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THE
WEST OF ENGLAND MISCELLANY.
Vol. I.]
FEBRUARY, 1845.
[No. 4.
THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE EMPIRE.
“ The Rich and Poor meet together, but somehow both forget that God has made
them all. *
*
* Heaven help us ! were there but a community of feeling,
as honest as that which necessity has at last nearly made the community of metallic
interests—and the value even of gold lies in the feelings which it can buy—how
happy we might make many now, whose bruised hearts will be cold when ours are
so, and to what blessed returns might thousands put their dormant virtues, if they
would but believe that God’s image lingered in the world. *
*
* Your
fathers had their superstitions, but they were never so gross as yours, for they were
fed and clothed while they followed them, and spoke of the powers of the old
Church at their warm firesides; but you, in spite of the cries of nature, bend in
reverence to oppression when it comes in a majestic shape, and receive the law of
outrage with meekness, because disguised by a respected form of words.”—The
Young Widow.
Perhaps it is not one of the least extraordinary of the signs of the times
that while statesmen and philosophers are daily enunciating some new
utilitarian sentiment, and merchants and manufacturers are counting
from deep money-bags their gold, the Poet and the Novelist are, with
a fervour and energy till now unknown in the “ world of letters,” de
voting their time and their talent to the cause of the poor man, seeking
to enforce his rights, and make his misery heard, by all the impassioned
eloquence they can command. The delightful work from which we
have quoted the above brilliant passages, and many others written in a
kindred spirit—the novels of D’Israeli, Dickens, and Sue—the
poetry of Talfourd, Smythe, and Lamartine—have done more
towards directing public attention to the social condition of mankind
than all the speeches of a Peel, a Russell, or a Palmerston, for
they have addressed themselves to the holier feelings,—in the inmost,
chambers of the heart whispered bitter truths: and while the bold
denunciation of the Times has spoken in a voice of thunder throughout
the length and breadth of the land, the pages of Coningsby and The
Young Widow have been read in the boudoir, and have enlisted on the
side of humanity woman’s mighty influence, woman’s true and earnest
sympathy. And it is meet and right that it should be so. Who will
Vol. 1.
H
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not rejoice to see in the moral desert this spring of life and hope ? And
yet is the fact strange—melancholy—the duties of Government, even
the sacred offices of the Church, are virtually administered by a power
unrecognized by either, but which now, in the hour of necessity, has
gathered up the straggling reins, and is holding them with a will and a
determination at which their lukewarmness and expediency recoil. Yes,
by the necessities of the times that power has been again called into
being, or rather, awoke from dormancy, for it is deathless, before which
ere now the proud Autocrat has grown pale with fear, and the infallibi
lity of the Vatican confessed to error; that power which has hurried
princely monarchs, founders of dynasties, heirs of a long line of ennobled
ancestry, to an untimely and a cruel end, and which has raised from the
lowest abyss of grimy penury an obscure and nameless being to occupy
the vacant throne ; that power which achieved the English Reformation,
and which in later times has freed the Catholic from the bondage then
imposed • that power which speaks but once in centuries, and then in a
voice which makes the nations tremble, is again around and about us ;
the warning blast of its trumpet is becoming fearfully shrill and distinct.
Public Opinion is guided by the Press more than Acts of Parliament,
and the influence of Woman is greater than the power of a Cabinet
Minister. A Windsor uniform may dazzle the eye, but it cannot move
the mind. Opinion expresses itself in the literature of the day; the
novelist and the poet are its most efficient representatives, and we
repeat that it is most cheering in the dearth of good feeling, and cordial
reciprocation of kindly offices, to see the man of letters heartily espousing
the cause of the suffering poor, and striving for a moral regeneration of
those social relations which are the support and the glory of a nation.
The evils of our Social Condition are now pretty generally allowed by
all who think upon the subject; few have sufficient hardihood to defend
things as they are; but many are yet careless, more refuse to look beyond
the surface, and it is to these we woidd particularly address our remarks.
The careless man most commonly seeks to excuse his criminality by
shifting the blame to other shoulders than his own, or alleging that he
is not responsible for the misconduct of another; but in the present
instance we submit either plea is inadmissible. The fact is not dis
puted ; the man must be blind, not careless, who will venture to deny
the existence of a frightful, wide-spread, spreading, and fatally contagi
ous misery, destitution, and wretchedness in this beautiful land, over-
�THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE EMPIRE.
flowing with riches, bringing forth plenty, and abounding in the good
tilings of the earth. He must be blind, not careless, who, in traversing
Etc streets and squares of our cities, has not seen squalid, homeless
wretches, courting a moment’s shelter beneath the lofty portico of
some spacious mansion, and supplicating in speechless agony a morsel
of bread to prolong a life of woe,—or, when the curtain of night has
fallen over the earth, and a still more squalid poverty creeps forth from
its hiding place, when keen hunger and the freezing air make the cries
of the houseless beggar truly heart-rending, when the gin-shop is full,
the pawnbroker’s passage crowded, the poor courtezan covering a broken
heart with hued garments, and the thief creeping warily along,—who
that has seen these things will dare to put the fact in issue ? Who that
thinks of these things can continue careless ? No, the fact is not dis
puted—the hardest face-grinder must admit it; imposture there may
be, and doubtless is, but the pretenders are very few indeed compared
with the real sufferers, and to refuse all sympathy on such a miserable
pretext is as wicked as it is hypocritical. The careless, and those who
affect a carelessness which they think well-bred and fashionable, take a
line of defence requiring a little more consideration, because, although
it is equally untenable, it is more specious and sophistical. They con
stantly remind us that there is a “ State provision for the poor,” that the
Government of the country cares for its poor, that every poor man and
poor woman has a refuge where to fly in distress, where their wants will
be attended to and their interests watched over, and for which there is
a regular assessment made throughout the land. This, and the like of
this, we have heard over and over again, but, Heaven help our igno
rance ! we can see no sound argument in it. We will not say one word
on the New Poor Law, or make a single remark on the barbarous and
complicated machinery by which its unchristian enactments are carried
into operation, but will at once attempt to show these superficial reasoners how exceedingly vague and unsatisfactory are their premises, how
very illogical the conclusions they wish to draw, or rather leave us to
infer therefrom, That the prevention of an acknowledged evil is better
than any temporary alleviation of its sequences, is an observation so
hackneyed as to require no enforcement here; still, notwithstanding the
common and ready acquiescence in this great truth, many—and especi
ally the class we are now addressing—neglect to follow in their practice
the precept which their lips are not slow to preach for the benefit of
H 2
�100
THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE EMPIRE.
others : and though it be (as we admit it is) a common failing of huma
nity, such conduct merits reproof, and deserves unceasing reprobation;
and in no instance is this inconsistency more clearly to be recognised
than in the answer of a careless man when the condition of the poor is
urged upon his consideration. As we have already said, he talks much
of the laws for their relief, the money he contributes to the rates,
invites us to inspect the Union House Con a visiting dayJ, and intro
duces us to the guardians, the nurses, and the matrons. He is eloquent
on these topics, for he is not only talking to another but is also
addressing his own conscience—is seeking to convince himself that he
has done all that is required of him ; but if we venture to suggest that
the parochial refuge will, in all probability, soon require very considerable
enlargement—that it is already, in our opinion, too crowded for the
health of its inmates—our indolent friend is suddenly seized with an
unapproachable taciturnity; or, if at last compelled to give an opinion or
suggest a remedy, he will refer us to a volume of Malthus, rail much at
early marriages, and descant on the unknown beauties of some hitherto
unexplored island in the Pacific. Such are the contents of his medicine
chest, and they are invariably crammed down oui- throats whenever we
ask disagreeable questions. These men must have read history to little
purpose, or they would have discovered that the policy they advocate, or
by their silence approve, does inevitably lead to irretrievable ruin in
the State by which it is adopted. The pages of the past are full of
instructive lessons, are rich in that learning which makes politicians
wise, but they must be perused by a free and unbiassed mind, and such
we fear these cannot bring to the study. They have been too accustomed
to regard the peasantry as mere ministers to their necessities or their
gratifications, and they refuse to look into the rottenness of the core if
they can heal for a time the broken skin. They treat poverty as a
crime, and not as a misfortune, forgetting that in the decrees of Provi
dence there is no wrong, and not remembering that the meanest serf,
the veriest Lazarus that craves a crumb from their table, is a man and
a brother. It may be that this class will temporarily appease the upbraidings of their consciences by the constant repetition of these falla
cious arguments, but it is impossible that the impression can last, or
will have the effect of convincing any well disposed to investigation. It
is not sufficient that we build up large mansions for the poor, or provide
them with food to hold body and soul together; we should remember
�THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE EMPIRE.
101
fflHwhey have the same feelings as ourselves—that the same blood
circulates in their veins as flows in our own—and that if the feelings are
torpid, or the blood frozen, it is the rigour of our laws which has
plunged the iron into the soul, and the wintry customs we respect
which have congealed the waters of life. It is not enough that we
support the body while we starve the mind; we may subscribe to one
charity, preach sermons for another, and make soup and buy coals for a
third—all will not absolve us from blame, or even free us from some
self-censure, if we forget the commands of Heaven, or neglect the small
still admonitions of Divinity within our own bosoms; all this, and much
more, will not regenerate our social system, or restore the peasantry of
our beloved country to their ancient and legitimate rank.
Oh ! no ; the day in which paltry measures of expediency might have
availed is past. We must now strike with the axe, not trim with the
pruning-knife; schemes of reform must be commensurate with the
demands of the times, and they must be framed with a regard to what
is just rather than what is necessary. They must be tried by the
standard of a Catholic religion, and not by the loose morality of erring
man. Legal wrong must yield to holy right, and Scriptural command
ment supersede philosophical erudition. We must now, to effect a cure,
eradicate the seeds of disease, and purge the body of every particle of
that perilous stuff which preys upon our vitality. No; the hour in
which temporizing might have sufficed can never be recalled ; the deeds
of that hour are registered, and it is now a record of the past. The
hypocrisy and the double dealing, the open violence and the secret injury
of that time, are gone by, but not forgotten. The ravages of the storm
are oft more terribly apparent when the angry waves have subsided,
and the blustering winds are hushed. Their memory lives after them;
they are forced upon the recollection by the results they have already
brought forth, and the yet more fearful ones with which these seem
pregnant. Oh 1 no; if we would avert the calamities which threaten our
very existence as a nation—for deprived of her peasantry England
would soon vanish from the map of civilization—if we would ward off
the coming blow—if we would be prepared to chastise the insolence of
a foreign foe, or crush the rebel in our own bosom—let us unite as one
man, animated with one purpose, and desiring but one end, diligently
and religiously to promote that kindly and generous feeling between
every class of society, the absence of which is a primary cause of the
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LETTER OPENING IN LADIES’ SCHOOLS.
manifold evils we all agree to deplore. Let us above all things cherish
a charity free, extended, universal,—a charity which knows not the
rivalry of sect, is a stranger to the contentions of party, which hopeth
all things, and, in doubt, refers to the arbitration of Heaven what
Omniscience can alone decide. Let us follow the plain commands of
Holy Writ rather than dispute on doctrinal theology, feed the poor and
clothe the naked before we study the oreed of Calvin, and humbly con
fess our own sins ere we decide on the forms and ceremonies which
others adopt as symbols of their faith. Let us, regardless of the sneer
of ignorance, the taunt of vulgar minds, or the abuse of the interested
and the unworthy, listen to the monitions of the heart, and receive its
language as the oracles of inspiration, as the whisperings of Nature, and
the still voice of Nature’s God. Let us abide by this as the rule of
life, and the influence of good example ■will soon become contagious.
We shall reap a full harvest from the seeds we scatter around us, cull
sweet flowers in the wilderness, and rejoice that we have, by the exer
cise of the virtues of humanity, saved the land of our birth from that
fiery ordeal which in other countries must have purified and regenerated
THE SOCIAL CONDITION OF THE EMPIRE.
LETTER OPENING IN LADIES’ SCHOOLS.
As promised in our last number, we proceed to offer a few remarks
upon the espionage very generally practised in Ladies’ Schools in this
country. A correspondent has favoured us with a letter written by a
well-known school-mistress in one of the western cities, from which we
fairly extract the following very plain, and, had it been printed in the
circulars which announce the merits of this establishment, we should
have been bound to add, very honest, paragraph. Here it is; we pledge
ourselves to its accuracy, for the letter is now before us:—
“ I seal and read the direction of every letter going out of my house, and I break
the seal and read the signature of every letter coming into my house. Those from
parents I do not read • all others are subject to my choice of inspection, and if I see
anything which I do not approve, a letter is more likely to go into the fire than into
the hands of the intended recipient.”
This, then, shall be our text. At all events none can charge us with
exaggeration, for we have given Madame’s own words; she cannot feel
�LETTER OPENING IN LADIES* SCHOOLS.
103
aggrieved, for we see the letter is deliberately and cautiously written—
written on this subject in reply to a complaint preferred, and is not a
private letter ; moreover it is a subject upon which we may legitimately
comment, for it is one in which all are interested. We believe the
assumed right to be indefensible—to be an engine of tyranny and
capricious oppression—and we have a right to denounce it. Print this
condition with your terms, Madame; tell every parent and guardian
what you do before they commit their daughter or their ward to your
keeping: and, as regards you we are silent; but we are informed you
do not do so; we are told you do not state this in the preliminary
interview; we cannot find it among the extras in your card. If you
tell a father, a mother, or a guardian, that if you do not like a letter
which a sister, a brother, or a friend, may write to their daughter you
will burn it, we can say no more; we grant you may bum it, or may
paste it in your scrap-book, or do any other thing with it seeming right
unto yourself; the fault then rests with those who gave you that power,
without which such conduct would be criminally punishable, and with
this hint we will leave you, Madame, and address ourselves to those
who are, or ought to be, more deeply interested in the welfare, happi
ness, and comfort of their children, than any paid governess, however
upright and honest.
We do not wish to say one word personally offensive to any school
mistress ; we can readily conceive that these individuals have much to
encounter, but truth compels us to add that we fear they too often
provoke the vexations to which they are subject, and of which they
make such loud complaint. It is not so generally known as it should
be that the mistresses of establishments for the education of ladies are
very often, indeed, persons uneducated and vulgar. They have a little
money, and are what is termed “ good managers,” but the instruction
of their pupils is necessarily confided to subordinate governesses, poorly
paid, and more poorly treated, but who are not unfrequently ladies by
birth, education, manners, and feelings, whose poverty compels a
reluctant submission to the whims and insults of those who are unable
to appreciate their worth, or understand the movings of their generous
hearts. How much do the daughters of our aristocracy owe to these
poor despised governesses ! But these ladies are exposed to many and
sore temptations—temptations which few can resist, which few can
entirely master. They must be toadeys to their mistress, spies on her
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LETTER OPENING IN LADIES’ SCHOOLS.
pupils, say this and do that at her bidding ; or, by becoming friends of
the ladies it is their duty to instruct, declare open war against Madame,
who pays their wages, and add miseries a hundred-fold to those they
already endure. If a young governess is seen to enter her pupils’ cham
ber, be sure a servant will be directed to listen at the key-hole. Truth
and feeling are interdicted in Ladies’ Schools ; duplicity and hypocrisy
daily encouraged.
We wish to confine our remarks to such an establishment as that
brought under our especial notice by a veritable correspondent—to a
school where most of the pupils are ladies from sixteen to twenty years
of age—and we ask any one whether such should not be treated as
reasonable and thinking beings ? If their letters are to be opened, why
not still make them wear a fool’s cap ? You tell them to behave like
women, as they are, and treat them like babies, which they are not. We
ask, why permit such a mortifying system of espionage to be practised
on your daughters ? Why delegate to another a power which you never
exercise yourself? You would hesitate to alienate the affections of your
grown-up daughters by pursuing a course which you permit a hireling
to practise with impunity, even if you do not yield your express sanc
tion. We will give the school-mistress the benefit of any doubt, and
admit, for the argument, that she has your permission or direction to
pry into every letter entering or leaving her establishment, which is
addressed to or by your daughter; we ■will suppose that this is so, and
we must at once frankly and most unequivocally assert that if mothers
have at all properly and diligently attended to the education of their
children—if they have acted towards them as becomes a mother—if
they have taken care to check evil, and to inculcate good—when they
arrive at the advanced age at which they enter an establishment such as
we have now in our eye, this degrading espionage is not only not neces
sary, but positively demoralizing. It is almost fearful to contemplate
the possible sequences of such mingled suspicion and severity. How
many of the sins of after-life may be traced to the treatment received in
establishments like these, at this the most interesting and most important
era in female existence. Bright hopes are there nipped in the bud—
ardent expectations cruelly blasted by petty and prudish restrictions.
How many a faithless wife, “ more sinned against than sinning,” does
in the drear hours of a bitter repentance curse this blighting and with
ering policy. Oh 1 talk not of the evils of romance and feeling 1
�LETTER OPENING IN LADIES* SCHOOLS.
105
Preach no more against the influences of the Drama, or the dangers of
the Theatre ! Out upon the hypocrisy which dictates such pharisaical
and senseless abuse I Out upon the cold philosophy which knows not
friendship, and shrinks from the embrace of love ! And yet it is the
object, the avowed object of this system, to prevent any correspondence
above the frigid temperature of the school-room; and an unsympathizing
mistress—and we grant a better instrument could not be found—is
directed sedulously to watch the growth of the holiest and most hea
venly feelings of which humanity is capable, and in a girl of eighteen
years of age to crush them with the unsanctified but strong arm of
authority. Need we say that any contravention of Nature’s laws must
infallibly tend to immorality; or is it necessary to refer to France,where this mode of female education has attained its perfection—where
Mademoiselle passes at once from the dark recesses of the Pension to
the marriage-bed ? Do the matrons of England wish to assimilate the
morality of the two nations ? It is a trite observation, but one which
cannot be too often repeated, that where confidence is freely and unre
servedly reposed it is very rarely betrayed; and we do think that if at
any period of a woman’s life it is expedient to place reliance on her
honour, to appeal to her heart and to her understanding, it is at that
critical moment when she is ripening into maturity ; when for good or
for evil her destiny must soon be fixed; when every expression is trea
sured up in the mind, every action recorded; when nothing escapes the
intense observation of a searching eye, or fails to make a lasting impres
sion on a fervid and awakening imagination. This is the moment to
form the character of a life, to call into action all those charms and vir
tues which make woman not only an ornament to society, but the great
essential to human happiness. Let mothers consider whether this is
best accomplished by imputing to their daughters a criminality of which
their pure hearts had never dreamt, till harsh restraints and hireling
spies suggested its possibility.
Our correspondent has also furnished us with some details of the
school particularly, but we hope not invidiously, alluded to in this
article, which will bear comparison with any Parisian Pension. It is a
common complaint of Protestant bigotry that the Roman Catholic is
always seeking unduly and by improper means to make proselytes, and
the priests of this religion are unscrupulously charged with intruding
into the seminaries of youth—and especially among Protestant ladies of
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BOODHISM.
the upper and middle classes—searching converts to their faith—and it
may be so; but we think we can prove that some at least in the
Church of England are equally and mistakenly zealous. We are told
of this school that it is expressly stated that religious creed will not be
interfered with, but that free toleration will be permitted, encouraged,
and enjoined. These are the professions ; what has been the practice ?
A distinguished “ Evangelical ” Doctor of Divinity has weekly visited
this establishment, and, with the consent of the Mistress, talked and
lectured on controversial theology in the school-room, and in so public
a manner as to prevent those young ladies who were Dissenters leaving
the room without incurring the censure of Madame, who presided. In
this same establishment, we are informed, a young Drench governess, a
Catholic, was insulted and mocked in the exercise of her religious duties
in the presence of the Mistress, who sanctioned it by her silence—and
her sneer.
Observation is unnecessary; the simple facts speak trumpet-tongued
and we guarantee that they are facts.
BOODHISM.
FROM A CORRESPONDENT.
Mr. Barrow, the great astronomer, says that “ the Boodhist supersti
tion (erroneously termed ‘ religion ’) had spread over the whole earth at
one period; that Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, is one of the temples of
Boodh; and that astronomy, astrology, arithmetic, holy-days, games,
&c., may be referred to the same original.” Even at present, says a
late English visitor at China, “ the Chinese priests of Boodh live in
monasteries, practise celibacy, fast, pray for the souls of the dead, use
holy water, burn incense, worship relics, pray (to and with the people)
in a strange tongue, and represent Boodh with rays of glory round his
head. In saying their prayers, they count the ‘ Soo choo’ (the name of
their beads or rosary) as the Boman Catholics do their Pater-noster.
The principal creed among the untutored or ignorant, consequently
among the majority of the people, is Boodliism. Boodh (the founder)
flourished 1500 years before Christ, and had several incarnations. His
priests worship daily in temples, and have a Pontifex Maximus, as a
High Priest or Pope. Boodhism or Buddhism, as it is oft written, is
not though supported (only tolerated) by the Emperor, who, -with his
�BOODHISM.
107
family and the nobility, and their literati, or men of letters, are all pure
T/tetsis, worshipping solely the true and great Creator of the Universe,
as taught by their worthy lawgiver, Confucius.* In the religious tem
ples erected to Boodh is their triad or trinity of Buddhor ('San, Paon
Full) like the magnificent piece of sculpture in the cavern of Elephant or,
in India, representing the Hindoo or Indian triune deity, to indicate
the Creator, the Preserver or Regenerator, and the Destroyer of mankind. There is a smaller sect likewise (thus forming three sects among
them) who are followers of Laon-Heuntze. These last are partly Budhists, partly Epicureans.” Apropos, this Greek philosopher (Epicurus)
has been sadly maligned and misunderstood. It is generally inferred that
he was a man whose whole soul was devoted to the enjoyments of the
table—that he was the beau-ideal of a bon-vivant; in short, a sensual
man in every respect. Epicurus, on the contrary, was a model of self
denial; but he has been thus introduced by the priests, because he
recommended cheerfulness in opposition to their ascetic and gloomy
dogmas. As a proof, over the door of his house at Athens he had
inscribed the following words :—
“ A great house, but no cheer,
Bread and cheese, small beer;
Epicurus lives here.”
He was not the patron of voluptuousness ; his philosophy was more
of a self-denying philosophy; his doctrines inculcated self-control, and
were directly opposed to all excess. He was truly the advocate of
pleasure, and innocent and rational enjoyments, for he recommended
temperance in everything, and the harmonious exercise of all our facul
ties (like Gall and Spurzheimt), under the belief or assured conviction
that without that discipline (and which could not begin to be practised
too early in life) neither the body nor the mind could be kept in a sound
state of health. Let us bear in mind, too, Horace’s maxim, “ Mens
sana in corpore sano.”
* The moral doctrines of Confucius resemble closely those of the Christians.
■j- Phrenology is the natural history of the incarnate mind ; “ riosce te ipsum” is
the most useful of injunctions, and the “proper study of mankind assuredly is man.”
Man is made for society, not for solitude, like beasts of prey, he being a gregarious
animal, and is made for joy, not for mourning his life away. It is but misconception
of our destiny, barbarism, ignorance, superstition, and insanity itself, that may prefer
suffering to enjoyment (aye, “to enjoy is to obey”), or a less sum of happiness to
a greater one. The greatest sum of earthly happiness is to be found in social and
friendly life, and in the discharge of all our relative duties. Let us then be laugh
ing philosophers.
�THE MONK AND THE STUDENT.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “ CHARLES ARNOLD.”
CHAPTER I.
“ Mourn not thy mother fading,
It is the common lot,
That those we love should come and go,
And leave us in this world of woe,
So murmur not.
No pangs or passionate grief,
N or anger raging hot;
No ills can ever harm her more;
She goes unto that silent shore,
Where pain is not.”
It was a calm and gentle evening in Italy as an invalid lay reclining on
a sofa, to all appearance rapidly hastening into eternity. The sufferer
was in the prime of life, and possessed a loveliness which, though almost,
destroyed by the inroads of disease, retained still a beauty which death
only could finally battle with and destroy. By her side stood her
daughter, a young and lovely girl, who was watching with deep earnest
ness and affection her only parent. Tears fell fast, and her whole frame
exhibited marks of the toil and anxiety she had undergone in painful
watching. The sufferer opened her eyes, but she appeared not to recog
nise her child, and she again relapsed into her former state of lethargy.
In a few minutes a priest entered, for the purpose of giving religious
consolation to the dying woman. He was a young man, of commanding
figure and appearance, and his words were bland, and his manner con
ciliatory. His countenance, although highly intellectual and striking,
had an air of deep and repulsive cunning, and his fine dark eye an
aspect startling and disagreeable. He was a man whom one might fear
rather than respect. People said his sanctity was feigned, that his
religion was not the religion of the heart, and that it was assumed to
gratify a dark and haughty ambition. There he stood seemingly gazing
on the patient before him, yet one could not observe him long without
perceiving that his glances were often wandering towards the daughter
with a deep and sinister expression.
Margaret, for that was the daughter’s name, stood as mute as a statue
beside her mother. The presence of Claude, the priest, was forgotten.
Soon, however, his voice was heard addressing the young girl. His
tones were not hushed as the solemnity of the scene would naturally
have demanded, but were uttered with coarseness and unconcern. His
words awoke the dying woman, and she gazed on him long and intensely,
her large black eyes shining with a deep and unearthly lustre.
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109
“ Madam,” said Claude, 11 you wait to receive the last rites of the
Church.: there is little time. Is your daughter to enter the holy sister
hood of Saint Margaret’s ? ” He turned and looked on Margaret.
“ No,” cried Margaret, with deep vehemence, “ never. Mother, let
me go with thee to the grave.”
“ Silence, girl,” said the priest, “ obey the Church.”
“Daughter,” faintly ejaculated the mother, “ all that I have possessed,
all that you have regarded as your inheritance is yours no longer. To
the Church have I given it. Margaret, give yourself as an offering to
God, or my soul’s pangs will be sharper and more severe as the moment
of my departure comes.”
“Mother, mother, spare me; I am young,” said the maiden, meekly.
Claude looked on her with an almost fiendish aspect as he exclaimed,
“ Methinks thou art a heretic who would thus talk to a dying parent.
Madam,” he continued, addressing the sufferer, “ speak not to your
daughter again. The Church has power to make her obey your
request.”
“ The Church will never commit such an unholy wrong as this,” said
Margaret.
“ Daughter, I have vowed before this man of God that thou should’st
enter the Church. I have cherished thee from childhood; till now
Dever hast thou refused my lawful commands. ’Tis not I who bid thee
enter the cloister ; ’tis the voice of God. Margaret, forsake the world
and all its vanities.”
“ Do not let thy mother curse thee as her soul is about to leave the
body,” said Claude; “ if she curseth thee, the curse will follow unto
death. Beware, I say ; a parent’s dying curse is a fearful thing.”
Margaret caught the words. “ No, mother,” she exclaimed fran
tically, “ thou shalt not curse me. Bid me die, bid me go to the con
vent, but curse me not. ’Tis that base man who stands before thee,
mother, who hath induced thee thus to vow. A righteous God will
mete him with a deep punishment.” Turning to Claude, she fastened
her keen indignant eye on him, and exclaimed, “ Mark me, sir, for all
this baseness punishment will come, slowly but surely.”
Claude looked confounded. He attempted to speak ; the words died
on his lips. He remained silent for some moments, when an involuntary
expression of agony escaped from the lips of the dying woman. By
much effort she whispered feebly, yet intelligibly, “ Margaret, it is the
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THE MONK AND THE STUDENT.
pastor wlio hath besought me thus. All thy wealth goes to the Church;
thyself will be consecrated to its service. I feel myself failing; the
last struggle is rapidly hastening. My child, trust in God.” This was
the last sentence she uttered, and Margaret and the priest stood by the
bed-side watching the gradual approach of death. It came speedily.
As the physical organs failed, the mind’s powers seemed to grow more
vivid. The voice was almost too weak for articulation, still frequent
exclamations of “ Margaret,” burst from her lips; but these gradually
ceased, and the sufferer was soon released from pain. Margaret flung
herself on the dead body of her parent, weeping, and calling on God
mercifully to grant her prayer that she might die with her mother. It
was a sorrowful sight to see a young girl, in the prime and beauty of
existence, calling on the Almighty to number her with the dead. The
priest left the room, and summoned a domestic, who bore Margaret from
the scene of death to her own apartment. In an hour afterwards
Claude again made his appearance, and forcing his way into the room
of the maiden, he demanded to know if she could go to the convent
that evening.
“ To the grave,” said Margaret.
“ I am sorry you feel not the position in which you are placed,”
returned the priest .
“ By whom, sir, but yourself, who have robbed me of all. Your
black hand of villainy and fraud has done this during my absence from
mv mother’s side, when, faint and ill, she could not contend against your
foul machinations. Away man, your presence insults the memory of the
dead. There is an eye,” continued Margaret, “which neither slumbers
nor sleeps, which will punish you according to your deserts. You have
falsely induced my departed mother to assign to the Chru’ch all the
property she possessed; and to carry out your own dark schemes would
compel me to become the inmate of a convent. Oh! man, thy sin will
find thee out.”
“Hereis the -will,” said Claude; “read it.”
“ I will not; thy baseness is the author of it.”
“ Enough,” he said, “ I will pray for you.”
“ Pray for me,” exclaimed Margaret, passionately. “ Oh 1 if the
wishes of those dead to honesty, virtue, and every holy sentiment, can
be called prayers, then may you pray. But take not my name in your
polluted lips when you would approach your Maker.”
�THE MONK AND THE STUDENT.
Ill
Claude listened no more, so sharply , was he stung, but hastily re
treated from the room, and was soon on his way to his dwelling; whilst
Margaret, prostrate and spirit-broken, knew not how to act. She had
pledged her word to her dying parent that she would enter the con
vent. Could she break it ? She was now alone in the world, with no
relative, and not a farthing to call her own; how should she proceed ?
She sat down and wrote the following note, and at once dispatched it
by a messenger :—
“ Dear Pierre,—Come tome directly. My mother has just breathed her last. I
am pennyless, wretched, and miserable. Claude, the priest, has practised fraud
and villainy of the deepest dye. By a series of artful contrivances, known only to
himself, he first alienated my mother’s affection from me, and finally persuaded her
to make over all her property to the Church, leaving me completely destitute.
About an hour before my mother died she took me to her arms and blessed me.
The fearful wrong she had done seemed to oppress her mind. Claude visited her
during the last few moments of her existence. He persuaded her to tell me that
the remainder of my life must be passed in a convent I refused, implored, and
entreated that I might not thus be dealt with. My dying mother urged me, and
told me, in the dark sepulchral tones of the grave, that no rest could her soul know
until I had consented to her request Again I expostulated, wept, and prayed. At
the instigation of Claude a mother’s dying curse would have sounded in my ears.
That could not be. I said no more. I fear I must go as a prisoner to the convent
Haste to me, Pierre; I know not what to do. They would urge me to enter the
hated cloister ere my mother’s corpse is yet cold. They would part us, Pierre, for
ever« Margaret D’Seal.”
The domestic had been absent on the errand bnt a short time when
a billet was placed in the hands of Margaret. She tore it open with
evident anxiety. It was in the hand-writing of her lover, and read
thus ;—
“ My dear Margaret,—I have just received a summons to attend my unhappy
brother in Bordeaux, who is on the point of death. I would have seen you before I
left, but the packet sails immediately. In the meanwhile rest assured of the eternal
love of Pierre Guillard. I know not how long I may be detained, but will write
every day,”
Margaret read the letter once, twice, and then again.
A sickness
ci ept over her as the full import of the words flashed across her brain,
It was her last chance, and that, too, had failed her. Pierre Guillard
was a young, handsome, and intelligent student, who resided about
three leagues from Myan. His circumstances were easy, having a
small competency, which, though barely enough for a livelihood, yet,
joined with the proceeds of his literary labours, was sufficient to afford
him all the necessaries, and perhaps a few of the luxuries, of life. Pierre
was of an amiable disposition, and his habits were retired and unosten
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THE MONK AND THE STUDENT.
tatious. He had met Margaret but a few weeks before her mother’s
death. An acquaintance had sprung up which ended in love, and thenpassion was marked by a singular intensity and devotion. Pierre had
seen many, many troubles during his short life, and these had tinged his
habits and train of thought with a deep melancholy. His parents had
died while he was an infant; all his relatives were dead and gone with
the exception of a brother, whose latter years had been marked by
unblushing profligacy and vice.
On the fortunes of Pierre, Margaret, and Claude, does our narra
tive turn.
CHAPTER II.
“ Methought the biUows spoke and told me of it;
The winds did sing it to me, and the thunder.”
Tempest.
Vexed and dispirited, Claude hastened to pour out his troubles to
Garana, a priest, who resided in an adjoining hamlet. What this man’s
character was the conversation that ensued will tell.
“ It is finished,” said Claude ; “ she is dead.”
A joyous emotion came across the countenance of Garana as he
exclaimed, “It is well; the dead tell no tales. How now, Claude, you
seem out of humour, man. You have done a good thing for us both;
money we have secured, which we can use as we list. Besides, Claude,
there is Margaret; when did ever a maiden refuse a handsome monk?
Try her, brother ; taste love’s draughts; you deserve them. A skilful
intriguer upon my word. . We’ll drink to night: what still silent,
Claude ?
“ We have robbed the living,” returned Claude; “ we have destroyed
the dead. Guilt and blood hang on our hands. Can’st say drink, when
the spectre form of the departed would flit about the goblet, and choke
him who drinketh.”
“ Tush man,” replied Garana, “ why thou art like a silly wench
giving thyself to doleful fancies. What care I for these things ? I
have had enough of them since I entered life; many things have I done
that a craven heart would fear; vast sums of money wrung from igno
rance and superstition have passed my hands ; I have rioted in wealth,
money has been mine in countless hoards, and—”
“ Where is it now ? ” said the other. “ Would these menial vestm-es,
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113
these homely things about thee, be here if thy wealth had not departed
as swiftly as it came. Money it is that has cursed, ruined, and trampled
on. human nature and on Giod’s laws. Its curse clings around the path
way of frail humanity. Dost think that hell would be so stocked with
fiends—that the groans, curses, and cries of despair would ascend from
that pit, as they do, if money had been wanting ? No; it is the living
destroyer in every man’s hand ; it is every man’s tempter.”
“ A moralist, forsooth,” said Garana, and his sneering eye caught that
of his companion.
“ I was a moralist,” said Claude, bitterly, “ until you knew me. I
was happy and good till your form crossed my path, and since then sin
and hell have been my companions.”
“ Go on,” said Garana, and he bit his lip.
“ I will go on, thou man of guilt. I was innocent till you bade me
sin; I was a mother’s pride, a father’s joy, till thy machinations de
stroyed my hopes of eternal salvation.”
“ Do not let us quarrel,” said Garana, calmly; “ there are things
which may bring you to the gallows.”
“ With thee,” said Claude, scornfully.
“ Without me,” said Garana. “ I can bring witnesses to prove that
you plundered Madame D’Seal of her jewels—that her death, which
thou know’st was sudden, was the work of thine own hand.”
“ The jewels were got by thy cursed persuasion; we shared them
together. Oh! thou false lying reprobate.”
“ Another word,” said Garana, “ and I denounce you to the officers
of justice;” and as he spoke his countenance bore the marks of demo
niacal hate and madness.
Claude moved not, but sobs burst from his lips, Garana, with his
eyes fastened on the ground, kept his former position, and a silence
of some moments ensued.
“ Claude,” said Garana, “ we must not quarrel. We shall dig a pit
into which both may fall. I have seen in my long life many hurled to
destruction, gone for ever,—and why ? Because in all then- schemes they
have adopted companions who have betrayed them, snared them, and
they have lost life, lost all. I have trusted thee, Claude ; it is too late
now to talk of repentance. I, too, feel anguish, sorrow, and misery,
when I look back. I can’t retrace a step in the path of virtue. You
cannot; it is idle to talk.”
Vol. 1.
i
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THE MONK AND THE STUDENT.
“ Garana, said Claude, “ I feel it; thy weaknesses are not confined
to thy mortal frame, old as thou art, grey as are thy locks; but what
pain can equal that of a young heart, knowing character is gone, virtue is
gone ; that Satan is here ruling all.” He stopped, and then with a voice
almost hushed to a whisper, continued, “ Society laid the first stroke on
my character. I joined in the gaiety of youth; I mingled with those
around me as a man. Months passed in innocence, peace, and happi
ness. I was a pastor; my heart was pure ; my hope and trust were in
Heaven. Calumny laid her hand on me. I noticed it. I scorned the
ruthless gang of petty slanderers, but I had no peace ; afterwards I lost
my flock; Host my all; and, Garana, I met with thee, alas ! alas !”
“ ’Tis in vain,” said the priest, “ these regrets are useless; they only
tear open the wound. Here is liquor, Claude : drink, drink ”
Claude, like a man perishing from thirst, seized the goblet. He
drank again and again ; it was no sooner emptied than Garana re-filled
it. That, too, was soon gone, and then his deep and cautious compa
nion began to draw him gradually into conversation.
“ What do youthink of Margaret, now?” said Garana.
“ That she hates me.”
“ So all the girls say when you first make love to them.”
“ Garana, I have begged Margaret to view me only as a friend.”
" And she did ? ”
“Nay, she told me that hell was the colour of my heart—that I was
a bad, base man.”
“ You talked with her gently ? ”
“ I did. She told me she despised me, spurned me, nay, she defied
me. You know, Garana, her mother was always under the power of the
Church. She thought a priest was but an angel on earth—that his
words and his acts We as true as God’s own love. I saw her in an
agony of soul for some sin which she fancied she had committed. I
told her the price of absolution would be 4000 pistoles, to be given to
thee for purposes of charity—that thou wert a man whose life and con
duct were just and holy—that not the smallest part of it would be
misapplied. She gave me the money for thee to distribute amongst the
poor; thou hadst it all. Margaret, her daughter, won my heart. I
loved her with madness ; I met her; I told her what I felt; I entreated
her to pity me, to love me in return. Beaten back in all my endeavours
I vowed revenge on her—a revenge which few heads would plan or
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115
I live but for that one purpose : I shall yet triumph over
girl. Thou hast taught me to hate, Garana, too well. I spoke to
the mother of her daughter; I pointed out that she was living in sin,
and that she loved a heretic, and that eternal death would be the
result of such a connexion being formed. I pointed out to the sick
woman that she might lose her own soul if she took not some steps tp
cut the link asunder. The poor credulous being believed all; at thy
instigation I prevailed on her to execute a deed known only to hersel
and me, wherein she left houses, lands, all she possessed, to the Church.
I thought her end was approaching, but it came not so soon as I wished.
Margaret was at her bedside serving her faithfully and lovingly; the
mother would not speak to her. She begged her parent on her knees
to tell her in what she had offended. My false lies had laid a silence
on her tongue, and though the sufferer panted to embrace a child whose
deep affection was apparent in all she said and did, my voice hushed
those throbbings of love. It could not long remain thus; nature could
not be kept pent within a mother’s breast. I arrived one morning, and
Margaret was. in her mother’s arms weeping. The voice of love and
tenderness which dwell in that loving heart could be staid no longer. I
saw it; I felt it; I knew that I must take a bold step, or I should be
ruined. I did so. In an adjoining cabinet was placed a number of
rich and valuable jewels that had belonged to Margaret’s father. I
watched my opportunity, and stole them; they are even now, Garana,
in thy coffers. I then went to a woman, and by means of my priestly
office' and a heavy bribe induced her to accompany me to the chamber
of the invalid. Margaret was not there; she had retired to rest for a
few hours, to recruit nature after long watching. I left this creature
with the dying woman, and she told her that Margaret, her child, had
given the jewels to her lover. She told. more. That head never again
raised itself from the pillow. I spoke to the mother ; I recommended,
as a safe means of securing the wealth which she had left behind to the
Church, that the maiden should be sent to the convent. She assented,
fearful of the disgrace that might be brought on her name. I saw she
was dying ; she could scarcely speak. I left her for an horn; when I
returned Margaret was by her bedside, watching the fleeting pulses of
her parent. Madame D’Seal awoke from her slumber, and a few mo
ments before she died she spoke to her daughter. Margaret even before
•her dying parent accused me of crime and fraud. Life passed away.
carry out.
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REVIEWS.
That girl is now a beggar; she enters the sisterhood to night. She
still accuses me of poisoning the mind of her parent, and doing a deep
and grievous wrong.”
Claude finished this recital, seized the goblet, and hastily draining its
contents, bade good night to Garana, and started for his home. When
he reached his house the first thing he did was to write to the Arch
bishop, informing him of Madame D’Seal’s death, and that she had
left a large property to the Church; that her only daughter, who was
quite young, was of heretical opinions; and her mother, before her
death, had, by great persuasion, induced her to consent to enter the
convent, so that if her life and conduct were consistent she might ulti
mately become one of the nuns. The letter concluded by stating no
steps could by any possibility be taken to set aside the will, as there
were no friends to interest themselves in the matter. When this was
done he went to the convent and informed the Abbess of what had taken
place, and that Margaret would enter that night.
Taunton.
[to be continued.]
Goblin Story. By Charles Dickens. Chapman
and Hall, London.
Although a month has passed since the publication of this book we
are inclined to think that a short notice of it will even now be interest
ing to oui leadeis, and particularly so to those who are by their inabi
lity to purchase or procure a loan of it from a circulating library
deprived of the gratification and instruction which its perusal must,
afford. Such we advise to club together a sufficient sum, and at once
ordei The Chimes, and that they may be induced so to do we will rive
one or two extracts, only premising that to commend any work written
by Mr. Dickens would be almost an insult to that public who rightly
receive in his magic name a guarantee of worth and merit.,
Heie is a scene between Trotty Veck, a poor old porter, and his
daughter Meg, which should be read again and again by every cold
hearted and unfeeling Malthusian. Meg has brought her father unex
pectedly a tripe dinner, which he is eating on the door-step of a rich
man s mansion, and while thus employed Meg broaches the subject of
her long talked-of marriage :—
The Chimes :
a
p.“.‘ A?d R1C^ard, >Say,’
V-’ Meg resumed 5 then stopped.—' What does
Richard say, Meg ? ’ asked Toby.-' Richard says, father-’ Another stoppage.Richard s a long time saying it,’ said Toby.—' He says then, father,’ Meg continued,
itting up her eyes at last, and speaking in a tremble, but quite plainly,' another year
nearly gone, and where is the use of waiting on from year to year, when it is so
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117
unlikely we shall evei be better off than we are now ? He says we are poor now,
father, and we shall be poor then; but we are young now, and years will make us old
before we know it. He says that if we wait—people in our condition—until we
see our way quite clearly, the way will be a narrow one indeed—the common way—
the grave, father. —A bolder man than Trotty Veck must needs have drawn upon
his boldness largely to deny it. Trotty held his peace.
“ ‘ And how hard, father, to grow old and die, and think we might have cheered
and helped each other! How hard in all our lives to love each other, and to grieve,
apart, to see each other working, changing, growing old and grey. Even if I got
the better of it, and forgot him (which I never could), oh, father dear, how hard to
have a heart so full as mine is now, and live to have it slowly drained out every drop,
without the recollection of one happy moment of a woman’s life to stay behind and
comfort me, and make me better! ’
“ Trotty sat quite still. Meg dried her eyes, and said more gaily—that is to say,
with here a laugh, and there a sob, and here a laugh and sob together :—‘ So Richard
says, father, as his work was yesterday made certain for some time to come, and as
I love him, and have loved him full three years—ah! longer than that if he knew
it!—will I marry him on New Year’s Day? the best and happiest day, he says, in
the whole year, and one that is almost sure to bring good fortune with it. It’s a
short notice, father—isn’t it?—but I haven’t my fortune to be settled, or my wedding
dresses to be made, like the great ladies, father—have I ? And he said so much,
and said it in his way—so strong and earnest, and all the time so kind and gentle—
that I said I’d come and talk to you, father. And as they paid me the money for
that work of mine this morning (unexpectedly, I am sure), and as you have fared
very poorly fora whole week, and as I couldn’t help wishing there should be some
thing to make this day a sort of holiday to you as well as a dear and happy day to
me, father, I made a little treat and brought it to surprise you.’ ”
We have only space for a part of Will Fern’s speech; we trust every
landlord, magistrate, and clergyman, will read and inwardly digest it;
“ *
* ‘ Gentlefolks, I’ve lived many a year in this place. You may see
the cottage from the sunk fence over yonder. I’ve seen the ladies draw it in thenbooks a hundred times. It looks well in a picter I’ve heerd say; but there an’t
weather in picters, and maybe ’tis fitter for that than for a place to live in. Well!
I lived there. How hard—how bitter hard I lived there, I won’t say. Any day in
the year, and every day, you can judge for your own selves
*
*
* ’Tis
harder than you think for, gentlefolks, to grow up. decent, commonly decent, in such
a place. That I growed up a man, and not a brute, says something for me—as I
was then. As I am now, there’s nothing can be said for me or done for me. I’m
past, *
* I dragged on somehow. Neither me nor any other man knows how,
but so heavy that I couldn’t put a cheerful face upon it, or make believe that I
was anything but what I was. Now, gentlemen—you gentlemen that sits at
Sessions—when you see a man with discontent writ on his face you say to one ano
ther, ‘He’s suspicious. I has my doubts,’says you, ‘about Will Fern. Watch that
fellow ! ’ I don’t say, gentlemen, it ain’t quite nat’ral, but I say ’tis so; and from
that hour whatever Will Fern does, or lets alone—all one—it goes against him.
*
* Now, gentlemen, see how your laws are made to trap and hunt us when
we’re brought to this. I tries to live elsewhere. And I’m a vagabond. To jail
with him! I comes back here; I goes a nutting in your woods, and breaks—who
don’t ?—alimber branch or two. To jail with him! One of your keepers sees me
in the broad day, near my own patch of garden, with a gun. To jail with him! I
has a nat’ral angry word with that man when I’m free again. To jail with him !
I cuts a stick. To jail with him! I eats a rotten apple or a turnip. To jail with
him ! It’s twenty mile away, and coming back I begs a trifle on the road. To jail
with him! At last the constable, the keeper—any body—finds me anywhere, a
doing anything. To jail with him, for he’s a vagrant, and a jail-bird known; and
j il’s the only home he’s got. *
* Do I say this to serve my cause ? Who
can give me back my liberty, who can give me back my good name, who can give
me back my innocent niece ? Not all the lords and ladies in wide England. But,
gentlemen, gentlemen, dealing with other men like me begin at the right end. Give
us, in mercy, better homes when we’re a lying in our cradles; give us better food
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1<E VIEWS.
when we’re a working for our lives; give us kinder laws to bring us back when we’re
a going wrong; and don’t set jail, jail, jail, afore us everywhere we turn. There
an’t a condescension you can show the labourer, then, that he won’t take, as ready
and as grateful as a man can be; for he has a patient, peaceful, willing- heart. But
you must put his rightful spirit in him first; for whether he’s a wreck and ruin such
as me, or like one of them that stand here now, his spirit is divided from you at this
time. Bring it back, gentlefolks, bring it back 1 Bring it back afore the day comes
when even his Bible changes in his altered mind, and the words seem to him to read,
as they have sometimes read in my own eyes—in jail: Whither thou goest, I can
Not go; where thou lodgest, I do Not lodge; thy people are Not my people; Nor
thy God my God! * ”
One extract more, and we must close a book, almost every line of
which speaks eloquent truth :—
“ The voice of Time cries to man, Advance ! Time is for liis advancem'ent and
improvement; for his greater worth, his greater happiness, his better life ; his pro
gress onward to that goal within its knowledge and its view, and set there, in the
period when Time and He began. Ages of darkness, wickedness, and violence, have
come and gone ; millions unaccountable have suffered, lived, and died, to point the
way Before him. Who seeks to turn him back, or stay him on his course, arrests a
mighty engine which will strike the meddler dead; and be the fiercer and the wilder
ever for its momentary check I ”
Young Love.
By Mrs. Trollope.
Henry Colburn, London.
These volumes are rich both in the beauties and the imperfections which
so strongly mark all the writings of Mrs. Trollope. There is the usual
quantity of truthful and keen satire, and the usual extreme exaggeration;
the same ridicule of the Americans, the same bitterness against Dissent,
which are so conspicuous in all the former works of this lady. The
advice of Hamlet to the players may, indeed, be very appropriately
addressed to many Novel writers of the present day, and among the rest
to the authoress of Young Love, for anything which exceeds the modesty
of Nature must grate upon the ear, and weaken the interest; and mora
lity is not served by representing vice in darker clothing, or folly in a
more ridiculous garb than that in which they are commonly attired.
The plot is tame and meagre. Colonel and Mrs. Dermont are the
occupants of a pretty country house called the Mount, then- family con
sisting of an only child, Alfred (the hero), and Julia Drummond, a
ward of the Colonel’s. In the third chapter we find Alfred twenty
years of age, a spoiled child grown into a wilful, conceited young man,
and Julia, at sixteen and half, “ a queer looking little creature still.”
The business of the novel opens with a dejeuner d lafourchette, which
introduces us to all the neighbourhood, and particularly to Miss Thorwold, its acknowledged belle. Beautiful, very fascinating, and with the
experience of twenty-nine summers, it would not be surprising if a better
trained youth than Alfred Dermont became deeply enamoured of the
highly connected and penniless Amelia Thorwold. He falls most out
rageously in love, of course, and insists that the fair one be invited to
his father’s house to be wooed at his leisure; this a clever mother
easily manages for him, and the ardent admiration and fervid passion of
the boy are laughably contrasted with the accomplished artifice and
shrewd policy of the maturer lady, who will not give him an opportu
nity of speaking explicitly until she has satisfied herself that she has no
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hope in another quarter, where she loves “ not Wisely, but too well.”
Lord William Hammond, a man upon town, and “ dreadfully involved,”
is the object of her adoration, and he is easily induced to visit the house
of Mrs. Knight, where she is residing, and there proposes to Ameba a
secret marriage, which, after a little hesitation, she agrees to, leaves her
home on the plea of visiting a sick friend, repairs to the abode of a cer
tain Mrs. Stedworth, in London, who is a dealer in ladies’ left-off wear
ing apparel, a letter of furnished apartments, a bill discounter, with two
or tln-ee more et ceteras, from whence she is married, and becomes Lady
William Hammond. After the ceremony, which is performed in some
suburban church, the noble pair make a short excursion in the country,
and then return to “ dear kind Stedworth,” where, after a few prelimi
nary jars, Lord William pens a note to his wife, commencing “ My dear
Miss Thorwold,” assuring her that the marriage was only “ a farce,” and
earnestly advising her immediate return to Alfred Dermont, and real
matrimony. This she does with as little delay as possible, and with
excuses so plausible, that she is received with every demonstration of
joy, and no exertion is spared to expedite the union now so ardently
desired by both parties. Julia Drummond, who has ever loved the son
of her guardian, views the preparations for the approaching wedding
with much dismay, but with the most patient submission. Her present
maid, however, happens very unfortunately to be the very same Abigail,
“who” (in the feminine language which Mrs. Trollope makes Miss
Thorwold write to “ dear Stedworth,”) used to have the honour of
waiting upon my Ladyship, when my Ladyship was preparing for her
downy pillow, in expectation of my Lord,” and in spite of an offer of
ten guineas, large promises, and many threats, honest Susan tells the
Colonel her story,—and is turned out of the house for her pains. The
happy morning at length arrives, and when all are on then- road to the
church the old Colonel receives a note from Mrs. Stedworth, who
having fixed her heart upon a trip to Paris, in company with Lord
William Hammond, is greatly exasperated at that nobleman declining
the proposed honour, and in the excess of her spleen writes this letter,
proving that Miss Thorwold is Lady William Hammond, the marriage
having been perfectly legal, and inclosing a certificate thereof from the
officiating clergyman. Mr. Alfred Dermont receives this astounding
information with extraordinary nonchalance, and with much prompti
tude offers his hand and fortune to Miss Julia Drummond, who kindly
but decisively refuses her consent to such an arrangement. He then
leaves England, and she visits a relative in Scotland; but at the expi
ration of four years they meet again in the salons of London; the
refusal is not repeated, and from a few concluding fines we are led to
infer that Julia Drummond becomes Mrs. Alfred Dermont. Lord and
Lady William Hammond live together for a short time, but he at length
discovers a wealthy lover, gets damages to the amount of twenty pounds,
and a divorce.
Such is a hasty outline of this story: there are, however, two
personages whom we have not had occasion to mention, but who,
nevertheless, occupy a considerable number of pages in Young Love
—Miss Celestina Marsh, a lady of middle age, much attached to men
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REVIEWS.
in general, and the military in particular; and Mrs. Stephens, a liter" y
lady, and a Unitarian.
We care not to speculate whether Mrs. Trollope has drawn some of
her dramatis persona from real life—whether “ recent events ” in
fashionable circles have furnished her with materials—this is foreign to
our intention ; but we cannot refrain from observing on a few of those
exaggerations which we alluded to in the commencement of this notice,
and which, coming as they do from a female pen, we consider very
reprehensible. We will say nothing on the deep, unrepeatable oath,
which a young lover of nineteen is made to swear in the ear of his mistress at a crowded breakfast table ! But we must protest against very
many of the sayings and doings of Miss Amelia Thorwold—protest
against them as libels upon womanhood; and really we are unable to
reconcile the entire portrait of this lady with either truth or probability.
Read her letters to Stedworth ; hear her own account of that woman,
given to a man when proposing marriage to her,—“ a person who gains
her living by being considered as trustworthy.” Mark how ready she
is to defraud any one, from her Uncle to Juba Tlrnmmond. There is
not one good trait in her character as painted by Mrs. Trollope, and yet
she is bold enough to ask her countrywomen to accept this as a faithful
delineation of one of the educated and high bom of their own sex 1
Modest authoress!
Then there is poor Celestina Marsh, who is made to outrage, and
habitually outrage, all female delicacy or decorum in almost every word
and action of her recorded life ; and Mrs. Stephens, also a broad carica
ture, but less offensive. We do not deny that these are all forcibly
sketched, but we think sketched from the prejudiced creations of a sinister
fancy, rather than nature, and such is, we regret to say, a rommon fail
ing in the works of this authoress. Any moral which the story may be
intended to convey is lost sight of in the repulsiveness of its details;
and even supposing that there are a few such creatures as Amelia. Thor
wold and Celestina Marsh, still is Mrs. Trollope as inexcusable in hold
ing them forth as representatives of a class, We admire the vigorous
language in which Mi's. Trollope ever arrays her ideas, but we can
bestow no more particular praise on this novel.
Vacation Rambles and Thoughts ; comprising the Recollec
tions of Three Continental Tours, &c. By T. N. Talfourd,
D.C.L. Two Vols. Moxon, London.
Let none, however wearied with the sameness and insipidity of ordinary
Books of Travel, be deterred from perusing these volumes, for we assure
them that the talented author of “ Ion” has invested a subject long
deemed exhausted with a freshness and originality very delightful.
He has enveloped it in his own rich eloquence, and adorned it with
" thoughts ” speaking in their every syllable the good and the accom
plished man. It is a book extremely entertaining, and, what is more,
permanently interesting.
To the many who, Eke ourselves, are devoted admirers of the poetry,
the enthusiasm, and the brilliant abilities of the learned Seijeant, lus
name will be a sufficient passport for these “Rambles;” and to those
�WANDERINGS OF A FAY.
121
(if such there be) who are not intimate with his writings, or acquainted
with his fame, we would say lose no time in overcoming an ignorance
which does you discredit as inhabitants of a nation rightly claiming him
as her first dramatic poet.
ORIGINAL POETRY.
WANDERINGS OF A FAY.
PART II.
In sadden’d mood he takes his flight,
And now he chances to alight
Within a room of ample space,
Adorn’d by many a form of grace ;
And one fair girl all silently
Hath seiz’d the Postman’s mystery,
And reads in earnest guise.
Is it the Spirit’s breezy wings
That to her cheek such deep flush brings,
And brightens up her eyes
Ah no! but passing well he knew
’Twas Love his own bright radiance threw
From his triumphal throne; For, after many a peril past,
Her lover seeks his home at last,
And wooes her for his own.
Each sister looks with kindly eye,
And a young brother standing by
Speaks of a bridal near.
At length is raised her beauteous head,
Her hasty glance around is sped;
Veil’d in a misty tear;
She gazes on her father’s face,
Where anxious love her heart can trace,
And then her hurried eye hath met
Her mother’s look of fond regret,
And round that cherish’d form fast clinging,
Her gushing tears are wildly springing,
And other dear ones come ;
And hearts their earnest hopes are breathing,
Around her head a halo wreathing,
Shed from the shrine of home.
The Spirit’s eye again was bright,
He wav’d his wings in rich delight,
And felt an inward joy to know
Our world was not one scene of woe,
Unlighten’d and uncheer’d';
For sure the Everlasting Love
Must smile from his bright sphere above
On love by love endear’d.
And now again he soar’d away,
And paus’d where some poor sufferer lay
Upon her bed of sad despair,
O’ercome with grief, and pain, and care.
Her sailor boy had cherish’d still
His mother’s age through ev’ry ill,
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i
THE ENGLISH CATHEDRALS.
But oh! his good ship now was lost,
And age, and want, and sickness crost
Her pathway to the grave ;
When lo ! that radiant beam of light
Brought once again before her sight
His missive o’er the wave.
He Was not lost, but soon would come
To cheer once more her humble home.
And oh ! in that entrancing thought
Her pain and sickness seem’d forgot,
Hope shone so warmly in her breast,
Her path appear’d too brightly blest ■
For poor-may be the lowly cell
Where feelings exquisite may dwell,
And from a mother’s yearning heart
Love for her child will never part.
Then lightly the Spirit floated along,
Trilling his joy in a murmuring song,
That in its gentle and musical swell
Seem’d the sweet tones of some far distant bell,
In echoes of melody borne on the wind,
Waking old mem’ries of love in the mind;
Or like the soft sopg of some love-stricken bird,
,
In the shadows of twilight so gracefully heard.
(To be continued.)
FLORENCE.
THE ENGLISH CATHEDRALS.
The old Cathedral Churches,
In their majesty they stand;
The temples of a holy faith,
In this our favoured land.
Within their sacred precincts
Low falls the voice of mirth;
Race after race have worshipped here
The God of heaven and earth.
I love their solemn grandeur,
Meet to raise the soul on high;
The vaulted roof, the cloisters dim,
Grown dark with years gone by.
Around are shadowy' forms,
Silent and soft we tread;
Alone—amid a voiceless crowd,
Alone—with the slumbering dead.
Alone with the perishing dead,
Returned to their native dust,—
Mitred abbot and scepfc®gd king
Have yielded their earthly trust.
The knight from the bold crusade
Lies down in a dreamless rest;
The hands that wielded sword and spear
Are folded upon his breast.
Fie hears not the clarion’s blast,
The thrilling trumpet’s sound;
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MONTHLY GOSSIP.
The pealing organ’s melody
Lulls him in sleep profound.
And hark! from the ancient tower
Sounds forth the deep-toned bell—
A faithful servant Time has had,
One who did his bidding well.
Joined to the peal of mirth
When it bade the heart rejoice,
And tolled to the passing crowd
A loud and warning voice.
Will ye hear that solemn voice,
Frail dwellers of the sod?
Let it pierce to your inmost souls,
“ Prepare to meet your God 1 ”
Filled with pleasure, with care,
How will ye meet the day
When the flaming earth to its centre shakes,
And the heavens shall pass away ?
And ye hear the unearthly blast,
Thrilling all hearts with dread;
The voice that shall break the iron sleep,
And arouse the slumbering dead ?
Oh! let us all so live
That we may not fear to die;
Lifting up our heads when God appears,
And feel our redemption nigh.
ADA.
MONTHLY GOSSIP.
r
The Bath Theatre.—Mr. and Mrs. C. Kean.—This Theatre has opened for
the season, with Sir Bulwer Lytton’s comedy of Money; Evelyn by Mr. Kean, and
Clara by his talented wife. Those who, like ourselves, have again and again
listened whilst the classic genius and the kindly heart of Mr. Macready have
invested the part of Evelyn with that truthful reality which in such a character can
not be simulated; and seen Miss Helen Faucit even raise the creation of the poet,
and render her Clara a sweet and touching representation of feminine delicacy, will
not be surprised at our failing to appreciate the acting of Mr. and Mrs. Kean in this
play, for while regarding their Evelyn and Clara we can never divest ourselves of
the idea that it is acting ; the trick of the stage is ever visible, and Nature is often
sacrificed to produce a momentary and most worthless sensation. Mr. Kean is quite
competent to give the requisite effect to the last scene in Macbeth, and to make some
acts in Romeo and Juliet attractive; but he is utterly unable to do justice to the
high mysticism of Hamlet, the impassioned gloom of the Stranger, or the proud mind
of Evelyn. It is not his fault, but his misfortune. Heaven has not blessed him with
the talent which can alone make a great actor, and which is not to be acquired in
schools. It is the presumption of his friends and admirers which provoke compa
risons that to Mr. Kean must be especially odious. To Mrs. Kean we bow with
willing homage. Miss Ellen Tree in Ion it is impossible to forget; but we must
confess that even her sweet elocution cannot give to Clara that secret charm by
which Miss Faucit has made this character, as well as the Pauline of the same
author, essentially her own. We have no space to notice the characters in which
Mr. Kean has subsequently appeared; but we cannot refrain from observing that the
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MONTHLY HOSSIP.
plays of the immortal bard require more than the meretricious ornaments of the stage
—fine dresses and gaudy scenery—can ever give. They require that right concep
tion of the poet, in which (although he is certainly improved) we deem Mr. Charles
Kean lamentably deficient.
The late Miss Clara Webster.—The following remarks on “the spirit of
the age,” as exemplified in the disgusting apathy of the audience assembled at
Drury Lane Theatre, on the evening of the melancholy accident which caused the
death of this talented young lady, are from a very eloquent letter in the Times,
subscribed S. G. O., and which is generally understood to be written by a respected
gentleman in our own district, eminently distinguished for his Christian virtues and
exalted philanthrophy
“A ballet, called, I believe, The Revolt of the Harem,
was in course of representation at one of our largest theatres. One of its scenes
represented women bathing. An actress in this scene accidentally set fire to the very
light drapery in which, in such a scene, she was necessarily clothed. She rushes
screaming about the stage, and is at last rescued from the flames around her by a
carpenter courageously throwing her down and rolling on her. She is taken home;
and, in. spite of all that skill and attention could do, in a few days she dies. The
audience’ who had looked on her in flames and heard her screams, remained in their
seats, saw the performance of the ballet out, and went home at the usual hour. And
now for a developement of the spirit of the age. An inquest is held, a verdict
returned of ‘ Accidental Death,’ and then the Coroner tells the jury and the public
—nay, it is said he sent for a candle and proved the fact—that an ingenious chemist
has invented a starch which will make even the light drapery of the ballet-dancer
fire proof; there is a funeral, and the scene closes. The cruel, heartless indecency
of the spectators of such a scene, who could remain one moment longer than neces
sary at the theatre that night, receives no reproof; the nature of the scene exhibited
passes without comment. Public decency has been outraged—a mother has lost her
child by a shocking, cruel death. The public and the profession have gained a
knowledge of fire-proofing starch. Henceforward the tender feelings of the play
goers need undergo no apprehension, though the ‘ pet of the ballet ’ should, in one
of her most fascinating pirouettes, spin her scanty drapery over the very foot-lamps
of the stage.”
We learn from a respectable provincial journal that the Reverend Vicar of
Seaton, in Devonshire, is now most busily occupied in denouncing the Theatre. Why
do not these clerical orators vent a little of their bile on the degrading Poor Law
system and the murderous Game Laws ?
The Fine Arts.—We are much gratified to find that a Society of Arts is about
to be established in Bristol. We shall watch this projected institution with great
interest.
We extract the following remarks from an extremely interesting paper in the
Athena om, on Sacred and Legendary Art, by Mrs. Jameson:—“In the old times
the painters of these legendary pictures could always reckon securely on certain
associations and certain sympathies in the minds of the spectators. We have out
grown these associations; we repudiate these sympathies. We have taken these
beautiful works from the consecrated localities in which they once held each their
dedicated place, and we have hung them in our drawing-rooms and our dressing
rooms, over our pianos and our sideboards; and what do they say to us ? That
Magdalen, weeping amid her hair, who once spoke comfort to the soul of the fallen
sinner—that Sebastian, arrow-pierced, whose upward ardent glance spoke of courage
and hope to the tyrant-ridden serf,—that poor tortured slave, to whose aid St. Mark
comes sweeping down from above—can they speak to us of nothing save flowing
lines, and correct drawing, and gorgeous colour ? Must we be told that one is a
Titian, the other a Guido, the third a Tintoret, before we dare to melt in compassion
or admiration ? or the moment we refer to their ancient religious signification and
influence, must it be with disdain or with pity ? This, as it appears to me, is to take
not a rational, but rather a most irrational, as well as a most irreverent, view of the
question. It is to confine the pleasure and improvement to be derived from works
of art within very narrow bounds. It is to seal up a fountain of the richest poetry,
and to shut out a thousand ennobling and inspiring thoughts : and such was the opi
nion of the late Dr. Arnold, whom no one, I imagine, will suspect of a leaning to
Puseyism. In speaking of the pictures in the church of San Stefano at Rome, he
remarks:—‘No doubt many of the particular stories thus painted will not bear a
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125
criticakexamination. It is likely enough, too, that Gibbon has truly accused the
general statements of exaggeration. Divide the sum total of reported martyrs by
twenty, by fifty if you will, but after all you have a number of persons, of all ages
and sexes, suffering cruel torments and death itself for conscience sake and for
Christ’s; and therefore,’ he adds, ‘pictures of this kind I think very wholesome,
not to be sneered at, nor looked at as a mere excitement, but as a sober reminder to
us of what Satan can do to hurt, and what Christ’s grace may enable us to bear;
neither should we forget those who, by their sufferings, were more than conquerors,
not for themselves only, but for us.’ ”
The Taunton Institute.—We have received a number of letters from various
correspondents in Taunton, five or six of whom describe themselves as members of
this Institute, and all complaining of the annoyance which is occasioned to them and
their fellow members by the narrow minded and canting, but vain attempt, which is
annually made to obtain the closing of the News-room on the Sunday. It appears
that for several years past an individual has attended the yearly meetings of the
Institute for the purpose of renewing a futile debate on this question. His elo
quence is described to us in language not the most complimentary, and it seems (hat
although constantly defeated in argument and numbers, this valiant Sabbatarian
intends to persevere until his pet motion is carried. Although feeling that the Sab
bath is a day which entitles it to a sacred observance, apart from other days, we
cannot see the objection to the perusal of a newspaper on that day. Where can be
the sin ? With what law of the Bible does it interfere ? We believe that a news
paper has a useful tendency; it prevents the childish, the unprofitable, and often
times exaggerated conversation on men and things, which so constantly ensues on
that day; and to the poor man especially the possession of a newspaper on a Sunday
—for on that day alone has he time to read it—affords a rich mental treat, gives a
humanizing turn to his mind and inclinations, which he could never obtain in a pot
house. But we fear in the present instance we are wasting words. A man whose
notions are so bigotted—so replete with intolerance; who can hardly walk on the
same side of the street with a Catholic or Unitarian; who would have no politics
unless they were based on spurious Evangelism; who wages a more than mortal
warfare with the innocent amusements of life, and would have no social feeling
aroused unless created at the missionary or tea meeting, is not amenable to the laws
of common sense, is deaf to the remonstrance of reason, and is blind to his own
insignificance.
GLEANINGS.
At school friendship is a passion. It entrances the being; it tears the soul. All
loves of after life can never bring its rapture, or its wretchedness; no bliss so absorb
ing, no pangs of jealousy or despair so crushing and so keen! What tenderness
and what devotion; what illimitable confidence; infinite revelations of inmost
thoughts; what ecstatic present and romantic future; what bitter estrangementsand
what melting reconciliations; what scenes of wild recriminations, agitating explana
tions, passionate correspondence; what insane sensitiveness, and what frantic
sensibility; what earthquakes of the heart and whirlwinds of the soul are confined
in that simple phrase a schoolboy s friendship ! ’Tis some indefinite recollection
of these mystic passages of their young emotion that makes grey-haired men mourn
over the memory of their school-boy days. It is a spell which can soften the acerbity of political warfare, and with its witchery can call forth a sigh even amid the
callous bustle of fashionable saloons.—Coningsby.
Good breeding is the result of nature, and not of education; for it may be found
in a cottage, and may be missed in a palace. ’Tis a genial regard for the feelings of
others that springs from an absence of selfishness.—Ibid.
Conservativism is an attempt to carry on affairs by substituting the fulfilment of
the duties of office for the performance of the functions of government; and to
maintain this negative system by the mere influence of property, reputable’ private
conduct, and what are called good connexions. Conservativism discards Prescription,
shrinks from Principle, disavows Progress; having rejected all respect for Anti
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GLEANINGS.
quity, it offers no redress for the Present, and mikes no preparation for the Future.
It is obvious that for a time, under favourable circumstances, such a confederation
may succeed ; but it is equally clear that on the arrival of one of those critical con
junctures that will periodically occur in all states, and which such an unimpassioned
system is even calculated ultimately to create, all power of resistance will be
wanting; the barren curse of political infidelity will paralyze all action; and the
Conservative Constitution will be discoverad to be a Caput Mortuum.—Ibid.
Fame and power are the objects of all men. Even their partial fruition is gained
by very few; and that, too, at the expense of social pleasure, health, conscience,
life. Yet what power of manhood in passionate intenseness, appealing at the same
time to the subjeet and the votary, can rival that which is exercised by the idolized
chieftain of a great public school ? What fame of after days equals the rapture of
celebrity that thrills the youthful poet, as in tones of rare emotion he recites his
triumphant verses amid the devoted plaudits of the flower of England ? That’s
fame, that,s power—real, unquestioned, undoubted, catholic. Alas! the school-boy
when he becomes a man finds that power, even fame, like everything else, is an affair
of party.—Ibid.
There are some books when we close them—one or two in the Course of our life
—difficult as it may be to analyze or ascertain the cause,—our minds seem to have
made a great leap. A thousand obscure things receive light; a multitude of inde
finite feelings are determined. Our intellect grasps and grapples with all subjects
with a capacity, a flexibility, and a vigour, before unknown to us. It masters ques
tions hitherto perplexing, which are not even touched or referred to in the volume
just closed. What is this magic ? It is the spirit of the Supreme Author, that, by
a magnetic influence, blends with our sympathizing intelligence, directs and inspires
it. By that mysterious sensibility we extend to questions, which he has not treated,
the same intellectual force which he has exercised over those he has expounded. His
genius for a time remains in us, ’Tis the same with human beings as with books.
All of us encounter, at least once in our life, some individual who utters words that
make us think for ever. There are men whose phrases are oracles ; who condense
in a sentence the secrets of a life ; who blurt out an aphorism that forms a character,
or illustrates an existence. A great thing is a great book ; but greater than all is
the talk of a great man! And what is a great man ? Is it a Minister of State ? Is
it a victorious General? A gentleman in the Windsor uniform ? A Field Marshal
covered with stars ? Is it a Prelate, or a Prince ? A King, even an Emperor ? It
may be all these; yet these, as we must all daily feel, are not necessarily great men.
A great man is one who affects the mind of his generation ; whether he be a monk
in his cloister agitating Christendom, or a monarch crossing the Granicus, and
giving a new character to the Pagan world.—Ibid.
A coquette is a being who wishes to please. Amiable being! If you do not like
her you will have no difficulty in finding a female companion of a different mood.
Alas! coquettes are but too rare. ’Tis a career that requires great abilities,
infinite pains, a gay and airy spirit. ’Tis the coquette that provides all amusement,
suggests the riding party, plans the pic-nic, gives and guesses charades, acts them.
She is the steering element amid the heavy congeries of social atoms ; the soul of the
house, the salt of the banquet, Let any one pass a very agreeable week, or it may
be ten days, under any roof, and. analyze the cause of his satisfaction, and we might
safely make a gentle wager that his solution would present him with the frolick
phantom of a coquette.—Ibid.
We are too apt to believe that the character of a boy is easily read. ’Tis a mys
tery the most profound. Mark what blunders parents constantly make as to the
nature of their own offspring, bred too under their eyes, and displaying every hour
their characteristics. How often in the nursery does the genius count as a dunce
because he is pensive ; while a rattling urohin is invested with almost supernatural
qualities because his animal spirits make him impudent and flippant! The school
boy, above all others, is not the simple being the world imagines. In that young
bosom are often stirring passions as strong as our own, desires not less violent, a
volition not less supreme. In that young bosom what burning love, what intense
ambition, what avarice, what lust of power; envy that fiends might emulate, hate
that man might fear !—Ibid.
Music.—Oh, Music! miraculous art, that makes the poet’s skill a jest; revealing
to the soul inexpressible feelings, by the aid of inexplicable sounds! A blast of thy
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127
trumpet, and millions rush forward to die: a peal of thy organ, and uncounted
nations gink down to pray. Mighty is thy three-fold power ! First, thou canst call
up elemental sounds, and scenes, and subjects, with the definiteness of reality.
Lo ■ the voice of the winds—the flash of the lightning—the swell
Then thou canst speak to the secrets of a
man s heart as if by inspiration. Strike the lyre! Lo! our early love—our
treasured hate—-our withered joy—our flattering hope ! And, lastly, by thy myste
rious melodies thou canst recall man from all thought of this world and of himself—
bringing back to his soul’s memory dark but delightful recollections of the glorious
heritage which he has lost, but which he may win again. Strike the lyre ! Lo 1
Paradise, with its palaces of inconceivable splendour, and its gates of unimaginable
glory!—Vivian Grey.
The Unfortunate.—The wretched wanderer of the night, whose only “home”
is the noisome stew, reeking with the foul breath of infamy; whose emaciated,
squalid, and care-worn features are bedaubed with the mockery of health; whose
diseased and attenuated frame is decked in the gaudy rags of bygone pleasure; whose
heart is sapped, whose memory is blighted, qnd whose breast is hopeless—none
regard her with compassion—most with profound loathing and contempt. Few think
of the hidden rock on which the fair vessel struck. The effect is seen and con
demned, but the fatal cause escapes mole-eyed censure. Who thinks upon the
probable treachery, falsehood, and villainy that have been exerted to corrupt the
unbefriended, weak, and too confiding woman? Who inquires if the depravity,
which glares in every expression, was drawn in with the first breath of life, and the
blood tainted in the veins by the authoress of her being ? Not one among the mil
lion that spurn the poor outcast, and, by adding to her misery, think to increase the
moral observance on which they plume themselves. The creature of unhappy des
tiny—she who drew her first nourishment from the bosom of crime and ignorance—
whose first lisp of infancy was the instructed curse—is thought of only as a wretch
fitted for the cell and the felon’s brand. The victim to fraud and perjury, whose
every comfort, every joy, every hope is shattered and annihilated—whose once ten
der heart is made callous by sorrow—is remembered only to be despised. Meek-eyed
mercy seldom sits in judgment on either.—Old English Gentleman.
Mesmerism.—There being nothing palpably absurd on the face of the subject,—
only strange, unthought of, and overwhelming, to minds unaccustomed to the great
ideas of Nature and Philosophy—the claims of Mesmerism to a calm and philo
sophical investigation are imperative. No philosopher can gainsay this; and if I
were to speak as a moralist on the responsibility of the savans of society to the mul
titude—if I were to unveil the scenes which are going forward in every town in
England from the wanton, sportive, curious, or mischievous use of this awful
agency by the ignorant, we should hear no more levity in high places about Mesme
rism—no more wrangling about the old or new names by which the influence is to
be called, while the influence itself is so popularly used with such fearful reckless
ness.—Miss Martineau.
If you contend at all let it be for Truth; for truth throws a lustre on the combat
ant which error cannot do.
Names are but the arbitrary marks of conceptions. Sound honest principles
possess a charm worth all other talismans.
Tobe deceived is not always a sign of weakness; for he that never deceives
readily believes that others are as honest as himself.
Insolence is the offspring of ignorance and cowardice, and the mark of meanness.
Sin and punishment are like the shadow and the body, never apart.
We should use a book as the bee does the flower.
Native Cats of New South Wales.—Several of the mischievous little
animals, commonly called native cats, were destroyed by our dogs. They seem to
occupy the same place in Australia that the weasel and ferret 'family do at home,
being terribly destructive if they can get into the hen-house, not only killing to eat,
but continuing to kill as many fowls or turkeys as they have time for, leaving a sad
spectacle of mangled corses behind them. They are pretty, but have a sharp,
vicious countenance, very different to the deer-like expression of the herbivorous
animals here. Their common colour is grey, finely spotted with white; the tail
thin, covered with rather long, wiry hair, which forms a sort of tassel at the end.
They are about the size of a lean, half-grown domestic cat, very agile, fierce, and
^yre •
of the wave—the solitude of the valley !
�128
GLEANINGS, ETC.
4,
strong, and extremely tenacious of life. Dogs seem to have a natural propensity
to destroy them, but sometimes find the engagement rather more equal than they
might wish.—Meredith’s Sketches of New South Wales.
The Egyptian Pyramids.—I went to see and to explore the pyramids. Familiar
to one from the days of early childhood are the forms of the Egyptian Pyramids;
and now, as I approached them from the banks of the Nile, I had no print, no pic
ture before me, and yet the old shapes were there; there was no change ; they
were just as I had always known them. I straightened myself in my stirrups, and
strived to persuade my understanding that this was real Egypt, and that those angles
which stood up between me and the west were of harder stuff, and more ancient,
than the paper pyramids of the green portfolio. Yet it was not till I came to the
base of the Great Pyramid that reality began to weigh upon my mind. Strange to
say, the bigness of the distinct blocks of stone was the first sign by which I attained
to feel the immensity of the whole pile. When I came, and trod, and touched with
my hands, and climbed, in order that by climbing I might come to the top of one
single stone, then, and almost suddenly, a cold sense and understanding of the Pyra
mid’s enormity came down overcasting my brain,—Eothen.
The Ages of Mountains.—There is no part of geological science more clear
than that which refers to the ages of mountains. It is as certain that the Grampian
mountains of Scotland are older than the Alps and Appenines, as it is that civili
zation had visited Italy, and had enabled her to subdue the world, while Scotland
was the residence of “ roving barbarians.” The Pyrenees, Carpathians, and other
ranges of continental Europe, are all younger than the Grampians, or even the
insignificant Mendip hill of Southern England. Stratification tells this tale as
plainly as Livy tells the history of the Roman republic. It tells us, to use the
words of Professor Phillips, that, at the time when the Grampians sent streams
and detritus to straits where now the valleys of the Forth and Clyde meet, the
greater part of Europe was a wild ocean.—Vestiges of the Natural History of
Creation.
LIST OF NEW BOOKS.
Passages in the Life of a Radical, by S. Bamford, 2 vols., 10s.—Zoe, the History
of Two Lives, by Geraldine E. Jewsbury, 3 vols., post 8vo.—Valentine M’Clutchy,
the Irish Agent, by W. Carleton, esq., 3 vols., post 8vo., £1 : 11s. 6d.—Eothen,
2d edition, 1 vol., demy 8vo., 12s.—May Morn, and other Poems, by Swynfen
Jervis, 2s. 6d.—Revelations of Russia, by an English Resident, 2 vols., 24s.—St.
Etienne, a Tale of the First Revolution, by Miss Martin, 3 vols., post 8vo.—The
Ward of the Crown, by the author of “ Seymour of Sudley,” 3 vols., post 8vo.—
Lady Willoughby’s Diary, so much as relates to her Domestic History, 2d edition,
foolscap 8vo., 8s. cloth, 18s. morocco.—Letters of a German Countess, written during
her Travels in Turkey, Egypt, &c., in 1843 and 1844, by Ida, Countess of HahnHahn, 3 vols., post 8vo., £1: Us. 6d.—Lady Cecilia Farrencourt, by Henry Mil
ton, esq., 3 vols., post 8vo., £1 :1 Is. 6d.—Beauties of Jeremy Taylor, 1 vol., post
8vo., 7s. 6d.—Arthur O’Leary, edited by Harry Lorrequer, new edition, 1 vol. 12s.
TO CORRESPONDENTS.
“ A,” (Yeovil) in our next number.
The lines sent by “ C. A.,” (Exeter) cannot be inserted. We know more than “ C. A.”
was pleased to communicate to us.
If “ M. B.” (Gay-street, Bath,) will favour us with her name in confidence, we will
reply to the “ private ” letter.
We are extremely sorry to be obliged to postpone the publication of the poem with
which we have been favoured by Captain Belle w.
t
It will be more convenient if our correspondents write only on one side of their paper.
“ M.” We are very much obliged.
All communications for the Editor are requested to be addressed to him at Mr. Cus
tard’s, Library, Yeovil.
Errata in our last nvmber.—Tn. the note to “The Poet’s Love,” for “ Ricciardo,” read
Ricciarda, In “Wanderings of a Fay,” line 30, for “ the,” read his.
John and James Keene, Printers, Bath.
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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The West of England Miscellany. Vol. 1, No. 4, February 1845
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [Sherborne]
Collation: 97-128 p.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Date
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1845
Identifier
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G5549
Subject
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Periodicals
Rights
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<p class="western"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" name="graphics1" width="88" height="31" border="0" alt="88x31.png" /></p>
<p class="western">This work (The West of England Miscellany. Vol. 1, No. 4, February 1845), identified by <span style="color:#0000ff;"><span lang="zxx"><u>Humanist Library and Archives</u></span></span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</p>
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Creator
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[Unknown]
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[s.n.]
Conway Tracts
Periodicals
West of England