Just published, the Nineteenth Edition of 
 
 LAYS OF THE SCOTTISH CAYALIEES, 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS. 
 BY W. EDMONDSTOUNE AYTOUN, D.C.L. 
 
 Foolscap octavo, price 7s. 6d. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF 
 
 AYTOUN'S 
 LAYS OF THE SCOTTISH CAVALIEES. 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR J. NOEL PATON, & W. H. PATON. 
 
 In Small Quarto, printed on Toned Paper, bound in gilt cloth, 21s. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 "The artists have excelled themselves in the engravings which they 
 have furnished. Seizing the spirit of Mr Aytoun's ' Ballads,' as, perhaps, 
 none but Scotchmen could have seized it, they have thrown their whole 
 strength into the work with a heartiness which others would do well to 
 imitate. Whoever there maybe that does not already know these ' Lays,' 
 we recommend at once to make their acquaintance in this edition, wherein 
 author and artist illustrate each other as kindred spirits should." 
 Standard. 
 
 "Of all our illustrated books there has been none so magnificent as 
 
 this This is a beautiful book. There was never a Christmas 
 
 book like it ; and we lay it down with a reluctance which is not the most 
 common feeling of the reviewer." Daily Review. 
 
 " This is, on the whole, one of the very best of the Christmas books, and 
 certainly one which puts forth high artistic claims." Saturday Review. 
 
 " This is, to look upon, a kingly, a lordly, and a knightly book : it has 
 an outer dress worthy of the kings and lords and knights whose deeds are 
 the theme of the spirited strains imprinted on its pages. The illustrations, 
 too, which adorn the pages, full well deserve the handsome covers which 
 preserve them, as it were, in a costly casket. They are gems of art wrought 
 by skilful artificers by J. Noel Paton and Waller H. Paton. The former 
 is mighty in the delineation of figures, the latter graceful in landscape 
 scenery." Illustrated London News. 
 
 " Sometimes it has been a difficult matter to decide which book was en- 
 titled to the prize ; fortunately, this year the task is easy one volume 
 being so considerably raised above its fellows by the exquisite beauty and 
 elaborate finish of the drawings, worthily seconded by the labours of the 
 engravers, themselves artists, that the first place will readily be conceded 
 to this edition of Aytoun's ' Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers.' " The. Book- 
 seller.
 
 TRANSLATIONS BY THEODORE MARTIN. 
 
 GOETHE'S FAUST. Second Edition. 6s. cloth. 
 
 THE ODES OF HORACE, with Life and Notes. 9s. 
 
 CATULLUS, with Life and Notes. 6s. 6d. 
 
 THE VITA NUOVA OF DANTE, with Introduction and Notes. 
 
 7s. 6d. 
 
 ALADDIN. By OEHLENSCHLAEGER. 5s. 
 CORREGGIO. By the Same. 5s. 
 KING RENE'S DAUGHTER. By HENKIK HERTZ. 2s. 6d. cloth. 
 
 NINTH EDITION. 
 
 THE BOOK OF BALLADS. 
 Edited by Bon Gaultier. 
 
 With numerous Illustrations by DOYLE, LEECH, and CROWQUILL. 
 Gilt edges, post octavo, 8s. 6d. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 POEMS AND BALLADS OF GOETHE. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 W. E. Aytoun and Theodore Martin. 
 
 6s. cloth. 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 BOTHWELL: A POEM. 
 By "William Edmondstoune Aytoun, D.C.L. 
 
 Foolscap octavo, 7s. 6d. 
 
 Fl RMI LtAN; 
 
 (in, TIIK STUDKNT OF HADA.TOX. 
 A Spasmodic Tragedy. Foolscap octavo, 5s. 
 
 THIRD EDITION. 
 
 THE BALLADS OF SCOTLAND. 
 Edited by Professor Aytoun. 
 
 2 vols., foolscap octavo, 12*. 
 
 \Vir.MAM 111,. \CK\vooi) & SONS, Edinburgh and London.
 
 "C- 
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 WILLIAM EDMONDSTOUNE ATTOUN 
 
 D. C. L.
 
 
 
 .- iaodon.
 
 MEMOIR 
 
 D. C. L. 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' LAYS OF THE SCOTTISH CAVALIERS/ ETC. ETC. 
 
 BY 
 
 THEODOEE MARTIN 
 
 WITH AN APPENDIX 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLXVII
 
 Stack 
 Annex 
 
 40M8 
 
 TO 
 
 THE SISTERS OF MY FRIEND, 
 
 THIS MEMOKIAL OF HIS LIFE 
 
 IN AFFECTIONATE REMEMBKANCE.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ANCESTRY AND PARENTAGE HIS MOTHER HIS BIRTH EARLY CHA- 
 RACTER AND TASTES FAIRY LORE AND ITS CHARMS COUNTRY 
 LIFE EARLY TASTE FOR READING SCHOOL AND COLLEGE LIFE 
 HIS FAVOURITE CLASSICS TASTE FOR BELLES LETTRES, AND DIS- 
 TASTE FOR METAPHYSICS AMUSEMENTS IN CHEMISTRY, AND THEIR 
 RESULT HOLIDAY RAMBLES A TRIP TO ORKNEY, . . .1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A STUDENTS' MEETING, AND HIS SPEECH THERE EFFECTS OF THE 
 REFORM EXCITEMENT ON HIM PUBLICATION OF ' POLAND AND 
 OTHER POEMS' CHOICE OF A PROFESSION UNWILLINGNESS TO 
 ADOPT THE LAW RESIDENCE AND STUDIES IN GERMANY TRANS- 
 LATION OF FAUST FAUST THE MAGICIAN AND HIS CONJURING-BOOK 
 MARLOWE'S FAUSTUS LIFE AT ASCHAFFENBURG, AND LETTERS 
 TO HIS MOTHER SUNDAY ABROAD AND AT HOME HIS TUTOR'S 
 OPINION OF HIM TRANSLATION OF THE BRIDE OF CORINTH THE 
 WANDERING JEW, ....... 30 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CHOOSES THE PROFESSION OF THE LAW CALLED TO THE BAR, AND HIS 
 PROGRESS THERE FIRST CONTRIBUTIONS TO 'BLACKWOOD* THE 
 BON GAULTIER PAPERS AND BALLADS " THE FLYING DUTCHMAN," 
 A PROSE BURLESQUE "THE ELDER'S WARNING," A LAY OF THE 
 CONVOCATION NATIONAL AND JACOBITE SYMPATHIES THE LAYS 
 OF THE CAVALIERS VIEWS ON BALLAD POETRY DEATH OF HIS
 
 VI CONTENTS. 
 
 FATHER HIS POLITICAL VIEWS AS A HUMORIST NEW THEORY 
 OF RIZZIO'S MURDER ART-CRITICISM "THE SPANISH LEGION," A 
 SKETCH " THE LAY OF THE LEGION " THE " CANNIBAL KILWIN- 
 NING "JOINT-STOCK CEMETERIES " 8T MARY'S CHURCHYARD," A 
 SKETCH "THE SCOTTISH CHRISTMAS" "THE JULIET" " LY- 
 CAON," A BALLAD, . . . . . . .57 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE BURNS FESTIVAL, AND HIS SPEECH THERE ANECDOTE OF DOUG- 
 LAS JERROLD THE RAILWAY MANIA PUBLICATION OF " THE 
 (il.KNMUTCHKIN RAILWAY," AND ITS EFFECTS RAILWAY LEGISLA- 
 TION AND PARLIAMENTARY EVIDENCE A PARLIAMENTARY COM- 
 MITTEE " RAILWAY CALLS," A SKETCH RAILWAY TRAVELLING 
 CONTRASTED WITH THAT IN OLDEN TIMES STAGE BURLESQUES, 
 AND RECIPE FOR ONE OF THESE TIECK'S PHANTA8US A SURREY 
 MELODRAMA ASTLEY'S AS IT WAS, . . . . .100 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A ITOINTED PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND BELLES LETTRES HIS 8UC- 
 ( 'ESS HIS METHOD, AND CARE IN TRAINING HIS STUDENTS NUM- 
 BER AND VARIETY OF HIS CONTRIBUTIONS TO ' BLACKWOOD ' 
 T OF HIS PAPER ON THE CORN-LAW QUESTION CORRESPOND- 
 ENT!; WITH THACKERAY APPOINTED SHERIFF OF ORKNEY HIS 
 MARRIAGE -PICTURE OF HOUSEHOLD CARES AND CALAMITIES 
 I.IXTI !!KS ON BALLAD POETRY THE "JUSTICE TO SCOTLAND" 
 MOVKMEXT GREAT MEETING AT GLASGOW LETTERS TO MR 
 ROBERTSON- -SCHEME OF A REFORM BILL DEATH OF PROFESSOR 
 
 wi i.sox. ........ 124 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HIS INIM'STUV AND VERSATILITY PUBLICATION OF ' FIRMILIAN ' ITS 
 
 RECEPTION AND EFFECTS .\<ror XT OF IT HIS CONTRIBUTIONS TO 
 
 'BLACKWOOn' COMMENCEMENT OF ' BOTHWELL ' HIS ANSWER TO 
 CHITirlSMS ON IT DIFFIcri.TIES OF THE TASK ITS PUBLICATION, AND 
 IU.( Kl'TION BY THE PUBLIC LORD LYTTOX'.S OPINION OF IT GROUSE- 
 .SHOOT1N<; IX OKKNEY, ...... 145
 
 CONTENTS. Vll 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO COL. HAMLET ACCOUNT OF HIM BY THE LATTER THK 
 SALOON AT GEORGE STREET HIS SUPPOSED EDITORSHIP OF 'BLACK- 
 WOOD ' HIS HOME HABITS AS A LECTURER AND TEACHER AT " HIGH 
 JINKS" AND IN HIS STUDY FISHING AND SHOOTING IN ORKNEY HIS 
 LIFE THERE "THE LAIRD OF M'NAB" RENEWED LITERARY LABOURS 
 COLLECTION AND EDITING OF THE SCOTTISH BALLADS HIS MOTHER 
 THE GOETHE BALLADS LETTER FROM HIS OLD GERMAN TUTOR 
 HIS GROWING REPUTATION HIS APPEARANCE AT THE MANCHESTER 
 ATHEN.EUM AND AT THE BURNS CENTENARY FESTIVAL, . . 17- r ) 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF MRS AYTOUN ITS EFFECT ON HIM ELECTED 
 PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATED SOCIETIES OF THE UNIVERSITY FIRST 
 VISIT TO HOMBURG DYSPEPSIA AND ITS CURE SCOTTISH COOKERY AND 
 ITS EFFECTS A PRESBYTERY DINNER LIFE IN SHETLAND LETTER TO 
 COL. HAMLEY DEATH OF HIS MOTHER PUBLICATION OF 'NORMAN 
 SINCLAIR' LORD LYTTON ON IT AGAIN AT HOMBURG SIGNS OF 
 FAILING HEALTH NOEL PATON'S DESIGNS FOR THE 'LAYS' "THE 
 RIGHTS OF WOMEN," ...... 200 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 LECTURE AT ULBSTER HALL ON BALLAD POETRY SIR WALTER SCOTT 
 EMPHATICALLY THE MINSTREL ON THE CAUSES OF SCOTT'S POPULARITY 
 DISTINCTION BETWEEN POET AND MINSTREL A NEW CHAPTER FROM 
 'IVANHOE' ODE ON THE MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES HIS 
 FAILING HEALTH SECOND MARRIAGE VARYING STATE OF HIS HEALTH 
 LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH HIS PLACE IN LITERATURE HIS POWER 
 AS A HUMORIST HIS CHARACTER, .... 226 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 ENDYMION ; OR, A FAMILY PARTY OF OLYMPUS, . . . 255 
 
 MY FIRST SPEC IN THE BIGGLESWADES, . . . .267 
 
 ADVICE TO AN INTENDING SERIALIST, . . . .290 
 
 MODERN BIOGRAPHY, . . . . . . .313 
 
 LIGHT LITERATURE FOR THE HOLIDAYS, .... 324 
 
 NUPTIAL ODE ON THE MARRIAGE OF HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE 
 
 PRINCE OF WALES, ...... 352
 
 ME MO IE 
 
 WILLIAM EDMONDSTOUNE AYTOUN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ANCESTRY AND PARENTAGE HIS MOTHER HIS BIRTH EARLY CHA- 
 RACTER AND TASTES FAIRY LORE AND ITS CHARMS COUNTRY 
 LIFE EARLY TASTE FOR READING SCHOOL AND COLLEGE LIFE 
 HIS FAVOURITE CLASSICS TASTE FOR BELLES LETTRES, AND 
 DISTASTE FOR METAPHYSICS AMUSEMENTS IN CHEMISTRY, AND 
 THEIR RESULT HOLIDAY RAMBLES A TRIP TO ORKNEY. 
 
 WILLIAM EDMONDSTOUNE AYTOUN was not the first 
 poet of his race. Sir Eobert Ayton, a scion of the 
 same house, a scholar and a poet, of whose regard 
 Ben Jonson was proud,* and whose critical judgment 
 was consulted by Hobbes of Malmesbury,-f- is buried in 
 
 * He told Drummond of Hawthornden that "Sir K. Aiton loved 
 him dearly." Notes of his conversations with Drummond, pub- 
 lished for Shakespeare Society, p. 11. 
 
 t ' ' He was a great acquaintance of Mr Thomas Hobbes of Malms- 
 bury, whom, Mr Hobbes told me, he made use of (together with Ben 
 Jonson) for an Aristarchus, when he made his epistle dedicatoiy for 
 his translation of Thucydides." Aubrey, ' Lives of Eminent Men, 
 vol. ii. p. 200, edit. 1813. 
 
 A
 
 2 ANCESTRY. 
 
 Westminster Abbey, where his monument may be seen 
 in the south aisle of the choir, between Poet's Corner 
 and the entrance to Henry VII.'s Chapel. This gentle- 
 man, a cadet of the Fife branch of the ancient family 
 of Ayton of Ayton, in Berwickshire, was born at the 
 Castle of Kinaldie, in Fifeshire, in 1570. He followed 
 James VI. to England, was attached to the court as 
 private secretary in succession to the Queens Anne 
 and Mary, and died unmarried at the palace of White- 
 hall in March 1638. The fine bust upon his monument, 
 which recalls the features of the subject of this memoir 
 in the lines of the forehead and mouth, and the massive 
 curve of the lower jaw, indicates a man of handsome 
 presence and keen intellect. Aubrey says of him that 
 he was " acquainted with all the wits in England," and 
 he took rank with them by right both of very various 
 learning and of considerable powers as a writer of both 
 Latin and English verses. Some of his poems still keep 
 their place in literature. Burns altered one of them, 
 without improving it, into the song, " I do confess that 
 thou art fair ; " and from another, beginning, 
 
 " Should old acquaintance be forgot, 
 And never thought upon," 
 
 he took the idea of the song, which is, of all songs, 
 especially dear to Scotchmen. 
 
 The common progenitor of Sir Eobert and William 
 Edmondstoune Aytoun was Sir Andrew Ayton, who 
 was governor of Stirling Castle, and sheriff of Elgin 
 and Forres, in 1500. For good and faithful service he 
 received from the Crown grants of land in Fifeshire.
 
 PARENTAGE. 3 
 
 He had three sons, but their families have all died out, 
 with the exception of the second son's, which is now 
 represented by Mr Eoger Sinclair Aytoun of Inch- 
 dairnie. Of this family William Edmondstoune Aytoun 
 was a cadet his grandfather William, after whom he 
 was named, being the second son of the seventh laird 
 of Inchdairnie. Through his grandmother Isobel, only 
 child of Lieutenant-Colonel Patrick Edmondstoune of 
 the Coldstream Guards, he represented the eldest branch 
 of the Edmondstounes, formerly of Edmondstoune and 
 Ednam, and latterly of Corehouse; and he was heir 
 of line to the estate of Corehouse, famous, among its 
 many beauties, for the Falls of Clyde. His right to 
 this estate was defeated by the will, made when she 
 was nearly one hundred years old, of the last Miss 
 Edmondstoune of Ednam, to the great disappointment, 
 it need scarcely be said, of Aytoun's family. 
 
 His father, Roger Aytoun, was a partner of the firm 
 of Youngs, Aytoun, and Rutherford, one of the leading 
 firms of Writers to the Signet in Edinburgh. He was 
 not only an excellent man of business, but also pos- 
 sessed of wide general information, and animated by a 
 lively sympathy for science, literature, and art. His 
 disposition was in an unusual degree benevolent and 
 kindly too kindly, it is said, and trustful, for his 
 worldly interests ; and in politics he was a Whig of the 
 old school, of which his friends, Sir James Gibson-Craig, 
 Jeffrey, and Cockburn, are now chiefly remembered as 
 the leaders. But it was from his mother that Aytoun, 
 like most eminent men, inherited his distinctive quali-
 
 4 HIS MOTHEK. 
 
 ties. From her, at least, he took his bias in "both 
 literature and politics his Jacobite sympathies and 
 his passion for ballad poetry. This lady, whose maiden 
 name was Joan Keir, was the youngest daughter of 
 James Francis Edward Keir of Kinmonth and West 
 Ehynd, in Perthshire, and of Margaret Orme of Bal- 
 vaird, in Fifeshire. She was, in many respects, a re- 
 markable person. When young, she was very hand- 
 some, and she retained all the traces of beauty in old age. 
 To marked originality of character she added superior 
 culture. Early left an orphan, her youth was spent with 
 her grand-uncle, Mr Alexander Keith of Eavelstone, 
 who had adopted her. She was in the habit of reading 
 to him works of a kind far beyond the usual range of 
 a young girl's studies; and having a very retentive 
 memory, her mind was well stored with the treasures 
 both of poetry and prose. Mrs Keith was the grand- 
 aunt of Walter Scott, who was a constant visitor at 
 Eavelstone. His sister, Anne Scott, was Miss Keir's 
 earliest and most intimate friend, and she saw much of 
 Scott himself at Eavelstone when a boy. Some of the 
 anecdotes of his youthful days, which are recorded in 
 Lockhart's life of the poet, were supplied by Mrs 
 Aytoun ; but so sensitive was she about appearing in 
 any public way, that she would not allow her name to 
 be attached to them. She was herself a stanch Jaco- 
 bite ; and some of her kindred had been out both in 
 the '15 and the '45. From old aunts and other rela- 
 tives who had been involved in the troubles of the 
 latter period, she had gathered innumerable stories of
 
 HIS BIKTH. 5 
 
 romantic interest, which she both told and wrote with 
 great spirit. It was from her that her son took his love 
 of the White Eose. From her, too, he imbibed, as Burns 
 did from the recitations of his mother, his deep devo- 
 tion to the ballad poetry of Scotland. Indeed, in re- 
 spect of minstrel lore, she would, like the Eppie Osett 
 of ' Norman Sinclair,' * " have put Eitson and Leyden to 
 shame. She could not only repeat such fine historical 
 ballads as ' The Battle of Otterburn ' and ' Sir Patrick 
 Spens/ but she knew by heart most of the beautiful 
 romantic ditties current on the Border, and she gave 
 them forth with an animation and pathos that produced 
 the strongest effect upon her audience." To the last 
 Mrs Aytoun retained this faculty ; and in 1857, when 
 her son was preparing his edition of the 'Ballads of 
 Scotland,' he would come to her for help when he found 
 himself at a loss to fill up some hiatus, or staggered by 
 some false reading, and she was pretty sure to supply 
 the right reading or the missing verse. Add to the 
 qualities already named a high, chivalrous spirit, and a 
 piety which chastened but never chilled her vivacity 
 and cheerfulness, and it will be seen how fortunate 
 was the son of such a mother, and for how much of 
 what was best in him he must have been indebted 
 to her influence. 
 
 Aytoun was born at 21 Abercromby Place, Edin- 
 burgh, on the 21st June 1813. He was an only son, 
 
 * 'Norman Sinclair.' By "W. Edmondstoune Aytoun. 3 vols. 
 Blackwood and Sons, 1851. This novel, as I shall have occasion 
 afterwards to show, was, in many of its details, founded on incidents 
 in Aytoun's own life.
 
 6 EAKLY CHARACTER 
 
 but had two sisters, both, of whom survive him. As a 
 child he was quick, intelligent, hot in temper, but easily 
 restored to good-humour. He was also very fond of 
 fun, being, as Erasmus says of Sir Thomas More, " from 
 a child so delighted with humour, that he seemed 
 even born for it." A picture of him, when four years 
 old, at his father's side, by John Watson Gordon, shows 
 his little deep-set eyes twinkling with humour, and a 
 well-defined mouth, highly expressive of good-nature. 
 His imagination was, from the first, lively; and the 
 legends current in every Scottish nursery in those days 
 took a strong hold upon him. Half in earnest, half in 
 sport, as was his wont, he gives, in the following pas- 
 sage,* a sketch of the kind of lore on which the wonder- 
 ing ears of children used to be fed, which is valuable as 
 indicating how it acted upon an imaginative nature 
 like his own : 
 
 We were born and bred long before Peter Parley had superseded 
 the Fairy Tales, and poisoned the budding faculties of the infancy 
 of these realms with his philosophical nonsense, and his endless 
 editions of ' Copernicus made Easy.' Our nurserymaid, a hizzie 
 from the Upper "Ward of Lanarkshire, was a confirmed and noted 
 believer in dreams, omens, tatie-bogles, and sundry other kinds 
 of apparitions. Her mother was, we believe, the most noted spae- 
 wife of the district ; and it was popularly understood that she 
 had escaped at least three times, in semblance of an enormous 
 hare, from the pursuit of the Laird of Lockhart's grews. Such at 
 least was the explanation which Lizzy Lindsay gave, before being 
 admitted as an inmate of our household, of the malignant perse- 
 cution which doomed her for three consecutive Sundays to a 
 
 * See his paper on "Mesmeric Mountebanks," in 'Blackwood's 
 Magazine' for August 1846.
 
 AND TASTES. 7 
 
 rather isolated but prominent seat in the kirk of Dolphington 
 parish ; nor did our worthy Lady-mother see any reason to doubt 
 the accuracy of the statement. For was it not most natural that 
 the daughter, however comely and Lizzy was as strapping a lass 
 as ever danced at a kirn of a woman who had the evil reputation 
 of divining surreptitious fortunes by means of the sediment of a 
 tea -cup of prophesying future sweethearts in exchange for 
 hoarded sixpences and of milking dry her neighbours' cows by 
 aid of cantrips and an enchanted hair-rope ; was it not most 
 natural, we say, that the daughter of the witch should have been 
 looked upon with a suspicious eye by the minister, who used 
 annually to preach four sermons in vituperation of Her of Endor, 
 and by the elders, whose forefathers had turned out doggedly for 
 the Covenant, and among whom still circulated strange and fan- 
 tastic tales of bodily apparitions of the Evil One to the fugitives 
 in the muir and the wilderness of hideous shapes, which dis- 
 turbed the gathered conventicle by the sides of the lonely burn 
 of spells, which made the buff-coats of their adversaries impene- 
 trable as adamant to leaden bullet or the sweep of the Cameronian 
 steel ? 
 
 Upon these testimonials, and a strong affidavit from Lizzy, that 
 in every other earthly matter she was innocent of the slightest 
 peccadillo, the Lily of Lanark was installed as mistress and 
 governante of the nursery. We were then in the days of teeth- 
 ing, and sorely tormented with our gums, which neither for knob 
 of poker, nor handle of kitchen-fork the ancient Caledonian 
 corals would surrender their budding ornaments. "We believe, 
 therefore, that Lizzy Lindsay erred not materially from the path 
 of truth when she signalised us as " the maist fractious bairn that 
 ever broke a woman's heart." Night and day did we yell, with 
 Satanic energy, from the excruciating molar pain ; and little* sym- 
 pathy did our tears awaken in our pillow, as we lay in fevered 
 anguish on the exuberant bosom of our guardian. Fortunately 
 for us, in these days Daffy's Elixir was a thing unknown, else 
 no doubt we should have received an early introduction to dram- 
 drinking by means of the soft carminative. The fertile genius of 
 Lizzy suggested a better spell for allaying our infant sorrows. 
 Whenever we indulged in a more than ordinary implacable fit of
 
 8 FAIRY LORE AND ITS CHARMS. 
 
 screeching, she threatened us with the apparition of " the Boo- 
 man," a hideous spectre which was then supposed to perambulate 
 the nurseries in the shape of Napoleon Buonaparte. In a very 
 short while, no Saracen child ever became dumber when threat- 
 ened by its mother with a visit from the Melech-Ric, than we did 
 at the proposed coming of the dark and sanguinary phantom. 
 For many years afterwards we believed as sincerely in the exist- 
 ence of this anthropophagus as in our own, and very nearly 
 became a Bauldy for life, from having been surprised on one 
 occasion, whilst surreptitiously investigating the contents of a 
 jam-pot, by the descent of a climbing-boy into the nursery, and 
 the terrors of his telegraphic boo ! As we grew up, our nascent 
 intellect received still more supernatural services from the legen- 
 dary lore of Lizzy. She taught us the occult and mysterious 
 meaning of those singular soot-flakes which wave upon the ribs 
 of a remarkably ill-pokered fire the dark significance which may 
 be drawn from the spluttering and cabbaging of a candle and 
 the misfortunes sure to follow the mismanagement of the sacred 
 salt. Often, too, her talk was of the boding death-watch the owl 
 which flapped its wings at the window of the dying and the 
 White Dove that flitted noiselessly from the room at the fearful, 
 and then to us incomprehensible, moment of dissolution. As 
 Hallowe'en approached, she told us of the mystic hempseed, of 
 the figure which stalked behind the enterprising navigator of the 
 stacks, and that awful detention of the worsted clue, which has 
 made the heart of many a rustic maiden leap hurriedly towards 
 her throat, when in the dead of night, and beneath the influence 
 of a waning moon, she has dared to pry into the secrets of futurity, 
 and, lover-seeking, has dropped the ball into the chasm of the 
 deserted kiln. 
 
 Such being the groundwork of our mystic education, it is little 
 wonder that we turned our novel knowledge of the alphabet to 
 account by pouncing with intense eagerness upon every work of 
 supernatural fiction upon which we possibly could lay our hands. 
 We speak not now of Jack the Giant-killer, of the aspiring hero 
 of the Beanstalk, or the appropriator of the Seven-leagued Boots. 
 These were well enough in their way, but not, in our diseased 
 opinion, sufficiently practical. We liked the fairies better. For
 
 CHILDISH SUPERSTITIONS. 9 
 
 many a day we indulged in the hope that we might yet become 
 possessed of a pot of that miraculous unguent, which, when 
 applied to the eye, has the virtue of disclosing the whole secrets 
 of the Invisible World. We looked with a kind of holy awe 
 upon the emerald rings of the greensward, and would have given 
 worlds to be present at the hour when the sloping side of the 
 mountain is opened, and from a great ball, all sparkling with a 
 thousand prismatic stalactites, ride forth, to the sound of flute 
 and recorder, the squadrons of the Elfin Chivalry. Well do we 
 remember the thrill of horror which pervaded our being when we 
 first read of the Great Spectre of Glenmore, the Headless Fiend 
 that haunts the black solitudes of the Rothienmrchus Forest, whom 
 to see is madness, and to meet is inexorable death ! Much did 
 we acquire in these days of the natural history of Wraiths and 
 Corpse-candles of Phantom Funerals encountered on their way 
 to the kirkyard by some belated peasant, who, marvelling at the 
 strange array at such an hour, turns aside to let the grim proces- 
 sion pass, and beholds the visionary mourners his own friends 
 sweep past, without sound of footfall or glance of recognition, 
 bearing upon their shoulders a melancholy burden, wherein, he 
 knows, is stretched the wan Eidolon of himself ! No wonder 
 that he takes to his bed that night, nor leaves it until the final 
 journey. 
 
 Not for worlds would w e have left the Grange House, which 
 was then our summer residence, after nightfall, and, skirting the 
 hill by the old deserted burial-ground, venture down the little 
 glen, gloomy with the shade of hazels cross the burn by the 
 bridge above the Caldron pool and finally gaze upon the loch 
 all tranquil in the glory of the stars ! Not all the fish that ever 
 struggled on a night-line and there were prime two-pounders, 
 and no end of eels, in the loch would have tempted us to so ter- 
 rible a journey. For just below the bridge, where the rocks shot 
 down precipitously into the black water, and the big patches of 
 foam went slowly whirling round there, we say, in some hideous 
 den, heaven knows how deep, lurked the hateful Water-Kelpy, 
 whose yell might be heard, during a spate, above the roar of the 
 thundering stream, and who, if he did not lure and drown the 
 cat-witted tailor of the district, was, to say the least of it, the
 
 10 LIFE IN THE COUNTEY. 
 
 most maligned and slandered individual of his race. Even in 
 broad day we never liked that place. It had a mischievous and 
 uncanny look ; nor could you entirely divest yourself of the idea 
 that there was something at the bottom of the pool. Bad as was 
 the burn, the loch was a great deal worse. For here, at no very 
 remote period, the fiend had emerged from its depths in the shape 
 of a black steed, gentle and mild-eyed to look upon, and pacing 
 up to three children, not ten minutes before dismissed from the 
 thraldom of the dominie, had mutely but irresistibly volunteered 
 the accommodation of an extempore ride. And so, stepping on 
 with his burden across the gowans which never grew more, 
 and never will grow, where the infernal hoof was planted 
 the demon horse arrived at the margin of the loch where the 
 bank is broken and the water deep, and with a neigh of tri- 
 umph bounded in, nor from that day to this were the bodies 
 of the victims found. Moreover, yonder at the stunted thorn- 
 trees is the spot where poor Mary Walker drowned herself 
 and her innocent and unchristened bairn ; and they say that, at 
 midnight when all is quiet, you will hear the wailing of a female 
 voice, as if the spirit of the murdered infant were bewailing its 
 lost estate ; and that a white figure may be seen wringing its 
 hands in agony, as it flits backwards and forwards along the 
 range of the solitary loch. Therefore, though the black beetle is 
 an irresistible bait, we never threw a fly at night on the surface 
 of the Haunted Tarn. 
 
 Aytoun had the good fortune to see much of the 
 country in his childhood. His father possessed the 
 estate of Murieston, a property of about 200 acres, 
 fourteen miles west of Edinburgh. At that time, with 
 its young plantations, which had been for the most 
 part laid out by Mr Aytoun, it was barren and un- 
 picturesque enough. But it was country ; and to 
 a town-bred child all country scenery, be it ever so 
 bare or tame, is full of beauty and charm. Besides, 
 it had its own "burn," where the boy, still under
 
 EAKLY TASTE FOE BEADING. 11 
 
 the nurse's tutelage, fished up minnows in his little 
 tin pannikin (Scoticb, tinnie), and caught his first im- 
 pulse towards a sport to which he owed many of 
 the pleasantest hours of his life. There, to use his 
 own words, it was " that I first became conscious of 
 the beauty of external nature ; when I plucked the 
 gowan, and purple thyme, and yellow crowfoot from 
 the mountain-sward, and with my comrades plaited 
 caps from the rushes that grew in the bonny meadow 
 where the lapwings had their nests." There he began 
 to note the sights and sounds of a country life, in 
 describing which his heart was ever warm and his pen 
 ever graphic : there, too, he first learned to handle his 
 gun, and acquired the steadiness of hand and eye 
 which served him well in after years on moorland and 
 correi. 
 
 His love of reading was very early shown, and a book 
 was his constant companion. When about the age of 
 nine or ten he would stretch himself, with a volume of 
 the Scott novels, on the hearthrug, face downwards, 
 for hours, and shout and scream with delight over the 
 humour of the characters. His reading was very apt 
 to take a direction of which his mother did not alto- 
 gether approve. ' The Devil on Two Sticks,' or ' Hum- 
 phrey Clinker/ surreptitiously taken from his father's 
 library, were just the books which his keen sense of 
 humour was sure to find especially attractive, to the 
 prejudice of graver studies; and he had often to do 
 battle to save them from being thrown by her into the 
 fire. In these struggles, however, the boy was pretty
 
 12 SCHOOL AND 
 
 sure to be victorious. Nature and only sons will have 
 their way ; and boys of Aytoun's stamp are pretty sure 
 to be left in the end to that " fine confused feeding " 
 for which a young healthy brain and heart like his are 
 never the worse. After two or three years of prelimi- 
 nary training under a private tutor, he was sent, at the 
 age of eleven, to the Edinburgh Academy, then under 
 the rectorship of Archdeacon Williams, an able scholar 
 and excellent master. Aytoun, though he took no 
 lead in Latin and Greek, held a good place in his 
 class.* His natural love of fun and exuberant ani- 
 mal spirits were constantly expending themselves in 
 squibs and humorous sketches of the subordinates in 
 the Academy, and of such other local characters as 
 came in his way. To the classics he seems to have 
 given only such attention as enabled him to keep a 
 position well up among the knot of clever young men 
 who headed the class to which he belonged. Nor was 
 this wonderful. The system which then prevailed, by 
 which the extent of ground to be got over in the books 
 studied was regulated by the laggard pace of the 
 dullest boys in a very numerous class, could scarcely 
 fail to destroy all eager relish for Ovid, Horace, 
 or Euripides in a boy like Aytoun, of more than 
 
 * Aytoun was a favourite with Archdeacon Williams, who predicted 
 a brilliant future for him. Often in the spring holidays the Arch- 
 deacon accompanied him to Murieston, where the distinction of master 
 and pupil was laid aside, and they became rivals in the art of angling. 
 The Archdeacon, himself a humorist, entered with zest into Aytoun's 
 frolicsome ways ; and his wrath at lessons slighted, or at some boyish 
 escapade, was not unfrequently averted, when they got back to school, 
 by some irresistible bit of drollery on the part of his pupil.
 
 COLLEGE LIFE. 13 
 
 average capacity, backed by fine animal spirits and a 
 vigorous imagination. Later in life he felt keenly what 
 he had lost for want of that thorough grounding in the 
 classics which, under a better system, might have been 
 easily acquired in much less time than he had nomi- 
 nally spent over them at school ; a want which after- 
 studies, however energetically pursued and they 
 were so in his case are never able wholly to repair. 
 Aytoun, however, while at the Academy, took various 
 prizes for English verse ; but his prize-poems which I 
 have seen are what such things usually are echoes, 
 not unskilful certainly, of other men, but without any 
 characteristic merits of their own. 
 
 From the Academy Aytoun went to the Edinburgh 
 University to complete his classical studies under 
 Professors Pillans and Dunbar. To the former of these, 
 Aytoun, in common with all who were capable of 
 appreciating the admirable skill with which Professor 
 Pillans vitalised the study of ancient literature and 
 life and manners, owed the best part of his know- 
 ledge of the classics. This debt he acknowledged in 
 an address to the graduates of the Edinburgh Uni- 
 versity on 23d April 1863, in words which express not 
 too warmly what most of the old pupils of Professor 
 Pillans have felt : 
 
 Perhaps it may be permitted to me to recall the time when I 
 daily took my seat on the same benches which, throughout the 
 bygone session, I have seen thronged with eager and intelligent 
 faces, and when I listened to the prelections of my now venerable 
 colleague. I had already been engaged in studying the mechan- 
 ism of the Latin language, but of the literature itself, its extent,
 
 14 PILLANS AS A TEACHER. 
 
 range, and value, I knew comparatively little. I could, indeed, 
 construct sentences with tolerable accuracy ; convert a few lines 
 of English, into Latin, by aid of the dictionary, without more 
 than the usual share of blunders ; and, with the assistance of the 
 Gradus ad Parnassum, fabricate hexameters, Avhich, if not har- 
 monious, were at least in reasonable accordance with the laws 
 of quantity and metre. But I had been kept so long working 
 at the wards of the lock, that I took little thought of the 
 treasures contained in the inner chamber. Perpetual repetition 
 of conjugations and derivatives had dulled my perception of 
 beauty : and instead of admiring the thought that glowed within 
 an ode of Horace, I had been taught only to study the words and 
 regard them as a grammatical exercise. It was as if a marble 
 statue by Praxiteles had been given to a roadside labourer to 
 hammer down into fragments. Had I tarried at that point as 
 I have reason to think is unfortunately the case with many I 
 am afraid that in later years my literary instincts would have 
 decayed. But presently I found, under the teaching of Professor 
 Pillans, that the scales were falling from my eyes. I began to 
 see, in their real beauty and majesty, the glorious creations 
 of the past. Not the letter only, but the spirit was now 
 revealed to us ; the intellect was stirred, the imagination was 
 excited, and what had once been dreary task-work now became 
 an occupation of transcendent interest and delight. I well re- 
 member how, without withdrawing our attention from the stated 
 labour of the class, or the humble study of the author with whose 
 writings we were more especially engaged, the Professor gave us 
 glimpses, from time to time, of other poets and sages, whose very 
 names had till then scarcely reached our ears how he set before 
 us an outline of Roman literature, from its rise under Ennius to 
 its culminating point in the grand Augustan era ; and farther on 
 through the periods illustrated by Lucan, Martial, and Juvenal, 
 until the latest strains of the classical muse were heard from the 
 lips of Claudian. Such tuition was of exceeding value, not only 
 for the information it conveyed, but for the keen desire of further 
 knowledge which it inspired, and the literary ambition which it 
 roused. It prepared our minds and sharpened our apprehension 
 for the studies next in order ; for those were famous days in our
 
 FAVOUEITE CLASSICS. 15 
 
 university, and great men dwelt among us. There was "Wilson, 
 whose magnificent eloquence, passionate and thrilling as the 
 utterances of the JEolian harp, entranced the listener. There 
 was Hamilton, the subtle metaphysician ; Leslie, the deep phi- 
 losopher ; Hope, the accomplished chemist ; and others of mark 
 and eminence, instructors and almost idols of the rising genera- 
 tion, all then in the full maturity of their powers. 
 
 The then Greek professor had not the happy gifts 
 of Professor Pillans as a teacher, and hence probably 
 it was that Aytoun at this period made comparatively 
 little progress in Greek. What he knew of it was chiefly 
 acquired some years afterwards. Towards Homer, in- 
 deed, he was attracted from an early date. The first and 
 greatest of all minstrels had irresistible attractions for 
 the boy whose childhood had been nurtured on the 
 ballad lore of Scotland and the picturesque splendours 
 of Scott. " Homer " was the name of one of his earliest 
 published poems, and allusions are constantly recurring 
 in his writing to the characters and incidents of the 
 ' Iliad ' and ' Odyssey/ Next to Homer, Virgil was his 
 favourite among the poets of antiquity, and after him 
 Ovid. His lectures on these were the best of the 
 classical series. Passages from both were familiar on 
 his lips, and he executed more than one translation 
 from Ovid of unusual excellence. To exact scholarship 
 Aytoun made no pretension; that demands a special 
 faculty and a special training. The first of these Aytoun 
 had not, and in Edinburgh at that period the latter was 
 scarcely to be obtained. But, indeed, he set little store 
 at any time of his life by the niceties of scholarship, 
 thinking that for most men it was enough to acquire
 
 16 TASTE FOR LITERATURE. 
 
 such a general mastery of the classical languages as to 
 be able to read them with ease. He fully appreciated 
 the value of the masterpieces of antiquity as models 
 of style, and as landmarks in the history of human 
 thought ; but he was little inclined to cultivate their 
 study to the neglect of modern literature and history, 
 with their wider aims and more immediate interests. 
 
 While at the University he attended the lectures of 
 Professor Wilson on moral philosophy, of Sir W. Hamil- 
 ton on history, of Dr Eitchie on logic and metaphysics, 
 of Professor Jameson on natural history, and of Dr 
 Hope on chemistry besides going through the special 
 studies required for the legal profession, to which he 
 was destined. 
 
 His reading at this period must have been varied 
 and extensive. It is true he had not the reputation 
 among his companions of being a reading man. Full 
 of health and fine animal spirits, fond of field-sports 
 and the country, fond also of society, and shining in it 
 by his quick sense of humour and ready command of 
 language, he was seen so much among his friends, and 
 seemed to take his studies so easily, that his persever- 
 ing pursuit of literary attainment was little surmised. 
 But it was unquestionably at this time that he began 
 to feel that literature was his true vocation, and that 
 he set himself earnestly but silently, as his manner 
 was, to prepare himself for it. Meanwhile he wrote 
 much in verse. At this period Pope and Dryden seem 
 to have been the models of his graver style. His 
 natural bent found a happier outlet in innumerable
 
 DISTASTE FOR METAPHYSICS. 17 
 
 squibs and ballads, which made him a name among 
 his fellow-students as a man likely in time to do 
 honour to the University. 
 
 I have no doubt that Aytoun described himself in 
 the following passage of ' Norman Sinclair/ especially 
 in the distaste for mathematics and metaphysics which 
 he ascribes to his hero underrating, at the same time, 
 his own attainments, as in his later years he was apt 
 to do : 
 
 Like most Scottish students of the time, I acquired a good 
 knowledge of Latin, a smattering of Greek, and a considerable 
 stock of general information, increased by private reading of a 
 desultory kind, which was of far more use to me afterwards than 
 anything I learned in the schools. My uncle's library was but a 
 poor one ; but in it I found the plays of Shakespeare, Anderson's 
 edition of the British Poets, the works of the elder novelists, and 
 the histories of Hume and Gibbon. These I perused with ab- 
 sorbing interest, to the neglect, I must confess, of the mathema- 
 tical and metaphysical treatises which ought to have engrossed 
 my attention ; but on that account I cannot truthfully say that 
 I have any tears to shed. I never took kindly to mathematics ; 
 partly because the practical use of that study was not explained 
 to me, and partly because I could see nothing in it to interest the 
 imagination. Metaphysics I detested. The science appeared to 
 me an elaborate diabolical invention for mystifying what was 
 clear, and confounding what was intelligible ; it muddled the 
 intellect without refining the understanding; and the peculiar 
 jargon in which it was couched seemed to me destructive of the 
 purity of the English language. I do not say that such is my 
 opinion now, but I feel no shame in avowing my earlier impres- 
 sions ; and, judging from certain metaphysical discourses which I 
 have heard delivered from the pulpit by gentlemen fresh from 
 college, I have serious doubts as to the fitness of the style for 
 edification and improvement. 
 
 Chemistry appears for a time to have engaged his 
 
 B
 
 18 CHEMICAL EESE ARCHES. 
 
 attention, as it does that of most clever boys. His 
 researches in that science were prosecuted in concert 
 with his friend David (now Sir David) Monro, son of 
 Dr Alexander Monro, the then Professor of Anatomy 
 at the Edinburgh University ; but they were brought to 
 a premature close by the accident on which the follow- 
 ing passage of ' Norman Sinclair' is founded : 
 
 In chemistry I made some progress, and would have made 
 more, but for the occurrence of an accident which fairly cured me 
 of the passion for experiment. It so happened that at college 
 I had an especial chum, Willie Menelaws, with whom I was in- 
 separably leagued. Whether in mischief or in study we went 
 together ; and bore each other's burdens, though these were not 
 very heavy, with a fidelity that might have done honour to Damon 
 and Pythias. Willie never hesitated to accept responsibility for 
 my literary squibs, which sometimes excited the wrath of the 
 students against whom they were directed ; and I, in return, stood 
 between him and the parental anger in the matter of certain 
 abstracted bell-pulls which had given rise to a serious oiitcry. 
 We both commenced the study of chemistry with great zeal, and 
 went through the preliminary stages of fabricating coal-gas in 
 tobacco-pipes ; destroying silver spoons by rubbing them with 
 mercury, which metal we obtained by smashing an ancient baro- 
 meter ; and smearing the walls with phosphorus an operation 
 which very nearly deprived the unfortunate Peggy M'Craw of her 
 wits. Then, in the hope of seducing the lightning from the 
 clouds, we constructed a kite with a wire in the string, after the 
 manner of Franklin, but somehow it would not fly ; and we tried 
 to make caustic, by steeping a shilling in nitric acid, the result of 
 which was, that our fingers became as black as the claws of an 
 ourang-outang. It was God's mercy that we did not get the length 
 of fulminating powder, else assuredly we should have been blown 
 to smithereens. That consummation, however, we were very near 
 attaining otherwise, and it took place after this fashion. 
 
 I had discovered in an attic some old-fashioned apparatus which 
 my uncle had laid aside troughs, jars, siphons, and suchlike,
 
 A CATASTROPHE. 19 
 
 which. I regarded as an inestimable treasure ; and these were forth- 
 with removed ^to a room on the ground-floor which I occupied as 
 a kind of study. "We had previously tried our hands at making 
 oxygen gas, but had failed for lack of implements. We now deter- 
 mined to essay the production of hydrogen, and having procured 
 the necessary materials, we arranged our whole stock of glass, so 
 that the gas from the retort might, after passing through various 
 receptacles, be at last lodged in a huge bell-shaped jar, surmounted 
 by a brass stop-cock, which was the pride of our collection. Nothing 
 could have succeeded better. The gas was generated, bubbled up 
 through the water, and very soon reached the jar, as we soon 
 discovered by the nauseous odour of its escape. 
 
 " Now then, Willie," said I, " suppose we apply a light, and see 
 how it burns." 
 
 We did so ; and a pale-blue jet whizzed up, upon which we 
 gazed with the delight of a couple of Ghebers ; but our adoration 
 was uncommonly brief, for a minute could hardly have elapsed 
 before the flame waxed dim, buzzed like an infuriated wasp, de- 
 scended into the jar, and a tremendous explosion followed, which 
 dashed both of us to the ground. 
 
 " Willie, man ! " said I, recovering myself so far as to sit upon 
 my rump, and extracting a piece of glass from my cheek, which 
 bled profusely " Willie man ! are ye killed ? " 
 
 " No, I don't think I am," said Willie, scrambling to his feet ; 
 " but Lord's-sake, Norman, bear a hand with the water-jug ! Fling 
 it over me fling it over my legs ; for the acid has burned through 
 my breeches, and I feel it biting in my flesh ! " 
 
 " Willie, what am I to do ? The jug's empty ! " 
 
 " Take me out to the pump ! take me out to the pump ! " roared 
 Willie, " or I'll be as raw as a skinned rabbit ! " 
 
 " His presence be wi' us ! What's this o't, lads ? " cried Nurse 
 Osett, rushing into the room, greatly alarmed, as she might well 
 be, for the explosion was violent enough to shatter several of the 
 window-panes ; " surely ye've no been trying to raise the deevil ? " 
 
 " The pump ! the pump ! " screamed Willie ; and accordingly 
 we conveyed him thither, where copious libations diluted the acid, 
 and saved my friend from serious consequences, though it was a 
 month and more before he could walk to lecture, without betray-
 
 20 HOLIDAY RAMBLES. 
 
 ing, by an absurd waddle, the temporary loss of his cuticle. On 
 investigating the apartment, we found that we had great reason 
 to be thankful for our escape with so little damage. The brass 
 stop-cock had been driven an inch and a half into the plaster of 
 the wall, in a direction which showed that it must have passed 
 close by the head of my companion ; the carpet, fortunately not a 
 new one, was utterly destroyed ; and an old hat that hung upon 
 a peg was cut through by splinters of the apparatus, as clean as 
 could have been effected by the bursting of a hand-grenade. 
 
 His friend Sir David Monro, writing to Aytoun 
 from New Zealand in March 1861, when the number 
 of ' Blackwood ' with this portion of ' Norman Sinclair ' 
 in it had just reached him, says : 
 
 There is a story told of Sinclair and "Willie Menelaws proceed- 
 ing to the fabrication of hydrogen gas so exceedingly like an 
 event that once happened to myself, when in company with a 
 school and college friend called "William Aytoun, that I could 
 only come to the conclusion that it was an exercise of the in- 
 ventive faculty, bearing, by some strange chance, a most remark- 
 able resemblance to an event which had actually occurred, or 
 that the writer of ' Norman Sinclair ' must have been present on 
 the occasion. What do you say to it ? The descriptions of the 
 flame waxing dim, and buzzing like an infuriated wasp before 
 the explosion, and the brass stop-cock driven against the plaster 
 of the wall, out of which it knocked a good hole, bring the 
 whole scene before my eyes again as plainly as if it had hap- 
 pened yesterday, and are strictly in accordance with historical 
 truth. But I don't altogether recollect Willie Menelaws, that is, 
 supposing the aforesaid Menelaws to be me, being carried to the 
 pump with the acid biting into his extremities. That addition 
 is, I suppose, of the nature of what Sir W. Scott used to call 
 putting a cocked-hat and walking-stick to a story. 
 
 Of Aytoun's busy and happy life at this period, not 
 the least pleasant, nor the least important in their in- 
 fluence on his character, were the hours spent in his
 
 HIGHLAND SCENERY. 21 
 
 holiday rambles. "He liked nothing better," writes 
 his sister, " than starting off for a few days in spring 
 to some Highland loch, with his fishing-rod and a 
 book, revelling in the grand scenery, for he had all the 
 elements of a painter in him, and sketched and etched 
 cleverly as a boy, though he did not pursue the art." 
 What these excursions were to him may be seen from 
 the following passage : 
 
 When summer came for in Scotland, alas ! there is no 
 spring, winter rolling itself remorselessly, like a huge polar bear, 
 over what should be the beds of the early flowers, and crushing 
 them ere they are developed when summer came, and the trees 
 put on their pale-green liveries, and the brakes were blue with 
 the wood-hyacinth, and the ferns unfolded their curl, what 
 ecstasy it was to steal an occasional holiday, and wander, rod in 
 hand, by some quiet stream up in the moorlands, inhaling health 
 from every breeze, nor seeking shelter from the gentle shower 
 as it dropped its manna from the heavens ! And then the long 
 holidays, when the town was utterly deserted how I enjoyed 
 these, as they can only be enjoyed by the possessors of the double 
 talisman of strength and youth ! No more care no more trouble 
 no more task-work no thought even of the graver themes 
 suggested by my later studies ! Look standing on the Calton 
 Hill, behold yon blue range of mountains to the west cannot 
 you name each far pinnacle from its form 1 Benledi, Benvoir- 
 lich, Benlomond ! O the beautiful land, the elysium that lies 
 round the base of those distant giants ! The forest of Glenfinlas, 
 Loch Achray with its weeping birches, the grand denies of the 
 Trosachs, and Ellen's Isle, the pearl of the one lake that genius 
 has for ever hallowed ! Up, sluggard ! Place your knapsack on 
 your back ; but stow it not with unnecessary gear, for you have 
 still further to go, and your rod also must be your companion, 
 if you mean to penetrate the region beyond. Money ? Little 
 money suffices him who travels on foot, who can bring his own 
 fare to the shepherd's bothy where he is to sleep, and who sleeps
 
 22 PLEASUKES OF THE PEDESTRIAN. 
 
 there better and sounder than the tourist who rolls from station 
 to station in his barouche, grumbling because the hotels are over- 
 crowded, and miserable about the airing of his sheets. Money 1 
 You would laugh if you heard me mention the sum which has 
 sufficed for my expenditure during a long summer month ; for 
 the pedestrian, humble though he be, has his own especial privi- 
 leges, and not the least of these is that he is exempted from all 
 extortion. Donald God bless him ! has a knack of putting on 
 the prices ; and when an English family comes posting up to the 
 door of his inn, clamorously demanding every sort of accommo- 
 dation which a metropolitan hotel could afford, grumbling at the 
 lack of attendance, sneering at the quality of the food, and turn- 
 ing the whole establishment upside down for their own selfish 
 gratification, he not unreasonably determines that the extra 
 trouble shall be paid for in that gold which rarely crosses his 
 fingers except during the short season when tourists and sports- 
 men abound. But Donald, who is descended from the M'Gregor, 
 does not make spoil of the poor. The sketcher or the angler 
 who come to his door, with the sweat upon their brow, and the 
 dust of the highway or the pollen of the heather on their feet, 
 meet with a hearty welcome ; and though the room in which 
 their meals are served is but low in the roof, and the floor strewn 
 with sand, and the attic wherein they lie is garnished with two 
 beds and a shake-down, yet are the viands wholesome, the sheets 
 clean, and the tariff so undeniably moderate that even parsimony 
 cannot complain. So up in the morning early, so soon as the 
 first beams of the sun slant into the chamber down to the loch 
 or river, and with a headlong plunge scrape acquaintance with 
 the pebbles at the bottom ; then rising with a hearty gasp, strike 
 out for the islet or the further bank, to the astonishment of the 
 otter, who, thief that he is, is skulking back to his hole below the 
 old saugh-tree, from a midnight foray up the burns. Huzza ! 
 The mallard, dozing among the reeds, has taken fright, and, 
 tucking lip his legs under his round fat rump, flies quacking to 
 a remoter marsh. 
 
 " By the pricking of my thumbs, 
 Something wicked this way comes,"
 
 A TKIP TO OEKNEY. 23 
 
 and lo ! Dugald the keeper, on his way to the hill, is arrested by 
 the aquatic phenomenon, and half believes that he is witnessing 
 the frolics of an Urisk ! Then make your toilet on the green- 
 sward, swing your knapsack over your shoulders, and cover ten 
 good miles of road before you halt for breakfast with more than 
 the appetite of an ogre. 
 
 In this way I made the circuit of wellnigh the whole of the 
 Scottish Highlands, penetrating as far as Cape Wrath and the 
 wild district of Edderachylis, nor leaving unvisited the grand 
 scenery of Loch Corruisk, and the stormy peaks of Skye ; and 
 more than one delightful week did I spend each summer, explor- 
 ing Gameshope, or the Linns of Talla, where the Covenanters of 
 old held their gathering ; or clambering up the steep ascent by 
 the Grey Mare's Tail to lonely and lovely Loch Skene, or casting 
 for trout in the silver waters of St Mary's. ' Norman Sinclair,' 
 chap. viii. 
 
 In a letter to Aytoun's sister from New Zealand, 
 dated Nov. 3, 1866, his friend Sir David Monro gives 
 the following pleasant account of one of these sporting 
 rambles, made, curiously enough, among the remote 
 regions of which Aytoun was afterwards to be the 
 sheriff : 
 
 I think it was in the year 1834 or '35 that I had a sporting 
 excursion with your brother William. We put ourselves on 
 board a steamer bound for Kirkwall, in the Orkney Islands, 
 some time in the beginning of August ; taking with us guns and 
 dogs and other things necessary for the enjoyment of the sport 
 to be had there. The steamer was a small and slow vessel, and 
 much overcrowded. Among other passengers, the late Dr Traill, 
 Professor of Medical Jurisprudence, was on board, on a visit to 
 the land of his birth. He was a man of wonderful variety and 
 extent of information, and of kindly and genial temper. Aytoun 
 and myself were both astonished at the encyclopedia-like char- 
 acter of the man. 
 
 Going below was out of the question. The little cabin was 
 crammed with big burly men, looking as if they might be in-
 
 24 A KIRKWALL INN. 
 
 terested in black cattle or Wick herrings, but in the mean time 
 earnest in their devotion to whisky-toddy. Dr Traill I recollect 
 telling us that he always slept on the deck ; so, after an examina- 
 tion of the most promising localities there, we selected a place 
 not very far from the funnel, where we took up our quarters for 
 the night. There was not much sleep, however. The deck 
 proved harder than we supposed ; and the constant noise and 
 novelty of the position kept us awake nearly the whole of the 
 night. We were two nights on board, but how. we got over the 
 second night I can't for the life of me recollect ; I have an 
 impression, however, that it was in some unromantic manner 
 in a dirty bunk, or something of the sort. Our appetite for 
 camping out had been considerably modified by the first night's 
 experience. 
 
 It was a beautiful autumn morning as we entered the Bay of 
 Kirkwall ; the sea perfectly calm and clear as crystal, the air 
 deliciously fresh, and the scenery wild and captivating to the 
 imagination of a sportsman. We lived at an inn at Kirkwall, 
 where we were very comfortably lodged. Like the other houses 
 of the quaint old town, it presented one end to the street ; but 
 it was a good substantial house, and the meals were ample and 
 well cooked. 
 
 There was a large company in the house. The Sheriff of 
 Orkney, Mr Maconochie, with one or two friends, was there ; and 
 very pleasant company we found them. In addition to these, 
 there was, for a short time, a large concourse of commercial 
 gentlemen, out of some of whom we extracted considerable 
 amusement. The commercial gent was a creature that always 
 amused your brother William very much, and occasionally 
 violently stirred up his bile. The fact is, that there is a great 
 diversity among commercial travellers. Some of them are as 
 well conducted and modest men as you can meet with any- 
 where ; but others of them, and a very considerable proportion, 
 are just the reverse vain, untruthful, and offensive in their 
 manners, the most perfect types of the " gent " and snob. 
 
 These were the fellows that your brother used to speak of as 
 the " sacciferi," and against whom some of the keenest shafts of 
 his satire have been levelled.
 
 AMUSEMENTS IN OKKNEY. 25 
 
 We had in our inn specimens of all sorts, and ample opportu- 
 nities of studying their characters and manners. There were two 
 whom I particularly recollect. They remained behind after all 
 the others were gone. One was a Jew Cockney, a remarkably 
 good-natured fellow, who took a great fancy to us, and, to enjoy 
 our company, would wait dinner for any length of time ; the 
 other was the representative of some hardware house in the 
 High Street of Edinburgh, a hard-headed Presbyterian and Cal- 
 vinist. These two used to have some exceedingly tough theo- 
 logical arguments, greatly to our amusement. The metal of the 
 Calvinist being much the heavier, he would soon have settled his 
 opponent, but we used occasionally to come to the relief of the 
 Jew, and suggest doubts and difficulties, and point out flaws in 
 the ironmonger's argument. In this way we kept the ball in 
 play, and enjoyed the discussion greatly. 
 
 We remained about a fortnight at Kirkwall, shooting grouse, 
 and occasionally boating and going in pursuit of seals, and eider- 
 ducks and other wild-fowl. One night we spent at sea in a 
 herring-boat. Unfortunately the take that night was not a good 
 one, but we saw the whole process, and had a most interesting 
 night of it. About three in the afternoon a whole fleet of boats 
 used to put out from one of the harbours of Orkney ; its name 
 has escaped me, but it was near the house of a Mr Baikie, with 
 whom we were staying, and from whom we received much 
 hospitality and kindness. On board one. of these boats we 
 embarked ; an open boat, with a small space decked in by the 
 bows. The whole boat and everything about it was covered with 
 scales of herrings. The crew consisted of five stalwart Orcadians, 
 fine manly fellows, temperate, good-natured, and civiL With a 
 soft summer's breeze we sailed past picturesque headlands and 
 capes of the old red sandstone, alive with thousands of screaming 
 gulls, cormorants, and northern sea-fowl of every variety. Occa- 
 sionally the boat would be rounded up that we might get a shot, 
 when any tempting specimen made us eager to secure it. As the 
 sun got lower we left the coasts, and stood out into the open 
 ocean. The night was deliciously mild, and the constant 
 twilight of these northern regions never deserted us. One 
 would have supposed it was a splendid night for fishing, and yet
 
 26 THE DWARFIE'S STONE AT HOY. 
 
 when the nets were hauled in there were not above two or three 
 hundred herring entangled in them. Disappointing as this was, 
 more particularly to our hosts of the boat, it was, nevertheless, to 
 us a most interesting sight. I recollect that we were astonished 
 at the immense length of the net that was let down into the 
 sea ; and when it was drawn in, every individual fish, and every 
 cord against which a fish had rubbed, glittered as if it were made 
 of bright and luminous silver. We got back about seven in the 
 morning, and went to bed and tried to sleep ; but it wouldn't 
 do. After a fair trial we both voted it a failure ; and so, putting 
 on our clothes and shouldering our guns, we marched back to 
 Kirkwall. From Kixkwall we crossed the island to Stromness ; 
 but before leaving Kirkwall we sent our guns, dogs, and heavy 
 baggage back to Edinburgh, taking with us nothing but fishing- 
 rods, each carrying on his back a knapsack with a change of 
 clothes, and a fishing-book well stored with flies, casting-lines, 
 silk worm-gut, and the other necessaries of an angler. At 
 Stromness we lodged with a Mrs Logan, where we found the 
 claret and the cigars both of undeniable quality and extremely 
 cheap ; suggestive of commercial relations between the Orkneys 
 and Bordeaux on the one hand and the West Indies on the 
 other, unencumbered by those payments of customs duties 
 which add so much to the cost of many of the good things of 
 this life. Of course, while at Stromness we went and saw the 
 Stones of Stennis one of the most interesting things of the kind 
 within the British dominions. 
 
 From Stromness we passed over to the island of Hoy ; and 
 when I look back upon our voyage across the straits, I wonder 
 that we were not lost. We had a very small boat, with only one 
 hand, and he not a professional sailor. At that time I had an 
 idea that a sheet meant a sail, and your brother's knowledge of 
 nautical matters was about equally accurate ; so you can imagine 
 what would happen upon our receiving an urgent command 
 either to make fast or to let go the main-sheet. And yet we 
 were expected to assist our sole Naucrates in working the boat 
 and had to do it too. We got into tides that ran like mill- 
 sluices, and swept us along into all sorts of unexpected positions ; 
 and then again we found ourselves dancing about on the summit
 
 RETURN TO THE MAINLAND. 27 
 
 of tide-rips, where the waves rose angrily all about us, and broke 
 with hoarse and ominous noises into foam that threatened to curl 
 into our cockle-shell and swamp us. At length, by God's pro- 
 vidence, we landed safely on the coast of Hoy, and, shouldering 
 our knapsacks, marched straight for the Dwarfie's Stone, of the 
 whereabouts of which we had informed ourselves. This stone 
 of which, by the by, you will see an account in Sir "W. Scott's 
 ' Pirate ' lies in a desolate glen at the foot of the highest hill of 
 the Orkneys the Wart of Hoy. We both of us sat down and 
 attempted a sketch of it, but rain was brewing. The atmo- 
 sphere was calm and the day warm, and the consequence was that 
 the midges settled down upon us whenever we remained still, in 
 numbers which no one can appreciate till he has been in these 
 northern latitudes. So, after examining the stone, with its short 
 passage leading into it, and small cabin hollowed out on either 
 side, and admiring the wildness and desolate grandeur of the 
 whole scene, we marched on in a drenching rain for the ter- 
 minus of our day's walk, the pilot's house, which stands, or stood, 
 on a grassy plateau overlooking the Pentland Firth. 
 
 After a halt of two days here, during which we had an oppor- 
 tunity of seeing this celebrated Firth in its angry mood, and 
 looking down over the precipice of 1200 feet with which the 
 island of Hoy confronts the gigantic waves of the Northern Ocean 
 that hurl themselves for ever against its base, we crossed over 
 to Dunnet Head, and after a walk of a few miles found ourselves 
 in Thurso. It had been part of our programme, before we left 
 Edinburgh, that when in the Highlands we were to wear the 
 kilt, more particularly when fishing ; and with this view we had 
 gone to a celebrated establishment somewhere near the Tron 
 Church, where Highlandmen were made on the shortest notice, 
 and had each of us provided ourselves with a kilt, and a 
 " sporran," I think they call it. Finding that the Monro tartan 
 rivalled in its tints the most gorgeous of the South American 
 macaws, I made myself for the nonce a Macdonald of the sept 
 of Clanranald. Aytoun had a green kilt, and was supposed to 
 belong to some family of the Mackenzies. 
 
 Being now fairly landed on the mainland of Scotland, fishing- 
 rods in our fists, and not very far from the theatre of our opera-
 
 28 FISHING EXCURSION IN THE HIGHLANDS. 
 
 tions, it struck your brother that the time had arrived for don- 
 ning the Celtic costume, and he informed me at tea that he 
 intended to come out the following morning in the dress of the 
 natives of the country. It was in vain that I endeavoured to 
 persuade him that Thurso was not in the Highlands, and urged 
 him to put it off until we got into the wilder regions to the west- 
 ward. He evidently enjoyed the idea of the sensation he should 
 produce, and had made up his mind to do the thing. 
 
 And I can assure you he did produce a sensation the following 
 morning ; for, in the first place, he put the kilt on wrong side 
 foremost ; but even when this was rectified, there was such an air 
 of newness about the whole get-up, and his legs were so exces- 
 sively white, that the waiter was obliged to retreat from the room 
 with three parts of his napkin in his mouth ; and when we 
 emerged into the street after paying the bill, a mob of boys 
 escorted us out of the town with loud cheers and other demonstra- 
 tions of delight. Their hilarity was in no respect diminished by 
 the fact of our having a fine breeze, as Jack would say, " right 
 aft," before which we bowled along like stalwart pedestrians, our 
 imaginations fired with the visions of the fish we were to take in 
 the country of the Sutherlands and the Mackays. 
 
 And capital sport we had in those regions. We fished in the 
 streams as we went along, all of them abounding in trout, salmon, 
 and sea-trout. We stopped at Tongue, an extremely pretty 
 place, and made excursions to the lochs of the neighbourhood, 
 out of which we never failed to fill our creels. We stopped a 
 night or two at Altnaharrow, where at that time there was not 
 much to be got to eat, and the fleas were abundant. I recollect 
 Aytoun in the morning complaining that he had been kept 
 awake by the " shrill cicadas, people of the pine." We fished in 
 Loch Shin and in the river Shin. We passed on by Bonar Bridge 
 to Tain, and thence we trudged it in one day to Dingwall, passing 
 through the country of the Monros, where Aytoun did not fail 
 to chaff me upon the enthusiasm which he declared he saw glow- 
 ing within me for the country of my forefathers. From Ding- 
 wall we went to Strathpeffer, and climbed up to the summit of 
 Ben Wyvis, gathering, as we went, some snow out of a mass 
 which, even at that season of the year, lay unmelted in a rnoun-
 
 FISHING EXCURSION IN THE HIGHLANDS. 29 
 
 tain hollow. From Dingwall we went on to Inverness, and 
 walked out to the field of Culloden ; and at Inverness we parted 
 for the time. Aytoun made his way home leisurely ; hut I re- 
 collect his telling me afterwards that he had had some good 
 sport in Loch Awe, and that he had taken hy trolling a " salmo 
 ferox" weighing 15 Ib.
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 A STUDENTS' MEETING, AND HIS SPEECH THERE EFFECTS OF THE 
 REFORM EXCITEMENT ON HIM PUBLICATION OF 'POLAND, AND 
 OTHER POEMS' CHOICE OF A PROFESSION UNWILLINGNESS TO 
 ADOPT THE LAW RESIDENCE AND STUDIES IN GERMANY TRANS- 
 LATION OF FAUST FAUST THE MAGICIAN AND HIS CONJURING 
 BOOK MARLOWE'S FAUSTUS LIFE AT ASCHAFFENBURG, AND 
 LETTERS TO HIS MOTHER SUNDAY ABROAD AND AT HOME HIS 
 TUTOR'S OPINION OF HIM TRANSLATION OF THE BRIDE OF COR- 
 INTH THE WANDERING JEW. 
 
 IT was while Aytoun was still at college, to which 
 I, who was some years his junior, had just gone, and 
 somewhere about the year 1832, that I first saw him. 
 The occasion was a public meeting of the students of 
 the University, held to consider the propriety of estab- 
 lishing a students' prize for, as far as I can recollect, 
 pre-eminence in general literature. On the platform 
 were Mr James Moncreiff, Mr Campbell Swinton, Mr 
 John Thomson Gordon, Mr Makgill, Mr Thomas Tod 
 Stoddart, and others, who were then considered as the 
 leading students at the university. Several of them 
 spoke well, with a little too much, perhaps, of the false 
 rhetorical glow which young men who speak like, and 
 which young men who are not given to speaking very
 
 A STUDENTS' MEETING, AND HIS SPEECH THEKE. 31 
 
 much dislike. The manner was perhaps a little grand- 
 iose, with something of that sublimely dictatorial 
 tone which the leading set at all universities are apt to 
 assume towards the common herd of students. These 
 latter seemed to take meekly enough what the " Dii 
 maforum gentium " had provided for them. At any 
 rate, things were going smoothly towards carrying 
 the desired resolutions, when a young man rose from 
 the other end of the platform and asked permission 
 to speak. His air was extremely youthful, almost 
 boyish his complexion clear and rosy his hair 
 light and crisp ; but what most claimed observation 
 was the play of humour about a full and good-na- 
 tured mouth, and the merry inward light that danced 
 in his small but expressive eyes. This young man 
 was Aytoun. To the visible surprise of his friends on 
 the platform, he took up a line of argument in direct 
 opposition to that which they had been urging, and en- 
 forced it with the happiest humour and a flow of well- 
 ordered language, the strength of which lay in the cur- 
 rent of shrewd sense which pervaded it. So completely 
 did he carry the meeting along with him, that the whole 
 programme was disarranged, and it became apparent 
 what ultimately proved to be the fact that whatever 
 resolutions might be passed, the scheme of a students' 
 prize would not be carried out. The details of the 
 discussion have long since vanished from my mind, 
 but the impression remains freshly as ever of the rare 
 address and tact shown by the young orator in his line 
 of argument, and of the ease and aptitude of the Ian-
 
 32 THE REFORM EXCITEMENT. 
 
 guage in which it was embodied. I have since heard 
 that Aytoun's speaking as he did created no small 
 surprise, if not indignation, among the promoters of the 
 meeting, with whom he had acted in getting it up. To 
 have their flank turned in this way by an ally was, 
 of course, anything but pleasant. No doubt the idea of 
 opposing his friends seized him on the moment. He 
 had most likely never given any particular thought 
 to the subject to be discussed until his friends began to 
 speak. Then, very probably, some of their arguments 
 had satisfied him they were wrong no uncommon 
 circumstance even with older speakers and Aytoun 
 was sincere enough and bold enough at all times to 
 speak out his convictions. Or, what is still more pro- 
 bable, the magisterial airs of his friends had struck 
 him as so ludicrous, that he was irresistibly tempted 
 to try the effect of exploding a bombshell among them. 
 The speech was obviously spontaneous and unstudied, 
 but no stumbling or hesitation marred its effect, and 
 it showed powers of no common kind in its rare com- 
 bination of fluency and elegance without weakness, and 
 of force without exaggeration. 
 
 Young as he was, Aytoun was no novice in the art 
 of speaking, which he had practised, not only in the 
 doubtful arena of the Speculative Society, but on the 
 platform before excited crowds of hard-headed citizens. 
 These were the exciting times of the Eeform era, and 
 he often spoke in public on the prevailing topics of 
 that turbulent period. His father's firm were the 
 solicitors and political agents of the Duke of Hamilton;
 
 HIS FIRST PUBLISHED POEMS. 33 
 
 and Aytoun, who had become their articled clerk, 
 was much engaged in the Lanarkshire election which 
 immediately preceded the passing of the Eeform Bill. 
 This gave him a thorough insight into the machinery 
 by which elections in that part of the country were 
 carried, and which he afterwards laid bare with admir- 
 able humour in his paper, " How I Stood for the Dreep- 
 daily Burghs." It also cured him of any tendency he 
 might ever have had towards Eadicalism, by showing 
 him the extreme perils of the revolutionary agitation 
 resorted to by the party with whom he was then act- 
 ing. In the course of that election he had an ex- 
 
 o 
 
 perience, which he never forgot, of what mobs are, 
 and of the consequences of calling into play the 
 mere force of numbers. The chapters in 'Norman 
 Sinclair' devoted to the Slockendrouth Election de- 
 scribe scenes which he actually saw at Hamilton 
 upon this occasion ; and nowhere will be found a 
 more stirring picture of the excited state of men's 
 minds in Scotland at this period, or a more salutary 
 warning against the renewal of an agitation tending 
 to such hazardous results. 
 
 Aytoun had taken a deep interest in the cause of the 
 Poles, many of whom, including Prince Czartoryski, 
 had taken refuge in Edinburgh, and were frequent 
 visitors at his father's house. His views and feelings 
 on the Polish question took shape in a poem, which he 
 published in 1832, entitled, 'Poland, Homer, and other 
 Poems.' On a copy of it which he gave me most 
 reluctantly in 1844, he inscribed: "To Theodore 
 
 c
 
 34 CHOICE OF A PROFESSION. 
 
 Martin, with tears and penitence. William E. Aytoun. 
 mihi prceteritos referet si Jupiter annos ! " But 
 though he had come so early to judge them with 
 severity, those poems do no discredit to a young man 
 of seventeen his age when they were written. They 
 have the quality, characteristic of his later writing, 
 of a fulness and sweetness of rhythm by no means 
 common in so young a writer. 
 
 In 1833 Aytoun came to London, and spent several 
 months in the chambers, in Parliament Street, of Mr 
 M'Dougall, a solicitor and Parliamentary agent in 
 large practice. Here he became familiar with the 
 procedure in Scotch appeals, and with Parliamentary 
 business. He was also a good deal employed in regard 
 to various public measures relating to Scotland, where 
 his local knowledge and business tact were found to 
 be of considerable service. He visited the gallery of 
 the House of Commons whenever a debate of unusual 
 interest gave him an opportunity of hearing the leading 
 speakers of the day. The idea of entering the diplo- 
 matic service seems to have been entertained for a 
 time, but abandoned, because he could not see his way 
 to any tolerable position without more influence at his 
 back than he could hope to command. For the same 
 reason he gave up the thought of going to the English 
 bar. In June 1833 he writes from London to his 
 father : " One thing I am resolved on viz. that I shall 
 not go to the English bar. I have heard a great deal 
 about it lately, and find that, unless I could live for ten 
 years like a chameleon, I have no chance of business.
 
 DIFFICULTIES REGARDING THIS. 35 
 
 Even then, supposing my resolution were to last till 
 then, success is almost worse than a lottery, without 
 English connections, which I have not." 
 
 The experience of one session in London obviously 
 satisfied Aytoun that it was not there he was to look 
 for a career. He was still only nineteen, but being 
 without fortune, the subject of a profession pressed 
 itself anxiously upon him. His father had given him 
 the best education his means could afford, and had 
 every wish to enable him to continue to prosecute his 
 studies for some time longer. With this view he 
 assented to his son's proposal to spend the following 
 winter in Germany, for the purpose of studying the 
 German language and literature, the value of which 
 was then beginning to be understood and appreciated 
 in this country. But while doing so he continued to 
 urge his son to make up his mind whether or not he 
 would devote himself to the profession which he had 
 chosen for him, that of a Writer to the Signet in Edin- 
 burgh. Between desire to comply with the wishes of 
 his father, whom he loved deeply, and his own aver- 
 sion to this profession, Aytoun underwent a severe 
 struggle, as his letters of the period show. He had by 
 this time formed a marvellously just estimate, as after 
 events proved, of his own powers. Mere disinclina- 
 tion to the legal profession he could overcome from a 
 sense of duty, and overcome it he did in the end ; but 
 he felt that he had not the special qualities of mind 
 which are required to insure success or distinction in 
 that profession. He was therefore unwilling to pledge
 
 36 HIS UNFITNESS FOR THE LAW. 
 
 himself hastily to comply with his father's wish ; and 
 in November 1833 wrote to him thus from Aschaffen- 
 burg, to which he had gone in the previous September 
 to pursue his German studies : 
 
 The thought of my future profession is to me a subject of 
 considerable anxiety. The more I think upon the profession of 
 the law, the more I am disinclined to it ; nor do I believe that I 
 shall ever bring myself to regard it with even tolerable com- 
 placency. I trust you will not blame me for speaking, as indeed 
 I have ever done, without disguise ; and I can only repeat what I 
 have formerly said, that it should be my choice only in the case of 
 unavoidable necessity, to which everything must bend. It is not 
 only the unconquerable dislike I bear it which causes me to 
 speak thus, but a consciousness of my own inability ever actively 
 to pursue it with success. It requires not only the greatest 
 attention and incessant diligence, which I acknowledge are 
 certainly in the power of every one to bestow, but also a peculiar 
 sharpness, and, above all, accuracy, which I do not possess. 
 
 These views appear not to have been agreed in by 
 his father ; and in a future letter (28th December 1833) 
 Aytoun recurs to the subject in the following terms : 
 
 You must be yourself aware what a very indifferent lawyer I 
 will make, if I were to commence W.S. with the reluctance I 
 have to the profession, and a head by no means fitted for it. 
 Perhaps you think differently of my capabilities, but such is my 
 own grave measure of myself. You have often told me that it 
 only needs industry for a man to accomplish anything. This I 
 conceive to be false reasoning. For instance, a man may sit 
 down even with heart and soul to mathematics, and after the 
 labour of years may scarcely comprehend the principles. Out of 
 all the officers in our army, how many could ever become great 
 generals ? Perhaps not five. It is the same with architecture, 
 with painting in short, with everything. I will venture to say 
 there is some one science which no man can achieve, being totally 
 unfitted for it by nature ; and my stumbling-block is most un-
 
 HIS STUDIES IN GERMANY. 37 
 
 fortunately the profession which lies just at my feet. I may say 
 with the Earl of Warwick 
 
 " But in these nice sharp quillets of the law, 
 Good faith ! I am no wiser than a daw." 
 
 You will keep in view, however, that I speak principally of the 
 business in the Court and of conveyancing. In the first I should 
 be no match for the sharper brothers of the trade ; and for the 
 second I am not sufficiently exact and particular. But for 
 general agency or other business I have no such objection ; and 
 if it could in any way be managed that my attention should be 
 turned towards these branches, I am ready to give way to your 
 wishes. I know that a good man of business should be master of 
 all the branches of his profession, but for me that will be impos- 
 sible. I have written thus fully to explain my own views and 
 sentiments ; and having done so, I leave the matter in your own 
 hands, being fully sensible that you will weigh it well, and 
 determine for the best. 
 
 While distracted by these thoughts as to his future 
 career, Aytoun was reading hard at Aschaffenburg. 
 He had selected for his tutor there Professor Joseph E. 
 Merkel, a distinguished scholar, and a man of very 
 great and various attainments. Under his guidance 
 he acquired in a very few months a mastery of the 
 language, which set open to him the treasure-house 
 of German poetry and general and critical literature, 
 from which he gathered materials which were of in- 
 finite advantage to him in his future career. 
 Soon after he established himself at Aschaffenburg 
 he commenced a translation into verse of the first part 
 of Goethe's ' Faust,' then only known in English 
 through the version of Lord Leveson Gower. On 15th 
 December 1833 he writes to his mother :
 
 38 . TRANSLATION OF FAUST. 
 
 I lead a lonely and philosophic life, doing little else than 
 reading German. I have been chiefly occupied with translating 
 Goethe's ' Faust ' into English verse, which is a difficult task ; but 
 Merkel vows the translation is excellent. If I can finish it soon 
 that is to say, in time to see it printed before I leave Germany 
 I may publish it on the Continent, a much better place for such 
 a work than England. Indeed, the bookseller here has made me 
 an offer for it, but I should prefer having it brought out in 
 Leipzig, if possible. 
 
 It was completed by March, by which time Aytoun 
 appears to have changed his mind as to publishing it 
 in Germany. In a letter to his father on the 4th of 
 that month he says : 
 
 I wish to publish it, even though I should rather lose than 
 gain by it, for the following reasons : In the first place, I am not 
 afraid of any great superiority in Blackie's translation, or at 
 least that his can be so good as to throw mine altogether into 
 the background. In the second although it is now, I suppose, 
 settled that I am to betake myself for a time to the law I am 
 very anxious to increase, if I can, any little literary reputation 
 I may have acquired, which you are sensible is not to be done by 
 keeping my hands in my pockets. You, perhaps unwillingly, 
 touched in your last letter upon a subject which I have for some 
 time contemplated viz., a Chair in the University. The Chair of 
 Belles Lettres, which, in the time of Blair, was the best attended 
 in the College, must, in the common course of events, be vacant 
 in the course of a few years. In its present state, it is not likely 
 that any very distinguished name will be found among the can- 
 didates, and if such should be the case I will make a push for it. 
 I mention this chiefly to show you that I have some ultimate 
 objects in view in pursuing my literary studies, and as a reason 
 why I wish this translation published. 
 
 This wisli was never carried out. When Aytoun 
 returned to Edinburgh in April 1834, not only had his 
 friend Professor Blackie published his translation, but
 
 TRANSLATION OF FAUST. 39 
 
 no less than three others were either published or 
 announced as in the press. Finding the market fore- 
 stalled, Aytoun gave up his intention, and his transla- 
 tion never saw the light. Had it appeared, it would 
 have taken high rank among its competitors at the 
 time. It is remarkable for accuracy, a quality wanting 
 in nearly all English translations previous to Mr Hay- 
 ward's admirable one in prose ; but it could not have 
 satisfied Aytoun's maturer judgment as an adequate 
 exponent of its great original. The poem is one 
 which no man so young as he was at the time can 
 even fully appreciate, much less translate. Moreover, 
 with all his mastery of language and rhythm, which 
 was by no means small, it was not possible that Aytoun 
 should have fulfilled the indispensable condition of 
 reproducing the form as well as the matter of the 
 poem. This he did not even attempt, for the trans- 
 lation is in blank verse throughout, with the excep- 
 tion only of the songs and a few of the lyrical pas- 
 sages. Under this mode of treatment the peculiar 
 charm of the original is necessarily lost. Aytoun no 
 doubt felt this strongly as years went on, and so he 
 never either revised his work, or thought of giving it 
 to the press. Indeed, the fever of enthusiasm which 
 originally prompted the translation passed into the 
 chill stage, and in after years he was rather disposed to 
 underrate the merits of a large portion of one of the 
 few works of its time for which immortality may with 
 some certainty be predicted. 
 
 Much has been written about the Faustus of the
 
 40 FAUST THE MAGICIAN. 
 
 old legend, who, it is now well understood, was a 
 real person, one Johann Faust of Wittenberg, whom 
 Melanchthon knew, and whose practices of "the arts 
 inhibited" brought him to a miserable end. But I 
 have nowhere seen any mention made of his conjuring- 
 book as being actually in existence at Aschaffenburg, 
 where Aytoun saw it in 1834. Of this circumstance 
 he speaks in one of his lectures in the following 
 terms : 
 
 Shortly after quitting this university I went to study in Ger- 
 many, and resided for some time at the town of Aschaffenburg 
 on the Maine. It was formerly the capital of the Elector of 
 Mayence, and is still the head court for what are called the 
 Ehenish Provinces of Bavaria. Whilst there I took a fancy to 
 attempt a translation of Goethe's ' Faust,' and did so under the 
 superintendence of Dr Merkel, a very learned and ingenious Ger- 
 man professor. One day, when we were discussing the subject 
 together, I ventured to start the heterodox opinion that, after all, 
 the printer and the conjuror might be one and the same person. 
 The professor assured me that such was not the case ; that Faus- 
 tus of Wittenberg had been tried for sorcery in the criminal 
 court of that very province ; and that not only the record of his 
 trial, but his very conjuring-book, were still in existence. You 
 may believe that I was very desirous of seeing a curiosity which 
 I presume to be unique in the world ; and accordingly, after a 
 good deal of trouble, for the archives there are very closely kept, 
 I obtained a view of Faust's particular volume. It was in an 
 oaken case, secured by a chain and padlock, and contained within 
 a good many boards, covered on each side apparently with parch- 
 ment. On one side of each board there was painted with great 
 skill and delicacy the full-length portrait of a spirit or demon, 
 with his name inscribed below ; and I assure you, gentlemen, 
 that some of them were individuals whom I would by no means 
 willingly have invoked. Beneath each picture was drawn the 
 pentagram or cabalistic sign of the spirit, and the extent and
 
 MARLOWE'S FAUSTUS. 41 
 
 limit of his powers. Some could raise tempests some cause 
 delusions some discover hidden treasures; and on the reverse 
 of each board were written the spells for summoning them, and 
 the precautions necessary to be taken. The book was most 
 extraordinary, even as a work of art ; and I can truly say that, in 
 turning it over, I felt almost as much astonished as William of 
 Deloraine might have been when he took the volume from the 
 hand of the Scottish Wizard. But what struck me more forcibly 
 than anything else was an inscription at the end of the volume 
 to this effect : " I, Johann Faust, have made this book, which con- 
 tains the semblances of the spirits which may be evoked, with 
 their signs, and the spells which can compel them. But thou, 
 whosoever thou art, who shalt open it, beware ; for by doing 
 those things I have lost myself, soul and body. Jo. FAUSTDS." 
 I cannot vouch for the exact accuracy of these words, for I was 
 not allowed to copy anything, but I wrote them down from mem- 
 ory shortly afterwards. The book is most undoubtedly genuine, 
 and I think you will agree with me that very few manuscripts 
 are to be found of so extraordinary a nature. 
 
 Unquestionably this is so, and it is only surprising 
 that so remarkable a volume should have escaped the 
 researches of the numerous contributors to Faustian 
 literature, or the reproductive skill of literary anti- 
 quarians. Access to the volume may now, perhaps, be 
 less difficult, and we may expect to hear fuller particulars 
 of its singular contents. Aytoun always mentioned the 
 volume with a kind of solemn awe. It spoke to him 
 of the perdition of a human soul, and gave for him all 
 the force of reality to the closing scene of Marlowe's 
 ' Faustus/ which he held to be supreme in tragic power 
 among the great dramas of the Elizabethan age. I can 
 even now recall the trembling earnestness of tone with 
 which he used to quote the lines,
 
 42 LIFE AT ASCHAFFENBUKG. 
 
 " Oh Faustus, 
 
 Now hast thou but one bare hour to live, 
 And then thou must be damned perpetually ! 
 Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven, 
 That time may cease, and midnight never come ; 
 Fair nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make 
 Perpetual day; or let this hour be but 
 A year, a month, a week, a natural day, 
 That Faustus may repent and save his soul!"* 
 
 Among Aytoun's letters home at this period, pre- 
 served by the loving care of his mother, are to be found 
 some notices, not without interest, of how he lived at 
 the quiet and picturesque little town of Aschaffen- 
 burg. Here, for example, is a statement of his ex- 
 penses for a month. It is very doubtful whether, 
 under the equalising influence of railways, a young 
 man could live there on the same easy terms at the 
 
 present day : 
 
 7th November 1833. 
 Expenses for a Month. 
 
 Lodgings, fire, coffee, &c., . . .146 
 
 Dinner, . . . . 100 
 
 Supper, wine, &c., . . . 1 10 6 
 
 Servant, . . . . 036 
 
 Tobacco, . . . . 026 
 
 4 1 
 24 tickets for the theatre, . . 14 
 
 15 
 
 * In Scotland, Aytoun's reading of poetry was much admired. 
 However it might fail in the subtle balancing of tones, the skilful 
 pauses, the seeming artlessness of emphasis which distinguish first- 
 rate reading, I have no doubt it made up for any defects in these 
 particulars by earnestness and imaginative fervour. When he read 
 such a ballad as " The Battle of Otterbourne, " his own emotion was
 
 HIS P1CTUKE OF SOCIETY THEEE. 43 
 
 Exclusive of books and sundries, the latter of which may be 
 about 1, 10s. ; so that mere living here may be computed at 
 ,60 or 70 per annum. 20 would keep me well in clothes and 
 boots for a year, so that for .100 one might live excellently. In 
 London, according to my computation, taking clothes into account, 
 one could not spend less than 200, living very narrowly indeed, 
 and drinking even swipes gingerly. 
 
 In another letter he says 
 
 I pay for the best lodgings I can get here, consisting of two 
 rooms, only ten shillings a-month, and the interior department is 
 at the same ratio. 
 
 Further on he says 
 
 The only recreations which the good people of Aschaifenburg 
 seem to court are Rhine wine and ninepins, a game which the 
 whole city are engaged in from four to eight every evening. 
 
 Its ladies, as indeed throughout Germany, are chiefly distin- 
 guished for their enormous mouths and feet. 
 
 Despite the unattractiveness of the women of the 
 place, Aytoun seems to have found a hearty enjoyment 
 in its simple ways and homely pleasures. 
 
 We had a great ball here [he writes to his father, on 9th Sep- 
 tember 1833] in the Casino, about a fortnight ago, in honour of 
 the king's birthday, where I counted four gentlemen who wore 
 gloves. The dress is just the same as ours, only that the tailors 
 are a century behind ; and as for the ladies, the less that is said 
 about their faces or their feet the better. You have no concep- 
 tion of the decorum practised here. If a man is seen walking in 
 
 so thoroughly communicated to the hearer that the minor niceties 
 of delivery became of no importance. It was the same with Pro- 
 fessor Wilson's reading, which at times reached the very height of 
 tragic power. The murder-scene in ' Macbeth,' as I have heard him 
 read it in the course of his lectures, stands alone in my memory for 
 its vivid impressiveness.
 
 44 HIS LETTEES TO HIS MOTHER. 
 
 the streets with a woman, their marriage is considered as inevi- 
 table ; and if a German lady were to present you with a bunch 
 of flowers, the town would be in a ferment for a week. However, 
 the people are very kind after their own fashion. There are a 
 great number of military in the town, as indeed throughout all 
 the Continental states, but very orderly and well-behaved, and the 
 officers among the most polished men here. There is also a uni- 
 versity, but heaven defend me from the students ! who are a very 
 greasy set of knaves indeed. You will get a tolerably good no- 
 tion of them from Russell's ' Tour in Germany.' As far as I can 
 see, the people here are very happy, and the differences of rank 
 are not nearly so tightly drawn as with us. 
 
 Aytoun's letters home during his stay at Aschaffen- 
 burg speak eloquently both of his own affectionate 
 heart and the admirable training he had received. 
 "Honour thy father and thy mother" was then as 
 ever a living law of his life, and it showed itself in the 
 affectionate deference which he paid to all their wishes, 
 to the sacrifice at times of his own very strong inclina- 
 tions. Mingled with this reverential regard, a vein of 
 playfulness runs through his letters, which shows on 
 how happy a footing of confidence and familiarity he 
 stood towards them. His letters to his mother in par- 
 ticular are full of tenderness. She seems to have had 
 her own misgivings as to the kind of company her boy 
 was likely to fall into. Duels and beer were inseparably 
 connected in those days not in her mind alone with 
 the idea of German student-life. Some misgivings on 
 this head to which she had given expression drew from 
 Aytoun the following assurance that he was in no 
 danger of coming home minus an eye, or, like Baron 
 Munchausen, gashed horribly across nose and cheek :
 
 HIS LETTERS TO HIS MOTHER. 45 
 
 writes that your great horror is, that I may be spitted 
 
 by some irascible student, with his bloody cut-and-thrust pistols 
 and double-barrelled swords. Don't be afraid on that account. 
 In the first place, there is no fighting allowed here ; in the second, 
 though I must confess the rogues to be sinewy swordsmen, they 
 stand in great awe of powder and ball ; and, third and lastly, I 
 never come into contact with them, as they seem to stand in equal 
 awe of soap and water. 
 
 Aytoun's mother, one might have thought, would have 
 known her son too well to have construed his little bits 
 of humour literally. But her maternal anxiety had ob- 
 viously blinded her perception of the boundaries be- 
 tween jest and earnest, when she allowed herself to be 
 thrown into a state of alarm by the following expressions 
 in a letter written a fortnight after that last quoted : 
 
 I hear of nothing but wars and rumours of wars Russia and 
 Britain the Bear, the Lion, and the Eagle. Pray, are we really 
 going to have a stramash ? In that case I have half a mind to 
 take a campaign in the French service. 
 
 These words were taken by Mrs Aytoun as the pro- 
 bable prelude to a career of " ambuscadoes, foreign 
 blades ; " and a few weeks afterwards Aytoun had to 
 write to his sister to quiet her apprehensions of so 
 untoward a wind-up to his German studies : 
 
 I was tickled into considerable convulsions by my mother's 
 timorous remarks about a certain French campaign, mustachio'd 
 cavaliers, &c., for which I was at first at some loss to account, till 
 I called to mind an innuendo in my last, which was merely in- 
 tended as a jocose quip to fill up the letter. I thought you were 
 all aware already how little of the pugnacious and bloodthirsty was 
 in my mild, soft, and philosophic character ; and as for the said 
 " cavaliers who have been putting foolish notions into my poor
 
 46 SUNDAY ABROAD AND AT HOME. 
 
 dear head," I can assure you that they are as tame a set of un- 
 warlike beings as ever swigged beer or blew a cloud. 
 
 From the same letter we extract another character- 
 istic passage : 
 
 No event has happened here lately except one or two masked 
 balls, where I had a great deal of amusement, as I was not masked 
 myself, and well known par excellence as " Der Englander." I 
 was attacked by the women on all sides ; most extraordinary anec- 
 dotes of my life were related, several of which, being true, puzzled 
 me not a little ; but in so small a town as this, and sometimes even 
 in so large a one as Edinburgh, people pay considerable attention 
 to the affairs of others, especially when a city contains a few 
 dowagers, from forty, fifty, and sixty years of age upwards, who 
 immediately retail everything they hear, adding cent per cent for 
 their trouble. Of course, I allude to nobody in particular. Both 
 these balls, by the way, took place upon Sundays. Now, how do 
 you think I saved my conscience ? By not consulting it at all ? 
 No such thing. Guess again. Why, by staying at home till 
 twelve chappit ! There's both piety and ingenuity for you. 
 
 Writing to his mother shortly before he left Aschaf- 
 fenburg to return home, he draws a contrast between 
 Sunday as he saw it observed there, and Sunday as he 
 had known it in England, which is unhappily still 
 true in all its main features. Aytoun had frequent 
 occasion afterwards, by what he saw in the two great 
 cities of Scotland, to prove the truth of the views thus 
 early formed by him on a subject of vast importance, 
 but which will never be dealt with satisfactorily till 
 men have the courage to shake off the hypocritical 
 cowardice which shrinks from open protest against the 
 tyranny of customs in the wisdom of which they have 
 long ceased to believe.
 
 SUNDAY ABROAD AND AT HOME. 47 
 
 ASCHAPPENBURG, 1st April 1834. 
 
 The people here are certainly more religious, and attend far 
 better to public worship, than the generality in Britain, a circum- 
 stance which I must attribute to their very different way of 
 passing the Sunday. With us, it is in vain to deny that it is 
 little better than a day of penance, and, to say the truth, I have 
 generally found it tolerably wearisome in Edinburgh. Here it is 
 a day both of religion and relaxation. Every one goes twice to 
 church ; but mark ! the service only lasts one hour ; and in the 
 afternoon you shall see the honest burghers going out with their 
 wives and children to the gardens and public walks round the 
 town, not swigging brandy or porter in an alehouse, but amusing 
 themselves with coffee or cider. If you wish to know why the 
 Sabbath-day is broken in England, I will answer you in one word. 
 All innocent amusement is denied to the people ; and if my theory 
 be right, and if Sir Andrew Agnew's new bill be carried, you will 
 see what a pretty business they will make of it. I remember, one 
 Sunday, passing the gin-shops in Tottenham Court Eoad late in 
 the evening. Good God ! what a spectacle was there ! It was 
 enough to make one's heart bleed to see the women, more than 
 half intoxicated already, carrying their infants into the shops. 
 And why is this ? Because all innocent amusement on Sunday 
 is denied to the people. Open tea-gardens, open coffee-houses, 
 open even the theatres on Sundays, do what you will only shut 
 the gin-shops, and beware of tempting people to break the law by 
 forcing them to observe it. I hope you will not think these un- 
 orthodox opinions. I utter them by the best proof of all, for I 
 utter them by comparison. 
 
 Professor Merkel formed a very high opinion of 
 Aytoun's abilities, and expressed it in a letter to his 
 father, 24th February 1834 : 
 
 As for your son William [he writes], if I did not fear the re- 
 proach of being a flatterer, I would declare him to be a very 
 clever young man ; but because this seems itself only to be a 
 kind of disguised flattery, I am indeed at a loss how to speak 
 about him. He shows many good qualities, and if he has some
 
 48 HIS TUTOR'S OPINION OF HIM. 
 
 bad ones, they are too deeply hidden to be discovered ; and as to 
 his imperfections, I am too shortsighted to perceive them, if there 
 are any. He is always in good health, and takes care of it. As 
 far as I know, and his appearance may be trusted to, he lives in a 
 sober and regular way. Our climate agrees with him exceedingly 
 well, and his progress in study keeps equal pace with the bodily 
 state. The only thing I fear is, that he will hurt his eyes by too 
 much reading and writing. As to the German, he already un- 
 derstands almost everything he reads, and will be soon as perfect 
 a scholar in German literature as one can prove after the well-re- 
 ceived instruction of four or five months ; and this I suppose to be 
 much more the result of his docility than of my aptness to teach. 
 
 Before lie left Aschaffenburg, Aytoun had acquired a 
 thorough command of German ; but his general powers 
 had also greatly expanded under Merkel's excellent 
 guidance, and he had thought as well as read much. 
 It was apparently the turning-point of his life. He 
 had begun to feel wherein his strength lay, and to 
 shape his studies towards a definite end. The change 
 wrought upon him by his stay at Aschaffenburg was 
 sufficiently marked to attract the notice of an intimate 
 friend of his school and college days, Mr George 
 Makgill, who was then residing at Frankfurt. "After 
 being with Merkel some time," this gentleman informs 
 me, " Aytoun came to visit me at Frankfurt, and I re- 
 member being much struck with the change a few 
 months had produced in the vigour and development 
 of a tone of thought which then plainly showed itself as 
 genius. I remember, too, his enthusiasm about Tieck, 
 whose works he had just read, and which seem to have 
 opened to him, as I suppose they do to every one, a 
 new state of existence. He brought with him and
 
 THE BRIDE OF CORINTH. 49 
 
 showed me fragments of several works he had begun, 
 none of which I now recollect, except one, which was 
 a sketch of Bothwell." 
 
 This was, in truth, a period of great literary activity 
 with Aytoun. But although he wrote much, his ripen- 
 ing judgment made him severe upon his own work, 
 and less inclined to rush into print than he had been 
 before. I know that at this period, besides his version of 
 the 'Faust,' he had attempted translations of several 
 of Goethe's minor poems ; but they remained in his 
 memorandum-books until some years afterwards, when, 
 along with myself, he published in ' Blackwood ' a 
 series of papers on the minor poems and ballads of 
 Goethe. As an instance of the infinite labour of 
 which he thought those masterpieces worthy, he had, 
 as he then told me, been trying for nine years to trans- 
 late " The Bride of Corinth " in the original metre, but 
 had not been able to produce so much as one stanza to 
 his own satisfaction. When, some days afterwards, I 
 took him a version by myself of some eight or ten 
 stanzas, which, in his judgment, satisfied in some de- 
 gree the conditions of a translation of a poem so exqui- 
 site in all its details, I was struck by the fervour 
 with which he resumed the task, and the admirable 
 skill with which he very soon completed a version of 
 the stanzas which it had been settled between us were 
 to be dealt with by him. The brooding and the failures 
 of past years had not been without their effect. The 
 subtle charm of the poem had penetrated his whole 
 being ; and when the mood of inspiration came upon 
 
 D
 
 50 THE WANDERING JEW. 
 
 him, it reproduced itself in apt words and a rhythmic 
 music not wholly unworthy of the great original. 
 
 To this period I should be disposed to assign the 
 following poem so far as I know, unpublished in 
 which the character and tone of his future style begin 
 to show themselves, coloured in some degree by the 
 influence of the German romantic school : 
 
 THE WANDERING JEW. 
 
 The wizard sat within his hall 
 A dark and tapestried room 
 Where but one taper's flaring light 
 Strove feebly with the gloom ; 
 While drearily, without, the wind 
 Sang as around a tomb. 
 
 He read some old and mystic book 
 
 Within that lonely hall ; 
 
 And as the figured arras waved 
 
 With noiseless swell and fall, 
 
 You might have thought the spirits came 
 
 Unto their master's call. 
 
 No sound there was (save the drear blast 
 
 That swooned with dismal moan) 
 
 To break the ringing silence made 
 
 So solemn and so lone ; 
 
 There is not of all earthly sounds 
 
 One with so deep a tone. 
 
 It was a chamber vast and bare, 
 
 For awe and terror meet ; 
 
 For nothing broke its emptiness 
 
 Save that one stony seat, 
 
 And where a mighty mirror hung 
 
 Its black and velvet sheet.
 
 THE WANDERING JEW. 51 
 
 The wizard read, and still the light 
 Shone with a sickly glare ; 
 
 That hark ! a slow and solemn step 
 
 Is creaking on the stair. 
 
 He turns him to the door, and, lo ! 
 
 A stranger standeth there. 
 
 High was his mien he stood, and gave 
 
 Nor sign, nor word, nor bow ; 
 
 A palmer's mantle wrapped him round, 
 
 Like knight on saintly vow ; 
 
 And 'neath his raven locks he wore 
 
 A bandage o'er his brow. 
 
 The wizard first the silence broke : 
 " What wouldst thou have with me ? 
 Art thou a knight of good St John 
 From isles across the sea ? 
 Or com'st thou from the Holy Land, 
 Or distant Galilee ?" 
 
 " Oh ! I have wandered far and wide, 
 By forest, stream, and glade ; 
 O'er trackless seas, o'er icy zones, 
 O'er sands without a shade ; 
 O'er worlds where never foot of man 
 Hath one dark impress made. 
 
 " The earth is all the home I have, 
 
 The heavens my wide roof-tree ; 
 
 And I have roamed through many a land, 
 
 And crossed full many a sea : 
 
 And, wizard, I have crossed them all 
 
 To speak one word with thee." 
 
 " Speak out thy wish, and if my art 
 Can work that will of thine, 
 The masters of the elements
 
 52 THE WANDERING JEW. 
 
 Shall bow before my sign." 
 
 " Nay, wizard nay ; nor earth nor sea 
 
 May aid that wish of mine. 
 
 " Is't not within thy magic power 
 The mouldering dead to raise, 
 And bid a shape that's long since fled 
 Appear before my gaze ? 
 Then summon from the sepulchre 
 A form of bygone days." 
 
 The wizard turned him hastily : 
 
 u By heaven ! before that rite 
 
 The spirit of the north might quail, 
 
 And close his shuddering sight ; 
 
 And couldst t hou see nor feel thy heart 
 
 Throb, and thy cheek grow white ? 
 \ 
 
 " Behold ! within this magic glass 
 A shadow shall be cast; 
 At every wave my wand shall call 
 Ten seasons from the past, 
 Until the phantom form appear 
 As thou didst see it last." 
 
 The lamp went out, but from the glass 
 A phosphic gleam arose, 
 And flickered, with a death-like haze, 
 As life and warmth were froze 
 Faint, dim, as looks a cottage light 
 Afar through drifting snows. 
 
 It threw a wan and pallid light 
 On face and arm and hand : 
 On floor and wall, in long relief, 
 It made the shadows stand 
 The stranger in his palmer's garb, 
 The wizard with his wand.
 
 THE WANDERING JEW. 53 
 
 He waved it once, and o'er the glass 
 
 Dark masses 'gan to fly ; 
 
 He waved it twice, and scudding clouds 
 
 Went swiftly hurrying by ; 
 
 He waved it thrice, and then closed in 
 
 The ocean of the sky. 
 
 And at each wave dark clouds rushed up 
 
 As from a fount below, 
 
 And joined the dense and deepening mass 
 
 That wavered to and fro, 
 
 As sways the ripe and yellow corn 
 
 When autumn breezes blow. 
 
 And still he waved, and still the mists 
 
 Rolled round the magic space ; 
 
 Hath his wand lost its power, that still 
 
 The cloud is in its place ? 
 
 The wizard started, and the blood 
 
 Shot o'er his time-worn face. 
 
 " Stranger, since first I waved my wand 
 Two hundred years have flown, 
 And yet from off the mirror's face 
 That shadow hath not gone. 
 Thou hast not trifled with mine art, 
 Or made " " Wave on ! wave on ! " 
 
 Oh ! startling was that stifled voice, 
 
 So pent beyond a sigh 
 
 It was the language of a soul 
 
 Parched up with agony ! 
 
 The wizard dared not question him, 
 
 And yet he knew not why. 
 
 And still he waved, until his arm 
 
 Grew weary, faint, and slack. 
 
 Ages returned from out their graves,
 
 THE WANDERING JEW. 
 
 As on a beaten track, 
 
 Till twice six hundred years had come 
 
 From dark oblivion back. 
 
 Then on that magic mirror's face 
 The masses lighter grew, 
 And i'aded dimly one by one, 
 As flies the morning dew, 
 Until the glorious sun shone out 
 Within a heaven of blue. 
 
 It shone upon a gorgeous scene 
 
 In fairy Eastern land: 
 
 To the horizon's utmost line 
 
 There stretched a sea of sand ; 
 
 No spot of green save one was there, 
 
 But waste on every hand. 
 
 But in the foreground was a spot 
 
 The desert's emerald gem 
 
 Where green grass sprung and flower-shrubs laced 
 
 The fresh acacia's stem ; 
 
 And o'er the whole the palm-tree threw 
 
 Its feathery diadem. 
 
 Beneath its roots a little brook 
 Gushed from its parent well, 
 To which a loaded camel stooped, 
 And rung its silver bell 
 Throughout the still and air-worn room 
 That sound was audible. 
 
 And 'neath the shade a damsel sat, 
 
 In alien garb and vest ; 
 
 And though they might not see the face 
 
 That leant upon her breast, 
 
 Yet, by her dark and glossy hair, 
 
 They well might guess the rest.
 
 THE WANDERING JEW. 55 
 
 The strange man gazed upon her form 
 
 Like one who drinks his fill 
 
 Of love and freedom, which have been 
 
 A long-forgotten rill, 
 
 When their whole draughts of ecstasy 
 
 Are opened to his will. 
 
 Then died his thousand woes and pains, 
 
 His thousand cares and fears, 
 
 And forth from out their fountains gushed 
 
 A flow of blessed tears, 
 
 That with their holy influence cleansed 
 
 The misery of years. 
 
 And every prayer and every hope 
 
 That buried long had lain, 
 
 Came thirstily from out their springs 
 
 To bless his heart again, 
 
 That paid them back with bud and bloom, 
 
 As sands thank summer rain. 
 
 He gazed until that female form 
 
 Eaised up her head and smiled ; 
 
 Then shook his spirit as a reed, 
 
 As, with an accent wild, 
 
 He staggered on, stretched out his arms, 
 
 And shrieked, " My child ! my child !" 
 
 These words dissolved the spell ; the scene 
 
 Died like a taper's light ; 
 
 For o'er it shot the clouds again 
 
 In curtains broad and white, 
 
 Then disappeared, and left the glass 
 
 All natural and bright. 
 
 Moveless and fixed the stranger stood, 
 
 Still as a marble stone ; 
 
 His eye had fallen into a trance,
 
 56 THE WANDERING JEW. 
 
 As if his heart had gone. 
 
 He turned him, as to pass away, 
 
 But word he uttered none. 
 
 The wizard stopped him with his hand, 
 
 " Man of the darksome brow, 
 
 Thy hair is like the raven's wing 
 
 That playeth with the snow 
 
 How could she be thy child who died 
 
 A thousand years ago ? 
 
 " There is, as holy legends tell, 
 But one who knows not death ; 
 He who reviled the Crucified 
 With most accursed breath, 
 And wounded with his soldier's spear 
 The Man of Nazareth. 
 
 " Oh, fearful thought ! the very grave 
 Is closed 'gainst his endeavour, 
 And tempered is his chain of life 
 Too hard for aught to sever. 
 He hath no hope, no happiness, 
 For ever and for ever. 
 
 " A second Cain ! he hath a mark, 
 That every one may know ; 
 There is a cross of livid fire 
 Imprinted on his brow. 
 But thou hast no such seal as that 
 Dark stranger, who art thou ?" 
 
 The stranger turned, he raised his hand, 
 
 And back the bandage drew 
 
 From off his brow : one glance, but one, 
 
 The startled wizard threw, 
 
 And the blood fell back upon his heart 
 
 It was the Wandering Jew.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CHOOSES THE PROFESSION OF THE LAW CALLED TO THE BAR, AND 
 HIS PROGRESS THERE FIRST CONTRIBUTIONS TO ' BLACKWOOD ' 
 THE BON GAULTIER PAPERS AND BALLADS " THE FLYING DUTCH- 
 MAN," A PROSE BURLESQUE" THE ELDER'S WARNING," A LAY OF 
 THE CONVOCATION NATIONAL AND JACOBITE SYMPATHIES THE 
 LAYS OF THE CAVALIERS VIEWS ON BALLAD POETRY DEATH OF 
 HIS FATHER HIS POLITICAL VIEWS AS A HUMORIST NEW 
 THEORY OF RIZZIO'S MURDER ART-CRITICISM "THE SPANISH 
 LEGION," A SKETCH "THE LAY OF THE LEGION" THE "CANNI- 
 BAL KILWINNING" JOINT-STOCK CEMETERIES "ST MARY'S 
 
 CHURCHYARD," A SKETCH " THE SCOTTISH CHRISTMAS" "THE 
 JULIET " " LYCAON," A BALLAD. 
 
 WHEN Aytoun returned home from Germany, he 
 found that he must bend to circumstances and make 
 the best of the profession of the Law, which alone was 
 open to him. He therefore resumed his place in the 
 chambers of his father's firm ; and having in due time 
 passed the necessary examinations, was admitted as 
 a Writer to the Signet in 1835. He continued until 
 1840 in the same chambers, where he acquired a fair 
 knowledge of the principles and practice of Scotch 
 law, and an experience of general business, which were 
 afterwards of great value to him. To this training, 
 indeed, was unquestionably due the very considerable
 
 58 CALLED TO THE BAR. 
 
 power he possessed of mastering the details of any 
 intricate question, and of bringing a practical judgment 
 to bear upon them. But his father's business had 
 declined, and not seeing any prospect of improvement, 
 Aytoun resolved to try his fortune at the Bar, to which 
 he was called in 1840 : 
 
 I was called to the bar [says Norman Sinclair and here Aytoun 
 is again describing himself ] and entered upon my profession with 
 the same zeal, promptitude, and success as are exhibited by, and 
 attend three-fourths of, the unhappy young gentlemen who select 
 that school of jurisprudence. I appeared punctually in the Par- 
 liament House at nine, cravated, wigged, and gowned to a nicety ; 
 took my prescribed exercise of at least ten miles per diem on the 
 boards ; talked scandal with my brethren (when we could get it), 
 and invented execrable jokes ; lounged at stove and library ; wrote 
 lampoons against the seniors ; and, in short, went through the 
 whole curriculum expected from a rising votary of Themis. I 
 followed the law diligently ; but, somehow or other, I never could 
 overtake it. 
 
 The truth is, he never conquered his dislike to the 
 profession; nor do I think he ever applied himself in 
 earnest to rise to distinction in it. Had he done so, so 
 great were his powers of application where he felt an 
 interest, that he must have succeeded. But the feeling 
 of distrust in his own fitness for the exact and painful 
 labours of the lawyer, which he had expressed when 
 writing to his father from Aschaffenburg in 1834 per- 
 haps, too, a consciousness of want of nerve for the 
 coarser warfare of the bar * weighed year by year more 
 
 * " I had not in me enough of the bully to bluster my way at the 
 bar, which is the secret of early, if not of enduring, success. " NOR- 
 MAN SINCLAIR.
 
 HIS PROGRESS THERE. 69 
 
 heavily upon him. He did not resolutely strive to 
 make head against these, and therefore he was doomed 
 to see himself outstripped in the struggle for business 
 and professional honours by men greatly inferior to 
 himself in natural gifts. 
 
 His well-known love of literary pursuits a danger- 
 ous reputation for a young barrister, and more danger- 
 ous then even than now did him no good with the 
 solicitors. He was a favourite upon the Western Cir- 
 cuit, where he took a good deal of the criminal business. 
 His skill in picking flaws in an indictment, in cross- 
 examining witnesses, and conciliating juries, procured 
 him many briefs. But whatever distinction this kind 
 of work may have brought him in Glasgow and else- 
 where, it was not followed by a rush of solicitors to 
 his chambers with business of a more profitable kind. 
 It was not without strong personal sympathy, there- 
 fore, that he alludes, in many of his papers, to " the 
 briefless army of the stove," that brigade of stout- 
 hearted clever fellows who, year after year, have to 
 hope on against hope for the day which comes to few, 
 when their tables will groan under a weight of briefs, 
 and their voices be heard with respect in the chambers 
 of the Inner House. Aytoun, however, was not strictly 
 one of the briefless. He had a moderate share of work, 
 and did it, as I have reason to know, carefully and well. 
 Still he did not make that progress at the bar which 
 was necessary to assure him of an income. He could 
 neither afford to wait through long years of disappoint- 
 ment, nor was he of the disposition to do so. Literature
 
 60 FIRST CONTRIBUTIONS TO BLACKWOOD. 
 
 was dearer to him than law; and while still showing 
 himself punctually in the Parliament House, and ready 
 to take whatever work offered, he continued to write 
 copiously both in prose and verse. 
 
 In March and May 1836 Aytoun published in * Black- 
 wood ' translations of several of Uhland's finest poems, 
 which were very generally admired. His next contri- 
 bution appeared in May 1839. It was a very spirited 
 translation of the twenty-second book of the ' Iliad/ 
 in English trochaics a measure of which Mr Glad- 
 stone has shown his approval by adopting it. In a 
 letter from that gentleman to Aytoun, dated 16th Jan- 
 uary 1862, after expressing his admiration of this frag- 
 ment, he writes : 
 
 I cannot but hope you will resume and extend your labours. 
 It would be much too bold to say that you have projected a satis- 
 factory measure for rendering Homer ; yet it seems to me well 
 worth consideration whether the measure which (so far as I know) 
 you are entitled to call yours, is not more satisfactory than any 
 other. I mentioned to you how the short specimen of it [quoted 
 in the ' Times '] took hold of me. Indeed, it set me to work ; 
 and at odds and ends of time I have since executed some odds and 
 ends of translation none of them, however, in your manor, the 
 twenty-second book, most of them in the first book with which 
 I have made a progress that I may call involuntary, as it runs, I 
 find, in the head, whether one will or no. 
 
 Aytoun does not appear to have gone further with 
 his translation ; the field is therefore clear for Mr 
 Gladstone to complete his version at those odds and 
 ends of time which only busy men know how to turn 
 to account. 
 
 In November 1839 Aytoun's beautiful poem "Her-
 
 THE BON GAULTIEK PAPERS. 61 
 
 motinms " appeared in ' Blackwood.' It is written in 
 the measure of Goethe's " Bride of Corinth " a measure 
 so difficult that not even its extreme beauty seems to 
 have inspired any other writer to adopt it. 
 
 In 1840 " The Life and Times of Eichard the First " 
 a careful and agreeably written compilation by Aytoun 
 from the best authorities appeared in the series of 
 ' The Family Library.' In May of the same year he 
 published in ' Blackwood ' a few charming translations 
 from the Eomaic, of some of which he thought so 
 well as to reprint them along with his ' Lays of the 
 Cavaliers.' His next published poem which he thought 
 worthy of preservation was " Blind Old Milton," which 
 appeared in ' Blackwood ' for December 1841. 
 
 It was at this time that I made Aytoun's acquaint- 
 ance, through the introduction of Edward Forbes, the 
 great naturalist, then a leading spirit among the students 
 of the Edinburgh University, beloved and honoured by 
 all who came within the sphere of his influence. Our 
 acquaintance soon ripened into intimacy ; an intimacy 
 cemented by a community of tastes and pursuits, and 
 only interrupted by my removal from Edinburgh in 
 1846. Some papers of a humorous kind, which I had 
 published under the nom deplume of Bon Gaultier,* had 
 hit Aytoun's fancy ; and when I proposed to go on with 
 
 * The readers of Rabelais will know where the name "Bon Gaul- 
 tier " comes from ; but as Eabelais is less read than talked of, it may 
 not be amiss to quote the passage : "A moy n'est que honueur et 
 gloire d'estre diet et repute" Bon Gaultier et bon compaignon ; en ce 
 nom, suis bien venu en toutes bonnes compaignies de Pantagruel- 
 istes." Prologue, livre premier.
 
 62 THE BON GAULTIER BALLADS. 
 
 others in a similar vein, he fell readily into the plan, 
 and agreed to assist in it. In this way a kind of Beau- 
 mont-and-Fletcher partnership commenced in a series 
 of humorous papers, which appeared in Tait's and 
 Eraser's Magazines during the years 1842, 1843, and 
 1844. In these papers, in which we ran a-tilt, with 
 all the recklessness of youthful spirits, against such of 
 the tastes or follies of the day as presented an opening 
 for ridicule or mirth, at the same time that we did not 
 altogether lose sight of a purpose higher than mere 
 amusement, appeared the verses, with a few exceptions, 
 which subsequently became popular, to a degree we 
 then little contemplated, as the ' Bon Gaultier Ballads.' 
 Some of the best of these were exclusively Aytoun's, 
 such as "The Massacre of The MTherson," "The 
 Rhyme of Sir Lancelot Bogle," " The Broken Pitcher," 
 " The Bed Friar and Little John," " The Lay of Mr Colt," 
 and that best of all imitations of the Scottish ballad, 
 " The Queen in France." Some were wholly mine, 
 and the rest were produced by us jointly. Fortunately 
 for our purpose, there were then living not a few poets 
 whose style and manner of thought were sufficiently 
 marked to make imitation easy, and sufficiently 
 popular for a parody of their characteristics to be 
 readily recognised. Macaulay's 'Lays of Borne' and 
 his two other fine ballads were still in the fresh- 
 ness of their fame. Lockhart's ' Spanish Ballads ' were 
 as familiar in the drawing-room as in the study. 
 Tennyson and Mrs Browning were opening up new 
 veins of poetry. These, with Wordsworth, Moore,
 
 PARODY A VEILED COMPLIMENT. 63 
 
 Uhland, and others of minor note, lay ready to our 
 hands, as Scott, Byron, Crabbe, Coleridge, Words- 
 worth, and Southey had done to James and Horace 
 Smith in 1812, when writing the ' Eejected Ad- 
 dresses.' Never, probably, were verses thrown off with 
 a keener sense of enjoyment. In writing them we 
 had no thought of the public ; and it was a pleasant 
 surprise to us when we found how rapidly they became 
 popular, not only in England, but also in America, 
 which had come in for no small share of severe though 
 well-meant ridicule. It was precisely the poets whom 
 we most admired that we imitated the most frequently. 
 This was not certainly from any want of reverence, 
 but rather out of the fulness of our admiration, just as 
 the excess of a lover's fondness often runs over into 
 raillery of the very qualities that are dearest to his 
 heart. " Let no one," says Heine, " ridicule mankind 
 unless he loves them." With no less truth may it be 
 said, Let no one parody a poet unless he loves him. 
 He must first be penetrated by his spirit, and have 
 steeped his ear in the music of his verse, before he can 
 reflect these under a humorous aspect with success. 
 
 The brothers Smith, in the preface to the 1833 edi- 
 tion (the thirtieth) of the ' Eejected Addresses,' express 
 surprise at the fact that none of those whom they " had 
 parodied or burlesqued ever betrayed the least sore- 
 ness on the occasion, or refused to join in the laugh 
 that they had occasioned." Rather might they have 
 felt surprise had it been otherwise. Such parodies as 
 theirs are in effect a compliment. It is only a strongly
 
 64 BURLESQUES IN PROSE. 
 
 marked and original style both of sentiment and ex- 
 pression, and one, moreover, that has taken a thorough 
 hold of people's minds, which can be parodied with 
 success. When Aytoun had himself caught the ear of 
 the public by the stirring music of his " Burial-March 
 of Dundee," and the swinging measure of his " Charles 
 Edward at Versailles," he thought it no unfriendly act 
 on my part when I published some verses which now 
 appear in the 'Book of Ballads' as " The Dirge of the 
 Drinker," and which seem to have hit off his manner 
 so closely that even a critic so acute as Mr Hannay 
 professes to see that " Aytoun's hand is very visible " 
 in them.* So much for conjecture in matters of this 
 description. 
 
 Our co-operation was not confined to verse. We 
 had many a pleasant day's sport over the hunting- 
 grounds of prose as well, sending our shafts of sarcasm 
 or jest right and left at whatever quarry came within 
 our reach. Of our joint papers, a series of prize novel- 
 ists, prior in date to those of Thackeray, acquired con- 
 siderable popularity. One of these, " The Modern 
 Endymiou," by Aytoun, will be found in the appendix 
 
 * See his paper on "Recent English Humorists" in the 'North 
 British Review ' for August 1866. From a habit of working together, 
 we naturally caught each something of the other's manner. How far 
 this went, may be seen from the following passage in a letter of 
 Aytoun's to myself, when revising our translations of ' The Poems 
 and Ballads of Goethe' for the press in 1858 : " On going over the 
 poems, I was very much struck by the occasional resemblance of our 
 styles. There is one of yours, "To My Mistress," which I could 
 almost have sworn to as mine from the peculiarity of the cadence, if 
 I did not know it to be yours."
 
 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN. 65 
 
 to this volume. It is an imitation of Mr Disraeli's 
 earlier manner, and is worth preserving as a specimen 
 of broad rattling humour, full of the quaint turns of 
 thought and expression which distinguished Aytoun's 
 ordinary talk. The following very happy burlesque 
 of the nautical tales which used in the days of the 
 Annuals to be inflicted on the public by the imitators 
 of Feniniore Cooper and Captain Marryat belongs to 
 the same period, 1842 : 
 
 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN. 
 
 A TALE OF THE SEA. 
 
 We were in the midst of the storm-tossed Atlantic. A heavy 
 simoom, blowing N.E. by S., brought in the huge tropical billows 
 mast-high from the Gulf of Labrador, and awoke old ocean, roar- 
 ing in its fury, from its unfathomable depths. No moon was 
 visible among the hurricane rack of the sky even the pole-star, 
 sole magnet of the mariner's path, was buried in the murky ob- 
 scurity of the tempest ; nor was it possible to see which way the 
 ship was steering, except by the long track of livid flames which 
 followed in the wake of the bow, or when, at times, some huge 
 leviathan leapt up from the water beside us, and, descending with 
 the vehemence of a rock hurled from heaven, drove up a shower 
 of aquatic splinters, like a burst of liquid lava from the sea. All 
 the sails which usually decorated the majestic masts of H.M.S. 
 Syncope (a real seventy-nine of the old Trafalgar build, teak- 
 built and copper-fastened) were reefed tightly up, with the ex- 
 ception of the mainsail, the spritsail, the mizzen-boom sail, and 
 a few others of minor consequence. Everything was cleared away 
 halyards, hencoop, and binnacle had been taken down below, 
 to prevent accidents ; and the whole of the crew, along with the 
 marines and boarders, piped to their hammocks. No one re- 
 mained upon deck except the steersman, as usual lashed to the 
 helm ; Josh Junk, the first bos'un ; and the author of this nar- 
 
 E
 
 66 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN. 
 
 rative, who was then a midshipman on board the vessel, com- 
 manded by his uncle, Commodore Sir Peregrine Pendant. 
 
 " Skewer my timbers ! " exclaimed Mr Junk, staggering from 
 one side of the deck to the other as an enormous wave struck us 
 on the leeside, and very nearly unshipped the capstan " Skewer 
 my timbers, if this a'n't enough to put an admiral's pipe out ! 
 Why, Master Tom, d'ye see, it's growing altogether more and more 
 darkerer ; and if it a'n't clearer by twelve bells, we'll be obligated 
 to drop anchor, which a'n't by no means so pleasant, with a heavy 
 swell like this, running at nineteen knots an hour in the middle 
 of the wide Atlantic. How's her head, boy ?" 
 
 " North by south it is, sir," replied the steersman. 
 
 " Keep her seven points more to the west, you lubber ! Always 
 get an offing when there's a wet sheet and a flowing sea. That's 
 right, Jem ! Hold her hard abaft, and she'll go slick before the 
 wind, like a hot knife through a pound of butter. Halloo, 
 Master Tom, are you holding on by the seat-railings already you 
 a'n't sick, are you ? Shall I tell the steward to fetch a basin ? " 
 
 " No, no, Josh," I replied, " 'tis nothing merely a temporary 
 qualm. But tell me do you really apprehend any danger ? If 
 so, would it not be prudent to call up the commodore, and hang 
 out the dead-lights ? " 
 
 " Why, Master Tom," replied the bos'un, turning his quid, 
 " them ere's kevestions as I can't answer. 'Cos, first there's no 
 knowing what danger is till it comes ; secondly, it's as much as 
 my place is worth to disturb old Fire-and-Faggots axing your 
 pardon for the liberty afore he's finished his grog with the 
 mates below ; and, thirdly, it's no use hanging out the dead-lights, 
 'cos we're entirely out of oil." 
 
 " Gracious heavens ! " cried I, " and suppose any other ship 
 should be in the same latitude ? " 
 
 " Then," said the bos'un, with all imaginable coolness, " I 
 reckon it would be a case of bump. Oak varsus teak, as the 
 law-wers say, and Davy Jones take the weakest. But hitch my 
 trousers ! what's that ? " 
 
 As the non-commissioned officer spoke, a bright flash was seen 
 to the seaward immediately ahead of our vessel. It was too 
 bright, too intense to proceed from any meteoric phenomena,
 
 THE FLYING DUTCHMAN. 67 
 
 such as sometimes are witnessed in those tropical climates, and 
 the sullen report which immediately followed, indicated too 
 clearly that it proceeded from some vessel in the vicinity. 
 
 " A first-rater, by jingo ! " said Mr Junk, " and in distress. 
 Hold my telescope, Master Tom, till I go below and turn out the 
 watch," but that instant his course was arrested. 
 
 Scarce a second had elapsed after the sound of the discharge 
 reverberated through our rigging, when, only a hawser's distance 
 from our bowsprit, a phosphoric light seemed to rise from the 
 bosom of the shadowy deep. It hung upon the hull, the bin- 
 nacle, the masts, the yards of a prodigious ship, pierced appa- 
 rently for three tier of guns, which, with every sail set, bore 
 down direct upon us. One moment more and collision was in- 
 evitable ; but Junk, with prodigious presence of mind, sprang to 
 the helm, snatched the wheel from the hands of the petrified 
 steersman, and luffed with almost supernatural force. Like a 
 well-trained courser who obeys the rein, our noble ship instantly 
 yielded to the impulse, and bore up a-lee, whilst the stranger 
 came hissing up, and shot past us so close that I could distinctly 
 mark each lineament of the pale countenances of the crew as they 
 stood clustered upon the rigging, and even read so powerful 
 was that strange, mysterious light the words painted within her 
 sides, "THOSE WHO GO ABAFT THE BINNACLE PAY CABIN 
 FARE ! " On, on she drove a lambent coruscation, cleaving the 
 black billows of the Atlantic main, about to vanish amidst the 
 deep darkness of the night. 
 
 " That was a near shave, anyhow," said Mr Junk, relinquishing 
 the wheel, " but we must know something more of that saucy 
 clipper," and catching up a speaking-trumpet, he hailed, 
 
 " Ship ahoy ! " 
 
 " Ship yourself ! " was the response. 
 
 " What's your name ? " 
 
 " What's yours ! " 
 
 " Syncope Britannic Majesty's seventy-nine for Trinidad." 
 
 " Yung Fraw merchant-ship, for Rotterdam." 
 
 "What cargo?" 
 
 " Soap ! " was the reply. " How are YOU off for it ? Ha ! ha ! " 
 
 A peal of diabolic laughter rolled across the deep, mingled
 
 68 THE FKEE CHUKCH CONTROVERSY. 
 
 with the rushing of the waves and the whistling of the winds. 
 Another flash another report and the meteor light sunk as 
 noiselessly as it had arisen into the bosom of the watery surge. 
 At that moment the moon burst out from behind a cloud, clear 
 and queenlike, illuminating the ocean for miles. We rushed to 
 the stern and looked back. In vain ! no vestige of a ship was 
 there we were alone upon the warring waters ! 
 
 " By the Lord Harry ! " said the bos'un, dropping the trumpet 
 " as sure as my name's Josh Junk, that 'ere was the FLYING 
 DUTCHMAN ! " 
 
 That night we were SWAMPED AT SEA ! 
 
 Among the many fugitive pieces written by Aytoun 
 at this period is one of peculiar excellence, which 
 sprang out of the vehement controversies that preceded 
 the Disruption in 1843 of the Scottish National Church. 
 Although himself a member of the Episcopal commun- 
 ion, this was a subject on which he felt strongly, and 
 which had occupied much of his attention. In 1840 
 he had published a pamphlet upon it, under the name 
 ' Our Zion, or Presbyterian Popery, by Ane of that 
 Ilk/ in which he predicted, in language of deep feeling, 
 the disastrous results which were then becoming immi- 
 nent from the strife of parties in the Church. Amid 
 the prevailing roar of controversy this pamphlet attract- 
 ed but little attention. Not so the following ballad, 
 which became at once so popular in Edinburgh, that 
 it was extensively printed as a broadside, and " sung 
 about the streets to filthy tunes." This was a kind of 
 popularity to which Aytoun was no stranger. Many 
 an election squib and ballad of his had before this 
 found favour with " those unshaven and raucous gen- 
 tlemen to whose canorous mercies," as he himself says
 
 BALLAD ON IT. 69 
 
 (article on "Ancient and Modern Ballad Poetry/' ' Black- 
 wood/ May 1847), " we are wont, in times of political 
 excitement, to intrust our own personal and patriotic 
 ditties." But this ballad struck a deeper note, and 
 appealed to a wider sentiment ; and I remember well 
 Aytoun's delight when he first heard it sung to an 
 admiring crowd upon the streets. " Seldom," he writes 
 in the article just cited, " have we experienced a keener 
 sense of our true greatness as a poet than when we 
 encountered, on one occasion, a peripatetic minstrel 
 deafening the Canongate with the notes of our particu- 
 lar music, and surrounded by an eager crowd demand- 
 ing the halfpenny broadsheet. 'This is fame!' we 
 exclaimed to a legal friend who was beside us; and 
 with a glow of triumph on our countenance, we 
 descended the North Bridge to indite another of the 
 same." 
 
 THE ELDER'S WARNING. 
 
 A LAY OF THE CONVOCATION. 
 
 " Noo, John Makgill, my elder, come listen to my word, 
 
 It's time to leave the harrows, it's time to draw the sword; 
 
 The sheep may wander on the hill, the stots rout in the byre 
 
 But another path is ours, John, through danger and through fire. 
 
 The cloud o' tribulation that we hae lang foreseen 
 
 Has gathered ower the land, John, like mists that rise at e'en ; 
 
 The palings o' oor vineyard are gey near broken doun, 
 
 An' the bits o' vines are trampled by greedy laird and loun. 
 
 The auld Erastian lords have put their feet upon oor necks, 
 
 And oor chalders they have dwindled to little mair than pecks; 
 
 Thae weary interlocutors come pelting every day, 
 
 And the bills and the expenses are mair than we can pay.
 
 70 THE ELDER'S WARNING. 
 
 But what is waur nor a', John, while thus distressed we stand, 
 Black Prelacy is crawling like pushion through the land 
 The scarlet woman will be here to sit within oor ha', 
 For when ye see a Bishop, John, the Paip's no far awa'. 
 They'll soon be here to tithe ye they'll tithe both stot and stirk; 
 O ! waes me for the Covenant, and waes me for the Kirk ! 
 They're ettling for the manses, John they're ettling fast and 
 
 fain ; 
 
 And they'll be bringing Tarn Dalyell and Claverse back again. 
 But we'll meet them on the ground, John, whaur we met them 
 
 ance afore, 
 
 And pay thae weary Moderates a black and bitter score. 
 Sae lang's we're a' united, it winna do to bow 
 To the cankered Lords o' Session, and their wigs o' plastered tow. 
 We'll gather on the hills, John we'll gather far and near 
 And Candlish he will lead the van, and Cunningham the rear ; 
 We'll think o' Bothwell Brig, John, and the Raid o' Bullion 
 
 Green ; 
 
 We'll show them that we lo'e the Kirk far better nor the Queen. 
 Our Zion is in danger, sae tak' your auld claymore ; 
 And tak' ye down the rauchan that hangs ahint the door, 
 And put your braid blue bannet on, an' we'll daunder up the 
 
 glen, 
 And meet the bauld Conventicle, as our fathers did, ye ken." 
 
 Auld John Makgill he listened, and whiles he wat his thumb, 
 And whiles took up the cuttie-pipe that lay beside the lum, 
 And whiles he keekit in the pat that held the simmering kail ; 
 But ne'er a bit he lifted his rauchan frae the nail. 
 
 " Nae doot, nae doot ! an awfu' case ! the times are unco hard, 
 And sae your thinking, minister, to leave your ain kail-yard, 
 And the bonny manse and stipend, that was worth twa hundred 
 
 pund 
 
 And the Netherhaugh glebe-acres its grand potato-grund ! 
 An awfu' dispensation ! I canna say ye're wrang, 
 For gin ye think ye shu'dna stop ; ye're very right to gang. 
 And sae the Lords have beat the Kirk ? that's waefu' news to tell; 
 Ye'se hae my blessing, minister, but I canna gae mysel'.
 
 NATIONAL AND JACOBITE SYMPATHIES. 71 
 
 My auld claymore's just useless, it's rusted fu' o' holes 
 Indeed, the bairns have broke it wi' hacking at the coals. 
 The rheumatiz is in my back I canna tell how sair 
 An' I got my death wi' driving the beasts to Hallow Fair. 
 I'm no the body that I was ye ken I'm getting auld; 
 And as for lying out o' doors, the nights are dismal cauld ! 
 Ye'll need a gude thick greatcoat 'gin ye're ganging up to sleep 
 In the bare and broken heather, 'mang the moorcocks and the 
 
 Ye'll find it's warmer lying, gif ye lie down heads and thraws, 
 
 Wi' the ither noble gentlemen that winna thole the laws. 
 
 I'm verra laith to lose ye, and so is Jenny here 
 
 There's no a better liket man in ony parish near ; 
 
 But gin the case is pressing, I wadna dare to say, 
 
 Ye'd better take a thought on't, and bide anither day. 
 
 'Twill be an unco comfort, when the nights are cauld and mirk, 
 
 To think that ye are chosen to suffer for the Kirk. 
 
 For me it's clean impossible ye ken I'm auld and frail ; 
 
 But surely, sir, afore ye gang, ye'll stop and taste our kail." 
 
 Now, glad should be our minister that he called at John Mak- 
 
 gill's, 
 For cozily he kept the manse, and never took the hills. 
 
 While Aytoun's mirthful mood was disporting itself 
 on these trifles, he was not forgetful of graver studies 
 and higher aims. He read hard and wrote much, 
 trying to find out in what direction his powers truly 
 lay. Humour and poetical enthusiasm were mixed in 
 him in nearly equal proportions. The life around him 
 supplied abundant scope for the former ; for the latter 
 he found congenial themes in the past history of his 
 own country. There he was hampered by no common- 
 place associations to chill his fervour, or to shake his
 
 72 INTENSITY OF THESE. 
 
 faith in his own emotions. He was not pursued by 
 the spirit of whim into the region of 
 
 " The old far-off unhappy times, 
 And battles long ago." 
 
 In that he could give full play to the Jacobite senti- 
 ment in which he had grown up, and revel in the 
 passionate patriotism which made Scotland more 
 beautiful in his eyes, and more full of poetical sug- 
 gestions, than the scenery or story of any other land. 
 Aytoun was a Scot to the core, and with his love for 
 his country was inextricably interwoven an earnest 
 devotion to the Stuart dynasty, and admiration of the 
 gallant men who stood by them in their troubles and 
 fallen fortunes. 
 
 It has been said of him * that "his serious poetry 
 was mere cleverness exercised on the traditionary 
 material of his political school. His White Eose was 
 not waxen we do not say that ; but we do say that it 
 had a very faint smell ; that though his Jacobite ro- 
 manticism was real so far as it went, it did not go very 
 far." No man who knew Aytoun intimately could have 
 written this. His attachment to the Stuarts was as 
 genuine a passion as ever stirred the heart of a Cava- 
 lier. Of course it was a thing of his imagination : all 
 devotion is so more or less. But for him it was so 
 real that it coloured his views of the history of that 
 dynasty and its followers to a degree which surprised 
 those who knew how critical was his observation 
 
 Article on "Recent English Humorists" 'North British Re- 
 view,' August 1866.
 
 THE LAYS OF THE CAVALIEKS. 73 
 
 and how practical his judgment in all other matters. 
 Touch this theme at any time, even when his flow of 
 mirthful spirits was at its fullest, and his tremulous 
 voice and quivering lip told how deeply seated were 
 his feelings in all that related to it. On any other 
 point he would bear to be rallied, but not upon this. 
 His historical faith was to him only less sacred than 
 his religious creed. It was a part of his very self, im- 
 bibed, doubtless, at his mother's knee, in the tales 
 with which she charmed his childish ears, and riveted 
 to his heart by the songs and ballads on which his 
 youthful passion for romance and chivalry had been 
 fed. The men and women of that race were substan- 
 tial realities, around which not "merely his pastime and 
 his happiness had grown," but to whom the worship of 
 his imagination and the devotion of his loyalty had 
 been given. He believed in them, lived with them, 
 and could no more brook a slight or wrong to their 
 names, than to the honour of a living friend. What 
 he wrote about them was written, therefore, with the 
 force of an almost personal devotion. His too-domi- 
 nant sense of the ridiculous may have spoiled his 
 hand, as I have sometimes thought it did, for serious 
 verse ; but it was wholly overborne by the intensity of 
 his feeling where one of the race of Stuart, or where 
 their great followers Montrose or Dundee, were con- 
 cerned. Therefore it was that he selected the subjects 
 of his ' Lays of the Cavaliers,' not as being " the tradi- 
 tionary material of his political school," to be written 
 about with a factitious enthusiasm, but because he felt
 
 74 HIS VIEWS ON BALLAD POETKY. 
 
 on no other subjects so strongly, and knew that they 
 would certainly bring out whatever of the poet was in 
 him. 
 
 No man knew better than Aytoun that nothing de- 
 serves the name of poetry of ballad poetry especially 
 except what is written, not for the sake of writing, but 
 because some strong feeling or absorbing idea insists 
 on finding this form of expression. Speaking of the 
 ballad, he says : * "It is the simplest, and at the same 
 time the sublimest, form of poetry; nor can it be writ- 
 ten except under the influence of that strong and 
 absorbing emotion which bears the poet away far from 
 the present time, makes him an actor and participator 
 in the vivid scenes which he describes, and which is, 
 in fact, inspiration of the very loftiest kind. The few 
 who enjoy the glorious privilege, not often felt, nor 
 long conferred, of surrendering themselves to the magic 
 of that spell, cease for the time to be artists ; they 
 take no thought of ornament, or of any rhetorical arti- 
 fice, but throw themselves headlong into their subject, 
 trusting to nature for that language which is at once 
 the shortest and the most appropriate to the occasion, 
 spurning all far-fetched metaphors, and ringing out 
 their verse as the iron rings upon the anvil." 
 
 It may be questioned whether in his mood of inspi- 
 ration the poet ceases for the time to be an artist, or 
 whether he is not just then supremely the artist obey- 
 ing his inspiration, but unconsciously interfusing in its 
 
 * Article on "Ancient and Modern Ballad Poetry" 'Blackwood's 
 Magazine,' May 1847.
 
 HIS VIEWS ON BALLAD POETRY. 75 
 
 expression all the technical skill of which previous 
 study and experience have made him master. But 
 the general proposition here laid down by Aytoun is 
 unquestionably true. He spoke from recent experi- 
 ence, for he had just before produced all his best bal- 
 lads ; and in the following passage from the same 
 article, it is very clear that he is simply stating the 
 principle on which he had himself worked : 
 
 Unless the poet is imbued with a deep sympathy for his sub- 
 ject, we would not give sixpence for his chance of producing a 
 tolerable ballad. Nay, we go further, and aver that he ought, 
 when possible, to write in the unscrupulous character of a partisan. 
 In historical and martial ballads there always must be two sides ; 
 and it is the business of the poet to adopt one of these with as 
 much enthusiasm and prejudice as if his life and fortunes de- 
 pended upon the issue of the cause. For the ballad is the reflex 
 of keen and rapid sensation, and has nothing to do with judg- 
 ment, or with calm deliberative justice. It should embody, from 
 beginning to end, one fiery absorbing passion, such as men feel 
 when their blood is up and their souls thoroughly roused within 
 them ; and we should as soon think of moralising in a ballad as 
 in the midst of a charge of cavalry. If you are a Cavalier, write 
 with the zeal of a Cavalier combating for his king at Naseby, and 
 do not disgust us with melancholy whinings about the desolate 
 hearths of the Ironsides. Forget for a time that you are a share- 
 holder in a Life Assurance Company, and cleave to your im- 
 mediate business of emptying as many saddles as possible. If 
 you are out as perhaps your great-grandfather was with Prince 
 Charles at Prestonpans, do not, we beseech you, desert the 
 charging column of the Camerons, to cry the coronach over poor 
 old Colonel Gardiner, fetched down from his horse by the Loch- 
 aber axe of the grim Miller of Invernahyle. Let him have the 
 honourable burial of a brave man when the battle is over ; but 
 whilst the shouts of victory are ringing in our ears, and the 
 tail of Cope's horse is still visible over the knowe which rises
 
 76 THE BUKIAL-MAECH OF DUNDEE. 
 
 upon the Berwick road leave the excellent Seceder upon the 
 sod, and toss up your bonnet decorated with the White Rose, to the 
 glory and triumph of the clans ! If you are a Covenanter and a 
 Whig, we need not entreat you to pepper Claverhouse and his 
 guardsmen to the best of your ability at Drumclog. You are 
 not likely to waste much of your time in lamentations over the 
 slaughtered Archbishop : and if you must needs try your hand 
 at the execution of Argyle, do not mince the matter, but make a 
 regular martyr of him at once. In this way should all ballads be 
 written ; and such, indeed, is the true secret of the craft as trans- 
 mitted to us by the masters of old. 
 
 " The Burial-March of Dundee," the first of Aytoun's 
 ballads, appeared in ' Blackwood's Magazine ' for April 
 1843. It is generally thought that in this and other 
 poems of the same series his prototype was Macaulay. 
 This, however, was not the case. If Aytoun was in- 
 fluenced at all by any other writer at the outset of his 
 labours in this direction, it was by Wilhelm Miiller, a 
 German poet, who is too little known. His "Neu- 
 Griechische Lieder " produced, I remember, a deep im- 
 pression upon Aytoun ; and the finest, perhaps, of them 
 all, the " Marco Bozzaris," which had long haunted his 
 imagination, determined the measure in which the 
 dirge of his own favourite hero was to be sung. But 
 while the music of Aytoun's poem was in the same 
 rhythm as Miiller's, there the resemblance ceased. It 
 had a wild and wailing character distinctively its own, 
 and in all its details was as thoroughly original. In 
 this noble requiem Aytoun's genius had at last found 
 its true expression. If he had any doubt of this, it was 
 removed by the great and immediate popularity of the
 
 HIS POLITICAL VIEWS. 77 
 
 poem, which gave him confidence to follow up the vein 
 of wealth into which he had so happily struck. 
 
 It was about this time that Aytotin sustained his 
 first great loss in the death of his father, who died in 
 March 1843; and this poem and his " Charles Edward 
 at Versailles" were written under deep personal 
 emotion. He was now thrown entirely upon his own 
 resources, and with a view to his future professional 
 career it became necessary to take up a decided line 
 in politics. For many years his opinions had been 
 strongly Conservative ; indeed they had all along been 
 so, except during that short fever-fit of Eadicalism 
 which, it would almost seem, all young men of any force 
 of character must at some time pass through. Aytoun 
 recovered early ; but from regard to his father's feelings, 
 he had hitherto abstained from any public declaration of 
 his opinions. In former years he had, owing to special 
 circumstances, become familiar with the tactics of the 
 Whig party, and he knew well that he must be prepared 
 to encounter much obloquy from them when he should 
 openly avow his allegiance to their opponents. That 
 party was then in the ascendant, and to declare for the 
 other side was virtually to forego for many a day all 
 prospect of any of those professional appointments by 
 which the zeal of legal partisans is rewarded, and 
 which, in the then state of Aytoun's means, would 
 have been far from unwelcome. But he had given 
 much thought to politics. His convictions on the Con- 
 servative side had been deliberately formed, and he 
 meant to enter the lists as a political writer. Painful,
 
 78 AS A COMPANION. 
 
 therefore, as it was to him to encounter imputations, 
 however unjust, of deserting his father's party, which 
 was assumed to have been his own, he at once took 
 care to make it clear on which side he should for the 
 future be found. Of course he was sneered at and 
 denounced, down to and even after his death, by those 
 local patriots who would have rejoiced to have had him 
 on their side. But such railings gave him but little 
 concern; and from this time to his death, his voice and 
 pen were vigorously employed on the side of the Con- 
 servatives. 
 
 A more delightful companion than Aytoun was at 
 this period, it would be difficult to imagine. Full of 
 health and vigour, and with a flow of spirits which 
 seemed inexhaustible, his society acted like a tonic on 
 men of a more sensitive temperament and a constitu- 
 tion less robust. Whatever was the topic in hand, 
 he was sure to look at it with peculiar freshness and 
 originality. With a quaint phrase, an unexpected 
 epithet, or apt illustration, he would give a novel aspect 
 to matters the most familiar. Out of men or things 
 the most commonplace he would extract materials for 
 pleasantry and " heart-easing mirth ; " and whether his 
 imagination was running riot in a series of grotesque 
 images, or his judgment insinuating its conclusions in 
 a quiet stroke of irony, he was equally happy. His 
 wide reading and ready memory enriched his talk with 
 endless allusions, apt, yet unexpected, which quickened 
 the fancy of those with whom he talked, while his own 
 vivid imagination warmed the stream of his conversa-
 
 AS A HUMOEIST. 79 
 
 tion with a kind of poetical underglow. He was not 
 a sayer of witty things, which/like the epigrams that 
 dropped by the dozen from the mouth of Jerrold, could 
 be written down for future generations to enjoy. Now 
 and then, of course, things of this kind flashed from 
 him ; but in sharpness of repartee, or pungency of wit, 
 he was surpassed by many of his compeers. He was of 
 too kindly and sympathetic a nature, perhaps, to shine 
 as a wit ; not only was his friend dearer to him than 
 his jest, but he had that fine instinct of pain which 
 suspends many a flash of humour or wit that might 
 dazzle many but must wound one.* But there was a 
 charin of humour about his talk which it would be 
 hard to define. It was compounded mainly of pleasant 
 exaggeration, playful allusion, unlooked-for turns of 
 phrase, and strong mother-wit. It was always essenti- 
 ally the humour of a gentleman, without cynicism and 
 without irreverence. Irresistible while you were under 
 its influence, it rose so entirely out of the occasion, and 
 was so coloured by the mood of the moment it was so 
 much, in short, a part of the man that it would be as 
 
 * I know of only one instance of his saying a thing which could 
 not fail to give, and which, I fear, did give, lasting pain. It was to 
 Thackeray, after hearing one of his "Lectures on the Georges." 
 "Stick to your Jeames's, Thackeray! They are more in your line 
 than the Georges." But then Thackeray had laid an unreverential 
 hand on one of Aytoun's idols, Mary Stuart, and questioned, in one 
 of these very lectures, her title to the enthusiastic worship of her 
 admirers. Aytoun must have been deeply stung before he could have 
 given expression to what was, for him, so harsh a sarcasm. Had it 
 not already found its way into print, I should not have referred to 
 a saying so little in harmony with the kindly nature of the man.
 
 80 SPECIMENS OF HIS HUMOUR. 
 
 impossible to fix it upon paper as to perpetuate the 
 gradations of light and colour, 
 
 " When, rapt through many a rosy change, 
 The twilight dies into the dark." 
 
 This was Aytoun in his lighter moods ; but under 
 this bubbling joyousness of spirit was a well of gentle- 
 ness and tender heart, of strong feeling and chivalrous 
 enthusiasm, which found its way to the surface on just 
 occasion, and on just occasion only. He had, moreover, 
 a fine eye for nature, and a subtle sympathy with all 
 her moods and aspects, which made his familiar talk, 
 when face to face with her, peculiarly delightful. Then 
 his heart would open out into a stream of eloquent 
 fancies, and the humorist was lost for the time in the 
 ardent enthusiasm of the poet. To women he was 
 always tenderly courteous, and with children he was 
 always happy, and they with him. 
 
 Unlike most men, Aytoun wrote at this time very 
 much as he spoke only that his talk was better for 
 the force which was lent to it by his voice and manner. 
 Still, a better idea of what it was like may be gathered 
 from specimens of his writing than from any description. 
 I find none more lifelike than passages in a series of 
 our joint-papers, in the fashion of the ' Noctes Ambrosi- 
 anse,' called " Bon Gaultier and his Friends," in which 
 Aytoun flourished under the name of " Young Scotland." 
 Here, for example, we have him, under the mask of a 
 paradox, hitting at a great social nuisance :
 
 NEW THEORY OF EIZZIO'S MURDER. 81 
 
 0' MALLET. 
 
 Charles, what do you consider as the most commendable deed 
 recorded in Scottish history ? 
 
 YOUNG SCOTLAND. 
 
 The murder of Kizzio. 
 
 O'MALLEY. 
 
 Your reasons ? 
 
 YOUNG SCOTLAND. 
 
 Why, I think that all historians, and I crave my friend Tyt- 
 ler's pardon if I include him amongst the rest, have gone widely 
 astray in attributing that meritorious event to the jealousy of 
 Darnley. My hypothesis is this : Queen Mary, as you know, had 
 the misfortune of a French education, and, as a matter of course, 
 had imbibed that taste for jingling and caterwauling which at 
 the present moment is so fearfully prevalent in Edinburgh, and 
 is facetiously denominated music. If her majesty had contented 
 herself with morning concerts when Darnley was out hunting, 
 there would have been comparatively little harm ; but, unfortu- 
 nately, she classed oratorios among the necessaries of life, and 
 would as soon have gone without her supper as her symphony. 
 Accordingly, she had brought over from the Continent a gang of 
 foreign fiddlers, fellows with long greasy hair, fictitious collars, 
 and linen of a dubious complexion ; and, instead of encouraging 
 dancing, flirtation, whist, or any other such innocent amusements 
 at her soirees in Holyrood, she ordered in Signor This with the 
 violoncello, Herr That with the cornet-a-piston, and Monsieur 
 T'other with his guitar. Then a long, lank, melancholy-visaged 
 Musico would sit down at the pianoforte, and continue to play 
 for three or four hours without interruption, except, indeed, when 
 Lord Ruthven ventured an amorous compliment in a low tone to 
 Mary Beatoun, or Lord Lindsay of the Byres gave vent to a neces- 
 sary yawn, or one of the royal servants entered the room with a 
 
 tray of ices and plotty 
 
 O'MALLEY. 
 
 Hallo, Charley ! you are getting a little into anachronisms. 
 YOUNG SCOTLAND. 
 
 Not a whit, I see the picture as vividly as I did on Thursday 
 last. Then Signor Eizzio would pause for a moment, and look
 
 82 PAINTERS AND PAINTINGS. 
 
 round him with a frown, or perhaps give vent in an undertone to 
 some low-bred Neapolitan oath ; and Queen Mary, who was all 
 the while hanging over the back of his chair, would hold up her 
 finger for silence, and entreat the interesting foreigner not to mind 
 these rude interruptions. And so this sort of thing went on night 
 after night, till flesh and blood could stand it no longer ; and the 
 young Scottish lords, who liked a waltz or a quadrille, with a 
 snug little supper afterwards, and a few minutes' chat in the 
 cloak-room, took heart of grace, and one fine evening conducted 
 the Professor quietly from the piano into the antechamber, and 
 put an end to the nuisance effectually by a stroke of the national 
 whinyard. This is my view of the matter, and, upon my honour, 
 I think they served the ruffian right ! 
 
 Again, if the talk were of pictures, Aytoun would 
 discourse of them in this fashion, hitting the truth not 
 the less surely that he avoided the jargon of so-called 
 art criticism; for besides possessing a natural talent 
 for drawing, Aytoun had seen and studied the pictures 
 of the best galleries north of the Alps : 
 
 BON GAULTIEE. 
 
 Landseer and Stanfield speak for themselves. The Shepherd's 
 Chief Mourner is a painted poem which I covet. With regard to 
 Maclise and Turner, I am inclined to be somewhat critical. 
 
 O'M ALLEY. 
 
 I am glad to hear you say so. Far be it from me to decry 
 eccentricity ; but really when a gentleman has spread the scrap- 
 ings of his pallet upon a milled board, and deliberately sate down 
 upon it, it is rather a cool thing to send it, without any farther 
 preparation, to a gallery of art, under the title of " Neapolitan 
 Fisher Girls startled Bathing by Moonlight !" Pink moonlight 
 is a novelty, at least in these latitudes ; and if the row of spongy 
 figures that seem rushing through a tide of carmine are intended 
 for Neapolitan nymphs, the species must have undergone a cross 
 with the Centaur since I last ascended Vesuvius.
 
 PAINTERS AND PAINTINGS. 83 
 
 YOUNG SCOTLAND. 
 
 " Palestrina" is certainly better ; but even there Turner is far 
 too gorgeous in his colouring. The eye aches at the scorching 
 heat of his interminable reds and yellows. Men say he paints 
 upon a system, and I presume he composes poetry upon some 
 similar principle. Listen to the music of the following lines : 
 
 Or from yon mural rock, high-crowned Prseneste, 
 Where, misdeeming of his strength, the Carthaginian stood, 
 And marked, with eagle eye, Rome as his victim ! ! 
 
 I wish Turner would publish his literary works : they would be 
 treasure-trove to the critics. 
 
 BON GAULTIER. 
 
 Elderly gentlemen ought never to commence a flirtation with 
 the muse. Then as to Maclise and his picture of the Bohemian 
 Gipsies no one can deny his great talent for drawing ; indeed I 
 question whether any modern painter possesses a like facility. 
 He dresses his figures well, but too theatrically : they always 
 remind you of the Surrey side, or a field-day at Astley's amphi- 
 theatre. His grouping is open to precisely the same objection. 
 It is a got-up spectacle, or rather a masquerade, where every one 
 is acting for himself, without the least regard to the unity of the 
 whole. Never was there such a group of gipsies in the habitable 
 globe. They are the identical figures which appeared a few years 
 ago in the train of Robin Hood, and will probably appear again 
 at some convivial festival of the Druids. All his men exhibit 
 their teeth, and very white they are too. Rowland should per- 
 suade biTTi to execute a design for the wrapper of the Odonto ; it 
 would be an irresistible advertisement. His women are either 
 sly or sensual, and not one of them has a rag of reputation left 
 nay, from the cradle upwards, it is plain that they were never 
 inconveniently burdened with modesty. That jade in front, with 
 the large eyes and voluptuous bosom, would be the ruin of a 
 monastery, and ought not, for morality's sake, to be permitted to 
 perambulate the country. She would pick your pocket, Charles, 
 of every shilling you possessed ; and as to O'Malley, 1 think I 
 see her telling the Major's fortune !
 
 84 SPECIMENS OF 
 
 O'MALLEY. 
 
 Faith, I should scarce object to a little palmistry from so plump 
 a sorceress. 
 
 BON GAULTIER. 
 
 In short, although Maclise is a great painter, he would be 
 much greater if he put clearer purpose into his compositions, 
 restrained his pruriency of illustration, and worked on more 
 dignified subjects. Both he and Etty have it in their power 
 almost to rival Eubens ; but they will never do it, so long as the 
 one continues to paint, not after nature, but after the stage, and 
 the other to suit the inclination rather of the voluptuary than the 
 poet. 
 
 O'MALLEY. 
 
 Do you mean to say that Rubens was particularly refined ? 
 
 BON GAULTIER. 
 
 Not always, certainly. But look at his greater works there 
 is no coarseness there. Rubens uninspired, and portraying earthly 
 beauty, was a very different man from the tremendous painter of 
 the Cross. The pictures at Antwerp and Cologne are amongst 
 the greatest of the world. Michael Angelo alone can contest with 
 Peter Paul for the palm of superiority in power. 
 
 Mr Hannay, in contrasting Aytoun with Peacock 
 and Father Prout,* says of him, that he does not excel 
 in " the drollery of abandon, of which downright noisy 
 laughter is the natural result." Noisy laughter is a 
 strong phrase, and is more likely to be produced by 
 mere farce than by anything that deserves the name of 
 humour. But drollery which produced hearty laugh- 
 ter was not only a distinguishing feature of Aytoun's 
 social talk, but of his writings. As one of many ex- 
 amples which might be cited, take the following fancy 
 sketch of De Lacy Evans's Spanish Legion a band of 
 
 * "Recent English Humorists," 'North British Review,' Aug. 1866.
 
 HIS HUMOUR. 85 
 
 heroes who made some figure in the Carlist war, and 
 were a fertile source of sarcasm to the wags, but are 
 now all but forgotten : 
 
 YOUNG SCOTLAND. 
 
 Ah now, my dear fellow ! do tell us something about the 
 Legion. Confound the Old Peninsular exploits. What between 
 Captain Hamilton and Colonel Napier and the squadron of mili- 
 tary quill-drivers, who have spoiled more foolscap than cartridge 
 wrappers, we know every inch of the campaigning ground from 
 Torres Vedras to the Pyrenees. No, Captain ! Give us some- 
 thing fresh. You were one of those who drew the sword with 
 Evans, and gathered, if not laurels, at least a change of linen, 
 with the Westminster heroes, from the verdant hedgerows of 
 Spain. Surely there must be something worth remembrance in 
 such a chivalrous crusade. 
 
 O'MALLEY. 
 
 Faith, Charley, as to linen, there was as little of that as an 
 elderly gentleman could desire. Happy was the man amongst us 
 who saved his own British shirts, without wasting fruitless efforts 
 in pursuit of the Lusitanian tweel. It was a devilish bad busi- 
 ness, I can tell you. Only conceive my disgust, when, instead of 
 commanding a company of Herculean heroes, I found myself de- 
 graded into the leader of the most villanous pack of rogues that 
 ever were swept from the assizes ! 
 
 BON GAULTIER. 
 
 Were they really so bad 1 
 
 0' MALLET. 
 
 Barrington was a joke to my sergeant. Before he was enlisted 
 a fortnight he had pawned the regimental colours for a quart of 
 gin, and picked my pocket twice upon parade. It was no use 
 tying him up to the halberts, for every one of the drummers was 
 under sentence of transportation, and treated the back of their 
 ancient pal as tenderly as if it had been their own. The only 
 tune under which they would advance to action was the ' Eogue's 
 March ; ' and we were obliged to remind them that they lay 
 under the eye of the London police, before a single dummy- 
 hunter would masticate the butt-end of a cartridge.
 
 86 THE SPANISH LEGION. 
 
 YOUNG SCOTLAND. 
 
 How did they behave in battle 'I 
 
 0' MALLET. 
 
 Tolerably well when we got them behind the shelter of a vine- 
 yard wall. The squadron of the Seven Dials were very decent 
 marksmen, and picked off any Carlist officer, who seemed to have 
 a watch, with really creditable precision. I had the command 
 for some time of the Ninth Poltroons. They were splendid 
 foragers first-rate fellows at the clearing of a farmhouse or the 
 expiscation of a henroost. I have seen them, too, make very 
 fair strippage after a skirmish, and conduct a retreat with singu- 
 lar intrepidity. They fought upon the system of the ancients ; 
 the true heroic principle. Sportsmen, too, to a man ! Always 
 shot flying. Lord bless you ! the British Diomede had no per- 
 sonal quarrel with the Peninsular Glaucus. He by no means 
 thirsted for his blood, not he ; he merely entertained a Homeric 
 passion for his golden armour ; and if that could not be coia- 
 passcd by stealth (fair-dealing was out of the question), he hesi- 
 tated not to send a bullet through your Don, and possess himself 
 lawfully of his spoils. What the deuce would you have more ? 
 Hector did precisely the same ! 
 
 BON GAULTIER. 
 
 A very sensible reflection ! 
 
 O'M ALLEY. 
 
 Catch one of the Ninth exposing his carcass for nothing ! I 
 tried at first to rouse them with a few remarks about glory, 
 freedom, and that sort of thing ; but I soon perceived that al- 
 though the eyes of the Whitechapel warriors were rigidly directed 
 towards the left, every warlike tongue was knowingly insinuated 
 into the dexter cheek. After that, I suited my language to my 
 audience, and by persuading them that every Carlist carried a 
 rouleau in his haversack, we managed to do tolerable execution. 
 YOUNG SCOTLAND. 
 
 Did you remain long with this interesting corps ? 
 O'M ALLEY. 
 
 As short a time as possible. No sooner had my last pair of 
 stockings disappeared I own to some doubts about the probity
 
 THE SPANISH LEGION. 87 
 
 of the Ensign than I exchanged into the Black Skulkers, 
 a fine cavalry regiment, which made war principally upon its 
 own account. We were not very particular as to the politics of 
 the natives. A Spaniard, you know, is not to be depended upon 
 so we resolved ourselves into a sort of armed neutrality, and 
 never harmed anybody unless he refused the key of the wine 
 cellar. That, you know, was equivalent to an admission of 
 treason ; for where else would a man in his senses conceal a 
 secret despatch ? Many is the cask we have emptied to the 
 bottom in order to bring those hidden secrets to light, and many 
 a jovial night we used to have with the Padres, who in my 
 opinion did not care a copper whether Carlist or Christino had 
 the uppermost. Tom Burke, who was our Major, managed things 
 admirably. He was as drunk as a fish during the whole cam- 
 paign, and yet took such care of his men that not a soul of them 
 was sacrificed in battle. 
 
 BON GAULTIER. 
 A judicious commander indeed ! 
 
 0' MALLET. 
 
 Was he not ? We never stormed anything except a convent, 
 and even then we behaved ourselves like gentlemen. The gov- 
 ernment were not ungrateful. Tom is a Grand Cross of the 
 Order of Saint Sauve-qui-peut. 
 
 BON GAULTIER. 
 He bears his honours meekly. 
 
 0' MALLET. 
 
 Very. Well, thank heaven I've done with campaigning. It's 
 all very nice for lads like you, but an old soldier needs repose 
 when his way of life is falling into the autumnal leaf. Charles, 
 what's that you're after ? 
 
 YOUXG SCOTLAND. 
 
 Scratching down the heads of a lay " I learned e'en now of one 
 I talked withal." Shall I sing it to you ? It will do famously 
 for a chapter in your next serial say " A Night with the Ninth, 
 or Heavy Marauders," or something equally alliterative and 
 alluring :
 
 THE LAY OF THE LEGION. 
 
 THE LAY OF THE LEGION. 
 
 When I was in the Legion 
 
 A short time ago, 
 We went the pace as pleasantly 
 
 As ever you did know : 
 The cares of life and warlike strife 
 
 Were all, I ween, forgot, 
 As we walked into the Sherry casks, 
 
 And never paid a shot. 
 For we bold lads of Evans' 
 
 Went roving with the moon 
 Old Spain was made for the Newgate blade, 
 
 And for the stout Poltroon ! 
 
 We wouldn't stand no drilling, 
 
 Oh, that was all my eye ! 
 But did exactly as we pleased, 
 
 And kept our powder dry. 
 We always fired, when 'twas required, 
 
 Behind a vineyard fence : 
 But as for open cut-and-thrust, 
 
 We'd rather too much sense. 
 For we bold lads of Evans' 
 
 Marched to another tune, 
 And " right about ! " was still the shout 
 
 That moved the stout Poltroon ! 
 
 How jolly looked the Convent ! 
 
 And, blow me ! what a din 
 The nuns and Lady Abbess made, 
 
 As we came thundering in ! 
 What screams and squalls run through the walls, 
 
 'Twas like to deafen me, 
 When our Captain took his helmet off, 
 
 And begged the cellar key !
 
 THE "CANNIBAL KIL WINNING." 89 
 
 Then we bold lads of Evans' 
 
 Got tipsy very soon, 
 And if the brave will misbehave, 
 
 Why not a stout Poltroon ? 
 
 me, that glorious Legion ! 
 If I were there again, 
 
 1 would not leave an ounce of plate 
 
 In any house in Spain. 
 I'd fake away the livelong day, 
 
 And drink till all was blue ; 
 For a happier life I could not lead, 
 
 No more, my lads, could you, 
 Than to be a boy of Evans', 
 
 No milk-and-water spoon, 
 And crack the flasks and drain the casks 
 
 Like a regular Poltroon ! 
 
 Surely this is drollery of which " downright laughter 
 is the result," and humour, too, of a very genuine kind. 
 And rare, indeed, was the occasion, in these early days, 
 that Aytoun did not enliven any social gathering of 
 his intimate friends with drollery quite as exuberant 
 and full of sparkle as that just quoted. 
 
 One evening, while still very young, he was presid- 
 ing at a meeting of the Canongate Kilwinning Lodge 
 of Freemasons, when the treasurer of the lodge rose. 
 He had, he said, made up his mind to emigrate ; and 
 hearing a promising account of the then new colony of 
 New Zealand, he had resolved to cast in his lot with it. 
 Satisfied as he was that no institution was so well fitted 
 to civilise the savage as freemasonry, his first aim 
 would be to found a lodge there. Fain would he 
 identify it with the parent lodge, to which he was
 
 90 THE "CANNIBAL KIL WINNING." 
 
 so deeply attached. He should at all events wish its 
 name to be such as to establish a connection with the 
 distinguished body of whom he had the honour to be 
 treasurer; and in this view he appealed to the wor- 
 shipful chairman to suggest an appropriate name. 
 Aytoun rose, and with the profoundest gravity com- 
 plimented brother on his noble enthusiasm. It 
 
 was exhilarating to find that the principles and 
 practice of freemasonry were to be extended to the 
 remotest regions of the earth. As he had been 
 appealed to for a name which should recall in that 
 distant land the glories of their beloved Canongate 
 Kilwinning, he would take the liberty of suggesting 
 to the worshipful the treasurer, whether the contem- 
 plated lodge in New Zealand might not with propriety 
 be called " The Cannibal Kilwinning ! " Whether the 
 treasurer's enthusiasm survived the roars of laughter 
 which followed, I am unable to say. 
 
 "What I have written above will give some idea of 
 what Aytoun was in his gayer and prevailing moods. 
 But when a chord was touched that vibrated to his 
 heart, his talk deepened into a tone of passionate earnest- 
 ness, of which the following passage from the same 
 series of papers will afford some ide.a. The conversation 
 has been running on the shares of joint-stock companies, 
 for which the mania was then (1845) at its height; 
 and in answer to a question whether he has any ceme- 
 tery shares, O'Malley replies : 
 
 Not one. I don't think any person above the rank of an under- 
 taker should hold stock of that description. A water company
 
 JOINT-STOCK CEMETERIES. 91 
 
 may pass a wine company is incomparably better but I feel a 
 kind of shudder at the thought of trafficking for holy ground. 
 
 YOUNG SCOTLAND. 
 
 I denounce the practice as altogether abominable. Is it not 
 enough that men have stock-jobbed through life sacrificed their 
 own talents and their learning to an absorbent lust of gain 
 neglected all that is great and beautiful in nature turned a deaf 
 ear to the moaning of the factory slave, and laid themselves more 
 prostrate than the Juggernaut heathen before the wheels of the 
 car of Mammon ? is it not enough that they have done, and are 
 doing this, without mixing up in their thoughts the awful secrets 
 of the grave with the list of their weekly gains 1 Is it well that 
 the sight of the hearse, with its mournfully nodding plumes, 
 white or black, and the ghastly emblems of mortality emblazoned 
 on its sides, should suggest the sole idea, that another poor corner 
 of their unconsecrated area has been taken, and that DEATH itself 
 has become the active patron of their dividends 1 Oh, rather 
 than your trellised and gardened cemetery, with its tawdry urns 
 and whited sepulchres, give me the quiet of the country church- 
 yard "God's field," as the Saxons call it where the elders of 
 the congregation sleep around the edifice where they came to 
 adore ! Or, better still to me at least give me the long grey 
 aisle of the roofless abbey, though the altar be thrown down, the 
 thick ivy clustered on the wall ; and although neither song nor 
 hosanna shall again, so long as the world remains, be heard within 
 its sacred pale. Dunfermline, Melrose, Dryburgh ! The Bruce, 
 the Douglas, and the Scott ! has the earth any such glorious 
 sepultures as these ? Rather would I be laid, could I hope to be 
 worthy of that honour, in such a hallowed spot, with nothing 
 save a cross for my headstone, than in the costliest mausoleum 
 that ever held the crumbling bones of an emperor ! 
 
 I know in the south a graveyard placed upon the slope of a 
 hill in the girdle of the ever-green mountains. It is a lonely un- 
 conspicuous spot, rarely visited, except by the passing shepherd, 
 or, when some small train of mourners for the people venerate 
 it still come up the solitary glen, to lay their dead beside its 
 kindred dust. In spring you may see the plover resting upon
 
 92 ST MARY'S CHUKCHYARD. 
 
 its wall, the young leverets gambolling around it, and the grouse 
 whirring from her nest among the heather, scared away by your 
 approach. Eeach it, and you find that it is half defended by a 
 natural trench ; for a mountain stream has worn its deep black 
 gulley in the rock, and comes brawling down, white and furious 
 in flood, but in dry weather only strong enough to make a plea- 
 sant and continuous murmur. On the mound above there is a 
 ruin, the faintly-defined remnant of a wall ; in some places a line 
 of crumbling stones, in others the mere elevation of a green and 
 daisied sward. That was once the holiest fane of the south ; for 
 there stood the chapel of Saint Mary's of the Lowes, which pious 
 men had built, and where good men came to pray. But the faith 
 of the land was changed it may be wisely, but surely it was 
 rudely done and in one night the hills of Yarrow were lighted 
 up with more terrific flames than ever notified the approach of 
 the English invaders ; and a long pillar of red fire, wrapping in 
 its conflagration all that for centuries had been deemed most 
 holy, sent its quivering reflection, like a molten flood of lava, 
 across the mirror of Saint Mary's Lake. The mob of a distant 
 town had risen, drunk with besotted fury, and, hurrying up the 
 glen with shouts of menace and ribald oaths, testified the sincerity 
 of their conversion by an act of fearful sacrilege ! 
 
 I have sate there many a long hour and yet they seemed all 
 short of the dreamy summer afternoon, trying once more to 
 rebuild, in fancy, that stately chapel from the mouldering ruins 
 of the past. It was as though I heard a bell ringing in the wilder- 
 ness, and on either side the pillars rose up in slender shafts, 
 and carved arches met above, and sweet tranquil faces of angels 
 looked down from between their folded wings. There stood the 
 priest before the altar, his vestments stained with the particoloured 
 light streaming through the emblazoned window. Slowly he 
 turned, and as he raised the Host, all the mighty throng of wor- 
 shippers around me fell upon their knees, and I too knelt down, 
 for the inspiration of the place was upon me. 
 
 When again I looked up all the pageant was gone ; melted 
 like the castle of enchantment which disappeared at the approach
 
 A VISION OF THE PAST. 93 
 
 of Sir Roland in the wondrous valley of Saint John. Yet there 
 were the ruins, and there the quiet graves, and through that very 
 desolation the place appeared to me more deeply consecrated. 
 The work of men's hands had passed away, but the earth retained 
 its own the seed committed to its bosom until the day of the 
 final harvest. Believe me, it is a good thing for a man to pass 
 an hour in such a place as that, where, with the wrecks of ancient 
 piety around him, he may ponder upon the mighty mystery of 
 death. 
 
 It is no exaggeration to say that these imaginary 
 conversations give a faithful picture of Aytoun's talk 
 during the years between 1840 and 1848, when I knew 
 him best.* 
 
 It was during these years that all his best ballads 
 were written " The Heart of the Bruce," " The Execu- 
 
 * His conversation in later years retained nrach of the same char- 
 acter, but its tone was naturally mellower and more subdued. On 
 this point I am happy to be able to quote the opinion of so good a 
 judge as his friend the Very Reverend Dean Ramsay : " Aytoun was 
 not a professed ' diner-out ' and talker. He rather shrunk from the 
 idea, and thought that there was a little too much of that element 
 prominent in such men as Jeffrey, Sidney Smith, Mackintosh, &c. 
 But he was most happy in conversation, very ready in retort, and 
 would often make reference to a subject which others were discussing, 
 after appearing little attentive to what was going on, of the wittiest 
 and most pungent character. His humour in company was quiet and 
 quaint, like his published pieces ; and the tone of his voice was pecu- 
 liarly pathetic, so that he could narrate a melancholy story with won- 
 derful and touching effect. Any one who had never seen Aytoun 
 might thus form an idea of his general manner and conversation by 
 supposing what would be the ordinary talk of the man who wrote 
 " How we got up the Glenmutchkin Railway," " How I became a Yeo- 
 man," "Glencoe," and "Flodden." Pathos and humour combined in 
 him to form a character to whom we might well apply the beautiful 
 description of Biron, in Shakespeare's ' Love's Labour Lost ' 
 
 " A merrier man, 
 
 Within the limits of becoming mirth, 
 I never spent an hour's talk withal. "
 
 94 THE SCOTTISH CHRISTMAS. 
 
 tion of Montrose," " The Widow of Glencoe," and 
 " Edinburgh after Hodden." Upon these he bestowed 
 great care, rightly looking to them as the basis of his 
 literary reputation. His lighter verses, both humor- 
 ous and grave, were thrown off, as I had frequent occa- 
 sion to see, almost with the rapidity of improvisation. 
 One Christmas Eve, for example, as we sat together 
 discussing a paper on which we were then engaged 
 now writing, now talking the absence of all the fea- 
 tures of a Christian festival from the Scottish Christmas 
 happening to be spoken of, I said to him, Why not make 
 this the theme of some verses for our paper ? He took 
 up his pen, and in a very few minutes threw across the 
 table to me the following picturesque lines upon 
 
 THE SCOTTISH CHKISTMAS. 
 
 In truth it was a solemn show, 
 
 The ancient Scottish Christmas-tide ; 
 The holly and the mistletoe, 
 
 And other boughs as green beside, 
 Within the altar and the rail ; 
 
 The offering of the stainless flowers, 
 And all the grateful heart's avail, 
 
 For hope and promise such as ours. 
 
 But these have long since passed away, 
 
 Beneath the cold Geneva ban ; 
 No message brings that sacred day 
 
 Of what was done and wrought for man. 
 A cheerless day ! a gloomy time ! 
 
 Whereon no grateful thanks are given : 
 Unhallowed by the holy chime 
 
 That ought to rise and welcome heaven.
 
 THE SCOTTISH CHEISTMAS. 95 
 
 A frost more chill than winter's sting 
 
 Hath fall'n upon the northern moor ; 
 And no glad voice does Christmas bring 
 
 To stay the labours of the poor. 
 No anthem in the dead of night 
 
 Awakes the shepherd from afar, 
 Nor can he see the radiant light 
 
 That flashes from the promised Star. 
 
 Alone upon the wintry hill 
 
 The banished angel sits and sighs, 
 Yet scans the weary midnight still 
 
 With eager looks and tearful eyes. 
 The winds around are wailing low ; 
 
 They moan amidst the leafless tree ; 
 And in the hollow cave below 
 
 Is heard the washing of the sea. 
 
 The morning comes ! 0, joy to those 
 
 Who know the wherefore of the dawn ; 
 Why yonder east so brightly glows, 
 
 And why the veil of night's withdrawn ! 
 Old man, thy cheek is wan and pale ; 
 
 The load of years is hard on thee ; 
 Look up above ! " Of what avail 
 
 Is any morning light to me ?" 
 
 Around the girdle of the earth, 
 
 Where'er the Cross hath ta'en its stand, 
 Arise the tidings of the birth 
 
 That made the world one Holy Land ! 
 Save where the faith is cold and faint, 
 
 As are the northern rocks and snow, 
 Where sacred fane and honoured saint 
 
 Have vanished with the long ago. 
 
 This was a subject on which Aytoun felt strongly ; 
 and wherever he so felt, his feeling found expression in
 
 96 HELEN FAUCIT AS JULIET. 
 
 verse without effort. But he set little store himself by 
 these chance effusions, and made no effort to preserve 
 them. 
 
 Some of them are, however, worth preserving. 
 There is much grace and beauty in the following lines, 
 which were written for the album of Miss Helen 
 Faucit. I scarcely remember to have seen Aytoun 
 so deeply moved as by the impersonation which was 
 their immediate cause. The trouble of his mind was 
 more like that of a man who had been an actor in a 
 real tragedy, than of any mere spectator "sitting at 
 a play." But his emotion was probably too strong for 
 him to trust himself to deal with the sadder aspect of 
 Juliet's story, and so he confined himself to the pas- 
 sionate tenderness of its earlier phases. 
 
 THE JULIET. 
 
 I have been wandering in enchanted ground, 
 
 The slave and subject, lady, of thy spell ; 
 I heard thy voice, and straightway all around 
 
 Became transformed, yet how I could not tell : 
 And through Verona's streets I took my way, 
 
 Thronged with quaint masks and gallants many a one, 
 Amidst the sounds of revel and of fray, 
 
 And saw bright weapons flashing in the sun. 
 So passed I on in marvel, till the night 
 
 Cooled the red furnace of the southern sky, 
 And the sweet stars, all kindling into light, 
 
 Burst through the vaulted darkness where they lie. 
 Hushed was the city and its varied din, 
 
 As with a tremulous thrill, and half afraid, 
 I entered through a stately portal in 
 
 To what might be a garden or a glade.
 
 LYCAON. 97 
 
 A soft voluptuous odour filled the spot 
 
 From the rose-thickets, and the orange-bower ; 
 And a tall fountain, bursting from its grot, 
 
 Broke up the moonbeam in a pearly shower : 
 And then it was I heard the nightingale, 
 
 Within the dark pomegranate-bower unseen, 
 Pour out the saddest and the tenderest wail, 
 
 That ever filled with tears a lover's eyne ; 
 When a low whisper stole upon my ear, 
 
 With such angelic sweetness in its tone, 
 That my heart beat, as though a saint were near, 
 
 And lost all sense of presence, save of one. 
 For there upon the balcony above, 
 
 And whiter than the moonlight round her shining, 
 I saw the perfect form of maiden's love 
 
 In the rapt fondness of her soul reclining ; 
 And heard her speak in such impassioned strain, 
 
 With so melodious yearning and divine, 
 That I shall never hear that tale again 
 
 From other lips, dear lady, than from thine. 
 
 The following ballad, founded on the story of 
 Lycaon as told by Ovid (Met., I. v. 207-243), was 
 one of the many spirited things which Aytoun at this 
 period used to dash off at a heat. Although never 
 reprinted by himself, I know that he attached some 
 value to it, and, as most readers will probably think, 
 not without cause. 
 
 LYCAON. 
 
 Out spoke, then, Jove to the gods above, 
 As they sate in their skyey hall, 
 
 " The deed is done, and the forfeit won, 
 Then list my children all, 
 
 G
 
 98 LYCAON. 
 
 While I speak the crimes of those fearful times, 
 
 Too black to be forgiven, 
 And the cry of wrath that rose from earth, 
 
 And drew us down from heaven ! 
 
 " In form and face like the human race, 
 
 We hushed our thunders still, 
 And glided down from the hoary crown 
 
 Of the high Olympian hill. 
 The world we made so fresh and fair 
 
 Was now like a desert grown, 
 For the stain of blood was everywhere, 
 
 And the altars were overthrown. 
 
 " We took our way, at the dawn of day, 
 
 Over Msenalus dark and grim, 
 And we heard the howl of the beasts that prowl 
 
 In Cyllene's forests dim. 
 We wandered through Lyco3U8, too, 
 
 Swart with its pine-trees' shade, 
 And we reached the floor of the tyrant's door 
 
 As the day began to fade. 
 
 " Then made we sign of our might divine, 
 
 And the people straight kneeled down, 
 But Lycaon chafed at his subjects' faith, 
 
 And checked them with his frown. 
 ' The truth we'll test of this holy guest,' 
 
 The tyrant thus began ; 
 ' And if his powers be more than ours, 
 
 Let the god eclipse the man ! ' 
 
 " He thought to creep when all men sleep, 
 
 Armed with a trenchant blade, 
 And pierce the heart of the stranger wight, 
 
 In his own pavilion laid. 
 But first to try if a heavenly eye 
 
 Could fathom his foul design, 
 He stained his hand in a mortal's blood, 
 
 Ere he bathed it red in mine.
 
 LYCAON. 99 
 
 " A herald lay in his house that day, 
 
 A nation's pledge to him, 
 But the caitiff slew him as he slept, 
 
 And hewed him limb from limb ! 
 With care he dressed that odious feast, 
 
 Then with a horrid sneer 
 He bade us come to the banquet-room 
 
 And taste his royal cheer. 
 
 " In my righteous ire I made the fire 
 
 Through the vaulted dwelling roar, 
 And hurled the foul Penates down 
 
 On their master's tainted floor. 
 In fear and dismay he fled away 
 
 To the forest solitudes, 
 And howled alone like a guilty ghost, 
 
 In the wild Arcadian woods. 
 
 " For days and clays he wandered there, 
 
 A wretch by heaven accurst ; 
 The vicious foam from his black lips flew, 
 
 And his soul was mad with thirst. 
 He cried for blood, he raved for blood, 
 
 Till a fearful change began, 
 And he turned to rend the peaceful flocks, 
 
 And lost the shape of man. 
 
 " His shoulders bare were clothed with hair, 
 
 His limbs grew long and lean, 
 Yet still you might trace on his wolfish face 
 
 What once the wretch had been. 
 The grisly locks were hard and stiff, 
 
 The eye was cold and keen, 
 And the savage sneer of Lycaon's mouth 
 
 In the famished wolf was seen ! "
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE BURNS FESTIVAL, AND HIS SPEECH THERE ANECDOTE OF DOUG- 
 LAS JERROLD THE RAILWAY MANIA PUBLICATION OF "THE 
 GLENMUTCHKIN RAILWAY," AND ITS EFFECTS RAILWAY LEGISLA- 
 TION AND PARLIAMENTARY EVIDENCE A PARLIAMENTARY COM- 
 MITTEE " RAILWAY CALLS," A SKETCH RAILWAY TRAVELLING 
 CONTRASTED WITH THAT IN OLDEN TIMES STAGE BURLESQUES, 
 AND RECIPE FOR ONE OF THESE TIECK'S PHANTASUS A SURREY 
 MELODRAMA ASTLEY'S AS IT WAS. 
 
 AT the great Burns Festival, celebrated on the banks 
 of the Doon in August 1844, Aytoun was invited to 
 take a part in the proceedings. Lord Eglinton pre- 
 sided, and proposed " The Memory of Burns." It was 
 the first time his lordship had addressed a large body 
 of his countrymen, but by his speech upon that occa- 
 sion he established a hold upon their hearts which 
 was strengthened by every future act of his useful and 
 honourable career. His points were few and admir- 
 ably chosen. Every sentence told. The address was 
 brief, graphic, and full of glow the model of a speech 
 for such a meeting. There was genius in the use of the 
 word " repentant," when he alluded to the neighbouring 
 monument " which an admiring and repentant people 
 had raised to the poet." The felicity of the epithet 
 was testified in the perceptible thrill with which it
 
 THE BURNS FESTIVAL WILSON'S SPEECH THERE. 101 
 
 was answered in the breasts of all present. Nor could 
 a more graceful compliment have been paid by rank 
 to genius, than when he spoke of the descendant of 
 those who dwelt in "the Castle of Montgomery" as 
 " feeling himself only too highly honoured in being 
 permitted to propose the memory of him who had 
 wandered then unknown upon the banks of Ayr." 
 
 Lord Eglinton sounded a prelude not unworthy of 
 the eloquence of Wilson, by which his speech was 
 followed. Magnificent, indeed, was that eloquence, 
 such as one might not again in a lifetime hope to hear. 
 The whole strength and fervour of a great and matured 
 mind irradiated by a sublime imagination was in it. 
 Now it rose and swelled with majestic conceptions, 
 clothed in majestic words, " like that large utterance 
 of the early gods ; " now it struck chords of tender- 
 ness that blinded the eyes with tears. Again, it 
 made them rich with images of grandeur and beauty, 
 scattering, as it proceeded on its stately way, flowers 
 of poetry and of thought, till the attention almost 
 failed under the luxuriance of its wealth. Wilson 
 never showed to greater advantage than on this occa- 
 sion. His whole heart was in his task. As he stood 
 there with his Jovelike presence, and that far-away 
 look in his eyes which used to come into them when 
 his imagination was fairly roused, rolling out his re- 
 sonant periods with his rich, penetrating voice, he 
 seemed, indeed, 
 
 " Attired 
 With sudden brightness, like a man inspired."
 
 102 AYTOUN S SPEECH ON THE OCCASION. 
 
 After Wilson's magnificent oraison funtibre, all other 
 orations appeared tame and thin. "The Memory of 
 the Ettrick Shepherd and Allan Cunningham" was 
 the toast intrusted to Aytoun. He spoke of them 
 thus : 
 
 I have now, in a few words, to entreat your patience whilst I 
 speak of two other Scottish poets whose memory is yet green 
 amongst us both reared, like Robert Burns, at the lowly hearth 
 of the peasant both pursuing, like him, through every dis- 
 couragement and difficulty, the pathway towards honourable 
 renown and both the authors of strains which bear the stamp of 
 immortality. And first, let me allude to one of them whom I 
 knew and dearly loved. Who is there that has not heard of the 
 Ettrick Shepherd of him whose inspiration descended as lightly 
 as the breeze that blows along the mountain-side who saw, 
 amongst the lonely and sequestered glens of the south, from 
 eyelids touched with fairy ointment, such visions as are vouch- 
 safed to the minstrel alone the dream of sweet Kilmeny, too 
 spiritual for the taint of earth ? I shall not attempt any com- 
 parison for T am not here to criticise between his genius and 
 that of other men, on whom God in His bounty has bestowed the 
 great and the marvellous gift. The songs and the poetry of the 
 Shepherd are now the nation's own, as indeed they long have 
 been ; and amidst the minstrelsy of the choir who have made 
 the name of Scotland and her peasantry familiar throughout the 
 wide reach of the habitable world, the clear wild notes of the 
 Forest will for ever be heard to ring. I have seen him many 
 times by the banks of his own romantic Yarrow ; I have sat with 
 him in the calm and sunny weather by the margin of St Mary's 
 Lake ; I have seen his eye sparkle and his cheek flush as he 
 spoke out some old heroic ballad of the days of the Douglas and 
 the Graeme ; and I have felt, as I listened to the accents of his 
 manly voice, that whilst Scotland could produce amongst her 
 children such men as him beside me, her ancient spirit had not 
 departed from her, nor the star of her glory grown pale ! For he 
 was a man, indeed, cast in nature's happiest mould. True-
 
 DOUGLAS JERKOLD. 103 
 
 hearted, and brave, and generous, and sincere, alive to every 
 kindly impulse, and fresh at the core to the last, he lived among 
 his native hills the blameless life of the shepherd and the poet ; 
 and on the day when he was laid beneath the sod in the lonely 
 kirkyard of Ettrick, there was not one dry eye amongst the hun- 
 dreds that lingered round his grave. Of the other sweet singer, 
 too of Allan Cunningham, the leal-hearted and kindly Allan 
 I might say much ; but why should I detain you further ? Does 
 not his name alone recall to your recollection many a sweet song 
 that has thrilled the bosom of the village maiden with an emo- 
 tion that a princess need not blush to own ? Honour, then, to 
 the poets ! whether they speak out loud and trumpet-tongued, 
 to find audience in'the hearts of the great, and the mighty, and 
 the brave or whether, in lowlier and more simple accents, but 
 not less sacred in their mission, they bring comfort and consola- 
 tion to the poor. As the sweep of the rainbow, which has its 
 arch in heaven and its shafts resting upon the surface of the 
 earth as the sunshine which falls with equal bounty upon the 
 palace and the hut is the all-pervading and universal spirit 
 of poetry; and what less can we do to those men who have 
 collected and scattered it around us, than to hail them as the 
 benefactors of their race ? 
 
 The speeches on this memorable occasion-were thought 
 worthy of a permanent record in the pages of ' Black- 
 wood,' where they appeared in September 1844, pre- 
 ceded by an account of the festival, which was written 
 by Aytoun. * 
 
 * On the occasion of this festival I walked with Douglas Jerrold from 
 Ayr to the Pavilion, where the meeting was held. His talk, as usual, 
 sparkled with good things. One stroke of his humour for he had 
 humour as well as wit, in no common degree is all I can remember. 
 As we crossed a narrow country road, down which a procession of 
 Mauchline weavers, or Kilmarnock cap-makers, or some such body, 
 was pouring, preceded by music, which was neither " princely," nor 
 " unbedinned with drums," a farmer's horse, frightened by the crowd 
 and noise, began to curvet and prance uneasily. ' ' For heaven's sake ! "
 
 104 THE RAILWAY MANIA. 
 
 About this time what has since been known as the 
 " railway mania " had begun to set in. The great lines 
 of communication, so far as completed and in operation, 
 were yielding very high dividends, and it had become 
 apparent that their extension throughout the country 
 was indispensable to its prosperity. The success with 
 which several legitimate enterprises had been launched, 
 was followed by the projection of schemes solely for 
 the purposes of speculation on the Stock Exchange. 
 Money changed hands more rapidly than in the saloons 
 of Baden-Baden and Ems; and simple people who 
 heard of sudden fortunes made by speculation in scrip 
 and shares, were tempted to stake their means in a 
 game where the odds against them were heavier than 
 in the halls of Messieurs Benazet and Leblanc. There, 
 at all events, the odds are avowed, and the game openly 
 played ; but who was safe against the secret rascalities 
 of stock-jobbers, or the elaborately systematised myste- 
 ries of rigging the market ? When the mania spread 
 to Scotland, it broke out with peculiar intensity. Once 
 fairly roused, the Scottish perfervidvm ingenium carries 
 the people with headlong earnestness for good or evil 
 
 exclaimed Jerrold, dragging me aside, "get out of his way; he's 
 dangerous. He's seen oats to-day. " Seen oats ! as if his master, yield- 
 ing to the generous enthusiasm of the day, had excited his "yawd " 
 by the rare vision of so costly a luxury, but, in his Scottish parsimony, 
 had driven the animal wild by refusing to let it do more than see the 
 stimulating grains. Jerrold was just Cockney enough to give a kind 
 of half faith to the notion that Scotland was a land of hunger and semi- 
 barbarism, such as Wilkes and Churchill had drawn it. The Scotch 
 can afford to enjoy their wit and his without soreness at the injustice 
 which lies at the bottom of it.
 
 ITS EXTENSION TO SCOTLAND. 105 
 
 into whatever they undertake. " Cannie Scot," like 
 many other proverbial phrases, is a mistake. Cautious 
 he unquestionably is up to a certain point ; but let 
 his blood be only warmed, and there is no race of 
 men more rash, more reckless of consequences, than 
 the Scotch. This was signally proved in those ex- 
 cited times. All classes of people were bitten by the 
 love of speculation. Scrip and premium were in all 
 men's mouths. Extensions, competing lines, and the 
 whole excited jargon of the Stock Exchange, became 
 the familiar talk of men who had hitherto been con- 
 spicuous for plodding industry and most scrupulous 
 caution. The most absurd schemes were projected. 
 No district was too barren not to be the area of com- 
 peting lines, the scrip for which was instantly run up 
 to a premium. Anything, in short, served to operate 
 upon in the market. Indeed, the more unlikely the 
 enterprise to be carried out, the more extensively were 
 its shares dealt in. The experienced jobbers, know- 
 ing that even if the scrip were left in their hands it 
 would not be the subject of ruinous calls, pushed the 
 speculation in them with greater recklessness, and 
 gambled with them for higher stakes. Madness ruled 
 the hour, till even those who had studied every move 
 of the stock-jobbing game lost their heads and were 
 caught in the toils they had spread without remorse 
 for others. In the general excitement they held on 
 too long; and many who, before they were surprised 
 by the general crash which ensued in 1847, might 
 have realised large fortunes, came out of it as bare
 
 106 THE " GLENMUTCHKIN KAILWAY." 
 
 of feathers as the most simple of the pigeons whom 
 they had helped to pluck. 
 
 Of this general game of Beggar-my-neighbour Aytoun 
 was a close observer. Many of his immediate circle of 
 friends had gone deeply into it. He saw its pernicious 
 influence upon the habits of " many worthy fellows," 
 who, as he used afterwards to say, were " out in the 
 '45 ; " and he was too well versed in economical science 
 not to foresee very clearly the disastrous results to 
 which the universal scramble after sudden wealth could 
 not fail to lead. At first, and before he became aware 
 of the extent to which the mischief had spread, or of 
 the rascally devices by which bubble schemes were 
 forced upon the public, he dealt with the subject in a 
 purely jocular spirit as in his sketch, " My First Spec 
 in the Biggleswades,"* most of the actors in which were 
 real personages under a very faint disguise. But as the 
 fever of speculation grew worse and worse, and the 
 projects of those who traded upon it more rascally, 
 Aytoun determined to let in some light upon the rotten- 
 ness of the system, and help to arrest the folly which 
 he saw carrying thousands to inevitable ruin. With 
 this view he wrote, " How we got up the Glenmutchkiu 
 Eailway, and how we got out of it." Never was truth 
 more pithily told, nor a good purpose better served 
 under the disguise of humour. People laughed at the 
 tale, but it made them think. Knavish projectors saw 
 their infamous system laid bare; and their miserable 
 dupes stood aghast at the folly which had made them 
 * See Appendix.
 
 RAILWAY LEGISLATION. 107 
 
 the easy prey of the M'Corkindales and the Dunshun- 
 ners. The ' Times ' reprinted the paper at full length, 
 delighted to have the warnings so emphatically backed 
 which it had for a long time been preaching in vain. 
 " Glenmutchkin " became a byword for every outrageous 
 project ; and ridicule slew what had been proof against 
 the assaults of the strongest argument. The demon, it 
 is true, was only laid for a period ; and when he rose 
 again, he spread his snares under another guise. Un- 
 happily there has arisen no second Aytoun to show 
 up, with the same force of sarcasm, the gigantic rascal- 
 ities of railway " financing," and to fix for immortal 
 infamy the lineaments of the men who have carried 
 on under that name a system of falsehood and fraud 
 which has desolated the homes and blighted the lives 
 of thousands in these later days. 
 
 Eailway politics and railway legislation were a 
 favourite topic with Aytoun. Of the latter he saw 
 a good deal between the years 1845 and 1849, in 
 the course of his practice, which was considerable, as 
 counsel on Scotch railway bills before Parliamentary 
 committees. He attacked the abuses of the system 
 which then prevailed in numerous articles in ' Black- 
 wood,' pointing out, in his half-jocular half-serious way, 
 the extravagant cost of the inquiries, the unscrupulous 
 character of much of the evidence, and the cruel hard- 
 ships to which proprietors were often subjected in 
 defending their property from invasion. Great reforms 
 have since been effected in the practice, but much of 
 what was then written is still true. For instance, the
 
 108 PARLIAMENTARY EVIDENCE. 
 
 substantial accuracy of the following amusing picture 
 of the evidence for and against a railway bill is not 
 affected by the vein of humorous exaggeration which 
 runs through it: 
 
 It is the richest thing in the world to see two crack engineers 
 pitted against each other. The first, who appears on behalf of 
 the line, does not know and cannot conceive the slightest engin- 
 eering difficulty. If a mountain stands in his way, he plunges 
 fearlessly into its bowels, finds in the interior strata of surpassing 
 mineral wealth, yet marvellously adapted for the purposes of a 
 four-mile tunnel, and brings you out sound and safe at the 
 opposite side, as though he had been perforating a gigantic 
 cheese instead of hammering his path through whinstone coeval 
 with the creation. If a lake stands in the way, he will under- 
 take to drain it, with immense advantage to the neighbouring 
 proprietors. If a valley intervenes, he will bridge it with a 
 viaduct which shall put to shame the grandest relics of antiquity. 
 He has no knowledge of such bugbears as steep gradients or 
 dangerous curves ; a little hocus-pocus with the compasses trans- 
 forms all these into gentle undulations and sweeps of the most 
 graceful description. He will run you his rails right through the 
 heart of the most populous city yea, even Glasgow herself 
 and across the streets, without the slightest interruption to the 
 traffic. He will contrive so that the hissing of the locomotive 
 shall be as grateful a sound as the plashing of a fountain in 
 the midst of our bisected squares ; and he is indignant at the 
 supposition that any human being can be besotted enough to 
 prefer the prospect of a budding garden to a clean double pair 
 of rails beneath his bedroom window, with a jolly train steaming 
 it along at the rate of some fifty miles per hour. 
 
 The opposing engineer has a contrary story to tell. He has 
 the utmost confidence in the general ability of his scientific 
 friend, but on this occasion he has the misfortune to differ in 
 opinion. Very carefully has he gone over the whole of the line 
 surveyed. He is sorry to say that the gradients are utterly im- 
 possible, and the curves approaching to a circle. Tunnelling is
 
 PARLIAMENTAKY EVIDENCE. 109 
 
 out of the question. How are two miles of quicksand and two of 
 basaltic rock to be gone through. ? The first is deeper than the 
 Serbonian Bog, and would swallow up the whole British army. 
 The second could not be pierced in a shorter time than Pharaoh 
 took to construct the pyramids of Egypt. He considers a rail- 
 way in the heart of a town to be an absolute and intolerable 
 nuisance ; and, on the whole, looking at the plan before him, he 
 has come to the conclusion, that a more dangerous and imprac- 
 ticable line was never yet laid before a committee of the United 
 Parliament of Great Britain. 
 
 So much for the engineering Hector and Achilles. Out of 
 these two opinions, of necessity, must the five respectable mem- 
 bers on the bench form their judgment ; for of themselves they 
 know nothing, having been purposely selected on account of 
 their superior ignorance. Cross-examination makes the matter 
 still worse. A cantankerous waspish counsel, with the voice of 
 an exasperated cockatoo, endeavours to make the opposing engin- 
 eer contradict himself. He might as well try to turn Ailsa 
 Crag. He of the impossible gradients is the hero of a hundred 
 committees, quite accustomed to legal artifice, cool, wary, and 
 self-collected. He receives every thrust with a pleasant smile, 
 and sometimes returns them with damaging effect. If close 
 pressed, he is conscious that behind him is a thicket of algebra, 
 into which neither counsel nor judges will dare to follow ; and 
 so fortified by the mysteries of his calling, he is ready to defy the 
 universe. Then come the hordes of subordinate witnesses, the 
 gentlemen who are to give evidence for and against the bill. 
 One side represents the country as abounding in mineral pro- 
 duce and agricultural wealth ; the other likens it unto Patmos, 
 or the Stony Arabia. Tims swears that the people of his district 
 are mad, insane, rabid in favour of the line. Jenkins, his next- 
 door neighbour, on the contrary, protests that if the rails were 
 laid down to-morrow, they would be torn up by an insurrection 
 of the populace en masse. John thinks the Dreepdaily Exten- 
 sion is the only one at all suited to supply the wants of the 
 country ; Sandy opines that the Powheads Junction is the true 
 and genuine potato ; and both John and Sandy, Tims and 
 Jenkins, are backed by a host of corroborators. Then come the
 
 110 A FANCY SKETCH OF GLASGOW. 
 
 speeches of the counsel, and rare specimens they are of unadul- 
 terated oratory. I swear to you, Bogle, that, no later than a week 
 ago, I listened to such a picture of Glasgow and the Clyde, from 
 the lips of a gentleman eminent alike in law and letters, as 
 would have thrown a diorama of Damascus into the shade. He had 
 it all, sir, from the orchards of Clydesdale to the banks of Both- 
 well, the pastoral slopes of Euglen, and the emerald solitudes of 
 the Green. The river flowed down towards the sea in translucent 
 waves of crystal. From the parapets of the bridge you. watched 
 the salmon cleaving their way upwards in vivid lines .of .light. 
 Never did Phoebus beam upon a lovelier object than the fair 
 suburb of the Gorbals, as seen from the Broomielaw, reposing 
 upon its shadow in perfect stillness. Then came the forests of 
 masts, the activity of the dockyards, and 
 
 " The impress of shipwrights, whose hard toil 
 Doth scarce divide the Sunday from the week." 
 
 Farther down, the villas of the merchant princes burst upon your 
 view, each of them a perfect Sirmio then Port-Glasgow, half- 
 spanned by the arch of a dissolving rainbow Dumbarton, grand 
 and solemn as became the death-place of the Bruce Ben Lomond, 
 with its hoary head swathed in impenetrable clouds and lo ! 
 the ocean and the isles. Not a Glasgow man in the committee- 
 room but yearned with love and admiration towards the gifted 
 speaker, who certainly did make out a case for the Queen of the 
 West such as no matter-of-fact person could possibly have be- 
 lieved. And all this was done by merely substituting a Claude 
 Lorraine glass for our ordinary dingy atmosphere. The outline 
 was most correct and graphic, but the secret lay in the handling 
 and distribution of the colours. I shall not wonder if the whole 
 committee, clerk included, come down this autumn to catch a 
 glimpse of that terrestrial paradise. * 
 
 The following sketch was also founded in fact. 
 Happily the state of things which it depicts would 
 now be impossible. It occurs in a letter from Mr 
 
 * "Letter from London, by a Eailway Witness." 'Blackwood's 
 Magazine ' for August 1845.
 
 A PAKLIAMENTAEY COMMITTEE. Ill 
 
 Eeginald Dunshmmer, describing his experiences as a 
 railway witness to his friend Bogle in Glasgow. 
 
 "Would you believe it, Bogle 1 I was giving evidence yester- 
 day on behalf of the Clachandean Railway part of which, I am 
 sorry to observe, has sunk into the centre of a bog against a 
 thick-headed proprietor, who has absolutely been insane enough 
 to oppose, for three successive sessions, a branch line, which is 
 to run through his estate for the purpose of communicating 
 with some bathing-machines. The property has been in his 
 family for some four or five hundred years. The mansion-house 
 is an ordinary kind of tumble-down old affair, with turrets like 
 pepper-boxes on the corners, and the fragment of an abbey be- 
 hind it. There is no timber worth speaking of in the policy, 
 except half-a-dozen great useless yew-trees, beneath which they 
 show you a carved stone that covers the dust of stout old Lord 
 Alexander, whose body was brought home from the bloody field 
 of Flodden ; and yet this absurd agriculturist has the coolness 
 to propose to the company that they shall make a deviation of 
 nearly half a mile, for the sake of avoiding this remnant of the 
 darker ages ! Three times, Bogle, has that man come up to Lon- 
 don, at a most enormous expense, for the purpose of defending 
 his property. The first time he was successful in his opposition 
 before the committee of the House of Commons, because the 
 chairman happened to be a person imbued with the same 
 ridiculous prejudices as the proprietor, and was what these fool- 
 ish Protectionists call a man of birth and connection. He had 
 on his own grounds a mausoleum with some rubbishy remains 
 of his ancestors, who had been out with Harry Hotspur ; and 
 the moment he heard of the old tombstone and the yew-trees, 
 he began to rave about desecration, and made such a row that 
 the projectors were fain to give it up. That job cost the Protec- 
 tionist proprietor at least a cool thousand ; however, he was 
 pleased to say that he did not mind the expense, since he had 
 succeeded in saving the mansion of his fathers. But we did not 
 by any means intend to let him off so easily. My friend 
 Switches, the engineer, laid out two new branches if possible 
 more annoying than the first, for they were to intersect one
 
 112 SERGEANT SQUASHERS. 
 
 another at the yew-trees. We tipped the Parliamentary notices ; 
 and though the venerable Cincinnatus came with tears in his 
 eyes to our directors, and offered them the land for nothing if 
 they would only consent to a very slight and practicable devia- 
 tion, we determined to make him pay for his whistle. Accord- 
 ingly, next year we had him up again, all right and tight, before 
 a fresh committee. Lord ! what fun it was to hear him cross- 
 examined by Sergeant Squashers ! That's the counsel for my 
 money ! no feeling, or delicacy, or nonsense of that kind about 
 him. I wish you had seen the rage of the proprietor when he 
 was asked about his buried ancestor ; whether his name was 
 Sawney, or Sandy and whether he was embalmed with sulphur ! 
 We all roared with laughter. " Don't attempt to bully me, 
 sir ! " said the Sergeant, for the red spot began to glow upon the 
 old man's cheek, and I believe that at that moment, if he had had 
 a weapon, he could have driven it hilt-deep into the body of the 
 facetious barrister. " Don't attempt to bully me, sir ! thank 
 Heaven, we are in a civilised country, where people wear 
 breeches, and live under the protection of the law. Answer me, 
 sir and try to do it in something like intelligible English was 
 that fellow, Lord Saunders or Sawney, or whatever you call him, 
 pickled up in brimstone or in pitch ? " Squaretoes could not 
 stand this ; so he gathered himself up, I must say rather grandly 
 muttered something about scorn, and Squashers being a dis- 
 grace to the gown he wore, and marched out of the committee 
 room amidst the guffaws of a group of us who were brought up 
 to testify that the house was falling to pieces, and that no Chris- 
 tian of ordinary intellect would trust his carcass beneath its roof. 
 That time we had a capital chairman a regular man of cal- 
 ico, who never professed to have a grandfather, hated the agri- 
 culturists like the pestilence, and had made a large fortune by 
 the railways. He was perfectly delighted at the way in which 
 our friend the Sergeant had put down Sir Pertinax M'Sycophant 
 a nickname suggested by our solicitor, and employed in the 
 learned counsel's reply with very considerable effect ; and as 
 there were two other members of the League on the committee, 
 we had it all our own way. The preamble was declared to be 
 proved, and no clauses of compensation were allowed. But if we
 
 "SIR PERTINAX." 113 
 
 were obstinate in our purpose, so was Pertinax. He fought us 
 in the House of Lords, and there, to be sure, he got what he 
 termed justice that is, our bill was thrown out, and some rather 
 harsh expressions used with respect to the company's behaviour. 
 We were ten days before each committee for Squashers is 
 rather fond of spinning out a case, and none of us who are paid 
 for attendance by the day are in the habit of objecting to the 
 same so that Pertinax must have been out of pocket at least two 
 thousand pounds by this second silly opposition. And consider- 
 ing that the fortunes of the family are not so flourishing as they 
 once were, and that the old fellow can barely afford to give his 
 son a university education, you will admit that that this must 
 have been a tolerable pull at his purse-strings. However, we 
 were determined to keep it up. The wisdom of the Legislature 
 in refusing, under any circumstances whatever, to give costs 
 against the railways, has put it in the power of a company to 
 drive any individual, by unremitting perseverance, to the wall. 
 We set Switches to work again, and this time we propose to 
 metamorphose the mansion into a station-house. I don't know 
 how the thing will go. Old Pertinax is fighting like a Trojan ; 
 and I rather fear that he made a little impression on the com- 
 mittee yesterday, by telling them that he has been obliged 
 to borrow money upon his estate at a ruinous rate of interest, 
 and to endanger the portions of his three pretty and motherless 
 daughters solely to defend his patrimony from the wanton aggres- 
 sions of the company. But as Sergeant Squashers well observ- 
 ed when he saw a tear stealing down the furrowed cheek of the 
 Protectionist this is not the age nor the place for such imbecile 
 snivelling. We have been taught a new lesson with regard to the 
 sacredness of rights and of property ; and the sooner those anti- 
 quated hereditary notions are kicked out of the minds of the 
 landowners, the better.* 
 
 Had it fallen to Aytoun's lot to write the history of 
 the great railway mania, the mad whirl of excite- 
 ment which then agitated the public mind, and the 
 
 * ' Blackwood's Magazine,' July 1847. 
 H
 
 114 KAILWAY CALLS, AND THEIR EFFECTS. 
 
 widespread suffering with which the delusion was 
 expiated, he would have produced a most animated 
 and interesting book. He had watched closely all the 
 stages of the disease from fever to prostration. The 
 former he had painted to perfection in some of his 
 minor sketches, and in more than one of his later papers 
 in ' Blackwood ' he sketched with a graphic pencil the 
 miseries of the unhappy myriads who were drained of 
 their means for the execution of the lines of railway 
 which were thus projected. 
 
 Who has forgotten he writes in one of those papers* the 
 misery of those times, when letters of railway calls arrived punc- 
 tually once a quarter ? Two pound ten per share might be a 
 moderate instalment ; but if you were the unfortunate holder of 
 a hundred shares, you had better have been boarded with a vam- 
 pire. Eepudiation, though a clear Christian duty to yourself and 
 your family, was utterly impossible. It mattered not that the 
 majority of the original committeemen and directors had bolted ; 
 you, the subscriber, were tied to the stake. The work was 
 begun, the contracts opened, and money must be had at all 
 hazards and sacrifices. You found yourself in the pitiable situa- 
 tion of an involuntary philanthropist. Threescore hulking Irish 
 navvies were daily fed, liquored, and lodged at your expense. 
 Your dwindling resources were torn from you, to make the for- 
 tunes of engineers and contractors. So long as you had a penny, 
 or a convertible equivalent, you were forced to surrender it. 
 Your case was precisely similar to that of the Jew incarcerated 
 in the vaults beneath the royal treasury of King John. One by 
 one all your teeth were drawn. If you managed to survive the 
 extraction of the last grinder, and to behold the opening of the 
 line, your position was not one whit improved. Dividend, of 
 course, there was none. That awful and mysterious item of 
 charge, " working expenses," engulfed nearly the whole revenue. 
 
 'The Champions of the Kail," ' Blackwood's Magazine,' Dec. 1851.
 
 A KAILWAY JOURNEY. 115 
 
 What was over we*nt to pay interest on preference debentures. 
 That gallant body of men, the directors, laid before you, with 
 the utmost candour, a state of the affairs of the company ; from 
 which it appeared that they had exceeded their borrowing powers 
 by perhaps a brace of millions, and had raised the money by 
 interposing their own individual security. These obligations 
 you were, of course, expected to redeem ; and an appeal was 
 made to yoiir finer feelings, urging you to consent to a further 
 issue of stock ! 
 
 What compensation is it he continues to a man who has gone 
 through this process of torture, that his fortune has gone to the 
 establishment of great lines of internal communication, along 
 which men may be whirled with the velocity of a rocket ? Did 
 the Israelites, who built them, take any especial pride in survey- 
 ing the pile of the pyramids ? And what, after all, is the use of 
 this confounded hurry 1 In a railway carriage you have no fair 
 view of the fresh aspect of nature : you dash throvigh the land- 
 scape supposing that there is one before its leading features 
 are impressed upon your mind. There is no time for details, or 
 even for reflection. You must accommodate your thought to your 
 pace, otherwise you are left behind, and see nothing whatever 
 for at least a couple of stations. But for the most part your 
 way lies between embankments and cuttings, representing either 
 sections of whinstone, or bare banks of turf, dotted over with 
 brown patches, where the engine has effected arson. Even furze 
 will not willingly flourish in such an uncomfortable locality. 
 Then you roar through tunnels, the passage of which makes your 
 flesh creep for you cannot divest yourself of a horrid idea that 
 you may possibly be encountered in the centre of the darkness by 
 an opposing engine, and be pounded into paste by the shock of that 
 terrific tilt ; or that a keystone of the arch may give way, and the 
 whole train be buried in the centre of the excavated mountain. 
 Sensual gratification there is none. You are driven by the pangs 
 of sheer hunger into the refreshment-room at some station, and 
 find yourself at the bar of an inferior gin palace. Very bad is 
 the pork-pie, for which you are charged an exorbitant ransom. 
 Call ye this sherry, my masters 1 If it be so, commend us for 
 the future to Bucellas. The oranges look well outside, but the
 
 116 TRAVELLING IX OLDEN TIMES. 
 
 moment you have penetrated the rind, you find that they have 
 been boiled and are fozy. Do not indulge in the vain hope that 
 you may venture on a glass of anything hot. Hot enough you 
 will find it with a vengeance ; for, the instant you receive the 
 tumbler, the bell is sure to ring, and you must either scald your 
 throat by gulping down two mouthfuls of mahogany-water raised 
 to a temperature which would melt solder, or consign the prepaid 
 potion to the leisure of the attendant Hebe. Under such circum- 
 stances, literature is a poor resource. You read the ' Times' twice 
 over, advertisements and all, and then sink into a feverish slumber, 
 from which you are awakened by a demand from a ruffian in blue 
 livery, with a glazed leather belt across his shoulder, for the ex- 
 hibition of your ticket. Talk of the inconvenience of passports 
 abroad ! The Continental system is paradisiacal compared with 
 ours. At length, after fingering your watch with an insane de- 
 sire to accelerate its movement, you run into the ribs of some- 
 thing which resembles the skeleton of a whale the train stops 
 and you know that your journey is at an end. You select your 
 luggage, after having imdergone the scrutiny of a member of the 
 police force, who evidently thinks that he has seen you before 
 under circumstances of considerable peculiarity, ensconce yourself 
 in a cab, and drive off, being favoured at the gate of the station 
 by a shower of diminutive pamphlets, purporting to be poetical 
 tributes to the merits of Messrs Moses and Hyam. You have 
 done the distance in twelve hours, but pleasure you have had 
 none. 
 
 Was nature made in vain, in order that men might hasten from 
 town to town, at the tail of a shrieking engine, regardless of all 
 the glorious scenery which intervenes ? To our taste, the old 
 mode of travelling nay, the oldest was infinitely superior to 
 the present sickening system. You rose by times in the morn- 
 ing ; took a substantial breakfast of beef and ale none of your 
 miserable slops and mounted your horse between your saddle- 
 bags, in time to hear the lark carolling on his earliest flight to 
 heaven. Your way ran through dingle and thicket, along the 
 banks of rivers, skirting magnificent parks, rich in the possession 
 of primeval oaks, under which the deer lay tranquilly and still.
 
 TRAVELLING IN OLDEN TIMES. 117 
 
 You entered a village, stopped at the door of the public-house, 
 and cooled your brow in the foam of the wholesome homebrewed. 
 You dined at mid-day, in some town where the execrable inven- 
 tions of Arkwright and Watt were unknown ; where you en- 
 countered only honest, healthy, rosy-cheeked Christians, who 
 went regularly once a-week to church, and identified the devil 
 with the first Dissenter instead of meeting gangs of hollow-eyed 
 lean mechanics, talking radicalism, and discussing the fundamen- 
 tal points of the Charter. You moved through merry England 
 as a man ought to do, who is both content with his own lot and 
 can enjoy the happiness of others. As you saw the sun rising, 
 so you saw him set. The clouds reddened in the west you 
 heard the sweet carol of the thrush from the coppice, and lingered 
 to catch the melody. The shades of evening grew deeper. The 
 glow-worms lit their tiny lanterns on the bank, the owl flitted 
 past with noiseless wing, the village candles began to appear in 
 the distance ; and as you dismounted at the door of your humble 
 inn, and surrendered yoiir weary beast to the hands of the care- 
 ful ostler, you felt that you were the richer by a day spent in the 
 fresh air and gladsome sunshine, and made happy by all the 
 sounds and sights which are dear to the heart of man. 
 
 But this was solitary travelling, and might not suit every one. 
 Well if you were a little fellow, deficient in pluck, and sorely 
 afraid of robbers, you might have company for the asking. At 
 every large inn on the road there were at least a dozen travellers 
 who, for the sake of security, agreed to journey in company. 
 Was that no fun ? Have you anything like it in your modern 
 railways ? Just compare your own experiences of a rocket-flight 
 along the Great Western with Chaucer's delineation of his Can- 
 terbury pilgrimage, and you will see what you have lost. Nice 
 sort of tales you would elicit either from that beetle-browed 
 Bradford Free-Trader, evidently a dealer in devil's-dust, who is 
 your vis-drvis in the railway carriage ; or from that singular spe- 
 cimen of a nun who is ogling you deliberately on the left ! Can 
 you associate the story of Palamon and Arcite can you connect 
 anything which is noble, lofty, inspiriting, humane, or gentle, with 
 a journey made in an express train ? If not, so much the worse 
 for the present times.
 
 118 MODERN STAGE BURLESQUES. 
 
 Fond as Aytoun was of humour, and indeed because 
 he was fond of it, he held in profound contempt the 
 spurious fun, compounded of slang and verbal quibbles, 
 of the extravaganzas and burlesques which have been, 
 now for so many years, supposed to do duty for it on 
 the stage. Specimens of this kind of work which he 
 saw in London in 1845, provoked the following char- 
 acteristic expression of disgust. As, in comparison 
 with the degraded trash of the same kind by which 
 they have been succeeded, these might be pronounced 
 absolutely brilliant in allusion, pure in taste, and 
 classical in style, the following burst of indignation 
 is more than ever appropriate : 
 
 After all, is it to be wondered at if the public lacketh novelty ? 
 Shakespeare has had possession of the stage for nearly two 
 centuries quite enough, one would think, to pacify his uncon- 
 scionable Manes. We have been dosed with his dramas from 
 our youth upwards. Two generations of the race of Kean have, 
 in our own day, perished, after a series of air-stabs, upon Bosworth 
 field. We have seen twenty different Hamlets appear upon the 
 damp chill platform of Elsinore, and fully as many Romeos in 
 the sunny streets of Verona. The nightingale in the pome- 
 granate-tree was beginning to sing hoarsely and out of tune, 
 therefore it was full time that our ears should be dieted with 
 other sounds. Well, no sooner was the wish expressed, than we 
 were presented with the ' Legend of Florence,' ' Nina Sforza,' 
 and several other dramas of the highest class. Sheridan Knowles 
 and Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton professed themselves ivady to 
 administer any amount of food to the craving appetite of the 
 age but all in vain. Tragedy was not what we wanted nor 
 comedy no, nor even passable melodrama. We sighed for 
 something of a more ethereal sort, and laud we the gods ! 
 the manna has descended in showers. Go into any of the 
 London theatres now, and the following is your bill of fare :
 
 RECIPE FOR ONE OF THESE. 119 
 
 Fairies you have by scores in flesh-coloured tights, spangles, and 
 paucity of petticoats ; gnomes of every description, from the 
 gigantic glittering diamond beetle to the grotesque and dusky 
 tadpole. Epicene princes, whose taper limbs and swelling busts 
 are well worth the scrutiny of the opera-glass dragons vomiting 
 at once red flames and witticisms about the fountains in Trafalgar 
 Square Dan O'Connell figuring in the feathers of a Milesian 
 owl and the Seven Champions of Christendom smoking cigars 
 upon the parapets of Hungerford Bridge ! Such is the intel- 
 lectual banquet Avhich London, queen of literature, presents to 
 her fastidious children ! 
 
 The form of dramatic composition now most in vogue is the 
 burlesque ; or, in the language of the great Planche, " the 
 original, grand, comic, romantic, operatic, melo-dramatic, fairy 
 extravaganza ! " There is a title for you, that would have put 
 Polonius to the blush. I have invested some three shillings in 
 the purchase of several of these works, in order that I might 
 study at leisure the bold and brilliant wit, the elegant language, 
 and the ingenious metaphors which had entranced me when I 
 heard them uttered from the stage. I am now tolerably master 
 of the subject, and therefore beg leave to hand you a recipe for 
 the concoction of one of these delectable dishes. Take my advice, 
 and make the experiment yourself. Select a fairy tale, or a 
 chapter from the Arabian Nights ; write out the dramatis 
 >ersonce, taking care that you have plenty of supernaturals, 
 genii, elves, gnomes, ghouls, or vampires, to make up a competent 
 corps de ballet; work out your dialogue in slipshod verse, with 
 as much slang repartee as you possibly can cram in, and let 
 every couplet contain either a pun or some irmuendo upon the 
 passing events of the day. This in London is considered as the 
 highest species of wit, and seldom fails to bring down three 
 distinct rounds of applause from the galleries. I fear you may 
 be trammelled a little by the scantiness of local allusions. 
 Hungerford Bridge and Trafalgar Square, as I have already 
 hinted, have kept the Cockneys in roars of laughter for years, 
 and are dragged forward with unrelenting perseverance, but still 
 uudiminished effect, in each successive extravaganza. I suspect 
 you will find that the population of Glasgow are less easy to be
 
 120 THE PHANTASUS OF TIECK. 
 
 tickled, and somewhat jealous of quips at their familiar haunts. 
 However, don't be down-hearted. Go boldly at the Gorbals, the 
 Goosedubs, and the great chimney-stalk of St Rollox ; it is 
 impossible to predict how boldly the municipal pulse may bound 
 beneath the pressure of a dexterous finger. Next, you must 
 compose some stanzas, as vapid as you please, to be sung by the 
 leading virgin in pantaloons ; or, what is better still, a few 
 parodies adapted to the most popular airs. I see a fine field 
 for your ingenuity in the Jacobite relics ; they are entwined 
 with our most sacred national recollections, and therefore may 
 be desecrated at will. Never lose sight for a moment of the 
 manifold advantages derivable from a free use of the trap-door 
 and the ^flying- wires ; throw in a transparency, an Elysian 
 field, a dissolving view, and a miniature Vesuvius, and 
 
 " My basnet to a 'prentice cap," 
 
 you will take all Glasgow by storm, and stand henceforward 
 crowned as the young Euripides of the West. 
 
 You and I, in the course of our early German studies, lighted, 
 as I can well remember, upon the Phantasus of Ludwig Tieck. I 
 attribute your loss of the first prize in the moral philosophy class 
 to the enthusiasm with which you threw yourself into his glorious 
 Bluebeard and Fortunatus. In truth it was like hearing the tales of 
 childhood told anew, only with a manlier tone, and a clearer and 
 more dignified purpose. How lucidly the early, half-forgotten 
 images were restored under the touch of that inimitable artist ! 
 What a luxury it was to revel with the first favourites of our 
 childhood, now developed into full life and strength and stately 
 beauty ! With these before us, how could we dare be infidels 
 and recreants to our earlier faith, or smile in scorn at the fanciful 
 loves and cherished dreams of infancy ? Such were our feelings, 
 nor could it well be otherwise ; for Tieck was, and is, a poet of 
 the highest grade not a playwright and systematic jest-hunter ; 
 and would as soon have put forth his hand in impious challenge 
 against the Ark, as have stooped to become a buffooning pander 
 to the idle follies of the million. It remained for England, 
 great and classic England no, by heavens ! I will not do her 
 that wrong but for London, and London artists! I believe
 
 FONDNESS FOR MELODRAMA. 121 
 
 that is the proper phrase, after having exhausted every other 
 subject of parody, sacred and profane, to invade the sanctuary 
 of childhood, and vulgarise the very earliest impressions which 
 are conveyed to the infant. Are not the men who sit down 
 deliberately to such a task more culpable than even the nursery 
 jade who administers gin and opium to her charge, in order that 
 she may steal to the back-door undisturbed, and there indulge in 
 surreptitious dalliance with the dustman ? Far better had they 
 stuck to their old trade of twisting travesties from Shakespeare 
 for the amusement of elderly idiots, than attempted to people 
 Fairyland with the palpable denizens of St Giles. The Seven 
 Champions of Christendom, indeed ! They may well lay claim 
 to the title of Champions of Cockneydom incarnate, setting forth 
 on their heroic quest from the rendezvous in the Seven Dials.* 
 
 While Aytoun shrunk from the manufactured witti- 
 cisms and vulgarity of burlesques, the extravagances 
 of melodrama always had the greatest possible charm 
 for him. " The terrible Fitzball," and Widdicomb the 
 immortal, were two of his favourite heroes. He re- 
 velled in the wild improbabilities of a Surrey domestic 
 drama ; and while Astley's was yet Astley's, he never 
 came to London without paying it a visit. The fascina- 
 tions of that home of the equestrian drama are now 
 among the faded splendours of the past; and the follow- 
 ing sketch of what was still to be seen there in 1846, 
 while it will revive recollections not unpleasant to 
 some, can scarcely fail to amuse all by the vivid force of 
 its description and the imaginative glow of the style: 
 
 As a general rule, we prefer the spectacles on the Surrey side 
 to those exhibited in the Metropolitan or Westminster districts. 
 
 "A Letter from London. " ' Blackwood's Magazine,' August 1845.
 
 122 PICTUEE OF ASTLEY'S AS IT WAS. 
 
 There the nautical drama still flourishes in its pristine force. 
 The old British tar, in ringlets, pumps, and oilskin castor, still 
 hitches up his trousers with appropriate oath ; revolves the un- 
 failing bolus of pigtail in his cheek ; swims to shore across a 
 tempestuous sea of canvass, with a pistol in each hand and a 
 cutlass in his teeth, from the wreck of the foundering frigate ; 
 and sets foot once more on the British soil just in time to de- 
 liver Pretty Poll of Portsmouth, his affianced bride (who has a 
 passion for short petticoats and crimson stockings), from the 
 persecutions of that bebuttoned pirate with the whiskers, who 
 carries more pistols in his girdle than the scalps of an Indian 
 chief, and whose fall, after a terrific combat with basket-hilts and 
 shower of fiery sparkles, brings down the curtain at the close of 
 the third act amidst roars of unmitigated joy. Also we delight 
 to see, at never-failing Astley's, the revived glories of British 
 prowess Wellington, in the midst of his staff, smiling benig- 
 nantly upon the facetious pleasantries of a Fitzroy Somerset 
 Sergeant M'Craw of the Forty-second delighting the elite of 
 Brussels by his performance of the reel of Tullochgorum at the 
 Duchess of Richmond's ball the charge of the Scots Greys 
 the single combat between Marshal Ney and the infuriated Life- 
 Guardsman Shaw and the final retreat of Napoleon amidst a 
 volley of Roman candles, and the flames of an arseniated Hougo- 
 niont. Nor is our gratification less to discern, after the subsid- 
 ing of the shower of sawdust so gracefully scattered by that 
 groom in the doeskin integuments, the stately form of Widdi- 
 coinb, cased in martial apparel, advancing towards the centre of 
 the ring, and commanding with imperious gestures, and some 
 slight flagellation in return for dubious compliment the double- 
 jointed clown to assist the Signora Cavalcanti to her seat upon 
 the celebrated Arabian. How lovely looks the lady, as she 
 vaults to her feet upon the breadth of the yielding saddle ! 
 With what inimitable grace does she whirl these tiny banners 
 around her head, as winningly as a Titania performing the 
 Bword exercise ! How coyly does she dispose her garments and 
 floating drapery to hide the too-maddening symmetry of her 
 limbs ! Gods ! She is transformed all at once into an Amazon 
 the fawn-like timidity of her first demeanour is gone. Bold
 
 PICTURE OF ASTLEY S AS IT WAS. 123 
 
 and beautiful flushes her cheek with animated crimson her full 
 voluptuous lip is more compressed and firm the deep passion 
 of the huntress sparkles in her lustrous eye ! Widdicomb be- 
 comes excited he moves with quicker step around the periphery 
 of his central circle incessant is the smacking of his whip not 
 this time directed against Mr Merryman, who at his ease is 
 enjoying a swim upon the sawdust and lo ! the grooms rush in, 
 six bars are elevated in a trice, and over them all bounds the 
 volatile Signora like a panther, nor pauses until, with airy 
 somersets, she has passed twice through the purgatory of the 
 blazing hoop, and then, drooping and exhausted, sinks like a 
 Sabine into the arms of the herculean Master, who a second 
 Romulus bears away his lovely burden to the stables, amidst 
 such a whirlwind of applause as Kemble might have been proud 
 to earn ! * 
 
 * " New Scottish Plays and Poems." ' Blackwood's Magazine,' July 
 1846.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 APPOINTED PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND BELLES LETTRES HIS SUC- 
 CESS HIS METHOD, AND CASE IN TRAINING HIS STUDENTS 
 NUMBER AND VARIETY OF HIS CONTRIBUTIONS TO 'BLACKWOOD* 
 EFFECT OF HIS PAPER ON THE CORN-LAW QUESTION CORRE- 
 SPONDENCE WITH THACKERAY APPOINTED SHERIFF OF ORKNEY 
 HIS MARRIAGE PICTURE OF HOUSEHOLD CARES AND CALAMI- 
 TIESLECTURES ON BALLAD POETRY THE "JUSTICE TO SCOTLAND" 
 MOVEMENT GREAT MEETING AT GLASGOW LETTERS TO MR 
 ROBERTSON SCHEME OF A REFORM BILL DEATH OF PROFESSOR 
 WILSON. 
 
 THE Chair of Khetoric and Belles Lettres in the Edin- 
 burgh University having become vacant in 1845, by 
 the removal of Professor Spalding to St Andrews, 
 Aytoun, true to the ambition of his youth, applied for 
 and obtained it. Many of his friends were surprised 
 at what seemed like an abandonment of his prospects 
 at the bar. But Aytoun knew himself best, and, as 
 the event proved, he was wise in obeying the dictates 
 of his genius rather than those of ordinary prudence. 
 Writing in 18-44 to his friend Monro, he had said : 
 "Professionally I am getting on slowly, but, I hope, 
 surely, and I write a great deal more than I ever did 
 before, and in fact am getting a name. Perhaps for 
 the bar's sake, one had better be without that; but
 
 HIS SUCCESS AS A PROFESSOR. 125 
 
 it is something no, by heaven ! it is everything to 
 work out the best reputation we may, and I am de- 
 termined to be true to my destiny." It was this deter- 
 mination which decided him, at the peril of present 
 loss, to apply for the Chair. In truth, in a mere money 
 point of view, it presented few attractions. The salary 
 was only o^lOO a-year. Attendance at the lectures 
 was non-compulsory, and the average number of stu- 
 dents for the first and several future years was so small 
 that the annual income for fees did not exceed 130. 
 But Aytoun loved the work, and he believed he could 
 raise the Chair in popularity, and at the same time 
 elevate the standard of literary attainment in the Uni- 
 versity, in a department in which his own experience 
 while there had satisfied him it was greatly deficient. 
 The result justified his anticipations. Year by year 
 the number of his students increased, till from 30 in 
 1846 they became upwards of 150 in 1864. Moreover, 
 the duties of the Chair did not necessarily interfere 
 with his practice at the Bar, where he continued to 
 compete for his share of what business was going 
 among the young men. He was thus able to satisfy 
 his own tastes, and at the same time to keep such 
 a position in his profession as enabled him to claim 
 in due time from his party the well-earned recognition 
 of his services, which he received in his appointment 
 as Sheriff of Orkney in 1852. "Writing to myself 
 on this subject in July 1858, he expresses himself 
 thus : 
 
 I had to make a return the other day about my class ; and
 
 126 HIS CARE IN TRAINING 
 
 very curious it was to go back upon the academical history of 
 twelve years. When I got my Chair it was not worth 130 per 
 annum ; and it gives me a kind of shudder now to look back at 
 the rash step of sacrificing professional practice for a driblet like 
 that. But quern Deus vult salvare, prius dementat. It was the 
 making of me. In itself a poor thing for the average return for 
 five years gives only about ,300, the last not being included ; 
 but had I not taken the professorship, I should have been a 
 concocter of Condescendences and drawer of Defences up to the 
 present day, without probably the substantial benefit of being 
 autocrat of all the Orkneys. Certainly I would not change my 
 
 position just now for that of , who looks to me like a 
 
 man whose ambition has been nipped in the bud. Would not 
 you rather be a wild buffalo on the prairie, than a tame bull 
 tethered in the very richest field of clover ? Clover is an excel- 
 lent thing, no doubt, but it must be the deuce and all to feel that 
 you are absolutely forbidden to scamper. 
 
 The Chair of Rhetoric had been occupied by very dis- 
 tinguished men before Aytoun ; but it has been well 
 said that it was his peculiar merit to make it more 
 practically useful than it had ever previously been. 
 He soon found, to use his own words in 1858, "that in 
 no department of letters are the students generally so 
 deficient as in the knowledge of their own language 
 and in practical composition." His main efforts were 
 directed to correcting this deficiency, by introducing a 
 system of exercises, which were carefully revised by 
 himself, and sometimes even entirely re-written. In- 
 glorious as this work was, and irksome as he found it 
 when the numbers of his class increased, he considered 
 it a duty imposed upon him by his situation. Fine 
 abilities and varied knowledge were often, as he saw, 
 practically lost, because their owner knew neither how
 
 HIS STUDENTS. 127 
 
 to write nor how to speak with effect. These were defects 
 which practice under intelligent guidance could alone 
 cure, and this he spared no pains to give. He was not 
 content merely to engage the interest of his students 
 in literary studies, "but set himself to make them 
 masters of that practical skill in composition and deli- 
 very which, while they are a gain in all spheres of life, 
 were especially important to that large section of his 
 students who were destined for the Bar or the Church. 
 His lectures, in extent of information, in critical saga- 
 city, or in force of style, may not have surpassed 
 those of his predecessors ; but there was in the man 
 himself something especially fitted to secure the atten- 
 tion and quicken the sympathy of young men. He 
 knew and sympathised with their tastes and aspira- 
 tions. His mind was of the kind that kindles by con- 
 tact with its fellows, and he let out his heart in speak- 
 ing to his students, in his eagerness to imbue them with 
 the love of letters, which was his own exceeding great 
 delight, and with his love of his native country, which 
 was his passion. He was playful, kindly, genial, with 
 no trace of pedantry about him ; by anecdote and illus- 
 tration he connected their studies with the events and 
 interests of the day ; and these qualities gave his lec- 
 tures a stimulating charm, of infinitely greater value for 
 the purpose for which they were designed than their 
 mere literary excellence, considerable as that undoubt- 
 edly was. 
 
 " His manner and bearing to the students," writes 
 one who attended his last course of lectures, "were
 
 128 HIS CONTRIBUTIONS TO ' BLACKWOOD.' 
 
 eminently such as deeply attached to him their affec- 
 tions and secured their respect. Ever courteous, suave, 
 and easy of access, there was a certain calm and nat- 
 ural dignity in his manner, that prevented the least 
 approach of familiarity, which students are too apt to 
 assume on receiving encouragement, and which effec- 
 tually quelled the turbulent spirits that were always to 
 be expected in the very large class his great reputation 
 always secured for him ; while his excessively keen and 
 delightful sense of humour, his great fund of pleasant 
 anecdotes, and his elegant and lively scholarship, lent 
 an unequalled charm and interest to themes which no 
 one w r as more capable of adorning and rendering emi- 
 nently suggestive." 
 
 Before he was appointed Professor, Aytoun had be- 
 come a steady contributor to ' Blackwood's Magazine.' 
 The cordial recognition of his abilities by its proprietors 
 may, indeed, be said to have determined Aytoun's 
 literary career. The late Mr Alexander and Mr Eobert 
 Blackwood, who were then its editors, had known him 
 from boyhood, and were, therefore, no strangers to 
 the brilliant powers which made Aytoun conspicuous 
 among his friends. They had watched his early liter- 
 ary efforts with interest, and when they invited him 
 to write for the Magazine, the request, from men of 
 their proved sagacity and large literary experience, 
 conveyed an assurance to the young author that there 
 was that in him by which he might hope to win not 
 only distinction, but a competent income, indepen- 
 dently of his profession. The connection thus begun
 
 NUMBEK AND VAKIETY OF THESE. 129 
 
 continued unbroken to the last. It was not that of 
 author and publisher merely, but of friend and friend. 
 Aytoun was proud of being a writer for Maga ; but, far 
 more than any feeling of this sort, his personal regard 
 for the Blackwoods attached him to their literary staff'. 
 Whatever attraction the wider field which London 
 offers to literary ambition might otherwise have had 
 for him, disappeared after his agreeable relations to- 
 wards them were established. He delighted in work- 
 ing for them, and they on the other hand treated him 
 witli entire confidence. The result was equally satis- 
 factory on both sides. He gave the Blackwoods his 
 very best work, and in doing so he made for himself a 
 more prominent and influential reputation than with- 
 out their assistance he could have hoped to obtain. 
 
 For many years after 1844 he continued to write 
 for the Magazine almost monthly. It is impossible to 
 review the great mass of articles which he produced, on 
 literature, art, and politics, without admiration of the 
 varied powers and the unwearied industry which they 
 display. " He had a wonderful power of work," writes 
 Mr John Blackwood, " and a regular methodical power, 
 too. I could always rely upon him if he promised to 
 do anything, and I never pressed him. He used to 
 say that I pushed this latter feeling too far, but I would 
 have felt it like spurring a willing horse ; and I am 
 sure I was right, although he said it sometimes made 
 him feel as if I was indifferent about a paper. To work 
 with him was really pleasure." He was eminently 
 conscientious, sparing no labour in research, however 
 
 i
 
 130 THE COEN-LAW QUESTION. 
 
 dry the details, in order that he might be sure of his 
 facts, more especially in dealing with all social and 
 political questions. In discussing these he kept a 
 tight rein upon his imagination, and showed a native 
 shrewdness and practical sagacity, which, as in the 
 case of Sir Walter Scott, were no less conspicuous 
 features of his mind. He fought the battle of the 
 Conservative party in the Magazine temperately, but 
 with unflinching vigour. No papers commanded more 
 attention, in the great struggle which preceded the re- 
 peal of the Corn Laws, than those which he wrote 
 on " British Agriculture and Foreign Competition " in 
 ' Blackwood ' for February and March 1850. They were 
 based on returns collected with the greatest care from 
 the great leading farmers in the kingdom, and stated 
 the case of the agriculturists with singular power and 
 ability. Some of the most competent judges, including 
 the late Mr M'Culloch, who had no leanings in favour 
 of Protection, considered them to be unanswered and 
 unanswerable. " If the cause there advocated was to 
 have been won," it has been truly said, " those arti- 
 cles would have contributed largely to the victory." 
 Aytoun went into this question with all the earnest- 
 ness of strong conviction, conquering even his dislike 
 to public display so far as to speak upon it as the re- 
 presentative of the Scottish agriculturists, at the great 
 Protection meeting held in London in May 1850. The 
 great discoveries of gold, and other unforeseen circum- 
 stances, neutralised in a great degree the disastrous 
 results which were anticipated from the changes against
 
 LETTEK FROM THACKEKAY. 131 
 
 which he had fought so strongly ; but to the last his 
 convictions remained unaltered as to the hazards of the 
 policy which prevailed. 
 
 At a time when Thackeray's great powers were com- 
 paratively unrecognised, Aytoun had in more than 
 one of his papers spoken of them with warm admira- 
 tion. This kind of service was likely to be deeply 
 felt by Thackeray, who had for many years been doing 
 a great deal of first-class work, without earning either 
 fortune or fame. He was therefore predisposed to 
 like Aytoun, and, when they met in London, they 
 took most cordially to each other. It could scarcely 
 be otherwise with two men who, apart from their in- 
 tellectual gifts, were both so thoroughly genial, kindly, 
 and natural. Their correspondence was of the frank- 
 est and most friendly kind. Some of Thackeray's 
 letters have fortunately been preserved, and will be 
 read with interest, especially by those who will re- 
 cognise the friend they loved in the tenor of every 
 phrase of such letters as the following. 
 
 13 YOUNG STREET, KENSINGTON, 
 Jan. 2, 1847. 
 
 MY DEAR AYTOUN, 1 hope The Maclosky received the Mulli- 
 gan present. I ought to have written before, answering your 
 kind, hearty letter, but business, you know, and weariness of 
 quill-driving after business hours, &c. I don't write to anybody, 
 that's the fact, unless I want something of them, and perhaps 
 that's the case at this present. 
 
 I think I have never had any ambition hitherto, or cared 
 what the world thought my work, good or bad ; but now the truth 
 forces itself upon me, if the world will once take to admiring 
 Titmarsh, all his guineas will be multiplied by 10. Guineas are
 
 132 THACKERAY ON DICKENS. 
 
 good. I have got children, only 10 years more to the fore, say, 
 Sec. ; now is the time, my lad, to make your A when the sun at 
 length has begun to shine. 
 
 Well, I think if I can make a push at the present minute if 
 my friends will shout, Titmarsh for ever ! hurrah for, &c., &c., I 
 may go up with a run to a pretty fair place in my trade, and be 
 allowed to appear before the public as among the first fiddles. 
 But my tunes must be heard in the streets, and organs must grind 
 them. Ha ! Now do you read me ? 
 
 Why don't ' Blackwood ' give me an article ! Because he re- 
 fused the best story I ever wrote ?* Colburn refused the present 
 " Novel without a Hero," and if any man at Blackwood's or Col- 
 burn's, and if any man since fiddle-de-dee. Upon my word 
 and honour, I never said so much about myself before : but I 
 know this, if I had the command of ' Blackwood,' and a humor- 
 istical person like Titmarsh should come up and labour hard 
 and honestly (please God) for 10 years, I would give him a hand. 
 Now try, like a man, revolving these things in your soul, and see 
 if you can't help me. . . . And if I can but save a little 
 money, by the Lord ! I'll try and keep it. 
 
 Some day when less selfish I will write to you about other 
 matters than the present ego. The dining season has begun in 
 London already, I am sorry to say, and the Christmas feeding is 
 frightfully severe. ... I have my children with me, and am 
 mighty happy in that paternal character preside over legs of 
 mutton comfortably go to church at early morning and like it 
 pay rates and taxes, &c., &c. Between this line and the above, 
 a man has brought me the ' Times ' on " The Battle of Life " to 
 read. Appy Dickens ! But I love Pickwick and Crummies 
 too well to abuse this great man. Aliquando bonus. And you, 
 young man, coming up in the world full of fight, take counsel 
 from a venerable and peaceable old gladiator who has stripped 
 for many battles, f Gad, sir, this caution is a very good sign. 
 
 * " The Great Hojjgarty Diamond." 
 
 f Thackeray always maintained the supremacy of Dickens over all 
 contemporary humorists, and that in no stinted terms. " Think of 
 all we owe Mr Dickens since those half-dozen years," it was thus he
 
 CORRESPONDENCE WITH THACKERAY. 133 
 
 Do you remember how complimentary Scott and Goethe were ? 
 I like the patriarchal air of some people. Have you ever any 
 snow in Scotland ? 
 
 (Here follows an admirable draiving of a dustman singing 
 beside his cart, with snow deep in tlie street?) 
 
 As I was walking in just now I met this fellow singing " I 
 dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls" driving a dust-cart. I 
 burst out laughing, and so did he. He is as good as Leech's boy in 
 the last 'Punch.' How good Leech is, and what a genuine hum- 
 our ! And Hans Christian Andersen, have you read him ? I am 
 wild about him, having only just discovered that delightful deli- 
 cate fanciful creature. Good-bye, my dear Aytoun. I wish you 
 a merry Christmas, and to honest Johnny Blackwood. Thank 
 him for the Magazine. I shall enjoy it in bed to-morrow morn- 
 ing, when I've left orders not to be called for church. Yours 
 ever, 
 
 W. M. T. 
 
 Thackeray seems to have been tinder the mistaken 
 impression, which afterwards became very general, that 
 
 wrote of him in reviewing the " Christmas Carol " in ' Eraser's Maga- 
 zine,' in February 1844, "the store of happy hours he has made us 
 pass, the kindly and pleasant companions he has introduced to us ; 
 the harmless laughter, the generous, the frank, manly, human love 
 which he has taught us to feel. Every month of these years has 
 brought us some kind token from this delightful genius. . . . His 
 books have made millions of rich and poor happy ; they might have 
 been locked up for nine years, doubtless, and pruned here and there, 
 and improved (which I doubt), but where would have been the 
 reader's benefit all this time, while the author was elaborating his 
 performance ? . . . The last two people I beard speak of this book 
 were women ; neither knows the other or the author, but both said 
 by way of criticism, ' God bless him ! ' . . . What a feeling is this 
 for a writer to be able to inspire, and what a reward to reap !" There 
 is much more to the same effect, not less charming, nor less honour- 
 able to the creator of "Tiny Tim," and his generous rival in the field 
 of fiction. It is a wrong to Thackeray's fame, that the best of his 
 fugitive papers, including that just quoted from, are not reprinted.
 
 134 CORRESPONDENCE WITH THACKERAY. 
 
 Aytoun was the editor of 'Blackwood.' Whether he 
 thought so or not, it was very natural he should sug- 
 gest to Aytoun that a timely word of commendation 
 in the Magazine would "be much to his advantage. 
 Had it been given, which it was not, it would have 
 been given with all sincerity, as Thackeray himself 
 would have given it to a well-deserving friend in a like 
 case. But the suggestion was withdrawn in the fol- 
 lowing letter almost as soon as made, and in a manner 
 eminently characteristic. Thackeray was too honest, 
 too straightforward ; he had too strong a sense of what 
 is due to the public in matters of criticism, even to 
 seem to claim from friendship one jot of consideration 
 which was not his by right, or of panegyric, which, to 
 be of any value, " must come unsought for, if it come 
 at all." 
 
 13 YOUNG STREET, KENSINGTON, MONDAY NIGHT, 
 Jan. 13, 1847. 
 
 MY DEAR AYTOUN, The copy of Mrs Perkins which was sent 
 by the Mulligan to the other chieftain has met with a mishap. 
 It travelled to Edinburgh in the portmanteau of a friend of 
 mine, who arrived at ten o'clock at night and started for Inver- 
 ness the next morning at six. Mrs P. went with him. He forgot 
 her at Inverness, and came back to London, whither Mrs Perkins 
 was sent after him at a cost of 4s. lOd. for carriage. She is not 
 worth that money either for you or me to pay, and waits in my 
 room till you come to town in spring. 
 
 I have been thinking of the other matter on which I un- 
 busmd myself to you, and withdraw my former letter. Puffs are 
 good, and the testimony of good men ; but I don't think these will 
 make a success for a man, and he ought to stand as the public 
 chooses to put him. I will try, please God, to do my best, and 
 the money will come perhaps some day ! Meanwhile a man so
 
 APPOINTED SHERIFF OF ORKNEY. 135 
 
 lucky as myself has no reason to complain. So let all puffing 
 alone, though, as you know, I am glad if I can have and deserve 
 your private good opinion. The women like ' Vanity Fair,' I 
 find, very much, and the publishers are quite in good spirits 
 regarding that venture. 
 
 This is all I have to say in the solitude of midnight with a 
 quiet cigar and the weakest gin-and-water in the world, rumin- 
 ating over a child's ball, from which I have just come, having 
 gone as chaperon to my little girls. One of them had her hair 
 plaited in two tails, the other had ringlets, (here follows a 
 sketch of the children) and the most fascinating bows of blue 
 ribbon. It was very merry and likewise sentimental. "We went 
 in a fly quite genteel, and, law ! what a comfort it was when it 
 was over ! 
 
 Adyou. Yours sincerely, 
 
 W. M. THACKERAY. 
 
 When Lord Derby came into office in 1852, a 
 vacancy in the sheriffship of Orkney and Zetland 
 enabled him to requite the eminent services of Aytoun 
 to his party by appointing him to the office.* He 
 applied himself to its duties with his habitual earnest- 
 ness and assiduity, and performed them, down to his 
 death, to the general satisfaction of the Orcadians. He 
 usually passed a portion of the summer months in the 
 islands which composed his sheriffdom, endearing him- 
 self to many of the hospitable dwellers in that remote 
 region by his kindly and genial qualities, and respected 
 for the justice and sagacity of the judgments which he 
 dispensed as their lawman. 
 
 The following letter to his friend, Mr John Black- 
 wood, was written soon after his first arrival as sheriff 
 
 * In June 1853 Aytoun received from Oxford the honorary degree 
 ofD.C.L.
 
 136 PICTURE OF ORKNEY. 
 
 on the scene of his boyish ramble with his friend 
 Monro. The allusion in the beginning of the letter is 
 to a poem he was writing on "The Age of Gold," 
 which appeared in ' Blackwood' for October 1852. 
 
 LERWICK, August 16, 1852. 
 
 MY DEAR BLACKWOOD, It is no go for next month, in so far as 
 I am concerned. I clapped the spurs into Pegasus, but the 
 foundered beast stopped after an uneasy canter of 200 yards, 
 and I have since been galloping on Zetland ponies. Sans meta- 
 phor, I could not compass more than 200 lines, as I have really 
 a deal to do here, and a deal to see, so that I must cry off until 
 I have a little more leisure. . . . This is a strange country, 
 but, on the whole, I like it much. It is the most primitive 
 part of her Majesty's dominions, and, but for the language, has 
 no affinity whatever with. Scotland. I have seen Sumburgh 
 Head and Fitful Head, and slept at Triptolemus Yellowley's, 
 and eaten dulse instead of anchovy toast, and swilled water for 
 lack of brandy, and performed divers other feats too marvellous 
 and fishlike to be here recounted. I am gradually becoming 
 web-footed, walk uneasily on my hinder fins, and when I cough 
 the sound is as the cry of a cormorant. I have a wild craving 
 for sillocks, and of an evening we play at nothing but hot 
 cockles. Good-bye ; I am just going to the beach to gather 
 limpets. Yours always, W. E. A. 
 
 Aytoun formed a warm attachment for his sheriff- 
 depute, Mr James Eobertson; and his frequent business 
 communications with that gentleman were generally 
 enlivened by gossip about his own affairs, or public or 
 local politics, written as frankly as he would have 
 spoken had they been side by side. These letters have 
 been kindly placed by Mr Eobertson at my disposal ; 
 and as they throw a pleasing light upon the friendli-
 
 HIS MAKEIAGE. 137 
 
 ness and playfulness of his character, I shall not hesitate 
 to present some extracts from them. 
 
 In April 1849 Aytoun had married Jane Emily, the 
 youngest daughter of Professor Wilson, and removed 
 from 11 Fettes Bow, where he had resided with his 
 mother and sisters since his father's death in 1843, to 
 Inverleith Terrace, in a northern suburb of Edin- 
 burgh. Here they resided until the domestic disasters 
 recounted in the following letter led to his removal 
 to the house which he occupied for the remainder of 
 his life : 
 
 EDINBURGH, 1 INVERLEITH TERRACE, 
 
 February 7, 1853. 
 
 MY DEAR ROBERTSON, I have just received intimation of the 
 death of the late Lord President Boyle. He was a fine worthy 
 of the old Scottish breed, and an honour to our courts and 
 country. There is nothing new here politically, but if there had 
 been, I do not think I should have attended greatly to it, having 
 been taken up with domestic matters. The house we occupy at 
 present is a small one, and very ill finished. This winter the 
 rains have been so violent that they absolutely penetrated the 
 outer wall (ours is a corner house), and the upper story is unin- 
 habitable. There was a certain white silk dress, which recalls 
 indistinct reminiscences of the altar, hanging peacefully on a 
 peg. Blight and mildew ! It was spotted like a leopard's skin. 
 So, for that and other reasons, the situation being dreadfully far 
 both from the Parliament House and the College, we determined 
 to move up hill, and seek another Eden. And the upshot is, 
 that last week I purchased a house in Great Stuart Street big 
 enough to lodge a patriarch. I am not frightened at what I 
 have done ; I am simply stupified. There will be the plumber, 
 and the gas-fitter, and the painters ; hum of upholstery work, 
 and the slave that vendeth carpets, with all manner of minor 
 harpies, upon me at once. They will snap up the whole of my 
 corn, and batten upon the fruits of my intellectual labour for
 
 138 LECTURES ON BALLAD POETRY. 
 
 years. I have just been walking about the house, after the 
 manner of Solomon Eagle, with a brazier upon my head, ex- 
 claiming, " Woe ! woe !" to the infinite terror of the housemaid. 
 
 And now, farewell ! In the words of the dying outlaw, ' Feed 
 thou on the deer of the forest, and when these fail thee, prey on 
 the herds of the Saxon, and the Gael that are Saxon in their 
 souls.' Yours distractedly. 
 
 Soon afterwards, Aytoun, following the example of 
 Thackeray and others, commenced a series of lectures 
 on ballad poetry. Often as he had faced an audience 
 as a public speaker, the appearance in a new character 
 seems, to judge by the following note, to have filled 
 him with something akin to that uncontrollable de- 
 liquescence of courage known as " stage fright : " 
 
 April 7, 1853. 
 
 MY DEAR ROBERTSON, I am in a state of mental misery, as I 
 have to deliver my first public lecture to-night. 
 
 Oh Lord ! oh Lord, sir ! I shall break down I'm sure I 
 shall. You may look for the multure case next week. " Ladies 
 and gentlemen.' 1 " Fling him ower ! Fiddlers ! " * Oh my dear 
 Robertson, never you try lecturings ! 
 
 The lectures proved so successful in Edinburgh, that 
 Aytoun was induced to repeat them in London. His 
 reputation attracted large audiences, but they pro- 
 duced no great impression there. They did not seem 
 to me to hit the tone of an English audience of the 
 highest class, which his audience was, being somewhat 
 too diffuse in style, and not allowing sufficiently for 
 his hearers' previous knowledge of the subject. His 
 
 * The cry of the Scottish theatrical gods when their gallery is in 
 uproar.
 
 THE "JUSTICE TO SCOTLAND MOVEMENT. 139 
 
 strongly-marked Scottish accent too, pleasant at all 
 times to native ears somewhat marred the effect of 
 his impassioned delivery of the ballads, with which 
 his lectures were liberally illustrated. 
 
 The following very characteristic letter has reference 
 to a movement which was started in the autumn of 
 1853, for the redress of certain Scottish grievances, in 
 which Lord Eglinton, Aytoun, and others took a pro- 
 minent part. The chief objects of complaint were the 
 want of a Secretary of State for Scotland, a functionary 
 supposed to be represented, but in point of fact repre- 
 sented most imperfectly, by the Lord Advocate, the 
 insufficient number of representatives in Parliament, 
 the removal from Scotland of the various offices and 
 boards sanctioned by the Treaty of Union, the neglect 
 of the royal parks and palaces, and generally the in- 
 difference of the Imperial Government in all matters 
 specially affecting the interests of Scotland. 
 
 November 3, 1853. 
 
 MY DEAR ROBERTSON, Mrs Aytoun tells me that she has just 
 written you a patriotic letter, so, although the fit is strong upon 
 me, I shall spare you details, and refer you to the report of pro- 
 ceedings in the ' Mercury.' You never saw anything like the en- 
 thusiasm which prevails here on the subject. The birses of Mr 
 Ruddy Lion are fairly up, and his mouth is stretched wide enough 
 to entomb a hecatomb of Cockneys. This is the beginning, but 
 the ultimate success of the movement will depend on the support 
 we receive from the country. If the example of the Orcadians 
 is to be followed, we may keep our breath to cool our porridge, 
 and really such plucklessness and apathy is disgraceful. Zooks, 
 man ! are there not a dozen fellows in the islands with soul 
 enough to form themselves into a local association, and come
 
 140 THE " JUSTICE TO SCOTLAND " MOVEMENT. 
 
 down with five shillings a-piece for the honour of their country 
 
 and the assertion of their own rights ? What the devil are S 
 
 and B about ? Can't they join us as the corporation of Kirk- 
 wall ? Believe me, Crail despises you for your hen-heartedness, 
 and Pittenweem returns thanks that she is not as the degenerate 
 Norsemen are ! Mark me, if there is no speedy symptom of 
 spunk, I shall conspire with the D s to have the Scat* augmen- 
 ted, and the lispundf shall be a burden to your backs. I say no 
 more. I am ashamed of you. Vikings indeed ! Why, you 
 have not, so far as I can see, the collective pluck of a sillock. J 
 Go to, ye scatlings, ye chuffs, ye sham Berserkars ! And when 
 you get up, as usual, at three o'clock of the afternoon, and light 
 the gas for morning prayers, don't flatter yourselves that you 
 are much above the level of the Esquimaux. So no more at pres- 
 ent from your incensed 
 
 W. EDMONDSTOUNE AYTOUN. 
 
 All this amusing indignation was apparently thrown 
 away. The Orcadians had bestirred themselves, and 
 sent in their adhesion to the movement before Aytoun's 
 letter was despatched, and in his next letter he makes 
 amends as follows : 
 
 December 17, 1853. 
 
 MY DEAR ROBERTSON, On the receipt of yours, with the 
 gratifying intelligence that the commissioners of supply of Ork- 
 ney had joined us, I communicated it to Mr Carter, the secretary 
 of the association. . . . The Orkney resolutions, I assure 
 you, have been of immense importance ; because the remoter the 
 district the more powerful is the testimony as to the general 
 neglect, and it shows over how wide a surface the complaint 
 extends. 
 
 * A tax levied upon all land in Orkney held by Odal-red, for the 
 support of the Crown. 
 
 t A weight in use in Orkney, now equal to 18 Ib. Scots measure. 
 
 The year-old fry of the coal-fish, a dainty much esteemed in 
 Orkney.
 
 GEEAT MEETING AT GLASGOW. 141 
 
 We had a tremendous meeting at Glasgow on the 15th. The 
 immense City Hall was crowded from door to ceiling, I believe 
 not short of 5000 people, the very best men of Glasgow, and all 
 most enthusiastic. I spoke, as you will see, on the subject of 
 the Secretary of State. I had intended to give, as an illustration 
 of gross neglect, the history of the Orkney grievances ; but, on 
 consideration, I became aware that if I did so I might lay myself 
 open to animadversion ; for there are many people ready to snap 
 at anything which they could make a handle of for personal 
 attack, and therefore I forbore. The meeting went off triumph- 
 antly, but, as far as some of us were concerned, the natural feel- 
 ing of exultation was cruelly depressed. The Countess of Eglin- 
 ton had been for some time very ill labouring, indeed, under a 
 mortal complaint and nothing but a strong sense of duty brought 
 the Earl from home to attend the meeting. I went out with 
 him to Fossil House (Sir A. Alison's) that night, having arranged 
 to leave early next morning, but in the course of the night a de- 
 spatch arrived summoning him home, and I hear this morning 
 that the countess is no more. I can't tell you how deeply I am 
 impressed with this awful calamity. If ever woman was guar- 
 dian angel to a man, directing his impulses and cheering him in 
 a high and honourable career, Lady Eglinton was that to the 
 Earl. A more devoted couple never lived, and the blow must 
 be an awful one to him. 
 
 I have a great class this winter, which adds to my other dis- 
 comforts, for the youths have caught the spirit of the time, are 
 all Young Scotlanders, eager to write and make speeches, and 
 are frantic for reputation. 1 have as much MS. in the shape 
 of exercises as would roast an ox, to correct next week. 
 
 January 5, 1854. 
 
 Be it known to you, dearly beloved, that your missives have 
 come diily to hand. The petition to her Majesty will be sent 
 immediately to the proper quarter, and the memorial on the 
 wrongs of Orkney is in the hands of the printer. It is really a 
 model of a memorial clear, condensed, and stripped of techni- 
 cality, and must, I think, carry conviction, if it is only carefully 
 read, which I doubt not will be the case now. There can be
 
 142 SCHEME OF A REFOKM BILL. 
 
 little doubt that the question of Scottish rights, or rather wrongs, 
 will ere long be mooted in both Houses of Parliament. I have 
 this morning a letter from Lord Eglinton, who, in the midst of 
 his heavy bereavement, has not forgotten the common cause, and 
 T consider it more than probable that he will take up the mat- 
 ter in the Peers. When that time comes the case of Orkney will 
 not be forgotten. I have letters from India and the colonies, 
 written before the accounts of the public meeting at Edinburgh 
 had reached them, but founded on the article in ' Blackwood ' for 
 September, which shows that the Scottish feeling is at least as 
 keen abroad as at home. I cannot but think that some substan- 
 tial benefit will be the result of this movement. 
 
 Some substantial benefit did result from the move- 
 ment, but only indirectly. It attracted to it certain 
 unruly spirits, the extravagance of whose views dis- 
 gusted Aytoun and those with whom it had originated. 
 They determined, therefore, on breaking up their asso- 
 ciation, content with having called the attention of the 
 Government to a few substantial grievances, which 
 were put in the way of being removed, and letting 
 it be very clearly seen that the feelings and interests of 
 the northern part of the island were not with impunity 
 to be systematically overlooked, as they had for some 
 time been. 
 
 The following letter contains a scheme for a Eeform 
 Bill, which has, in most of its main features, been since 
 brought forward with considerable approval. It shows 
 how closely Aytoun had studied a question which his 
 political adversaries were apt to think was understood 
 
 only by themselves : 
 
 February 27, 1854. 
 
 MY DEAR ROBERTSON, I can tell you nothing about the 
 new Reform Bill, except that it is in no favour with the
 
 SCHEME OF A REFORM BILL. 143 
 
 Whigs, who, being in, see no reason for disturbing present 
 arrangements. For all that, it is possible it may be pushed. 
 The object evidently is to swamp the counties by pitching into 
 them the inhabitants of small towns, and this must be resisted. 
 I have written a short article upon it for ' Blackwood,' and 
 shall again return to the charge more elaborately ; for I think 
 a great and beneficial alteration might be made, though in a 
 direction never yet indicated. My views are these : first, fix the 
 whole numbers of the House of Commons say, as at present, 
 654. Then make a just allotment to England, Scotland, and 
 Ireland respectively, according to the double test of population 
 and revenue, so that each of the three kingdoms shall be equally 
 represented in respect of these two criteria. Let there be a distinct 
 borough and distinct county qualification ; but, with regard to the 
 small boroughs, let the principle be, not disfranchisement, but union. 
 If Calne, for example, be too small to return a member, join it with 
 the nearest borough in the same position; and where that is im- 
 possible, add to it as many small towns in the neighbourhood as 
 will make up a respectable constituency. In this way you gain 
 three points : first, you dimmish by union the number of English 
 boroughs, so as to admit of the national redistribution, which 
 ought to be the fundamental point ; secondly, you still preserve 
 the balance between town and country; and, thirdly, you relieve 
 the counties of a vast number of swamping votes at present 
 thrown into them from unrepresented towns. But my great 
 point is this, that no man shall vote for more than one member 
 in one place. "Why should I, living in Edinburgh, have two 
 representatives, and my friend, who lives in Leith, only one ? 
 It is plain that, as an individual, I have double his political in- 
 fluence, though our qualification is the same. But Edinburgh 
 requires to have two members on account of its importance. 
 Granted. But why should the same men return both members 'I 
 The proper method is to divide the city into wards. Let one 
 division elect one member and the other the other ; and in this 
 way property will have its weight, and we shall have no more of 
 tyrant majorities. The system is pursued at present to a certain 
 extent in the English counties which are divided, and the voters 
 poll in each without reference to the other. Why not carry this
 
 144 DEATH OF PEOFESSOR WILSON. 
 
 further in the counties, and apply it also to the towns ? I should 
 like to hear what you, who are a practical bird, think of this 
 view. 
 
 Soon after the date of this letter, Aytoun's father-in- 
 law, Christopher North, died. He had for some time 
 "been in feeble health, and but the shadow of his former 
 self. The loss, when it came, was not the less severe 
 to Aytoun, who had from his boyhood known and 
 admired and loved him, and to Mrs Aytoun, to whom 
 the great Professor was tenderly attached. 
 
 Aytoun announced the event to me in the following 
 letter : 
 
 EDINBURGH, April 4, 1854. 
 
 MY DEAR MARTIN, Many thanks for your Correggio It 
 
 reached me on a day of calamity, that which struck my father- 
 in-law down. I have witnessed the passing away of a great and 
 gifted spirit, which, though oppressed at the last by physical 
 affliction, and nickering in the socket like the last leaps of an 
 expiring candle, was a spectacle never to be forgotten. He died 
 painlessly. Early on Friday the 31st March he had another 
 stroke of paralysis, and never afterwards recovered conscious- 
 ness. We watched him for three days, life surging all the while 
 within his gigantic frame, until on Monday night, just as the 
 clock struck twelve, the heaving ceased, the breath became 
 feebler, and with one soft, unagonised sigh, he gave up the ghost. 
 I went to-day into the room where the body is lying. The hand 
 of affection, from one who hardly knew him, had placed a bouquet 
 of white camelias on his breast ; and though my heart was very 
 full, I could not shed a tear in the presence of that nobleness of 
 death. 
 
 I have written this hasty note in the midst of some pressing 
 duties. I know how you and your dear wife regarded him, and I 
 thought you might like to hear from me on the occasion. Adieu !
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HIS INDUSTRY AND VERSATILITY PUBLICATION OF ' FIRMILIAN ' 
 ITS RECEPTION AND EFFECTS ACCOUNT OF IT HIS CONTRIBU- 
 TIONS TO 'BLACKWOOD' COMMENCEMENT OF 'BOTHWELL' HIS 
 
 ANSWER TO CRITICISMS ON IT DIFFICULTIES OF THE TASK ITS 
 PUBLICATION, AND RECEPTION BY THE PUBLIC LORD LYTTON*S 
 OPINION OF IT GROUSE-SHOOTING IN ORKNEY. 
 
 As indicative of Aytoun's industry and versatility, it 
 may be remarked, that no fewer than five papers by 
 him, all of an elaborate kind, two literary and three 
 political, appeared in ' Blackwood ' for March and April 
 1854 ; while for two years previous, every number of 
 the Magazine, with two exceptions, contained at least 
 one, and sometimes two or three, papers by him. He 
 had not, however, amidst his labours as a reviewer 
 and publicist, forgotten his poet-craft ; and in ' Black- 
 wood' for May appeared fragments of what is per- 
 haps the finest piece of humorous verse which he had 
 hitherto produced ' Firmilian ; or, The Student of 
 Badajoz.' They were set in what seemed a grave 
 review of an unpublished tragedy, and so skilfully 
 handled that most of the newspaper critics took the 
 part of the poet against the reviewer, never suspecting 
 the identity of both, and maintained the poetry to be
 
 146 FIRMILIAtf. 
 
 fine poetry and the critic to be a dunce. As the fol- 
 lowing letter shows, this induced Aytoun to gratify 
 these ingenious gentlemen by giving them a complete 
 specimen of a " spasmodic tragedy : " 
 
 EDINBURGH, May 27, 1854. 
 
 MY DEAR MARTIN, I heard of you the other day from our 
 friend Edward Forbes, who has now taken his place among us. 
 I was at his introductory lecture, which went off very well, and 
 I think he will be sure to make himself popular with the 
 students. . . . 
 
 Did you see the sham notice of " Firmilian " in Blackwood 
 for May ? Strange to say, the newspapers (with but four or five 
 exceptions) have treated it as an actual production, and some of 
 them declare that the review is grossly unfair, and entreat Percy 
 Jones to give his volume to the public ! Between you and me, 
 I intend, for the sake of mystification, to gratify them, and have 
 already done a good bit, so that you may expect one of these days 
 to see a real roaring tragedy. I intend to introduce a good many 
 hits by way of spice. It is very curious, when you sit down to 
 write this kind of thing, to find how very closely some of the 
 passages approximate to good poetry ; and I am really of opinion 
 that the best things in Marlowe were owing mainly to a fine 
 rhythmical ear and a reckless energy. I wish I could show you 
 some of my lines, written currente calamo, for this sort of 
 crambo comes out as fluently as prose. Here is a short sample 
 
 I clove my way 
 
 Right eastward, till I lighted at the foot 
 Of holy Helicon, and drank my fill 
 At the clear spoilt of Aganippe's stream. 
 I've rolled my limbs in ecstasy along 
 The self-same turf on which old Homer lay 
 That night he dreamed of Helen and of Troy ; 
 And I have heard at midnight the sweet strains 
 Come quiring from the hill-top, where, enshrined 
 In the rich foldings of a silver cloud, 
 The Muses sang Apollo into sleep.
 
 ITS RECEPTION BY THE CRITICS. 147 
 
 Damme, sir, if crambo isn't the thing after all ! And the 
 advantage is, that you can go on slapdash, without thinking ! 
 
 Don't say anything about this at present. I want to mystify 
 the London humorists. 
 
 When the completed tragedy appeared a few months 
 afterwards, the hoax was not less successful than be- 
 fore, and the poem was dealt with by several critics as 
 a serious production of the spasmodic school. Others 
 who felt the satire, but could not appreciate the hum- 
 our, abused it as an unfair attack upon the leading 
 writers of that school. The admirers of ' Festus/ ' Bal- 
 der,' and the other works at which the satire was aimed, 
 were sorely puzzled what to make of it. The sense of 
 humour not being a quality in which they abounded, 
 they were unable to form even a surmise of the delicate 
 sarcasm which runs through the story and the style of 
 ' Firmilian.' At the same time, however, the dash of 
 the imagery, and the brilliancy and vigour of the versi- 
 fication, made them feel the presence of a poetic power 
 which was not to be gainsaid, and left them with an 
 unpleasant consciousness thai the satirist was quite a 
 match for their favourite bards even where they were 
 strongest. 
 
 Aytoun's poem was worthy of a much wider popu- 
 larity than the poems it was meant to ridicule. But 
 the public, who had not read these, could not be ex- 
 pected thoroughly to relish ' Firmilian,' and it therefore 
 never became so widely appreciated as it deserved. 
 Only those who know to what lengths of impiety and 
 pruriency in conception, and of extravagance in ex-
 
 148 ITS EFFECT ON THE SPASMODIC SCHOOL. 
 
 pression, the poets of the spasmodic school had gone in 
 some of their then recent works, can understand how 
 pungent and how well timed was the ridicule with which 
 Aytoun overwhelmed them. No criticism however 
 searching, no invective however trenchant, could have 
 served the purpose half so well of showing, in the lan- 
 guage of Edmund Spenser's friend, Gabriel Harvey, 
 that true poetry " is not mad-brained, or ridiculous, or 
 absurd, or blasphemous, or monstrous, but deep-con- 
 ceited, but pleasurable, but delicate, but exquisite, but 
 gracious, but admirable." Aytoun was quite alive no 
 man more so to the unquestionable power which some 
 of these writers displayed ; and for the youngest writer 
 of the school, Mr Alexander Smith, he entertained a 
 very genuine admiration, which, on their becoming 
 acquainted, as they afterwards did, was mingled with 
 warm personal regard. But the offences against pro- 
 priety and good taste of which they were guilty, and 
 the absurd adulation with which the very vices of their 
 style were hailed by their admirers, thoroughly justified 
 Aytoun in dealing with them as he did. His masterly 
 parody had this excellent result, that the field of litera- 
 ture has since then been all but free from these " weeds 
 of glorious feature " with which Bailey, Dobell, and 
 their followers, might otherwise have overrun it. Mr 
 Alexander Smith, whose ' Drama of Life ' came in for 
 some of the keenest shafts of Aytoun's ridicule, had 
 the good sense to profit by the sharp lesson it read 
 him. Foregoing in his future works the cheap splen- 
 dours of a reckless imagination for healthful feeling
 
 SKETCH OF F1RM1LIAN. 149 
 
 and natural expression, he did justice to a genius 
 whose real power had just begun to make itself felt 
 when it was lost to us by his premature death. 
 
 As ' Firmilian,' despite its great merits, is one of the 
 least known of Aytoun's works, it may not be out of 
 place to give an outline of it here. 
 
 The drama opens in the hero's study all spasmodic 
 dramas do. Firmilian has set himself a great task, the 
 composition of ' Cain ; a Tragedy.' But his imagina- 
 tion being of that kind which only works under the 
 stimulus of strong realities, he feels himself unable to 
 paint the first fratricide's pangs until a preliminary 
 murder has given him a notion of remorse.* Accord- 
 ingly he starts on a career of crime with the purest 
 poetical motives. His meditations open thus : 
 
 Three hours of study and what gain thereby ? 
 
 My brain is reeling to attach the sense 
 
 Of what I read, as a drunk mariner 
 
 Who, stumbling o'er the bulwark, makes a clutch 
 
 At the wild incongruity of ropes, 
 
 And topples into mud ! 
 
 Tossing aside Aristotle, whom he has been reading, 
 with strong expressions of contempt for him, and the 
 other "hoary dotards of antiquity," he reviews in suc- 
 cession the respective attractions of law, theology, and 
 medicine ; and the practical element which lies at the 
 base of his imaginative nature is revealed in certain 
 forcible comments on the mercenary character of those 
 
 * Firmilian's prototype here was the " Balder" of Mr Dobell.
 
 150 SKETCH OF FIKMILIAN. 
 
 who make a profession of the three great divisions of 
 learning, 
 
 The Lawyer speaks no word without a fee 
 
 The Priest demands his tithes, and will not sing 
 
 A gratis mass to help his brother's soul. 
 
 The purgatorial key is made of gold : 
 
 None else will fit the wards ; and for the Doctor, 
 
 The good kind man who lingers by your couch, 
 
 Compounds you pills and potions, feels your pulse, 
 
 And takes especial notice of your tongue ; 
 
 If you allow him once to leave the room 
 
 Without a proper greasing of his palm, 
 
 Look out for Azrael ! 
 
 This systematic and somewhat prosaic utilising of 
 the learning of the schools is of course quite beneath 
 a genius like Firmilian's. With a fine frenzy and force 
 of diction, in which we are often reminded of " Mar- 
 lowe's mighty line," he thus proclaims his mission, 
 
 And shall I then take Celsus for my guide, 
 
 Confound my brain with dull Justinian's tomes, 
 
 Or stir the dust that lies o'er Augustine ? 
 
 Not I, in faith ! I've leaped into the air, 
 
 And clove my way through ether, like a bird 
 
 That flits beneath the glimpses of the moon, 
 
 Eight eastward, till I lighted at the foot 
 
 Of holy Helicon, and drank my fill 
 
 At the clear spout of Aganippe's stream ; 
 
 I've rolled my limbs in ecstasy along 
 
 The self-same turf on which old Homer lay 
 
 That night he dreamed of Helen and of Troy : 
 
 And I have heard, at midnight, the sweet strains 
 
 Come quiring from the hill-top, where, enshrined 
 
 In the rich foldings of a silver cloud, 
 
 The Muses sang Apollo into sleep.
 
 SKETCH OF FIRMIL1AN. 151 
 
 Then came the voice of universal Pan, 
 
 The dread earth-whisper, booming in mine ear 
 
 " Eise up, Firmilian rise in might ! " it said ; 
 
 " Great youth, baptised to song ! be it thy task, 
 
 Out of the jarring discords of the world, 
 
 To recreate stupendous harmonies 
 
 More grand in diapason than the roll 
 
 Among the mountains of the thunder-psalm ! 
 
 Be thou no slave of passion. Let not love, 
 
 Pity, remorse, nor any other thrill 
 
 That sways the actions of ungifted men, 
 
 Affect thy course. Live for thyself alone. 
 
 Let appetite thy ready handmaid be, 
 
 And pluck all fruitage from the tree of life, 
 
 Be it forbidden or no. If any comes 
 
 Between thee and the purpose of thy bent, 
 
 Launch thou the arrow from the string of might 
 
 Eight to the bosom of the impious wretch, 
 
 And let it quiver there ! Be great in guilt ! 
 
 If, like Busiris, thou canst rack the heart, 
 
 Spare it no pang. So shalt thou be prepared 
 
 To make thy song a tempest, and to shake 
 
 The earth to its foundation Go thy way ! " 
 
 I woke, and found myself in Badajoz. 
 
 But from that day, with frantic might, I've striven 
 
 To give due utterance to the awful shrieks 
 
 Of him who first imbued his hand in gore, 
 
 To paint the mental spasms that tortured Cain ! 
 
 How have I done it ? Feebly. What we write 
 
 Must be the reflex of the thing we know ; 
 
 For who can limn the morning, if his eyes 
 
 Have never looked upon Aurora's face ? 
 
 Or who describe the cadence of the sea, 
 
 Whose ears were never open to the waves, 
 
 Or the shrill winding of the Triton's horn ? 
 
 What do I know as yet of homicide ? 
 
 Nothing. Fool fool ! to lose thy precious time 
 
 In dreaming of what may be, when an act,
 
 152 SKETCH OF FIRMILIAN. 
 
 Easy to plan, and easier to effect, 
 
 Can teach thee everything ! What ! craven mind, 
 
 Shrink' st thou from doing, for a noble aim, 
 
 What, every hour, some villain, wretch, or slave 
 
 Dares for a purse of gold ? It is resolved 
 
 I'll ope the lattice of some mortal cage, 
 
 And let the soul go free. 
 
 A draught of wine lends additional vigour to this 
 
 resolution : 
 
 But the victim ? That 
 Eequires a pause of thought. I must begin 
 With some one dear to me, or else the deed 
 Would lose its flavour and its poignancy. 
 
 His first thought is of " the tender, blushing, yield- 
 ing Lilian : " 
 
 What if I saved 
 
 Her young existence from all future throes, 
 And laid her pallid on an early bier ? 
 Why, that were mercy both to her and me, 
 Not ruthless sacrifice. And, more than this, 
 She hath an uncle, an inquisitor, 
 Who might be tempted to make curious quest 
 About the final ailments of his niece. 
 Therefore, dear Lilian, live ! I harm thee not. 
 
 This mixture of tenderness with discretion is exqui- 
 site. Mariana, "the blooming mistress of the moated 
 grange," next occurs to him ; but he puts her aside 
 with the reflection that they are not married : 
 
 It will be time enough to think of her, 
 After her lands are mine ; therefore, my own, 
 My sweet affianced, sleep thou on in peace. 
 
 Indiana, " that full-blown beauty of Abassin blood, 
 whose orient charms are madness," then crosses his
 
 SKETCH OF FIKMILIAN. 153 
 
 fancy, but she is too recent an accession to Ms erotic 
 triumphs to be parted with just at present. But 
 
 then 
 
 There's Haverillo, mine especial friend, 
 A better creature never framed a verse 
 By dint of finger-scanning ; yet he's deemed 
 A proper poet by the gaping fools, 
 Who know not me ! 
 
 Just as we might imagine a " Balder " to speak of a 
 Eogers. Nor does the analogy hold as to relative poe- 
 tical merits only. Haverillo is rich and bounteous, 
 and has lent liberally to the less thrifty bard, whose 
 acknowledgments, not convertible in the market, slum- 
 ber within his desk. An easy creditor withal, 
 
 He asks 
 
 No instant payment for his fond advance, 
 Nor yet is clamant for the usufruct. 
 How if, he being dead, some sordid slave, 
 Brother or cousin, heir to his great wealth, 
 Should chance to stumble on those bonds of mine, 
 And sue me for the debt ? That were enough 
 To break the wanton wings of Pegasus, 
 And bind him to a stall ! 
 
 Besides, the sponge is not yet thoroughly squeezed. 
 " So let him live and thrive ! " At this point Firmilian's 
 meditations settle on three of his friends Garcia Perez, 
 " who ever stood above him in the schools ;" Alphonzo 
 d'Aguilar, whose Castilian hauteur has probably on 
 some occasion wounded his too sensitive friend ; and 
 Alonzo Olivarez, who has the merit of being so near of 
 kin to Mariana, Firmilian's affianced, that " his wealth 
 accrues solely to her."
 
 154 SKETCH OF FIRMILIAN. 
 
 I love him like a brother. 
 Be these my choice. I sup with them to-morrow. 
 
 Having settled this point, the means of death are 
 the next consideration, and the aid of Eaymond Lully, 
 that " quaint discourser upon pharmacy," is invoked in 
 the same vein of ironical humour : 
 
 Did not Lucretia, not the frigid dame, 
 Who discomposed young Tarquin in her bower, 
 But the complete and liberal Borgia 
 Consult thy pages for a sedative ? 
 
 The specific is found tasteless, and not to be de- 
 tected and Firmilian's mind is free to expatiate in an 
 apostrophe to the moon, 
 
 That in its perfect and perennial course 
 "Wanders at will across the fields of heaven. 
 
 Nothing is more strictly in consonance with the 
 ethics of poets of the spasmodic school than the num- 
 ber and variety of Firmilian's amours. These gentle- 
 men, who are generally in the last stages of dyspepsia 
 feeble vegetarians, scarcely insurable at any premium 
 are upon paper as amorous as satyrs. As the good 
 Haverillo says 
 
 Nine Muses waited on Apollo's beck 
 Our modern poets are more amorous, 
 And far exceed the stint of Solomon : 
 But 'tis mere fancy ; inspiration all. 
 
 This may be so, but it is not wonderful that the 
 Mariana of this poem should be somewhat uneasy as 
 to the constancy of a gentleman of such comprehensive 
 tastes as her betrothed. Accordingly, in the next scene,
 
 SKETCH OF FIRMILIAN. 155 
 
 we find her seeking some assurance from Haverillo to 
 dispel her fears. Their colloquy is interrupted by the 
 entrance of Firmilian to announce the death of his old 
 uncle, the Dean of Salamanca, leaving to him all the 
 worldly goods 
 
 Of that quiescent pillar of the Church. 
 
 The inheritance, which of course is a mere fiction, 
 comes most opportunely to the poet, 
 
 For the last ducat slumbers in his purse, 
 Without a coin to keep it company. 
 
 This dexterous hint opens the purse-strings of his 
 friend, to whose offer of eighty ducats he yields with 
 the reluctance and flow of fine sentiment characteristic 
 
 of his tribe. 
 
 I'd rather dash 
 
 My hand, like Scsevola, into the flame, 
 Than vex my Haverillo ! Oh dear heaven ! 
 If those who rail at human nature knew 
 How many kindly deeds each hour brings forth 
 How man by man is cherished and sustained 
 They'd leave their carping. I will take your offer. 
 
 Haverillo, kindliest of simpletons, all admiration 
 for his friend, presses him to explain the change from 
 gaiety to gloom which has of late come over him, and 
 makes him 
 
 Look like one that wrestles with a thought, 
 
 And cannot fling it down. 
 
 To his inquiries after the projected tragedy of 
 " Cain," Firmilian replies that it is abandoned, as too 
 gloomy for his handling, and that henceforward he 
 means to take his place
 
 156 SKETCH OF FIEMILIAN. 
 
 With the large-hearted men who love their kind 
 (Whereof there seems a large abundance now), 
 And follow your example. 
 
 Haverillo, in delight, asks if he will hear a little 
 thing, in the manner of Horace, 
 
 I wrote the other day on love and wine ; 
 
 but Firmilian, who has no relish for the common- 
 sense school, denies his generous ally this poor privi- 
 lege of friendship, with a mixture of firmness and en- 
 thusiasm altogether enviable ; 
 
 I would not listen to Apollo's lute 
 
 With greater rapture. But my time is brief. 
 
 Haverillo retires, and a dialogue ensues between Fir- 
 milian and Mariana, in which he succeeds in reassur- 
 ing her, by the fluent falsehood and indignant assump- 
 tion of injured innocence for which a gentleman of so 
 strong a poetical temperament is never at a loss. 
 
 The next scene shows us Firmilian in hot contro- 
 versy with his friends, Garcia Perez, D'Aguilar, and 
 Olivarez, on the subject of female beauty, in which 
 Firmilian's catholic admiration for the sex breaks forth 
 with startling fervour. The episode in Alexander 
 Smith's ' Drama of Life ' is here satirised with great 
 skill, and as a specimen of vigorous versification the 
 passage is remarkable : 
 
 I knew a poet once ; and he was young, 
 And intermingled with such fierce desires 
 As made pale Eros veil his face with grief, 
 And caused his lustier brother to rejoice. 
 He was as amorous as a crocodile
 
 SKETCH OF FIRMILIAN. 157 
 
 In the spring season, when the Memphian bank, 
 
 Eeceiving substance from the glaring sun, 
 
 Eesolves itself from mud into a shore. 
 
 And as the scaly creature wallowing there, 
 
 In its hot fits of passion, belches forth 
 
 The steam from out its nostrils, half in love, 
 
 And half in grim defiance of its kind, 
 
 Trusting that either, from the reedy fen, 
 
 Some reptile-virgin coyly may appear, 
 
 Or that the hoary Sultan of the Nile 
 
 May make tremendous challenge with his jaws, 
 
 And, like Mark Antony, assert his right 
 
 To all the Cleopatras of the ooze 
 
 So fared it with the poet that I knew. 
 
 He had a soul beyond the vulgar reach, 
 Sun-ripened, swarthy. He was not the fool 
 To pluck the feeble lily from its shade, 
 When the black hyacinth stood in fragrance by. 
 The lady of his love was dusk as Ind, 
 Her lips as plenteous as the Sphinx's are, 
 And her short hair crisp with Numidian curl. 
 She was a negress. You have heard the strains 
 That Dante, Petrarch, and such puling fools 
 As loved the daughters of cold Japhet's race, 
 Have lavished idly on their icicles : 
 As snow meets snow, so their unhasty fall 
 Fell chill and barren on a pulseless heart. 
 But would you know what noontide ardour is, 
 Or in what mood the lion, in the waste, 
 All fever-maddened, and intent on cubs, 
 At the oasis waits the lioness 
 That shall you gather from the fiery song, 
 Which that young poet framed, before he dared 
 Invade the vastness of his lady's lips. 
 
 Disgusted by Firrnilian's sensuality, D'Aguilar 
 strikes him, and a brawl ensues, which is only quieted
 
 158 SKETCH OF FIKMILIAN. 
 
 by an arrangement being made for a duel between 
 them next morning. But the three friends are not 
 destined to catch cold from the raw air of dawn. Fir- 
 milian has been the purveyor for their revel, and in 
 some flasks of Ildefronso a vintage new to the wine- 
 trade has proved the efficacy of Eaymond Lully's 
 anodyne mixture. Though his courage, therefore, is of 
 Bob Acres's kind, he comes upon the ground next 
 morning with none of that fire-eater's qualms. On the 
 contrary, when we next see him, which is in the cathe- 
 dral cloisters, his sole disquietude is to find that he is 
 as much a stranger to remorse as before he drugged 
 the goblets of his friends. But a sensation so valuable 
 for poetic purposes is, he reflects, not perhaps to be so 
 cheaply bought, and 
 
 The subtle alchemist, 
 Whose aim is the elixir, or that stone, 
 The touch whereof makes baser metals gold, 
 Must needs endure much failure, ere he finds 
 The grand Arcanum. So is it with me. 
 I have but shot one idle bolt away, 
 And need not seek it further. 
 
 At this point his attention is arrested by a dialogue 
 between a graduate, in whom the celebrated Oxford 
 undergraduate is typified, and a priest, in which the 
 former denounces the doctrines and the architecture of 
 the Established Church with Euskin-like vehemence, 
 retiring with the prophecy, 
 
 That o'er the stones wherein you place your pride, 
 Annihilation waves her dusky wing.
 
 SKETCH OF FIEMILIAN. 159 
 
 The suggestion is not lost upon Firmilian, who indi- 
 cates to the priest the probability of his young and 
 enthusiastic friend realising his own prophecy. This 
 is to screen himself from the suspicion of a majestic 
 plan of destruction, which he forthwith puts into exe- 
 cution. As the graduate spoke, says Firmilian, 
 
 Methouglit I saw the solid vaults give way, 
 
 And the entire cathedral rise in air, 
 
 As if it leaped from Pandemonium's jaws. 
 
 Accordingly he blows up the cathedral, with half 
 the population of Badajoz at their devotions, by 
 means of 
 
 Some twenty barrels of the dusky grain, 
 The secret of whose framing in an hour 
 Of diabolic jollity and mirth 
 Old Eoger Bacon wormed from Beelzebub. 
 
 Still " Cain " does not advance. Eemorse will not 
 take hold upon Firmilian. On the contrary, he feels 
 elated by the splendour of the spectacle presented by 
 
 Pillars and altar, organ loft and screen, 
 With a singed swarm of mortals intermixed, 
 Whirling in anguish to the shuddering stars. 
 
 He feels he has been " too coarse and general in this 
 business," and that in sending to the moon such a 
 
 herd of 
 
 Uninspired dullards, unpoetic slaves, 
 The tag and rag and bobtail of mankind, 
 
 he has committed no heavier sin than if he 
 
 Had thrust a stick of sulphur in the nest 
 Of some poor droning hive of humble bees, 
 And smoked them into silence.
 
 160 SKETCH OF FIRMILIAN. 
 
 All the qualities of a victim sufficiently select to 
 give a chance of the much-coveted sensation of re- 
 morse, seem, however, to meet in his friend Haverillo, 
 for whom, accordingly, we now find him waiting at 
 the summit of the pillar of St Simeon Stylites 
 
 We have gazed 
 
 Together on the midnight map of heaven, 
 And marked the gems in Cassiopeia's hair 
 Together have we heard the nightingale 
 Waste the exuberant music of her throat, 
 And lull the flustering breezes into calm 
 Together have we emulously sung 
 Of Hyacinthus, Daphne, and the rest, 
 Whose mortal weeds Apollo changed to flowers. 
 Also from him have I derived much aid 
 In golden ducats, which I fain would pay 
 Back with extremest usury, were but 
 Mine own convenience equal to my wish. 
 Moreover, of his poems he hath sold 
 Two full editions of a thousand each, 
 While mine remain neglected on the shelves ! 
 Courage, Firmilian, for the hour has come, 
 When thou canst know atrocity indeed, 
 By smiting him that was thy dearest friend. 
 
 He must not know with what a loving hand, 
 
 With what fraternal charity of heart 
 
 I do devote him to the infernal gods ! 
 
 I dare not spare him one particular pang, 
 
 Nor make the struggle briefer ! Hush he comes. 
 
 In the dialogue which ensues, Firmilian is metapho- 
 rical and selfish, Haverillo simple and generous as 
 usual. In vain the latter pleads for life. As a last 
 sop to Cerberus, he offers his friend the proceeds of a 
 new edition of his poems. This crowning indignity, so
 
 SKETCH OF FIRMILIAN. 161 
 
 stinging from a bard with a copyright of value to one 
 whose poems the public will not buy, is fatal, and Fir- 
 milian hurls his lyrical friend from the summit of the 
 column. By a fine stroke of poetical justice, the ill- 
 starred Haverillo crushes in his fall " Apollodorus, a 
 critic," as that distinguished dispenser of poetical fame 
 is sending aloft to heaven the following invocation : 
 
 Pythian Apollo, 
 
 Hear me, oh hear ! Towards the firmament 
 I gaze with longing eyes ; and, in the name 
 Of millions thirsting for poetic draughts, 
 I do beseech thee, send a poet down ! 
 Let him descend, e'en as a meteor falls, 
 
 Rushing at noonday 
 
 (He is crushed by the fall of the body of Haverillo.} 
 
 The poor graduate meanwhile is brought to the 
 stake for having blown up the cathedral ; and having 
 obtained permission to address the crowd, closes his 
 critical career in this appropriate strain: 
 
 His speech was worse than any commination. 
 He cursed the city, and he cursed the church ; 
 He cursed the houses, and he cursed their stones. 
 He cursed, in short, in such miraculous wise, 
 That nothing was exempted from his ban. 
 Then, sir, indeed the people's wrath was roused, 
 And a whole storm of cats came tumbling in, 
 Combined with baser missiles. I was fain, 
 Not wishing to be wholly singular, 
 To add my contribution to the rest. 
 Yet he cursed on, till the Familiars gagged him 
 Bound him unto the stake, and so he died. 
 
 At last, then, we might have expected to find Fir- 
 milian worked up into the poetic paroxysm required 
 
 L
 
 162 SKETCH OF FIKM1LIAN. 
 
 for his antediluvian tragedy. But no : instead of re- 
 morse, he feels only triumph, and even Haverillo's exit 
 merely begets the wish that his other creditors might 
 be disposed of in a like summary fashion. He begins 
 to surmise that all is over with " the firstling of his 
 soul his tragedy," and that his various murders have 
 gone for nothing. 
 
 Alas ! I fear 
 
 I have mista'en my bent ! What's Cain to me, 
 Or I to Cain ? I cannot realise 
 His wild sensations it were madness, then, 
 For me to persevere. Some other bard 
 With weaker nerves and fainter heart than mine 
 Must gird him to the task. 'Tis not for me 
 To shrine that page of history in song, 
 And utter such tremendous cadences, 
 That the mere babe who hears them at the breast, 
 Sans comprehension, or the power of thought, 
 Shall be an idiot to its dying hour ! 
 I deemed my verse would make pale Hecate's orb 
 Grow wan and dark ; and into ashes change 
 The radiant star-dust of the milky-way. 
 I deemed that pestilence, disease, and death, 
 Would follow every strophe for the power 
 Of a true poet, prophet aa he is, 
 Should rack creation ! 
 
 The question now arises, into what new channel 
 shall Firmilian pour the sprightly runnings of his 
 fancy ? A theme of magic is canvassed, and discarded 
 for a grand erotic poem, richer "than ever yet was 
 heard in praise of love," ct, propos of which he delivers 
 this pithy commentary upon our system of classical 
 instruction :
 
 SKETCH OF FIRMILIAN. 163 
 
 Let the cold moralists say what they will, 
 
 I'll set their practice boldly 'gainst my verse, 
 
 And so convict them of hypocrisy. 
 
 What text-books read their children at the schools ? 
 
 Derive they Latin from a hymnal source, 
 
 Or from the works of rigid anchorites ? 
 
 Not so ! That hog of Epicurus sty, 
 
 The sensuous Horace, ushers them along 
 
 To rancid Ovid. He prepares the way 
 
 For loose Catullus, whose voluptuous strain 
 
 Is soon dismissed for coarser Juvenal. 
 
 Take we the other language is there much 
 
 Of moral fervour or devout respect, 
 
 That can be gleaned from old Anacreon's lays, 
 
 Or Sappho's burning starts ? What pious lore 
 
 Can the alembic of the sage extract 
 
 From the rank filth of Aristophanes ? 
 
 Is Lucian holy reading 1 And if not, 
 
 Why, in the name of the old garden-god, 
 
 Persist they in their system 1 Pure indeed 
 
 Must be the minds of those compelled to wade 
 
 Through all the dunghills of antiquity, 
 
 If they escape without some lasting stain. 
 
 What do our moralists 1 To make things clear, 
 
 Which otherwise might 'scape the youthful sense, 
 
 They write Pantheons wherein you may read, 
 
 In most exact and undisguised detail, 
 
 The loves of Jove with all his relatives, 
 
 Besides some less conspicuous amours 
 
 With Danae, Europa, and the like. 
 
 What merrier jests can move the schoolboy's spleen, 
 
 Than the rich tale of Vulcan and of Mars ; 
 
 Or of Apollo, when, in hot pursuit 
 
 Of Daphne, 'stead of tresses in his hand, 
 
 He found a garland of the laurel leaves ? 
 
 Well-thumbed, be sure, the precious pages are, 
 
 That tell of Venus and of Mercury ! 
 
 And shall the men, who do not shrink to teach
 
 164 SKETCH OF FIRMILIAN. 
 
 Such saving doctrine to their tender sons, 
 Accuse me if I shrine the same in verse, 
 And with most sweet seductive harmony 
 Proclaim the reign of Love o'er all the world ? 
 
 But the Nemesis of the poet is at hand. The In- 
 quisition is on his traces, and the three ladies of his 
 love, Lilian, Mariana, and Indiana, objecting to the 
 Mormonite character of his domestic arrangements, 
 direct the pursuit. The ladies he sends to untimely 
 graves in his own conclusive way. The Familiars of the 
 Inquisition are not, however, so easily dealt with, and 
 the last scene discovers Firmilian lost in mist upon a 
 barren moor, to which he has fled from their pursuit. 
 Here he is lured by ignes fatui into a pond in an old 
 quarry, into which, some years before, he had himself 
 lured an old blind beggar, whose importunate prayer 
 for alms had broken the chain of his imaginative medi- 
 tations. 
 
 The main thread of the story is enriched by episodes 
 in which poetical fancy and exquisite versification 
 prevent the continual play of irony from becoming 
 tedious. The poem must always rank as a masterpiece 
 of burlesque. On poets of the spasmodic school 
 tribus insanabiles Anticyris not even its powerful 
 sarcasm will work a cure. But it deserves to keep its 
 place in literature, if only as showing how easy it is for 
 a man of real poetic power to throw off, in sport, pages 
 of sonorous and sparkling verse, simply by ignoring 
 the fetters of nature and common sense, and dashing 
 headlong on Pegasus through the wilderness of fancy.
 
 COMMENCEMENT OF BOTHWELL. 165 
 
 Aytoun rested from poetical production for some 
 time after finishing 'Firmilian.' But his pen was active 
 in ' Blackwood's Magazine ' month by month, on litera- 
 ture, politics, and art, down to the end of 1855, when 
 he began to write his ' Bothwell/ The following are 
 characteristic examples of his correspondence at this 
 period : 
 
 INGAMP COTTAGE, KIRKWALL, 
 July 16, 1855. 
 
 MY DEAR BLACKWOOD, We got here in good time on Satur- 
 day, after a very smooth passage I have not yet got 
 
 out any kind of tackle, or visited my " favourite lies,"* so that I 
 cannot gratify you by a recital of my astounding feats ; but there 
 is a good time coming. We have got two ponies a very pretty 
 chestnut one for Mrs Aytoun, which we have not yet named, and 
 a bay horse, which formerly carried a deceased minister of the 
 Establishment. His trot is of the hard, Calvinistic kind, dis- 
 tressing to the os coccygis, and jolting like the divisions of a fast- 
 day discoiirse. I have to rise perpendicularly in the stirrups at 
 his " fifteenthly." But I have purveyed me a strong Episcopal 
 whip, and in the course of a few days I hope to teach Ecclesiastes 
 some prelatical paces. . . . 
 
 JOHN BLACKWOOD, Esq. 
 
 KIRKWALL, July 13, 1855. 
 
 Mr DEAR MARTIN, . . . We have been here for more 
 than a fortnight ; and I cannot tell you how enjoyable these 
 islands are in this sweet summer weather. Kirkwall, like 
 other places, has started a literary institution, and I have been 
 
 * When Mr Blackwood visited Aytoun, in Orkney, he was repeatedly 
 taken by his friend to view a bank which Aytoun said was " a favour- 
 ite lie " of the seals. None of the phocid race, however, were ever to 
 be seen there. At last Mr Blackwood, turning to Mrs Aytoun, said, 
 " Apparently this is a favourite lie of William's, if not of the seals." 
 The phrase became a standing joke between them. Hence the allu- 
 sion in this letter.
 
 166 ANSWER TO CRITICISMS ON IT. 
 
 L. E. Lectrifying the natives on ballad poetry, and the old songs 
 of the Norsemen. I am going still farther north to-morrow to 
 Zetland with my brother-in-law, John Wilson, who wishes to 
 ransack the lochs in Thule, so that, for ten days at least, our 
 whole talk will be of fish. We have a very pretty little cottage 
 here, with most charming sea and mountainous views ; and just 
 beneath us lies the fine old Cathedral of St Magnus, in which 
 the first Christian Earl of Orkney and the Maiden of Norway are 
 interred. It is the sweetest thing in the world to listen to the 
 chiming of the bells. 
 
 At the end of 1855 Aytoun sent me the proof-sheets 
 of the first book of his 'Both well.' I felt strongly that, 
 in the choice of such a subject, and in dealing with it 
 in the form of a monologue, he had put himself into 
 fetters which would gall him deeper and deeper as he 
 advanced, and I told him so with unreserved frankness. 
 How kindly he took my criticism, the following letter 
 will show : 
 
 EDINBURGH, January 8, 1856. 
 
 MY DEAR MARTIN, I am very much obliged to you for your 
 criticism, and it gives me confidence to know that you like 'Both- 
 well' so far as you have seen it. I am well aware that the form 
 of the poem, which I deliberately adopted, subjects me to great 
 difficulties in composition ; and it may be that I cannot over- 
 come them; but, if successful, it will be to a certain extent 
 a triumph, for I do not know of any other poem of considerable 
 length which is constructed on the same plan. I considered very 
 seriously the question how far I could with propriety put any 
 tender or gentle emotions into the mouth of such a character as 
 Bothwell, and, so far as my own judgment goes, I do not think I 
 have erred on the side of softness, at least according to my ideal 
 of the man. Indeed, I have cut out more than one passage of 
 some poetical value, which, on deliberation, seemed to me rather 
 out of keeping, especially as tending towards repentance, or 
 rather penance, after the Roman fashion ; and I think I shall be
 
 DIFFICULTIES OF THE TASK. 167 
 
 able to portray him as a consistent character to the last. He 
 was not altogether a ruffian, and there were some few mitigat- 
 ing, if not redeeming, points about him, which I think I ought 
 to bring out, for the public would not excuse me for putting 
 the narrative into lips utterly depraved. My great difficulty 
 hitherto has been this, that in the first and second part I have 
 found it necessary, in one way or another, to explain the position 
 of parties. Without doing this, so intricate is the history of 
 Mary's reign, and so inexplicable the main incidents such as 
 the murder of Riccio, the alliance of Both well with Murray and 
 Morton, the blowing-up of Darnley, the subsequent nuptials, and 
 the story of Carberry Hill that I could offer to the general 
 reader of the poem no congruity. Therefore you will under- 
 stand that in these two parts there has been a sacrifice of sharp 
 interest and incident for the sake of elucidation. Possibly this 
 ought to have been managed better, or more dexterously ; but a 
 man can only work according to his own ideas, and I could not 
 devise a better method. You shall have more stirring work in 
 the remainder, if I can command the old energy, which is the 
 real feature of the ' Lays.' 
 
 I have thought over what you suggest regarding lyrical inter- 
 mezzos, but my judgment revolts. In a poem of any length unity 
 is a prime consideration ; and I agree with the criticism which 
 condemned Scott's introductions to 'Marmion' as out of place.* 
 Besides, I do not want, even constructively, to mix up Mary too 
 much with Both well. I think he should speak for himself alone, 
 and die despairing. Besides, Mary survived him for many years. 
 The part which I now enclose comes just to the verge of Darnley's 
 murder ; and I shall be very thankful to you for your observa- 
 tions upon it. The next part opens, I think, pretty strong, and 
 I shall take pains to keep it so. The keynote is the suspicion 
 of Bothwell that his jailer has orders to murder him, and I have 
 
 * Aytoun had misunderstood my meaning, which was, not that he 
 should follow the example set by Scott in these introductions, but 
 that lie should relieve the monotony of his monologue by lyrical 
 fragments or snatches of song, such as might have been sung by Mary, 
 or as might have suggested the emotions and passions by which she 
 was influenced.
 
 168 DIFFICULTIES OF THE TASK. 
 
 avoided the melodramatic temptation of introducing the elements 
 in that part as accessories. I have not yet got much of it done, 
 for my holidays were awfully distracted with the necessary duty 
 of correcting class exercises, and with the more righteous one of 
 advising processes, add to which dinners, more than one-half of 
 which it is impossible to refuse, and you will understand why 
 verse does not flow out like water from the rock when touched 
 "by the prophet's wand. But I have been behaving very well, 
 for I have positively interdicted myself from reading Macaulay 
 until I have finished ' Bothwell.' I was, sooth to say, afraid of 
 the " splendida bilis." 
 
 Poor John Ross ! I heard of his death on Saturday, for the first 
 time, when attending the funeral of our late friend, Edward Fraser. 
 Is it not striking ? Three of the most intimate friends at the 
 Scottish bar Donaldson, Fraser, Ross all called to their account 
 so early. Poor Ross ! I cannot think of him without a pang. 
 
 As ' Bothwell ' advanced, Aytoun felt more and more 
 the insuperable difficulties of the form of monologue 
 into which he had cast it. Even had his hero been a 
 man of ideal virtue, instead of the coarse, ruthless, 
 unscrupulous ruffian he was, no power of genius could 
 have sustained the interest of his readers, or blinded 
 them to a constantly recurring sense of improbability, 
 in a long poem framed on such a principle. Men do 
 not talk soliloquies. We endure them on the stage 
 solely from the necessity of the case ; and the greatest 
 dramatists use them 'most sparingly. But a lengthened 
 monologue taxes our poetical faith too severely, espe- 
 cially when it professes to deal with complex incidents 
 and a multiplicity of characters. The passionate actor 
 in such a tale as that of Bothwell's was not the man to 
 narrate its incidents, or to draw the men with whom 
 he worked or to whom he was opposed. He was sure
 
 ' DIFFICULTIES OF THE TASK. 169 
 
 to fall here and there out of his part ; and just in pro- 
 portion as the poet succeeded in doing justice to the 
 other personages of his story, and in enlivening his nar- 
 rative by bursts of emotion with which we could sym- 
 pathise, or by passages of picturesque description on 
 which we could dwell with pleasure, he was sure to 
 make us feel that the dramatic truth and unity of his 
 principal character was violated. 
 
 Besides all this, Bothwell was not a hero about 
 whom it was possible to feel any concern. "Whatever 
 gloss might be put upon his character, the main fact 
 was not to be got over, that he was a thoroughly 
 selfish worthless villain, " bloody, bold, and resolute," 
 and the last man either to feel or to talk, as men must 
 feel and talk who are to engage our sympathies in 
 verse.* It was, therefore, clearly impossible to keep 
 faith with history, and at the same time be in harmony 
 with the laws of poetic art. Bothwell, as a character 
 in a drama, would have given splendid scope for poeti- 
 cal handling. Bothwell in a dungeon, telling his own 
 story, was a mistake. Aytoun struggled gallantly 
 against these difficulties, but they were too much for 
 him. The result was a poem full of passages of great 
 beauty and picturesque force, but the ultimate verdict 
 of the public has declared it unsatisfactory as a whole. 
 
 * Bothwell appears to have had some literary taste. He had a 
 library, and a taste, moreover, for fine binding. Two specimens of 
 his collection seem to prove this much. One is in the library of the 
 Edinburgh University, another in the collection of Mr William 
 Gibson-Craig, and they are both, I understand, fine specimens of the 
 bibliopegist's art, and such as bibliomaniacs delight in.
 
 170 PUBLICATION AND RECEPTION OF THE POEM. 
 
 It had, however, on its first appearance, a very con- 
 siderable success. The brilliancy and vigour of par- 
 ticular passages made readers forget its defects ; and, 
 indeed, there were many who thought it not unworthy 
 to take rank with the best things Aytoun had done. 
 Among these was Lord Lytton, to whom the poem was 
 dedicated, and who appears not to have felt the objec- 
 tions which have been generally urged against the poem. 
 
 " It is very long indeed," he writes to Aytoun, 19th 
 August 1856, " since I have experienced such delight 
 from the ' Die, age, tibia! I congratulate you heartily. 
 A most masculine performance the verses ring on the 
 anvil as strokes from the hand of an athlete. The 
 fulness and power of your music are more effective 
 from the variety of sound, obtained, too, without one 
 of the affectations which disfigure contemporaneous 
 song. The stern simplicity of the historical recitals 
 enhances the singular sweetness of the more pathetic 
 portions, and you have kept Both well grandly uniform 
 and consistent throughout. You have dealt, indeed, 
 with the history, just as I think genuine art should 
 deal with it, and in the same spirit with which Shake- 
 speare took a chronicle according to his belief in its 
 truth, and then made the hearts of the characters 
 speak out, reconciling act to thought and emotion. 
 Believe me, it is altogether a great work." 
 
 This opinion, from one whose judgment Aytoun 
 esteemed so highly, must have acted as a counterpoise 
 to the adverse criticism with which the poem was re- 
 ceived. When his friend and publisher sent him the
 
 LORD LYTTON'S OPINION OF IT. m 
 
 various reviews by the leading journals, he was by no 
 means dissatisfied, as the following letter shows, with 
 the general verdict : 
 
 KIRKWALL, August 24, 1856. 
 
 MY DEAR BLACKWOOD, ... I got, along with your 
 last letter, the notices of 'Bothwell,' and I really can see no reason 
 to complain, but the reverse. On the whole, it is most favour- 
 ably noticed, and that in a manner which is most gratifying to 
 me. Because, in the general case, when a new volume of poetry 
 is published, the critics display a wonderful unanimity in their 
 selection of extracts, whereas, in the case of Bothwell, there is 
 an immense diversity of opinion as to which passages are the 
 best. That is proof of the existence of the variety, which was 
 part of my deliberate design ; and I was not sure that I had at- 
 tained it until I saw these critiques. There is, of course, a good 
 deal of absurd criticism, because not one writer out of ten, if so 
 many, has the least idea of art ; and accordingly some of them 
 blame, as being too mean for poetry, passages which were pur- 
 posely freed from every atom of cream. Some of them say that 
 there is a lack of dramatic talent. By St Bartholomew, these 
 are rare fellows ! Was I to represent Bothwell as acting a 
 charade in his dungeon ? I now hope and think that the poem 
 will take a permanent place, though it may never be so popular 
 as the ' Lays.' . . . 
 
 But Aytoun, at heart, was never thoroughly satisfied 
 with his. work, and he seems to have expressed this 
 feeling very strongly in writing to Lord Lytton ; for, 
 in a letter on the 26th November 1856, his lordship 
 appears to have thought it necessary to discourage 
 the tone of despondency with which Aytoun had writ- 
 ten of his poem. " I could allow," he says, " no one 
 but yourself to speak so depreciatingly of ' Bothwell ; ' 
 and, indeed, I have heard no one do so. I apprehend that
 
 172 SUBSEQUENT ALTEKATIONS ON IT. 
 
 it is never a question whether or not a poem has faults. 
 The question with true critics and with Time is 
 ' What the number and degree of its beauties/ " True 
 criticism couched in most kindly phrase. But Aytoun 
 was too severe a critic on himself to rest contented 
 with his first sketch. Accordingly, when a call arose 
 for a third edition of the poem, he revised it thoroughly, 
 and rewrote considerable portions of it with advantage 
 to the general effect. In his preface to this edition he 
 makes the following frank acknowledgment of his obli- 
 gations to his critics a frankness characteristic of the 
 true artist : 
 
 I have to thank those of my reviewers who, in a spirit of 
 honesty and kindness, have referred to my defects ; for by doing 
 so I must needs acknowledge that they have rendered me an 
 essential service. In these days of voluminous publication, 
 criticism is valuable to the reader, inasmuch as it places him on 
 his guard ; but it is invaluable to every author who has the sin- 
 cere desire of cultivating his art to the utmost of his ability, 
 because it warns him of the faults that are the most glaringly 
 conspicuous in his style, and rebukes him for every instance of 
 undue carelessness or neglect. The best proof of my acquies- 
 cence in the justice of some of the remarks upon the construc- 
 tion of certain passages of ' Bothwell,' is the fact that I have 
 made emendations accordingly ; but, beyond that, I have altered 
 or recast many passages against which no censure was directed. 
 The truth is that, on the eve of publication, I did not feel by 
 any means satisfied with my own performance. I had an in- 
 stinctive i'eeling that I ought to have done better. I was con- 
 scious that occasionally the expression did not adequately convey 
 the idea, and that the versification was sometimes defective both 
 in melody and power. But there is a peculiarity attendant Tipon 
 poetical composition which is well known to those who prac- 
 tise it, though it may not be so to the general reader and that
 
 GROUSE-SHOOTING IN ORKNEY. 173 
 
 is, that a certain period must elapse before the writer can discern 
 the precise nature of his faults, or regain the power of correcting 
 them. So long as the heat engendered by the original effort is 
 upon him, his attempts at emendation will be vain. But after a 
 time, unless he is vainglorious and egotistical in the extreme, the 
 faults he has committed become as apparent to him as they were 
 to others ; and surely then it is his duty to retrieve such faults, 
 or at least to make the attempt, although it is quite possible that 
 he may not succeed in doing this in a manner commensurate 
 with his desire. 
 
 The letter of the 24th August 1856, above quoted, 
 passes from criticism to grouse- shooting, than which 
 " mellow metres " themselves were not more dear to 
 the overtasked literary man and professor. 
 
 So much for business now for minor personalities. Hamley 
 has not arrived, whereat I own I grumble, seeing that I had 
 arranged my courts, visits, &c., to suit him, and must now either 
 forego the moors for a week, or range them without a compan- 
 ion. I think I see your falcon eyes glitter at my being com- 
 pelled to write for the next week to come ! Know, most noble 
 Festus, that I shall do nothing of the kind, for, to say the truth, 
 I worked harder and more incessantly last winter and spring 
 than was altogether good for me, and when I came here I found 
 myself not quite the thing. I mean physically and compara- 
 tively, for, at the worst, I could have walked down three Cock- 
 neys one after the other, but my muscles were feeble and flabby, 
 and energy difficult to be aroused. I am, however, by this time 
 qualified to grapple with a walrus ; but I need air, and above all 
 things exercise. ... I have now got most of my courts over, 
 and yesterday was out on the moors.' I walked incessantly 
 from eleven to six, and was not very successful ; however, I 
 brought home three brace of grouse, and three of your friends 
 the golden plovers. I was not, however, on good ground, and I 
 hope to do much better on Tuesday. I give you my honour, 
 that laziness shall not interfere to prevent me writing ; but I
 
 174 COLONEL HAMLEY. 
 
 must get up my pluck and fortify my sinews for the coming 
 campaign ; and though Hamley, who is a mere stripling, could 
 write after a hot day's fighting in the Crimea, I cannot undertake 
 to produce anything better than drivel after a long stretch on 
 the heather. Besides, there is deep joy in grouse-pie,when flanked 
 by a flask of claret.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO COL. HAMLEY ACCOUNT OF HIM BY THE LATTER 
 THE SALOON AT GEORGE STREET HIS SUPPOSED EDITORSHIP OF 
 BLACKWOOD HIS HOME HABITS AS A LECTURER AND TEACHER 
 AT "HIGH JINKS" AND IN HIS STUDY FISHING AND SHOOTING IN 
 ORKNEY HIS LIFE THERE "THE LAIRD OF M ( NAB" RENEWED 
 LITERARY LABOURS COLLECTION AND EDITING OF THE SCOTTISH 
 BALLADS HIS MOTHER THE GOETHE BALLADS LETTER FROM 
 HIS OLD GERMAN TUTOR HIS GROWING REPUTATION HIS AP- 
 PEARANCE AT THE MANCHESTER ATHENAEUM AND AT THE BURNS 
 CENTENARY FESTIVAL. 
 
 COLONEL E. B. HAMLEY, who, on his return from 
 the Crimea, had made Aytoun's acquaintance during 
 a visit to their common friend Mr John Blackwood, 
 writes : 
 
 " My acquaintance with Professor Aytoun, which in 
 a very short time ripened into cordial intimacy, began 
 in December 1855. I was then on a visit to Mr 
 Blackwood, and Aytoun coming in on his way home 
 from church, the day after my arrival, we met in the 
 library. The tone of his critical and political papers, 
 at once gay and bold, and the chivalrous cast of his 
 poetry, had led me to figure to myself a man alert, 
 self-confident, and self-asserting, with a jovial resolute 
 bearing : whereas the real Professor, sober in gait, slow
 
 176 COLONEL HAMLEY'S SKETCH OF HIM. 
 
 and gentle of voice, and with a student-like stoop in 
 his shoulders, advanced as shyly as a young girl, and 
 when I endeavoured to express my especial pleasure 
 in making the acquaintance of one whose writings had 
 so frequently compelled my interest and admiration, 
 my attempted compliments were received with a re- 
 serve which might have caused me to fancy that they 
 were displeasing, but which was in truth only a 
 thin crust over a very genial affectionate nature. He 
 quickly thawed (though not, I think, at that inter- 
 view), and during the rest of my sojourn in Edinburgh, 
 which my removal on duty to Leith Fort, shortly after, 
 prolonged very much beyond my expectation, my 
 excellent hosts, the Blackwoods and Aytouns, ex- 
 tended to me a hospitality which a friend of a much 
 older date than myself would have felt to be of the 
 warmest and most generous kind. For this, I was at 
 first, in great measure, indebted to a lameness and 
 broken health, the results of foreign service, which 
 procured me so much kindness from my benevolent 
 hostesses, and so consoling a degree of domestication at 
 their firesides, as I could scarcely have hoped to enjoy 
 but for the demand which my somewhat disastrous 
 plight made on their womanly sympathies. At both 
 houses a room was allotted to me, and thus it came to 
 pass that almost as soon as I knew Aytoun I felt at 
 home with him. 
 
 " At this time he must have lost a good deal of the 
 robust health and the elasticity of spirits of his earlier 
 days. He did not look more than his age, his colour
 
 THE SALOON AT GEOKGE STREET. 177 
 
 was still fresh, and his brown hair was neither thinned 
 nor silvered ; but he was extremely indisposed to exer- 
 tion. While in Edinburgh, he could rarely be induced 
 to extend his day's exercise beyond the walk home 
 from the University to his house in Great Stuart 
 Street. He made constant use of his brougham for 
 going short distances ; a habit only very recently 
 assumed, and one in which his friends did their 
 best to discourage him, believing that he was thus 
 sacrificing his best chance of health. His journey 
 home on foot was almost invariably broken by a halt 
 at the saloon, at 45 George Street, a room in Mr 
 Blackwood's establishment hung with portraits of 
 contributors to the Magazine. Many of these were 
 then no more : Christopher North, their acknowledged 
 chief, whose admirable portrait by Watson Gordon 
 hung over the fireplace, was just dead Lockhart and 
 Cyril Thornton (Hamilton) and the Ettrick Shepherd, 
 whose cunning effigies were on the walls, had gone 
 before him; but the glories of what had been the 
 gymnasium of the Modern Athens had by no means 
 departed. De Quincey, though a rare visitor, still 
 lived near ; Alison would come from Glasgow, and 
 Terrier (most genial of all who flit forth into day from 
 the twilight land of metaphysics) from the learned 
 seclusion of St Andrews : Warren and Gleig, powerful 
 contributors of earlier times, and Bulwer, an illustrious 
 auxiliary of more recent date, might at periods of 
 migration be found there ; and Thackeray, when he 
 brought his gallery of Georges to Edinburgh, was a 
 
 M
 
 178 HIS SUPPOSED EDITOKSHIP OF BLACKWOOD. 
 
 constant and honoured guest. Of the supporters of the 
 Magazine resident in Edinburgh, Lord Neaves and 
 George Moir, both intimate friends of Aytoun, were 
 frequently to be found at 45 George Street, which was 
 also the resort of the Kev. James White, whose powers 
 of entertainment few ecclesiastics have rivalled ; of 
 Burton, the latest historian of Scotland ; and of Henry 
 Stephens, author of the ' Book of the Farm/ the gospel, 
 in these days, of those who till the ground. Many, too, 
 of the illustrious obscure class, whose wits crop up ano- 
 nymously in periodicals, but who do not attain to the 
 dignity of independent authorship, would enter from 
 time to time ; but nobody was so habitual an occupant 
 of a chair there as Aytoun, who was bound to the place 
 by the double tie of long friendship with the editor, and 
 a connection with the Magazine so close and constant 
 that, as in the case of Wilson, the contributor had 
 become identified with the periodical in the public 
 mind, and the presumed editorship of Christopher 
 North, which never had any real existence, descended 
 by apostolical succession on his eminent son-in-law. 
 This delusion not only entailed on him an amount of 
 correspondence which was occasionally very trouble- 
 some, but charged him with the authorship of all 
 papers in ' Blackwood ' wherein any of the character- 
 istics of his style were supposed to be visible, so that, 
 as great sayers of sayings, such as Selwyn and Sheridan 
 and Sydney Smith, are credited with all the fatherless 
 wit of their respective times, the reputation of Aytoun 
 absorbed by its powerful attraction all fragments of
 
 HIS HOME HABITS. 179 
 
 matter similar to his own which entered the common 
 system. 
 
 " He was at that time engaged, to the exclusion of 
 article-writing, on the earlier cantos of ' Bothwell/ of 
 which he sometimes read parts to a small domestic 
 audience. Never, of all the irritable race, was there a 
 poet who submitted more amiably to criticism. No 
 doubt he was really sensitive enough, as all men are, 
 and must be, who are gifted with the vision and the 
 faculty divine ; but, while taking our praise in modest 
 silence, he would often grant the justice of an objection, 
 and when doing battle in behalf of his own lines, de- 
 fended them as if they had been the work of a stranger. 
 To the objection I ventured to offer to the plan of the 
 poem, that the reader would never be able to escape in 
 spirit from the dungeon in which the opening lines 
 immured the narrator, Bothwell, he responded that it 
 was certainly an experiment, and perhaps a doubtful 
 one, but the work had gone too far for recasting, and 
 he evidently trusted to the beauty of individual pas- 
 sages to redeem a radical fault of construction which 
 he afterwards freely acknowledged. 
 
 " The poet's life was very far indeed from being in 
 unison with the stormy career of his hero Bothwell, or 
 the heroic endurance and adventure of Montrose and 
 Dundee, for nothing could be easier than his existence. 
 His excellent wife, herself of a disposition and quali- 
 ties to illuminate any household, whose kind, bright, 
 genial face was the faithful index of her heart, took 
 care that his home should always be of the cosiest and
 
 180 AS A LECTUKER AND TEACHER. 
 
 pleasantest, and made his friends her own. Among 
 other comfortable circumstances, he was treated by 
 his lady friends with a pleasant deference ; his grace- 
 ful poetry, the nature of its subjects, picturesque and 
 chivalrous, and his Jacobitism, all appealed to their 
 imaginations, and his soft and gentle manners con- 
 firmed the spell. In the careless ease of his house- 
 hold life, he rarely made his appearance early in 
 the morning, and on coming down stairs proceeded 
 to his study, where he passed most of the day until 
 it was time to start for his lecture at four o'clock. I 
 once accompanied him to his lecture-room and sat 
 beside him, while in front of us gathered an audi- 
 ence most respectfully attentive, and who, somewhat 
 to my surprise, evinced their approval of certain 
 brilliant passages of the discourse by a loud and 
 general clattering of their feet. Lecturing no doubt 
 was a pleasure to him, and he did it well ; but another 
 portion of his duties must have been less congenial, 
 for I used to see his table loaded for weeks together 
 with the books in which the members of his class wrote 
 their essays, and which he was at great pains to correct. 
 In general company he was rather silent, seeming to 
 lack the alertness of spirit which impels a man to 
 distinguish himself socially ; and even with a few old 
 friends he was always as well content to listen as to 
 talk, though quite ready to take and to enjoy his share 
 in any intellectual discussion ; and on these occasions 
 of easy discourse with those he liked, he was a delight- 
 ful companion, never disputatious, ready at the give
 
 PETER FRASER AND THACKERAY. 181 
 
 and take which is the charm of social talk, conversant 
 with an immense range of subjects, and apt to illus- 
 trate all by some of those quaint humorous turns 
 which are the distinctive feature of his articles. One 
 of his most ancient and familiar cronies was Mr Peter 
 Eraser, whose visits were generally celebrated by a 
 lapse into what Mrs Aytoun termed their ' high jinks,' 
 which, as I understood it, meant a delivering of them- 
 selves up to extravagant drollery. Peter was a face- 
 tious spirit of great local repute, well known, too, to a 
 large circle of friends in London, and to one of his 
 humorous feats I was witness. Thackeray, during 
 his Georgian era in Edinburgh, was Mr Blackwood's 
 guest; and one evening, when the ladies had left us 
 over our claret, a ring was heard, followed by a con- 
 troversy at the street door between the visitor and 
 the butler, who presently came in and announced 
 that the Provost of Peterhead wished to see Mr 
 Thackeray. The novelist, having already undergone 
 considerable persecution at the hands of his Scottish 
 admirers, broke out upon this into exasperation, and 
 desired the butler to say that he was engaged, and 
 could not, in fact would not, see the gentleman. The 
 applicant, however, persisted, positively refusing to 
 depart without an interview ; and Thackeray, being at 
 last induced to go into the hall, was immediately 
 heard in indignant remonstrance. ' Sir,' he said 
 in loud tones, ' I will not be persecuted in this way. 
 You have no right to annoy me ; ' and then was 
 heard a scuffle and clattering of umbrella-stands and
 
 182 AT "HIGH JINKS AND IN HIS STUDY. 
 
 barometers which brought the ladies in alarm from 
 the drawing-room, their frightened faces appearing 
 over the bannisters, and drew host and guests from 
 their wine ; when in this persevering Provost, then 
 engaged in a mock combat with the illustrious object 
 of his search, we recognised the mad wag Peter, with 
 whom, at the termination of the conflict, we returned in 
 triumph to the claret. When Peter came to Aytoun's of 
 an evening, they would act extempore dramas, support- 
 ing improvised and independent parts, cursing and defy- 
 ing each other with melodramatic energy, and generally 
 ending the performance with a murder or combat, in 
 which paper-cutters were the instruments of blood. An 
 audience of one or two was all they required on these 
 occasions ; indeed I imagine that any audience at all was 
 not an indispensable condition. Though equally ready 
 for high jinks on the one hand, or for the sagest con- 
 versation on the other, there was one class of his fellow- 
 creatures that Aytoun could not away with what he 
 termed ' haverers,' that is, dull or silly chatterers (unde 
 derivatur HAVERILLO, the friend and victim of Firmi- 
 lian) to whose inflictions he submitted outwardly with 
 characteristic patience, but whom he would afterwards 
 denounce as 'bauldies/ by which term the Scotch 
 designate those natural imbeciles who are to be found 
 in most parishes, and whose title we may account for 
 by supposing that there once existed a fool called 
 Archibald of so illustrious an idiocy that his baptismal 
 appellation, thus familiarised, came to be the badge of 
 all his tribe. Aytoun generally spent the latter part of
 
 FISHING AND SHOOTING. 183 
 
 his evening, often the whole of it, in his study, writing, 
 or more often reading (he told me he always read 
 through all Scott's novels once a-year), in company with 
 an old white setter called Captain, whose intellects 
 were somewhat impaired by age. Another four-footed 
 associate was a little black-and-tan cur of the name of 
 Doddles, advanced in years, most plebeian in aspect, and 
 inhospitable in demeanour, but to whom every virtue 
 and accomplishment, human as well as canine, was at- 
 tributed by his devoted master and mistress. Doddles 
 spent most of his time in a comfortable basket in the 
 drawing-room, and was therefore less of a companion 
 than Captain, who, besides attending in the hours of 
 composition, also accompanied Aytoun, as an auxiliary 
 of great value, in the sporting excursions which he 
 made once or twice a-year. 
 
 " His shrievalty in Orkney entailed an annual visit 
 thither, where in the autumn of 1856 I joined him and 
 Mrs Aytoun at a small villa outside of Kirkwall. We 
 had sea-fishing for sillocks and trout-fishing in the 
 lochs, when Aytoun proved himself an artist with the 
 fly-rod, and Mrs Aytoun, intrusted with the net, landed 
 our fish with a skill to be expected from a daughter of 
 Christopher North. Once the Professor and I made an 
 excursion of a few days' duration to some of the more 
 distant islands, taking our guns, and accompanied by 
 Captain, whose traditionary reputation for powers of 
 scent and stanchness stood high, but whose nose, in 
 these his declining years, frequently led him into 
 unaccountable errors, while his deafness rendered
 
 184 CAPTAIN AND THE MOUSE. 
 
 all attempts on our part to correct them unavailing, 
 though his master's steady affection and confidence, of 
 long growth, were not to be shaken by a few mistakes, 
 over which, whenever possible, he threw a decent veil. 
 Aytoun was a good shot, with a great taste for sport in 
 all its aspects, but had at this time, along with his 
 activity, lost much of his keenness ; he was slow in tak- 
 ing aim, and at the same time would not fire at long 
 range, so that a good many birds got away from him 
 without any attempt on their lives. Seeing this, and 
 being myself rather an eager sportsman, I took some 
 shots that perhaps strictly belonged to him ; and whether 
 this put him out, or whether he was really indifferent to 
 the sport, I don't know ; but towards the close of the day 
 he frequently seated himself on a bank of heather with 
 his gun across his knees, regardless of the grouse that 
 more than once whizzed past ; lost, perhaps, in con- 
 templation of the fate of Bothwell, of whose captivity 
 these islands were the scene. On our way home one 
 afternoon, crossing a bald bit of moorland, Captain 
 suddenly became transfixed, in a model attitude, with 
 his nose directed towards the only tuft which broke 
 the smooth surface for acres round. As it was no 
 larger than one's fist, it seemed impossible that any- 
 thing of the nature of game should be harboured there ; 
 but Aytoun, confident in the sagacity of his canine 
 friend, stood ready to shoot, till, stealthily approaching 
 the tuft, I got close enough to poke the muzzle of my 
 gun through it, when forth issued an exceedingly small 
 field-mouse. The Professor's smile was very faint, and
 
 LIFE IN THE ORKNEYS. 185 
 
 tinctured with mortification at this palpable proof of the 
 decadence of his old and trusted associate. That evening 
 we slept at the house of a farmer named Lesk, a simple 
 and hospitable Scandinavian, who gave us his company 
 over a glass of toddy after our supper of fresh herrings 
 and grilled grouse, and who did not appear to consider 
 the full gratification of his curiosity respecting Aytoun's 
 private affairs at all inconsistent with his respect for 
 so high a functionary as the Sheriff. ' Hae ye got a 
 mistress, Mister Shirra ? ' was one of the interrogatories 
 put by his inquisitor, who meant nothing worse than 
 to ask if he was married. Knowing that I was noting 
 such passages of the conversation as these to retail in 
 future, Aytoun prepared a counter-battery, and used 
 to retort upon me with an imaginary dialogue in 
 which I was represented as narrating to Gudeman 
 Lesk warlike feats of my own, worthy of a Bobadil. 
 Finally we were conveyed to Kirkwall again, in the 
 yacht of a harum-scarum friend of Aytoun's, who 
 crossed an exceedingly stormy frith under a press of 
 canvass that kept our gunwale at the water's edge, 
 and the Sheriff on his beam-ends, during the whole 
 passage. 
 
 " No doubt these official excursions, drawing him 
 annually from his desk or his lecture-room, and forcing 
 him to take the air and exercise of which he was too 
 neglectful at home, retarded for years the progress of 
 the disease which at last overmastered him. Often I 
 look back to the pleasant primitive life we led in 
 Orkney; days of walking or riding on ponies over
 
 186 THE "LORD HIGH ADMIRAL OF ORKNEY. 
 
 those treeless islands, which, viewed from the summit 
 of the hill near Aytoun's villa, spread themselves below 
 like a chart rather than a landscape ; our visits to the 
 lairds, simple and kindly Northmen, one of whom, Mr 
 Balfour, a great friend of Aytoun's, had just built on an 
 island in Kirkwall Harbour, no bigger than a lawn, a 
 mansion fit for a duke ; our cosy little meals, largely 
 supplied from our day's sport, trout and sillocks, grouse 
 and golden plover ; and the evenings when, in a boat 
 or at home, we discoursed soberly of politics and 
 literature, or exchanged quips and cranks as the 
 humour led us, in what was perhaps the most intimate 
 phase of our friendship. Besides his functions as 
 Sheriff, Aytoun was ex officio Lord High Admiral of 
 Orkney, and to this he alluded in 1860, when, in re- 
 viewing Lord Dundonald's Memoirs, he remarked of 
 himself, as writer of the article, that ' his naval rank 
 was nearer that of his Lordship than he might be 
 aware,' * no doubt puzzling many a reader by the 
 attempt to guess who the nautical veteran could be 
 that so pleasantly and easily wielded the pen." 
 
 Colonel Hamley's mention of the drolleries impro- 
 vised by Aytouii and Mr Peter Fraser will recall to 
 Aytoun's friends many a scene of "most excellent 
 
 * " Literature and history alike will sustain a great loss if this 
 autobiography is not completed ; and we trust that Lord Dundonald 
 may be spared to give us another, if not a third volume, and that we 
 (id est, the writer of this article, whose naval rank is nearer that of 
 his Lordship than he may be aware), may survive to review the same, 
 and give it as hearty commendation as we bestow on the fragmentary 
 portion which has appeared." Review of 'The Autobiography of a 
 Seaman,' Blackwood's Magazine, Feb. 1860.
 
 " THE LAI11L) OF M'NAB." 187 
 
 fooling." Aytoun had considerable histrionic talent. 
 From boyhood upwards he was great in acted charades, 
 in which his admirable assumptions of eccentric char- 
 acter, male or female, and his ready flow of humour 
 and playful repartee, lifted the impersonation far above 
 the ordinary level of such performances. His powers 
 in this way were sometimes used to mystify strangers 
 as to the national peculiarities with a rather reckless 
 daring, as in the following instance. Being asked to 
 get up an impromptu amusement at a friend's house, 
 in 1844, for some English visitors who were enthusias- 
 tic about Highlanders and the Highlands, he fished out 
 from his wardrobe the identical kilt with which he had 
 electrified the men of Thurso in his boyish days.* 
 Arraying himself in this, and a blue cloth jacket with 
 white metal buttons, which he had got years before to 
 act a charity boy in a charade, he completed his cos- 
 tume by a scarf across his shoulders, short hose, and 
 brogues ! The brevity of the kilt produced a most lu- 
 dicrous effect, and not being eked out with the usual 
 " sporran," left him very much in the condition of the 
 " Cutty Sark " of Burns's poem. With hair, like Kat- 
 terfelto's, on end in wild disorder, Aytoun was ushered 
 into the drawing-room. He bore himself with more 
 than Celtic dignity, and saluted the Southrons with 
 stately courtesy, being introduced to them as the 
 famous Laird of M'Nab. The ladies were delighted 
 with the chieftain, who related many highly exciting 
 traits of Highland manners. Among other things, 
 * See p. 27, ante.
 
 183 RENEWED LITERARY LABOURS. 
 
 when his neighbours, as he told them, made a foray, 
 which they often did, upon his cattle, he thought 
 nothing " of sticking a tirk into their powels." When 
 the ladies exclaimed in horror, " Oh, laird, you don't 
 say so ? " " Say so ? " he replied, " On my sawl, laties, 
 and to pe surely, I to it." A picture of Prince Charlie 
 which hung in the room was made the object of pro- 
 found veneration. At supper he was asked to sing a 
 song: " I am fery sorry, laties," he replied, " that I have 
 no voice, but I will speak to you a translation of a fery 
 ancient Gaelic poem," and proceeded to chant " The 
 Massacre of ta Phairshon," which came upon all present 
 as if it were the invention of the moment, and was 
 greeted with roars of laughter. The joke was carried 
 on until the party broke up ; and the strangers were 
 not undeceived for some days as to the true character 
 of the great Celtic chief. 
 
 After the pause of a few months from literary labour, 
 which Aytoun claimed as necessary for his health 
 after the publication of 'Bothwell/ he resumed his 
 pen with his wonted activity. In the first six months 
 of 1857, he wrote no fewer than eleven articles for 
 ' Blackwood,' one of them a long and telling political 
 squib called "All Fools' Day, a Political Panto- 
 mime," which, like all political squibs that are most 
 effective when they first appear, seems somewhat 
 flat and vapid when events have passed into new 
 phases, when new combinations of party have been 
 formed, and the personages have either been ousted 
 from prominence by new men, or the passions they
 
 THE SCOTTISH BALLADS. 189 
 
 provoked have given place to the toleration with which 
 we inevitably regard the events of the past. 
 
 In the summer of 1857, Aytoun entered on a task of 
 a more permanent interest, which was thoroughly con- 
 genial to his tastes the preparation of an edition of 
 Scottish Ballads. Mr Peter Buchan, in the preface to 
 his ' Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scot- 
 land,' has said, " No one has yet conceived, nor has it 
 entered into the mind of man. what patience, persever- 
 ance, and general knowledge are necessary for a collec- 
 tion of ancient ballads." Aytoun entertained a more 
 reasonable estimate of the difficulties that awaited him. 
 Much had been already done to his hands by former 
 editors in bringing together the crude materials for 
 such a work as he contemplated. But their works 
 were a vast storehouse in which gdod, bad, and indif- 
 ferent had been amassed; where side by side with the 
 authentic measures of the great nameless minstrels 
 lay the modern imitation, or, what was still worse, the 
 commonplace workmanship of feeble versemongers 
 grafted on the noble torsos of antiquity. Aytoun was 
 just the man to winnow the wheat from the chaff, and 
 to bring together all the best and most characteristic 
 ballads. He had the intuitive tact to discriminate the 
 genuine from the spurious, and the poetical faculty to 
 make the best choice among many various readings. 
 He took the greatest pains to produce a fine selection, 
 and it appeared in the summer of 1858 in two com- 
 pendious volumes, with a preface and excellent notes. 
 His mother's recollection was often appealed to in
 
 190 HIS MOTHER, 
 
 settling disputed readings, and to her the work was 
 dedicated in a few simple words of warm affection. 
 The good old lady used to say, in these days, that a 
 visit from him always acted like a glass of champagne 
 upon her. His talk had very much that effect upon 
 all his friends, for he had always something bright and 
 pleasant to say, whatever trouble there might be at his 
 own heart. But in his bearing to her, as I have seen 
 it, there was a gentle playfulness mixed with reverential 
 affection which was especially charming. I find among 
 his papers the following letter addressed to him about 
 this time she was then in her 87th year with the 
 gift of a Bible, to replace that which she had given 
 him in his childhood. It is written in full vigorous 
 characters, in which there is no trace of age. 
 
 MY DEAREST WILLIAM, I see the Bible of your early days is 
 now (as it should be) well worn, and it gratifies me much to 
 renew it, with my warmest blessing and sincere prayer that its 
 most precious promises may be yours now and ever. 
 
 Many happy years may you and yours enjoy, and when our 
 race here is accomplished, may we all meet a family in heaven ! 
 Ever, dearest William, your affectionate mother, 
 
 JOAN AYTOUN, Born Nov. 1770. 
 
 28 INVERLEITH Row, 
 1 Jan. 1857. 
 
 Happy mother, who through time and change could 
 so retain her first hold upon the affections of her son ; 
 happy son, to whom so fond and wise a mother was so 
 long spared to love ! 
 
 The autumn of 1858 again brought me into literary 
 partnership with my old friend. A reprint, with ex-
 
 THE GOETHE BALLADS. 191 
 
 tensive additions, of our translation of Goethe's ballads 
 and minor poems, which had appeared in ' Blackwood ' 
 in 1843-44, was resolved upon. Aytoun set about his 
 part of the task with unusual vigour, and, although 
 oppressed with other work, and overshadowed, as I 
 soon afterwards too sadly learned, by a great domestic 
 anxiety, he executed many new translations with a 
 rapidity and finish for which, even with all my previous 
 knowledge of what he could do, I was not prepared. 
 It was no ordinary pleasure to me to find myself dis- 
 cussing with him again the old topics which had been 
 so often canvassed between us fifteen years before. 
 Busy men as we both were, he in Edinburgh, I in 
 London, we had seen but little of each other in the 
 interval, nor had our letters to each other been many. 
 But with his constant and affectionate nature this was 
 of little moment. When we did meet, I always found 
 in him the same frankness and cordiality as in the 
 days when we were inseparable, and his letters, like 
 his talk, ever brought him close to your heart. To 
 meet again on the old ground revived all the feelings 
 of the old days. 
 
 He talked with, open heart, and tongue 
 Affectionate and true, 
 
 as though we were rambling together, in the days when 
 "life was all before us," by Salisbury Crags or the 
 shores of the Firth of Forth. And when our little 
 venture was launched, and he had to report that nearly 
 the whole edition had gone off at once, he spoke my 
 feeling not less than his own when he added, " All
 
 192 LETTER FROM PROFESSOR MERKEL. 
 
 this is very gratifying ; but to me the most gratifying 
 circumstance connected with the publication is, that 
 you and I, such old friends and fellow-workers, should 
 have stuck together in spite of separation (rather a 
 bull, by the way), and have finished in maturity what 
 we began in comparative youth, without the slightest 
 alteration of our reciprocal confidence and esteem." 
 
 Aytoun put some of his best and most careful work 
 into this book, and he was proud of it. 
 
 "I ain generally," he wrote to me 17th December 1858, "a 
 severe critic of my own writings. I was satisfied that ' Both well ' 
 was an ambitious failure when I sent it to press ; but I swear 
 by our Goethian productions, barring, perhaps, half-a-dozen 
 immaterial scraps. We may hang out our shields, as at Ashby- 
 de-la-Zouch, and without any fear await the coming of chal- 
 lengers who shall contrast their performances with ours." 
 
 While Aytoun was making a name for himself, his 
 career had not been unobserved by his old friend, Pro- 
 fessor Merkel, of Aschaffenburg. An introduction to 
 the old gentleman which Aytoun had given to an Edin- 
 burgh friend, led to a renewal of their correspondence. 
 In the following charming letter, Merkel dwells with 
 excusable pride on the triumphs of the pupil of whose 
 powers he had twenty years before formed the highest 
 opinion.* 
 
 * See ante, p. 46. The original letter is in these terms : 
 
 ASCHAFFENBURG, 8 Oct. 1858. 
 
 LIBBER AYTOUN, Bald werden es 20 Jahre seyn dass ich Sie, mein 
 uuvergessner Freund, zum letztenmale gesehen ! Wie vieles 1st seit- 
 dem geschehen ! Sie sind auf der glanzenden Balm des Ruhmes weit 
 vorangeschritten, und mit wahrearVergniigen habe ich die Nachrichten 
 von Ihren neueii Werkeii gelesen. Ein sehr geschazter Freund hat mir
 
 HIS GROWING REPUTATION. 193 
 
 ASCHAFFENBURG, 8th Oct. 1858. 
 
 DEAR AYTOUN, It will soon be twenty years, my unforgotten 
 friend, since I saw you last. How much has happened since that 
 time ! You have advanced far upon the shining path of fame, 
 and I have read with sincere satisfaction the accounts of your 
 recent works. A very dear friend has made me a present of your 
 ' Both well,' but your ' Lays and Ballads ' I do not yet know. I 
 am now very old, but still the same, and it would rejoice me 
 not a little to see my dear mental foster-son once more. Mr T. 
 
 P will tell you much, and he has made me very happy by 
 
 his news of you. I have selected the " kind, honest, fascinating 
 German," trusting that you have as little forgotten your German 
 as your devoted old friend, 
 
 DR MERKEL, Professor. 
 
 Aytoun visited his old friend in 1862 ; and it is 
 hard to say to which of the two the meeting gave the 
 most pleasure. 
 
 After Professor Wilson's death, Aytoun had taken 
 his place as the leading literary man in Scotland. He 
 was not without honour in his own country. Not only 
 was it proud of him for adding a new name to the 
 roll of Scottish poets, but it loved him for the wise zeal 
 with which he had at all times advocated its interests, 
 and for the generous sympathy which, true Conserva- 
 tive as he was, he had always shown for the welfare 
 and social advancement of all who live by toil. Some- 
 
 Ihren ' Bothwell ' zum Geschenke gemacht ; Hire ' Lays und Ballads ' 
 kenne ich aber noch nicht. Ich bin schon recht alt, aber noch der 
 natnliche, und wiirde mich nicht wenig freuen, meinen lieben geistigeu 
 
 Pflegsohn wieder einmal zu sehen. Hr. Th. P wird Ihnen Manches 
 
 erzahlen, und er hat mir durch seine Nachrichten iiber sie grosse 
 Freude gemacht. Ich habe das "kind, honest, fascinating German" 
 gewahlt, in dem Vertrauen dass sie so wenig das Deutsche vergessen 
 haben als Ihren engebenen alten Freund, DR MERKEL, Prof. 
 
 N
 
 194 AT THE MANCHESTER ATHENAEUM. 
 
 thing, too, was no doubt due to the fact that he had 
 remained among them, heading the now comparatively 
 scanty ranks of Scottish literary men. He used to 
 maintain, that any local reputation he had was chiefly 
 due to the fact that there was no one to dispute the 
 palm with him. " I am getting a kind of fame," he 
 wrote to me in November 1858, "as the literary man 
 of Scotland. Thirty years ago, in the northern coun- 
 ties, a fellow achieved an immense reputation as ' The 
 Tollman/ being the solitary individual entitled by law 
 to levy black mail at a ferry." This view of the case 
 must not, however, be taken too literally. Sir Archi- 
 bald Alison, Lord Neaves, Mr George Moir, intimate 
 and valued friends of Aytoun, and whose great talents 
 he held in the highest respect, continued to maintain 
 honourably the reputation for letters by which their 
 country had long been distinguished. Professor 
 Blackie, Mr John Hill Burton, and others of Aytoun's 
 friends, all resident Scotchmen, were also doing good 
 service in the same field. But their gifts were of a 
 less popular kind than Aytoun's, and excited a less 
 cordial interest than those of the poet who had found 
 a voice for strong national feelings, and the humorist 
 who had embodied many of the quaintest aspects of 
 the national character. 
 
 This reputation had its drawbacks, not the least of 
 which, in Aytoun's estimate, was the claim made upon 
 him, from all parts of the country, to speak in public 
 assemblies. It is to a display of this kind at the 
 Manchester Athenaeum on the 21st October 1858, that
 
 AT THE MANCHESTER ATHENAEUM. 195 
 
 he alludes in the following letter. The other speakers 
 on the occasion were, Lord Stanley of Alderley (Chair- 
 man), Lord John Eussell, Judge Haliburton (Sam 
 Slick), Sir James Brooke, Lord Houghton, and George 
 
 Cruickshank. 
 
 17th November 1858. 
 
 MY DEAR ROBERTSON, Thou art pleased, oh my Fowde,* to 
 be complimentary on iny recent public appearance. I really 
 could not help going to Manchester. The people there, heaven 
 knows why, seem to have had a kind of curiosity regarding me, 
 the late invitation being by no means the first which I have re- 
 ceived from them. I have, as you know, a real dislike to public 
 displays ; but one may carry the system of keeping within the 
 shell too far ; and besides that, I confess to you that I wanted to 
 try what effect I could produce upon an audience speaking di- 
 rectly after Lord John Russell, as I was told I should have to do. 
 So I accepted and went to Manchester. I behaved, however, with 
 perfect fairness. I did not write one word of my speech, and only 
 began to consider what I should say on the morning of the day 
 when the meeting was held. I was quite at ease, though it was 
 an awful assemblage. After I had listened to Lord John for five 
 minutes, " Is that your style ? " thought I. " Oh, hang it, it is 
 no credit whatever to trump you." So I gave them about half 
 an hour of it with as little trepidation as if I had been lecturing 
 to my class. I think they liked it ; at any rate I was enthusias- 
 tically greeted, both when I came forward and when I sat down. 
 I afterwards got a paper containing a somewhat high-flown ac- 
 count of the meeting, which I cut out and now enclose, as it may 
 amuse you. Please send it back, for I have not yet shown it to 
 my dear old mother, whose over-fondness for her son is now a 
 source of absolute pleasure to her. She was ailing a little lately, 
 but is now much better. 
 
 Mrs Aytoun's health has, I am thankful to say, improved very 
 
 * Fowde or Foud, collector of the King's Skatt, afterwards Chief- 
 Judge, and ultimately Sheriff of the Foudries of Zetland. Aytoun 
 generally addressed his Sheriff-Substitute by this name.
 
 196 HIS RECEPTION THERE. 
 
 decidedly. In fact, she is convalescent, and in the opinion of the 
 doctors time only is required to make her quite right again. . . . 
 I therefore confidently cherish the hope that next season (D.V.) 
 we may be ahle to visit Orkney, and make it our summer resi- 
 dence as before. I do assure you that I pined sorely for it in 
 August. . . . 
 
 and his winsome wife are in lodgings near us, and quite 
 
 well. is rosy and plump as an apple ; and his wife, from 
 
 being very delicate, is an absolute wonder of strength a Boa- 
 dicea, sir, a Semiramis, a Grace Maddox (surnamed by Pierce 
 Egan the Pet of the Fancy). You are probably aware that Grace 
 knocked the wind out of Ned Figgins, the Dartmouth Kid, in 
 seven rounds. Dr Candlish has a lock of her hair in a brooch, 
 and sports it in his shirt o' Sundays. 
 
 Anything more ? I think not. According to old rules I should 
 have begun by telling you about the weather, which with us is 
 regular winter cold, raw, and shiveracious. In Italy and France 
 there have been already falls of snow, so we may look out for 
 squalls. But in the blissful islands the happy Hesperides 
 blessed in their Lawmann,* but doubly blessed in their Fowde, 
 doubtless there is perpetual spring. I see you, revered one, under 
 the shadow of the fig-tree at your door, crushing into a golden 
 cup the fruitage of the magnificent vine which canopies your 
 dwelling, and gazing luxuriously, and yet somewhat critically, 
 upon the floating forms of the Bayaderes of Kirkwall, whom, after 
 their brief career of excusable iniquity is over, you, with that fine 
 indulgence which distinguishes the disciples of Calvin, will bestow 
 in marriage with a holy benediction. In you alone I recognise the 
 union of the ancient and modern tendencies, for in your person only 
 are Anacreon and Knox reconciled. Vale, quoth the Lawmann. 
 
 Some passages of the " high-flown account " of the 
 Manchester meeting, to which Aytoun here refers, are 
 sufficiently graphic. The writer is manifestly a " kindly 
 
 * Lawmann, the President^f the Althing, Keeper and Expounder 
 of the Law-book, and Chief-Judge of Orkney an office now merged in 
 that of the Sheriff.
 
 HIS SPEECH ON THAT OCCASION. 197 
 
 Scot," proud to see his countryman hold his own among 
 the eminent men who were ranged beside him. " At 
 the bidding of the chairman," he writes, " Professor 
 Aytoun stands forward and prepares to speak. There 
 is a bluff boldness about him, and the Lancashire men 
 at once and instinctively recognise in that independent 
 and manly bearing a man after their own heart. As 
 the speaker looks round for a moment on the noble and 
 lofty proportions of the magnificent hall, and then 
 casts his glance across the sea of upturned faces which 
 stretches over the spacious area, and next surveys the 
 far-extending galleries, fringed on this occasion with a 
 beautiful bevy of Lancashire witches, for a moment he 
 is evidently astonished. He has just come from the 
 far-off Orkneys, and the contrast between that and this 
 strikes his poetic mind. There, a scanty population 
 and nature's almost unbroken silences ; here, the noise 
 and roar of a vast industry, and the mighty hum of 
 many men. He begins apologetically, and talks for a 
 little on education. . . . But as he leaves everyday 
 topics, and speaks of the mighty masters who have 
 peopled the realms of imagination with the creations of 
 genius, there is felt throughout the immense meeting 
 that now in their very presence is one touched with 
 the fire of the old poets one ' loved of the muses, a 
 master of song.' . . . "We may say of him that 
 ' he spoke like a king in his conquering hour.' As 
 the orator finished, the pent-up excitements of the vast 
 auditory found vent in loud and long-continued cheers, 
 and we noticed that one of the most enthusiastic in his
 
 198 THE BURNS CENTENARY FESTIVAL. 
 
 plaudits was ,my Lord John Eussell." Aytoun's 
 speech was mainly directed to urging on the members 
 of the Athenaeum the importance of studying the great 
 English classical writers, and warning them against 
 the mental decrepitude likely to result from the too 
 prevailing habit of reading periodical literature, writ- 
 ten, as he observed, " merely to meet the necessities of 
 the hour." 
 
 Aytoun was soon afterwards called upon to preside 
 at the Burns Centenary Festival at Ayr. The occasion 
 must have recalled, not without feelings of sadness, the 
 last time he had visited the Banks of Doon to take 
 part in a similar ceremony. Wilson and Lord Eglin- 
 ton, whose eloquence had made memorable the Festival 
 of 1844 Wilson, the idol of Aytoun's youthful ima- 
 gination, the father of the wife he loved Eglinton, the 
 high-hearted friend, in whom he revered all the qualities 
 which ennobled that pure and chivalrous spirit, were 
 no longer there. The one had departed into " the silent 
 land ; " the other, soon to follow, in shaken health and 
 spirits, shrank from the fatigue of such public dis- 
 plays. To stand where these men had stood, and to 
 speak of Burns to many who had heard these men 
 speak of him, was no common ordeal. But Aytoun 
 rose to the occasion, and found eloquent expression 
 for the enthusiasm of the hour. In a letter sending 
 me a report of the proceedings, he wrote as follows 
 (4th February 1859) : 
 
 " I am most thankful that the Burns affair is over. It was a 
 great nuisance to be dragged to Ayr in the middle of winter ; but
 
 THE BURNS CENTENAEY FESTIVAL. 199 
 
 I had promised, and there was no help for it. Our meeting was 
 most enthusiastic. I send you the ' Ayrshire Express' with a 
 tolerable report of it. I spoke, as I always do now, without hav- 
 ing committed anything to paper ; therefore the diction wants 
 polish, but the effect on the immediate audience is much greater 
 than the delivery of a speech from memory. I was petrified at 
 your audacity in becoming an umpire.* Did you not remember 
 the fate of Marsyas ? and what an impudent adventure was that 
 ballad in 'Punch' 1 I knew at once who the author was, and 
 shuddered when I thought of the 599 stilettoes that were thirst- 
 ing for your gore. 
 
 * Along with Lord Houghton and Mr Tom Taylor, in adjudicating 
 on the poems on Burns which competed for a prize of 50 offered by 
 the Crystal Palace Company.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF MRS AYTOUN ITS EFFECT ON HIM ELECTED 
 PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATED SOCIETIES OF THE UNIVERSITY 
 FIRST VISIT TO HOMBURG DYSPEPSIA AND ITS CURE SCOTTISH 
 COOKERY AND ITS EFFECTS A PRESBYTERY DINNER LIFE IN 
 SHETLAND LETTER TO COL. HAMLEY DEATH OF HIS MOTHER 
 PUBLICATION OF NORMAN SINCLAIR LORD LYTTON ON IT AGAIN 
 AT HOMBURG SIGNS OF FAILING HEALTH NOEL PATON's DESIGNS 
 FOR THE LAYS "THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN." 
 
 IT was characteristic of Aytoun that he said little of 
 his troubles even to his most intimate friends. They 
 were pretty sure, he thought, to have a fair share of 
 their own, and he had schooled himself to trust for 
 bearing his trials to his own power of self-command, 
 and to such strength as was vouchsafed to him from a 
 power higher than man's, His talk and his corre- 
 spondence were therefore always cheerful, as in the 
 specimens of these last which have been quoted, even 
 when his lonely thoughts must have been filled with 
 anxiety and doubt. For some years Mrs Aytoun had 
 been more or less an invalid, suffering from one of 
 those occult ailments which baffle medical skill, and 
 which render life a long-drawn weariness. Devotedly 
 attached as Aytoun was to her, her continuous suf- 
 fering and languid health must have pressed hourly
 
 ILLNESS AND DEATH OF MRS AYTOUN. 201 
 
 upon his spirits. He clung to the hope expressed 
 in the letter to his friend Eobertson, last quoted, that 
 she had begun to give signs of reviving health ; but 
 in a very few months the sad certainty came to him 
 that this was not to be. Writing to Mr Eobertson on 
 the 6th April 1859, he says : 
 
 Sooth to say, I am not in great spirits, for my poor dear wife 
 has been very unwell of late, and I have been in the deepest an- 
 xiety about her. 
 
 This morning I was very nearly upset. You, my dear James, 
 who know me, will not think what I write now a strange medley 
 compared with the nonsense I have penned above ; but she really 
 seemed very ill, and she spoke and looked like an angel was so 
 sweet, kind, affectionate, and resigned, that I felt as if my heart 
 would have burst ; and the awful thought that I might soon be 
 left alone in this world, without the companionship of one who 
 for ten years has been dearer to me and more blessed to me than 
 words can express, smote me with a sense of desolation. I have 
 endeavoured not to repine. I know that God sends His chastise- 
 ments in mercy, not in wrath that what He does for us is the 
 best ; but there is an awful significance in the lines 
 
 " Sinful Macduff, 
 
 Not for their own offences, but for thine, 
 Fell slaughter on their souls ! " 
 
 I have prayed, and in praying have received that consolation that, 
 in the event of the worst, I hope I shall be able to bend to the 
 rod. 
 
 The calamity foreshadowed in these most touching 
 words was near at hand. Mrs Aytoun died on the 15th 
 of April, and Aytoun was left a childless, lonely, and 
 shattered man. 
 
 Shattered indeed he was. "The great calamity of 
 life had fallen upon him," to use his own words in
 
 202 . ITS EFFECT ON HIM. 
 
 the few sad lines which announced his loss to me. The 
 doom of separation that sombre shadow by which 
 human love at its best and deepest is evermore haunted 
 had long been closely present to his imagination. 
 " The dull, dead pain, the constant anguish of patience," 
 wearing down her he loved, had made serious inroads 
 on his own health. Devoted as he was, and might 
 well be, to one who had for ten years given that sym- 
 pathy and encouragement to all that was best in him, 
 which only a wife can give, it needed not that the ties 
 which bound him to her should have been more closely 
 knit by the years of protracted suffering with which 
 she had been afflicted, and which she had so meekly 
 borne. Beautiful, bright, intellectual, gentle, the per- 
 vading yet unobtrusive influence of his life, what 
 wonder if, when she was taken from him, he would 
 have been well content to have been laid in the grave 
 beside her ! It is on natures like his that such bereave- 
 ments fall most heavily natures constitutionally cheer- 
 ful, enjoying, and genial, but animated, under this 
 smiling exterior, by strong feelings and warm affec- 
 tions, which demand an outlet in the sympathy and 
 support of those they love. Their life is in their affec- 
 tions. Loved deeply, because they make those they 
 love happy by their cheerfulness, their loyalty, and 
 their goodness, they are of all men the most desolate 
 when those to whom they cling are taken away, and 
 they are left bewildered and alone. For such men life 
 is then virtually at an end. Some, and they the hap- 
 piest, die ; others live on, the phantoms of their former
 
 ITS EFFECT ON HIM. 203 
 
 selves. They even seem, in Schiller's phrase, to grieve 
 down their sorrow 
 
 "Denn was verschmerzet niclit der Mensch ?" 
 They take up the broken threads of life, and strive to 
 reunite them. But the colours are faded, the outline 
 hopelessly blurred. To them the present is a dream, 
 the past and the hereafter the only realities. They mix 
 with the world, and do what is left for them to do with 
 patient courage. The old humour will flash out upon 
 occasion bright and vivid, but its light is fitful, as 
 though it pierced through a cloud of tears ; and we see 
 by them how truly Wordsworth spoke, when he said 
 
 that 
 
 " Often glad no more, 
 We wear a face of joy, because 
 We have been sad before." 
 
 Aytoun was too sincere a Christian to do otherwise 
 than bow meekly before the bitter bereavement which 
 had befallen him. He faced his sorrow manfully, 
 wrestling with it, as true men wrestle with such sor- 
 row, in the silence of his own heart. His sisters 
 offered that one of them should come to live with him, 
 but well as he loved them, he would not hear of this. 
 He would not let her leave his aged mother, and said 
 he must take to his work again. He did so, and worked 
 hard. But although he confessed he could not bear to 
 hear his own footfall in his great empty house, it was 
 long before he could be weaned from his loneliness, 
 even by his most trusted friends. " Night after night," 
 says Mr John Blackwood, " I used to call in upon him,
 
 204 ELECTED PKESIDENT OF THE 
 
 and anything more melancholy than our old bright 
 companion, sitting with his head leaning on his hands, 
 cheerless and helpless, I never saw." It was thus I 
 found him one night I paid him an unexpected visit 
 some time after MrsAytoun's death. He was no longer 
 the same man, and it seemed from his looks as if in a 
 few months he had passed through years of suffering 
 and illness. 
 
 By degrees he rallied, and threw himself actively as 
 before into the questions of the day. With intimate 
 friends his talk and correspondence gradually regained 
 its former playfulness and unreserve. But his relish 
 for general society was gone; and, to make himself 
 agreeable when in it, which had formerly been so 
 easy, seemed to cost him a serious effort. The truth 
 was, his health had been seriously shaken, and the 
 desire of solitude and quiet was only one among 
 many symptoms of this. Of these one of the most 
 significant was an extreme sensitiveness to " the sea- 
 sons' difference," to which he had hitherto been a 
 comparative stranger a sensitiveness particularly 
 unfortunate for him, compelled as he was to live 
 in the severe climate of Edinburgh in the winter 
 months. 
 
 * At the end of 1860 he was elected honorary presi- 
 dent of the Associated Societies of the University of 
 Edinburgh, an office of honour which has not been 
 thought unworthy of acceptance by such men as Lord 
 Brougham, Mr Gladstone, Lord Lytton, Sir David 
 Brewster, and Mr Carlyle. This honour coming, as it
 
 ASSOCIATED SOCIETIES OF THE UNIVERSITY. 205 
 
 did, unsolicited, and implying a recognition of his posi- 
 tion as one of eminence in the world of letters, was 
 most gratifying to Aytoun. It would have been more 
 so, but for the fact that it involved a victory over his 
 friend Thackeray, who had been named in opposition 
 as president for that year. He alludes to this in the 
 following letter to his friend Mr Eobertson : 
 
 28th December 1860. 
 We are in the midst of an Arctic winter. 
 
 " My young remembrance cannot parallel 
 A fellow to it." 
 
 The streets almost blockaded with snow ; the thermometer some- 
 times below zero ; no water to be had, as all the pipes are frozen ; 
 and the very gas going out with a sulky stink, like the glassy 
 eyes of an expiring skunk. I have been suffering somewhat 
 from rheums, but am now much better, and occasionally tak- 
 ing my place at good men's feasts, of which there is a super- 
 abundance. But before sitting down to gossip, let us attend 
 to business. . . . And now, business being disposed of, let 
 us become egotistical and havering. I was certainly gratified 
 by the University Societies' poll, because, though the honour of 
 the presidency was not one that I would have solicited, I should 
 not like to have been beaten on Scottish ground by Thackeray, 
 or any other literary man ranking nearly as my contemporary. 
 The thing itself is a bore, for it will entail the composition 
 of a regular oration, and the publishing thereof ; and I am 
 one of those unexcitable souls who would much prefer being 
 allowed to smoke their unoffending calumet in peace by their own 
 hearth to haranguing crowded audiences. I have little of the 
 passion for applause which was strongly developed in my father- 
 in-law Christopher North. I can subsist quite comfortably with- 
 out it, for which I claim no manner of merit ; for, being conscious 
 that I am only a clever kind of cuddy (Anglice, donkey), I like 
 to chew my native thistle in quietude, and without observation.
 
 206 DYSPEPSIA AND ITS CUKE. 
 
 Now, good night. I reciprocate your kind wishes ; and may 
 God's blessing rest upon you and yours ! 
 
 Aytoun found his health so seriously affected, that 
 he resolved, in the course of the summer of 1861, to try 
 a course of the waters of Homburg. Dyspepsia in its 
 worst form had seized him. He could neither eat nor 
 drink with comfort. Eefreshing sleep was a stranger 
 to his pillow, and exertion of every kind, bodily or 
 mental, had become a burden. The curative properties 
 of the Elizabethen Brunnen still more, perhaps, entire 
 change of scene, with the fine air and prevailing cheer- 
 fulness of the place dispelled many of his most pain- 
 ful symptoms, and he returned home with health and 
 spirits to which he had been long a stranger. His 
 first impulse seems to have been to direct others to the 
 remedy from which he had himself found so much 
 relief ; and with this view he wrote for ' Blackwood's 
 Magazine ' two papers, called " Meditations on Dyspep- 
 sia," the first treating of " the malady," the second of 
 " the cure." 
 
 The malady could scarcely be more powerfully 
 depicted than it has been by Aytoun, writing, as he 
 manifestly did, out of the agonies of his own experi- 
 ence of a state, in which " a mutton-chop becomes a 
 fiery crab, rending the interior with its claws ; and even 
 rice-pudding has the intolerable effrontery to become 
 revivified as a hedgehog." The many causes which 
 lead to this state of suffering are discussed as pleasantly 
 as such things can be, late hours, bad air, neglect of 
 exercise, too much brain- work excess, in short, of any
 
 COUNTRY INNS AND THEIR COOKERY. 207 
 
 kind. But all his force of description and sarcasm is 
 levelled at our utter neglect, as a nation, of the art of 
 cookery, a neglect which, while it makes the dinner- 
 tables of most of our homes a source of constant irri- 
 tation, and the viands of nearly all our inns and hotels 
 an object of absolute terror, is the more intolerable, as 
 no nation in the world has in its kitchens such admir- 
 able materials for food, both varied and wholesome. 
 Scotland, as most within Aytoun's observation, comes 
 in for some especially hard hitting. But what he says 
 of Scotland is in the main true of the rest of the 
 kingdom, and has not grown less so, since landlords 
 and landladies have become a race all but extinct, and 
 travellers are left to get what they can out of the 
 impersonal indifference of a Company (Limited). Why 
 are holiday rambles in this country so rare as they 
 are ? It is not curiosity or love of travel which carries 
 nine-tenths of our tourists abroad, but simply the 
 impossibility of finding decent comfort and moderate 
 charges at home. Were our innkeepers not as short- 
 sighted as they are grasping, the greater part of the 
 money which now finds its way into the pockets of 
 their rivals in Germany and Switzerland would pass 
 into their own, and the British might become familiar 
 with the finest scenery of their islands, without the 
 certainty of having to pay exorbitantly for being made 
 thoroughly miserable. 
 
 Go to a country inn [Aytoun writes], either in the Lowlands or 
 the Highlands, and the odds are that they set before you such 
 a dinner as even Ugolino in the extremity of his famine would
 
 208 SCOTTISH COOKERY AND ITS DEFECTS. 
 
 have hesitated to attack. Fish, by some singular dispensation of 
 Providence, is never to be had, especially at the seaports, except 
 during the salmon and herring season, when you can get nothing 
 else, and your gorge rises at the repetition. If you are so far 
 left to yourself as to order a beefsteak, be sure that it will prove 
 as tough as the bullhide on the shield of Ajax. The mutton 
 that is served up to you at five, formed this morning part of the 
 corporation of a highly respectable ram, who took his last nibble 
 of the clover just as you were stepping into the boat after break- 
 fast. It was not the early carol of the lark, but the death- 
 skraigh of those wretched anatomies of chickens, that roused 
 you from your morning slumbers. But we shall not continue 
 the picture, charged as it is with horrors. Where the absolute 
 means are wanting, no one would be so unreasonable as to cavil 
 at scanty fare ; but in a country where the supplies are abundant, 
 such miserable preparation, or rather lack of it, is wholly inex- 
 cusable, and more than justifies the taunts which, even now, are 
 launched against Scottish entertainment. Great as has been the 
 national progress in many material respects during the last fifty 
 or sixty years, we question if the condition of the country inns 
 is one whit better now than it was when Samuel Johnson made 
 his famous pilgrimage. Worse cookery, we venture to say, is to 
 be found nowhere in Europe ; and we speak after a tolerably 
 long and wide cosmopolitan experience. There is not an auberge 
 or yasthaus in the most sequestered districts of France or Ger- 
 many in which you will not be far better served than in a 
 Scottish inn of much loftier pretensions not because their 
 supply is better, or indeed nearly so good, biit because the 
 foreign women know how to cook, and take a pride and pleasure 
 in their vocation. English wayside cooking has, no doubt, its 
 assailable points, but for comfort and cleanliness commend us 
 to an English inn. The choice may not be great, but what is 
 produced is almost always perfect of its kind. The bread, the 
 butter, the home-brewed, the eggs, and the bacon, would of 
 themselves constitute a banquet that might have pleased the 
 palate of Apicius ; and all are set down with a neatness and 
 taste that absolutely gives a fillip to the appetite ; whereas, with 
 us, there is scarcely a perceptible zone between luxury and
 
 A PRESBYTERY DINNER. 209 
 
 absolute sordidness. These are harsh words, but will any one 
 venture to impugn them ? Let us see. We are writing these 
 lines in Edinburgh, a city of luxury, wherein, at a hundred 
 houses of common resort, you may command the best entertain- 
 ment. For culinary excellence and refinement, we are proud to 
 say that it is not surpassed by any capital in Europe. But pass 
 beyond its environs go out some six or seven miles into the 
 country, for a drive, or for the inspection of any of the scenes 
 rendered classical by the imise or by the relics of the olden time 
 order dinner to be prepared at the inn where your horses must ne- 
 cessarily be baited and, our life for yours, the result will be that 
 you never will renew the experiment. There is not far from this 
 city one of the most perfectly exquisite specimens of medieval 
 art in the form of a chapel that anywhere exists. It is situated 
 in the midst of scenery of surpassing beauty, and a long summer's 
 day would scarce serve to weary the enthusiastic tourist. No 
 stranger coming to Scotland, at any period of the year, departs 
 without having visited it. A commodious hotel there might 
 make the fortune of the proprietor ; whereas, as matters are now- 
 arranged, you could hardly be more indifferently victualled at 
 Leadburn or the Kirk of Shotts. 
 
 We write feelingly, because we have recently endured some 
 hours of excruciating agony in consequence of having incautiously 
 accepted an invitation to assist at a Presbytery dinner. A more 
 agreeable set of men than were assembled on that occasion you 
 could hardly hope to meet with ; but had the mistress of the inn 
 been the mother of four unplaced probationers, she could not 
 have exerted herself more strenuously to make vacancies through- 
 out the bounds. Over the enormity of that woman's cookery we 
 shall charitably throw a veil ; nor do more than chronicle our 
 disgust at finding the following notice appended to a detailed 
 report of the proceedings in a local newspaper : " The dinner 
 was supplied by Mrs M'Pushion in her usual style of excellence, 
 and appeared to give universal satisfaction." Universal satis- 
 faction ! Why, a South Sea Islander would have turned from 
 the ghastly banquet with abhorrence ; and the famous Celtic 
 caddy (Anglice, street porter) who felt no inconvenience from 
 swallowing a dram of aquafortis, would have sputtered like a 
 

 
 210 EFFECTS ON HEALTH. 
 
 wild-cat had he tasted the abominable fluids that were circulated 
 in the dirty decanters. 
 
 Let no rnan, therefore, however sound may be his digestion, 
 flatter himself that he can pass through life without occasionally 
 experiencing symptoms akin to dyspepsia. The modes of poison- 
 ing are manifold ; and twelve bad meals taken in succession may 
 cut short your career as effectually as a dose of arsenic. Men 
 are not at all times "masters of their fate." Eating is an 
 absolute necessity; but you cannot always control the quality 
 of the food. We have been shut up for a whole week in a 
 lodging-house, subsisting upon rations far less wholesome than 
 those served out to the convicts in a jail, and the consequence 
 has been an attack of acidity that has made us wretched for a 
 month. It is easy to suggest that a man placed in such circum- 
 stances might prolong existence by confining himself to bread, 
 butter, and cheese. The idea is plausible ; but how if the bread 
 is sour, the butter rancid, and the cheese like gutta percha ? But, 
 you will say, how is it that, if the diet be so bad, the natives do 
 not suffer ? Don't they ? Inquire after their health, and you will 
 find that four out of five are afllicted with stomachic torments. 
 Go into the shop in a small town where drugs are vended along 
 with stay-laces, Birmingham jewellery, and cheap railway novels, 
 and you will find on the counter half-a-dozen different kinds of 
 pills warranted to be specific for dyspepsia. Bushels of these 
 are annually swallowed by people who ought to enjoy the very 
 best of health, and would do so, were they only to regulate their 
 diet, improve their style of cookery, and occasionally open their 
 windows ; and as for the carbonates, they are consumed in the 
 provinces by the ton. The labouring classes escape because 
 their diet is remarkably simple. Porridge disagrees with no one, 
 and sowens are certainly salutary. But sour bread, tough mut- 
 ton, dough dumplings, and tea like a decoction of senna, carry 
 woe and pain to the interior of many a tradesman who piques 
 himself on his gentility for maintaining a drudge to do the 
 whole domestic work, cooking included, for a stipend of thirty 
 shillings by the year "Meditations on Dyspepsia, No. II." 
 ' Blackwood's Magazine,' October 1861.
 
 A SHETLAND DINNEK. 211 
 
 The following letter, which accompanied the MS. of 
 the article just cited, tells of suffering from such food 
 and lodging as Aytoun has here described, which 
 might have driven an anchorite to despair : 
 
 LERWICK, 18th August 1861. 
 
 MY DEAR BLACKWOOD, This is as beastly a day of wind and 
 rain as ever old Norna stirred up in these desolate islands ; and 
 instead of dining at a house a mile or two off, where I might 
 have reckoned confidently upon hotch-potch, I am forced to abide 
 the provisions of my landlady, which is a sore trial for a dyspep- 
 tic patient just taken from the luxuries of the Kursaal. How- 
 ever, I can eat now, and that is a mighty comfort. I have sent 
 off, under a separate cover, to George Street, the remainder of 
 " Meditations on Dyspepsia," which I hope you will like. What 
 is going on in the habitable globe I know not, for my newspapers 
 are, I conjecture, in a parcel at the steamboat office, and the peo- 
 ple here (out of sheer laziness) adhere so closely to the doctrines 
 of Calvin may his name be accursed ! that they won't give out 
 anything till Monday. So, j ante de mieux, I am writing you 
 
 this, and when I finish I shall But I hear the clattering of 
 
 a dish-cover. Pause we a while ! 
 
 I knew it. Shade of Sefton, what an apology for a meal ! 
 Mucilage of rice, with pony cartilage, and not a drop of wine, 
 beer, or brandy to be had for love or money ! 
 
 It is still blowing great guns, but I trust the Eagle of the 
 North will have folded his wings within four-and-twenty hours, 
 so that I may get off to-morrow evening to comparatively well- 
 victualled Orkney. Even in that insular Goshen it is not my 
 intention to stay beyond a fortnight, and I hope very soon after 
 to have the pleasure of taking you by the hand. 
 
 I tried the fishing one day in the Loch of Tingwall, but the 
 trotits would not rise ; and, I suspect, from something I have 
 heard, that there are few grouse in Orkney. 
 
 Adios ! I love you too well to wish you to be here, even for 
 a single hour, in such miserable weather as this.
 
 212 LETTEK TO COLONEL HAMLEY. 
 
 The good effects of his sojourn at Homburg are 
 visible in the cheerfulness of the tone which begins to 
 appear again in his correspondence, as in the following 
 pleasant letter to Colonel Hamley : 
 
 EDINBURGH, 16 GREAT STUART STREET, 
 3d October 1861. 
 
 MY DEAR HAMLEY, I thank you for your kind and most face- 
 tious letter of remembrance. The "best proof of the efficacy of the 
 Homburg waters is, that I have just returned from a fortnight's 
 sojourn at Strathtyrum with unimpaired appetite and digestion ; 
 but I have grown cautious in mine old age, and consort with 
 Bacchus on terms of greater formality than heretofore. Those 
 dyspeptic papers, I apprehend, are likely to lead me into trouble. 
 I have just despatched an answer to a most dolorous letter from 
 a victim residing at Portsea, who craves information about the 
 waters ; and if every fellow who is cropsick takes it into his head 
 to apply to me, I shall be obliged, in self-defence, to take out a 
 medical licence, and charge them roundly for advice. You are 
 wrong, though, in your suspicion that I aggravated the horrors of 
 the disease. 1 was, I assure you, very ill, and as thin as a wl lip- 
 ping-post before I set out for Germany, and not one of the doctors 
 here could do me any good. I feel much better now than I have 
 done any time these three years, and I pray God to keep me so, 
 for I have just had a terrible reminder of the frail tenure of our 
 existence. On Saturday last Lord Eglinton dined at Strath- 
 tyrum in the full flow of health and spirits. On Sunday I 
 walked with him on the links, when he expatiated upon the 
 excellent effects of hard exercise at golf. On Tuesday he over- 
 exerted himself at that game, dined out, and was struck down 
 in the course of the evening by apoplexy. By the accounts 
 received to-day, his recovery is quite hopeless ; and so there 
 is an end of the noblest and finest character that I ever hap- 
 pened to encounter a man of the heroic stamp of Montrose and 
 Dundee ! 
 
 Your notion about going to Homburg next year delights me. 
 If alive, I shall assuredly be there ; indeed, they say two courses 
 are requisite for perfect renovation, and it is a capital place for
 
 LETTER TO COLONEL HAMLEY. 213 
 
 fun. I have picked up a good many hints from the queer society 
 there, which I intend, some day or other, to work out ; and I 
 have a capital notion in my head which, I trust, will take proper 
 shape ere long. It would just suit you, and you may have it for 
 20, if you will remit me half Bank of England notes, as some 
 incomprehensible ninnyhammers are in the habit of doing to 
 the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It is a virgin notion, and war- 
 ranted good for at least a pair of sheets. 
 
 By the way, curiously enough, it so happened that Blackwood 
 showed me the proof-sheets of ' Capt. Clutterbuck,' without tell- 
 ing me the name of the writer. I returned them with a eulogis- 
 tic opinion, and the remark that, though I was satisfied Hamley 
 was not the author, it bore such an affinity to his style that I 
 could not get him out of my head. Rather curious that, isn't it, 
 as an instance of family idiosyncrasy ? * To you I have been often 
 indebted for eleemosynary kudos, your articles, erroneously attri- 
 buted to me, having sustained my sinking fame ; but you are 
 too much of a gentleman to make any difference on that account, 
 as to the transmission of the aforesaid .20. By Pandarus of 
 Troy, the notion I offer you on such easy terms is the very 
 Light of the Harem, the Zuleika of my mental Seraglio ! Down 
 with the dust, and I send her blushing to your expectant arms. 
 
 My sporting this year has been an entire failure ; but I am 
 going to -morrow where pheasants most do congregate, and I 
 expect to do something. I ain not very fond, however, of those 
 swell houses, where you are sure to be pestered with earls and 
 that sort of people ; for I cleave to the doctrine of honest Morgan 
 Odoherty, that the Pope and the pot are the emblems of social 
 freedom. You get through the forenoon well enough, and the 
 grub is always unexceptionable ; but when, in the course of the 
 evening, the question is put " Would Professor Aytoun be kind 
 enough to read us one of his ballads ?" I feel as riled as a gorilla, 
 and wish to heaven that I was harlequin, so that I might with 
 impunity take a flying leap through the window. But perhaps 
 these annoyances occur in all grades of society. I remember 
 being in a farmhouse with a distinguished friend, whose narra- 
 
 * ' Captain Clutterbuck,' an excellent tale of "West India life, which 
 appeared in ' Blackwood,' and has since been republislied, was writ- 
 ten by Colonel Hamley, R.E., elder brother of Ay toun's correspondent.
 
 214 DEATH OF HIS MOTHEK. 
 
 tive of bloodthirsty single combats with Todleben and Gortscha- 
 koff were interrupted by an exclamation of, " Eh, Cornal ! was ye 
 no feared ?" which somewhat discomposed the equanimity of the 
 exterminating warrior. As for fishing, it is a positive fact that 
 I have not killed a single trout this year, a thing unexampled 
 since I first cast a line into the waters. The weather when I 
 was in Orkney, was simply damnable. I left Homburg on the 
 1st of Atagust, where the pomegranates and oleanders were mak- 
 ing the air fragrant ; and the week thereafter I was at Lerwick in 
 Zetland, where the prominent stench was that of boiled whale, 
 and ./Eolus was amusing himself by blowing out the contents of 
 his very filthiest bags. 
 
 In another letter to the same friend he makes a 
 remark which has lost none of its force by the lapse of 
 time. 
 
 " What a mess," he says, " politics are in ! It is a 
 very hard thing that we cannot form a ministry with- 
 out having in it several Jonahs. Now, I don't object 
 to one Jonah, because it may be convenient to have 
 a fellow ready to pitch overboard on extraordinaiy 
 emergency ; but if half the crew are Jonahs, it strikes 
 me that the operation of getting rid of them is very 
 much like walking the plank." As a specimen of the 
 kind of humour with which his conversation abounded, 
 the same friend furnishes the following anecdote : 
 " On my appointment as professor of the military art 
 at the Staff College, he advised me, amongst other face- 
 tious recommendations, to lecture in a suit of armour 
 of the twelfth century, which, besides its appropriate- 
 ness to my office, would have this advantage that 
 when at a loss for a word or an argument, I could let
 
 LETTER ON THE OCCASION. 215 
 
 down the vizor, and allow my voice to be lost in the 
 hollow of the helmet." 
 
 On the 7th November 1861 Aytoun's mother died, 
 at the age of ninety. Her end was like her life, calm 
 and saintly. Had this loss come some years before, 
 it would have fallen upon him heavily indeed. But to 
 that better land to which she was removed had already 
 gone one who was still dearer to him, and in such cir- 
 cumstances we seem to part with less reluctance even 
 with the dearest of those that are left. Besides, falling 
 as she did "like ripe fruit seasonably gathered," the 
 natural grief for her loss could have in it as little of 
 bitterness as might well be. In reply to the letter I 
 had written to him on hearing of her death, he wrote 
 to me as follows : 
 
 EDINBURGH, November 21, 1861. 
 
 MY DEAR MARTIN, I am much obliged for your very kind 
 letter. The loss which my sisters and I have sustained is heavy, 
 because irreparable ; and they, having devoted themselves to 
 one another for the last ten years, feel the change most acutely. 
 Still we have much to be thankful for. Her life was extended 
 far beyond the usual period, with no decay of her mental facul- 
 ties, and little diminution of her bodily strength ; and her end 
 was most calm and peaceful. 
 
 I was much the better for my trip to Homburg. I hoped to 
 have seen you in London on my way there in June ; but as I 
 really had no business in the metropolis, I wanted to be put to 
 rights as speedily as possible. I avoided the Wen, and took the 
 steamer from Hull to Eotterdam. I hope, if all goes well, to 
 renew my visit to Homburg next year. 
 
 I am again at work for the winter with a large class (about 
 140), which gives me some occupation, and I have taken to 
 it this year more kindly than usual I am revising the last 
 sheets of 'Norman Sinclair,' and I suppose it will be out in
 
 216 NORMAN SINCLAIR. 
 
 the course of ten days. I know there are some good things in 
 it, but it has also many faults, and I cannot help seeing that it 
 hangs fire in the second volume. The truth is, that when com- 
 posing that part I was dreadfully hipped leading a lonely 
 uncomfortable life in Orkney, beset with the dreariest weather, 
 a combination which forced down to the lowest point my in- 
 tellectual barometer. However, I have learned by practice a 
 thing or two ; and if ever I should be tempted to try my hand 
 at another novel, I feel persuaded that I shall be able to produce 
 something better. But I have for the present no scheme in 
 view. 
 
 I congratulate you on the success of your Catullus. 
 You and I differ, however, in our estimate of the value of the 
 original; for, with the exception of some half-dozen pieces at 
 the utmost, I do not think the poems of Catullus deserving of 
 the pains you have bestowed upon them. The wit of these 
 Romans (of course I exclude Horace) always appeared to me 
 flat and meagre. I recollect perfectly my amazement when a 
 boy at hearing a worthy pedagogue declare that there was 
 nothing in the whole range of literature so delectably funny as 
 the notion of a purse full of spinners, and the ointment which 
 was to make Fabullus wish that he was nothing but a nose. I 
 could not for the life of me conjure up a grin ; on which account 
 I was pronounced by Dominie Sampson to be an incorrigible 
 blockhead, with no sense of the humorous in my composition. 
 But the Epithalamium, the Nuptials, and the Atys are splen- 
 did.* .... 
 
 ' Norman Sinclair,' which appeared in ' Blackwood,' 
 month by month, between January 1860 and August 
 
 * So splendid that if Catullus had written nothing else he must 
 always hold a foremost place among poets. To humour he has no 
 pretension ; and Aytoun's Dominie Sampson must have been the 
 veriest pedant. But Aytoun himself, here and in our many conver- 
 sations on the subject, scarcely did justice to the power of clothing 
 deep feeling in exquisite language, and to the subtle pervading 
 grace of style, which distinguish Catullus in a great number of his 
 lighter pieces.
 
 LORD LYTTON'S OPINION OF IT. 217 
 
 1861, was begun by Aytoun soon after his wife's 
 death. He had entered upon it apparently without 
 any definite plan, and it is therefore less a novel, in 
 the strict sense of the word, than a series of sketches 
 somewhat loosely strung together upon the thread of 
 the hero's life. Aytoun had unwisely begun to publish 
 it in the Magazine before it was completed, and thus 
 deprived himself of the opportunity of remedying this 
 defect, by cutting away a good deal which, however 
 excellent in itself, might have been omitted with ad- 
 vantage to the general effect. This book has been 
 talked of by certain critics as a " dreary failure." The 
 remark is, however, most unjust. There are in it many 
 passages of great beauty and vigour, and episodes of 
 the richest humour. Its chief fault is, that Aytoun 
 has tried to put too much into it. Had he marked 
 out his story in clearer lines, and studied greater 
 brevity in detail, the book would not only have been a 
 most readable one, which it is, but also a publisher's 
 success, which it was not. In contrast with the 
 sweeping condemnation to which I have referred, it is 
 agreeable to turn to the discriminating and genial 
 criticism of Lord Lytton, conveyed in the following 
 letter : 
 
 VENTNOR, January 6, 1862. 
 
 MY DEAR AYTOUN, I have just read your new book, and 
 thank you for it most cordially. It is full of fresh and vigorous 
 writing, and brings an original mind into the hackneyed forms 
 of the novel. 
 
 Perhaps, if an old hand in the art might presume to offer 
 suggestions, you might in future works of this kind find an
 
 218 AGAIN AT HOMBURG. 
 
 advantage in deciding more resolutely between the questions of 
 Plot and No Plot. I think that if, on the one hand, you dis- 
 carded story altogether, and gave the freest swing to your 
 powers of humour, fancy, and observation through one or two 
 elaborated characters, like Sterne in 'Tristram Shandy,' or 
 through playful philosophical monologue, like Le Maitre or 
 Toppfer, you might make a delightful work of high character. 
 On the other hand, if you resolved to seek interest in the move- 
 ments of passion through the creatures and construction of fable, 
 you might find it advisable to give to your tale a more deter- 
 minate backbone than there is in ' Norman Sinclair.' You have 
 therein ample materials for plot and for character, but might 
 probably have improved them by more premeditated arrange- 
 ment. In that case characters like Benton, Lumley, Smoothly, 
 Avould have been finished off more minutely, and all the inci- 
 dents of the story been grouped around them. At present I think 
 the most finished character is Buchanan ; and if I had invented 
 him I should have kept him on to the last. You kill him off at 
 the beginning. For a story, too, petticoat interest is required to 
 a greater extent than you admit it. 
 
 Pardon these hasty but friendly sentences, which are, after 
 all, not worth much, because you achieve an interest in defiance 
 of rules. I did not lay down your book, once begun, till it was 
 finished, though I had pressing work on my hands. The fresh- 
 ness and play of your style kept my mind to your page, and that 
 is the true note of the novelist, who must in all else strike out 
 his own path for himself. With best wishes for the season, 
 yours truly, 
 
 E. B. LYTTON. 
 
 Whatever you do in this way in future, consider that humour 
 is at your disposal, and the rules of humour are inexhaustible ; 
 but they require arrangement for full display. 
 
 The benefit which he had received from the Horn- 
 burg waters decided Aytoun to resort to them again 
 in the summer of 1862. Here I found him in the 
 August of that year. He had been drinking the waters
 
 SIGNS OF FAILING HEALTH. 219 
 
 for about six weeks, and told me he felt greatly set up 
 in health". But there were few outward signs of this : 
 he had grown much thinner ; there was a hectic flush 
 in his cheek ; his face had lost its bright expression ; 
 and a beard which he had grown, and which he ever 
 afterwards wore, had lengthened the lines of his face 
 in a way which increased the appearance of feeble 
 health. It concealed, too, the fine curve of his lower 
 jaw, and the characteristic play of the muscles around 
 his mouth, in which the expression of his face chiefly 
 lay. These, and its other best features, have been most 
 happily preserved in the bust by Mr Patric Park, 
 which shows him at " his best and fullest," from which 
 the frontispiece to this volume has been engraved. The 
 languor of feeble health still hung about him. Flashes 
 of the old bright humour broke through it upon occa- 
 sion, but never in that rich unintermitted stream with 
 which I had been in former days so familiar. He was 
 no longer equal to walks of mile on mile which we used 
 to enjoy together but a few years before. A midday 
 saunter in the shade of the fine beech woods on the 
 slopes opposite to the town ; an afternoon stroll to the 
 garden of the Princess Elizabeth, or to the terrace of 
 the Schloss to see the sun set behind the Taunus range 
 and there are few more picturesque sights anywhere 
 was as much as he could accomplish without fatigue. 
 These he enjoyed intensely, for the love of nature, al- 
 ways strong in him, had deepened with time, and the 
 sweet freshness of the landscape around Homburg 
 seems more sweet and fresh by contrast with the fever-
 
 220 CRITICISM OF NOEL PATON. 
 
 ish life and tainted moral atmosphere of the town itself. 
 Aytoun was deeply interested in the state of Germany, 
 foreseeing the imminent approach of a great convulsion 
 there, but anticipating, as little as any other publicist, 
 the solution of the problem which has recently taken 
 Europe by surprise. He was then engaged on a paper 
 on " Germany and her Prospects," which appeared in 
 ' Blackwood' for October 1862. He had also written, 
 under the exhilarating influence of the place, an ani- 
 mated paper on " The Eights of Women," and another, 
 not less amusing, on "Watering Places." The former he 
 sent to Mr Blackwood, with the following letter. The 
 drawing by Mr Noel Paton, to which it refers, is one 
 that had been designed for the illustrated edition of 
 the ' Lays of the Cavaliers,' which had been for some 
 time in preparation. 
 
 HOMBURG, July 14, 1862. 
 
 MY DEAR BLACKWOOD, ... I quite agree with you 
 about Noel Paton's drawing. It is not only ghastly, but it ap- 
 pears to me (which is a matter of importance to an artist) that it 
 is aesthetically wrong. Ghosts are not skeletons, nor are they 
 ever so portrayed. If, in the tragedy of ' Macbeth,' a skeleton 
 were to walk on instead of the image of the murdered Banquo, 
 the whole interest would disappear. A skeleton, in the view of 
 Albert Durer, the old masters, and the old poets, typifies " Death," 
 not the apparition of a man who has been slain. A skeleton was 
 indeed technically called " A Death," as in the account of the 
 hideous figure that appeared in the dance at Holyrood, on the 
 occasion of the nuptials of our last King Alexander. And such 
 were the veiled figures that were supposed to flit through towns 
 infected by the plague. The idea of skeleton ghosts was, I think, 
 first started by Biirger and Mat. Lewis, and is a poor conception, 
 since it is hardly possible to distinguish one skeleton from an-
 
 THE EIGHTS OF WOMEN. 221 
 
 other, and nobody ever saw his own. I hope Noel Paton -will 
 seriously consider this, for even in allegorical design there should 
 be an observance of propriety; and I am quite sure that this 
 drawing of his (masterly in execution as is everything from his 
 pencil) would be objected to as in doubtful taste. I don't like to 
 presume so far as to offer a suggestion, but it seems to me that if 
 the head were left, and, instead of the skeletons, two veiled female 
 figures were introduced, with averted faces, and hands clasped 
 and raised to heaven, the sentiment would be more effectually 
 expressed. 
 
 I have little to tell you, except that I am keeping well, and 
 deriving, I think, much benefit from the waters. ... I have 
 not been altogether idle. Though the dull weather has been 
 rather against work, I have nearly finished an article on the 
 " Rights of Women," taking my text from the demand made at 
 the Social Science Meeting, that the professions should be opened 
 to the fair sex. I think you will like it, for it seems to me rol- 
 licking and lively. ... I don't contemplate leaving Homburg 
 for three weeks to come. I like it that is, in good weather ; and 
 the air and water suit me. Anyhow it is infinitely preferable to 
 Edinburgh, and I can work quite as freely here as elsewhere. 
 
 As might be expected, the "Eights of Women" was a 
 theme in which Aytoun found abundant scope for the 
 indulgence of humorous suggestions as to what must 
 ensue if women were to become lawyers, doctors, and 
 legislators. For example, he says : 
 
 Have you ever reflected upon the probable consequences of 
 turning loose some thirty or forty fascinating damsels, tricked 
 out like Portia in the ' Merchant of Venice,' among a swarm of 
 young barristers, not yet so versed in the language of the law as 
 to have forgotten the more agreeable jargon which is spoken in 
 the courts of Cupid ? Can there be the slightest doubt that be- 
 fore the first fortnight was over, there would be open and shame- 
 less gallopading in Westminster Hall, and the Parliament House 
 of Edinburgh. Then what bolting in and out of libraries and 
 robing-rooms what infinite giggling in corridors what sky-
 
 222 THE EIGHTS OF WOMEN. 
 
 larking in the box of the reporters ! Moreover, as each Portia 
 will of course be attended by a pert Nerissa of a clerk, ample 
 provision will be made, even within the walls of the temple of 
 Themis, for the prosecution of the amours of Messrs Chuckster 
 and M'Crowdy, who are severally regarded by their associates as 
 the most irresistible young men that ever carried a brief-bag or 
 fastened up a process with a strap ! 
 
 Again : 
 
 On the whole, we regard this movement on the part of the 
 ladies as one purely spasmodic, and not likely to lead to any 
 practical result. Their plea seems to us to be grounded on the 
 notion of the equality of the sexes. Once admit that, and every 
 sort of restriction becomes a palpable injustice. If women may 
 be lawyers and physicians, why may they not also be lawgivers 
 and members of the Cabinet ? Why not have a female Chancel- 
 lor as keeper of her Majesty's conscience a lady Speaker of the 
 House of Commons or a Home Secretary in petticoats ? Would 
 it be fair to restrict the career of women to the Bar, and deny 
 them promotion to the Bench ? Why are peeresses in their own 
 right prevented from sitting and voting in the House of Lords ? 
 Is it impossible to find a dowager who might be Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, or a female representative of Jenny Geddes to officiate 
 as Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 1 
 These become very serious questions, if entire equality be con- 
 ceded ; if it is denied, where is the line of demarcation to be 
 drawn ? We apprehend the real solution to be this, that society, 
 which is now very ancient, has from experience formed a code of 
 laws for its own regulation, from which it would be highly inex- 
 pedient to deviate that by the common consent of mankind in 
 all ages, certain vocations have been assigned to each of the 
 sexes, as "_ their proper and legitimate sphere of action and utility 
 and that any attempted readjustment of these could lead to 
 nothing save hopeless error and confusion. That was an admir- 
 able satire of the Greek who depicted Hercules with the distaff of 
 Ouiphale in his hand, but gave the club and lion's hide to the 
 custody of the fragile woman ! Surely in his day, as in our own, 
 there must have been some vehement assertion of female rights
 
 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF MAN-TAILORS. 223 
 
 and equality, and the dexterous Athenian hit upon this delicate 
 method of exposing its utter absurdity ! 
 
 The passage which, however, has most of the quali- 
 ties of his earlier papers, is the following : 
 
 Let man and woman work according to their kind and capacity, 
 and the result is sure to be satisfactory. Break that rule, from 
 whatsoever cause or motive, and you will find not only that the 
 work is ill performed, but that nature protests against the in- 
 fringement of her primary laws. 
 
 That there have been such infringements, no one will be hardy 
 enough to deny. Caprice, fashion, cupidity, and in some in- 
 stances necessity, have each and all combined to obliterate or 
 render doubtful the true line of demarcation, and to make men 
 effeminate and women masculine by tempting them to unsuitable 
 occupations. Take, for example, the trade of tailoring. Most 
 assuredly the instincts of nature direct that everything connected 
 with the shaping, sewing, and construction of garments should be 
 exclusively intrusted to women. The man finds the raw material ; 
 the woman prepares it for use. The Eed Indian goes forth with 
 his weapons to hunt the buffalo on the prairie ; the squaw remains 
 in the wigwam, fashioning the robes and decorating the moccasins 
 of her lord. And nature does not change. The small white 
 hands we so much admire were expressly formed for stitching 
 the large sinewy fist of the male was intended for other employ- 
 ment. But, as society became more and more artificial and 
 complex in its arrangements, men began to trench upon the just 
 prerogative of females. Dwarfs, lameters, and rickety creatures, 
 who were physically unfitted for the performance of robust la- 
 bour, took to tailoring as the easiest means within their reach of 
 earning their daily bread. Hard-toiling housewives, who found 
 they had enough to do in washing, baking, cooking, dairywork, 
 and mending the duds of the bairns, did not object to the inno- 
 vation, but charitably allowed poor feckless Johnnie, the widow's 
 son who, God help him ! was fit for nothing else to sit all day 
 long by the fire, shaping and sewing the gudeman's Sunday coat 
 and breeches gave him his daily allowance of porridge and kail,
 
 224 ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMEMT OF MAN-TAILOKS. 
 
 and finally forwarded him to the nearest hallan, with a couple 
 of lily-white shillings for his fee. But in process of time it 
 occurred to certain lazy loons, whose proper place was between 
 the stilts of the plough, that it must be infinitely more comfort- 
 able to snook, like Johnnie, in the chimney-corner, within 
 hearing of the simmering pot, than to trudge all day through 
 wet clay land in the very worst of weather, and afterwards to 
 fodder-up the horses, before slinking off to the tasteless fare and 
 miserable blankets of the bothy. And so, even in country dis- 
 tricts, did tailors multiply and increase; while in cities they 
 became as numerous as grasshoppers in a midsummer meadow. 
 But mark how nature punishes such poor and pitiful effemin- 
 acy ! Yonder attenuated being with the haggard eyes, hectic 
 spot upon the cheek, and perpetual hacking cough whose legs, 
 utterly devoid of calf, are not thicker than the handle of a flail 
 is an operative tailor who, had he followed his original calling, 
 would have been a hilarious shepherd on the mountains. Not in 
 the stifling close nor in the reeking wynd was Ephraim Sherar 
 born ; but in a cottage far away in the heart of the pleasant 
 Ochils, by the banks of a wimpling burn, and under the shade of 
 three stately ash-trees that were tall and strong ere M'Intosh of 
 Borlum led his men across the Firth of Forth, to perish in the 
 fight at Preston. And Ephraim had heard in spring the bleat- 
 ing of the lambs on the hillside, the ceaseless call of the cuckoo 
 from the thickets, and the wail of the solitary plover he had 
 felt the fragrance of the white honey-clover clustered on the lea, 
 and had watched the sun go down in magnificence behind the 
 purple mountains of the west ; but these things had no charm for 
 Ephraim. He was not only ambitious, but sensual. Fired by 
 the rumour of the high wages and illicit joys that might be ob- 
 tained in the city, he longed to join that distinguished corps 
 which Glasgow boasts of as her " chappies," and to quaff the 
 magic potion proffered by the Circes of the Trongate. The 
 prayers of his parents prevailed not. In an evil hour he left the 
 towers of Stirling behind him ; and plunged, with the reckless- 
 ness of an Einpedocles, into the sulphurous mists of the Cowcad- 
 dens. Not ours to trace the particulars of that wretched career, 
 which finally left him the denizen of a squalid garret, just able,
 
 THE TAILOK. 225 
 
 through precarious slopwork, to earn so much as would purchase 
 a small modicum of bread and cabbage, and a disproportionate 
 allowance of the vilest adulterated whisky. Ephraim, who 
 might have been the pride of the peasantry, now ranks among 
 the lowest of the dungs ! Yet is he, in his own estimation, no 
 unimportant member of society. He is perhaps the most fluent 
 orator of the " Operative Club," established for the purpose 
 of counteracting the baneful effects of capital and competition ; 
 and not unfrequently does he assure the policeman, who good- 
 naturedly plucks him from the gutter out of which he has scarce 
 strength to struggle, that 
 
 " The rank is but the guinea stamp 
 A man's a man for a' that !" 
 
 Eobert Burns ! when you penned that verse, you meant it as a 
 consolation for the humble brave. Alas ! alas ! it has been made 
 the watchword of a myriad of sots ! Seldom have we heard the 
 words issue from the mouths of any save the drunken and the 
 profane ; for the honest industrious man is conscious of his own 
 worth, knows that the same laws are applicable to the rich and 
 the poor, strives to do his duty in that station in which Provi- 
 dence has been pleased to place him, and envies not the luxuries 
 habitual to those from whose employment he derives his living.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 LECTURE AT ULBSTER HALL ON BALLAD POETRY SIR WALTER SCOTT 
 EMPHATICALLY THE MINSTREL ON THE CAUSES OF SCOTT'S POPU- 
 LARITY DISTINCTION BETWEEN POET AND MINSTREL A NEW 
 CHAPTER FROM IVANHOE ODE ON THE MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE 
 OF WALES HIS FAILING HEALTH SECOND MARRIAGE VARYING 
 STATE OF HIS HEALTH LAST ILLNESS AND DEATH HIS PLACE IN 
 LITERATURE HIS POWER AS A HUMORIST HIS CHARACTER. 
 
 AYTOUN'S popularity in Edinburgh drew upon him 
 frequent requests to minister to the prevailing taste for 
 lectures on literary topics ; and, little as he liked such 
 displays, he was too good-natured to refuse them. 
 Among his papers I find the following fragment of one 
 of these popular discourses, which seems to have been 
 delivered about this time at Ulbster Hall to a com- 
 paratively private audience, and which is interesting 
 as expressing the enthusiastic admiration which he 
 felt for Sir Walter Scott, as well as for the very happy 
 imitation of his manner with which it concludes : 
 
 BALLAD POETRY OF MODERN EUROPE. 
 
 It was not without justice that his admiring and grateful 
 countrymen conferred upon Sir Walter Scott the appellation of 
 the mighty minstrel of his time in preference to all his contem- 
 poraries. Some have been regarded by competent judges as 
 more skilled than he was in the arts of poetry, as having a
 
 LECTURE AT ULBSTER HALL. 227 
 
 greater power of language, a more varied range of illustration, 
 a better knowledge of the subtleties of verse, numbers more 
 polished, and imagery more dazzling than were displayed by the 
 author of the ' Lay of the Last Ministrel,' and of ' Marmion.' 
 The moody power of Byron ; the refined taste of Campbell ; the 
 highly imaginative and spiritual conceptions of Coleridge, which 
 sound to us as if the breathings of the ,/Eolian harp had, by some 
 strange magic, been arrested in middle air ; the utterances of 
 Shelley, wild, inarticulate, yet withal musical as the wailings of 
 Ariel when imprisoned in the heart of the knotted oak ; the 
 Oriental glow and prodigal luxuriance of Southey, as exhibited 
 in that one masterpiece of his genius, the " Thalaba," a poem 
 which of itself is rich enough to have redeemed the poverty of 
 an age ; the Venetian voluptuousness of colouring which is the 
 characteristic of Keats ; the occasional felicity which Words- 
 worth displayed in accommodating internal moods of thought to 
 the aspect of external nature ; the singular faculty which Wilson 
 possessed of painting as it were through vapour, and with the 
 half-dissolved colours of the iris, all these have been dwelt 
 upon, lauded, and held up by critics for our admiration, and to 
 all of them has admiration been accorded ; and yet to none of 
 these poets, great and famous as they are, has the name of 
 minstrel been given. And why? Because in the popular judg- 
 ment which is usually right in its decisions, perhaps the more 
 so because it is instinctive and does not parade its reasons these 
 poets addressed themselves to audiences not only of superior 
 cultivated taste, but of peculiar idiosyncrasies. They could, 
 each of them, charm a circle of greater or of less dimensions. 
 They were magnetic in a high degree, not to all minds, but 
 to minds similarly constituted with their own. They were 
 masters of a spell, not unfelt perhaps by all who heard them, 
 but potent only as regarded those to whom they stood in close 
 intellectual affinity. They were potentates of the realm of 
 poetry, as were the members of the old Germanic diet Counts, 
 Landgraves, Markgraves, Dukes, Princes, Electors but the 
 voice of none of them was acknowledged as paramount through- 
 out all the land. The peculiar grandeur of Scott is, that lu- is BO 
 acknowledged. From the Queen on the throne to the humblest
 
 228 ON SCOTT AS A POET. 
 
 peasant in Scotland and my remark goes no further, for in his 
 poetry Scott is almost exclusively national, and observes the 
 boundary of the Tweed as rigidly as did our forefathers when 
 the Wardens of the Marches were on the alert his works are 
 read and known ; and, better than either, recited whenever 
 enthusiasm, unable to express itself adequately, calls for poetry 
 as its interpreter ; and hence it is that to him alone, of all our 
 modern British poets, the name of minstrel has been accorded, 
 or at least the highest place among the minstrels who in this 
 generation have done honour to our Scottish soil. 
 
 This popularity, which I assert to be a fact, must be accounted 
 for on some other principle than the mere superiority in point 
 of genius, or even of poetical accomplishment. I do not main- 
 tain, and I never have maintained, that the genius of Scott was 
 greater than that of some of the men whose names I have already 
 enumerated ; and in regard to poetical accomplishment, under 
 which head I would include arrangement, expression, command 
 of language, and dexterity in the arts of ornament, several of 
 them were more consummate adepts than he. Why then is he 
 so popular ? I will tell you. First, because he is, beyond all 
 others of our day, the poet of action, the portrayer of deeds, the 
 vehement narrator of life in its excited and exalted moods. The 
 same impulse which makes us long to be spectators of a battle- 
 field, or witnesses of some gorgeous pageant the same impulse 
 which drew our ancestors in crowds to the tournament or the 
 coronation attracts us to the poetry of Scott, in which we 
 recognise, or think that w r e recognise, a vivid representation of 
 the past. He gives us action, which we accept as historically 
 true ; he utters sentiments not languid, polished, and refined, 
 but in accordance with the action which never for a moment 
 flags ; and we are hurried on, whether we will or no, by the tide, 
 torrent, and impetuosity of his narrative. Look, for example, 
 at the midnight ride of William of Deloraine from Branxholm 
 to Melrose the wonderful sketch of the Abbey, not elaborated 
 to display the skill of the artist, but as it stood in the pale moon- 
 light when the borderer was threading its aisles the awful 
 scene at the opening of the Wizard's tomb, when the red light of 
 the sepulchral lamp streams upward as the stone is raised, and
 
 SOURCES OF SCOTT S POPULAEITY. 229 
 
 discloses the form of the dead, the book of magic lying on its 
 breast the return of the scared freebooter dizzy with the sights 
 and sounds of fear, even his iron nerves unstrung, until, amidst 
 the greenwood boughs, he beholds the crest of his hereditary 
 foeman, when, quick as thought, he couches his spear, and spurs 
 his steed for the deadly encounter. All that, from first to last, is 
 minstrelsy of the very highest order minstrelsy the power of 
 which is so absorbing that we cannot resist it minstrelsy which 
 man and woman, boy and greybeard, lord and vassal, prince and 
 peasant, alike feel, appreciate, and understand minstrelsy 
 which fulfils all the ends which that kind of poetry can either 
 devise or achieve. Next, I think that Scott is popular because 
 he abstains from anatomy of the passions because throughout 
 the whole of his verse you have no metaphysical problems to 
 solve, no intricate intellectual knots to unravel. His characters 
 require no explanation. They are as clearly defined and as 
 distinctly drawn in their weakness and their strength, in their 
 nobleness and their baseness, in their virtues and in their frailties, 
 as are those of Chaucer, a poet to whom, in many respects, Scott 
 presents striking marks of resemblance. He was no Frankenstein 
 to fashion monsters beyond the pale of God's creation. He did 
 not, like Byron, confound the elements of right and wrong by 
 calling into ideal being such melodramatic incongruities as the 
 Conrads, the Laras, and the Giaours enigmas or rather chime- 
 ras Avliich, fortunately for us all, have no recognisable types in 
 humanity. He did not, like Wordsworth, select some moon- 
 struck pedlar or itinerant vendor of crazy crockery as the proper 
 medium for the utterance of apparently profound meditations. 
 He did not, like Shelley, practise self-anatomy, and entreat the 
 public to assist at the vivisection of his palpitating heart. He 
 did not idealise or refine, like Coleridge and Wilson ; or make 
 his characters palaver for that is the proper word as Southey 
 was too prone to do. Scott confines himself, and confines him- 
 self rigidly, in his poetry at least, to characters of a kind in- 
 telligible to all, and he does not seek either to heighten or to 
 depress them beyond the ordinary level. Hence, it has been 
 said by some critics, that they are superficial or commonplace. 
 If by that they mean to say that his characters do not present
 
 230 SOURCES OF SCOTT'S POPULARITY. 
 
 us with a condensation of all that is great or mean, attractive or 
 repulsive, in humanity, I agree with them in point of fact, but 
 I differ widely in deduction. A hero beautiful as Antinous, 
 valorous as Hector, chivalrous as Bayard, wise as Socrates, 
 eloquent as Cicero, faithful as Pirithous, constant as Sir Tristrem, 
 learned as Saint Augustine, abstinent as Saint Anthony, pure as 
 Sir Galahad, generous as Saint Martin, philosophical as Plato, 
 poetical as Orpheus, and musical as Apollo, is something (if that 
 which is impossible can be called something) which the world 
 has never seen, and which it probably would not endure. 
 Shakespeare's women and how charming they are ! have each 
 a distinctive character ; but attempt to mingle together the 
 separate qualities and excellences which delight us so in Mi- 
 randa, Beatrice, Rosalind, Imogen, Desdemona, and Juliet, and I 
 wot not what would be the compound. You may depend upon it 
 that the lifelike correspondence to nature of the characters of 
 Scott, and the absence of all exaggeration in their limning, have 
 very materially contributed to his success and extensive popular- 
 ity ; the more so when we keep in mind that, except in the drama, 
 forcible delineation of character is a subordinate requisite of 
 poetry. 
 
 Why, then, should Scott be distinctively styled " the min- 
 strel 'I " Simply for this reason ; that the recitation of the noblest 
 passages of his poetry will procure, in every mixed assembly, a 
 more vivid, marked, and general effect than could be occasioned 
 by the recitation of the writings of any other poet of this century. 
 In fact they are framed for recitation that is, for oral utterance, 
 when the mind can accompany the ear without pause or difficulty. 
 This is a matter to which modern poets, unfortunately for 
 themselves and for the endurance of their reputation, pay little 
 heed. Too many of them, now that oral reading or rather 
 reciting has fallen so much into abeyance, construct their ditties 
 solely for the behoof of the student and solitary reader, trusting 
 that what may not be intelligible at first will become so upon a 
 diligent reperusal. That is very much the same as if a public 
 speaker or a preacher were deliberately to give such an appear- 
 ance of profundity or abstruseness to his discourse that the 
 immediate audience could not comprehend it, but were com-
 
 WHY CALLED THE MINSTREL. 231 
 
 pelled to wait with patience for a report or imprintment of the 
 oracular harangue. And it is a fact, and a distressing one, that 
 many preachers do fall into this deplorable error, and adopt such 
 a style, both of expression and illustration, that the illiterate 
 cannot follow them. Hence the phenomena, too common in our 
 days, of empty pews, and of ever-shifting dissent of learning 
 made worse than useless because it is not accompanied by 
 simplicity ; and hence also it is, that many a fair reputation, 
 laboriously won at college, has subsequently dwindled into 
 insignificance and contempt. 
 
 Therefore I am resolute in refusing the title of minstrel to . 
 those poets whose works will not stand the test of recitation before 
 a mixed audience. I call no man a good writer of tragedy unless 
 his plays are such as to attract when exhibited on the stage ; but, 
 for all that, there is much fine poetry in plays which no mixed 
 audience would endure. In like manner there is an immense 
 deal of good poetry which is not minstrelsy nay, I suppose that 
 out of the mass of recognised poets, minstrels are in a decided 
 minority. So be it ; but they have this at least in their favour, 
 that they command the universal ear. Nor am I in the least 
 shaken in my confidence as to the truth and accuracy of the 
 distinction which I have endeavoured to draw, by the considera- 
 tion that passages may be cited from the works of various poets, 
 whom I do not call minstrels, which will bear the test imposed. 
 That I believe, though not in a large measure ; for the habit of 
 artificial diction, suited only to the educated classes, or to a 
 peculiarly educated class, is detrimental to their general recep- 
 tion. I would instance Dryden's ode, commonly called " Alex- 
 ander's Feast." It is a very fine lyric one of the finest, indeed, 
 in our language but I question whether it would be properly 
 comprehended or appreciated by a mixed assembly. Its innate 
 energy and sonorousness, evident if it were properly declaimed, 
 might excite admiration, like some strains of music which are 
 favourites from their decided character, but the meaning woiild 
 be vaguely felt. On the other hand, many men eminently, nay, 
 pre-eminently, entitled to the name of minstrels, have lost 
 themselves altogether while attempting the artificial mode, 
 and adopting conventional ornaments. I shall give you a
 
 232 AN OPPOSITE STYLE OF POETRY. 
 
 notable example of this. The following is part of an elegy 
 written in the year 1787, on the death of Lord President 
 Dundas : 
 
 " Lone on the bleaky hills the straying flocks 
 Shun the fierce storms among the sheltering rocks ; 
 Down from the rivulets, red with dashing rains, 
 The gathering floods burst o'er the distant plains ; 
 Beneath the blasts the leafless forests groan ; 
 The hollow caves return a sullen moan. 
 Ye hills, ye plains, ye forests, and ye caves, 
 Ye howling winds and wintry swelling waves ! 
 Unheard, unseen, by human ear or eye, 
 Sad to your sympathetic scenes I fly ; 
 Where, to the whistling blast and waters' roar, 
 Pale Scotia's recent wound I may deplore. 
 
 Wrongs, injuries, from many a darksome den, 
 
 Now gay in hope explore the paths of men ; 
 
 See from his cavern grim Oppression rise, 
 
 And throw on poverty his cruel eyes ; 
 
 Keen on the helpless victim see him fly, 
 
 And stifle, dark, the feebly bursting cry. 
 
 Mark ruffian violence, bestained with crimes, 
 
 Rousing elate in these degenerate times ; 
 
 View unsuspecting Innocence a prey, 
 
 As guileful Fraud points out the erring way : 
 
 While subtle Litigation's pliant tongue 
 
 The life-blo.od equal sucks of Right and Wrong : 
 
 Hark ! injured Want recounts the unlistened tale, 
 
 And much-wronged Misery pours the unpitied wail." 
 
 What ! you will say, Was doggrel such as this, which would 
 have been a disgrace to the dullest writer's clerk that ever bor- 
 rowed a process, or the most illiterate messenger's concurrent 
 that ever bungled an execution, composed by any man entitled 
 to the name of a minstrel ? Yes, in good truth, ladies and gen- 
 tlemen, these lines were penned by a minstrel, and a very great
 
 EXAMPLE OF THIS FKOM BUKNS. 233 
 
 minstrel too one of whom we are all most proud, with a catholic 
 admiration emanating from all ranks and classes a minstrel 
 whose praises you heard celebrated not long ago in this very hall 
 by my learned friend Lord Ardmillan. They were written in 
 sober, I must also say sad, earnest by Robert Burns ! I could 
 give you many other instances of the same description, nearly, if 
 not altogether as bad, from his pen. And why are they bad ? 
 Because he had deserted his native minstrel mode and impulse, 
 and was attempting to write conventional verses on a principle 
 vicious in itself, and which he had not thoroughly comprehended. 
 Now, you are not to suppose that I am decrying the merits of 
 great poets who were not minstrels by these observations. I have 
 far too much respect for art, too great a veneration for their 
 genius, to do so. I simply say that most of the English poets 
 want universality, so as to command the attention and sway the 
 feelings of a mixed audience. And yet I must, in order to make 
 myself thoroughly understood, and to vindicate my theory, go a 
 little farther. And I maintain that poetry, however high, sub- 
 lime, or polished, if it be composed only for silent reading, will 
 never have the effect, even upon a cultivated audience, of that 
 which is composed for recitation. Suppose I were to begin now 
 to read you a canto of Spenser's ' Faery Queen.' The result would 
 be that, in less than half an hour, you would all feel drowsy and 
 lethargic with the sugared opiate of the cloying verse. If I were 
 to propose to read to you Pope or Dryden, you would be justified 
 in declining the offer, on the ground that a silent perusal would 
 be much more profitable and conducive to enjoyment. Five 
 hundred lines of Wordsworth's ' Excursion,' read aloud, would be 
 equivalent to at least forty drops of the muriate of morphia. 
 And, to come to a still higher instance, if the most accomplished 
 elocutionist alive were to announce a reading of three consecutive 
 books of Milton's ' Paradise Lost,' I should be sorry to undertake 
 the risk of the hire of the apartment, and the other preliminary 
 expenses, on the chance of being repaid by the proceeds of the sale 
 of tickets. The fact is, that the old mode of oral intercourse or 
 recitation which necessarily prevailed before the invention of 
 printing, and especially before the enormous circulation of books 
 (which, as an author, I certainly do not complain of), had some
 
 234 DISTINCTION" BETWEEN POET AND MINSTREL. 
 
 special advantages. It was good for elocution an art now miser- 
 ably on the wane ; and it made poetry national, which is not the 
 case at the present time. There is nothing national in either 
 Spenser, or Milton, or Pope, or Dryden, or Byron, or Wordsworth, 
 or many more. They are great poets, no doubt, but the people 
 don't sympathise with them, though portions of the more intel- 
 lectual and educated classes may do so ; and, take them alto- 
 gether, what kind of congruity either of sentiment or form do 
 you find in their works ? But take Burns, and Scott, and Hogg, 
 and Motherwell, and Allan Cunningham, with their predecessors 
 David Lyndsay and Allan Eamsay and Robert Fergusson, these 
 are the adored of the people. And why ? Because they are min- 
 strels, and because they embody in vivid strains the emotions, 
 thoughts ay, prejudices, if you will which are most rife in 
 the national bosom. 
 
 But the distinction between natural poetry, which is minstrelsy, 
 and artificial poetry, which, in default of a better name, you may 
 call sesthetical composition, is a great deal earlier than the inven- 
 tion of printing. There was as much difference seven hundred 
 years ago between the manners and tastes of the courtly circles, 
 and those of the class upon whom the rays of royalty had never 
 fallen, as exists just now. For example, there were the Trouba- 
 dours, whose shadows sometimes reappear upon the modern stage 
 in slashed doublets and silken hose, with citherns slung over their 
 shoulders. That is a caricature. The Troubadours were men of 
 birth and accomplishment, who had taken their degrees at the 
 poetical college of Aries, and who adapted themselves entirely to 
 the taste of the country. Many of them were warriors of distin- 
 guished valour, as was Bertrand de Born, comrade of the lion- 
 hearted Richard. They thought nothing of despatching, for their 
 own individual shares, some twenty Saracens per diem, or of 
 practising dental surgery on the jaws of some recusant Israelite 
 who was over tenacious of his coin. But in the evening, when 
 they sate on the dais, and were asked to sing, they cooed like 
 doves, or warbled as innocently as sentimental nightingales. Let 
 me beseech your patience if I am guilty of an act of gross pre- 
 sumption, pardonable only because there is a licence for folly 
 among friends, and introduce you to the hall at Rotherwood, a
 
 THE TROUBADOUKS. 235 
 
 full month before the Templar Brian cle Bois-Guilbert and the 
 Prior Aymer paid their notable visit. It is supper-time : 
 
 " Gurth ! " said the steward Oswald, as the retainers of Cedric 
 addressed themselves seriously to the discussion of their mess of 
 pork and pulse ; " Gurth who may be that popinjay whom thou 
 hast brought hither to-night ? See, he hath his beard curled after 
 the French fashion, and when he looks at the Lady Rowena he 
 sighs as if he were scant of breath. I warrant him no true knight, 
 though his spurs would betoken him as such ! " 
 
 " Zeynebock seize me, if I either know or care," replied Gurth, 
 as articulately as he could through a mouthful of half -masticated 
 bacon. " 'A called himself a Trottinger, or Troubledoor, or some- 
 thing of the sort. Marry ! but that he had a token from 
 Athelstane of Coningsburg, I had given him lodgings in the 
 marsh ! " 
 
 " Troubadour, thou meanest, friend Gurth," said Oswald, with 
 an air of superior knowledge. " I have heard much of the order. 
 Then is he skilled in music " 
 
 " As a pig in a high wind ! " interrupted Wamba, whose rest- 
 less disposition had brought him from behind his master's chair 
 to the lower end of the apartment. " He hath the true singing 
 face, and is even now twitching his fingers as though he longed 
 for the strings of his lute." 
 
 And, in effect, the observation of the fool was justified by the 
 appearance of the knightly bard. So long as the banquet lasted, 
 he had displayed considerable powers of consumption, having 
 done more justice than an anchorite would have desired to the 
 venison, kid, wild-fowl, and other dainties which graced the 
 board. Neither did he show him without curiosity in the article 
 of fluids, having quaffed with apparent gusto the mead, mal- 
 voisie, and hippocras, until his preference, like that of a wooer 
 who desires a permanent match, seemed to light upon the vintage 
 of Gascony, to which he continued devotionally faithful. Not- 
 withstanding this, he found time for many glances at the Lady 
 Rowena, whose indifference he could not comprehend ; but when 
 Cedric began to talk of his cattle, the Troubadour leaned back in 
 his chair, and fairly gave vent to a yawn. 
 
 " Sir Knight ! " said the Thane, curbing with great difficulty
 
 236 A NEW SCENE FKOM IVANHOE. 
 
 hu naturally impatient temper, " if thou art wearied with the 
 fatigue of the journey, our steward will light thee to thy chamber. 
 If it, is the fatigue of my conversation which oppresses thee, 
 remember that since the meal was over thou hast hardly uttered 
 a word, and the best hound that ever was whelped cannot run 
 long without babbling ! " 
 
 " Forgive me, most beauteous lady, and do you, most respect- 
 able Vavasour, for such I understand to be your title, pardon the 
 frailty of the body which craves solace from the mind. Much 
 have I benefited by thy food, excellent host, for worse fare have 
 I met with on the coasts of Naphtali and the regions round 
 about Sidon, though there they put not garlic in their pottage, as 
 is the ancient yet somewhat full-flavoured practice of the Saxon 
 race ; yet though our banquet after battle were no more than a 
 handful of dates or dried tigs, or a stripe of withered antelope 
 though our beverage was drawn from the brackish waters of the 
 creek we had minstrelsy to cheer our souls ! " 
 
 " Sir Troubadour," replied Cedric, curtly, " minstrels have I 
 none in my household, for our bards sing not save in honour of 
 the race which no longer rules in this land. But my hall is ever 
 open to those who can chant in the Saxon or Danish tongue ; 
 and yonder, at the bottom of the board, sits one whom I guess to 
 be a jongleur, albeit he is no Provensal. If it be your wish, I 
 shall bid him sing a ditty of the ancient time." 
 
 " Not for worlds, excellent Thane," ejaculated the Troubadour, 
 with a grimace ; " not for the recapture of Jerusalem would I 
 listen to the strains of a traditionary boor. But, since no better 
 minstrel is present, even I myself will essay; and being under 
 oath for the time to abstain from singing my own lays, I shall 
 ravish your ears and those of this fair company by a strain 
 of Bertram! de Ventadour, lover of the wife of Count Eblis the 
 Second ! " 
 
 " Eblis ! " quoth Wamba, who had found his way back to his 
 accustomed seat; " why, uncle, is not that a Saracen name for the 
 devil?" 
 
 " Silence, sirrah ! " said Cedric, apart ; " what matters it to 
 thee or me whether the Norman or the foul fiend had the worst 
 of the intrigue ?"
 
 A NEW SCENE FROM IVANHOE. 237 
 
 And the Troubadour, having beckoned to his squire Raoul for 
 his viol, and having proved its strings, began thus to sing in a 
 voice tolerably modulated, but marred with extreme affecta- 
 tation : 
 
 When I behold the lark upspring, 
 
 Twang, twing, twang ! 
 And quiver lightly on his wing, 
 
 Twing, twang ! 
 I think of thee, my lady fair, 
 And very heavy is my care, 
 
 Twang ! 
 
 Because I also am not there, 
 Twang ! 
 
 All self-command is now gone by, 
 
 Twang, twing, twang ! 
 Thou art the mirror to my eye, 
 
 Twing, twang ! 
 
 What can I do ? what can I say ? 
 My heart is like a stag at bay, 
 
 Twang ! 
 
 And I must go or else decay, 
 Twang ! 
 
 Having finished this delectable ditty, the knightly Troubadour, 
 who, during the process of singing, had addressed himself as 
 pointedly as he diirst to the Lady Rowena, heaved a deep sigh, 
 and sank exhausted upon his seat. A dead silence followed. 
 
 " And is this," said Cedric, " the poetry which wins favour in 
 the eyes of King Richard ? " 
 
 " Of a surety it is," replied the Troubadour ; " no better poet 
 than Bertrand de Ventadour ever won his degree from the high 
 court of Aries save one whom I may not mention, since his vow 
 obligeth him to be dumb ! " 
 
 " Now, by the soul of Hengist!" cried Cedric, " thy tidings re- 
 joice me, Sir Troubadour! As the body of man can be sustained 
 only through generous food, so can a noble spirit be fostered only 
 by mighty song. And I pray to Saint Dunstan that the house
 
 238 A NEW SCENE FKOM IVANHOE. 
 
 of Plantagenet may continue to refresh themselves with such 
 spiritual nutriment ! " 
 
 " Amen ! worthy Thane," replied the Troubadour, evidently 
 gratified by the implied compliment. " There is, in fact, in these 
 lays which are, like precious jewels, not to be paraded to the 
 gaze of the vulgar a delicacy, a refinement, a taste as it were, 
 which your coarser minstrels cannot attain unto. Now, were it 
 possible to hear one of them, after such divine delectation, utter 
 his amorous note, trust me that even your serfs would be able 
 to perceive the difference." 
 
 " I doubt not of it," said Cedric, " and it may be we can put it 
 to the proof. Oswald, what knave is that who sits below Gurth 
 the swineherd 1 " 
 
 " A Saxon minstrel, so please you," replied the steward ; " an 
 Elric of Wolfhamstede. He can sing the songs of Csedmon and 
 Beowulf, and the old ditties of the Dane." 
 
 " Saxon song I brook not in my hall in the presence of the 
 stranger ; it makes the hand too ready to grapple with the haft of 
 the battle-axe. But, Oswald, take the minstrel this cup of wine. 
 Tell him, for the honour of the old blood, to chant a song of 
 the Scalds, and the rougher it be the better. Fear not for 
 your lark, Sir Troubadour; its flight is too high to be fol- 
 lowed." 
 
 " It pleaseth you to say so," replied the Troubadour ; " and 
 although it is not my wont to hearken unto rude sounds, even as 
 men avoid the crashing of falling timber, yet will I wait and 
 listen, lest peradventure there may be some touch of minstrelsy 
 in the song of yonder rough companion." 
 
 " Well, Oswald," said the Thane of Eotherwood, " what says 
 the old man ? " 
 
 " Elric of Wolfhamstede is honoured by your message ; and 
 though his voice is weak with age, and his memory is not bright 
 as of old, he will essay the death-song of Regnor Lodbrog, the 
 brave King of Norway, who perished in the dungeons of North- 
 umberland by the bite of serpents." 
 
 " A dreadful tale ! " said Cedric, musingly. " That Regnor 
 Lodbrog, if I recollect aright, was taken captive by his deadly 
 enemy Ella, and cast into a vault among snakes and venomous
 
 A NEW SCENE FKOM IVANHOE. 239 
 
 things that preyed upon his vitals ; and so long as the breath 
 was in him he was heard chanting of his victories and prophesy- 
 ing revenge ! " 
 
 " Bad taste," said the Troubadour, shuddering ; " bad taste in 
 the extreme." 
 
 " Will your tuneful valour deign to answer a question from a 
 simple fool ? " said Wamba, who had picked up some fragments of 
 information from itinerant foreigners. "Have you ever heard 
 of a certain Lord of Fayel ?" 
 
 " Who hath not ? " replied the Troubadour ; " he was the flower 
 of Christian chivalry." 
 
 " And yet, if all tales be true," answered Wamba, " he forced 
 his lady to eat the heart of her lover, the Castellan de Coucy, 
 which was sent her at the request of the dying man from the 
 Holy Land!" 
 
 " Thou art right, knave, in thy surmise," said the Troubadour ; 
 " the deed is famous in song, and was renowned throughout 
 Christendom." 
 
 " Then beshrew me," said Wamba, " if I can see why this 
 Regnor did ill in singing when his own heart was being eaten." 
 
 " Silence, boy," cried Cedric ; " and you, fellows of mine, make 
 a hall for Elric of Wolf hams ted e, and let us hear a genuine 
 Norse ditty, since the Saxon may not sing the praises of his fore- 
 fathers under his own rafter." 
 
 And silence prevailed, and the old minstrel rose up in his place, 
 and, without the aid of instrumental music, delivered the follow- 
 ing remarkable poem, perhaps the most ancient which exists in 
 any tongue now intelligible in Europe since the rule of the Ro- 
 mans was over more ancient, indeed, by centuries, than the ex- 
 tinction of their speech as a distinct and current language : 
 
 DEATH-SONG OF REGNOR LODBROG. 
 
 We have fought with our swords, hurrah ! 
 
 Few years had we to. form us, 
 
 When we sailed, for Thora's sake, to slay 
 
 The Gothland snake enormous : 
 
 'Twas from the swine I took the name,
 
 240 NUPTIAL ODE. 
 
 Which ever since I've carried ; 
 
 For rough in shaggy arms I came, 
 
 And in the monster buried 
 
 My bright broadsword that day, &c. &c. 
 
 "What think ye of that, Sir Knight ?" said Cedric to the Trou- 
 badour when the wild chant was ended. 
 
 " There can be but one opinion," replied the latter. " It is 
 poor, rude, and opposed to all the rules of taste. I am thoroughly 
 disgusted by it. And I marvel, good Thane, that you have the 
 patience to listen to anything so vile !" 
 
 " Oswald," cried Cedric, rising, " I pray you, without delay, to 
 light my noble guest to his chamber." 
 
 So ends my impertinent fragmentary chapter; but it is not 
 without a meaning, if you have followed me throughout. Let 
 us pass to another branch of the subject. 
 
 The marriage of the Prince of Wales in February 
 1862 inspired Aytoun to the composition of a ' Nuptial 
 Ode,' in which all the fervour of his loyalty to the 
 Crown found eloquent expression. Of all the verses 
 that were written on this auspicious event, this Ode 
 was unquestionably the best. It is framed upon the 
 model of Spenser's Epithalamium, and its fine imagery 
 and beautiful versification not Unpleasantly recall the 
 picturesque glow and " linked sweetness " of that great 
 masterpiece of melodious verse. 
 
 Writing was, however, no longer the pleasant labour 
 to Aytoun which it had formerly been ; and he found 
 his strength no more than equal to the duties of his 
 professorship and sheriffdom, which once used to sit 
 upon him so lightly. After 1862, therefore, he wrote 
 but little. Living alone, and avoiding general society 
 as he did, the pressure of this solitary life on his warm
 
 SECOND MARRIAGE. 241 
 
 and affectionate disposition was obviously most un- 
 favourable to his health. It was therefore a source 
 of satisfaction to his friends when, in December 1863, 
 he sought relief from it in a second marriage. " I 
 have a piece of news for you," he wrote to me on 17th 
 December 1863, "which I am sure will give you plea- 
 sure. Know then that I am about to be married, and 
 that on Christmas eve I hope to be no longer a solitary 
 man. ... I am sure I shall have your congratulations 
 and those of dear Lady Helen ; and when you see the 
 lady, which I trust may be in the early part of next 
 year, I shall give you leave to pitch me from the 
 column, as Firmilian did Haverillo, if you do not 
 approve of my choice." The lady whose affections he 
 had the good fortune to secure, Miss Kinnear, was 
 nearly related to his valued friends the Balfours of 
 Trenabie in Orkney. Inspired as she was by a gen- 
 erous sympathy with the undimmed devotion with 
 which he cherished the memory of his former wife, 
 and endeared to him by her own attractive qualities, 
 this union was one of unbroken happiness. For some 
 time his health seemed steadily to improve. He looked 
 and spoke once more like his former self, and his 
 friends began to hope that he had taken a renewed 
 lease of life. But in the winter of 1864 some of the 
 old distressing symptoms reappeared, and it became 
 only too clear that some organic malady was under- 
 mining his strength. He complained of great weak- 
 ness and languor, and felt exertion of any kind to be 
 irksome. He made light of these symptoms to his 
 
 Q
 
 242 SIGNS OF FAILING HEALTH. 
 
 friends, and spoke and wrote of them as indicating 
 merely temporary derangement. Instead of going 
 abroad as he had done the four previous years, he 
 resolved to try the effect of quiet summer quarters in 
 Scotland ; and with this view took a lease of Blackhills, 
 near Elgin, a property of Lord Fife's, most agreeably 
 situated, and where he could command excellent shoot- 
 ing and fishing. His intimate friends were put under 
 promise to visit him; and hither he went with Mrs 
 Aytoun in the beginning of June. His interest in 
 politics, always keen, had been greatly stimulated by 
 the return of his party to power, and by the approach- 
 ing election. Ill as he was, he found strength to write 
 a vigorous political article for ' Blackwood,' little dream- 
 ing it was to be his last. He also looked forward to 
 presiding as Sheriff at the nomination of the member 
 for Orkney, and gave all the necessary instructions for 
 carrying through the election with his usual forethought 
 and precision. 
 
 The following letter to Mr Eobertson was written 
 two days after his arrival at Blackhills : 
 
 BLACKHILLS, ELGIN, June 2, 1865. 
 
 MY DEAR ROBERTSON, You will, I am sure, not suspect me 
 of any want of sympathy in having failed to write you since I 
 heard of your brother William's death. The explanation is, that 
 I have been ill, and was quite unable to do anything for nearly 
 six weeks. It was a sort of low intermittent fever, not perilous, 
 but very debilitating ; and, though I am now much better, I am 
 not yet a Samson in body, nor a Machiavelli in intellect. How- 
 ever, I hope to receive much benefit from the northern air, 
 which, though somewhat sharp, is in fresh contrast to the reek
 
 PARTIAL IMPROVEMENT. 243 
 
 of Edinburgh. We arrived here two days ago, and have nearly 
 settled down. It is a sweet spot the house very commodious 
 and well furnished, in the midst of a luxuriant, sheltered, and 
 productive garden-ground, and a very magnificent view over the 
 Laigh of Moray extending to the sea. There are also good 
 shootings attached, which will furnish occupation and amusement 
 for the winter months. We are not quite in conspectu of Orkney, 
 but on a clear day the Caithness and Sutherland hills are visible ; 
 and by aid of a small steamer from Burghead to Golspie, Wick is 
 easily visible. 
 
 I think it likely that the Conservative party will make a 
 strong push this general election in England and Ireland ; and 
 there are very fair prospects of success. The debate and division 
 on Mr Baines's Bill have made visible healthy symptoms in the 
 state of the body politic. 
 
 When I left Edinburgh the General Assembly was just breaking 
 up. My own opinion is, that the decision of the majority, with 
 regard to innovations, is a fortunate one for the future stability 
 of the Kirk ; though perhaps you, along with others of our 
 friends, may take the opposite view. 
 
 On the 25th of the same month he writes to Mr 
 Blackwood : " I have been better for the last two or 
 three days, and hope I have fairly got the turn, but I 
 must not hollo before I am fairly out of the wood. 
 Health and sickness are from God's hands, and I ought 
 to be thankful that I am not worse, and am well 
 tended." 
 
 On the 26th June he again writes to Mr Robertson : 
 "My present intention is to take the steamer on the 
 evening of the 14th at Aberdeen, and proceed direct to 
 Lerwick ; and having finished my business there, to be 
 in Kirk wall on the 25th. I hope by that time to be 
 strong enough for the journey, which, to say the truth,
 
 244 VAKYING STATE OF 
 
 I am not just at present ; for though I am pretty nearly 
 quit of internal maladies, I am very weak in my legs, 
 and not able to stand much fatigue. God be thanked, 
 however, I ain better than I was, and a sort of painful 
 lassitude, which had oppressed me for nearly two 
 months, has passed away. I have been able to write 
 a political article for ' Blackwood.' " 
 
 The hope here expressed was soon dispelled, for in 
 a letter to his friend three days afterwards (in Mrs 
 Aytoun's handwriting), he announces that his " atten- 
 dance at the nomination " of the member for Orkney 
 " is impossible. I have not recovered my health here so 
 rapidly as I expected ; and the doctor says I must not 
 try the journey north for three weeks to come. I shall 
 therefore, in all probability, visit Shetland about the 
 24th of July, and be in Orkney to hold my courts in 
 the first week in August. Of that I shall give timeous 
 
 notice to F , from whom I have an illegible 
 
 letter this morning about Dante and the Droits of the 
 Admiralty." 
 
 The symptoms of his illness had indeed become 
 sufficiently alarming. On the 1st of July he had so 
 far recovered as to be able to write with his own hand 
 to Mr Blackwood : 
 
 MY DEAR BLACKWOOD, It is a luxury to hear from you again. 
 I have been seriously out of sorts since we met, and three days 
 ago cowped over in a fainting fit, brought on by pure exhaustion, 
 extreme sobriety, and over-much medicine. I never was so done 
 for before ; but we sent for an Elgin doctor a perfect Hercules 
 of a fellow who came immediately, and has been administering 
 brandy like a trump. He is not satisfied unless I take a dose of
 
 HIS HEALTH. 245 
 
 it with arrowroot in the middle of the night, besides handsomely 
 lacing my tea. The improvement is almost magical, but I am 
 very weak, and require a deal of feeding up. So much for over 
 abstinence, which in certain cases I take to be an abominable 
 mistake. 
 
 I hope the elections will go right for us. It strikes me with 
 amazement that I can find nowhere in the ' Times ' any reference 
 to the probabilities of the result in Ireland. Surely that is a 
 good feature for us. 
 
 Edinburgh has been, in so far as regards the Conservatives, a 
 bungle. . . . 
 
 I am not allowed to write much, so merely send these lines, 
 with my best regards to you and Julia, as a token of remem- 
 brance. 
 
 I shoiild tell you the doctors hold me to be free from any kind 
 of organic complaint. It seems doubtful if ever the liver was 
 affected. My requirements were lunch and liquor. 
 
 I go down to Zetland, if strong enough, in three weeks, not 
 earlier. Country lovely. 
 
 Under the generous regimen established by Dr Ross, 
 he seemed for a time to regain strength, and on the 
 13th July he again writes to Mr Kobertson : 
 
 You will have to preside at the nomination in my absence, 
 which please, if you notice it at all, touch very lightly. There is 
 already a paragraph about my health in circulation. 
 
 I wish I could say that it was altogether without foundation, 
 but I really had a bad attack, culminating about a fortnight ago 
 in a fainting fit. I am much better now, under the treatment 
 of Dr Ross of Elgin, who is no slavish auxiliary of the druggist, 
 but prescribes plenty of animal food, wine, and brandy; his 
 theory being that I have tried my constitution by living greatly 
 too low. I am satisfied that he is right, for during last winter 
 I was as abstemious as an anchorite : behold the result ! But 
 though better in health I am wretchedly weak, and can as yet 
 do nothing more than take gentle carriage exercise. I had fixed 
 to go to Zetland on the 21st of this month, but this is absolutely
 
 246 - INCREASING ILLNESS. 
 
 forbidden: as Koss says, I am utterly unfit for the voyage: 
 so that I must put off my visit both to Orkney and Zetland 
 until September at the earliest. . . . 
 
 I can write no more, being wearied both hand and brain, with 
 the composition of many letters. 
 
 Next day (14th July) lie wrote with something of 
 his wonted cheerfulness to Mr Blackwood : 
 
 Dr Ross, from whose treatment I have received great benefit 
 during the fortnight he has attended me, is peremptory against 
 my working my brain until I am physically stronger ; and I am 
 quite sure he is right, for a few days ago the mere effort of find- 
 ing rhymes for some macaronic verses I had commenced, wearied 
 me in a way I previously would have deemed incredible. How- 
 ever, I am, thank God, much better than I was ; and having, 
 as far as discoverable, no organic complaint, I may hope, with 
 care and perseverance in a generous diet, to get back my strength. 
 As regards the stores of the druggist I am " parcus cultor et 
 infrequens," taking nothing beyond a solution of iron ; but, en 
 revanche, I am put upon a most liberal allowance of animal food, 
 brandy, and claret. 
 
 I have abandoned the idea of going down to the islands in the 
 mean time, and shall put off my visit until a much later period 
 of the season. I shall hope to be able to take the hill on the 
 12th of August, and would be seriously grieved if prevented, for 
 my keeper, who was over part of the ground on Monday, gives 
 an excellent account of the young broods ; and I have purveyed 
 me a steady white pony nomine Missy, which name I have 
 elevated into that of " the Muse " well adapted for trotting 
 through the heather. Do you think you could come down here 
 for that sport? I need not say how joyfully you will be wel- 
 comed ; and I can assure you that there are few prettier or more 
 enjoyable places to be found in the north of Scotland than this 
 same residence of Blackhills. The range of grouse-ground is 
 very fair, but the extent of the low-country shooting is immense ; 
 and though partridges have not been very plentiful in the district 
 for some years, there are hares enough to excite to frenzy the 
 scalping instincts of a Choctaw. Think of this ; for I certainly
 
 HIS DEATH. 247 
 
 shall not migrate southwards this year until summoned by the 
 approaching exigencies of the session. 
 
 These cheerful anticipations were not to be realised. 
 They were but the last nicker of the expiring flame ; 
 and soon afterwards his disease made startling progress. 
 A few hours before his death he was told by his doctor 
 that his end was approaching. He received the an- 
 nouncement quite, calmly. Death had no terrors for 
 one who had long accustomed himself to look it steadily 
 in the face, and striven to prepare himself for its final 
 summons. He remained in full possession of his facul- 
 ties to the last, and, expressing his firm trust in his 
 Saviour, he quietly fell asleep at one in the morning of 
 the 4th of August. So rapidly had he sunk after the 
 fatal symptoms had shown themselves, that his sisters, 
 summoned by telegram from Edinburgh, did not arrive 
 till some hours after his death. "We went straight to 
 his room," writes one of them, " and there he lay like 
 a statue, with a heavenly smile upon his lips, and the 
 colour in his cheek. It did not look like death ; and 
 they had laid him out with bunches of his favourite 
 white roses on his breast." 
 
 His body was removed to Edinburgh, and laid in the 
 Dean Cemetery, in the same grave with that of his first 
 wife, and not far from the resting-place of what was 
 mortal of her illustrious father. The spot is beautiful, 
 and aptly chosen. His favourite flowers blossom around 
 his tomb; and through the trees that line the wooded 
 bank of the Water of Leith may be seen the castled 
 crag that overhangs " his own romantic town," and the
 
 248 HIS PLACE IN LITERATURE. 
 
 church, St John's, under whose shadow rest the father 
 and mother whom he loved so well, and where, from 
 boyhood upwards, he had reverently attended the ser- 
 vices, and sought the consolations of religion.* 
 
 It is not for me to attempt to define Aytoun's place 
 in literature. I lived too near him, and loved the man 
 too well, to be an impartial critic of his work, even 
 were I disposed, which I am not, to sit in judgment 
 upon it. In these days of restless productiveness, 
 when reputations are made and superseded more rapidly 
 than ever before in the history of literature, who shall 
 say how many or how few of the men who have made 
 a deep impression on their contemporaries will be 
 remembered by the next generation ? Greater poets 
 than Aytoun and of the present century, too are now 
 little read, but they are not the less, therefore, great 
 poets. The power which spoke to men's hearts so 
 strongly once, remains in their works to speak to them 
 still. So, I believe, will it be with the best of Aytoun's 
 
 * While these sheets are passing through the press, Sir Archibald 
 Alison, a very dear and honoured friend of Aytoun's, has been laid to 
 sleep not far from him, in what seems likely to become the Scottish 
 Campo Santo. Purer soul or higher heart than Alison's never beat 
 in human breast. 
 
 " Cui pudor et justitiae soror 
 Incorrupt^, fides nudaque veritas 
 Quando ullum inveniet parem ? " 
 
 The knightly virtues of courage, frankness, simplicity, forbearance, 
 courtesy, constancy, were his in a pre-eminent degree. His very 
 adversaries and he had none, except in politics were attracted to 
 him and loved him. Who shall say what his loss has been to his 
 friends ?
 
 AS A HUMOKIST. 249 
 
 poems. Fashions in poetry may alter, but so long as 
 the themes with which they deal have an interest for 
 his countrymen, his ' Lays ' will find, as they do now, a 
 wide circle of admirers. His powers as a humorist 
 were perhaps greater than as a poet. They have cer- 
 tainly been more widely appreciated. His immediate 
 contemporaries owe him much, for he has contributed 
 largely to that kindly mirth without which the strain 
 and struggle of modern life would be intolerable. 
 Much that is excellent in his humorous writings may 
 very possibly cease to retain a place in literature from 
 the circumstance that he deals with characters and 
 peculiarities which are in some measure local, and 
 phases of life and feeling and literature which are 
 more or less ephemeral. But much will certainly con- 
 tinue to be read and enjoyed by the sons and grandsons 
 of those for whom it was originally written ; and his 
 name will be coupled with those of Wilson, Lockhart, 
 Sidney Smith, Peacock, Jerrold, Mahony, and Hood, as 
 that of a man gifted with humour as genuine and ori- 
 ginal as theirs, however opinions may vary as to the 
 order of their relative merits. 
 
 But fame or no fame seems but of small account in 
 looking back upon the records of any man's life, how- 
 ever eminent. The question is rather, how and to what 
 ends has he used the powers with which he was en- 
 dowed ? Was he loved, trusted, honoured by those who 
 knew him best ? The answer in Aytoun's case is clear, 
 and it is confirmed by the issues of his life. By perse- 
 vering culture he made the most of his natural gifts.
 
 250 HIS CHARACTER. 
 
 He was true to his genius, setting that above the wealth 
 and professional distinction which he might easily have 
 reaped had he turned a deaf ear to the " deep poetic 
 voice" that spoke within him. Deeply imbued with all 
 that is best in literature, his influence as a critic and 
 teacher was always used to expose what was false to 
 nature, mean in thought, meretricious or ephemeral 
 in style, and to call attention to what was highest and 
 truest in tone and purest in expression. His range of 
 topics was wide, but all he wrote was ever on the 
 side of virtue and honour and religion. His wildest 
 sallies of humour never strayed into coarseness or irrev- 
 erence, and he was intolerant of both in other men. It 
 has been truly said of him, that " his life altogether was 
 a successful and happy one. Its success he owed to 
 an unusual combination of genius, industry, and pru- 
 dence; and its happiness to his bright and genial tem- 
 perament and equable temper." He was the warmest 
 and most loyal of friends, and, because he was so, he 
 was most happy in his friendships. He was beloved as 
 a son, a brother, and a husband. He had a side for all 
 men; he understood and could make allowance for all 
 peculiarities ; and he was quick to appreciate and frank 
 to acknowledge merit of every kind. He was singularly 
 gentle, just, considerate, and forbearing to everything 
 but meanness, vulgarity, and conceit; and even when 
 most provoked by these, he would, out of his large 
 charity, find excuses for " the weak but well-meaning 
 creatures" in whom they had been offensively shown.
 
 HIS CHARACTER. 251 
 
 His duties, public and private, lie discharged with con- 
 scientious zeal, and with the chivalrous courtesies of 
 a true-hearted gentleman. Therefore he died honoured 
 by his fellow-citizens, and deeply mourned by those 
 who had the happiness to know him as a friend.
 
 APPENDIX
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 ENDYMION; OR, A FAMILY PARTY OF OLYMPUS. 
 
 A ROMANCE. 1842. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 'TWAS a hot season in the skies. Sirius held the ascendant, and 
 under his influence even the radiant band of the Celestials began 
 to droop, while the great ball-room of Olympus grew gradually 
 more and more deserted. For nearly a week had Orpheus, the 
 leader of the heavenly orchestra, played to a deserted floor. The 
 elite would no longer figure in the waltz. Juno obstinately kept 
 her room, complaining of headache and ill-temper. Ceres, who 
 had lately joined a dissenting congregation, objected generally 
 to all frivolous amusements ; and Minerva had established, in 
 opposition, a series of literary soirees, at which Pluto nightly 
 lectured on the fine arts and phrenology to a brilliant and fash- 
 ionable audience. The Muses, with Hebe and some of the 
 younger deities, alone frequented the assemblies ; but with all 
 their attractions there was still a sad lack of partners. The 
 younger gods had of late become remarkably dissipated, messed 
 three times a-week, at least, with Mars in the barracks, and sel- 
 dom separated sober. Bacchus had been sent to Coventry by 
 the ladies, for appearing one night in the ball-room, after a hard
 
 256 ENDYMION ; OR, 
 
 sederunt, so drunk that he measured his length upon the floor, 
 after a vain attempt at a Mazurka ; and they likewise eschewed 
 the company of Pan, who had become an abandoned smoker, and 
 always smelt infamously of cheroots. But the most serious de- 
 fection, as also the most unaccountable, was that of the beautiful 
 Diana, par excellence the belle of the season, and assuredly 
 the most graceful nymph that ever tripped along the halls of 
 heaven. She had gone off suddenly to the country without 
 alleging any intelligible excuse, and with her the last attraction 
 of the ball-room seemed to have disappeared. Even Venus, the 
 perpetual lady patroness, saw that the affair was desperate. 
 
 " Ganymede, man beau garqon" said she, one evening at an 
 unusually thin assembly, " we must really give it up at last. 
 Matters are growing worse and worse, and in another week we 
 shall positively not have enough to get up a tolerable gallopade. 
 Look at these seven poor Muses sitting together on the sofa. Not 
 a soul has spoken to them to-night, except that horrid Silenus, 
 who dances nothing but Scotch feels." 
 
 " Pardieu /" replied the young Trojan, fixing his glass in his 
 eye. " There may be a reason for that. The girls are decidedly 
 passees, and most inveterate blues. But there's dear little Hebe, 
 who never wants partners, though that clumsy Hercules insists 
 upon his conjugal rights, and keeps moving after her like an 
 enormous shadow. Ton my soul, I've a great mind Do you 
 think, ma belle tante, that anything might be done in that 
 quarter ? " 
 
 " fie ! Ganymede fie for shame ! " said Flora, who was sit- 
 ting close to the Queen of Love, and overheard the conversation. 
 " You horrid naughty man, how can you talk so ? " 
 
 "Pardon, ma- cJiere!" replied the exquisite, with a languid 
 smile. " You must excuse my badinage ; and, indeed, a glance 
 of your fair eyes were enough at any time to recall me to my 
 senses. By the way, what a beautiful bouquet you have there. 
 Parole d'honneur, I am quite jealous. May I ask who sent it?" 
 
 " What a goose you are ! " said Flora, in evident confusion ; 
 " how should I know ? Some general admirer like yourself, I 
 suppose." 
 
 " Apollo is remarkably fond of hyacinths, I believe," said
 
 A FAMILY PARTY OF OLYMPUS. 257 
 
 Ganymede, looking significantly at Venus. " Ah, well ! I see 
 how it is. We poor detrimentals must break our hearts in 
 silence. It is clear we have no chance with the preux chevalier 
 of heaven." 
 
 " Eeally, Ganymede, you are very severe this evening," said 
 Venus, with a smile ; " but tell me, have you heard anything of 
 Diana?" 
 
 " Ah ! la belle Diane ? They say she is living in the country, 
 somewhere about Caria, at a place they call Latmos Cottage, cul- 
 tivating her faded roses what a colour Hebe has ! and study- 
 ing the sentimental." 
 
 " Tant pis ! She is a great loss to us," said Venus. " Apro- 
 pos, you will be at Neptune's fete champetre to-morrow, ne c'est 
 pas ? We shall then finally determine about abandoning the 
 assemblies. But I must go home now. The carriage has been 
 waiting this hour, and my doves may catch cold. I suppose 
 that boy, Cupid, will not be home till all the hours of the 
 morning." 
 
 " Why, I believe, the Rainbow Club does meet to-night after 
 the dancing," said Ganymede, significantly. " This is the last 
 oyster-night of the season." 
 
 " Gracious goodness ! The boy will be quite tipsy," said Venus. 
 " Do, dear Ganymede ! try to keep him sober. But now, give 
 me your arm to the cloak-room." 
 
 " Volontiers ! " said the exquisite. 
 
 As Venus rose to go, there was a rush of persons to the further 
 end of the room, and the music ceased. Presently two or three 
 voices were heard calling for Esculapius. 
 
 " What's the row 1 " asked that learned individual, advancing 
 leisurely from the refreshment table, where he had been cram- 
 ming himself with tea and cakes. 
 
 " Leda's fainted ! " shrieked Calliope, who rushed past with 
 her vinaigrette in hand. 
 
 " Gammon ! " growled the Abernethy of heaven, as he fol- 
 lowed her. 
 
 " Poor Leda ! " said Venus, as her cavalier adjusted her shawl. 
 " These fainting fits are decidedly alarming. I hope it is nothing 
 more serious than the weather." 
 
 K
 
 258 ENDYMION ; OR, 
 
 " I hope so too," said Ganymede. " Let me put on the scarf. 
 But people will talk. Pray heaven it "be not a second edition of 
 that old scandal about the eggs ! " 
 
 " Fi done ! you odious creature ! How can you ? But after 
 all, stranger things have happened. There now, have done. 
 Good-night ! " and she stepped into her chariot. 
 
 " Bon soir" said the exquisite, kissing his hand as it rolled 
 away. " 'Pon my soul, that's a splendid woman. I've a great 
 mind but there's no hurry about that. Revenons d, nos ceufs. 
 I must learn something more about this fainting fit." 
 
 So saying, Ganymede reascended the stairs. 
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 A BRIGHTER or more exhilarating sun never dawned upon 
 Olympus than that which ushered in the fete champetre, given 
 by Neptune, perhaps the most popular middle-aged deity of the 
 times. The magnificent lawn of his celestial villa was decorated 
 for the occasion in a manner perfectly unique, even for heaven. 
 A new entrance-gate had been built entirely of conch shells ; 
 tents, fringed with costly seaware, were erected on every part of 
 the grounds, and the ample tables they contained were stored 
 with refreshments, terrestrial as well as marine. Crowds of Ne- 
 reids and Tritons were engaged as waiters on the guests, whilst, 
 in the largest of the artificial ponds, Proteus, the celebrated 
 juggler, who had been retained expressly for the occasion, went 
 through a variety of aquatic evolutions, sometimes imitating 
 Sam Patch, the famous diver of Niagara, and sometimes assum- 
 ing the terrific appearance of the great American sea-serpent. 
 At an early hour, the company, which comprised the whole 
 fashion of Olympus, were assembled in the villa, and after par- 
 taking of a sumptuous dejeAner d, la fourchette, broke up into 
 groups according to their several fancies, and strolled through 
 the pleasure-ground in search of amusement. With the reader's
 
 A FAMILY PARTY OF OLYMPUS. 259 
 
 leave we shall play the spy upon one tete-ct-tete held in a seques- 
 tered arbour. 
 
 " And so you preferred listening to Pluto's lecture on the dis- 
 solving views, instead of meeting me, as you promised, at the 
 assembly ! Pretty conduct, indeed, Mr Apollo, after all that has 
 passed between us ! " said our fair acquaintance, Flora, pout- 
 ingly, to a very handsome young man, with a magnificent head 
 of hair, who strove to detain her reluctant hand in his own. 
 " You needn't squeeze my fingers that way. I should have 
 known you better. False, deceitful wretch that you are ! " 
 
 " Nay ! not false, not deceitful, my own charming Flora," re- 
 plied Apollo, with much empressement in his manner. " You 
 know Pluto is my uncle, and that I have great expectations from 
 him ; but I swear by Styx, that rather than draw one tear from 
 the lovely eyes of my Spring-queen, I would pull the venerable 
 codger by the nose ! " 
 
 " Would you indeed ? " said Flora. 
 
 " On my honour, I would, if you insisted on it. But why 
 speak more of this ? Can you doubt my love my constancy 1 " 
 
 " Did Daphne find you constant ? " asked Flora, with a sigh. 
 
 " Daphne ? Daphne be hanged ! " cried Apollo, vehemently. 
 " She had the thickest ankles in the whole Peloponnesus ! Speak 
 not of her but you, my own, my gentle Flora ! can you doubt 
 that this fond heart beats, trembles only for you ? O, on these 
 rosy lips let me impress " 
 
 " Lawk ! " screamed Flora, " there's somebody coming." 
 
 And, sure enough, two youths in military undress sauntered 
 past the entrance of the arbour ; and the keen glances they cast 
 within sufficiently betokened their perfect consciousness of the 
 proceedings of the amorous deity. 
 
 " Ah, Pollux ! ah, Castor ! my fine fellows, how are ye ? " said 
 Apollo, with great effrontery, rising and presenting a finger to 
 each. " What sort of blow-out had you at Mars' s last night ? 
 Pan and the rest, I presume, eh ? Screwed, of course ? " 
 
 " Tol-lol," said the eldest of the Gemini. 
 
 " I can easily believe it," said Apollo. " By the way, Pollux" 
 and he led the Argonaut aside " you needn't say anything 
 about seeing me and Flora together in the arbour you under-
 
 260 ENDYMION; OR, 
 
 stand ? Not that it signifies a brass copper, but the confounded 
 people here will always be talking, and I don't wish to have the 
 poor girl annoyed. There's a good fellow give a hint to your 
 brother too, and both of you come and dine with me on "Wednes- 
 day next at seven." 
 
 " I'm your man ! " said Pollux. " Dinner and dumbness is 
 the word ! But I say, Apollo really, now, ar'n't you coming it 
 rather strong ? " 
 
 " Devil a bit ! " said the Captain of the Archers. " Flo and I 
 are old friends, and we flirt with each other merely to keep our 
 hands in practice. But come, let us all take a turn and see the 
 fun." 
 
 The four proceeded from the arbour together. Several of the 
 Celestials who encountered them stopped the Gemini, inquiring 
 eagerly after Leda, their mother's health. 
 
 " What the deuce do the people mean ? " said Castor, after 
 several such interruptions. " The old lady is as strong as a cart- 
 horse, and ate four muffins this morning." 
 
 " Glad to hear it," said Apollo, dryly. " But come, let us 
 walk upon the terrace, and look over the battlements of 
 Olympus." 
 
 To that favourite spot they went, and bent over the blue 
 cerulean, while the massive orb of the earth lay beneath them, 
 revolving like a mighty ball. Midway between, they marked a 
 lustrous speck enlarging as it soared upwards, until it seemed to 
 assume the lineaments of a human figure. 
 
 " By Jingo ! that's Mercury ! " cried Pollux ; " why, he's two 
 hours before his time." 
 
 "Mercury, is it?" cried Pan, who, with his friend Bacchus, 
 now came up. " Then, please the pigs, I'll get my manillas at 
 last." 
 
 " Oh, confound it ! " said Bacchus. " He's a long way off yet. 
 Let's go into one of the tents, and get a hot tumbler." 
 
 " No no man ! stay a moment ! There's Juno." 
 
 " Bon jour, Messieurs" said the Imperial Queen, caressing her 
 favourite pea-hen, who followed her with as much docility as the 
 famous tame Transatlantic oyster. " What can you be looking 
 at down- there? Ah!" she exclaimed, adjusting her eyeglass,
 
 A FAMILY PARTY OP OLYMPUS. 261 
 
 " Mercury, I declare, and in a monstrous hurry, too ! What 
 possibly can have happened ! " 
 
 The light figure of the messenger of Olympus now rose above 
 the crystal battlements, and with one graceful circuitous sweep 
 alighted in the midst of the Celestials. He was flushed and out 
 of breath. 
 
 " Mr Mercury, I presume you have brought me the esprit des 
 milles fteurs?" said Juno. 
 
 "Dear Mr Mercury, where's the blonde?" cried Flora. 
 
 " Mercury, my lad, did old Screwdriver cash that Bill ? " in- 
 quired Apollo. 
 
 "What says Hoby?" said Pollux. 
 
 "And Stultz ?" added Castor. 
 
 " Merks, old chap, shell out the cheroots," said Pan. 
 
 "And the eau de vie /" cried Bacchus, with a hiccup. 
 
 The herald of heaven looked from one to the other of his tor- 
 mentors despairingly. 
 
 " I'll give up my place," said he ; " by the Lord I will, rather 
 than stand this bother ! Do you think I had nothing to do but 
 look after your traps, and such a shindy down yonder as never 
 was? Where's Jupiter ? My wig ! what a rage he'll be in !" 
 
 "What's the matter, Mercury ? Bless me, what is it ?" cried 
 all the gods and goddesses in a breath. 
 
 " Matter ! " repeated the son of Maia ; " matter enough, if you 
 knew it. Diana's off bolted gone to Gretna Green, or the 
 devil knows where." 
 
 " My sister eloped !" cried Apollo, hastily ; "that's a lie !" 
 
 "Did you apply that expression to me, sir?" said Mercury, 
 getting very red in the face, and squaring at the Pythian. 
 
 " Yes," said the other, delivering a left-hander ; and to it they 
 went with the unction of Dutch Sam and Aby Belasco. 
 
 The goddesses shrieked and squalled ; the gods formed a ring, 
 and shouted in extreme ecstasy. How long the combat might 
 have lasted is uncertain ; but a stately figure burst through the 
 circle, and interposed between the pugilists. 
 
 " None of this nonsense," thundered Jupiter, in an overwhelm- 
 ing voice, " or I'll knock both of you to eternal smash ! Apollo, 
 you're an idiot ; Mercury, you're another. Hold your tongues
 
 262 ENDYMION; OR, 
 
 both ; or rather you, Mercury, speak and explain this blackguard 
 behaviour." 
 
 u Please your excellency," said Mercury But what Mer- 
 cury said had perhaps better form the commencement of a new 
 chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 "Please your Excellency," replied Mercury, "I said Diana 
 had bolted " 
 
 "Eh ? what the devil ! my daughter Di ?" 
 
 " Off eloped absquatulated," replied Hermes, applying a 
 slice of raw potato to his eye. 
 
 " Ten thousand Phlegethons ! and with whom ?" 
 
 "A pig-driver, may it please your Excellency." 
 
 Apollo fell into convulsions. Jupiter swore horribly. 
 
 "Ten shillings for profane oaths," said Chief-Justice Rhada- 
 manthus, taking out his pencil ; " I must book the governor for 
 the tin." 
 
 " My Lord Chief-Justice," said Jupiter, " make out a warrant 
 instantly for the apprehension of the audacious scoundrel who 
 has made away with a ward of our celestial Chancery. What's 
 his name, Mercury ? " 
 
 " Endymion." 
 
 " For the apprehension of Endymion. I'll trounce the villain 
 at common law, or my name's not Saturnius ! " 
 
 Bhadamanthus did as he was desired ; wrote out the warrant, 
 and delivered it (along with a small note of the fees) to the 
 Father of gods and men. 
 
 " Here you, Mercury," said Jupiter, " take this warrant and 
 execute it instantly. Bring the prisoner here, and that unfor- 
 tunate girl along with him, and do it directly." 
 
 " Your Excellency," said the son of Maia, with considerable 
 dignity " your Excellency will please to remember that I am 
 neither a bailiff nor a messenger's concurrent : if I undertake the 
 job, I shall expect to be paid extra "
 
 A FAMILY PARTY OF OLYMPUS. 263 
 
 " D'ye grumble, sirrah ?" shouted Jupiter. " Be off like wink- 
 ing or else ; " and he caught up a stray thunderbolt. 
 
 Hermes cleared the parapet of heaven. 
 
 " Here's a shindy ! " said Pan. " Blowed if I could have be- 
 lieved it. Di looked as if butter wouldn't have melted in her 
 mouth. What say you, Ganymede ? " 
 
 The young Trojan indulged his curiosity with a supercilious 
 stare at the questioner, muttered something about "vulgar 
 fellows," and " d d impertinence," turned on his heel, and 
 walked away. 
 
 " Well if I ever ! " said Pan. " I've a confounded mind to 
 pull the piippy's nose." 
 
 " No, no," said Bacchus, seizing his friend by the arm, " never 
 mind the Jack-a-dandy. Come into this tent, and we'll have a 
 pot and a pipe together." 
 
 Jupiter continued walking to and fro in a violent state of ex- 
 citement. Most of the other deities had retired out of respect ; 
 but Juno would not lose such a charming opportunity for a few 
 moral observations. 
 
 " Well, sir," said she, " this is a very pretty business indeed. 
 Nice doings those for a daughter of yours ! I presume you re- 
 member what I told you when you first allowed her to associate 
 with my Lady Venus ? " 
 
 " Madam," said Jupiter, " if I were to remember half of your 
 idiotical conversation, I should have very little time to think of 
 anything else." 
 
 " O, very good ! " replied Juno, bitterly ; " you may be as rude 
 as you please, but that won't alter facts. I repeat that you have 
 yourself and no one else to blame." 
 
 " Zounds, woman ! " cried the exasperated deity, " will you 
 hold your tongue 1 Here do I hardly know whether my head or 
 heels are uppermost, and you keep pestering me with your pala- 
 ver and Job's comfort." 
 
 " And this is my reward," said Juno, " for all my anxieties 
 and cares ? you horrid horrid brute ! " 
 
 " Madam, don't provoke me to blacken your ox-eyes," roared 
 Jupiter, in a towering passion. " And now I think of it there's 
 these confounded peacocks of yours have scratched up all the
 
 264 ENDYMION; OK, 
 
 vegetables in the garden ; but I'll stop their tricks effectually. 
 Here, Neptune ! send for a blunderbuss." 
 
 " Don't ! don't ! " screamed Juno, in concert with her imperial 
 fowls, who, as if conscious of their own imminent danger, set up 
 such a peahawing as would have stunned terrestrial ears ; " don't 
 do any such thing, dear brother Neptune for the love of 
 Amphitrite, don't ! " 
 
 There is no saying how the affair might have terminated, for 
 Jupiter had picked up an enormous stone with a view to pepper- 
 ing the peacocks, when a cry from Castor, that Mercury was re- 
 ascending with the prisoners, restored a temporary calm, and 
 once more drew the whole hierarchy to the battlement. 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 The criminal van of the Celestial Courts was shaped some- 
 thing like an Irish close car, so that until it was fairly landed on 
 the terrace none of the eager company could catch a glimpse of 
 those within. 
 
 Mercury sprang from the box. " Well, here they are safe and 
 sound, and a pretty business I've had in catching them. Walk 
 out, my doves. Here's a jolly party waiting for you." And he 
 opened the door. 
 
 To the utter amazement of Olympus, who expected the appari- 
 tion of a curly-haired swarthy Asiatic, clad in tunic and buskins, 
 after the fashion of the Carian pig-drivers, out stepped from the 
 vehicle a tall, sandy-haired, raw-boned individual of six feet, 
 arrayed from head to foot in a suit of tartans of more lustrous 
 dye than the fancy petticoat of Iris ; in short, a Highlander in 
 full costume the first that ever set foot in the heathen heaven. 
 After him descended Diana, blushing and in tears, yet still peer- 
 less in immortal beauty. A murmur of astonishment ran 
 through the assembled circle, which, however, produced no 
 effect upon the undaunted Scot, who continued to gaze around 
 him with stoical indifference.
 
 A FAMILY PARTY OF OLYMPUS. 265 
 
 " Who the devil have we got here ? " said Jupiter at length. 
 " Are you Endymion, fellow 'I " 
 
 " Aum the individual that was arreested at your instance," re- 
 plied the Highlander, calmly, " in token of which I have here a 
 copy of the charge, manifestly incompetent, as not having been 
 executed by a regular messenger ; and I reserve to mysell a' richt 
 of action of damages for wrongous imprisonment and otherwise, 
 as accords of law." 
 
 " What the deuce does the fellow mean ?" said the bewildered 
 Jupiter. 
 
 "My lord," interposed Ehadamanthus, "these matters had 
 better be discussed in pleno foro. If it please your lordship to 
 take your seat as Supreme Judge, you can constitute the Session, 
 and proceed in common form to try this embarrassing case." 
 
 " Ye may do as ye like," replied the Scot ; " but as a prelim- 
 inary defence, I plead the privileges of the College of Justice. 
 Aum an advocate's first clerk, and in no way amenable to ony 
 jurisdiction, except that o' my ain Coort. Vide Bothwell v. 
 Maitland, December 1582. Morrison, page 2399." 
 
 " What's the meaning of this jargon ? " asked Jupiter. 
 
 " A declinature of jurisdiction, my Lord," said Rhadamanthus ; 
 " but it won't do. Fellow, that plea must be dismissed, as you 
 are now beyond the bounds of the Court of Session." 
 
 " I was arreested in Scotland, forty miles north o' Gretna, on 
 the Carlisle road," persevered the Scot ; " and the lad wi' the 
 wings in his bannet hadna even a Border warrant, though that 
 wadna hae been competent neither." 
 
 " Is this the fact, Mercury ? " asked Rhadamanthus. 
 
 " Ton my soul, I believe so," replied Mercury. 
 
 " Then Jupiter's in an ugly scrape, that's all ; and the action 
 must be dismissed," said Rhadamanthus. 
 
 " Ye're a wise judge, ma lord," said the Scot, with a bow, " and 
 weel versed in the Principles. Ye might make a first-rate 
 Ordinar on the Bills. I submit that I am entitled to full 
 expenses." 
 
 " Of course," replied the gratified Rhadamanthus. 
 
 " And is this confounded rascal to get off Scot-free, after hav- 
 ing eloped with my daughter ?" asked Jupiter.
 
 266 ENDYMION ; OK, A FAMILY PAKTY OF OLYMPUS. 
 
 " That's the law," said Rhadamantlms. 
 
 " Ye may gang before the Coort o' Session, and tak' a remit to 
 the Commissaries, upon finding caution judicio sisti," remarked 
 the Scot ; " and ye'll hae to gie in defences against a snia' action 
 at my instance for wrongous imprisonment, and detention o' ma 
 person, forbye an action o' repetition as ma wife's curator bonis. 
 I presume now we're free to gang. Diana, ma pet, dicht yer 
 e'en and pit on yer bannet, and we'll toddle cantily name." 
 
 " Yes, dear Endymion," said the sobbing Cynthia. 
 
 " Endymion ! awa' wi' yer havers. Can ye no ca' me by my 
 richt name, Tavish Mactavish ? an ancient family, gentlemen, 
 and weel kent at the back o' Breadalbane. Sae gude mornin' to 
 ye. Maister Mercury, an' ye would keep yer head oot o' the 
 rape o' the law, just take us back to whaur ye fand us." 
 
 " Best thing you can do, my lad," remarked Bhadamanthus, in 
 reply to an appealing look from the herald, who accordingly 
 mounted and drove off. 
 
 " I'm a wretched man," said Jupiter. 
 
 " Here's a go ! " roared Pollux, rushing hastily into the pre- 
 sence ; " Flora has bolted with Apollo." 
 
 Hercules entered, foaming at the mouth. " Justice, Almighty 
 Jupiter ! My wife Hebe is off with that villain Ganymede." 
 
 " Father of Gods and men," cried the gouty Vulcan, limping 
 up, " Venus, my abandoned wife, has just eloped with Hesperus." 
 
 "Go to the Court of Session and the Commissaries, gentle- 
 men," said Jupiter, with desperate calmness. 
 
 " O lord ! O lord ! here's an awful dispensation," said Pluto, 
 staggering in. " Jupiter, my dear brother, that wretch Ixion ! " 
 
 "What next?" said Jupiter. " Out with it." 
 
 " That sacrilegious monster Ixion has carried off your Impe- 
 rial consort ! " 
 
 " Heaven be praised ! " cried Jupiter, dashing his wig among 
 the stars, "that's the best news I've heard for many a day. 
 Gentlemen all least said is soonest mended. Bacchus, order 
 out the drink. 'Fore George ! we'll have a night of it ; and to- 
 morrow we can all go to the Commissaries together."
 
 MY FIRST SPEC IN THE BIGGLESWADES. 
 
 MAY 1845. 
 
 MY uncle, Scipio Dodger, was one of the most extraordinary 
 men of the age. Figure to yourself a short, stout, and rather 
 pot-bellied individual, with keen eyes moving in a perpetual 
 twinkle, a mouth marked at the corners with innumerable tiny 
 wrinkles, hair of the shortest and most furzy white, scant at 
 the front, but gathered behind into a pigtail about the size of a 
 cigar, and you have a fair full-length portrait of my avuncular 
 relative. My father in early years had married an American 
 lady I must own it a Pennsylvanian, and uncle Scipio was 
 her brother. I was the only fruit of that union, and at an 
 early age was left an orphan in circumstances of sufficient 
 embarrassment. A mere accident saved me from being shipped 
 off to America like a parcel of cotton goods. Uncle Scip, who 
 was left my guardian, had some transactions which required his 
 personal attendance at Liverpool. He set foot for the first time 
 on the old country calculated that it was an almighty fine 
 location guessed that a spry hand might do a good streak of 
 business there and, in short, finally repudiated America as 
 coolly as America has since repudiated her engagements. He 
 would settle down to no fixed trade or profession ; but as he 
 possessed a considerable capital, he entered into the field of 
 speculation. Never, perhaps, was there a man better qualified 
 by nature for success in that usually dangerous game. His 
 powers and readiness of calculation were unequalled ; his in- 
 formation quite startling, from its extent and accuracy ; his 
 foresight, a gift like prophecy. I verily believe he never lost
 
 268 MY FIRST SPEC IN THE BIGGLESWADES. 
 
 a single shilling in any one of the numerous schemes in which 
 he was engaged ; what he made I have private reasons for keep- 
 ing to myself. If the apostolic order against taking scrip is to 
 be considered in. a literal sense, Scipio was a frightful defaulter. 
 He scampered out of one railway into another like a rabbit 
 perambulating a warren, and was the wonder of the brokers 
 and the glory of the Stock Exchange. Men perverted his 
 Roman prefix, and knew him solely by the endearing appella- 
 tion of Old Scripio. 
 
 To me, who was his only living relative, Mr Dodger supplied 
 the place of a parent. He placed me at school and college, gave 
 me as good an education and liberal allowance as I required, 
 and came down regularly once a-year to Scotland, to see how 
 I was getting on. Scripio, though he never failed to taunt 
 the Scotch with their poverty, was in reality very partial to 
 that nation ; he had a high opinion of their 'cuteness and repu- 
 tation for driving a good bargain, and somewhat incongruously, 
 for he was a thorough democrat piqued himself on his con- 
 nection with my family, which was old enough in all conscience, 
 but as poor, in my particular case, as if I had been the lineal 
 descendant of Lazarus. In fact, all my patrimony was the sum 
 of a thousand pounds, firmly secured over land, and not avail- 
 able until I came of age a circumstance which frequently 
 elicited tornadoes of wrath from uncle Dodger, who swore that 
 if he had got the management of it he could have multiplied 
 it tenfold. Subsequent events have convinced me that he was 
 perfectly right. 
 
 Be that as it may, I was ultimately called to the Scottish bar, 
 and entered upon my profession with the same zeal, prompti- 
 tude, and success which are exhibited by and attend three- 
 fourths of the unhappy young gentlemen who select that school 
 of jurisprudence. I appeared punctually in the Parliament 
 House at nine, cravated, wigged, and gowned to a nicety ; took 
 my prescribed exercise, of at least ten miles per diem, on the 
 boards; talked scandal with my brethren (when we could get 
 it), and invented execrable jokes ; lounged at stove and library ; 
 wrote lampoons against the seniors ; and, in short, went through 
 the whole curriculum expected from a rising votary of Themis.
 
 MY FIRST SPEC IN THE BIGGLESWADES. 269 
 
 I followed the law diligently, but, somehow or other, I could 
 never overtake it. The agents in Edinburgh must be a re- 
 markably slow set, for they never would appreciate my merits. 
 At the close of two years, a decree in absence and a claim in 
 a multiplepoinding remained the sole trophies of my legal 
 renown. 
 
 One day I was surprised in my study by a visit from uncle 
 Scripio, who had just arrived from Liverpool. I was reading 
 a novel (none of Justinian's) at the moment, and hastily shoved 
 it into my desk. After the usual congratulations were over, the 
 aged file took a rapid survey of the apartment, which fortunately 
 was in tolerable order, glanced curiously at a pile of legal papers, 
 procured shall I confess it ? from my friend Cotton, the 
 eminent tobacconist of Princes Street, uttered a hem, in which 
 incredulity seemed mingled with satisfaction, and then, having 
 been supplied with a tumbler of sherry and gingerbeer a com- 
 pound which he particularly affected he commenced the work 
 of inquisition. 
 
 " Well, Fred, my boy, how goes it ? Slick, eh 1 Lots of 
 clients coming in, I suppose ? You must be driving a pretty 
 smart trade to judge by them 'ere bundles." 
 
 " Pretty well," I replied ; " when my standing at the bar is 
 considered, I have no great reason to complain." 
 
 The old fellow looked at me with so quizzical an expression, 
 that I could hardly play the hypocrite longer. 
 
 " I'll trouble you for that packet," he said ; and remorselessly 
 clutching a bundle made up with red tape to resemble a process, 
 he took out a written pleading, to which the signature of a 
 counsel, now ten years in the grave, was appended. 
 
 " What a devil of a time these lawsuits last ! " remarked Mr 
 Dodger, unfolding another document. Worse and worse ! It 
 was the juvenile production of a Judge in the Inner-House. I 
 had nothing for it but to make a clean breast. 
 
 " The fact is, my dear uncle," said I, " these papers are just 
 part of the furniture of a lawyer's room. It would never do, 
 you know, to have an empty table, if an agent should happen 
 to come in ; but the real truth of the matter is, that the only 
 agents I know are lads with as little business as myself, who
 
 270 MY FIRST SPEC IN THE BIGGLESWADES. 
 
 sometimes look in of an evening to solace themselves with a 
 cigar." 
 
 " I knew it, Fred I knew it ! " said Scripio, rubbing his 
 hands, as if he thought it a remarkably good joke ; " there are 
 tricks in all trades, my boy, and the American blood will break 
 out. But you can't do for me though, you cunning young villain. 
 Oh no ! though you wanted to try it on." And he chuckled 
 as heartily as any of Mr Dickens's characters in the ' Christmas 
 Carol.' 
 
 " So you ar'n't making a farthing, Freddy ? " he resumed ; 
 " I'm glad' of it. You'll never grease your coach-wheels here. 
 Where's the thousand pounds that were lent over the Inver- 
 tumblers estate ? " 
 
 " Mr Constat, the agent of old M'Alcohol, paid it to me about 
 three months ago," replied I, rather astonished at the question, 
 which seemed to have no connection with the former subject. 
 " I have put it into the National Bank." 
 
 " Two per cent ? Pshaw trash ! " said my uncle. " Here, 
 look at this," and he thrust a printed paper into my hands. 
 
 It was headed, " Prospectus of the Grand Union Biggies- 
 wade, Puddockfield, and Pedlington Railway, in 50,000 shares 
 of 20 each. Deposit l on each share." If the line had run 
 through the garden of Eden, supposing that place to have fur- 
 nished a large passenger traffic besides agricultural produce, with 
 London at one terminus and Pekin at the other, the description 
 could not have been more nattering than that which I perused. 
 Nature seemed to have lavished all her blessings upon Biggies- 
 wade, Puddockfield, and the country thereunto adjacent; in 
 short, I never recollect so nattering a picture, with the solitary ex- 
 ception of one drawn by my friend Frizzle, who had stuck twenty 
 pounds into some railway in a mineral district. " When we 
 recollect," said Bob, in a burst of poetical frenzy, " the enormous 
 population of the district, the softness and geniality of the 
 climate, and the fairy aspect of its scenery when we think of 
 the varied traffic which now chokes up the ordinary avenues of 
 industry when we estimate the inexhaustible beds of ore and 
 minerals, absolutely heaving themselves from the ground, as 
 though to entreat the aid of man in adapting them to their proper
 
 MY FIRST SPEC IN THE BIGGLESWADES. 271 
 
 destination, when we consider all these things, I say, and 
 finally combine them together, fancy closes her astonished eyes, 
 and even imagination swoons ! " I will not say that the writer 
 of the Biggleswade prospectus was as soaring a genius as Bob ; 
 but he was quite enough of a Claude to seduce the investing 
 public. I forget what amount of return he promised, but it was 
 something hitherto unheard of, and my mouth watered as I read. 
 
 " That's the spec ! " said my uncle Dodger. " Sit down and 
 write me an order for your thousand." 
 
 " Eh, uncle for the whole ? " said I, somewhat aghast. 
 
 " Every sixpence. There that will do," and Mr Dodger dis- 
 appeared with the cheque. 
 
 To say the truth, I was not quite pleased with this proceeding ; 
 for although I had confidence in my uncle's sagacity, it was 
 decidedly a serious thing to hazard one's whole patrimony on a 
 speculation which might, so far as I knew, be as visionary as the 
 Aerial Machine. However, my constitutional carelessness very 
 speedily relieved me of all anxiety. I went out to balls and 
 steeplechases as formerly, attended the House pro formd in the 
 mornings, and messed three times a-week with the cavalry 
 at Piershill. The pace, indeed, was rather rapid, but then I had 
 a strong constitution. 
 
 For three or four weeks I saw little of my respected uncle. 
 He had heaven knows how got himself affiliated to one of the 
 clubs, and sat half the day in the reading-room, poring over the 
 Eailway Journals and the Money-market article in the ' Times.' 
 He played whist of an evening on a system peculiar to himself, 
 and levied a very fair contribution from the pockets of certain 
 country gentlemen, who piqued themselves on understanding the 
 antiquated tactics of Major A., but never had the fortune before 
 to measure trumps with an American. On the whole, he ap- 
 peared remarkably comfortable and contented. 
 
 One morning I was honoured with an early domiciliary visit. 
 " Fred," said my uncle, " put up half-a-dozen shirts and a tooth- 
 brush. We start for Liverpool this evening." 
 
 " This evening ! " said I, in amazement. " Impossible, my dear 
 sir ! Only reflect the Session is not over yet, and what would 
 become of my business if I were to levant without notice ? "
 
 272 MY FIKST SPEC IN THE BIGGLESWADES. 
 
 " I'll insure all your losses for a sovereign. Tell them you've 
 got business elsewhere : I daresay a good many of the old hands 
 are up to that trick already." 
 
 " But my engagements," persisted I. " There's Mrs M'Crino- 
 line's ball on Tuesday, and Lady M'Loup's the week after 
 really, uncle, I don't see how I can possibly get away." 
 
 " Do you wish to make your fortune, sir ? " 
 
 "Undoubtedly." 
 
 " Then do as I bid you. Get up and shave, and in the mean 
 time I'll look after breakfast." 
 
 There was nothing for it but obedience, so I rose and polished 
 my outer man. Mr Scripio was apparently in high feather and 
 digestion. He put the finishing-stroke to what had once been a 
 prize mutton ham, and dug as diligently into a pot of marma- 
 lade as though he expected to find a layer of doubloons at the 
 bottom. To my amazement, he dedicated his last cup of coffee 
 as a special bumper to the health of the Noble President of the 
 Board of Trade. 
 
 " What's in the wind now ? " thought I. " Uncle, have you 
 anything dependent before Parliament ? Perhaps you want a 
 junior counsel for a bill." 
 
 " Confound Parliament ! " said the irreverent Columbian ; " I 
 don't care a cent more for it than I do for Congress. The Board 
 of Trade's the thing for my money ! That's your constitutional 
 tribunal close-fitting boxes and Bramah locks no humbug 
 there ! 'Zooks, won't we smash old Jobson after all ! " and 
 Scripio neighed like a Shetland pony at its first introduction 
 to oats, all the while helping himself to a caulker of genuine 
 Glenlivet. 
 
 We set off in the afternoon accordingly, and next morning 
 arrived at Liverpool. Our stay there was very short. I 
 was led captive to the Exchange, and hurried into a stock- 
 broker's office in an obscure alley behind. The Plutus of 
 this den, an old bald-pated gentleman in a blue coat and drab 
 terminations, started up from his seat as we entered, with more 
 manifestations of respect than would have welcomed the avatar 
 of the Cham of Tartary. Two consumptive clerks looked up with 
 awe as they heard their master pronounce the venerated name of
 
 MY FIKST SPEC IN THE BIGGLESWADES. 273 
 
 Dodger. It was clear that my uncle was well known and 
 appreciated here his mere patronymic acted as a species of 
 talisman. 
 
 We were conducted into an inner sanctum, where, having 
 nothing else to do, I betook myself to the study of a map of 
 England, where lines of railway already laid down in black, and 
 projected ones in red, intersected the surface as closely as veins 
 and arteries in an anatomical preparation. Meantime the two 
 seniors entered into a deep and apparently interesting conversa- 
 tion, the purport of which I did not very clearly understand. 
 
 " How's Dovers ? " asked my uncle. 
 
 " Up. Forty to forty-two ex div.," replied the broker. 
 
 " Sell sixty. Bumpton Watfords ? " 
 
 " Bather better this morning." 
 
 " Good ! " said Scripio, evidently gratified by the amendment 
 of the interesting convalescent. " What's doing in the Slush- 
 pool Docks 1 " 
 
 " Heavy," replied the broker. " There's been a forced sale or 
 two, but they won't go up." 
 
 " I should think not," said Scripio. " Have you bought me 
 these forty Jamaicas 1 " 
 
 I started at the prodigality of the order. " Heaven and earth ! " 
 thought I, " can this uncle of mine be a kind of occidental 
 Aladdin ? After this, I should not be surprised to hear him bid 
 for Texas and the Oregon territority ! " 
 
 " I've got them," said the broker, quietly ; " they are going up 
 without steam. Have you got any Biggleswades ? " 
 
 "Yes," said my uncle; "what about them? No screw loose, 
 eh? Sure to pass the standing orders, I hope ? " 
 
 " All right," said the broker ; " hold for the bill, and you'll 
 make a good thing of it." 
 
 " Well, then," said my uncle, " that's all, and we're off. I'll 
 write you from London about other matters. Good-day," and 
 we sallied into the street. 
 
 " Fred, you dog ! " said Mr Dodger, in high glee, " you've put 
 your teeth into it this time." 
 
 "Into what, sir?" asked I, very innocently. "If you mean 
 luncheon, I'm sure I should have no objection."
 
 274 MY FIRST SPEC IN THE BIGGLESWADES. 
 
 " Oh, come, none of that humbug ! I mean the Biggleswades. 
 There hasn't been such a catch in Britain since the opening of 
 the Coalhill Junction." 
 
 " I'm devilish glad to hear it," said I, with a vague kind of 
 general impression that I was going to make money, though I 
 could not well tell how, and a fixed determination, since I had 
 got my teeth in, to take as large a bite as possible, though, with 
 regard to the process of mastication, I was just as ignorant as a 
 baby. That afternoon we set off for Wales, and next day arrived 
 at one of the most extraordinary households, in the southern 
 extremity of the principality, which it ever was my fortune to 
 visit. 
 
 The house was large and spacious, indeed a masterpiece of 
 architecture, and probably had been built in the time of Charles 
 II. It stood upon the slope of a hill, and immediately 
 below were a succession of terraces, with walks of smooth green 
 turf and exotic shrubs, which in summer must be most luxuri- 
 ant. It was winter when I visited at Mervyn Hall, but even 
 then the terraces were beautiful. Every tree and spray was 
 coated with armour of clear crystalline ice, except the thick old 
 yew-hedge at the bottom, which kept its coat of dark perennial 
 green. The Hall commanded the prospect of a large and fertile 
 valley, diversified by wood and domain, tower and village spire ; 
 and in more than one place, a pillar of smoke, curling lazily up- 
 wards, marked the situation of a famous forge or foundry. It 
 was, in fact, one of the great iron districts, though you scarcely 
 could have believed so by day ; but at night fire after fire 
 seemed to burst out all down the reach of the valley, and pro- 
 bably years had gone by since the smallest of these was quenched. 
 It is not often that nature lavishes her beauty and her wealth 
 so prodigally upon the self-same spot. 
 
 Uncle Scripio strode into the house with the air of a pro- 
 prietor. I am not sure that he had not some interest in the 
 concern, for Mervyn Hall was a kind of mystery to the neigh- 
 bours. We were shown into a handsome apartment lined with 
 black oak, where a regiment of cavaliers might have dined with 
 both credit and satisfaction ; but times had altered, and the 
 banqueting-hall was now put to different uses. On two sofas and
 
 MY FIEST SPEC IN THE BIGGLESWADES. 275 
 
 a table lay a pile of maps and plans, sufficient, according to my 
 limited comprehension, for a survey of the whole world. Then 
 there was an ingenious model of a suspension bridge, where a 
 railway of white-painted cord spanned a valley of undulating 
 putty, with a stream in the centre, which bore evident marks of 
 being ravished from a fractured looking-glass. Bundles of thick 
 clumsy sticks they might be instruments with brass knobs at 
 the top, like the morgenstern of a Norwegian watchman, were 
 huddled into the corners. There was a grievous hole in the 
 centre of the carpet ; and several butt-ends of cigars scattered on 
 the mantelpiece, showed me very clearly that female domina- 
 tion was not acknowledged by the inhabitants of Mervyn Hall. 
 
 Oar host, Mr Ginger, received us with great cordiality, and a 
 flagon of superior ale. There are worse things under the skirts 
 of Plinlimmon than the ancient cwrw of the Cymry. In five 
 minutes the two gentlemen were deep in the discussion of cer- 
 tain disputed gradients, and my jaws were on the very verge 
 of dislocation when uncle Scripio good-naturedly suggested that 
 I might retire to another apartment. 
 
 " How many of the lads have you here just now, Ginger ? I 
 think Freddy had better step in and make their acquaintance." 
 
 Mr Ginger looked rather sour. " There's Gordon and Mac- 
 kinnon working at the estimates, and William Cutts writing out 
 the notices. I'm afraid they'll be disturbed." 
 
 " No fear of that," said I, too glad to make my escape on any 
 terms ; and accordingly, without further ceremony, I entered the 
 adjoining study. 
 
 Mr Gordon, the senior engineer, was a sinewy-limbed fellow 
 of some three-and-thirty, whose countenance and complexion 
 bore satisfactory evidence of a pure Caledonian extraction. He 
 was considered by his scientific brethren as a kind of engineer- 
 ing Robert the Devil, having performed various feats with the 
 theodolite which were the marvel of the whole fraternity. If any 
 old gentleman was foolish enough to object to a proposed line on 
 account of its traversing his garden or preserve, or invading the 
 sanctity of his pigsties, Gordon was instantly sent for. No 
 sooner were the stars out, as also the lights in the mansion-house, 
 than on the verge of the disputed territory an accurate observer
 
 276 MY FIKST SPEC IN THE BIGGLESWADES. 
 
 might have descried something like the glimmer of a glow-worm 
 advancing stealthily forwards. That was Master Gordon, with 
 his lantern, staff, and chain ; and before the grey dawn of morn- 
 ing the whole gradients were booked and ready for the most 
 searching inspection of a committee of the House of Commons. 
 It is even alleged that, despite the enmity of a northern thane, 
 this Protean Archimedes surveyed a Highland line with nothing 
 but his leister or salmon-spear, and actually killed three fish 
 whilst ascertaining the practicability of a cutting through a 
 tremendous pass. Be this as it may, he was certainly a clever 
 fellow, and as ugly a customer as a keeper could cope withal 
 before the dew had vanished from the clover. Mackinnon was 
 a quiet-looking lad, with a latent dash of the daredevil ; proud 
 of his name and of his genealogy, and maintaining some show of 
 a Highland gentleman's dignity, in a following of three ragged 
 Skye terriers, who yelped incessantly at his heels. Cutts was a 
 grand specimen of the Londoner, redolent of the Fives' Court and 
 Evans's ; one of those fellows whom it is very desirable to have 
 on your side in a row, and very unpleasant to encounter if you 
 happen to be particular about the colour and symmetry of your 
 eyes. With these gentlemen I speedily became hand in glove, 
 and the afternoon passed rapidly away. It may be questionable, 
 however, whether the accuracy of the estimates was improved 
 by the introduction of cigars and a pitcher of the Welsh home- 
 brewed. 
 
 After dinner, we all got remarkably merry. Mr Dodger re- 
 lated, in his happiest manner, several anecdotes of the way in 
 which he had " flummox'd " old Jobson, his arch-enemy and rail- 
 way rival ; Mr Ginger favoured us with an imitation of a loco- 
 motive train, perfect even to the painful intensity of the whistle ; 
 and Gordon told, with great gusto, various miraculous adven- 
 tures, which might have done honour to a Borderer in the good 
 old days of " lifting." Somehow or other, as the evening got on, 
 we became confoundedly national. The Scotch, of course, being 
 the majority, had decidedly the best of it ; and the American 
 Scripio and Cambrian Ginger having joined our ranks, we all 
 fell foul of the unfortunate Cutts, and abused everything An- 
 glican as heartily as O'Connell upon the hill of Tara. We soon
 
 MY FIRST SPEC IN THE BIGGLESWADES. 277 
 
 succeeded in extorting an admission that the Scots, upon the 
 whole, had rather the best of it at Flodden ; and thereupon, and 
 ever thereafter, Mr Cutts was accosted by the endearing epithet 
 of Saxon, presently abbreviated, for the sake of euphony, into 
 Sacks. I don't exactly recollect at what hour we retired to bed. 
 
 " Freddy," said my uncle next morning, " I am going off to 
 London with Mr Ginger, and I don't think you could do better 
 than remain where you are. You'd be sure to get into no end 
 of scrapes in town, and I haven't time to be continually bailing 
 you out of Bow Street." 
 
 " Very well, sir ; just as you please. I daresay I shall manage 
 to make myself quite comfortable here." 
 
 "I say, though," remonstrated Mr Ginger, "he'll keep the 
 whole of the lads from their work. Gordon is too fond of fun 
 at any time, and the moment our backs are turned they'll be 
 after some devilry or other. Couldn't your nephew carry a 
 theodolite, and take a few practical lessons in surveying?" 
 
 " Lord help you ! " said my uncle, " he's as innocent of men- 
 suration as an infant. Can't you spare Cutts ?" 
 
 " Better than the other two, certainly." 
 
 " Well, then, we'll hand over Freddy to him, and let them 
 amuse themselves the best way they can. Cutts, you may do 
 what you like for the next ten days ; but remember Gordon 
 and Mackinnon are not to be disturbed on any account. Now, 
 good-bye, and take care of yourselves." 
 
 The Saxon and I made ample use of the permission. We 
 established our headquarters at the Saracen in Shrewsbury, and 
 went the pace for some days at a hand-gallop. I can't help 
 laughing, even now, at the consternation into which South 
 Wales was thrown by the reappearance of Rebecca and her 
 daughters, who carried off in one night seven turnpike gates. 
 It was a pity that the London journals should have been at the 
 expense of sending down special correspondents on that occasion, 
 for I can bear personal testimony to the fact that no country 
 could possibly be quieter. Even the tollkeepers appeared to 
 slumber with a tenfold torpedo power. A little incident, how- 
 ever, soon occurred, which completely changed the nature of my 
 occupations.
 
 278 MY FIRST SPEC IN THE BIGGLESWAPES. 
 
 I went one day to call upon a family who resided some miles 
 from Shrewsbury. It was a visit of ceremony, and I therefore 
 considered it a bore. Cutts, who was no lady's man, preferred 
 waiting for me at a neighbouring publichouse, so I effected my 
 entree alone. I went in a freeman, and came out, two hours 
 afterwards, as complete a bond- slave as ever hoed the sugar-canes 
 of Cupid. A pair of laughing blue eyes, and the prettiest lips 
 in the universe, had undone me. Sweet Mary Morgan ! yours 
 was a rapid conquest ! and you need not pinch my ears. 
 
 I went down to the inn in that state of pleasing bewilderment 
 which characterises the first stage of the amatory complaint. 
 Cutts had got tired in my absence, and, being rather in a pen- 
 sive mood, had gone to the churchyard with a quart of beer, 
 where I found him copying the inscriptions on the tombstones. 
 
 " What the devil kept you so long ? " said the Saxon. 
 
 " Hold your tongue, Sacks ! I have just seen the prettiest 
 angel ! Who on earth can she be ? No relation, I dare be 
 sworn, of that fat old rascal Owenson." 
 
 " Whew ! that's the sort of thing, is it ? " quoth Cutts. " What 
 may be the name of the divinity ? " 
 
 " Mary Morgan." 
 
 " What 1 little Mary ! Oh yes ! I know her very well," said 
 the Saxon. " She's the daughter of the principal medical man 
 in Shrewsbury!; a pompous old blockhead, with twenty thousand 
 pounds and a pigtail. Mary is a sweet little creature ; and, be- 
 tween you and me, I rather flatter myself I have made an im- 
 pression in that quarter. You have no idea how she laughed 
 when I danced the fetter hornpipe at the Jones's." 
 
 " Sacks," said I, quietly, " if you dare to mention that young 
 lady's name in connection with yourself again, I shall knock out 
 your brains on the nearest monument. I am perfectly serious. 
 Now listen how can I get an introduction to the doctor 1 " 
 
 " It won't do, old fellow, if you have a complaint of the 
 chest." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 " The phlebotomising Jew swears he won't marry his daughter 
 to any man who is not as rich as himself. But I'll tell you what 
 it is, Fred. You are a confoundedly good fellow, though you
 
 MY FIRST SPEC IN THE BIGGLESWADES. 279 
 
 are a descendant of William the Lion, which I consider to be 
 utter gammon, and I don't care if I lend you a helping hand. 
 Miss Morgan is very intimate with Letty Jones, who is a nice 
 larking girl, and understands how to manage her mamma. I'll 
 arrange a quiet tea-party there to-morrow evening, and you may 
 make love as long as you like, provided you don't interfere with 
 supper." 
 
 No arrangement could possibly have pleased me better. The 
 Saxon was as good as his word ; and after an early dinner, at 
 which I tyrannously curtailed my friend of his usual allowance 
 of liquor, we made our way to the Jonesian habitation. 
 
 Cutts, very good-naturedly, took the whole task of amusing 
 the company upon himself. He gave pantomimic representa- 
 tions of T. P. Cooke and Taglioni, sang half-a-dozen songs that 
 are nightly encored at the Surrey side, and finally performed a 
 series of antique statues in his shirt-sleeves. For myself, I was 
 far too agreeably occupied to pay much attention to his master- 
 piece of "Ajax defying the Lightning." Mary Morgan was 
 prettier and more fascinating than ever, and before supper was 
 announced I had made considerable progress. I saw her home, 
 and made an appointment for next day to visit a ruin in the 
 neighbourhood. Cutts was rewarded for his good behaviour by 
 three extra tumblers of brandy-and-water at the Saracen, and 
 became so affectionate that I had much difficulty in making my 
 escape to bed. 
 
 I shall pass over, without descending to minute particiilars, 
 the history of the ensuing week. Love-making is always plea- 
 sant ; certainly more so in summer than in winter, but there is 
 a strange alchemy in the tender passion, which, despite of frost 
 and snow, can endow all nature with the hues and odours of 
 spring. So, at least, it was with me. I met my charmer every 
 day, and at length succeeded in extorting from her lips the only 
 confession, to obtain which the labour of years is but a trifling 
 sacrifice. What a pleasant thing it would be, if in those mat- 
 ters there was nothing more to consult than the inclinations of 
 the parties who are principally concerned ! What, in the name 
 of cross-purposes, have Barents to do with controlling the affec- 
 tions of their childrenT Thirty years ago there is not one of
 
 280 MY FIRST SPEC IN THE B1GGLESWADES. 
 
 them who would have submitted patiently to the dictation which 
 they now exercise without scruple. I sometimes wonder whether, 
 twenty years after this, I shall continue of the same opinion ; 
 but, thank heaven, there is ample time for consideration poor 
 dear little Jemima is only cutting her teeth. 
 
 Mary was quite alive to the difficulties which stood in her 
 way. Old Morgan loved her, it is true ; but it was that sort of 
 love which antiquarians and coin-collectors have for their rarest 
 specimens they cannot bear to see them for a moment in the 
 hands of others. "Wealth alone could bribe the doctor to part 
 \vith his child, and, alas ! of that I had little or nothing. True, 
 1 might be considered as uncle Dodger's prospective heir ; but 
 that esteemed gentleman was as tough as indiarubber, and very 
 nearly as good a life as my own. Professional prospects ahem ! 
 they might do to talk abotit in Wales ; certainly not in Edin- 
 burgh, where few lawyers are accounted prophets. 
 
 In this dilemma, I resolved to take sweet counsel with the 
 Saxon, having no one else to apply to. As I had neglected him 
 horribly for the last few days, he was rather sulky, until I gave 
 him to understand that I was in downright earnest. Then you 
 may be sure he brightened up amazingly. There was mischief 
 evidently in the wind. 
 
 " That comes of your confounded Scotch education," said 
 Cutts, interrupting a very pretty speech of mine about honour- 
 able conduct and disinterested motives. " Who doubts that you 
 are perfectly disinterested ? Of course it's the girl, and not the 
 money, you want. She does happen to have twenty thousand, 
 but you don't care about that you would marry her without a 
 shilling, wouldn't you ? " 
 
 " By the bones of King David the First " 
 
 " That's enough. Don't disturb the repose of the respectable 
 old gentleman' he might not be over happy if he saw his de- 
 scendant in breeches. The case seems clear enough ; I wonder 
 you have a doubt about it. Old Morgan won't give his consent, 
 so there is absolute necessity for a bolt. Leave it all to me. I'll 
 provide a chaise and four, and if the lady has no objection, we 
 can start to-morrow evening. I'll sit behind on the rumble, and 
 shoot the leader if there should be any pursuit. Only mind this,
 
 MY FIRST SPEC IN THE BIGGLESWADES. 281 
 
 I don't go unless there is a lady's-maid. Everything must be 
 done with strict regard to decorum." 
 
 " Is the lady's-maid also to occupy the rumble ? " 
 
 " Of course. You wouldn't have her inside, would you ? Come 
 now, set about it, like a good fellow. It will be a first-rate lark, 
 and you may command me at an hour's notice." 
 
 I confess that I felt very much inclined to adopt the sugges- 
 tion of the Saxon. Most men, I believe, are averse to elope- 
 ments as a general principle ; but there are always exceptions, as 
 every one discovers when his own wishes are thwarted. I was 
 not destined, however, to offer my hymeneal sacrifice at the 
 shrine of the Gretna Pluto. A letter of mine to .Mary, rather 
 amorously worded, found its way into the hands of Doctor Mor- 
 gan. The usual consequences followed an explosion of paternal 
 wrath, filial incarceration, and the polite message to myself, that 
 if I ventured to approach the house, it would be at the risk of 
 appropriating the contents of a blunderbuss. My feelings may 
 be easily imagined. 
 
 " If you amuse yourself that way with your hair," said my 
 friend and consoler Cutts, " you'll have to buy a wig, and that 
 costs money. Hang it, man, cheer up ! We'll do the old boy 
 yet. Mackinnon will be here to-night, and the deuce is in it if 
 three clever fellows like us can't outwit a Welsh apothecary." 
 
 I assisted at that evening's conference, which was conducted 
 with due solemnity. We smoked a great deal, after the manner 
 of an Indian war-council, and circulated " the fire-water of the 
 pale-face" rather rapidly. Both my friends were clearly of 
 opinion that our honour was at stake. They vowed that, having 
 gone so far, it was imperative to carry off the lady, and pledged 
 their professional reputation upon a successful issue. Cutts had 
 learned that on the following Friday there was to be a great ball 
 in Shrewsbury; and, through the medium of Letty Jones, he 
 understood that Mary Morgan and her father were to be there. 
 This seemed a golden opportunity. It was finally arranged that 
 I should withdraw myself from the neighbourhood in the mean 
 time, but return on the evening of the ball, and conceal myself 
 in a private apartment of the Saracen, where the ball was to be 
 held. Mackinnon was to attend the ball, and lead Mary to the
 
 282 MY FIKST SPEC IN THE BIGGLESWADES. 
 
 supper-room, from which the retreat could be easily effected. 
 Cutts was to remain below, look after the horses, and act as 
 general spy. Nothing more seemed necessary than to make 
 Miss Morgan aware of our plans, which the Saxon undertook to 
 do by agency of his fair and larking friend, who was in perfect 
 ecstasies at the prospect of the coming elopement. 
 
 The eventful Friday arrived, and from a solitary bedroom in 
 the third floor of the Saracen I heard the caterwauling of fiddles 
 announce the opening of the ball. I had asked Cutts to take a 
 quiet chop with me upstairs, but that mercurial gentleman posi- 
 tively refused, upon the ground of expediency. Nothing on 
 earth could induce him to leave his post. He was to act the 
 spy, and therefore it was absolutely necessary that he should re- 
 main below. All my remonstrances could not prevent him from 
 dining with Mackinnon in the coffee-room, so I was compelled 
 to give him his own way, merely extracting a pledge that for 
 this once he would abstain from unbounded potations. Down 
 went the two gentlemen, and I was left alone to my solitary 
 meditations. 
 
 I have read Victor Hugo's ' Dernier Jour d'un Condamne,' but 
 I do not recollect, in the course of my literary researches, having 
 met with any accurate journal of a gentleman's sensations before 
 perpetrating an elopement. It is a thing that could easily be 
 done at a moment's notice, but the case seems very different after 
 the calm contemplation of a week. You begin, then, to calculate 
 the resiilts. Fancy takes a leap beyond the honeymoon, and 
 dim apparitions of bakers' bills and the skeletons of cheap furni- 
 ture obtrude themselves involuntarily on your view. I lay down 
 on the bed, and tried to sleep until I should receive the ap- 
 pointed signal. For some time it would not do. The night- 
 mare, in the form of a nurse with ponderous twins, sat deliber- 
 ately down upon my chest, and requested one of them, a hideous 
 red-haired little imp, to kiss its dear papa ! At last, however, I 
 succeeded. 
 
 In the mean time Messrs Cutts and Mackinnon sat down to 
 their frugal banquet in the coffee-room. A glass of sherry after 
 soup is allowed to the merest anchorite, therefore my friends 
 opined that they could not do less than order a bottle. After
 
 MY FIRST SPEC IN THE BIGGLESWADES. 283 
 
 fish, Mackinnon discovered that he was in very low spirits a 
 dismal foreboding had haunted him all forenoon ; and as it 
 clearly would not do to betray any depression in the ball-room, 
 he rather thought that a flask of champagne would alleviate his 
 melancholy symptoms. The Saxon loved his ally too much to 
 interpose any objections, so the cork of the Sillery was started; 
 a jug of ale during dinner, and a pint of port after cheese, were 
 fair and legitimate indulgences ; and these being discussed, Cutts 
 proceeded to the stable to look after the horses. All was right ; 
 and after an affecting exhortation to the postilions to keep them- 
 selves rigidly sober, the Saxon rejoined his friend. 
 
 " It is a great relief to my mind, Mackinnon," said Cutts, throw- 
 ing himself back in his chair, and exposing his feet to the com- 
 fortable radiance of the fire, " to think that matters are likely to 
 go on swimmingly. It's a fine frosty starlight night just the 
 sort of weather you would select for a bolt ; and Freddy and his 
 dove will be as comfortable inside the chaise as if they were in 
 cotton." 
 
 " Rather cold, though, on the rumble," replied Mackinnon. 
 
 " Gad, you're right," said the Saxon. " I say, don't you think, 
 since I'm good-natured enough to expose myself in that way, we 
 might have a bottle of mulled port just by way of fortifier ?" 
 
 " You're a devilish sensible fellow, Cutts," said Mackinnon ; 
 and he rang the bell. 
 
 "Won't it be rare fun!" said Sacks, helping himself to a 
 tumbler of the reeking fluid. " Think what a jolly scamper we 
 shall have. The horses' feet ringing like metal as they tear full 
 gallop along the road, and old Morgan in a buggy behind, swear- 
 ing like an incarnate demon ! Mac, here's your good health ; 
 you're a capital fellow. Give us a song, old chap ! I won't see 
 you again for three weeks at the soonest. My eyes ! what a rage 
 Ginger will be in ! " 
 
 Mackinnon was of a Jacobite family who had rather burned 
 their fingers in the Forty-five, and being also somewhat of a 
 sentimental turn, he invariably became lachrymose over his 
 liquor, and poured out the passion of his soul in lamentations 
 over the fall of the Stuart. Instead, therefore, of favouring Cutts 
 with any congenial ditty from the Coal-hole or Cider-cellar, he
 
 284 MY FIRST SPEC IN THE BIGGLESWADES. 
 
 struck up " Drummossie muir, Drummossie day," in a style that 
 would have drawn tears from an Edinburgh ticket-porter. Sacks, 
 without having any distinct idea of the period of history to 
 which the ballad referred, pronounced it to be deuced touching ; 
 whereupon Mackinnon commenced a eulogy on the clans in 
 general, and his own sept in particular. 
 
 " Ay, that must have been a pleasant fellow," said Cutts, in 
 response to a legend of Mackinnon's concerning a remote pro- 
 genitor known by the sobriquet of Angus with the Bloody 
 Whiskers ; " a little too ready with his knife, perhaps, but a 
 lively companion, I daresay, over a joint of his neighbour's beef. 
 Ton my soul, it's quite delightful to hear you talk, Mackinnon 
 as good as reading one of Burns's novels. Just ring the bell, 
 will you, for another jug ; and then tell me the story of your 
 great ancestor who killed the Earl of Northumberland." 
 
 This adroit stroke of the Saxon, whose thirst in reality was for 
 liquor, not for lore, proved perfectly irresistible. Mackinnon 
 went on lying like a sennachie, and by the time the second jug 
 was emptied both gentlemen were just tottering on the verge of 
 inebriation. The sound of the music in the apartment above 
 first recalled Mackinnon to the sense of his duties. 
 
 " I say though, Cutts, I must be off now. I'll bring the girl 
 down to supper, and Freddy will take her off my hands at 
 the door ; isn't that the agreement ? Faith, though, I'll have a 
 waltz with her first. I hope there's no smell of port-wine about 
 me. It won't do for a ball-room." 
 
 " Try a glass of brandy," said Cutts, and he administered the 
 potation. " Now you be off, and I'll keep a sharp look-out below." 
 
 The Saxon's ideas of a look-out were rather original. In the 
 first place, he paid a visit to the bar, where the niece of the land- 
 lady a perfect little Hebe presided, and varied the charms of a 
 flirtation with a modicum of brandy-and-water. He then re- 
 turned to the coffee-room, in which were two gentlemen who had 
 seceded for a moment from the ball. They were both very ac- 
 curately dressed, proud of French polish, white cravats, and 
 lemon-coloured gloves, and altogether seemed to consider them- 
 selves as the finished D'Orsays of Shrewsbury. A few super- 
 cilious looks which they vouchsafed upon Cutts who, to say the
 
 MY FIEST SPEC IN THE BIGGLESWADES. 285 
 
 truth, was no beauty in his shooting-jacket roused the Saxon 
 lion. Some complimentary expressions passed between the 
 parties, which ended in an offer from Cutts to fight both gentle- 
 men for a five-pound note, or, if they had not so much ready 
 cash, to accommodate them with a thrashing on credit. This 
 proposal was magnanimously declined by the strangers, who 
 edged gradually towards the door. However, nothing but the 
 arrival of several waiters, who recognised from frequent prac- 
 tice the incipient symptoms of a row, could have prevented 
 some little display of pugilistic science. The temper of Cutts 
 was, of course, a little ruffled by the encounter, and in order to 
 restore his mind to its usual equilibrium he treated himself to 
 another soother, and then ascended the stairs to see what I was 
 doing. By that time it was late in the evening. 
 
 A tremendous slap on the shoulder roused me from my dreams. 
 I started up, and there, to my amazement, was Cutts sitting upon 
 the bed with a fresh-lighted cigar in his mouth, puffing as vigor- 
 ously as a locomotive. 
 
 " Good heavens, Cutts ! " cried I, " what is the matter ? 
 I hope nothing has gone wrong ? Where's Mary ?" 
 
 "All right, old fellow," said the Saxon, with a mysterious 
 smile. " We've plenty of time yet for another glass of brandy- 
 and-water." 
 
 " Surely, Cutts, you can't have been making a beast of your- 
 self ! " and I seized a candle. There could be no doubt of the 
 fact : he was very fearfully disguised. 
 
 " That I should have trusted myself in the hands of siich a 
 jackass ! " was my first exclamation. " Leave the room this 
 moment, sir, or I shall knock you down with a chair ; and never 
 let me see your disgusting countenance again." 
 
 "Did you apply those epi epitaphs to me, sir?" said the 
 Saxon, with an abortive attempt to look dignified. " You shall 
 hear from me in the morning. This is an ungrateful world 
 very ! I've been doing all I can for him, keeping all the liquor 
 out of the postilions and that is my reward ! I can't help it," 
 continued Cutts, lapsing into a melodramatic reminiscence of the 
 Adelphi " so I'll just belay my pipe. Bless my dear eyes 
 how came the salt water here ? Hold hard, old boy no snivel-
 
 286 MY FIRST SPEC IN THE BIGGLESWADES. 
 
 ling ! " and he drew the back of his hand across his eyes, as if he 
 was parting from a messmate upon the eve of execution. 
 
 " This is intolerable ! " I cried. " Get out, sir, or I shall 
 throw you over the window ! " 
 
 " Like to see you try it," said Cutts, with a Coriolanus air of 
 defiance. I had just enough command over myself to see that 
 a row with the Saxon was worse than useless, as it would effec- 
 tually destroy my last remaining chance. I therefore changed 
 my plans. 
 
 " Mark me, sir. I am going to ring the bell for the waiters, 
 and if you don't choose to relieve me of your presence at once, 
 they shall have my orders to carry you down-stairs. Will you 
 go, sir ? No ! then take the consequences ; " and I rang the bell 
 like a demoniac. 
 
 The music stopped in the room below. Cutts, drunk as he 
 was, observed the circumstance ; and no sooner were steps heard 
 upon the stairs, in obedience to the tocsin, than he took his de- 
 parture with the candle. I lay down again till the tumult 
 should subside, when I intended to apprise Mackinnon of the 
 present state of matters. 
 
 My appeal to the bell, which was a vigorous one, had produced 
 a marked effect. Several of the company had come to the door 
 of the ball-room, in order to learn the true nature of the alarm ; 
 and Cutts on his descent was assailed by vehement inquiries. 
 
 " Oh, don't ask me don't ask me ! " said the villain, wring- 
 ing his hands like a male Antigone. " My poor friend ! he's 
 just going ! Oh, gentlemen, is there no medical man here to 
 save him ? " 
 
 " Doctor Morgan ! Doctor Morgan ! " shouted twenty voices. 
 
 " Bless my soul, what's the matter here ?" said the doctor, emerg- 
 ing from the ball-room. " Any body taken suddenly ill, eh ? " 
 
 " Oh, my poor friend ! " groaned the traitor. 
 
 " Mercy on me ! is it so bad as that ? " said the doctor ; " I 
 must see him immediately. My dear sir, what is the matter 
 with your friend ? " 
 
 " His head, sir his head ! " said Cutts with a sob " he is 
 quite mad at the present moment. If you go up-stairs to No. 3, 
 you'll find him biting the bed-posts ! "
 
 MY FIRST SPEC IN THE BIGGLESWADES. 287 
 
 " This must be looked to instantly," said the doctor. " Gen- 
 tlemen, if I want assistance I shall call for you ; but we must 
 use gentle means if possible. Poor young man ! No. 3 did you 
 say, sir ? " and the doctor ascended the staircase. 
 
 " This is an awful thing, Mr Cutts ! " said Mrs Hickson, the 
 comely mistress of the house ; " is there nothing that would do 
 the poor gentleman any good ? " 
 
 " I think he'd be a great deal the better of a little brandy-and- 
 water," said Cutts " the doctor hinted as much just now ; and, 
 my dear madam, you had better make two glasses of it, rather 
 stiff, and send them up-stairs by the Boots." 
 
 I was startled by the entry of a stranger with a light, who 
 approached the bed with all the stealthiness of a cat. 
 
 " Zounds, sir, what do you want here 1 " cried I, springing 
 up. 
 
 " Hush, my dear sir, hush ! we must be calm really we 
 must. It will never do to allow ourselves to be agitated in this 
 way." 
 
 " Confound you, sir ! what do you mean 1 " 
 
 " Oh, my dear sir ! merely a friendly visit, that's all. I would 
 like to have a little quiet chat with you. How is our pulse ? 
 Do we feel any pain about the temples ? " 
 
 " I'll very soon make you feel pain enough somewhere ! " cried 
 I, in a towering passion. " If you don't quit my room this 
 moment, you old idiot, by the bones of the Bruce I'll toss you 
 over the stairs ! " 
 
 " Oh, if that be the case, the sooner we send for a strait- 
 jacket the better ! " said the doctor. " But, eh ! what ! by 
 Jove, it's the young Scotch rascal who was making love to my 
 daughter ! " 
 
 " Dr Morgan ! " I cried. " Upon my honour, sir, I am quite 
 annoyed " 
 
 " Hallo ! what's this ? We are calm enough now. Answer 
 me directly, sir ; are you delirious or not '/ " 
 
 " No more than yourself, doctor." 
 
 " This, then, was a concerted trick to make a fool of me ! " 
 sputtered the Welsh Esculapius. " But I'll be revenged. I'll 
 have you before a magistrate for this, you villain ! "
 
 288 MY FIKST SPEC IN THE BIGGLESWADES. 
 
 " Upon, my honour, sir, I am perfectly innocent. If you'll 
 only hear me for a single moment " 
 
 " To be exposed before the whole town, of Shrewsbury, too ! 
 I'll never forgive it ! " and the doctor banged out of the room. 
 To his dismay he found himself face to face with Cutts, who, 
 along with the Boots, had been a delighted auditor of the 
 scene. 
 
 " How is our patient, doctor 1 " said the Saxon. " Is our 
 pulse good to-night ? Did we take a look at our tongue ? " 
 
 " Sir, you're a ruffian ! " roared the doctor. 
 
 " Oh, come we must be calm ; it will never do to discompose 
 ourselves. Take a glass of brandy-and-water, doctor, and we'll 
 drink success to the profession. What ! you won't, eh ? Well 
 then, Boots, you take one and I'll finish the other. Here is 
 Doctor Morgan's very good health," cried Cutts, advancing to 
 the head of the stairs, " and may he long continue to be an 
 ornament to his profession ! " 
 
 " Low scoundrel ! " cried one of the young gentlemen in 
 lemon-coloured gloves, recognising his former antagonist. 
 
 " There's the rest of it for you, my fine fellow," retorted Cutts, 
 and the tumbler whizzed within an inch of Young Shrewsbury's 
 macassared locks. 
 
 A rush was made up the staircase by several of the aggravated 
 natives ; but Cutts stood at bay like a lion, and threatened 
 instant death to the first person who should approach him. 
 The commotion was at its height when I recognised the voice 
 of Mr Ginger. 
 
 " Cutts, is that you 1 come down this instant, sir ! " and the 
 crestfallen Saxon obeyed. 
 
 " Freddy, where are you ? " cried my uncle. 
 
 " Here ! " 
 
 " A pretty business you two fellows have been making of it ! " 
 said Scripio, with wonderful mildness. " But never mind ; let 
 them laugh who win. We've done the trick for you ! " 
 
 " Indeed, uncle ! how so ? " 
 
 " The Biggleswade Bill has passed, and I've sold your shares 
 at nineteen premium." 
 
 " Then I have "
 
 MY FIRST SPEC IN THE BIGGLESWADES. 289 
 
 " Exactly twenty thousand pounds." 
 
 I felt as if my head were turning round. At that moment I 
 caught a glimpse of Mary leaning on her father's arm. She 
 looked prettier than ever. 
 
 " Doctor Morgan," I said, " there has been a mistake here 
 will you suffer me to explain it ? " 
 
 " Certainly," said the doctor, in a very mollified tone ; " if 
 you will breakfast with me to-morrow morning." Twenty 
 thousand pounds do make a difference in a man's position. 
 
 " May I come too, doctor ? " hiccupped Cutts. 
 
 " No, sir ; and if you do not wish to be prosecuted, you had 
 better send me a fee to-morrow morning." 
 
 " Oh, come ! " said old Scripio. " I daresay it was merely a 
 bit of fun. I'll settle the fees, doctor. Put Cutts to bed, and 
 let the rest of us have a bit of supper." 
 
 On that day three weeks I married Mary Morgan, and have 
 never taken another share in any railway since. If the reader 
 wishes to know the reason, he may consult the list of present 
 prices.
 
 ADVICE TO AN INTENDING SERIALIST, 
 NOVEMBER 1846. 
 
 A LETTER TO T. SMITH, ESQ., SCENE-PAINTER AND TRAGEDIAN AT THE 
 AMPHITHEATRE. 
 
 MY DEAR SMITH, Your complaint of my unwarrantable deten- 
 tion of the manuscript which, some months ago, you were kind 
 enough to forward for my perusal, is founded upon a total mis- 
 conception of the nature of my interim employments. I have 
 not, as you somewhat broadly insinuate, been prigging bits of 
 your matchless rhetoric in order to give currency and flavour to 
 my own more maudlin articles. The lemon-peel of Smith has 
 not entered into the composition of any of my literary puddings ; 
 neither have I bartered a single fragment of your delectable 
 facetise for gold. I return you the precious bundle as safe and 
 undivulged as when it was committed to my custody, and none 
 the worse for the rather extensive journey which it has materially 
 contributed to cheer. 
 
 The fact is, that I have been sojourning this summer utterly 
 beyond the reach of posts. To you, whose peculiar vocation it 
 is to cater for the taste of the public, I need hardly remark that 
 novelty is, nowadays, in literature as in everything else, an 
 indispensable requisite for success. People will not endure the 
 iteration of a story, however well it may be told. The same 
 locality palls upon their ears, and that style of wit which, last 
 year, was sufficient to convulse an audience, may, if continued 
 for another session, be branded with the infamy of slang. Even 
 our mutual friend Barry, whose jests are the life of the arena, is
 
 ADVICE TO AX ISTEXDIXG SERIALIST. 291 
 
 quite aware of this unerring physiological rule. He does not 
 depend upon captivating the galleries for ever by his ingenious 
 conundrum of getting into an empty quart bottle. His inimita- 
 ble " Be quiet, will ye ? " as the exasperated Master of the King 
 flicks off an imaginary fly from his motley inexpressibles, is now 
 reserved as a great point for rare and special occasions ; and he 
 lays in a ne\v stock of witticisms at the commencement of each 
 campaign, as regularly as you contract for lampblack and ochre 
 when there is an immediate prospect of a grand new military 
 spectacle. The want of attention to this rule has, I fear, ope- 
 rated prejudicially upon the fortunes of our agile acquaintance, 
 Hervio Nano, whom I last saw devouring raw beef in the char- 
 acter of a human Nondescript. Harvey depended too much 
 upon his original popularity as the Gnome Fly, and failed 
 through incessant repetition. The public at length would not 
 stand the appearance of that eternal bluebottle. The sameness 
 of his entomology was wearisome. He should have varied his 
 representations by occasionally assuming the characters of the 
 Spectre Spider, or the Black Tarantula of the Tombs. 
 
 Now you must know, that for the last three years I have been 
 making my living exclusively out of the Swedish novels and the 
 Countess Ida von Hahn-Hahn. To Frederike Bremer I owe a 
 prodigious debt of gratitude ; for she has saved me the trouble 
 and it is a prodigious bore of inventing plots and characters, as 
 I was compelled to do when the Rhine and the Danube were the 
 chosen seats of fiction. For a time the literary plough went 
 merrily through the sward of Sweden ; nor can I, with any de- 
 gree of conscience, complain of the quality of the crop. But, 
 somehow or other, the thing was beginning to grow stale. People 
 lost their relish for the perpetual raspberry jam, tail-making, 
 spinning, and the other processes of domestic kitchen economy 
 which formed our Scandinavian staple ; indeed, I had a shrewd 
 suspicion from the first that the market would soon be glutted 
 by the introduction of so much linen and flannel. It is very 
 difficult to keep up a permanent interest in favour of a heroine 
 in homespun, and the storeroom is but a queer locality for the 
 interchange of lovers' sighs. I therefore was not surprised, last 
 spring, to find my publishers somewhat shy of entering into
 
 292 ADVICE TO AN INTENDING SERIALIST. 
 
 terms for a new translation of ' Snorra Gorvundstrul ; or, The 
 Barmaid of Strundschensvoe,' and, in the true spirit of British 
 enterprise, I resolved to carry my flag elsewhere. 
 
 On looking over the map of the world, with the view of select- 
 ing a novel field, I was astonished to find that almost every com- 
 partment was already occupied by one of our literary brethren. 
 There is in all Europe scarce a diocese left unsung, and, like 
 romance, civilisation is making rapid strides towards both the 
 east and the west. In this dilemma I bethought me of Iceland 
 as a virgin soil. Victor Hugo, it is true, had made some advances 
 towards it in one of his earlier productions ; but, if I recollect 
 right, even that daring pioneer of letters did not penetrate be- 
 yond Norway, and laid the scene of his stirring narrative some- 
 where about the wilds of Drontheim. The bold dexterity with 
 which he has transferred the Morgue from Paris to the most 
 arctic city of the world, has always commanded my most entire 
 admiration. It is a stroke of machinery equal to any which you, 
 my dear Smith, have ever introduced into a pantomime ; and I 
 question whether it was much surpassed by the transit of the 
 Holy Chapel to Loretto. In like manner I had intended to 
 transport a good deal of ready-made London ware to Iceland ; or 
 rather if that will make my meaning clearer to take my idea 
 both of the scenery and characters from the Surrey Zoological 
 Gardens, wherein last year I had the privilege of witnessing a 
 superb eruption of Mount Hecla. On more mature reflection, 
 however, I thought it might be as well to take an actual survey 
 of the regions which I intend henceforward to occupy as my own 
 especial domain ; and having, moreover, certain reasons which 
 shall be nameless for a temporary evacuation of the metropolis 
 I engaged a passage in a northern whaler, and have only just re- 
 turned after an absence of half a year. Yes, Smith ! Incredible 
 as it may appear to you, I have actually been in Iceland, seen 
 Hecla in a state of conflagration ; and it was by that lurid light, 
 while my mutton was boiling in the Geyser, that I first unfolded 
 your manuscript, and read the introductory chapters of ' Silas 
 Spavinhitch ; or, Rides around the Circus with Widdicomb and 
 Co.' 
 
 I trust, therefore, that after this explanation you will discon-
 
 ADVICE TO AN INTENDING SEEIALIST. 293 
 
 tinue the epithet of " beast," and the corresponding expletives 
 which you have used rather liberally in your last two epistles. 
 When you consider the matter calmly, I think you will admit 
 that you have suffered no very material loss in consequence of 
 the unavoidable delay ; and as to the public, I am quite sure 
 that they will devour Silas more greedily about Christinas than 
 if he had made his appearance, all booted and spurred, in the 
 very height of the dog-days. You will also have the opportunity, 
 as your serial is not yet completed, of reflecting upon the justice 
 of the hints which I now venture to offer for your future guid- 
 ance hints derived not only from my observation of the works 
 of others, but from some little personal experience in that kind 
 of popular composition ; and should you agree with me in any of 
 the views hereinafter expressed, you may perhaps be tempted to 
 act upon them in the revision and completion of your extremely 
 interesting work. First, then, let me say a few words regarding 
 the purpose and the nature of that sort of feuilleton which we 
 now denominate the serial. 
 
 Do not be alarmed, Smith. I am not going to conglomerate 
 your faculties by any Aristotelian exposition. You are a man of 
 by far too much practical sense to be humbugged by such out- 
 worn pedantry, and your own particular purpose in penning 
 Silas is of course most distinctly apparent. You want to sack as 
 many of the public shillings as possible. That is the great 
 motive which lies at the foundation of all literary or general 
 exertion, and the man who does not confess it broadly and 
 openly is an ass. If your study of Fitzball has not been too ex- 
 clusive, you may perhaps recollect the lines of Byron : 
 
 " No ! when the sons of song descend to trade, 
 Their bays are sere, their former laurels fade ; 
 Let such forego the poet's sacred naine, 
 Who rack their brains for lucre, not for fame. 
 Low may they sink to merited contempt, 
 And scorn remunerate the mean attempt ! 
 Such be their meed, such still the just reward 
 Of prostituted muse and hireling bard !" 
 
 Now these, although they have passed current in the world 
 for some thirty years, are in reality poor lines, and the sentiment
 
 294 ADVICE TO AX INTENDING SERIALIST. 
 
 they intend to inculcate is contemptible. Byron lived long 
 enough to know the value of money, as his correspondence with 
 the late Mr Murray most abundantly testifies indeed, I question 
 whether any author ever beat him at the art of chaffering. If it 
 be a legitimate matter of reproach against an author that he 
 writes for money, then heaven help the integrity of every pro- 
 fession and trade in this great and enlightened kingdom ! What 
 else, in the name of common sense, should he write for ? Fame ? 
 Thank you ! Fame may be all very well in its way, but it but- 
 ters no parsnips ; and if I am to be famous, I would much rather 
 case my renown in fine linen than in filthy dowlas. Let people 
 say what they please, the best criterion of every article is its 
 marketable value, and no man on the face of this earth will work 
 without a reasonable wage. 
 
 Your first and great purpose, therefore, is to make money, and 
 to make as much as you can. But then there is another kind of 
 purpose, which, if I were sure you could comprehend me, I should 
 call the intrinsic one, and which must be considered very seri- 
 ously before you obtrude yourself upon the public. In other 
 words, what is to be the general tendency of your work ? " Fun," 
 I think I hear you reply, " and all manner of skylarking." Very 
 good. But then, my dear friend, you must consider that there is 
 a sort of method even in grimacing. There is a gentleman con- 
 nected with your establishment who is popularly reported to 
 possess the inestimable talent of turning his head inside out. I 
 never saw him perform that cephalic operation, but I have heard 
 it highly spoken of by others who have enjoyed the privilege. 
 But this, it is obvious, though a very admirable and effective 
 incident, could hardly be taken as the groundwork of a five-act 
 play, or even a three-act melodrama ; and, in like manner, your 
 fun and skylarking must have something of a positive tendency. 
 I don't mean to insinuate that there is no story in Silas Spavin- 
 hitch. He is, if I recollect aright, the younger son of a noble- 
 man, who falls in love at Astley's, of course with Signora 
 Estrella di Canterini, the peerless Amazon of the ring. He for- 
 sakes his ancestral halls, abjures Parliament, and enlists in the 
 cavalry of the hippodrome. In that gallant and distinguished 
 corps he rises to an unusual rank, utterly eclipses Herr Pferdens-
 
 ADVICE TO AN INTENDING SEKIALIST. 295 
 
 huf, more commonly known by the title of tlie Suabiau Acrobat, 
 wins the heart of the Signora by taming Centaur, the fierce 
 Arabian stallion, and gains the notice and favour of royalty 
 itself by leaping the Mammoth horse over nineteen consecutive 
 bars. Your manuscript ends at the point where Spavinhitch, 
 having accidentally discovered that the beautiful Canterini is 
 the daughter of Abd-el-Kader by a Sicilian princess, resolves to 
 embark for Africa with the whole chivalry of the Surrey side, 
 and, by driving the French from Algiers, to substantiate his 
 claim upon the Emir for his daughter's hand. Here is incident 
 in plenty ; but, to say the truth, I don't quite see my way out of 
 it. Are you going to take history into your own hands, and write 
 in the spirit of prophecy ? The experiment is, to say the least 
 of it, dangerous ; and, had I been you, I should have preferred 
 an earlier period for my tale, as there obviously could have been 
 no difficulty in making Spavinhitch and his cavaliers take a 
 leading part in the decisive charge at Waterloo. 
 
 Your serial, therefore, so far as I can discover, belongs to the 
 military-romantic school, and is intended to command admira- 
 tion by what we may call a series of scenic effects. I am not 
 much surprised at this. Your experience has lain so much in 
 the line of gorgeous spectacle, and, indeed, you have borne a 
 part in so many of those magnificent tableaux in which blue fire, 
 real cannon, charging squadrons, and the transparency of Bri- 
 tannia, are predominant, that it was hardly to be expected that 
 the current of your ideas would have flowed in a humbler chan- 
 nel. At the same time, you must forgive me for saying that I 
 think the line is a dangerous one. Putting tendency altogether 
 aside, you cannot but recollect that a great many writers have 
 already distinguished themselves by narratives of military adven- 
 ture. Of these, by far the best and most spirited is Charles 
 Lever. I don't know whether he ever was in the army, or bore 
 the banner of the Enniskillens ; but I say deliberately, that he 
 has taken the shine out of all military writers from the days of 
 Julius Caesar downwards. There is a rollicking buoyancy about 
 his battles which to me is perfectly irresistible. In one chapter 
 you have the lads of the Fighting Fifty-fifth bivouacking under 
 the cork-trees of Spain, with no end of spatchcocks and sherry
 
 296 ADVICE TO AN INTENDING SERIALIST. 
 
 telling numerous anecdotes of their early loves, none the worse 
 because the gentleman is invariably disappointed in his pursuit 
 of the well-jointured widow or arranging for a speedy duel .with 
 that ogre of the army, the saturnine and heavy dragoon. In the 
 next, you have them raging like lions in the very thick of the 
 fight, pouring withering volleys into the shattered columns of 
 the Frenchmen engaged in single-handed combats with the 
 most famous marshals of the Empire, and not unfrequently leav- 
 ing marks of their prowess upon the persons of Massena or 
 Murat. Lever, in fact, sticks at nothing. His heroes indiscri- 
 minately hob-a-nob with Wellington, or perform somersets at 
 leap-frog over the shoulders of the astounded Buonaparte ; and, 
 though somewhat given to miscellaneous flirtation, they all, in 
 the twentieth number, are married to remarkably nice girls, with 
 lots of money and accommodating papas, who die as soon as they 
 are desired. It may be objected to this delightful writer, that 
 he is, if anything, too helter-skelter in his narratives ; that the 
 officers of the British army do not, as an invariable rule, go into 
 action in a state of delirium tremens; and that O'Shaughnessy, 
 in particular, is rather too fond of furbishing up, for the enter- 
 tainment of the mess, certain stories which have been current for 
 the last fifty years in Tipperary. These, however, are very 
 minor points of criticism, and such as need not interfere with 
 our admiration of this light lancer of literature, who always 
 writes like a true and a high-minded gentleman. 
 
 Now, my dear Smith, I must own that I have some fear of 
 your success when opposed to such a competitor. You have not 
 been in the army that is, the regulars and I should say that 
 you were more conversant in theory and in practice with firing 
 from platforms than firing in platoons. I have indeed seen you, 
 in the character of Soult, lead several desperate charges across 
 the stage with consummate dramatic effect. Your single com- 
 bat with Gomersal as Picton was no doubt a masterpiece of its 
 kind ; for in the course of it you brought out as many sparks 
 from the blades of your basket-hilts as might have served in the 
 aggregate for a very tolerable illumination. Still I question 
 whether the style of dialogue yoii indulged in on that occasion 
 is quite the same as that which is current on a modern battle-
 
 ADVICE TO AN INTENDING SERIALIST. 297 
 
 field. " Ha ! English slave ! Yield, or thou diest ! " is an apos- 
 trophe more appropriate to the middle ages than the present 
 century; and although the patriotism of the answer by your 
 excellent opponent is undeniable, its propriety may be liable to 
 censure. Crossing the stage at four tremendous strides, the 
 glorious Gomersal replied, " Yield, saidst thou ? Never ! I tell 
 thee, Frenchman, that whilst the broad banner of Britain floats 
 over the regions on which the day-star never sets while peace 
 and plenty brood like guardian angels over the shores of my 
 own dear native isle whilst her sons are brave, and her daugh- 
 ters virtuous whilst the British lion reposes on his shadow in 
 perfect stillness whilst with thunders from our native oak we 
 quell the floods below I tell thee, base satellite of a tyrant, 
 that an Englishman never will surrender ! " In the applause 
 which followed this declaration, your remark, that several cen- 
 turies beheld you from the top of a canvass pyramid, was par- 
 tially lost upon the audience ; but to it you went tooth and nail 
 for at least a quarter of an hour ; and I must confess that the 
 manner in which you traversed the stage on your left knee, 
 parrying all the while the strokes of your infuriated adversary, 
 was highly creditable to your proficiency in the broadsword and 
 gymnastic exercises. 
 
 But all this, Smith, will not enable you to write a military 
 serial. I therefore hope, that on consideration you will abandon 
 the Algiers expedition, and keep Silas in his native island, 
 where, if you will follow my advice, you will find quite enough 
 for him to do in the way of incident and occupation. 
 
 Now let us return to the question of tendency. Once upon a 
 time, it was a trite rule by which all romance-writers were 
 guided, that in the denotement of their plots, virtue was invari- 
 ably rewarded, and vice as invariably punished. This gave a 
 kind of moral tone to their writings, which was not without its 
 effect upon our grandfathers and grandmothers, many of whom 
 were inclined to consider all works of fiction as direct emana- 
 tions from Beelzebub. The next generation became gradually 
 less nice and scrupulous, demanded more spice in their pottage, 
 and attached less importance to the prominence of an ethical 
 precept. At last we became, strictly speaking, a good deal
 
 298 ADVICE TO AN INTENDING SEPJALIST. 
 
 blackguardised in our taste. Ruffianism in the middle ages 
 bears about it a stamp of feudality which goes far to disguise 
 its lawlessness, and even to excuse its immorality. When a 
 German knight of the empire sacks and burns some peaceful and 
 unoffending village when a Bohemian marauder of noble birth 
 bears off some shrieking damsel from her paternal castle, having 
 previously slit the weasand of her brother, and then weds her 
 in a subterranean chapel or when a roaring red-bearded High- 
 lander drives his dirk into a ganger, or chucks a score of Sassen- 
 achs, tied back to back, with a few hundredweight of grauwacke 
 at their heels, into the loch we think less of the enormity of 
 the deeds than of the disagreeable habits of the times. It does 
 not follow that either German, Bohemian, or Celt, were other- 
 wise bad company or disagreeable companions over a flagon of 
 Rhenish, a roasted boar, or a gallon or so of usquebagh. But 
 when you come to the Newgate Calendar for subjects, I must 
 say that we are getting rather low. I do not know what your 
 feelings upon the subject may be, but I, for one, would certainly 
 hesitate before accepting an invitation to the town residence of 
 Mr Fagin ; neither should I feel at all comfortable if required 
 to plant my legs beneath the mahogany in company with Messrs 
 Dodger, Bates, and the rest of their vivacious associates. How- 
 ever fond I may be of female society, Miss Nancy is not quite the 
 sort of person I should fancy to look in upon of an evening about 
 tea-time ; and as for Bill Sykes, that infernal dog of his would 
 be quite enoiigh to prevent any advances of intimacy between 
 us. In fact, Smith, although you may think the confession a 
 squeamish one, I am not in the habit of selecting my acquaint- 
 ance from the inhabitants of St Giles, and on every possible 
 occasion I should eschew accepting their hospitalities. 
 
 I have, therefore, little opportunity of judging whether the 
 characters depicted by some of our later serialists are exact 
 copies from nature or the reverse. I have, however, heard 
 several young ladies declare them to be extremely natural, 
 though I confess to have been somewhat puzzled as to their 
 means of accurate information. But I may be allowed en pas- 
 sant to remark, that it seems difficult to imagine what kind of 
 pleasure can be derived from the description of a scene, which,
 
 ADVICE TO AN INTENDING SERIALIST. 299 
 
 if actually contemplated by the reader, would inspire him with. 
 loathing and disgust, or from conversations in which the brutal 
 alternates with the positively obscene. The fetid den of the 
 Jew, the stinking cellar of the thief, the squalid attic of the 
 prostitute, are not haunts for honest men, and the less that we 
 know of them the better. Such places no doubt exist the more 
 is the pity ; but so do dunghills, and a hundred other filthy 
 things, which the imagination shudders at whenever they are 
 forced upon it, for the man who willingly and deliberately 
 dwells upon such subjects, is, notwithstanding all pretext, in 
 heart and soul a nightman ! Don't tell me about close painting 
 after nature. Nature is not always to be painted as she really 
 is. Would you hang up such paintings in your drawing-room 1 
 If not, why suffer them in print to lie upon your drawing-room 
 tables? What are Eugene Sue and his English competitors, but 
 coarser and more prurient Ostades ? 
 
 Oh, but there is a moral in these things ! No doubt of it. 
 There is a moral in all sin and misery, as there is in all virtue 
 and happiness. There is a moral .everywhere, and the veriest 
 bungler cannot fail to seize it. But is that a reason why the 
 minds of our sons and daughters should be polluted by what is 
 notoriously the nearest thing to contact with absolute vice 
 namely, vivid and graphic descriptions of it by writers of un- 
 denied ability '( Did ' Life in London,' or the exploits of Tom, 
 Jerry, and Logic, make the youth of the metropolis more staid, 
 or inspire them with a wholesome horror of dissipation 1 Did 
 the memoirs of Casanova ever reclaim a rake the autobio- 
 graphy of David Haggart ever convert an aspiring pickpocket 
 or the daring feats of Jack Sheppard arrest one candidate for 
 the gallows ? These are the major cases; but look at the minor 
 ones. What are the favourite haunts of the heroes in even the 
 most blameless of our serials ? Pot-houses cigariums green- 
 rooms of theatres hells spunging-houses garrets and the 
 scullery ! Nice and improving all this isn't it, Smith ? for 
 the young and rising generation ! No need now for surreptitious 
 works, entitled ' A Guide to the Larks of London,' or so forth, 
 which used formerly to issue from the virgin press of Holywell 
 Street. Almost any serial will give hints enough to an acute
 
 300 ADVICE TO AN INTENDING SERIALIST. 
 
 boy, if he wishes to gain an initiative knowledge of subjects 
 more especially beneath the cognisance of the police. They will 
 at least guide him to the door with the red lamp burning over 
 it, and only one plank betwixt its iniquity and the open street. 
 And all this is for a moral ! Heaven knows, Smith, I am no 
 Puritan ; but when I think upon the men who now call them- 
 selves the lights of the age, and look back upon the past, I am 
 absolutely sick at heart, and could almost wish for a return of 
 the days of Mrs Radcliffe and the Castle of Otranto. 
 
 Now, my dear fellow, as I know you to be a thoroughly good- 
 hearted man not overgiven to liquor, although your estimate 
 of beer is a liberal one a constant husband, and, moreover, the 
 father of five or six promising olive-branches, I do not for a 
 moment suppose that you are likely to inweave any such 
 tendencies in your tale. You would consider it low to make a 
 prominent character of a scavenger ; and although some dozen 
 idiots who call themselves philanthropists would brand you as 
 an aristocrat for entertaining any such opinion, I think you are 
 decidedly in the right. But there is another tendency towards 
 which I suspect you are more likely to incline. You are a bit 
 of a Radical, and, like all men of genius, you pique yourself on 
 elbowing upwards. So far well. The great ladder, or rather 
 staircase, of ambition is open to all of us, and it is fortunately 
 broader than it is high. It is not the least too narrow to pre- 
 vent any one from approaching it, and after you have taken the 
 first step, there is nothing more than stamina and perseverance 
 required. But then I do not see that it is necessary to be per- 
 petually plucking at the coat-tails, or seizing hold of the ankles 
 of those who are before. Such conduct is quite as indecorous, 
 and indeed ungenerous, as it would be to kick back, and syste- 
 matically to smite with your heel the unprotected foreheads of 
 your followers. Nor would I be perpetually pitching brickbats 
 upwards, in order to show my own independence ; or raising a 
 howl of injustice, because another fellow was considerably 
 elevated above me. In the social system, which, as it stands at 
 present, has always stood, and will continue to stand long after 
 Astley's is forgotten, it is riot necessary that every one should 
 commence at the lowest round of the staircase. Their respective
 
 ADVICE TO AN INTENDING SERIALIST. 301 
 
 fathers and progenitors have secured an advantageous start for 
 many. They have achieved, as the case may be, either rank or 
 fame, or honour, or wealth, or credit and these possessions 
 they are surely entitled to leave as an inheritance to their off- 
 spring. If we want to rise higher in the social scale than they 
 did, we must make exertions for ourselves ; if we are indolent, 
 we must be contented to remain where we are, though at immi- 
 nent risk of descending. But you, I take it for granted, and 
 indeed the most of us who owe little to ancestral enterprise, and 
 are in fact men of the masses, are struggling forward towards 
 one or other of the good things specified above, and no doubt 
 we shall in time attain them. In the meanwhile, however, is it 
 just nay, is it wise that we should mar our own expectancies, 
 and depreciate the value of the prizes which we covet, by abus- 
 ing not only the persons but the position of those above us ? 
 How are they to blame ? Are they any the worse that they 
 stand, whether adventitiously or not, at a point which we are 
 endeavouring to reach ? Am I necessarily a miscreant because I 
 am born rich, and you a martyr because you are poor ? I do 
 not quite follow the argument. If there is any one to blame, 
 you will find their names written on the leaves of your own 
 family-tree ; but I don't see that on that account you have any 
 right to execrate me or my ancestors. 
 
 I am the more anxious to caution you against putting any 
 such rubbish into your pages, because I fear you have contracted 
 some sort of intimacy with a knot of utilitarian ninnyhammers. 
 The last time I had the pleasure of meeting you at the Ducrow's 
 Head, there was a seedy -looking, ill-conditioned fellow seated on 
 your right, who, between his frequent draughts of porter (which 
 you paid for), did nothing but abuse the upper classes as tyrants, 
 fools, and systematical grinders of the poor. I took the liberty, 
 as you may remember, of slightly differing from some of his 
 wholesale positions ; whereupon your friend, regarding me with 
 a cadaverous sneer, was pleased to mutter something about a 
 sycophant, the tenor of which I did not precisely comprehend. 
 
 Now unless I am shrewdly mistaken, this was one of the 
 earnest men fellows who are continually bawling to people to 
 go forward who set themselves up for popular teachers, and
 
 302 ADVICE TO AN INTENDING SERIALIST. 
 
 maunder about " a oneness of purpose," " intellectual elevation," 
 " aspirations after reality," and suchlike drivel, as though they 
 were absolute Solons, not blockheads of the muddiest water. 
 And I was sorry to observe that you rather seemed to agree with 
 the rusty patriot in some of his most sweeping strictures, and 
 evinced an inclination to adopt his theory of the coming Utopia, 
 which, judging from the odour that pervaded his apostolic per- 
 son and raiment, must bear a strong resemblance to a modern 
 gin-shop. Now, Smith, this will not do. There may be in- 
 equalities in this world, and there may also be injustice ; but it 
 is a very great mistake to hold that one-half of the population of 
 these islands is living in profligate ease upon the compulsory 
 labour of the other. I am not going to write a treatise for you 
 upon political economy ; but I ask you to reflect for a moment, 
 and you will see how ludicrous is the charge. This style of 
 thinking or, what is worse, this style of writing is positively 
 the most mischievous production of the present day. Disguised 
 under the specious aspect of philanthropy, it fosters self-conceit 
 and discontent, robs honest industry of that satisfaction which 
 is its best reward, and, instead of removing, absolutely creates 
 invidious class-distinctions. And I will tell you from what this 
 spirit arises it is the working of the meanest envy. 
 
 There never was a time when talent and genius and ability 
 had so fair a field as now. The power of the press is developed 
 to an extent which almost renders exaggeration impossible, and 
 yet it is still upon the increase. A thousand minds are now at 
 work where a few were formerly employed. We have become a 
 nation of readers and of writers. The rudiments of education, 
 whatever may be said of its higher branches, are generally dis- 
 tributed throughout the masses so much so, indeed, that with- 
 out them no man can hope to ascend one step in the social scale. 
 This is a great though an imperfect gain, and, like all such, it 
 has its evils. 
 
 Of these not the least is the astounding growth of quackery. 
 It assails us everywhere, and on every side ; and, with consum- 
 mate impudence, it asserts its mission to teach. Look at the 
 shoals of itinerant lecturers which at this moment are swarming 
 through the land. No department of science is too deep, no
 
 ADVICE TO AN INTENDING SERIALIST. 303 
 
 political question too abstruse, for their capacity. They have 
 their own theories on the subjects of philosophy and religion 
 of which theories I shall merely remark, that they differ in many 
 essentials from the standards both of church and college and 
 these they communicate to their audience with the least possible 
 regard to reservation. Had you ever the pleasure, Smith, of 
 meeting one of these gentlemen amongst the amenities of private 
 life ? I have upon various occasions enjoyed that luxury ; and, 
 so far as I am capable of judging, the Pericles of the platform 
 appeared to me a coarse-minded, illiterate, and ignorant Cockney, 
 with the manners and effrontery of a bagman. Such are the 
 class of men who affect to regenerate the people with the tongue, 
 and who are listened to even with avidity, because impudence, 
 like charity, can cover a multitude of defects ; and thus they 
 stand, like so many sons of Telamon, each secure behind the 
 shelter of his brazen shield. As to the pen-regenerators, they 
 are at least equally numerous. I do not speak of the established 
 press, the respectability and talent of which is undeniable ; but 
 of the minor crew, who earn their bread partly by fostering 
 discontent, and partly by pandering to the worst of human 
 passions. The merest whelp who can write a decent paragraph 
 considers himself, nowadays, entitled to assume the airs of 
 an Aristarchus, and will pronounce opinions, ex cathedrd, upon 
 every question, no matter of what importance, for he too is a 
 teacher of the people ! 
 
 This is the lowest sort of quackery ; but there are also higher 
 degrees. Our literature, of what ought to be the better sort, has 
 by no means escaped the infection. In former times, men who 
 devoted themselves to the active pursuit of letters brought to 
 the task not only high talent, but deep and measured thought, 
 and an accumulated fund of acquirement. They studied long 
 before they wrote, and attempted no subject until they had 
 thoroughly and comprehensively mastered its details. But we 
 live under a new system. There is no want of talent, though it 
 be of a rambling and disjointed kind ; but we look in vain 
 for marks of the previous study. Our authors deny the neces- 
 sity or advantage of an apprenticeship, and set up for masters 
 before they have learned the rudiments of their art, and they
 
 304 ADVICE TO AN INTENDING SEEIALIST. 
 
 dispense altogether with reflection. Few men now think before 
 they write. The consequence is that a great proportion of our 
 modern literature is of the very flimsiest description vivid, 
 sometimes, and not without sparkles of genuine humour, but so 
 ill constructed as to preclude the possibility of its long existence. 
 No one is entitled to reject models unless he has studied them 
 and detected their faults ; but this is considered by far too 
 tedious a process for modern ingenuity. We are thus inundated 
 with a host of clever writers, each relying upon his peculiar and 
 native ability, jesting for that is the humour of the time 
 against each other, and all of them forsaking nature, and running 
 deplorably into caricature. 
 
 These are the men who make the loudest outcry against the 
 social system, and who appear to be imbued with an intense 
 hatred of the aristocracy, and indeed of every one of our time- 
 honoured institutions. This I know has been denied ; but, in 
 proof of my assertion, I appeal to their published works. Read 
 any one of them through, and I ask you if you do not rise from 
 it with a sort of conviction, that you must search for the cardinal 
 virtues solely in the habitations of the poor that the rich are 
 hard, selfish, griping, and tyrannical and that the nobility are 
 either fools, spendthrifts, or debauchees ? Is it so, as a general 
 rule, in actual life ? Far from it. I do not need to be told of 
 the virtue and industry which grace the poor man's lot ; for we 
 all feel and know it, and God forbid that it should be otherwise. 
 But we know also that there is as great, if not greater, temptation 
 in the hovel than in the palace, with fewer counteracting effects 
 from education and principle to withstand it ; and it is an insult 
 to our understanding to be told, that fortune and station are in 
 effect but other words for tyranny, callousness, and crime. 
 
 The fact is, that most of these authors know nothing whatever 
 of the society which they affect to describe, but which in truth 
 they grossly libel. Their starting-point is usually not a high 
 one ; but by dint of some talent in certain cases great and a 
 vivacity of style, joined with a good deal of drollery and power 
 of bizarre description, they at last gain a portion of the public 
 favour, and become in a manner notables. This is as it should 
 be ; and such progress is always honourable. Having arrived
 
 ADVICE TO AN INTENDING SERIALIST. 305 
 
 at this point, not without a certain degree of intoxication con- 
 sequent upon success, our author begins to look about him and 
 to consider his own position and he finds that position to be 
 both new and anomalous. On the one hand he has become a 
 lion. The newspapers are full of his praises ; his works are 
 dramatised at the minor theatres ; he is pointed at in the streets, 
 and his publisher is clamorous for copy. At small literary 
 reunions he is the cynosure of all eyes. And so his organ of 
 self-esteem continues to expand day by day, until he fancies 
 himself entitled to a statue near the altar in the Temple of 
 Fame not very far, perhaps, from those of Shakespeare, of 
 Spenser, or of Scott. One little drop of gall, however, is mingled 
 in the nectar of his cup. He does not receive that consideration 
 which he thinks himself entitled to from the higher classes. 
 Peers do not wait upon him with pressing invitations to their 
 country-seats ; nor does he receive any direct intimation of the 
 propriety of presenting himself at Court. This appears to him 
 not only strange, but grossly unfair. He is one of nature's 
 aristocracy at least so he thinks ; and yet he is regarded with 
 indifference by the body of the class aristocrats ! Why is this? 
 He knows they have heard of his name ; he is convinced that they 
 have read his works, and been mightily tickled thereby ; yet how 
 is it that they show no manner of thirst whatever for his society ? 
 In vain he lays in scores of apple-green satin waistcoats, florid 
 cravats, and a wilderness of mosaic jewellery in vain he makes 
 himself conspicuous wherever he can he is looked at, to be 
 sure, but the right hand of fellowship is withheld. Gradually 
 he becomes savage and indignant. No man knows better than 
 himself that not one scion of the aristocracy could write a serial 
 or a novel at all to be compared to his ; and yet Lord John and 
 Lord Frederick both of them literary men too do not insist 
 upon walking with him in the streets, and never once offer to 
 introduce him to the bosom of their respective families ! Our 
 friend becomes rapidly bilious ; is seized with a moral jaundice ; 
 and vows that, in his next work, he will do his uttermost to 
 show up that confounded aristocracy. And he keeps his vow. 
 
 Now, Smith, to say the least of it, this is remarkably silly 
 conduct, and it argues but little for the intellect and the temper 
 
 U
 
 306 ADVICE TO AX INTENDING SERIALIST. 
 
 of the man. It is quite true that the English aristocracy, gene- 
 rally speaking, do not consider themselves bound to associate 
 with every successful candidate for the public favour ; but they 
 neither despise him nor rob him of one tittle of his due. The 
 higher classes of society are no more exclusive than the lower. 
 Each circle is formed upon principles peculiar to itself, amongst 
 which are undoubtedly similarity of interest, of position, and of 
 taste ; and it is quite right that it should be so. You will 
 understand this more clearly if I bring the case home to your- 
 self. I shall suppose that the success of Silas Spavinhitch is 
 something absolutely triumphant that it sells by tens and hun- 
 dreds of thousands, and that the treasury of your publisher is 
 bursting with the accumulated silver. You find yourself, in 
 short, the great literary lion of the day the intellectual work- 
 man who has produced the consummate masterpiece of the age. 
 What, under such circumstances, would be your wisest line of 
 conduct 1 I should decidedly say, to establish an account at 
 your banker's, enjoy yourself reasonably with your friends, make 
 Mrs Smith and your children as happy as possible, and tackle 
 to another serial without deviating from the tenor of your way. 
 I would not, if I were you, drop old acquaintances, or insist 
 clamorously upon having new ones. I should look upon myself, 
 not as a very great man, but as a very fortunate one ; and I 
 would not step an inch from my path to exchange compliments 
 with King or with Kaiser. Don't you think such conduct would be 
 more rational than quarrelling with society because you are not 
 worshipped as a sort of demigod ? Is the Duke of Devonshire 
 obliged to ask you to dinner because you are the author of 
 Silas Spavinhitch 1 Take my word for it, Smith, you would 
 feel excessively uncomfortable if any such invitation came. I 
 think I see you at a ducal table, with an immense fellow in 
 livery behind you, utterly bewildered as to how you should be- 
 have yourself, and quite as much astounded as Abon Hassan 
 when hailed by Mesrour, chief of the eunuchs, as the true Com- 
 mander of the Faithful ! How gladly would you not exchange 
 the souffles and salmis for a rump-steak and onions in the back- 
 parlour of the Ducrow's Head ! Far rather would you be im- 
 bibing porter with Widdicomb than drinking Hermitage witli
 
 ADVICE TO AN INTENDING SERIALIST. 307 
 
 his Grace ; and oh ! horror of horrors ! you have capsized some- 
 thing with a French name into the lap of the dowager next you, 
 and your head swims round with a touch of temporary apoplexy, 
 as you observe the snigger on the countenance of the opposite 
 lackey, who, menial as he is, considers himself at bottom quite 
 as much of a gentleman and as conspicuous a public character 
 as yourself. 
 
 And mercy on me ! what would you make of yourself at a 
 ball ? You are a good-looking fellow, Smith, and nature has 
 been bountiful to you in calf; but I would not advise you to 
 sport that plum-coloured coat and azure waistcoat of an even- 
 ing. Believe me, that though you may pass muster in such a 
 garb most creditably on the Surrey side, there are people in 
 Grosvenor Square who will unhesitatingly pronounce you a 
 tiger. And pray, with whom are you going to dance ? You 
 confess to yourself, whilst working on those relentless and im- 
 practicable kids, that you do not know a single soul in the 
 saloon except the man who brought you there, and he has 
 speedily abandoned you. That staid, haughty-looking lady with 
 the diamonds, is a Countess in her own right, and those two 
 fair girls with the auburn ringlets are her daughters, the flower 
 of the English nobility, and the name they bear is conspicuous 
 in history up to the Conquest. Had you not better walk up to 
 the noble matron, announce yourself as the author of Silas 
 Spavinhitch, and request an introduction to Lady Edith or Lady 
 Maude ? You would just as soon consent to swing yourself 
 like Fra Diavolo 011 the slack rope ! And suppose that you 
 were actually introduced to Lady Maude, how would you con- 
 trive to amuse her ? With anecdotes of the back slums, or the 
 green-room, or the witticisms of medical students ? Would you 
 tell her funny stories about the loves of the bagman, or recrea- 
 tions with a migratory giantess in the interior of a provincial 
 caravan 1 Do you think that, with dulcet prattle of this sort, 
 you could manage to efface the impression made long ago upon 
 her virgin heart by that handsome young guardsman, who is 
 now regarding you with a glance prophetic of a coming flagella- 
 tion ? Surely, you misguided creature, you are not going to 
 expose yourself by dancing 1 Yes, you are ! You once danced
 
 308 ADVICE TO AN INTENDING SERIALIST. 
 
 a polka with little Laura Wilkins on the boards at Astley's, 
 aud ever since that time you have been labouring under the de- 
 lusion that you are a consummate Vestris. So you claw your 
 shrinking partner round the waist, and set off, prancing like 
 the pony that performs a pas-seul upon its hinder legs ; and 
 after bouncing against several couples in your rash and erratic 
 career, you are arrested by the spur of a dragoon, which rips 
 up your inexpressibles, lacerates your ankle, and stretches you 
 on the broad of your back upon the floor, to the intense and 
 uuextinguishable delight of the assembled British aristocracy. 
 
 Or, by way of a change, what would you say to go down with 
 your acquaintance, Lord Walter, to Melton 1 You ride well 
 that is, upon several horses, with one foot upon the crupper of 
 the first, and the other upon the shoulder of the fourth. But a 
 hunting-field is another matter. I think I see you attempting 
 to assume a light aud jaunty air in the saddle ; your long 
 towsy hair flowing gracefully over the collar of your spotless 
 pink ; and the nattiest of conical castors secured by a ribbon 
 upon the head which imagined the tale of Spavinhitch. You 
 have not any very distinct idea of what is going to take place ; 
 but you resolve to demean yourself like a man, aud cover your 
 confusion with a cigar. The hounds are thrown into cover. 
 There is a yelping and the scouring of many brushes among 
 the furze ; a red hairy creature bolts out close beside you, and, 
 with a bray of insane triumph, you commence to canter after 
 him, utterly regardless of the cries of your fellow-sportsmen, 
 entreating you to hold hard. In a couple of minutes more, you 
 are in the middle of the hounds, knocking out the brains of 
 one, crushing the spine of another, and fracturing the legs of a 
 third. A shout of anger rises behind ; no matter on you go. 
 Accidents will happen in the best-regulated hunting-fields and 
 what business had these stupid brutes to get under your horse's 
 legs 1 Otherwise, you are undeniably ahead of the field ; and 
 won't you show those tiptop fellows how a serialist can go the 
 pace ? But your delusion is drawing to an end. There is a 
 clattering of hoofs, and a resonant oath behind you and smack 
 over your devoted shoulders conies the avenging whip of the 
 huntsman, frantic at the loss of his most favourite hounds, aud
 
 ADVICE TO AN INTENDING SERIALIST. 309 
 
 execrating you for a clumsy tailor. " Serve him right, Jem ! 
 Give it him agaiu !" cries the Master of the Hounds a very 
 different person from your old friend the Master of the Ring 
 as the scarlet crowd rushes by; and again and again, with 
 intensest anguish, you writhe beneath the thong wielded by the 
 brawny groom and, after sufficient chastisement, sneak home 
 to anoint your aching back, and depart, ere the sportsmen 
 return, for your own Paddiugtonian domicile. 
 
 Now, Smith, are you not convinced that it would be the 
 height of folly to expose yourself to any such unpleasant occur- 
 rences ? To be sure you are ; and yet there are some dozen of 
 men, no better situated than yourself, who would barter their 
 ears for the chance of being made such laughingstocks for life. 
 The innate good sense and fine feeling of the upper classes, pre- 
 vents these persons from assuming so extremely false and ridi- 
 culous a position, and yet this consideration is rewarded by 
 the most foul and malignant abuse. It is high time that these 
 gentlemen should be brought to their senses, and taught the 
 real value of themselves and of their writings. Personally they 
 are objectionable and offensive relatively they are bores and, 
 in a literary point of view, they have done much more to lower 
 than to elevate the artistic standard of the age. Their affecta- 
 tion of philanthropy and maudlin sentiment is too shallow to 
 deceive any one who is possessed of the ordinary intellect of a 
 man ; and in point of wit and humour, which is their strong- 
 hold, the best of them is far inferior to Paul de Kock, whose 
 works are nearly monopolised for perusal by ihefldneurs and 
 the (jrisettes of Paris. 
 
 Take my advice then, and have nothing to say to the earnest 
 and oneness-of-purpose men. They are not only weak but 
 wicked ; and they will lead you most lamentably astray. Let 
 us now look a little into your style, which, after all, is a matter 
 of some importance in a serial. 
 
 On the whole, I like it. It is nervous, terse, and epigrammatic 
 a little too high-flown at times ; but I was fully prepared for 
 that. What I admire most, however, is your fine feeling of 
 humanity the instinct, as it were, and dumb life which you 
 manage to extract from inanimate objects as well as from articu-
 
 310 ADVICE TO AX INTENDING SERIALIST. 
 
 lately-speaking men. Your very furniture has a kind of auto- 
 matic life ; you can make an old chest of drawers wink wag- 
 gishly from the corner, and a bootjack in your hands becomes 
 a fellow of infinite fancy. This is all very pleasant and delight- 
 ful ; though I think, upon the whole, you give us a little too 
 much of it, for I cannot fancy myself quite comfortable in a 
 room with every article of the furniture maintaining a sort of 
 espionage upon my doings. Then as to your antiquarianism 
 you are perfect. Your description of " the old deserted stable, 
 with the old rusty harness hanging upon the old decayed nails, 
 so honeycombed, as it were by the tooth of time, that you won- 
 dered how they possibly could support the weight ; while across 
 the span of an old discoloured stirrup a great spider had thrown 
 his web, and now lay waiting in .the middle of it, a great hairy 
 bag of venom, for the approach of some unlucky fly, like a 
 usurer on the watch for a spendthrift," that description, I say, 
 almost brought tears to my eyes. The catalogue, also, which 
 you give us of the decayed currycombs all clogged with grease, 
 the shaukless besoms, the worm-eaten corn-chest, and all the 
 other paraphernalia of the desolate stable, is as finely graphic 
 as anything which I ever remember to have read. 
 
 But your best scene is the opening one, in which you intro- 
 duce us to the aerial dwelling of Estrella de Canterini, in Lam- 
 beth. I do not wish to flatter you, my dear fellow ; but I hold 
 it to be a perfect piece of composition. 
 
 It is enough to substantiate your claim and I am sure the 
 public will coincide with me in this opinion to a very high 
 place amongst the domestic and sentimental writers of the age. 
 You have, and I think most wisely, undertaken to frame a new 
 code of grammar and of construction for yourself; and the light 
 and airy effect of this happy innovation is conspicuous not only 
 in every page, but in almost every sentence of your work. 
 There is no slipslop here only a fine, manly disregard of syntax 
 which is infinitely attractive ; and I cannot doubt that you are 
 destined to become the founder of a far higher and more endur- 
 ing school of composition, than that which was approved of and 
 employed by the fathers of our English literature. 
 
 Your work will be translated, Smith, into French and Ger-
 
 ADVICE TO AN INTENDING SEKIALIST. 311 
 
 man, and other European languages. I am sincerely glad of it. 
 It is supposed abroad that a popular author must depict both 
 broadly and minutely the manners of his particular nation 
 that his sketches of character have reference not only to indivi- 
 duals, but to the idiosyncrasy of the country in which he dwells. 
 Your works, therefore, will be received in the saloons of Paris 
 aud Vienna it may be of St Petersburg as conveying accu- 
 rate pictures of our everyday English life ; and I need hardly 
 remark how much that impression must tend to elevate our 
 national character in the eyes of an intelligent foreigner. 
 Labouring under old and absurd prejudices, he perhaps at pre- 
 sent believes that we are a sober, unmercurial people, given to 
 domestic habits, to the accumulation of wealth, and to our own 
 internal improvements. It is reserved for you, Smith, to couch 
 his visionary eye. You will convince him that a great part of 
 our existence is spent about the doors of theatres, in tap-rooms, 
 pot-houses, and other haunts, which I need not stay to particu- 
 larise. You will prove to him that the British constitution 
 rests upon no sure foundation, and that it is based upon injus- 
 tice and tyranny. Above all, he will learn from you the true 
 tone which pervades society, and the altered style of conversa- 
 tion and morals which is universally current among us. In 
 minor things, he will discover, what few authors have taken 
 pains to show, the excessive fondness of our nation for a pure 
 Saxon nomenclature. He will learn that such names as Sey- 
 mour and Howard and Percy nay, even our old familiars, 
 Jones and Robinson are altogether proscribed among us, and 
 that a new race has sprung up in their stead, rejoicing in the 
 euphonious appellations of Tox and Wox, Whibble, Toozle, 
 Whopper, Sniggleshaw, Guzzlerit, Gingerthorpe, Mugswitch, 
 Smungle, Yelkins, Fizgig, Parksnap, Grubsby, Shoutowker, 
 Hogswash, and Quiltirogus. He will also learn that our magis- 
 trates, unlike the starched official dignitaries of France, are not 
 ashamed to partake, in the public streets, of tripe with a com- 
 mon workman and a hundred other little particulars, which 
 throw a vast light into the chinks and crevices of our social 
 system. 
 
 I therefore, Smith, have the highest satisfaction in greeting
 
 312 ADVICE TO AN INTENDING SERIALIST. 
 
 you, not only as an accomplished author, but as a great national 
 benefactor. Go on, my dear fellow, steadfastly and cheerfully, 
 as you have begun. The glories of our country were all very 
 well in their way, but the subject is a hackneyed one, and it is 
 scarcely worth while to revive it. Be it yours to chronicle the 
 weaknesses and peculiarities of that society which you frequent 
 no man can do it better. Draw on for ever with the same 
 felicitous pencil. Do not fear to repeat yourself over and over 
 again ; to indulge in the same style of one-sided caricature ; and 
 to harp upon the same string of pathos so long as it will vibrate 
 pleasantly to the public ear. What we want, after all, is sale, 
 and I am sure that you will not be disappointed. Use these 
 hints as freely as you please, in the composition of that part of 
 Silas Spavinhitch which is not yet completed ; and be assured 
 that I have offered them not in an arrogant spirit, but, as some 
 of our friends would say, with an earnest tendency and a seri- 
 ous oneness of purpose. Good-bye, my dear Smith ! It is a 
 positive pain to me to break off this letter, but I must conclude. 
 Adieu .' and pray, for all our sakes and your own, take care of 
 yourself.
 
 MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 FEBRUARY 1849. 
 
 THE ancients who lived beyond the reach of the fangs and feelers 
 of the printing-press, had, in one respect, a decided advantage 
 over us unlucky moderns. They were not beset by the terrors 
 of biography. No hideous suspicion that, after he was dead and 
 gone after the wine had been poured upon the hissing embers 
 of the pyre, and the ashes consigned, by the hands of weeping 
 friends, to the oblivion of the funereal urn some industrious 
 gossip of his acquaintance would incontinently sit down to the 
 task of laborious compilation and collection of his literary scraps, 
 ever crossed, like a sullen shadow, the imagination of the Greek 
 or the Latin poet. Homer, though Arctinus was his near rela- 
 tive, could unbosom himself without the fear of having his 
 frailties posthumously exposed, or his amours blazoned to the 
 world. Lucius Varius and Plotius Tucca, the literary executors 
 of Virgil, never dreamed of applying to Pollio for the I U's 
 which he doubtless held in the handwriting of the Mantuan 
 bard, or to Horace for the confidential notes suggestive of Faler- 
 nian inspiration. Socrates, indeed, has found a liberal reporter 
 in Plato ; but this is a pardonable exception. The son of So- 
 phroniscus did not write ; and therefore it was incumbent on 
 his pupil to preserve for posterity the fragments of his oral 
 wisdom. The ancient authors rested their reputation upon their 
 published works alone. They knew, what we seem to forget, 
 that the poet, apart from his genius, is but an ordinary man, 
 and, in many cases, has received, along with that gift, a larger 
 share of propensities and weaknesses than his fellow-mortals.
 
 314 MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Therefore it was that they insisted upon that right of domestic 
 privacy which is common to us all. The poet, in his public 
 capacity as an author, held himself responsible for what he 
 wrote ; but he had no idea of allowing the whole world to walk 
 into his house, open his desk, read his love-letters, and criticise 
 the state of his finances. Had Varius and Tucca acted on the 
 modern system, the ghost of Virgil would have haunted them on 
 their deathbeds. Only think what a legacy might have been 
 ours if these respectable gentlemen had written to Cremona for 
 anecdotes of the poet while at school ! No doubt, in some 
 private nook of the old farmhouse at Andes, there were trea- 
 sured up, through the infinite love of the mother, tablets scratched 
 over with verses, composed by young Master Maro at the preco- 
 cious age of ten. We may, to a certainty, calculate for maternal 
 fondness always has been the same, and Virgil was an only 
 child that, in that emporium, themes upon such topics as 
 " Virtus est sola nobilitas" were religiously treasured, along 
 with other memorials of the dear, dear boy who had gone to 
 college at Naples. Modern Varius would remorselessly have 
 printed these: ancient Tucca was more discreet. Then what 
 say you to the college career 1 Would it not be a nice thing to 
 have all the squibs and feuds, the rows and racketings of the 
 jovial student preserved to us precisely as they were penned, 
 projected, and perpetrated ? Have we not lost a great deal in 
 being defrauded of an account of the manner in which he singed 
 the wig of his drunken old tutor, Parthenius Nicenus, or the 
 scandalously late hours which he kept in company witli his 
 especial chums ? Then comes the period, darkly hinted at by 
 Donatus, during which he was, somehow or other, connected 
 with the imperial stable ; that is, we presume, upon the turf. 
 What would we not give for a sight of Virgil's betting-book ! 
 Did he. bark the field, or did he take the odds on the Emperor's 
 bay mare, Alma Venus Genetrix ? How stood lie with the legs? 
 What sort of reputation did he maintain in the ring of the 
 Roman Tattei sail '. Was lie ever posted as a defaulter 1 Tucca ! 
 you should have told us this. Then, when sobered down, and in 
 high favour with the court, where is the private correspondence 
 between him and Miccenas, the President of the Roman Agricul-
 
 MODERN BIOGEAPHY. 315 
 
 tural Society, touching the compilation of the Georgics ? The 
 excellent Equestrian, we know, wanted Virgil to construct a 
 poem, such as Thomas Tusser afterwards wrote, under the title 
 of a 'Hondredth Good Points of Husbandrie,' and, doubtless, 
 waxed warm in his letters about draining, manure, and mangel- 
 wurzel. What sacrifice would we not make to place that cor- 
 respondence in the hands of Henry Stephens ! How the author 
 of the ' Book of the Farm' would revel in his exposure of the 
 crude theories of the Minister of the Interior ! What a formid- 
 able phalanx of facts would he oppose to Maecenas's misconcep- 
 tions of guano ! Through the sensitive delicacy of his executors, 
 we have lost the record of Virgil's repeated larks with Horace ; 
 the pleasant little supper-parties celebrated at the villa of that 
 dissipated rogue Tibullus, have passed from the memory of man- 
 kind. We know nothing of the state of his finances, for they 
 have not thought fit to publish his banking-account with the 
 firm of Lollius, Spursena, and Company. Their duty, as they 
 fondly believed, was fulfilled, when they gave to the world the 
 glorious but unfinished .ZEneid. 
 
 Under the modern system, we constantly ask ourselves whether 
 it is wise to wish for greatness, and whether total oblivion is not 
 preferable to fame with the penalty of exposure annexed. We 
 shudder at the thoughts of putting out a book, not from fear of 
 anything that the critics can do, but lest it should take with the 
 public, and expose us to the dangers of a posthumous biography. 
 Were we to awake some fine morning, and find ourselves famous, 
 our peace of mind would be gone for ever. Mercy on us ! what 
 a quantity of foolish letters have we not written during the days 
 of our youth, under the confident impression that, when read, 
 they would be immediately committed to the flames. Madrigals 
 innumerable recur to our memory ; and if these were published, 
 there would be no rest for us in the grave ! If any misguided 
 critic should say of us, " The works of this author are destined 
 to descend to posterity," our response would be a hollow groan. 
 If convinced that our biography would be attempted, from that 
 hour the friend of our bosom would appear in the light of a base 
 and ignominious spy. How durst we ever unbosom ourselves to 
 him, when, for aught we know, the wretch may be treasuring up
 
 316 MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 our casual remarks over the fifth tumbler, for immediate regis- 
 tration at home ? Constitutionally we are not hard-hearted ; 
 but, were we so situated, we own that the intimation of the 
 decease of each early acquaintance would be rather a relief than 
 otherwise. Tom, our intimate fellow-student at college, dies. 
 We may be sorry for the family of Thomas, but we soon wipe 
 away the natural drops, discovering that there is balm in 
 Gilead. We used to write letters to him, detailing minutely 
 our inward emotions at the time we were distractedly in love 
 with Jemima Higginbotham ; and Tom, who was always a 
 methodical dog, has no doubt docqueted them as received. 
 Tom's heirs will doubtless be too keen upon the scent of valua- 
 bles, to care one farthing for rhapsodising : therefore, unless 
 they are sent to the snuff-merchant, or disseminated as auto- 
 graphs, our epistles run a fair chance of perishing by the flames, 
 and one evidence of our weakness is removed. A member of 
 the club meets us in George Street, and with a rueful longitude 
 of countenance, asks us if we have heard of the death of poor 
 Harry I To the eternal disgrace of human nature be it re- 
 corded, OUT heart leaps up within us like a foot-ball, as we hypo- 
 critically have recourse to our cambric. Harry knew a great 
 deal too much about our private history just before we joined 
 the Yeomanry, and could have told some stories, little flattering 
 to our posthumous renown. 
 
 Are we not right, then, in holding that, under the present sys- 
 tem, celebrity is a thing to be eschewed ? Why is it that one 
 and all of us are chary of admitting a certain class of Yankees to 
 the privacy of our social hearth 1 Simply for this reason, that 
 as sure as there are huckleberries in Connecticut, Silas Fixings 
 will take down your whole conversation in black and white, de- 
 liberately alter it to suit his private purposes, and Tranaatlanti- 
 cally retail it as a specimen of your life and opinions. And is it 
 not a still more horrible idea that a Silas may be perpetually 
 watching you in the shape of a pretended friend ? If the man 
 would at once declare his intention, you might be comparatively 
 at ease. Even in that case you never could love him more, for 
 the confession implies a disgusting determination of outliving 
 you, or rather a hint that your health is not remarkably robust,
 
 MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 317 
 
 which would irritate the meekest of mankind. But you might 
 be enabled, through a strong effort, to repress the outward exhi- 
 bition of your wrath ; and, if high religious principle should 
 deter you from mixing strychnia or prussic acid with the wine 
 of your volunteering executor, you may at least contrive to blind 
 him by cautiously maintaining your guard. Were we placed in 
 such a trying position, we should utter, before our intending 
 Boswell, nothing save sentiments which might have flowed from 
 the lips of the Venerable Bede. What letters, full of morality 
 and high feeling, would we not indite ! Not an invitation to 
 dinner not an acceptance of a tea and turn-out, but should be 
 flavoured with some wholesome apophthegm. Thus we should 
 strive, through our later correspondence, to efface the memory of 
 the earlier, which it is impossible to recall, not withoxit a hope 
 that we might throw upon it, if posthumously produced, a tolera- 
 ble imputation of forgery. 
 
 In these times, we repeat, no man of the least mark or likeli- 
 hood is safe. The waiter with the bandy-legs, who hands round 
 the negus-tray at a blue-stocking coterie, is in all probability a 
 leading contributor to a fifth-rate periodical ; and, in a few days 
 al'trr you have been rash enough to accept the insidious beve- 
 rage, M'Tavish will be correcting the proof of an article in which 
 your appearance and conversation are described. Distrust the 
 gentleman in the plush terminations ; he, too, is a penny-a-liner, 
 and keeps a commonplace-book in the pantry. Better give up 
 writing at once than live in such a perpetual state of bondage. 
 What amount of present fame can recompense you for being 
 shown up as a noodle, or worse, to your children's children ? 
 Nay, recollect this, that you are implicating your personal, and, 
 perhaps, most innocent friends. Bob accompanies you home 
 from an insurance society dinner, where the champagne has been 
 rather superabundant, and, next morning, you, as a bit of fun, 
 write to the President that the watchman had picked up Bob in 
 a state of helpless inebriety from the kennel. The President, 
 after the manner of the Fogies, duly docquets your note with 
 name and date, and puts it up with a parcel of others, secured 
 by red tape. You die. Your literary executor writes to the 
 President, stating his biographical intentions, and requesting all
 
 318 MODEEN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 documents that may tend to throw light upon your personal his- 
 tory. Preses, in deep ecstasy at the idea of seeing his name in 
 print as the recipient of your epistolary favours, immediately 
 transmits the packet; and the consequence is, that Robert is 
 most unjustly handed down to posterity in the character of a 
 habitual drunkard, although it is a fact that a more abstinent 
 creature never went home to his wife at ten. If you are an 
 author, and your spouse is ailing, don't give the details to your 
 intimate friend, if you would not wish to publish them to the 
 world. Drop all correspondence, if you are wise, and have any 
 ambition to stand well in the eyes of the coming generation. 
 Let your conversation be as curt as a Quaker's, and select no one 
 for a friend, unless you have the meanest possible opinion of his 
 capacity. Even in that case you are hardly secure. Perhaps 
 the best mode of combining philanthropy, society, and safety, is 
 to have nobody in the house, save an old woman who is so utterly 
 deaf that you must order your dinner by pantomime. 
 
 One mode of escape suggests itself, and we do not hesitate to 
 recommend it. Let every man who underlies the terror of the 
 peine forte et dure, compile his own autobiography at the ripe 
 age of forty-five. Few people, in this country, begin to establish 
 a permanent reputation before thirty ; and we allow them fifteen 
 years to complete it. Now, supposing your existence should be 
 protracted to seventy, here are clear five-and-twenty years re- 
 maining, which may be profitably employed in autobiography, 
 by which means you secure three vast advantages. In the first 
 place, you can deal with your own earlier history as you please, 
 and provide against the subsequent production of inconvenient 
 documents. In the second place, you defeat the intentions of 
 your excellent friend and gossip, who will hardly venture to 
 start his volumes in competition with your own. In the third 
 place, you leave an additional copyright as a legacy to your 
 children, and are not haunted in your last moments by the 
 agonising thought that a stranger in name and blood is preparing 
 to make money by your decease. It is, of course, unnecessary to 
 say one word regarding the general tone of your memoirs. If 
 you cannot contrive to block out such a fancy portrait of your 
 intellectual self as shall throw all others into the shade, you may
 
 MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 319 
 
 walk on fearlessly through life, for your biography never will be 
 attempted. Goethe, the most accomplished literary fox of our 
 age, perfectly understood the value of these maxims, and fore- 
 stalled his friends, by telling his own story in time. The con- 
 sequence is, that his memory has escaped unharmed. Little 
 Eckermann, his amanuensis in extreme old age, did indeed con- 
 trive to deliver himself of a small Boswelliau volume ; but this 
 publication, bearing reference merely to the dicta of Goethe at a 
 safe period of life, could not injure the departed poet. The re- 
 petition of the early history, and the publication of the early 
 documents, are the points to be especially guarded. 
 
 We beg that these remarks may be considered, not as strictures 
 upon any individual example, but as bearing upon the general 
 style of modern biography. This is a gossiping world, in which 
 great men are the exceptions ; and when one of these ceases to 
 exist, the public becomes clamorous to learn the whole minutiae 
 of his private life. This is a depraved taste, and one which 
 ought not to be gratified. The author is to be judged by the 
 works which he voluntarily surrenders to the public, not by the 
 tenor of his private history, which ought not to be irreverently 
 exposed. Thus, in compiling the life of a poet, we maintain 
 that a literary executor has purely a literary function to perform. 
 Out of the mass of materials which he may fortuitously collect, 
 his duty is to select such portions as may illustrate the public 
 doings of the man : he may, without transgressing the boundaries 
 of propriety, inform us of the circumstances which suggested the 
 idea of any particular work, the difficulties which were overcome 
 by the author in the course of its composition, and even exhibit 
 the correspondence relative thereto. These are matters of liter- 
 ary history which we may ask for, and obtain, without any breach 
 of the conventional rules of society. Whatever refers to public 
 life is public, and may be printed : whatever refers solely to 
 domestic existence is private, and ought to be held sacred. A 
 very little reflection, we think, will demonstrate the propriety of 
 this distinction. If we have a dear and valued friend, to whom, 
 in the hours of adversity or of joy, we are wont to communicate 
 the thoughts which lie at the bottom of our soul, we write to 
 him in the full conviction that he will regard these letters as
 
 320 MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 addressed to himself alone. We do not insult him, nor wrong 
 the holy attributes of friendship so much as to warn him against 
 communicating our thoughts to any one else in the world. We 
 never dream that he will do so, else assuredly those letters never 
 would have "been written. If we were to discover that we had 
 so grievously erred as to repose confidence in a person who, the 
 moment he received a letter penned in a paroxysm of emotion 
 and revealing a secret of our existence, was capable of exhibiting 
 it to the circle of his acquaintance, of a surety he should never 
 more be troubled with any of our correspondence. Would any 
 man dare to print such documents during the life of the writer ? 
 We need not pause for a reply : there can be but one. And wliy 
 is this ? Because these communications bear on their face the 
 stamp of the strictest privacy because they were addressed to, 
 and meant for the eye of but one human being in the universe 
 because they betray the emotions of a soul which asks sympathy 
 from a friend, with only less reverence than it implores comfort 
 from its God ! Does death, then, free the friend and the confi- 
 dant from all restraint ? If the knowledge that his secret had 
 been divulged, his agonies exposed, his weaknesses surrendered 
 to the vulgar gaze, could have pained the living man is nothing 
 due to his memory, now that he is laid beneath the turf, now 
 that his voice can never more be raised to upbraid a violated 
 confidence 1 Many modern biographers, we regret to say, do not ap- 
 pear to be influenced by any such consideration. They never seem 
 to have asked themselves the question Would my friend, if he had 
 been compiling his own memoirs, have inserted such a letter for 
 publication does it not refer to a matter eminently private and 
 personal, and never to be communicated to the world ? Instead 
 of applying this test, they print everything, and rather plume 
 themselves on their impartiality in suppressing nothing. They 
 thus exhibit the life not only of the author but of the man. 
 Literary and personal history are blended together. The senator 
 is not only exhibited in the House of Commons, but we are 
 courteously invited to attend at the accouchement of his wife. 
 
 What title has any of us, in the abstract, to write the private 
 history of his next-door neighbour ? Be he poet, lawyer, physi- 
 cian, or divine, his private sayings and doings are his property,
 
 MODERN BIOGEAPHY. 321 
 
 not that of a gaping and curious public. No man dares to say 
 to another, " Come, my good fellow ! it is full time that the 
 world should know a little about -your domestic concerns. I 
 have been keeping a sort of note-book of your proceedings ever 
 since we were at school together, and I intend to make a few 
 pounds by exhibiting you in your true colours. You recollect 
 when you were in love with old Tomnoddy's daughter ? I have 
 written a capital account of your interview with her that fine 
 afternoon in the Botanical Gardens ! True, she jilted you, and 
 went off with young Heavystern of the Dragoons, but the public 
 won't relish the scene a bit the less on that account. Then I 
 have got some letters of yours from our common friend Fitzjaw. 
 How very hard-up you must have been at the time when you 
 supplicated him for twenty pounds to keep you out of jail ! You 
 were rather severe, the other day when I met you at dinner, 
 upon your professional brother Jenkinson ; but I daresay that 
 what you said was all very true, so I shall publish that likewise. 
 By the way, how is your wife ? She had a lot of money, had 
 she not ? At all events people say so, and it is shrewdly sur- 
 mised that you did not marry her for her beauty. I don't mean 
 to say that / think so, but such is the on dit, and I have set it 
 down accordingly in my journal. Do, pray, tell me about that 
 quarrel between you and your mother-in-law ! Is it true that 
 she threw a joint-stool at your head ? How our friends will 
 roar when they see the details in print !" Is the case less flagrant 
 if the manuscript is not sent to press until our neighbour is 
 deposited in his coffin ? We cannot perceive the difference. If 
 the feelings of living people are to be taken as a criterion, only 
 one of the domestic actors is removed from the stage of existence. 
 Old Tomnoddy still lives, and may not be abundantly gratified 
 at the fact of his daughter's infidelity and elopement being pro- 
 claimed. The intimation of the garden scene, hitherto unknown 
 to Heavystern, may fill his warlike bosom with jealousy, and 
 ultimately occasion a separation. Fitzjaw can hardly complain, 
 but he will be very furious at finding his refusal to accommodate 
 a friend appended to the supplicating letter. Jenkinson is only 
 sorry that the libeller is dead, otherwise he would have treated 
 him to an action in the Jury Court. The widow believes that 
 
 X
 
 322 MODERN BIOGKAPHY. 
 
 she was made a bride solely for the sake of her Californian 
 attractions, and reviles the memory of her spouse. As for the 
 mother-in-law, now gradually dwindling into dotage, her feelings 
 are perhaps of no great consequence to any human being. 
 Nevertheless, when the obnoxious paragraph in the Memoirs is 
 read to her by a shrill female companion, nature makes a tem- 
 porary rally, her withered frame shakes with agitation, and she 
 finally falls backward in a fit of hopeless paralysis. 
 
 Such is a feeble picture of the results that might ensue from 
 private biography, were we all permitted, without reservation, to 
 parade the lives and domestic circumstances of our neighbours to 
 a greedy and gloating world. Not but that, if our neighbour has 
 been a man of sufficient distinction to deserve commemoration, 
 we may gracefully and skilfully narrate all of him that is worth 
 the knowing. We may point to his public actions, expatiate on 
 his achievements, and recount the manner in which he gained his 
 intellectual renown ; but further we ought not to go. The con- 
 fidences of the dead should be as sacred as those of the living. 
 And here we may observe, that there are other parties quite as 
 much to blame as the biographers in question. We allude to the 
 friends of the deceased, who have unscrupulously furnished them 
 with materials. Is it not the fact that in very many cases they 
 have divulged letters which, during the writer's lifetime, they 
 would have withheld from the nearest and dearest of their kin- 
 dred ? In many such letters there occur observations and re- 
 flections upon living characters, not written in malice, but still 
 such as were never intended to meet the eyes of the parties criti- 
 cised; and these are forthwith published, as racy passages, likely 
 to gratify the appetite of a coarse, vulgar, and inordinate curi- 
 osity. Even this is not the worst. Survivors may grieve to learn 
 that the friend whom they loved was capable of ridiculing or 
 misrepresenting them in secret, and his memory may suffer in 
 their estimation ; but, put the case of detailed private conversa- 
 tions, which are constantly foisted into modern biographies, and 
 we shall immediately discover that the inevitable tendency is to 
 engender dislikes among living parties. Let us suppose that 
 three men, all of them professional authors, meet at a dinner- 
 party. The conversation is very lively, takes a literary turn,
 
 MODERN BIOGRAPHY. 323 
 
 and the three gentlemen, with that sportive freedom which is 
 very common in a society where no treachery is apprehended, 
 pass some rather poignant strictures upon the writings or habits 
 of their contemporaries. One of them either keeps a journal, or 
 is in the habit of writing, for the amusement of a confidential 
 friend at a distance, any literary gossip which may be current, and 
 he commits to paper the heads of the recent dialogue. He dies, 
 and his literary executor immediately pounces upon the docu- 
 ment, and, to the confusion of the two living critics, prints it. 
 Every literary brother whom they have noticed is of course their 
 enemy for life. 
 
 If, in private society, a snob is discovered retailing conversa- 
 tions, he is forthwith cut without compunction. He reads his 
 detection in the calm, cold scorn of your eye ; and, referring to 
 the mirror of his own dim and dirty conscience, beholds the re- 
 flection of a hound. The biographer seems to consider himself 
 exempt from such social secrecy. He shelters himself under the 
 plea that the public are so deeply interested, that they must not 
 be deprived of any memorandum, anecdote, or jotting, told, 
 written, or detailed by the gifted subject of their memoirs. 
 Therefore it is not a prudent thing to be familiar with a man of 
 genius. He may not betray your confidence, but you can hardly 
 trust to the tender mercies of his chronicler.
 
 LIGHT LITERATURE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 
 
 OCTOBER 1855. 
 
 MOST notable among the drawbacks which attend the literary 
 profession is the extreme jealousy, almost amounting to hatred, 
 manifested by the great body of authors towards those who un- 
 dertake the duty of reviewing. Converse with any young gentle- 
 man who has presented a volume of Spasmody to the public in- 
 spection, and you will find him as full of bile against the critics 
 as if he had subsisted solely upon curried oysters since the eve 
 of publication. He denounces them en masse as a gang of heartless 
 desperadoes, cold-blooded assassins, mean-spirited stabbers in 
 the dark, malevolent scalp-hunters, ignorant pretenders, shallow 
 boys, arrogant asses, conceited prigs, egregious numskulls, and so 
 forth protesting, at the same time, with a hollow laugh, that he 
 cares nothing for them or their verdicts, but despises them from 
 the bottom of his soulx From this you conclude, naturally 
 enough, that the poor young fellow has been made the victim of 
 some foul literary conspiracy that a whole nest of hornets has 
 been buzzing about his ears and stinging him to exasperation 
 that he has been flayed alive, gibbeted, and quartered, in the 
 most ruthless and savage manner and that his mental pangs 
 must have been more exquisitely acute than those of " Eleemon 
 who was sold to the demon." Never in your life were you more 
 mistaken. No familiar of the Inqiiisition has laid hands on his 
 innocent carcass, or proceeded to stretch his limbs on the rack. 
 No midnight murderer has been thirsting for his gore. He has 
 sent copies of his duodecimo to the editors of every conceivable 
 periodical in the United Kingdom; but not one of them has 
 even recognised his existence, much less expressed an opinion
 
 LIGHT LITERATURE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 325 
 
 derogatory of his poetical abilities. He is suffering, indeed ; but 
 it is simply from the want of notoriety, to achieve which he would, 
 in reality, be glad to undergo any reasonable amount of toma- 
 hawking. 
 
 After all, in cases of this sort, the critics are the parties who 
 have real ground for complaint ; and we can speak most feelingly 
 on the subject, having undergone, at the hands of unnoticed 
 authors, every imaginable species of persecution. Over and over 
 again has the public been assured in these columns that Maga 
 edits herself; and on the title-page of every number there is a 
 distinct intimation that all communications (post paid) must 
 be addressed to William Blackwood and Sons, 45 George Street, 
 Edinburgh, and 37 Paternoster Row, London. After such clear 
 announcements, it appears absolutely amazing that human beings 
 should persist in attributing the editorial functions to those who 
 neither claim nor exercise them ; and in poisoning and embitter- 
 ing, by their solicitations and complaints, the lives of lazy con- 
 tributors, who have seldom the inclination and frequently not 
 the opportunity of revising the proof-sheets of their own articles. 
 We cannot undertake to specify the amount of individual annoy- 
 ance which may fall to the share of our fellow-labourers in the 
 vineyard of Buchanan ; but we can assert with perfect truth, that 
 upon one devoted, but blameless, head, a whole Niagara of liter- 
 ary indignation has been poured. The process usually is as fol- 
 lows : One morning we receive an unstamped letter, which the 
 servant, contrary to orders, has taken in, referring to a volume 
 which the writer states that he forwarded six weeks previously, 
 and requesting to know when the work is likely to be reviewed. 
 As we never saw the volume, have no intention whatever of 
 reviewing it, and feel deeply aggravated because of the sacrificed 
 twopence, we chuck the communication into the fire, hoping that 
 silence may be deemed a satisfactory reply. But we reckon 
 without our host. A week afterwards another epistle arrives, 
 again unstamped ; but this time we are more wary, and the letter 
 is peremptorily refused. Next comes a communication from a 
 fellow who styles himself " an old friend," and a very old friend 
 he must be, for we have not set eyes upon him since we left 
 school, and remember his name solely from the circumstance
 
 326 LIGHT LITERATURE FOE THE HOLIDAYS. 
 
 that he was the perpetual booby of the class. He canters through 
 a few preliminary compliments and reminiscences, and then comes 
 to "the object of my troubling you at present," which turns out 
 to be a request that you will notice, " for the sake of auld lang 
 syne," the volume published by the man who sent the unstamped 
 letters, and who turns out to be a brother-in-law, cousin, or some 
 other indefinite connection of the affectionate booby. What 
 " auld lang syne " has to do with the matter we cannot exactly 
 perceive; but our heart yearns towards our ancient playmate, 
 who used to take his floggings with such stoical indifference, and 
 we write him a very kind letter, explaining that we have nothing 
 whatever to do with the management of the Magazine, and that we 
 have never set eyes upon the literary production of his friend. The 
 last is an unlucky remark, for, by return of post, we receive a 
 copy of the volume in question prepaid, however, for our friend 
 the Booby, though somewhat dull of apprehension, is a thorough 
 gentleman in his feelings. We open the book find that it is, as 
 we expected, rubbish of the worst quality and fling it aside, 
 trusting to hear no more about the author. Again we are wrong. 
 This time the author writes ostensibly to apologise for his former 
 error, but in reality to inquire whether, now that we are made 
 aware of his connection with the house of Booby, we will not 
 exert our influence with the Messrs Blackwood to get the work 
 noticed. " Perhaps," so writes the unblushing one, " you may be 
 inclined to undertake the task yourself." Assuredly if the book 
 were only three shades less contemptible than it is, we would 
 comply with his wishes, and give him such a clapper-clawing as 
 would send him for a season howling to the wilderness ; but we 
 hate needless cruelty, and the imbecility of the creature is his 
 salvation. Therefore we write the iciest of all possible epistles, 
 declining the flattering proposal ; and believe that we have at 
 length got rid of the incubus. Not so. We receive a jaunty 
 epistle from Booby, apparently quite delighted with our recog- 
 nition, expressing a hope that when we come to his part of the 
 country we will pay him a visit and talk over old stories, and 
 then diverging to the subject of the accursed duodecimo and its 
 persevering author, who, Booby assures us, is one of the finest fel- 
 lows in the universe. " Do write me what you think of his book,"
 
 LIGHT LITEEATURE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 327 
 
 quoth Booby ; " I do not pretend to be a judge of such matters, 
 but I think some parts of it are very clever." Goaded on to des- 
 peration, we sit down deliberately, and waste a whole precious 
 morning in explaining to Booby, in no equivocal language, our 
 opinion of the intellect of his friend. That epistle of ours 
 Booby, with exquisite good taste, communicates to the aspirant 
 after literary distinction, who consequently becomes our enemy 
 for life. 
 
 Scott, whose knowledge of human nature was scarcely inferior 
 to that possessed by Shakespeare, has admirably brought out 
 this itch for notoriety, in the character of the dwarf, Sir GeofFry 
 Hudson. Rather than not be noticed, the little man would sub- 
 mit to the imputation of impossible crimes ; and his self-conceit 
 rose proportionally with the enormity of the charge preferred. 
 With one literary Hiidson it might be easy to deal, but it is no 
 joking matter to be molested by scores. Like the detestable 
 Swiss children who infest the fall of the Staubbach, they will not 
 let you alone, even though you would give a tolerable ransom to 
 be freed from their company. They cling to your skirts, follow 
 at your heels, and perform every conceivable manner of antic in 
 order to attract attention ; in vain do you alternately resort to 
 the distribution of coppers, and a warning flourish of the horse- 
 whip the crowd increases and sticks to you with the closeness 
 and tenacity of a swarm of midges, until, driven to desperation, 
 you rush frantically from the valley, registering a vow that no 
 power on earth will induce you again to set foot within precincts 
 so beautiful yet so rife with irritation. 
 
 Far be it from us to insinuate that this strong passion for 
 notoriety is peculiar to literary aspirants, or that it is more 
 observable in them than in the followers of regular professions. 
 We never yet knew the briefless lawyer, or the patientless phy- 
 sician, whose want of success was not attributed by themselves 
 and their friends to the heartless neglect of the world ; nor <do 
 we remember any instance of the kind in which the consummate 
 abilities, erudition, and talents of the would-be practitioners 
 were not assumed as notorious and indisputable facts. Vanity 
 is the one common garment of the whole human race : it cleaves 
 as closely to the frame as the poisoned shirt of Nessus, and tor-
 
 328 LIGHT LITERATURE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 
 
 tare unutterable is caused by any attempt to remove it. Our 
 observations, if properly understood, merely go the length of 
 vindicating reviewers from, the charges of hard-heartedness, indif- 
 ference, and cruelty, which have been so often brought against 
 them by unnoticed authors. Not one of these latter seems to 
 imagine it possible that the almost preternatural silence of the 
 critics with regard to his productions can be caused by their 
 insignificance or worthlessness. Delusions of this kind are 
 common, and they are easily accounted for. The gradations of 
 nature are infinite ; and however weak may be the intellect of a 
 man, he is pretty sure, in the course of his career, to encounter 
 one or two others who are even less gifted than himself. To 
 them, by a natural law, he appears an oracle of wisdom : they 
 adopt his opinions, repeat his sayings, and, if he ventures into 
 the perilous field of authorship, applaud his writings to the echo. 
 He is the prime star of a very minute constellation the biggest 
 animalcule in an isolated drop of water. So that when Vespasian 
 Tims, the boast and cynosure of the literary club which holds its 
 weekly meetings at the sign of the Jolly Ogre, has indulged his 
 friends with a private audience of his forthcoming tragedy en- 
 titled ' Abdelbuffer, or the Bravo of the Bosphorus,' it is small 
 wonder if the little circlet vibrates with delight, and if Vespasian 
 is assured by more than one devoted satellite that his work will 
 stand comparison with the choicest productions of the Elizabe- 
 than era. As a matter of course, Tims would rather " doubt 
 truth to be a liar," than question the propriety of such a verdict ; 
 accordingly, after he has committed himself in print, he cannot 
 for the life of him understand the riniversal apathy and indiffer- 
 ence which appears to have pervaded the whole body of the 
 British critics. For hostile notices, of the most truculent kind, 
 our Vespasian is prepared. He knows that he has enemies ; for, 
 to use his own beautiful language, 
 
 " Genius is a flower, 
 
 Which the base market-gardeners of this rank world 
 Won't let the sunshine beam on ; but they clap 
 Shards, broken envy-bottles, hideous hoods 
 Of most opaquy and unnatural tint, 
 Right on the top on't ; and so deem to pale,
 
 LIGHT LITERATURE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 329 
 
 By shutting out the bright effulgence of 
 The locks of Phoebus, that splendiferous 
 Andnever-to-be-classed-in-catalogue 
 Star of the mind " 
 
 Any attempt to put him down he is prepared, like another 
 Antaeus, to resist ; but he can meet with no antagonist. He has 
 entered the lists, displayed his banner, and blown his trumpet ; 
 but not a living soul will vouchsafe him the slightest notice. He 
 is as unfortunate as the knight of the Eound Table, who, though 
 constantly on horseback, and in the very midst of a prime pre- 
 serve of giants, never could fall in with an adventure ; and, like 
 that worthy scion of chivalry, he halts before the drawbridge of 
 every castle, and heaps every kind of vituperation upon its in- 
 mates, because nobody will take the trouble to sally out and 
 indulge him with the luxury of a drubbing. 
 
 Critics, however, are merely men, liable to human infirmity 
 and impulse ; and we have known instances in which, when irri- 
 tated by incessant badgering, they have so far forgot their duty 
 as to allow their temper to overcome their discretion, and have 
 administered a contemptuous shake or so to the clamorous candi- 
 date for notoriety. Then mercy on us what a yowling ensues ! 
 No lady's lapdog could shriek louder, when, after a series of 
 deliberate small insults directed against a mastiff, Jowler makes 
 a spring, and catches the unfortunate pug in his jaws, than does 
 the new-fledged author when the critic is down upon him. The 
 public, who really are in the main good-natured, and who hate 
 to see any man or any animal over-matched, are apt to cry 
 " Shame" upon such occasions, being, of course, in utter ignor- 
 ance of the previous provocation ; and the mangled innocent, 
 who, after all, is more frightened than hurt, is picked up and 
 covered with caresses which, however, have merely the effect of 
 prolonging the period of his yelping. He has been attacked he 
 has been bitten he has excited sympathy ; and he is determined 
 that, in so far as in him lies, that sympathy shall not be per- 
 mitted to abate. So he continues to howl, and disturb the whole 
 neighbourhood, until even his well-wishers pronounce him to be 
 a positive nuisance, and become rather angry with Jowler because 
 he did not finish him at once.
 
 330 LIGHT LITERATURE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 
 
 If any of our readers should be at a loss to know what these 
 preliminary remarks portend, we beg to inform them that they 
 are merely in explanation of the title which we have affixed to 
 the present article. The fact is, that, situated as we are, we 
 have no book before us to review ; and we are anxious, before 
 the expiry of the legitimate holidays, to deliver ourselves of a 
 sporting article. Were we as unscrupulous as some of our Quar- 
 terly brethren, we might have adopted their convenient custom 
 of transferring, from the advertising portion of the ' Times,' the 
 names of any new works which appear to have the slightest rela- 
 tion to the topic in hand, and then compounding an article from 
 ingredients totally different. But, in our estimation, the prac- 
 tice to which we refer is base and cowardly ; and, follow it who 
 will, we trust that the columns of Maga may never be stained by 
 such degradation. It is an utter abuse of literature, and an in- 
 sult to literary men, to string together the titles of some six or 
 seven different works bearing upon the same subject, in order to 
 make a preliminary flourish, and then calmly, in the text, to pass 
 them over as if they were so much waste paper, undeserving 
 either of praise or of censure. Who, in the name of Mumbo- 
 Jumbo, wants to see a book-catalogue in the table of contents of 
 a quarterly review ? and yet, what other denomination can be 
 correctly given to the literary bills of fare which our bulky 
 brothers are wont to throw out for our allurement ? Why should 
 Mr Mechi's list of cutlery be made the mere handle or apology 
 for a prosy article regarding the manufacture of iron ? or a trea- 
 tise upon Macadamisation be paraded as an excuse for a rickety 
 essay upon .mail-coaches ? It would be quite as sensible a pro- 
 ceeding to select ' Tooke's Diversions of Purley' as the proper 
 text for a dissertation upon nursery literature. 
 
 Our sporting friends, therefore, will understand that we intend 
 no manner of disparagement to recent writers upon wood or 
 water craft, by omitting to specify their names. Some of them, 
 we doubt not, are practical men, and conversant with the sub- 
 jects they have selected; while it is not irrational, nor even un- 
 charitable, to surmise that others are rank impostors. Be that 
 as it may, we shall summon no parties to the bar ; and therefore 
 we hope for once to escape from expostulation or complaint.
 
 LIGHT LITERATURE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 331 
 
 The compilation of a really good sporting work is, we suspect, 
 a task of great difficulty, requiring, in the person of the author, 
 the union of many accomplishments. A man may be a first-rate 
 shot, a deadly angler, an admired disposer of a field, or a prime 
 judge of dogs and horses, without being able to commit any of 
 his experiences to paper. Many men who are admirable practi- 
 tioners in their art either fail in the exposition of its principles, 
 or make that exposition so exceedingly bald as to be devoid of 
 interest. The truth is, that in sporting matters there is not very 
 much to be learned from the perusal of books. Practice and 
 perseverance, combined with a just enthusiasm, are indispensably 
 necessary for the formation of the finished sportsman ; and many 
 lessons there are which cannot be imparted through the medium 
 of print or precept. We are aware that, in saying this, we run 
 counter to the prevalent theory of the day, and the opinions of 
 those eminent philosophers and philanthropists who maintain 
 that the only effectual means of educating the masses are by 
 deluging the country with cheap publications, and letting loose a 
 horde of itinerant lecturers. We more than doubt the soundness 
 of that view. No amount of attendance upon lectures on typo- 
 graphy will make a man a creditable printer ; and heaven forbid 
 that any of us should intrust our persons to the tender mercies 
 and scientific direction of a rail way -driver whose means of know- 
 ledge were solely derived from the perusal of treatises upon 
 engines. If we heard a stoker descanting learnedly upon the 
 merits of the machine invented by Hiero of Alexandria, we 
 should feel very much inclined to eschew proceeding by the 
 train of which he is so accomplished an ornament ; nor would 
 our mind be much more at ease if forced to cross the Pent- 
 land Firth during stormy weather, were the helm intrusted to 
 the hands of the most eminent living lecturer upon naviga- 
 tion. Able and perspicuous as are the art-writings of Sir Joshua 
 Eeynolds, no man, however attached to art, will become a painter 
 merely through their study ; and, notwithstanding all the trea- 
 tises upon poetry, ancient and modern, which are extant for our 
 perusal, the art is not, at least at the present time, in a thriving 
 or a healthy condition. 
 
 In sporting, practice is all in all. We verily believe that no
 
 332 LIGHT LITERATURE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 
 
 angler can honestly say that he has ever added the weight of 
 six ounces to his creel in consequence of all the maxims that are 
 laid down by Isaak Walton ; and we are quite sure that no 
 marked diminution in the race of wild-fowl followed the revela- 
 tions of Colonel Hawker. Old Isaak's book, of which no one 
 who is able to appreciate the charm of a simple, manly, and 
 unaffected style can speak otherwise than in terms of love, is a 
 mere pastoral ; beautiful indeed as a composition, but useless as 
 an angling treatise. Useless at least, in so far as its precepts 
 are concerned ; but not useless from the spirit which it breathes, 
 and the enthusiasm which it has often kindled. Many anglers, 
 who otherwise might never have thrown a line, have confessed 
 that the perusal of Walton was the first incentive which urged 
 them to the water -side ; and they have blessed the memory of 
 the good old man who introduced them to a pastime which never 
 palls, and to an enjoyment as keenly relished in age as in early 
 youth. But in angling, there are many gradations. The generic 
 term of angler embraces men of totally opposite temperaments 
 and habits. The placid drowsy citizen who in his punt, with a 
 gallon of beer beside him, beguiles gudgeons at Twickenham or 
 Kingston, claims the same title with the sturdy Gael, who de- 
 spises angling even for trout, but confines himself to the capture 
 of the salmon. There are those who esteem the conquest of a 
 single pike enough to found a piscatory name there are others 
 who expect to be known to posterity as the slayers of thumping 
 barbel. And what is there unreasonable in this ? But for the 
 boar of Caledon we never should have heard of Meleager ; take 
 away the dolphin from Arion, and the poet becomes an empty 
 sound. 
 
 Pastoral or no pastoral, we still place the ' Complete Angler' 
 of Walton in the foremost rank of treatises upon the gentle craft, 
 and hail him as the Homer of the streams. Had he been more 
 practical, more fishified, less credulous, and less discursive than 
 he is, it may be that the virtue would have departed from him, 
 and his treatise have lost that charm which has been recognised 
 by many generations. Only once was it our lot to tread on the 
 grassy margin of the Lea to see in fancy the venerable form of 
 Piscator with his pupil by his side, reclining under the shelter
 
 LIGHT LITERATURE FOE THE HOLIDAYS. 323 
 
 of an elm, and watching the floats, as the big drops pattered on 
 the leaves above, or made a thousand dimples in the pool and 
 to cast a line in the waters hallowed by such classic recollec- 
 tions. We wish now that we had left the latter deed undone ; 
 for the man who accompanied us, and who called himself, par 
 excellence, " the fisherman," put into our hands something which 
 more nearly resembled a staff than a rod, with a line which 
 might have held a porpoise, garnished with a couple of bullets ; 
 then, shouldering a hamper, which contained what he denominated 
 " ground-bait," he informed us that we were to fish for barbel. 
 Of course we made no objection. Arriving at a very dirty and 
 drumly pool, our guide, philosopher, and friend who, by the 
 way, was the ugliest dog we ever had the fortune to set eyes on 
 opened his wallet, and drew out some balls about the size of 
 oranges, which he stated to be a compound of tallow-greaves, 
 slugs, and cheese ! We had heard previously, or read somewhere, 
 that barbel were by no means delicate or particular in their diet, but 
 we really did not suppose that they would have touched anything 
 so ineffably abominable. Howbeit, the filth balls were broken 
 into fragments, and thrown into the hole, which we were assured 
 was the finest cast for barbel in the river in fact, quite " a 
 favourite lie." We baited the hook with gentles, and pitched the 
 bullets in. We sat for three hours, and smoked four pipes, with- 
 out even the semblance of a nibble ; maintaining all the while a 
 grim silence, which Harpocrates might have envied. Not so our 
 guide, who kept up a perpetual torrent of gabble touching the 
 monsters that he had seen extracted from " that 'ere deep, vich 
 his the primish bit for barbel in them 'ere parts," varied only by 
 personal anecdotes of the Cockneys who were in the habit of re- 
 sorting to the river, and who, judging from his account, must 
 have been sportive and playful rogues, addicted to all manner of 
 practical jokes, but "real gemmen," in so far as liquor was con- 
 cerned. At length, when further sufferance would have become 
 a positive sin, we kicked the basket with the tallow-greaves into 
 the river, for the benefit of the fish, if there really were any 
 there a question regarding which we entertain the gravest doubt; 
 expressed, in unmistakable terms, to the panic-stricken fisherman, 
 our opinion of the piscatory merits of the stream of which he was
 
 334 LIGHT LITERATURE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 
 
 the guardian ; and, guiltless of barbel's blood, quitted the banks 
 of the lazy Lea, which assuredly we shall not visit again, at least 
 for angling purposes. 
 
 Stoddart is an excellent practical guide, and displays, in deal- 
 ing with his subject, the decision and clearness of a master. His 
 observations are the result of long experience ; and even by the 
 best anglers, some of whom are rather crotchety in matters of 
 detail, and wedded to their own systems, he is acknowledged to be 
 a first-rate authority. But Stoddart, though himself a poet of no 
 mean ability, as his capital angling songs do sufficiently testify, 
 has put less of the leaven of poetry than we could have desired 
 into the ' Scottish Angler,' and is technical almost to a fault. We 
 doubt whether any sporting book which does not contain very 
 vivid and graphic sketches can be popular in the best sense of 
 the word ; for the author who delights us by his enthusiasm and 
 manner of style, will always be preferred to the writer whose 
 object is solely to instruct. And if, as we have already remarked, 
 it is impossible to gain any deep insight into the mysteries of 
 wood or water craft from the mere perusal of books, it follows 
 that books upon these subjects ought to be made as attractive as 
 possible, in order to win new votaries to the science of the sweet 
 Sir Tristrem. Ah, kind Sir Tristrem ! courteous knight fine 
 forester lover of ladies, and of all manner of vert and venison ! 
 well is it for thee that thou canst not know what a ninnyhammer 
 thou art made to appear in the strains of modern poets ! What 
 though thou wert luckless in love, as many a good fellow was 
 before thee, and has been since thy time is that any reason why 
 thou shouldst'be depicted shivering under the attack of a tertian 
 ague, and moaning for the absent Iseult in thy disordered sleep ? 
 Caesars and Alexanders were, like others of the human race, liable 
 to the stroke of disease, and have called piteoiisly on Titinius or 
 Hephaestion for drink ; but what eulogist of either hero would 
 select for illustration those moments when he lay with a night- 
 cap drawn over his aching temples, and a pitcher of ptisan by his 
 pillow ? Not so, assuredly, Tristrem, would we have depicted 
 thee, had it been our vocation or choice to summon thine eidolon 
 from the thickness of the medieval mist ! Not as a brain-sick 
 lazar, ghost-like, wan, and gibbering, shouldst thou have appeared
 
 LIGHT LITERATURE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 335 
 
 but as a free and joyous knight riding through the greenwood, 
 and making holt and thicket ring again with the blast of thy 
 merry bugle or as a champion of the Table Round, splintering 
 lances in the tilt-yard with Launcelot, Gareth, and Gawaine, 
 before the eyes of King Arthur and Guenever his beloved queen ! 
 Having delivered ourselves of this apostrophe to an eminent 
 early sportsman, let us return to our more immediate gear. We 
 eye our rods, as they stand, a slender sheaf in the corner, with a 
 feeling approaching to melancholy ; for the season is now far ad- 
 vanced, and in a few days most of the rivers will be shut up. 
 That circumstance, however, is in itself of little consequence ; for 
 the sea-shore still remains open, and there is as good angling in 
 the salt water as in the fresh. This must be, we know, a start- 
 ling announcement to many, who have been reared in the belief 
 that, below tide- way, the rod and line are useless. Nevertheless, 
 it is a fact that, in the northern counties of Scotland, and more 
 especially in the islands which contain few streams, and those but 
 of insignificant size, it is not only possible, but easy, for a good 
 angler, during the months of September and October, and even 
 later, to fill his basket with splendid trout in the bays. Nay, we 
 are using far too moderate a term ; for no basket that angler ever 
 slung at his back could contain one-half of the fish which we have 
 seen taken by a single rod in the course of a few hours. It is 
 quite a mistaken idea to suppose that there is any virtue in fresh 
 water or running streams, which causes migratory fish to rise at 
 the artificial fly, or to seize on the minnow or other natural bait. 
 They bite freely in the sea; and we have repeatedly captured 
 trout from the end of a little pier, at a great distance from any 
 stream, with no other bait than a common limpet. In order to 
 insure success in this kind of fishing, the angler must make him- 
 self acquainted with the localities, must study the state of the 
 tides, and must not be anywise particular about wading. He 
 should provide himself with a stout rod and strong tackle ; for if 
 the day is a propitious one, he may expect to meet with fish of 
 four, six, or even eight pounds weight, and he has to bring them 
 ashore among patches of the toughest sea-weed. He may use 
 either the fly or the worm ; but the latter is the surest bait, and 
 trout will rise at it when they will not look at the feathers and
 
 336 LIGHT LITERATURE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 
 
 tinsel. The bait must not be allowed to sink, but the worm 
 should be kept near the surface, and drawn slowly along, very 
 much as if you were fishing with a minnow. The best time to 
 commence is about half an hour before full tide, spring-tides 
 being decidedly preferable, as the trout are then upon the move, 
 and the sport will continue as long as the nature of the bottom 
 will allow. But as the fish go out very fast with the receding 
 waters, it is in most places difficult to reach them after the tide 
 has half ebbed. An excellent station for taking sea-trout is 
 where the tide runs rapidly past a ledge of rocks ; indeed, the 
 more current there is, the greater is the chance of success. The 
 ground near the mouth of streams, even though these may be so 
 small as scarcely to make their way through the gravel, is almost 
 always good ; but even in bays, where there is neither rock nor 
 stream, excellent sport may be obtained, especially if the wind is 
 blowing freshly from shore. One great advantage of this kind of 
 angling is, that all the fish, without exception, are in prime con- 
 dition ; and, as regards sport, we would at any time as lief angle 
 in a Zetland voe as in a Highland river. You may miss the trees 
 and the mountains ; but, on the other hand, there stretches before 
 you, fresh and free, the glorious ocean, with the white comb on 
 every wave, as it rolls toward the barrier-cliffs of the rocky 
 island, and, bursting on that wall of adamant, sends the spray of 
 its surges glittering in the sunbeams, in a rainbow shower, up to 
 the grand old ruined fortress, which, in times of yore, Earl Erlend, 
 for the sake of his bride, made good against the hosts of the 
 Norsemen. 
 
 Do you open your eyes in wonderment at this kind of sport, ye 
 sons of the city, whose souls are set upon gudgeon, and whose 
 highest aspirations are after dace? Come, then, with us to the 
 brow of the cliffs, and we will show you greater marvels ! Take 
 heed to your footing, for the herbage is short and slippery, the 
 precipice goes down sheer two hundred feet to the water ; and, 
 were your heels to fail you now, you would never eat white- 
 bait at the Trafalgar more. But be of good courage for here 
 the ledge is broad ; and it is only a pic-tamie, and not an eagle, 
 that is circling round your heads with 8uch vehement and 
 threatening screams. Look out seaward, and tell us what you
 
 LIGHT LITERATURE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 337 
 
 behold. Gulls of every kind, white, black, and grey, are wheel- 
 ing round the broken skerry, and adding their distracting clamour 
 to the cries of the tern, auk, and teist ; whilst the long-necked 
 cormorants fly sullenly over the face of the deep. Down yonder, 
 on the point of the reef, are some thirty seals Neptuni pecus, 
 the herd that only will obey the winding of the Triton's horn 
 basking in the sun, flapping their tails as they revel in the 
 unwonted luxiiry of heat, and nodding their heads as if in 
 acquiescence to the sage remarks of their neighbours. For they 
 are right wise fellows, those seals more sagacious than many a 
 biped who piques himself upon his superior education and it 
 would puzzle an acuter youth than ever stood in your shoes to 
 circumvent them. But look out yonder ; can you not descry 
 something like white spouts bursting from the water, and occa- 
 sionally a dark speck rising to the surface and disappearing ? 
 Congratulate yourself, child of "Whittington ; for that is a shoal 
 of whales, and it may be your good fortune to witness the most 
 exciting of all spectacles a WHALE-HUNT among the northern 
 islands ! 
 
 Other eyes than ours have lighted upon that most gladsome 
 apparition. On the hill-side stands a frantic woman waving her 
 apron yea, she has even torn off her petticoat for a more con- 
 spicuous banner and, leaping like a Moenad, she vociferates, 
 "Whales whales ! " And well may Tronda leap and vociferate ; 
 for, if the chase should prove successful, her superior sharpness 
 of vision may win her a five-pound note, besides diffusing com- 
 fort over the neighbourhood for miles around. "Whales 
 whales ! " The whole district rises at the cry. The township 
 below vomits forth its inmates by tens and twenties. The fisher- 
 man, dozing on the beach with the pipe in his mouth, bounds to 
 his feet as though an adder had stung him, and rushes desper- 
 ately to his boat. Swarthy men, and weather-bronzed women, 
 their hair streaming in the wind, unconfined by snood or ker- 
 chief, start out of peat-mosses, and race violently to the shore. 
 The reaper abandons his sickle, and runs with the rest ; for oil 
 is dearer to him than corn ; besides, the oats and bere cannot 
 swim away, which is more than can be said of the whales. 
 Horses may take to the hill, and cows make havoc among the 
 
 Y
 
 338 LIGHT LITEKATUKE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 
 
 crop, for their appointed guardians are gone ; even the ragged 
 urchin, whose duty it is to herd the geese, has caught the general 
 infection, and, mad as a March hare, gallops after his insane 
 mother, both of them shouting, as if for dear life, " Whales 
 whales ! " though the whole inhabitants of the parish are by this 
 time thoroughly cognisant of the shoal. 
 
 Quick quick ! shove off the boats every one of them, how- 
 ever old and leaky, and tarry not for thwart or rowing-pin, 
 because every minute is precious. " Huzza ! here comes the 
 minister ! " " Bless you, my bairns ! " quoth the good man, as, 
 armed with a flinching-knife, he steps panting into a boat ; and 
 the flotilla begins to move. " How many whales may there be ?" 
 On this point there is some diversity of opinion, for, large as 
 they are, whales in the sea are not so easily counted as chickens 
 in a farmyard ; but nobody thinks there are fewer than four, and 
 some estimate the number at five hundred ! 
 
 " Five hundred whales ! well, that is coming it rather strong ! " 
 Hold your tongue, you ignoramus ! and, for the future, confine 
 your remarks to what you know and understand. If we had 
 told you an hour ago that we could show you thirty seals, some 
 of them not much smaller in carcass than a young Highland 
 bullock, lying together upon a rock, you would not have believed 
 us. You have seen that number now ; and very much mistaken 
 shall we be, if, on your return to Cheapside, you do not multiply 
 it fourfold. The whales out yonder are not Greenlanders, such 
 as Scoresby has written about so well and oleaginously they 
 are " ca'ing whales," which the learned style Delphinus deductor ; 
 and there are huge shoals of them in the northern seas, especially 
 around the Faroe Islands, which pertain to the Crown of Den- 
 mark. In those distant islands their appearance at a certain 
 season of the year is confidently expected ; and regular prepara- 
 tion is made for the fishing, or rather the chase. Round the 
 British Islands they are not so common ; but few years elapse in 
 which they do not show themselves off some part of the coast of 
 Zetland, and they are frequently captured in large numbers. 
 Among the Orkneys they are not often seen, probably owing to 
 the extreme rapidity of the tides in that archipelago ; and of late 
 they have been rare visitors. In the bays of Skye and the sea-
 
 LIGHT LITEKATUKE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 339 
 
 lochs of the Lews they are occasionally visible indeed, we 
 believe that the largest shoal of the past season [1855] came on 
 shore in the latter island. 
 
 These fish for such by immemorial usage we are entitled to 
 term them often reach the size of twenty or four-and-twenty 
 feet ; and their carcasses are extremely valuable on account of 
 the quantity of oil which they produce. Although " whales," 
 according to the law of Scotland, are droits of the Crown, that 
 claim has long since been abandoned as regards the "ca'ing" 
 whale ; and the proceeds of a lucky chase are divided in certain 
 proportions, and according to a graduated scale, among the 
 captors, after deducting a certain share for the proprietor of the 
 ground adjacent to the shore where the fish may be stranded. 
 Such at least is the custom in Zetland ; and therefore it is not to 
 be wondered at if the apparition of a shoal should be sufficient to 
 throw the inhabitants of the fortunate district into a state of the 
 most violent excitement. For yonder, where the spouts are 
 rising, and the black backs dipping, swim creatures to the mar- 
 ketable value of, it may be, two thousand pounds ; and with 
 patience, caution, and perseverance, they may all of them be 
 driven ashore. 
 
 Of that little fleet there is no appointed admiral; but, by 
 common consent, Jerome Jeromson, a very patriarchal Triton, 
 who for more than forty years has gone oiit regularly to the 
 haaf, and who has even witnessed and joined in a whale-hunt at 
 Faroe, is installed in the chief command ; or, to speak more cor- 
 rectly, assumes it without any murmur. But for him some of 
 the hastier hands would have pushed off without ammunition, 
 thereby committing the same blunder which was perpetrated 
 by that sagacious creature, and bright star of intelligence, Sir 
 Charles Wood, in despatching our fleet to bombard the Baltic 
 fortresses without a relay of mortars. Bi;t, fortunately for the 
 Zetlanders, and their chance of spoil and oil, Jeromson, unlike 
 Wood, is thoroughly up to his business, and has taken good care 
 that no boat has been allowed to leave shore without a proper 
 provision of stones. Start .not again, youth of our adoption, nor 
 insinuate that we mean harpoons. We mean simply what we 
 say, stones tidy pebbles from the beach, to make, when necessary,
 
 340 LIGHT LITERATURE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 
 
 a splashing in the water, and urge the whales onwards to their 
 doom. This is at best but a clumsy substitute for the more 
 regular apparatus employed at Faroe, which consists of ropes 
 extending from boat to boat, to which wisps of straw are tied ; 
 and that is said to constitute an impenetrable barrier, at least 
 effectually to prevent the shoal from heading backwards. But 
 we have already explained that the appearance of whales off the 
 coasts of Zetland cannot be relied upon with certainty, and 
 therefore it is no wonder if each township or fishing village 
 should be but scantily provided with the implements appropriate 
 for this occasional chase. After all, stones answer the purpose 
 pretty well, the great matter being to keep up a sufficient splash- 
 ing ; and we dare to say that a Cockney in a cork jacket would 
 be sufficient to terrify the whales. As for harpoons, they are 
 quite out of the question, for the use of them would break the 
 shoal at once, and so destroy the hopes of the fishing. 
 
 Pull strong and steady, and keep the line, and above all, in 
 the mean time, keep silence ; for we are now at no great dis- 
 tance from the whales, and the first manoauvre is to place the 
 boats between them and the outer ocean. Old Jerome leads the 
 way ; and gradually the boats creep round the shoal, and place 
 it between them and the land. So far good ; but even yet there 
 must be no noise, for the fish are still in deep water, and if 
 greatly alarmed will inevitably make a rush and escape. Nor is 
 the shore immediately opposite of a kind to render their capture 
 practicable; for it is rocky and broken, and there is no l>cmh 
 upon which whales could be run. But yonder, beyond the 
 point, is the Trows Bay, with a fine marginal sweep of white 
 sand, a fitting race-course for the steeds of Amphitrite ; and if 
 we can beguile them thither, our triumph is next to secure. 
 
 Though not alarmed, the whales are evidently conscious of the 
 proximity of danger, for they cease their gambols and swim in 
 more compact order, the smallest and weakest being placed nearest 
 to the shore ; and one fine old " bull," who probably has been in 
 trouble ere now, leads the van, and occasionally rears his head 
 as if to reconnoitre. There is now no need to enforce silence, 
 for the whales are running fast, and every sinew of the strong 
 fishermen at the oars is strained to keep pace with them.
 
 LIGHT LITERATURE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 341 
 
 Hurrah. ! the point is passed the white sands of Trows Bay are 
 visible and the boats rapidly form a semicircle round the 
 shoal. 
 
 Now, then, give tongue, and splash with stone and oar, for the 
 " bull" begins to see that he has been led into a natural trap ; 
 he swims no longer in front of the shoal, but turns his head 
 toward the boats, and it is evident that he meditates a rush. If 
 he makes his purpose good, and his heart fail him not, farewell 
 to our hope of oil ; for the whole herd will follow in his wake ; 
 and tough though Norway timber be, it cannot resist the shock 
 of the ocean cavalry. Therefore shout, splash, howl like demons, 
 ye sons and daughters of Hialtland ! Chant runes, pitch 
 stones, and roar vociferously like the Berserkars of old, for the 
 moment of battle has come when the voice of the champions 
 should be heard ! And heard it is, for never from the heart of 
 a sacked city arose a more discordant cry ; and the " bull," 
 fairly cowed, turns tail, and runs himself precipitately ashore. 
 Then what a flurry ! what a lashing of tails, and walloping, and 
 snorting, and moaning, as the poor misguided whales recklessly 
 follow their leader, and attempt to escape from their enemies at 
 sea by throwing themselves on the sand ! And here let us close 
 the picture. After victory, what boots it describing the horrors 
 of the battle-field 1 After the excitement of the chase, is not 
 the process of gralloching disgusting ? Therefore, having seen 
 the whales stranded, and past the possibility of escape, let us, if 
 you please, leave the captors to despatch them at their leisure, 
 and turn to some other field. Indeed, after such a take as this, 
 the shore in the neighbourhood of Trows Bay will be anything 
 but an agreeable promenade for persons whose olfactory organs 
 are sensitive. It is possible that invalids to whom the use of 
 cod-liver oil has been recommended by the faculty, might derive 
 benefit from inhaling the odours which arise during the subse- 
 quent processes of flinching and boiling ; but, as our lungs are 
 reasonably sound, we beg to make our bow, and cheerfully sur- 
 render our share of the profits for the benefit of the common 
 fund. 
 
 Let it not be supposed that scenes, such as that of which we 
 have attempted to give a sketch, are of ordinary occurrence ; or
 
 342 LIGHT LITERATURE FOE THE HOLIDAYS. 
 
 that, when a shoal of whales is discovered, the chances of cap- 
 ture exceed those of loss. The reverse, indeed, is the case. 
 Within a fortnight from the time when we are writing, a con- 
 siderable shoal appeared in the Bay of Scapa, within two miles 
 of Kirkwall, the capital of Orkney ; but though the chase was 
 perseveringly maintained so long as there was hope, it was found 
 impossible to drive them on shore. In 1852, a shoal, computed 
 at the enormous number of eleven hundred, was seen near Scal- 
 loway in Zetland ; but the result, in that case, was equally un- 
 fortunate. Still the chances are great enough to excite the 
 cupidity and arouse the enthusiasm of the fishermen ; and few 
 Zetlanders are so stolid and impassible as not to exhibit eloquence, 
 if you can induce them to describe the charms, vicissitudes, and 
 dangers of a whale-hunt. 
 
 Some enthusiastic members of Parliament meditate, as we are 
 given to understand, a complete codification of the laws of Eng- 
 land by which we presume they mean, the condensation of all 
 existing and operative statutes in one Brobdignagian Act. We 
 shall not venture, at the present time, to offer any opinion as to 
 the feasibility of that scheme; but we should much rejoice, were 
 it possible, to see the whole science of sporting expounded in a 
 fitting Encyclopedia. Such as do exist are worse than useless ; but 
 surely, with so many splendid sporting writers upon various topics 
 as the present age has produced, something might be done towards 
 furnishing us with a creditable code of St Hubert, applicable to 
 the British Isles. Take, for example, the subject of deer-stalking. 
 The Stuarts, Mr Scrope, and Mr St John respectively have writ- 
 ten books, which have not only commanded general applause 
 from the fascination of their style, but have been acknowledged 
 by sportsmen of the highest accomplishments as noble works of 
 strategy. Colquhoun's book ' The Moor and the Loch ' is, in 
 our opinion, one of the very best sporting works that ever was 
 compiled ; inasmuch as it is eminently practical, while entranc- 
 ing the reader with the vitality and power of its descriptions. 
 Scrope, though good upon deer, is bad upon salmon at least to 
 any real purpose and, for a first-rate " kettle of fish," he must 
 needs succumb to Stoddart. In the chase there has been a de- 
 cided hiatus since "Ninirod" was called away; still, there is
 
 LIGHT LITERATURE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 343 
 
 ample material, from his writings and those of others who may 
 not have achieved the same degree of notoriety, for maintaining 
 the honour of "the brush." Probably, however, a long time 
 must elapse before what we contemplate could be realised ; and 
 it is not impossible that the realisation might, when attained, be 
 in many respects mere matter of history. For, in the north, so 
 rapid are the changes, that each succeeding year makes a marked 
 difference both on the sporting grounds and on the streams. 
 The former are becoming more circumscribed ; and as cultiva- 
 tion increases, there is a change in the character of the fauna. 
 Within our own recollection, many streams, once famous for the 
 sport they afforded to the angler, have become comparatively 
 barren, owing, as we think, to the system of drainage, which ren- 
 ders the floods more heavy and impetuous than they were before, 
 and in dry seasons cuts off the supply of water which was pre- 
 viously yielded by the mosses. Some birds and wild animals 
 have become very scarce. The haunts of the eagles have been 
 thinned; and rarely now, except in the remotest districts, can 
 you hear the scream of the king of birds as he swoops down upon 
 his quarry. The capercailzie, though lately restored from Nor- 
 way, was extinct for nearly a century ; and in the south, as we 
 are informed, the breed of bustards exists no longer. If the story 
 which was once told to us by an English sportsman be true, 
 ignominious was the termination of that noble race of birds. 
 For many years the numbers of the bustards had been declining, 
 and they had disappeared from one locality after another, until 
 it was supposed that only three were left. These were known to 
 frequent one of the large downs in the south of England ; and as 
 the plain was a wide one, and not likely to be broken up by cul- 
 tivation, it was still hoped that the birds might multiply. But 
 one day there arrived, on a visit to the lord of the manor, a Lon- 
 don tradesman we believe a drysalter by profession who hap- 
 pened to possess that sort of influence over his host which is 
 often the result of pecuniary accommodation. Now, Stigginson, 
 like Mr Winkle, had the soul of a sportsman, and he yearned to 
 perform some exploit in the fields which might entitle him to 
 claim the admiration of his less fortunate friends in the City. 
 The only drawback to his ambition was that, though well ad-
 
 344 LIGHT LITERATURE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 
 
 vanced in years, Stigginson had never handled a gun ; and, in 
 consequence, his notions upon the subject of projectiles were 
 somewhat hazy and indefinite. But the drysalter was a man of 
 courage, and knew full well that the only way to conquer diffi- 
 culties was to face them ; so when his host offered him some 
 shooting, he eagerly accepted, and went forth to the stubbles and 
 potato-fields to wage war with the partridges. The birds were 
 numerous, and not wild; but that day fortune did not smile 
 upon Stigginson. Blood, indeed, he shed; but the blood was 
 that of an unfortunate pointer, who, standing dead at point, 
 thirty yards off, received in his rump a charge of No. 5 from the 
 barrel of Stigginson's gun, which, as he protested to the keeper, 
 had exploded of its own accord ; and the poor brute limped home 
 yowling to his kennel. Next morning, on being ordered to pro- 
 ceed to the fields in charge of the aspiring neophyte, the keeper 
 sternly refused to budge a single step, and had the insolence to 
 state to the squire that, though he M r as a keeper, he was also a 
 Christian man, with a wife and five children depending upon 
 him for support; and he would not stand the extreme risk of 
 being shot dead upon the spot, or rendered, like poor Ponto, a 
 cripple for life, to gratify any Cockney, even were he an alder- 
 man of London. It was of no use showing the gentleman where 
 the birds were, for he could not hit one, were it to sit up stuffed 
 before him as a mark ; and as for carrying the bag, surely Mr 
 Stigginson's own man was quite competent for that duty 
 besides, the exercise would do him good. As Sykes the game- 
 keeper was a valuable servant, and, moreover, had reason on his 
 side, the squire was compelled to yield, and Stigginson and his 
 man went forth together. Ignorant of the country, they pro- 
 ceeded right across the cultivated fields, without any notable re- 
 sult, and at last reached the open ground. In the futile expecta- 
 tion of finding a hare, they walked some distance over the downs, 
 and at length, in the heat of the day, lay down in a gravel-pit to 
 enjoy their luncheon. Then and there Stigginson began to 1 ><-wuil 
 his ill-luck, which his servant, who had once, in the days of his 
 youth, been employed to shoot crows, attributed entirely to the 
 over- fineness of his ammunition. " For," said he, " if you fires 
 at a feather pillow with them 'ere little drops, you'll find they
 
 LIGHT LITERATURE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 345 
 
 won't go through ; and it stands to reason that they won't do no 
 harm to a bird, vich also is all feathers, or mostly. I knows 
 what shooting is ; and I never see any real work done with shot 
 as is less than peas." In consequence of this remark, which ap- 
 peared to him to throw a totally new light upon the subject, and 
 satisfactorily to account for the failures of the previous day, the 
 drysalter, without drawing his charge, rammed into each barrel 
 a cartridge intended for shooting wild-fowl at a long range. Not 
 ten minutes afterwards a whirring of wings was heard ; and there, 
 sure enough, over the quarry, with a slow and deliberate flight, 
 came an enormous bird, which, to the diseased imagination of 
 the drysalter, appeared larger than the roc of the Arabian Tales. 
 " Fire ! " roared his man ; and Stigginson, shutting both his eyes, 
 fired both barrels, and rolled over from the recoil. But he fell 
 not alone ; for down, with a violent thump upon the sward, came 
 the bird that he had aimed at. It was a memorable shot, for it 
 took the life of the last cock-bustard in England ! 
 
 Foxes, were they not preserved for the purposes of the chase, 
 would very soon become extinct in Britain, like their more fero- 
 cious cousins the wolves ; indeed, the hill-foxes, as well as the 
 genuine wild-cat, are now very rare. On the other hand, Alpine 
 or white hares are fast increasing in some districts, and afford 
 excellent sport in high grass-fields and enclosures. Somehow or 
 other, seals are not so plentiful as they once were around the 
 Scottish coasts, though they are still to be found in large num- 
 bers about the islands. We do not attribute their diminution 
 so nmch to the exertions of regular sportsmen though to secure 
 a seal is reckoned no contemptible feat as to the deadly hos- 
 tility with which they are pursued by the owners of salmon- 
 fisheries, to whose nets and tackle they do an infinite deal of 
 damage. The appetite of the seal for salmon is something per- 
 fectly uncontrollable ; and he is so far from being a fair fisher, 
 that he plunders without any scruple. He will even force his 
 way into the nets for the purpose of taking out salmon ; and if 
 he could effect this delicately and cleanly, there would be com- 
 paratively little ground for complaint ; but he rends the net to 
 pieces with his strong, sharp claws, and facilitates the escape of 
 many more fish than he actually carries away. Therefore he is
 
 346 LIGHT LITERATUKE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 
 
 looked upon as an enemy entitled to no law or quarter, and is 
 shot down and knocked upon the head without mercy; even 
 poison has been resorted to as an effectual means of destruction. 
 For our own part, as we do not happen to have any pecuniary 
 interest in salmon-fisheries, we are rather partial to seals than 
 otherwise; and we have often derived much amusement from 
 watching a herd of them lying on the skerries. They must have 
 many fine points in their character, for they manage to concil- 
 iate, in a wonderful degree, the affections of the gulls and terns, 
 who officiate for them as sentinels, and seem really intent on 
 giving them special warning of the approach of danger. These 
 keep circling round the seals, screaming with all their might, as 
 if to inform them that an enemy in a shooting-jacket is creeping 
 up towards them behind the rocks ; and seldom do the phocse 
 neglect the intimation. They wallop with a loud splash into 
 the sea, their round bullet-heads not appearing again on the sur- 
 face until they are safe from the reach of shot ; while the gulls, 
 having successfully executed their mission, keep sailing above 
 your head, taunting you with a kind of hoarse, derisive laugh, 
 and most certainly enjoying the spectacle of your disappoint- 
 ment. 
 
 Very interesting also is the solicitude with which these animals 
 watch their young an instinct which seems to be strongly de- 
 veloped in all marine creatures. The mother seal, when her 
 young are killed, will not quit the place ; and then the gunner, 
 if hard of heart, may easily make her his prey. Sometimes 
 young seals, from curiosity, will follow boats, and approach so 
 near that it is possible to strike them with an oar. On such 
 occasions, the mother, if near at hand, rises to the rescue, and 
 carries off the unconscious offender, very much in the same way 
 that an excited parent of the human race dashes into the street, 
 to pick iiy her dirty darling who will persist in crossing before 
 cart or coach. 
 
 Various are the modes resorted to for entrapping and destroy- 
 ing seals ; but by far the most original plan that we have heard 
 of, sprang from the fertile brain of Rory M'Nab, a fisherman 
 and occasional poacher, whose habitation stood upon the banks 
 of the Oikel. We give the tale as it was told to us, without pre-
 
 LIGHT LITEEATUEE FOE THE HOLIDAYS. 347 
 
 tending to vouch for its authenticity. Rory was one of the race 
 which has been thus characterised by a Highland minstrel 
 
 ' ' Of all the Highland clans, 
 M'Nab is most ferocious, 
 Except the Macintyres, 
 M 'Craws, and Mackintoshes;" 
 
 but, after all, though hot in temper, he was no desperado, and 
 was a very pleasant companion in a small still. Rory's circum- 
 stances were not supposed to be remarkably nourishing ; but all 
 at once he came out strong in the article of peltry, offering for 
 sale as many sealskins as would have served to furnish winter- 
 clothing for a company in the Crimea; and a revenue-officer 
 who had occasion to search his house for the products of illicit 
 distillation, was perfectly petrified to find that his barrels were 
 overflowing with oil. Nobody in the district could say that he 
 had seen Rory out shooting seals ; but however he might come 
 by them, the fact remained that he secured a far greater number 
 than any six men in the district put together ; and great was 
 the marvel and curiosity as to his secret. Some opined that 
 " the Queen of Phairie " had communicated to him a charm, by 
 means of which he could tempt the creatures to follow him far 
 away from shore, into a sequestered place, where they might be 
 despatched at leisure. Others of less superstitious tendencies, 
 who knew that Rory M'Nab was a capital performer upon the 
 bagpipes, opined that he took advantage of the notorious fond- 
 ness of seals for music, and beguiled them to their ruin, like the 
 mysterious musician of Nuremberg, who first enticed the rats 
 and then the children belonging to that city. But though spe- 
 culation was rife, nothing could be known to a certainty ; for 
 Rory, with admirable discretion, preserved his own secret, and 
 could not be brought to blab, even under the influence of usque- 
 baugh. 
 
 The river Oikel expands into the estuary called the Firth of 
 Dornoch, and a very valuable salmon-fishing is carried on there ; 
 consequently it is a favourite haunt of seals, who may be seen in 
 considerable numbers upon the mudbanks left by the receding 
 tide. One evening towards dusk, some fishermen were return-
 
 348 LIGHT LITERATURE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 
 
 ing in their boat from a station near Bonar Bridge, exceedingly 
 incensed at the injury which they had just discovered to have 
 been inflicted upon their nets by the seals. " The tefil is 
 shoorely in the baistes ! " said one of them, Angus M'Bane by 
 name. " I will tell you what it is, you might have putten a stot 
 through the hole that was in my nets ; and it is not my believe- 
 ment that it was done by any ordinary sealgh. Pesides, and 
 what is more, I have seen my own self something going about 
 that is not canny; and you yourself, Lachlan M'Tavish, were 
 witness to things whereof you can testify." 
 
 " And that shoorely I will do," replied the party thus appealed 
 to ; " for no later than yesterday was two days, I saw down there 
 something that was not a sealgh, though it was fery hairy ; and 
 what do you think it was doing ? May I never taste Glenlivet 
 more, if the creature was not smoking a pipe ! " 
 
 " And I will tell you merely ," said another ; " I would rather 
 take than receive a plow from the baiste that has been leaving 
 its marks on the mud for this last two weeks ; for I looked at 
 them as I went by, and saw the print of toe-nails as clearly 
 as I see this tobacco. But yonder are the sealghs filthy 
 prutes ! " 
 
 And undoubtedly there lay, upon a mudbank opposite, a large 
 herd of these animals, apparently not at all inclined to move. 
 Among them were some of great size, especially one, which, in 
 the uncertain light of a September evening, looked positively 
 enormous in bulk. It seemed of an amorous disposition, for it 
 was sidling towards a group of females. 
 
 " I will make them get out of that, in a fery small expenditure 
 of time ! " said Angus M'Bane ; and he lifted up his voice, and 
 shouted, as did his comrades. Down rushed the seals precipitately 
 to the water, as is the wont of those animals all, save the mon- 
 ster, who, to the consternation and terror of the fishermen, reared 
 himself bolt upright upon his tail, shook his clenched flipper at 
 the boat, and spoke thus with a human voice : 
 
 " A plack fushing and a pad harfest to you ; and ill-luck upon 
 your head, and on your fireside, and to all your undertakings, 
 and female relations, you Angus M'Bane, son of Dugald M'Bane, 
 blacksmith at the Meikle Ferry ! And the same to you, Lachlan
 
 LIGHT LITEEATUKE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 349 
 
 M'Tavish, who do not know who your own father was, though 
 your mother was Elspat M'Farlane, in Tomantoul ! And the 
 like to the rest of you down there, whom I shall descry as soon 
 as I can perceive you ! I'll tell you what it is I will not sub- 
 mit to be molusted by such insucts ; and if I should catch you 
 again disturbing the panks, tefil take me if I do not give you 
 some shots from a gun, which will be noways comfortable for 
 your bodies ! " 
 
 But ere the seal apparent had delivered himself of half of this 
 defiance, Angus M'Bane and his comrades were a long way down 
 the firth, making the boat spin through the water in the sheer 
 ecstasy of their panic. 
 
 But after this encounter, notwithstanding the asseverations of 
 the fishermen, who declared themselves ready to testify before 
 the kirk-session that a seal had spoken to them (a marvel, after 
 all, not much greater than Livy's stock omen, " bos locutus est "), 
 Rory's secret oozed out ; in fact, the story was so good that he 
 could not keep it to himself, but disclosed it under a solemn oath 
 of secrecy to Evan M'Kay, who, in like manner, communicated 
 it to Donald Gunn. In consequence, not a week elapsed before 
 every man, woman, and child in the district knew Rory M'Nab's 
 method of dealing with the seals. It was ingenious in conception 
 and was very cleverly carried into practice. Disguised as a seal, 
 in a cunning garment of skins, Rory used, when the tide began 
 to ebb, to lay himself down upon a sand-bank and imitate the 
 grotesque motions of the creature. Unsuspicious of danger, 
 the seals scramble up to their usual place of resort ; and then 
 Rory, taking care to avail himself of the wind, for the scenting 
 power of these animals is nearly as acute as that of deer, crawled 
 toward them, and stunned the nearest by a blow over the nose 
 with a short bludgeon which he carried. In this way he was 
 able to secure five or six seals for each tide ; and, miraculous as 
 it may appear, he was only once fired at by a sportsman. On 
 that occasion Rory displayed great presence of mind, for the 
 bullet struck within an inch or so of his whiskers. Most men, 
 under such circumstances, would have made an attempt to dis- 
 close themselves ; but Rory, not knowing, as he afterwards said, 
 " but that the carle might have another parrel," thought it most
 
 350 LIGHT LITERATUKE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 
 
 prudent to preserve his phocean character, took the water along 
 with the herd, and reached the shore without discovery. 
 
 Such were the adventures of Rory M'Nab with the seals ; and 
 if any man doubts the veracity of the narrative, or the possibility 
 of so beguiling them, let him purchase a sealskin and try. 
 People have no right to be incredulous until they have convinced 
 themselves, by personal experiment, of the impossibility of the 
 thing stated ; and so far as we are concerned, we should think 
 ourselves guilty of an act of unpardonable impertinence, were we 
 to express a doubt regarding the accuracy of any anecdote which 
 a sportsman may be pleased to communicate. Indeed it is not 
 safe to indulge in doubts, lest these should degenerate into posi- 
 tive scepticism ; and the best method to deal with a sportsman 
 who is recounting his own feats, is to take your tumbler quietly 
 till his is exhausted, and then trump him if you can. 
 
 Yet another day, and the cottage which has been our 
 headquarters for so many weeks will be deserted, and not again, 
 this year at least, shall we, descending from the hill, see the blue 
 smoke curling upwards in the hush of a summer's eve. Soon 
 very soon, must the flowers in the little garden be beaten down 
 and withered in the rain, and the bonny bower be broken. No 
 more, at early morning, shall we hear the crowing of the gorcock 
 among the heather, or watch the herons winging their lazy 
 flight to the promontory where they delight to dwell. Ever 
 with the waning year is there a tinge of melancholy and regret ; 
 for the seasons glide away like shadows, and with them we hurry 
 to our end. 
 
 Short but sweet is the northern summer ; and after its delights 
 have drawn to a close, sportsmen as well as birds begin to 
 migrate, and turn their faces toward the south. The days have 
 become perceptibly shorter, and almost every night there is a 
 glare of aurora in the sky. The winds begin to pipe shrilly, and 
 the seas to awaken from their summer calm ; and gladsome of 
 an evening is the flickering of the fire upon the hearth. Men 
 are not yet prepared to settle down deliberately for the winter 
 city life ; but they are withdrawing themselves from the remote 
 districts, and are beginning, like swallows or plovers, to congre-
 
 LIGHT LITERATURE FOR THE HOLIDAYS. 351 
 
 gate. All over the Highlands, now once more gladdened by the 
 presence of the Queen, there are gatherings and games ; and 
 loud and clamorous has been the strife of rival pipers at Inver- 
 ness. Birmingham has had its musical festival, whereat Costa 
 has won fresh laurels ; and hospitable Glasgow has spread the 
 board for upwards of a thousand philosophers. The heather is 
 wellnigh deserted for the stubbles ; and soon among the yellow- 
 ing woods and coppices the whirring of the gorgeous pheasant 
 will be followed by the deadly report. 
 
 And hark ! over land and sea ring the thrilling news of vic- 
 tory. Sebastopol, that grim fortress of the Euxine, before whose 
 bastions so many heroes have fought and died, has at length 
 fallen, as a giant falls, after a desperate and sanguinary struggle ; 
 and the flags of Britain and France wave together in glory and 
 amity above its ruins. As an aggressor and undisguised robber, 
 Russia took the field ; nor will she quit her scent of her intended 
 prey until she has been driven, howling and crippled, to her 
 den. Then let the bells ring, and the cannon thunder, and the 
 bonfires be lighted on the hills ; for the great fortress of Russia 
 has fallen ; and wall, town, and ships, are confounded in the 
 common ruin !
 
 NUPTIAL ODE ON THE MARRIAGE OF HIS ROYAL 
 HIGHNESS THE PRINCE OF WALES. 
 
 MARCH 1863. 
 
 PASS from the earth, deep shadows of the night, 
 Give place and vantage to the rosy dawn ; 
 For now the sullen Winter takes his flight, 
 His dreary robes withdrawn : 
 Coy as a maiden moves the wavering Spring 
 With dainty step across the emerald lawn, 
 Her tresses fair with primrose garland plight. 
 Hark ! how the woods and bursting thickets ring 
 With the glad notes of love and welcoming ; 
 The twitter of delight, the restless call 
 Of myriad birds that hold their festival, 
 When leaves begin to sprout and flowers to blow. 
 " joyous time ! " 'tis thus I hear them sing, 
 Each to its mate upon the burgeoning spray, 
 " happy time ! Winter hath passed away, 
 Cold, rugged Winter, with its storms and snow, 
 And all the sadness of the shortened year. 
 Be glad be glad ! the pleasant days are near, 
 The days of mirth, and love, and joy supreme, 
 The long-expected days for which we pined ! 
 Flow on, for ever flow, thou wandering stream, 
 Through tangled brakes, and thickets fast entwined 
 With the lithe woodbine, and the clambering rose ! 
 For thee there is no rest ;
 
 NUPTIAL ODE. 353 
 
 But we shall build our nest 
 In some dim coppice where the violet blows ; 
 And thou shalt sing to us the livelong night, 
 When hushed, and still, and folded in delight, 
 We pass from waking rapture to repose ! " 
 
 II. 
 
 So, while hoar Winter stumbles from the field, 
 
 Like some old tyrant, baffled and aghast, 
 
 Who, palsy-stricken, yet most loath to yield, 
 
 Points with malignant finger to the past, 
 
 Lay we the sombre weeds of mourning by, 
 
 And hail the advent of the genial sun, 
 
 No longer overcast 
 
 By woeful clouds that with their curtain dun, 
 
 And evil-omened pall, 
 
 Made dark the year of our calamity. 
 
 ruthless year ! sad and unblest to all ; 
 
 Most fraught with anguish to the heart of One, 
 
 Who evermore shall mourn, 
 
 Reft of her lord, her lover, and her stay ! 
 
 In awe and silence veil that sacred urn, 
 
 Quit the dim vault, and pass into the day ! 
 
 Not ours with impious plaint to censure doom, 
 
 Or murmur, when we rather need to pray. 
 
 " GOD called His servant home His will be done ! " 
 
 What more can mortals say ? 
 
 Enough of tears are shed ; 
 
 Unmeasured wailing desecrates the dead, 
 
 And vain repining but profanes the tomb ! 
 
 in. 
 
 Yet let the Muse with trembling fingers try 
 To frame a verse for him so early lost. 
 Good deeds immortal are they cannot die ; 
 Unscathed by envious blight or withering frost 
 Z
 
 354 NUPTIAL ODE ON THE MARRIAGE OF 
 
 They live, and bud, and bloom ; and men partake 
 
 Still of their freshness, and are strong thereby. 
 
 He who, inspired by charity and love, 
 
 Such deeds hath wrought, and for the Saviour's sake, 
 
 Hath endless glory in the realms above. 
 
 His place is now with that exalted host 
 
 Who, born to greatness, wasted not their power 
 
 In selfish luxury or idle boast, 
 
 But trod the path of wise humility. 
 
 Therefore assured already is his fame ; 
 
 Therefore nor pyramid nor stately tower 
 
 Can add more honour to our ALBERT'S name. 
 
 High were his thoughts, and holy was his aim 
 
 To raise and bless the people of the land : 
 
 By peaceful arts to consecrate the toil 
 
 Of those who, labouring on our English soil, 
 
 Obey in patience GOD'S supreme command, 
 
 With that allegiance which becomes the free. 
 
 Then rest, embalmed for ever, noble heart, 
 
 By all our loves ; for sainted though thou art, 
 
 Our fond remembrance still reverts to thee ! 
 
 IV. 
 
 Oh, Royal Lady ! honoured and most dear, 
 
 Whose bitter woe no human tongue can tell, 
 
 For whom, while bending o'er that piteous bier, 
 
 From eyes unused to weep, the tear-drops fell ! 
 
 For whom a nation's prayer went up to heaven 
 
 For whom it yet arises night and day 
 
 Deem not our sorrow cold nor insincere 
 
 For the high welcome given 
 
 On this auspicious morning to thy son, 
 
 Our hope, our darling Prince, our joy, our pride, 
 
 And to the blooming bride, 
 
 The fair young stranger he has wooed and won.
 
 HIS KOYAL HIGHNESS THE PEINCE OF WALES. 355 
 
 V. 
 
 Rejoice, brave England, through thy fertile plains, 
 
 Thy stately cities and ancestral halls, 
 
 Thy humbler homes where peace with plenty reigns, 
 
 Thy shores that, firmer far than massiest walls, 
 
 Defy the foeman and engird the free ! 
 
 Old land of worship, loyalty, and fame, 
 
 Let every voice unite in glad acclaim 
 
 To swell the chorus of our jubilee ! 
 
 Awake the echoes that have slumbered long, 
 
 Or answered faintly to another hail ; 
 
 Awake them with the shout that, loud and strong, 
 
 Rang out from cliff to cliff when, sheathed in mail, 
 
 Victorious EDWARD trod the English shore, 
 
 Fresh from the wars in France, with nobler spoil 
 
 Than ever conquering captain home did bring. 
 
 Then myriad voices rose in glad turmoil 
 
 " THE PRINCE ! THE PRINCE ! " they cried ; and ever more 
 
 Swelled up the shout like ocean's gathering roar, 
 
 And burst in deluge of delirious joy ; 
 
 The while, with modest grace, the hero-boy 
 
 Bare-headed rode beside the captive King ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 But happier days have dawned upon us now : 
 
 No longer rings the clangour of the fight ; 
 
 No more the balefire on the mountain brow 
 
 Sends up its ruddy signal to the night; 
 
 No huge Armadas vex the narrow seas, 
 
 No angry navies thunder on the tide ; 
 
 But friendly ensigns flutter in the breeze, 
 
 And barks unchallenged o'er the waters glide. 
 
 We hailed our Prince, returning not from war 
 
 With blood-stained trophies wrenched from hostile hand ; 
 
 His badge of triumph was the peaceful palm,
 
 356 NUPTIAL ODE ON THE MARRIAGE OF 
 
 Fresh gathered from the Eastern emblem tree ; 
 For he hath journeyed to the Holy Land, 
 And wandered o'er its blessed hills of balm ; 
 Hath bent before the Saviour's tomb the knee, 
 Drank of the Jordan's stream, and seen afar, 
 In stillest night, when all was hushed and calm, 
 'Neath Syrian skies, the lustrous evening star 
 Shine in* the dark expanse of Galilee. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Welcome wert thou, young pilgrim, to thy home, 
 
 But higher welcome England gives to-day ; 
 
 For now the long-expected hour has come ; 
 
 And, in its bright array, 
 
 Moves to the altar-steps the bridal train. 
 
 happy, happy they 
 
 That fond and loving pair ! 
 
 The princely bridegroom and his peerless bride, 
 
 So beautiful and fair. 
 
 He, England's royal son and stateliest heir, 
 
 She, daughter of the far-descended Dane. 
 
 And now the knot is tied 
 
 The marriage-vows are ta'en ; 
 
 No longer are they twain, 
 
 And nought but death shall ever them divide ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Blest be the hour ! Proclaim it to the hills, 
 Let the loud cannon thunder forth our glee ; 
 O'er mountains, rivers, plains, and rocks, and rills, 
 Speed the glad signal, speed it fast and free ! 
 Behold ! it leaps along with lightning glance, 
 Peal after peal in verberating roar, 
 From Dover rolling to the coast of France, 
 From Mona's isle to Erin's answering shore. 
 As starting swift from some oblivious trance,
 
 HIS EOYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE OF WALES. 357 
 
 Each fortress thunders, and each cliff replies ; 
 
 Each lesser height prolongs the loud refrain. 
 
 Wide through the land the joyful message flies ; 
 
 From where the hoary heap of Tintagell, 
 
 Great Arthur's hold, frowns o'er the western main, 
 
 To that huge buttress of the northern seas 
 
 Smote by the Pentland's swell, 
 
 Whence, dimly seen through tempest and through rain, 
 
 Loom far away the stormy Orcades. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Not silent wilt thou bide, impetuous Wales ! 
 
 Old hero-land, whose name, so proudly borne 
 
 By that young Prince, rings o'er the world to-day. 
 
 Still glows the ancient fire within thy dales, 
 
 Still lives the magic of Llewellyn's lay ; 
 
 Then, on this gracious morn, 
 
 Let the wild rapture of the harp be heard ; 
 
 And bid the Cymric bard 
 
 His highest notes essay ; 
 
 For never surely did a happier theme 
 
 Melt into music in a minstrel's dream. 
 
 x. 
 
 Loud as the rush of waters when the snow 
 
 Has left the summit of the mountains bare, 
 
 And the freed cataracts in thunder throw 
 
 The weight of winter through the quaking air, 
 
 Down to the gulfs that yawn and boil beneath 
 
 So Scotland lifts her voice, 
 
 And with unbated breath 
 
 Bids all her sons rejoice. 
 
 Hearty and true the answer Joy to thee, 
 
 Heir of the BRUCE, great joy ! Our feast is spread : 
 
 Yet ah, we lack the ornament and head 
 
 That should have crowned the measure of our glee !
 
 358 NUPTIAL ODE ON THE MARRIAGE OF 
 
 Take then our greeting ; but the day will come 
 
 When we, with transport of tumultuous pride, 
 
 Shall welcome fondly to their northern home 
 
 Our princely chieftain and his blooming bride. 
 
 quickly, quickly glide 
 
 On wings of love till then, celestial hours ! 
 
 Swift be your flight ; and when the summer spreads 
 
 Her carpet on the meads, 
 
 Strewn with the garniture of odorous flowers ; 
 
 When glows with purple every mountain-side, 
 
 And the still lakes receive 
 
 In the vast mirror of their waters wide 
 
 The blush and glory of the crimson eve 
 
 A louder, wilder cheer 
 
 Shall burst upon the ear, 
 
 And shouts of triumph herald to the sky, 
 
 The long exulting cry 
 
 " Be joyful, ancient land, for Scotland's Prince is here ! ' 
 
 XI. 
 
 Come, Erin, come, and join the sister band ! 
 
 Make the strong union of our loves complete ; 
 
 Perfect as THEIRS, who, clasping hand to hand, 
 
 With guileless lips the sacred vows repeat ; 
 
 And by that pledge so excellent and sweet 
 
 Bind kindred nations closer yet to stand. 
 
 Ring out the bells ! Let every face be gay 
 
 To welcome this our royal holiday ; 
 
 Be there no dull or lumpish laggarts here, 
 
 To vex our honest cheer, 
 
 Bvit cast all care and dolorous thoughts away ! 
 
 Begin the nuptial song ; 
 
 The joyous strain prolong ! 
 
 We'll drink, whate'er betide, 
 
 To bridegroom and to bride 
 
 Fill high the cup, and let the health go round ! 
 
 Then shout for joy amain
 
 HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PKIXCE OF WALES. 359 
 
 Shout, till the rafters overhead resound, 
 For such a day as this ye shall not see again ! 
 
 XII. 
 
 happy times, when iron-visaged war 
 Like a maimed giant in his dungeon lies, 
 No more to urge along his creaking car 
 'Midst women's shrieks, and children's frighted cries ! 
 happy days, where peace and love combine 
 To rule the nations with benignant sway ; 
 When prosperous planets ever nightly shine, 
 And hope awakens with the dawn of day ! 
 Not such was England in the times of yore. 
 Back roll the years, as roll the clouds away 
 And lo, the vision of a shelving shore ! 
 Black ships are tossing on the surfy bay 
 Thick on the strand the uncouth warriors swarm, 
 Stalwart and fierce, in terrible array 
 See ! in their van the grim Berserkars bear 
 The Raven banner flapping in the air 
 They climb the cliffs ! Arm, men of England, arm ! 
 Rush to the fight, be resolute and bold ! 
 No wandering pirates muster on the plain, 
 No puny foemen threat the Saxon hold 
 Strike for your lives and homes ! It is the conquering 
 Dane ! 
 
 XIII. 
 
 Sons of the valiant dead ! 
 
 Whose fathers Hengist led 
 
 What time the scattered Britons fled afar 
 
 Vain is your boasted might ; 
 
 Ye cannot win the fight, 
 
 Nor stem the torrent of that furious war. 
 
 The Danish sword hath cleft the Saxon shield, 
 
 And rank with slaughter is the trampled fen. 
 
 Few take to flight, and fewer yet will yield,
 
 360 NUPTIAL ODE ON THE MARRIAGE OF 
 
 But none will strike for England's cause again. 
 Night settles down, and lo, the sky is red, 
 Gleaming from east to west with smothering fires ; 
 The convents kindle, and the lofty spires 
 Of churches blaze ; above the cloistered dead 
 Crash down the roofs, and many a fane expires ! 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Then desolation lords it o'er the land ; 
 
 Fell rapine stalks abroad ; and who shall keep 
 
 The timorous flock, or brutal rage withstand, 
 
 When prowl the hungry wolves around the sheep ? 
 
 Where is the shepherd ALFRED, where is he ? 
 
 Where hides the King in this disastrous hour ? 
 
 Behold yon hut in lonely Athelney, 
 
 The haunt and refuge of the baited boor ! 
 
 There lurks the Saxon monarch with the poor 
 
 In servile weeds, crouched by a squalid hearth ; 
 
 Yet not forgetful of his royal birth, 
 
 And taught by stern misfortune to endure. 
 
 Again the trumpet sounds the Saxons throng ; 
 
 The Cross, dishonoured late, is reared on high ; 
 
 And thousands, maddened by their country's wrong, 
 
 Swear the deep oath, to conquer or to die. 
 
 Ravens of Denmark ! Does that boding cry 
 
 Predict a triumph or a foul defeat ? 
 
 Dark sweep the clouds across an angry sky ; 
 
 Dashes the rain, and pelts the blinding sleet ; 
 
 The thunder bellows, and the lightning glares, 
 
 But aye the bickering blade 
 
 Cleaves the strong helm, and through the corslet shares, 
 
 The Danesman's march is stayed 
 
 Stayed ! Call ye that a stay ? The sta^vi-ing host, 
 
 Like their own ships by screaming tempest tost, 
 
 Waver and break Make in ! the day's our own ! 
 
 Again night settles on the fated field 
 
 The Saxon sword is red,
 
 HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE OF WALES. 361 
 
 Hewn is the Danish shield. 
 
 The Cross triumphant waves above his head, 
 
 And English ALFRED hath his kingdom won ! 
 
 xv. 
 
 Depart, ye shadows of the olden time ! 
 
 Faint as the forms in weird Agrippa's glass, 
 
 Evoked from Hades by enchanted rhyme, 
 
 Like vapour melting into air, they pass. 
 
 No dark fantastic vision of the night 
 
 Now casts its glamour o'er the gazer's eye. 
 
 Fair as a poet's dream, serenely bright, 
 
 Veiled in the charm of maiden modesty, 
 
 The Rose of Denmark comes, the Royal Bride ! 
 
 O loveliest Rose ! our paragon and pride, 
 
 Choice of the Prince whom England holds so dear 
 
 What homage shall we pay 
 
 To one who has no peer I 
 
 What can the bard or wildered minstrel say 
 
 More than the peasant, who, on bended knee, 
 
 Breathes from his heart an earnest prayer for thee .' 
 
 Words are not fair, if that they would express 
 
 Is fairer still ; so lovers in dismay 
 
 Stand all abashed before that loveliness 
 
 They worship most, but find no words to pray. 
 
 Too sweet for incense ! Take our loves instead, 
 
 Most freely, truly, and devoutly given ; 
 
 Our prayers for blessings on that gentle head, 
 
 For earthly happiness and rest in Heaven ! 
 
 May never sorrow dim those dovelike eyes, 
 
 But peace as pure as reigned in Paradise, 
 
 Calm and untainted on creation's eve, 
 
 Attend thee still ! May holy angels keep 
 
 Watch o'er thy path, and guard thee in thy sleep ! 
 
 Long years of joy and mutual love be thine, 
 
 And all that mortals ask or can receive 
 
 Of benediction from the Hand Divine !
 
 362 NUPTIAL ODE ON THE MAEKIAGE OF 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Most happy Prince ! who such a priceless gem 
 
 Hast set within thy royal diadem ; 
 
 Heir of illustrious kings, what words can tell 
 
 The joy that fills the nation's heart this day ! 
 
 If the fond wish of those who love thee well 
 
 Could call down blessings ; as the bounteous May 
 
 Showers blossom on the turf as ocean spray 
 
 Flies glittering o'er the rocks as summer rain 
 
 Falls sweetly soft on some sequestered dell, 
 
 Bidding the languid herb revive again 
 
 Then never surely Prince were blest like thee ! 
 
 For in thy gentle nature well we see 
 
 The manhood, worth, and valour of thy sires, 
 
 Tempered with such a winsome nobleness 
 
 (The glow without the rage of bickering fires), 
 
 That shame it were and sin to love thee less. 
 
 And though no human hand can lift the veil 
 
 Of the dark future, or unfold the page 
 
 Of that most awful book, wherein the tale, 
 
 To be accomplished, of the coming age 
 
 Stands in eternal characters of doom 
 
 Though no prophetic voices from the tomb, 
 
 Or mystic oracles of dim presage, 
 
 Can tell us what shall be our trust is high, 
 
 Yea, in the Highest ! HE will be thy shield, 
 
 Thy strength, thy stay, though all the world combine. 
 
 Believing this, we fear no enemy : 
 
 Nor foreign war, nor treason unrevealed, 
 
 Can shake thy house, or mar thy royal line : 
 
 Dread none, great Prince ; our hearts and loves are thine ! 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Cease then, my strain ! too weak, perchance, and rude, 
 To be the descant on a theme so sweet ; 
 A sorry tribute, though the will be good,
 
 HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS THE PRINCE OF WALES. 363 
 
 This day of highest festival to greet, 
 
 When Youth and Beauty at the altar meet, 
 
 And all the land is ringing with acclaim. 
 
 Unequal as thou art and incomplete, 
 
 What haughty tongue shall censure thee or blame, 
 
 Since lowliest gifts with richest offerings vie ? 
 
 Cease and be done ! For lo, the western sky 
 
 Is purpling down to darkness, and the glare 
 
 Of myriad lamps is flashing in the air, 
 
 And on the distant hills the bonfires blaze. 
 
 Swift stars rush upwards with a fiery train, 
 
 Dispersed in clusters of effulgent rays, 
 
 And meteors bursting into golden rain. 
 
 So gleams the startled firmament : but soon 
 
 Supreme in heaven shall glide the tranquil moon, 
 
 All meaner fires eclipsed. On plain and hill 
 
 She sheds her peaceful light 
 
 Hushed be each irksome noise ; let all be still ; 
 
 And holiest silence seal the marriage night ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
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 LAWS RELATING TO ENGLISH SPORTS. By C. G. MERE- 
 WETHER, ESQ., of the Northern Circuit. 
 
 NATUEAL EELIGION: 
 
 AN INQUIRY INTO THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF RE- 
 LIGIOUS, MORAL, AND POLITICAL SCIENCE. By W. R. PIRIE, 
 D.D., Professor of Divinity and Church History in the University of 
 Aberdeen.