. Sometimes this Pharisaic pride, " And of all pride, since Lucifer's attaint, The proudest swells a self -elected saint," has a fall. A young man, one of these confident boasters, who trust in themselves that they are righteous and despise others, turned to an elderly lady, whom he had never met before, with the usual interrogation, " Are you saved ? " " Saved ! " she answered ; "I was saved before you were born or thought of. Baptism saves us. Get on with your dinner, young man, and mind your own business ! " IMPOSTORS. 273 I am hopeful that the progress of practical Chris- tianity, and the increase of able writers and reliable publications, has almost extinguished another pious impostor, the author of impossible tracts. I pass over those which some years ago were distributed broadcast among the poor, with the best intentions and the worst discrimination, and which were for the most part inappropriate, uninteresting, and unread ; but I denounce those palpable fictions, which were re- corded as facts, and which solemnly narrated how a youth was tempted by the Evil One to enter a theatre, and how, having witnessed the performance of Jack S/iepherd, he devoted the rest of his days to plundering his fellow-creatures, and was finally hanged at New- gate for the murder of his uncle ; how another young man, having been induced by wicked companions in an unguarded moment to partake of a stimulating potion, commonly known as " Old Tom," ultimately became a drivelling sot and died in a lunatic asylum ; and yet another, who, though he had been cautioned by his pious aunt against the depravity of bazaars, was persuaded to make a personal observation, and having won a superb " antimacassar" in a raffle, was charmed with this easy method of acquisition, was lured by this success into gambling and betting, lost all, and committed suicide. Then there was the ferocious prize-fighter, who reeled into a place of worship to deride and mock, and was so impressed by the words of the preacher, that he came next day to inform the reverend 274 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. gentleman that lie had given up a long-established and lucrative business as a publican, and that it was now his chief desire to become a Sunday-school teacher. To substitute such myths as these, such fond things, vainly invented, because they who composed, and they who read, did not believe them to set these imaginations in place of those simple truths, which no adversaries are able to gainsay or resist, was some- thing worse than a zeal not according to knowledge ; it was doing evil that good might come. There are other religious impostors, who impose on themselves only those who attach great import- ance to forms and ceremonies for their own sake, in which case they are worthless, and do not regard them as expressions of piety, and as means of grace, in which case they are most precious. They go to places of worship, but they do not worship in spirit and in truth. " A man may cry ' Church ! Church ! ' at ev'ry word, With no more piety than other people A daw's not reckon'd a religious bird Because it keeps a-cawing from a steeple." They pay tithe of anise, and mint, and cummin, and neglect the weightier matters of the law, judg- ment, mercy, and faith. They strain at gnats, and swallow camels. Bishop Jeremy Taylor tells the story of a shepherd who was distressed because he had accidentally swallowed a little whey during Lent, but had no hesitation as to robbing and murdering o o IMPOSTORS. 275 travellers ; and I remember to have read of another superstitious humbug, a brigand, who was captured not many years ago, with a variety of sacred medals round his neck. They were removed to make room for a rope ! This contemptible homage, which vice offers to virtue, and which makes virtue feel very uncom- fortable, these squeaks and grunts from the obesities of the swine, these base coins put into the alms-bag, are very comically sad ! I recall that in the olden days, when the candidates addressed the electors from " the hustings," a very rich but mean individual was asked when he came forward to speak, " Who sent that corked port wine to the hospital ? " He was not half so large-hearted as the man who, whenever he stole a goose, gave away the giblets in charity. Finally, before we leave these pious impostors, I must express my disrespect and disbelief with regard to those persons, male and female, who are perpetually inventing new religions, and who introduce their compositions to the public with the easy assurance, and the sense of superior merit, with which a milliner presents to her customers the last sweet thing in bonnets. They seem to think that truth has been lying through the ages at the bottom of a well, which they have recently discovered, and that no one else has the key of the pump. The critics, however, who are so rude and outspoken, and so fastidious con- cerning facts, have obtruded the remark that these 276 MOBE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. discoveries have been of frequent occurrence, from the time when St. Paul inquired, " How is this, brethren, that every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpre- tation ? " to the enlistment of the Salvation Army ; that we have been favoured in England with more than two hundred of these infallible manifestations in as many years ; but that it is somewhat difficult, as they differ from and contradict each other, to make a selection of the fittest. Sir Walter Scott writes in one of his letters of " a foolish old man, who has spent his life in finding out a north-west passage to Heaven, and after trying many sects, has settled clown in what he calls the Universal Church of Christ, which consists of himself, his housekeeper, one of his maids, and a foot-boy. The butler is said to be in a hopeful way, but is not quite converted." XXL OUR SPORTS AND GAMES. Gain and loss Less cruelty Reigns of Elizabeth and Mary Baiting of bears and bulls Proceedings in Parliament Scene at Madrid Hunting : the most popular of all our sports The meet The find Incidents of the chase. HE who is trying to learn Solon's lesson, Self-know- ledge, who like a wise trader periodically examines his creditor and debtor accounts, who scrutinizes his own character, as a judge scrutinizes a horse at a show, and notes alike his merits and defects, and then compares the " bad " marks with the " good " ("I was so many by honours, and so many by tricks" I heard a witty school-girl say, when she brought a prize to her home) ; he who is in the habit of thinking honestly about himself, will be restrained from arro- gance. Alone with his conscience, he must confess, as even the best of men have confessed, " I am not better than my fathers." We laud and magnify our civilization and our scientific attainments, the March of Intellect is accompanied by brass bands of stu- pendous power, but are we in our generation better than our fathers ? In a few seconds we can announce 278 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. a visit to friends hundreds of miles away, and we can travel to them fifty, instead of ten, miles per hour. Are we better men on our arrival than those who journeyed by coach and by chaise ? The soldiers who shall fight with the most deadly explosives, the sailors who man the ironclad, cannot be braver than the heroes of Waterloo and Trafalgar. Gold pens and type-writers have not as yet produced, either in prose or in poetry, compositions more excellent than those which were written with the quill of the goose. The Old Masters may still say " Seniores prior es " to the young. Phidias and Polycletus would be in ecstasies (of mirth) with our statues, but they would not be moved with envy. There is loss and gain, compensation and dis- count " Multa ferunt anni venientes commoda secum, Malta recedentes adimunt," vicissitudes and alternations ; the old order changeth, and giveth place to the new, but all have bounds, which they cannot pass. If in some of our habits and systems we seem to make improvement, in others we simultaneously deteriorate. Sometimes prosperity mars, and adversity not seldom makes, the man. This law is of general application, and these thoughts came into my mind, accordingly, when I began to consider what I should say to you concern- ing our Sports and Games, and 1 to observe the striking manifestations which, for good or evil, are connected with them. OUR SPORTS AND GAMES. 279 Certainly, we may congratulate ourselves that there is a less amount of cruelty, and in the suppres- sion of bear-baiting and bull-baiting, man-fighting, dog-fighting, and cock-fighting, we are better than our fathers. We read that when Queen Elizabeth was entertained at Kenilworth by her favourite minister, the Earl of Leicester, part of the entertain- ment consisted of contests between bears and dogs. Thirteen bears and a large number of mastiffs were provided for this royal diversion ; and the historian, Robert Laneham, relates that " it was a sport very pleasant to see the bear with his pink eyes leering after his enemy's approach, the nimbleness and weight of the dog to take his advantage, and the force and experience again of the bear to avoid his assaults ; if he were bitten in one place, how he would pinch in another to get free ; if he were taken once, then what shift, with biting, with clawing, with roaring, tossing, and tumbling, he would work to wind himself from them ; and when he was loose, to shake his ears once or twice, with the blood and the slaver about his physiognomy, was a great relief." And again, when Queen Mary visited her sister during her confinement at Hatfield House, the royal ladies were entertained with a grand baiting of bulls and bears, with which they declared themselves " right well contented." Little more than two hundred years ago, Pepys denounced bull-baiting as " a very rude and nasty 280 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. pleasure," when one of the dogs was tossed into his box. Not a hundred years ago, a bill was introduced into the Commons for the suppression of this practice. Mr. Wyndham pleaded that it would be depriving the people of their amusements, and in spite of the sarcasm of Courtenay, the earnestness of Wilberforce, and the eloquence of Sheridan, " the House refused to accept the bill," and it was not until the year 1835 that this baiting was finally abolished. What shall we say, then, of a far more cruel and disgusting scene, which was witnessed not six months ago (Sunday, May 27, 1894) in Madrid, the capital city of a country professing Christianity, before 16,000 spectators, including many persons of high rank and education ? The first bull which entered the ring was a splendid animal of the Andalusian breed. He killed four horses, and showed great fierce- ness. Manuel Garcia Espartero, a fine, handsome man of twenty-eight years, was anxiously watched, as he approached the bull with his usual daring, and was knocked down. Recovering his feet, he again attacked the bull, but the carcase of a dead horse close by impeded his movements as he plunged his toledo blade to the hilt in the shoulder of the animal, which, though dying, caught, tossed, and gored Espartero. He was carefully raised, bleeding pro- fusely from a ghastly wound in the stomach. His hands were clenched, his features were rigid, his groans were dreadful. On arriving at the infirmary, attached OUR SPORTS AND GAMES. 281 to the bull-ring, Espartero was speechless, and the doctor pronounced his wound to be mortal. Priests promptly administered extreme unction in the presence of many gorgeously attired bull-fighters, all kneeling, bareheaded and deeply moved. Before he expired, Espartero murmured the name of his sweetheart, whom he was to have married shortly. After the death of Espartero, and notwithstand- ing the intense excitement, this horrible carnage was continued. The bulls showed much fight, killed fifteen horses, and knocked down and severely bruised two other bull-fighters. Compared with these hideous atrocities, the bait- ing of bears, bulls, and badgers, and the mutual battering and disfiguring of worthless bipeds, the fighting of dogs and cocks seem to be almost effeminate pastimes ; but they are cruel and con- temptible, and all true gentlemen and sportsmen not only rejoice in their abolition, but in the merciful influence of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which is now established in all parts of our land. Of all our English* sports, there is not one which creates such a general interest and excitement as Hunting. The enjoyments of the gun and the rod are comparatively known to few. The procession * The foreigner has strange conceptions with regard to our sports. A Polish gentleman said to his English cousin, " I sup- pose that you first shoot at the fox with a gun, and then achieve him with a cutlass." 282 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. of shooters, beaters, and dogs, is contemplated without emotion, but wherever " The horn of the hunter is heard o'er the hill," immediately there is a smile on the faces and an ac- clamation from the lips of all. Masters and servants, priest and people, teachers and pupils, are stirred alike by a new animation. Even the old fat horse with the plough lifts his head with glistening eye to listen, kicks up his heavy hairy heels, feels for the moment like a four-year-old of purest blood, and whinnies in his joy. All work is suspended awhile. Windows and doors are opened, and heads peer forth, white and black, brown, red, and golden ; dogs bark ; cocks crow, for their great enemy is in sore distress ; the silly sheep run to and fro " As faint from further distance borne Is heard the clanging hoof and horn." Now let me try to describe to you the complete process of the chase ; and let me ask you, in the first place, to accompany me to one of those picturesque old houses in the country, which seem to evoke from many of your countrymen almost as much admira- tion as that which they express for our cathedrals. Indeed, it is a goodly sight to see as Tennyson describes it " That haunt of ancient peace, An English home." Look at it in the chill still dawn of a November day. Irregular in outline, of many dates and styles, but OUR SPORTS AND GAMES. 283 having therewith a grace and beauty which no uni- formity could give. From that old tower, loud, loud the warder blew his horn, and the archer grasped the great yew bow, which few men now could " string," and drew his arrow to his ear. In the summer time young men and maidens play lawn-tennis, and elderly gentlemen play bowls, in the very place where gallant knights rode at the Quintin, and occasionally at one another. They say that some of those oaks in the park have seen a thousand summers. Where armed men rode out to battle " The deer across the greensward bounds In shade and sunny gleam, And the swan glides past them with the sound Of some rejoicing stream," for the sun has risen, and the great oriel windows are glittering, and the hoar frost is sparkling, ere it melts upon the grass, in the light. The tall chimneys smoke ; there are sights and sounds of awakened life. The breakfast-table is prepared. The inmates gather together for what ? In thousands of cases (thank God), it should be in all, for prayer. One of your own bishops relates the following incident : "A few years ago, I visited a feudal castle in England. One of its towers dates from King John's times ; its outer walls bear marks of siege and damage from the guns of Cromwell. The young owner, lately married, begins the management of his household nobly, for when I came down on the first morning after my arrival, I found him 284 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. with his bride, his guests, and his servants, met together for prayer and praise. When I was asked to officiate, I reminded my kind host that every man is a patriarch and priest in his own household, and I begged him to conduct the service according to his custom. So he said the Prayers, and read the Scriptures, with a due devotion ; and, as we rose from our knees, I looked up, and saw upon a massive oak beam in the roof these words in old English letters ' That house shall always prosper, And never shall decay, In which Almighty God Is worshipped day by day.' " On the top of another of these stately homes, one of the grandest in the land, we read in huge letters of stone, " Nisi Dominus" " Except the Lord build the house, their labour is but lost that build it ; " and in the garden below, in a similar arrangement, " The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the Word of our God shall stand for ever." Over the portals of another home, the dwelling of a Lord Chancellor, are graven the brave words of Joshua, " As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." These are no exceptional cases ; I could tell you of three noblemen, whose large domains adjoin each other, and who, in my recollection, have built three costly churches for themselves and their establishments. But the prayers are said, and again we pass from grave to gay, for " to everything there is a season OUR SPORTS AND GAMES. 285 and a time to every purpose under the heaven." And now there appears upon the scene a personage, who has excited the envy of the nations, and has been imported and imitated in all the centres of high civilization the English groom ! From the cockade in his well-brushed, well-poised, curly-brimmed hat, from the spotless white tie, to the polished toe of his tops, he is as clean, neat, trim, and spruce, as the pump, and the bootmaker, and the tailor (I beg his pardon, I see in a recent advertisement that he now calls himself an " anatomical decorator ") can make him. He comes slowly up the avenue, mounted on an animal, as well turned out as himself, with lustrous eye, shapely head, arched neck " Scarcely snuffing the air, he's so proud and elate ; " with his flesh as firm as that of a trained athlete ; with his coat so glossy, that his rider declares " a man could see to shave in it ; " and with the clean shoulders and strong symmetrical hind-quarters, which make him and his rider sans peur et sans reproclie concerning wood, and water, and wall. This horseman is followed in quick succession by a multitude of bipeds and quadrupeds of all sexes and sorts, from the peer on his thoroughbred to the higgler on his moke. The gentler sex is here ; and if a sculptor wished to carve a statue of "the goddess Diana, Sir, who calls aloud for the chase," he could not have a fairer model than that graceful girl who rides beside her father to " the meet." Carriages, also, 286 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. of all denominations appear upon the scene. There is the regimental drag from the garrison near, with its well-matched team, stepping together like smart soldiers at " the double," and driven by an expert, who sits on his box, with an expression of sweet, sublime indifference, which is almost sleepy, and which seems to say, " It's so ridiculously easy, that I hardly know whether I am driving or not." It is the serenity, which accompanies the consciousness of power ; and in any crisis of difficulty or disobedience you will see him rise to the occasion. Not so with that young gentleman in the tandem, who never seems to be on affectionate terms with his leader, who is frequently embarrassed by unsuccessful efforts to " catch " the thong of his whip, perplexed in the rearrangement of his reins, and constrained to suggest to his servant behind, " P'raps you'd better get to his head." But there is now a prettier sight to see. The huntsman in his velvet cap and scarlet coat, with his hounds and whippers-in and second horseman, rides through the park, with a pace peculiar to his craft, which is neither a walk nor a trot, and has been described as "a shog," and after a brief visit to the stable-yard for he has come a long distance, and needs a little rest and refreshment he appears with his retinue in front of the mansion. The owner and some of his guests come to the edge of the sunk fence to greet him, and to enjoy the pleasures of memory and hope. As they talk of the last good run, and OUR SPOETS AND GAMES. 287 how Ringwood found the fox, led the pack, and picked up the scent, when they came to a check among the sheep, Ringwood looks up to acknowledge the compliment there is not a hound in the pack who does not know his name, or fails to come when he is called and the huntsman bestows on him as. fond a smile as a mother on her firstborn babe. What a motley combination of colour, feature, and form ! There is the largest and most delightful of dowagers, nearly filling a huge landau, and talking to a tiny grandchild, aged six, mounted on a Shetland pony, no bigger than a St. Bernard dog, and one of those terrestrial angels, who make our hearts lighter with their merry voices, and our lives brighter in the sunshine of their love. There is the sportsman of eighty winters, on the stout placid cob, which amply satisfies his present zeal, admiring the consummate skill of a young farmer, who, with light hands, and good temper, but determined will, is teaching a high- bred, fractious, four-year-old " how to behave like a gentleman." Every variety of horsemen, and every variety of horse. Some ride the best which money can buy, and all others the best they can get r " Hobson's choice." * You must not suppose that this is a congregation * Hobson was the famous Cambridge carrier, of whom Milton wrote two epitaphs, and who is said to be the first man who let out horses on hire. They were sent from his stables in an order of succession, from which he made no divergence, so that if any customer expressed a preference for some other steed, the invari- able answer was, " That, or none" 288 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. of mere loafers. Very few are they who are rich enough and selfish enough to do nothing more than hunt. To the pedestrians it is a spectacle, which they enjoy twice or thrice in the year, when the meet is near to their homes. To the large majority it is their only play-day in the week, and most of them combine some business with their amusement ** Omne tulit pundum, qui miscuit uttte didd" I can show you a clergyman, who has attended four services before he mounted his horse by himself, with his household, in his church, at the opening of the school There is a doctor, who went the round of his patients before he left the town, and has vacci- nated several infants en route. Many interesting discussions, arrangements, and engagements are made from the saddle ; and important transactions between buyer and seller take place on the hunting-field. The dealer in horses is there, of course, depreciating with cruel severity the animal which he desires to purchase. 1 have a distinct recollection of a colloquy which I heard some thirty or forty years ago, to my great delectation, between two persons anxiously occupied in one of these commercial treaties : Buyer. "You see, Tom, the long and the short on it is, as that young helephant o' yourn, he's not a nuntinofla." Seller. " Now, Mestur Smith, we don't want none o' your 'umbug you know he's a nuntinoss." Buyer. "No, Tom my lad, I ain't a-going to OUR SPORTS AND GAMES. 289 ro-mance with you. He's a nice, plain, slow, indus- trious animal, but he's not a nuntinoss." Seller. " P'raps you'll be so kind as to state, if this here 'oss ain't a going to hunt, what your lord- ship would have him to do. Do you think he'd be equal to the coal business, outside or inside the mine ? " Buyer. " He's a narness 'oss." Seller. "Oh, indeed! His grandsire won the Derby, and his mother was sold, when she was five years old, for three hundred golden guineas, and you call him ' a narness 'oss ' ! " I don't remember the rest of this conversation, but I clearly recall two incidents which followed, which brought defeat and victory alternately to these belli- gerents, and settled, once and for ever, the question of their debate. Let me tell them, and then return to the scene, which I am attempting to describe. We had a most exciting chase after their altercation, and while it was in process, I heard a crash behind me, and when I looked round I saw that the young horse had made some mistake at the fence, which was " blind " and difficult, and was down with his rider. At the same time, unhappily for Tom, the dealer came over an easier part of the hedge close by, and exclaimed in a triumphant tone, " Didn't I tell you, Thomas, as he weren't a nuntinoss ? " But " Heaven from all creatures hides the book of fate, Except the page prescribed, the present date," and joy's full chords oft prelude woe. The horse and 290 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. his rider rose, with a new ambition and an indomitable power, pressed on to the front, and kept the pride of place until the chase was over, and they had won the trophy of their prowess, the brush of the fox ! Holding in his hand this fragrant emblem of victory, Tom awaited the somewhat tardy arrival of the dealer, and then, presenting it to his astonished gaze, inquired with a sarcastic grin, and a voice jubilant and audible to all, " And now, my Lord Duke, how about your 'arness 'oss ? " Returning to " the meet," we find that the horse is not the only object which promotes this alliance of recreation with trade. The farmer is showing to the maltster, as he promised last market day, a sample of the barley which he has just begun to thresh, or of wheat to the mi Her, or of oats or of beans to the proprietor of the livery stables, or others, who have horses to feed. Sore need has he to make the best of his produce, all but ruined as he is, the occupier together with the owner of the land, by importations, taxes, and untoward harvests. Horace tells us of the old Roman farmers, who, robust, and thankful for small mercies, refreshed mind and body with a holiday, when they had housed their corn '* Agricolse prisci, fortes parvoque beati, Condita post fmmenta, levantes tempore festo Corpus et ipsum am'mnm ; " and in my boyhood and youth a great number of OUR SPORTS AND GAMES. 291 yeomen and farmers bred and broke hunters, but now they are comparatively few. Hard times have waxed worse and worse, and though habits and expenses, suggested by prosperity, are not quickly changed, it would seem as though there must be a reversion to the old regime, a new obedience to the golden rule " He who by the plough would thrive, Himself must either hold or drive ; " a revival of the time when the master lived among his men, who lodged, many of them, in his house, and there was more of that kindly spirit, with which Boaz greeted his harvesters, " The Lord be with you," and they answered, " The Lord bless thee ; " and his good dame was not ashamed to put her hands into the wash-tub, to cure the bacon, to milk, and to churn. Far better this than to wait for the millen- nium of the socialists, in which all will be equal, all soldiers major-generals, as in the army of Artemus Ward, all sailors admirals of the fleet, all ministers of religion archbishops, all lawyers chief justices, when all men will have equal possessions, even though the English farmer might perhaps attain the eminence of bliss, which is now occupied, as Mr. Edward Dicey informs us from personal observation, by his brother agriculturist, in " the Peasant State of Bulgaria." " The Bulgarian peasant needs extremely little, and that little he provides from the produce of his own land. The average cost of a peasant's daily sustenance does not exceed twopence. Their 292 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. food, during the greater part of the year, consists of bread and garlic. Their only beverage is water ; not that they have any objection to beer and spirits, but because they object to paying for them. Sheep- skins, provided in most cases from their own flocks, form the universal dress of the peasantry. The clothes, both of the men and the women, are gene- rally home-made. Commonly, they only possess one suit, and they sleep at night in the same clothes which they have worn in the day. Their beds are mattresses, laid on the mud floors of the rooms in which they have their meals. On these mattresses the whole family lie huddled together." There is a gruesome story, more grim than any of Grimm's, told in illustration of the terrible shifts and necessities of agricultural distress. I tell the tale, after the example of Herodotus, as it was told me. The following conversation is reported to have passed between a stalwart farm-labourer and a pedestrian tourist, who met him on the road : Labourer. " Could yer give us a shilling ? " Tourist. " Why should I ? Can't you earn it for yourself ? " Labourer. " Yes, but I've left my work." Tourist. " Why did you leave it ? " Labourer. " Well, if you must know, I've been living along with Farmer Skinflint, and he's just the nearest, meanest, miserablest old screw as ever went to bed in the dark, and put the candle-end in his pocket. Well, the old cow died, and we had to OUR SPORTS AND GAMES. 293 eat her ; and then the old sow died, and we had to eat her ; and then the old woman died, and I left." The Master of the Hounds looks at his watch, nods to the huntsman, and the whole cavalcade is away at a brisk trot to escape from the crowd of pedestrians, who make a point, when they have the opportunity, of surrounding a covert, and preventing the egress of the fox. Now they have arrived at one of the most favourite finds in the county some six acres of dense gorse, upon a hill sloping south- ward and as the huntsman raises his arm the pack rush to their quest. Two or three minutes of still suspense, and then the silence is broken by a deep solitary bay, and as the words, " Hark to Bingwood," pass the huntsman's lips, a score of watches are moved away for a second, from hearts which throb with excitement, that their owners may time the run. Kingwood's companions not only hearken to his solo, but promptly and melodiously unite in chorus " A cry more tuneable Was never hallooed to or cheered by horn ; " and then from Will, the second Whip, who has been sent on with a trusty young farmer to the extreme corners of the covert, and who has seen Reynard, half a field from his lair, and manifestly on his way to the ancestral earth, which he will find impenetrably closed, are heard those two words, " Gone away" which make the sweetest of all music to the sports- man's ear. 294 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. The hounds run to the holloa, and are away at speed, but how is it that only a dozen from that con- course of horsemen are there to follow ? Because two fields in front, by that line of willows, there is a brook, a broad brook, and it requires a good deal of enthusiasm in the rider, and a special relish and aptitude for that particular form of saltation in his horse, to make a man (he must be a real man) despise the temptations of ford and bridge, and to induce him to rush, at full gallop, over or into the dark deep stream. After a first immersion (I speak feelingly), the stimulants to which I have referred are absolutely indispensable. The Huntsman and the First Whip, two others in scarlet, and two in black, are over, two are struggling to get out, and the rest have refused (the quadruped, as a rule, being influenced by the determi- nation or the debility of the biped), when lo ! Diana, in the form of a most charming girl, rides onward to the stream, and though her brother none but a brother could use such freedom of speech calls to her from the other side, " Gwennie, don't be a fool," seems to have made up her mind for the attempt. It might, perhaps, be more accurate to say that she has made up part of her mind, for as she nears the water the pace slackens instead of increasing, as it ought, and her steed seems somewhat to falter in his spring. Nevertheless, he makes a noble effort, and reaches the further bank ; but the hind heels alight on the extreme edge, which gives way beneath them, OUR SPORTS AND GAMES. 295 and both fall back into the stream. There is a dissolution of partnership, and then they are happily extricated by the attendant groom on the side from which they started, and are sent home by the peremptory brother, who perhaps recalls, as he rides away, the lines u Your sister's drown'd, Laertes ! Drown'd ! 0, where ? There is a willow grows ascaunt a brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream." The chase goes on, and by a propitious deflection, comes within reach of the Bridge Brigade, who rejoin their long-lost brothers with eager animation, and ride, like heroes, over a few small fences and fields connected by convenient gates. Then they are con- fronted by a most disgusting obstacle, in the shape of a thick high hedge, with a big dyke on the other side, and as they watch the huntsman in the air, and hear him call to his follower to " put on steam," they remember how precious their lives are to the com- munity in general, and to their own family in particular, and they resolve that no motives of selfish enjoyment shall imperil that, which is so essential to the happiness of their country and their kin. They go, " this side up, with care," to the gates. The incidents of the chase, the many accidents by flood and field, are infinite in their variety, now dangerous, and now grotesque. I have known two instances, in which riders dismounted, once by falls, and once in their joint attempts to unfasten a gate, 296 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. have changed horses, and not discovered their mistake until their return home, suggesting to my memory an occurrence yet more abnormal. A gentleman had a horse named " Angelo," in compliment to his pro- ficiency in the art of fencing, and having ridden him for several seasons, he sold him, wishing to purchase a younger and more capable steed. Two years after- wards, being present at a sale at Tattersall's, he was much pleased with one of the animals trotted out in the yard, bid for, and bought him. Eeturning to the country with his new purchase, he was met at the station by his stud-groom, who, as soon as the box was opened, and its occupant appeared, raised his hands in amazement, and exclaimed, " Why it's old Hangelo ! " The comment upon this transaction was irresistible, that although the buyer had been some- what wanting in discrimination when he selected his stranger, he had nevertheless entertained an Angel unawares. Sometimes there is more of the demon than the angel in the temper of the horse, and there is an example in a refractory steed, who, having dislodged an officer by falling at a fence, rose and rushed across the field, charged the brother of his owner, as he was jumping over the boundary hedge, and having rolled him and his horse into the adjoining field, galloped off into the wilderness. He was out all night, and when a servant announced next morning, " They've found the horse, sir," the proprietor only said, " Have they ? I'm sorry to hear it." OUR SPORTS AND GAMES. 297 I must leave this fascinating subject, on which I expatiated in a previous record of my " Memories." It is fascinating because this sport is the bravest, manliest, healthiest, and most social of all, and because it is the only one which has not been attainted by the defilements of the money-grubber, the gambler, and the snob. It may, of course, like all other recreations and pursuits, be the idol of pleasure, instead of the " servant of duty ; " it may monopolize time and thought and work, which we owe not only to others, but to Him Who giveth all. There are monomaniacs on horseback as well as on foot. There are thorough- bred steeds, on which brave knights and true may witch the world with noble horsemanship, and there are donkeys for dunces, and painted wooden hobbies for fools. They are poor company, those young men of stable mind, that is, who mind stables only, with their hair always cut like convicts, and their lean legs suggestive of the Colonial Bishop, of whom it was said, " That he was liable to be apprehended by the police as a vagabond, having no visible means of support " in ill-made gaiters of drab. They have but one song, which they sing da capo " The lesson that I give, If any one holds cheap, he'll Find he cannot live Or die with decent people. Your business, if old, Young, or children in your frocks, is In one short precept told, Which is, preserve the foxes. 298 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. The way to cure all woe, And baffle Fortune's shocks, is Singing Tally-ho, And preserving foxes." And I have known men, and very pleasant fellows too, to whose mind almost everything suggested some phase of hunting. A noble lord, a master of hounds, attended a great ecclesiastical function, and when the procession of priests was straggling all over the churchyard, as was the custom in those days, and some were going altogether in a wrong direction, he approached a clergyman, who occasionally hunted with his pack, and whispered in his ear, " I say, Cox, there's three couple and a half running heel yonder. Can't you send a whip, one of those chaps with the wands, and turn 'em ? " Assheton Smith, after hear- ing the first sermon of young Mr. Dyson, the son of the Eector of Tedworth, put his hand approvingly on his back as he came out of church, and said, " Well done, Frank you shall ride Kory O'More on Thursday ! " ( 299 ) XXII. HORSES AND RACING. Their beauty and their use Horsemen on either side of the Atlantic Cavaliers and cowboys Dr. Johnson with the Brighton Harriers Breeding and testing horses Racing in itself harmless, but abused and degraded Americans at Epsom Worse men than Welshers. THE horse is the most beautiful and the most useful of all the animals. Deer may be more ornamental and appropriate to a park, and they have this claim to preference, that it may be said of them, as the widowed shark of his wife, when, after the manner of sharks, he ate her, " She was charming when alive, and she's really very nice now she's dead," but they are, except in Lapland, ignavum pecus ; they carry no riders, they bear no burdens, nor can they be compared, the stag with the thoroughbred sire, or the doe and her fawn with the brood mare and her foal. The horse is the handsomest and the most helpful of all our speechless friends. He is not only the chief performer in that which I have just main- tained to be the best of all sports, but wherever there is work to be done, he brings us his patient strength, 300 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. in the streets and in the fields, in the mine and on the mountain. He is as dauntless in battle as he is laborious in peace. He is with us in our happiest and in our saddest hours. He seems almost to know and to share our joy, as he bears us away with our bride by our side, and the merry church bells ring. He goes before us when we follow those whom we loved best to the grave. With us not only in life, but in death, he takes us, when the journey must be made, to " That undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveller returns." We know that when the sun was worshipped almost universally among the nations of the East, horses were consecrated to the deity, and were always represented as drawing the chariot which he drove on his daily course ; we know how high in honour the Equites were held in Rome ; and we, who have passed from darkness into light, have read in the Divine Revelation of One, Who is represented in the heavenly procession as sitting upon a white horse, and the armies, which were in heaven, followed Him on white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. Moreover, we love horses, because we, who dwell on either side of the Atlantic, are good horsemen, and whether as " cull'd and choice-drawn cavaliers," in park and on parade, or as rough cowboys in the far Wild West, we are proud of our horsemanship. I HORSES AND RACING. 301 should be afraid to state that a large number of my fellow-countrymen would be more interested to hear that a man rode well to hounds, than that he had written a scientific treatise, were I not acquainted with gentlemen of philosophical mind and literary reputation, who had no hesitation in declaring their preference for a run with the Quorn, the Pytchley, or the Belvoir, to any of their first-flight mounts upon Pegasus ; who thought Parnassus too steep and too woody for hunting ; and did not believe that even in the Elysian Fields there was anything to compare to Cream Gorse or Ashby Pastures. I have even heard a profane poet aver that when the hunting season was over, and he was compelled to be in London at work, there was no Muse on Olympus so dear to him as the mews at the back of his house ! When Doctor Johnson, the great Lexicographer, who describes a horse as "a neighing quadruped, used in war, draught, and carriage" was at Brighton, he went out with the harriers on a horse lent to him by Thrale, and acquitted himself so well in the saddle, that one of the company expressed his astonishment " to see the doctor riding like a young man of twenty ! " When these words were repeated to Johnson, he said, " I am more pleased with that compliment than with any which I ever received." My last encomium (or you will begin to suspect that I have brought over some horses for sale) is to be found in the fact, that our most popular enter- tainment is the circus ! Old men rejoice in taking 302 MOEE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. grandchildren, as an excuse for their own attendance, and the street urchin crawls to the tent, and, peeping under the canvas, shouts in an exuberance of joy to his companion, that he " can see the 'oofs of the 'orses ! " It is evident that such a benefactor, promoting the happiness and the business of life as no other animal can, should be maintained in the highest state of efficiency by those who are dependent on his aid ; that he should improve rather than deterio- rate, and that this improvement should be promoted by attention to parentage, by selection of the fittest, by perpetuating merits and supplying defects ; and it follows that those men, who have the inclination and the means to multiply horses upon these condi- tions, are not only gratifying their own instincts, but are doing good service to the community at large. The results, progressive or retrograde, must be tested at the horse show, or on the course, and we naturally expect that not only owners and trainers, but all who admire horses will desire to see the com- petition, and will be disposed the public by dona- tions, and the competitors by payment of stakes to reward success. Such contests, honestly conducted, over the flat or with obstacles (I prefer the obstacles, because they make the diversion more like hunting), are exciting, interesting, picturesque, and useful, and might be enjoyed by multitudes of all classes, on a Bank holiday, or other occasions, with no greater HORSES AND RACING. 303 temptations to evil than those which attend a cricket- match. Who have made this impossible ? Fools with more money than brains, and rogues with more brains than money the only resemblance between them being this, that " they fear not God, nor regard man." They have made racing, so far as they could, a delusion and a snare. The horse is not to them " A thing of beauty, and a joy," but a thing of booty and decoy, " for ever." They would rejoice, if the animal against whom they have laid long odds, and who seemed likely to win, were to break his heart or his back on the course. It is true that there are honourable gentlemen, who, like the two most successful owners of the racehorse, the Dukes of Westminster and Portland, are as free from guile as Nathanael ; who can say with another noble patron of the Turf, " I want no man's money, and no man shall take mine," and against whom the accusation can be never made, " When thou sawest a thief, thou consentest unto him." But these men, though they are many, are but few in comparison with those who have not a grain, much less a scruple, of con- science, and have forgotten, if ever they knew it, what honour means the Touts, and the Tippers, the Legs, and the Welshers, who with cunning craftiness lie in wait to deceive. One of your fellow-countrymen, Mr. Richard 304 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. Harding Davis, in his clever little book, entitled, " Our English Cousins," gives a graphic description of a Welsher. First of all, he writes, after witnessing the great race of the year, " the Derby " at Epsom, "In no other country do 60,000 people travel sixteen miles to camp around a race-track, and then break up and march back again the same night." And indeed it is a wonderful assemblage princes and pickpockets, dukes and dustmen, evangelists and thimble-riggers, members of the government and members of the " P.R.," judges and ticket-of-leave men, world-known merchants and cheap Jacks, famous musicians and composers with black-faced minstrels, " a playing on the old ban-jo," distinguished painters and penny photographers ! Then Mr. Davis writes of the Welsher, caught and mauled by his creditors, "trembling with terror, and clinging to the officers about him, with his tawdry suit of velvet torn from his back, and his face and naked shoulders covered with sweat, and dust, and the blood that shines brilliantly in the sunshine all his blatant, noisy swagger gone, and with nothing left but an awful terror of his fellow-men." There are worse men looking on some from grand stands, private boxes, and sumptuous drags- worse than that bleeding wretch, because he was never taught, as they were, to eschew evil and do good ; because, in all probability, he was educated to lie and cheat, and they have brought themselves, in opposition to the lessons of their youth, to connive at SOUSES AND RAGING. 305 the fraud, and to share the plunder of the thief. He had not, as they have, a position to maintain ; in his degradation he but debases himself. And there are results, far more grievous than the castigation of this recreant rogue by his dupes old homes abandoned, fair estates estranged, children robbed of their just heritage, great names associated with dishonour, young men just starting in business sent to jail for robbing their masters that they might pay their bets. Is there nothing more to be done ? No Phinehas to stand between the dead and the living, that the plague may be stayed ? It is encouraging to read of raids made by the police upon premises illegally used for betting, but is the law enforced on all ? " I do confess that I abhor and shrink From schemes with a religious willy-nilly, Which frown upon St. Giles's sins, and blink The peccadilloes of all Piccadilly." It would be a gain if the "Totalizator" were made here, as in Russia, the only lawful mode of betting. It is common in Australia, and, if there must be gambling, it would at all events abolish the vile herd of legs and welshers, and protect from robbery. " You put down your sovereign at the authorized office, and get a ticket for the horse which you desire to back. All the money so paid in, except, of course, a small percentage, is divided up and paid out to all who produce tickets of the winning horse." The winner is sure to receive what he wins, and 306 MORE MEMORIES BY DEAN HOLE. in depositing his money has no need to exercise the cautious discretion displayed by a certain young man on a racecourse, when, being invited by some sharpers to make a wager, and being assured that " Mr. Jackson had kindly consented to hold the stakes," he inquired with laudable curiosity, " But who ivill hold Mr. Jackson ? " But our ambition should be, not to propitiate or to accommodate, but to crush and to destroy this pest of betting and bribing, which is causing so much misery and disgrace. It has spoiled racing, and is trying to spoil cricket and football. Not honour, but " gate-money," wherewith to pay the city and county elevens, which have been imported from all parts of the kingdom, seems in many cases the chief ambition. I fear that the Hercules who is to cleanse these filthy stables of Augeas is not yet born, but I believe that the waters of purification are accumu- lating in the reservoirs of religion, morality, and common sense. THE END. PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES. WORKS BY THE DEAN OF ROCHESTER (THE VEKY KEV. S. KEYNOLDS HOLE). THE MEMORIES OF DEAN HOLE. WITH A PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR And Illustrations from Original Sketches by LEECH and THACKERAY. Twelfth Thousand. Cheap Edition, 350 pages, crown 8vo, cloth, 6. " We have been treated to a great many volumes of reminiscences of late years, but to few which have afforded us so much pleasure and amusement as this one of the Dean of Rochester. . . . These memories are written in a pleasant strain of gossiping retrospection. . . . There is much in the volume, notwithstanding its light and cheerful character, that gives cause for reflection ; and the author has something to say upon the grave questions of tne day, as well as upon the humours of the cricket-field and the cultivation of roses." Spectator. " These reminiscences are quite one of the most delightful boo'cs of the season. The Dean has known a large number of interesting men. His tastes are wide, embracing literature and art, horticulture and most branches of spott. He has a keen sense of humour, and never spoils his stories by over-elaboration of their points." Atlienieum. " Dean Hole was the intimate friend of Leech ; he enjoyed the companionship of Thackeray ; he has been an honorary member of the fellowship which surrounded the table of Mr. Punch. ... It might warm the most frigid disestablisher towards the Church of England to find a dean with such a keen sense of humour, with such kindly tolerance. . . . He tells a good story with a relish which is a veritable inspiration." Speaker. " The book is a perfect encyclopaedia of good stories and happy descriptions of incidents by flood and field." Tablet. " Whether he is writing of his own much-loved roses or of hunters, of litterateurs, artists, sportsmen, or his own confreres, he is never ill-natured, but always genial, with a fund of humour at all times ready to band. While in his more serious moments there is abundant shrewdness, and throughout the whole book the charm of a delightful personality." Graphic. " Full of capital stories, and written in that broad spirit of fearless Christian manliness which all who know him admire in the writer." World. Addresses to Working Men from Pulpit and Platform. 1 Vol. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6*. " They are excellent, direct, simple and manly. The book is doubly useful, both for the sensible counsel it gives, and for serving also as a model of directness for young speakers." Church hells. " A book of great interest and great excellence." Scotsman. LONDON- : EDWARD ARNOLD, 37, BEDFORD STREET, W.C. ta tfjr Jtrtria Office. WORKS BY THE DEAN OF ROCHESTER (THE VEEY KEY. S. EEYNOLDS HOLE). A Little Tour in Ireland. With nearly 40 Illustrations by JOHN LEECH, including the famous steel frontispiece of the " Claddagh." Large imperial 16mo, handsomely bound, gilt top, 10s. 6d. The " Oxonian " who accompanied John Leech in his famous " Little Tour in Ireland," and who wrote the account which was illustrated by Leech in his happiest and most successful manner, was the present Dean of Kochester. The book has been out of print for over thirty years, for, although the first edition was exhausted in a few weeks after publication, no other was issued, the second being withdrawn, owing to a question as to the copyright. " A welcome contribution to the revival of Leech literature. Mr. Hole, the ' Oxonian ' of those days, was blessed with buoyant spirits and even then had a delightful taste for 'couleur de roses ;' his narrative is full of fun, observation, kindliness, remarkable and unusual com- prehension of the people of Ireland, aiid sympathy with them. Leech's illustrations are charming ; their exaggeration has not the slightest touch of malice, and their humour is irresistible." World. " Leech's drawings comprise some of that artist's happiest work as a book illustrator." Saturday Review. A Book about the Garden and the Gardener. With Steel Plate Frontispiece by JOHN LEECH. Second Edition, Crown 8vo, 6s. "A dainty book ... a profusion of jokes and good stories, with a vein of serious thought running through the whole." Guardian. " A delightful volume, full, not merely of information, but of humour and entertainment." World. " Dean Hole has contrived to make his book both amusing and of real practical utility." Morning Post. " The papers are all written with that charming mixture of practical skill in gardening, learning in the literary ait, clerical knowledge of the nature of men and strong love of flowers, that is already familiar to this author's readers." Scotsman. A Book about Roses. Thirteenth Edition, Crown 8vo, cloth, 2. 6d. " A perfectly charming book." Daily Telegraph. " A book brimful of enthusiasm, humour, information, and common sense." Church Times. " No one will rise Irom its perusal without having caught something of the Dean's enthu- siasm. . . . The work is withal eminently practical." Pall Mall Gazette. " By growers of roses the book will be found full of information and suggestion. . . . There are passages that will rank among the most delightful prose on the gardening art." Evening Ifews and Post. LONDON: EDWARD ARNOLD, 37, BEDFORD STREET, W.C. Publisher to thr iirtjta Office. of of bg LONDON EDWARD ARNOLD 37 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C. publisher to the Inbm il of exciting incidents among West African blacks.' Saturday Review THE CHILDREN'S DICKENS. DAVID COPPERFIELD THE OLD CURIOSITY SHOP DOMBEY AND SON. Illustrated from the original plates, and abridged for the use of children by J. H. YOXALL. Square 8vo., cloth, is. 6d. each volume. Also, specially bound for Prizes and Presents, with gilt edges, as. each. ' The books have been cut down to manageable length by_ the excision of passages un- suited to the comprehension of children, or unlikely to maintain their interest, the con- tinuity of the story being preserved by the interpolation of short passages from the editor's pen, printed in italics. The work of compression is judiciously carried out, the type is bold and clear, and the illustrations are taken from the original plates.' Guardian. ' The abridgments of Dickens seem to me excellent. It is the kind of thing that I have always longed for, and that I, in common with many other parents, probably have practically done by skipping while reading aloud. But it is delightful having it in this convenient form, in a book which one can put into the child's own hand.' Mrs. Hugh Bell. TWILIGHT THOUGHTS CLAUDE'S POPULAR FAIRY STORIES. With a Preface by MATTHEW ARNOLD. Crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d. ' There is nature and fable and pathos and morality in these stories, something for every taste.' From the Preface. THE NINE WORLDS. Stories from Norse Mythology. By MARY E. LITCHFIELD. Illustrated, crown 8vo. , cloth, 35. ' These short stories are intended for children, but the author hopes they will not be uninteresting to older persons. We suspect that the latter will enjoy them even more than the former." Journal of Education. 26 MR. EDWARD ARNOLD'S LIST OF The Children's Favourite Series. A charming Series of Juvenile Books, each plentifully illustrated, and written in simple language to please young readers. Special care is taken in the choice of thoroughly wholesome matter. Handsomely bound, and designed to form an attractive and enter- taining Series of gift-books for presents and prizes. PRICE Two SHILLINGS EACH. ' A charming set of books, which will rejoice the hearts of mothers, teachers, and children." Child Life. ' Prettily bound, well illustrated, edited with much good sense, and are admirable for presents.' Tablet. MY BOOK OF FAIRY TALES. ' For children of seven or eight there could cot be a better fairy -book.' British Weekly. MY BOOK OF BIBLE STORIES. 1 Written so that the youngest child can understand them.' Saturday Review. MY BOOK OF HISTORY TALES. 1 A splendid introduction to English history.' Methodist Times. DEEDS OF GOLD. ' A first-rate book for lads and lassies is this. 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The great success of this Famous American Review, which holds a position in the United States equivalent to that of the Nineteenth Century in England, has justified the proprietors in carrying out a wish they have long entertained of reducing its price so as to render it the cheapest first-class Review in the world. With this year its price has been reduced to is. 3d. monthly ; annual subscription, post free, 155. A conspicuous feature in the Review is the prominence it gives to articles by European contributors, nearly every number containing articles by the best English writers. It is obtainable in England about the loth of each month. ' Nothing that I could say would exaggerate my hig_h opinion of the Forum, its scope, its management, the ability of its articles, and the importance of its influence.' Mrs. Lynn Linton. ' There is scarcely a number which does not contain one or more striking papers.' Ven. Archdeacon farrar, D.D. 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' Indispensable to the serious student of philosophy.' Leeds Mercury. 28 MR. E. ARNOLD'S LIST OF GENERAL LITERATURE. AMERICAN PHILOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION, TRANSAC- TIONS OF THE. Vols. I. XXI. Containing Papers by Specialists on Ancient and Modem Languages and Literature. The price of the volumes is xos. each, except Volumes XV. and XX. , which are 125. 6d. each. Volumes I. and II. are not sold separately. An Index of Authors and sub- jects to Vols. I. XX. is issued, price 25. 6d. MR. EDWARD ARNOLD'S List of American Periodicals vill be sent post free on application. L'AMARANTHE : Revue Litteraire, Artistique Illustree. De'die'e aux filles de France. A monthly Magazine containing original articles by the best French writers, specially intended for the perusal of young people, is. monthly ; annual subscription, including postage, 143. 3nt>ey to Hutbors. PACK ADDERLEY. Stephen Remarx . n ADLER. Instruction of Children . 18 AMARANTHE (L') . . . .28 AMERICAN PHILOLOGICAL ASSO- CIATION . . . .28 ARROWSMITH. Rigveda . . 22 BAUMANN. Betterment . . 15 BELL. Poems .... 6 ,, Name above every Name 7 BENSON. Men of Might . . 23 BROWN. Pleasurable Poultry Keeping . . 8 Poultry Keeping as an Industry . . 8 ,, Industrial Poultry Keeping . . 9 BURBIDGE. Wild Flowers in Art and Nature . . . .12 BURGESS. Political Science . 14 CARUS. Soul of Man . . .14 ,, Homilies of Science . 14 CHERBULIEZ. The Tutor's Secret 10 CHILDREN'S FAVOURITE SERIES . 26 CLAUDE. Twilight Thoughts . 25 CLIFFORD. Love Letters . . 10 COOK. Sidney's Defense of Poesy 20 ,, Shelley's Defence of Poetry 20 CUSTANCE. Riding Recollections 6 DAVIDSON Handbook to Dante . 21 PAGE DICKENS, CHILDREN'S . . 25 DISNEY. Law relating to School- masters . . .15 ENGLISH ILLUSTRATED MAGA- ZINE . , . . .12 EVERETT. Ethics for Young People . . .24 FAWCETT. Hartmann the Anar- chist . . .10 Riddle of the Uni- verse . . .14 FORUM 27 FOWLER. 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LONDON: EDWARD ARNOLD, 37 BEDFORD ST., W.C. gnblishcr to the Enbia i i '01 u i- 2 0) o a ) c ' O r \ 2 O > in 2 ro rn