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Title: Things to be Remembered in Daily Life
- With Personal Experiences and Recollections
Author: Timbs, John
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Things to be Remembered in Daily Life
- With Personal Experiences and Recollections" ***
THINGS
TO BE REMEMBERED
IN DAILY LIFE.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
LONDON:
PRINTED BY ROBSON, LEVEY, AND FRANKLYN,
Great New Street and Fetter Lane.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THINGS
TO BE REMEMBERED
In Daily Life.
WITH PERSONAL EXPERIENCES AND RECOLLECTIONS.
By JOHN TIMBS, F.S.A.,
AUTHOR OF THINGS NOT GENERALLY KNOWN, CURIOSITIES OF LONDON, ETC.
[Illustration: Sundial with children around base]
LONDON:
W. KENT AND CO., PATERNOSTER-ROW.
MDCCCLXIII.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TO THE READER.
--------------
TIME and Human Life are the staple subjects of the following pages.
These are great matters for so small a book, and may remind you of the
philosophical scheme of compressing the world into a nutshell. Now,
although we have as yet no means of determining exactly what relation
this latter idea has to truth,—it is certain that the rapid
multiplication of books incessantly presses upon us, that “condensation
is the result of time and experience, which reject what is no longer
essential.” Such is the treatment adopted in the present volume, in
which, by _focusing_ great truths from the Living and the Dead, is
sought to be exemplified the moral couplet:
Honour and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part—there all the honour lies.
As a companion volume to _Things not Generally Known_, it is hoped that
_Things to be Remembered_ may be as popularly received as its
predecessor. To render the present work more directly of practical
application, the sketches of character which it contains have been drawn
in great measure from our own time, so as to give the book a current
interest. Meanwhile, historic gossip has not been eschewed; but its
piquancy has been sparingly used.
The present is, in many respects, a more reflective volume than its
predecessor: for it is scarcely possible to illustrate the Ages of Man
without
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.
This is one of the byways of the book: its highway lies through the
crowded city, and upon “the full tide of human affairs;” and the
Experiences here set down are, in common parlance, _original_, and have
been chiefly garnered throughout a long life, in which truthful
observation has been the cardinal aim.
With these few words of introduction, I commend to your indulgence this
volume of _Things to be Remembered in Daily Life_, in the hope that its
contents may be considered worthy of the reminiscence.
_London, March 1863._
--------------
ERRATUM.
Page 20. The Terrace, New Palace-yard, Westminster, was taken down in
the spring of 1863; the Sun-dial had previously been removed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS.
--------------
Time.
PAGE
POETRY OF TIME 1
WHAT IS TIME? 3
TIME’S BEGUILINGS 5
TIME’S GARLAND 6
TIME’S MUTATIONS 7
SIR H. DAVY ON TIME 8
TIME, PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE 9
MEASUREMENT OF TIME 12
PERIODS OF REST 15
RECKONING DISTANCE BY TIME 16
SUN-DIALS 17
THE HOUR-GLASS 27
CLOCKS AND WATCHES 29
EARLY RISING 41
ART OF EMPLOYING TIME 52
TIME AND ETERNITY 64
Life, and Length of Days.
LIFE A RIVER 65
THE SPRING-TIME OF LIFE 66
THE FIRST TWENTY YEARS OF LIFE 67
PASSING GENERATIONS 68
AVERAGE DURATION OF LIFE 71
PASTIMES OF CHILDHOOD RECREATIVE TO MAN 72
PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION LATE IN LIFE 73
WHAT IS MEMORY? 75
CONSOLATION IN GROWING OLD 76
LENGTH OF DAYS 79
HISTORIC TRADITIONS THROUGH FEW LINKS 82
LONGEVITY IN FAMILIES 87
FEMALE LONGEVITY 88
LONGEVITY AND DIET 92
LONGEVITY AND LOCALITIES 96
LONGEVITY OF CLASSES 102
GREAT AGES 111
THE HAPPY OLD MAN 114
PREPARATORY TO DEATH 115
DEATH BEFORE ADAM 116
FUTURE EARTHLY EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN RACE 117
The School of Life.
WHAT IS EDUCATION? 119
TEACHING YOUNG CHILDREN 120
EDUCATION AT HOME 121
TENDERNESS OF YOUTH 122
BUSINESS OF EDUCATION 123
THE CLASSICS 124
LIBERAL EDUCATION 126
DR. ARNOLD’S SCHOOL REFORM 127
SCHOOL INDULGENCE 128
UNSOUND TEACHING 128
SELF-FORMATION 131
PRACTICAL DISCIPLINE 132
CRAMMING 132
MATHEMATICS 133
ARISTOTLE 134
GEOLOGY IN EDUCATION 135
THE BEST EDUCATION 137
ADVICE TO THE STUDENT 138
KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM 139
EDUCATION ALARMISTS 140
YORKSHIRE SCHOOLS 141
BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG 141
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE 142
WHAT IS ARGUMENT? 144
HANDWRITING 145
ENGLISH STYLE 147
ART OF WRITING 149
Business-Life.
WANT OF A PURSUIT 152
THE ENGLISH CHARACTER 153
WORTH OF ENERGY 154
TEST OF GREATNESS 156
CHOICE OF A PROFESSION 157
OFFICIAL LIFE 161
OFFICIAL QUALIFICATIONS 164
PUBLIC SPEAKING 166
OPPORTUNITY 174
MEN OF BUSINESS 174
CHARACTER THE BEST SECURITY 176
ENGINEERS AND MECHANICIANS 177
SCIENTIFIC FARMING 187
LARGE FORTUNES 188
CIVIC WORTHIES 199
WORKING AUTHORS AND ARTISTS 204
WEAR AND TEAR OF PUBLIC LIFE 217
Home Traits.
LOVE OF HOME 218
FAMILY PORTRAITS 219
HOW TO KEEP FRIENDS 220
SMALL COURTESIES 221
LASTING FRIENDSHIPS 221
TRUE TONE OF POLITE WRITING 223
PRIDE AND MEANNESS 224
HOME THOUGHTS 225
The Spirit of the Age.
PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE 227
SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS 229
TIME AND IMPROVEMENT 231
EVIL INFLUENCES 232
WORLDLY MORALITY 233
SPEAKING THE TRUTH 234
RESTLESSNESS AND ENTERPRISE 235
THE PRESENT AND THE PAST 238
CIRCUMSTANCES AND GENIUS 238
OUR UNIMAGINATIVE AGE 239
MARVELS OF THE UNIVERSE 240
PHYSIOGNOMY 242
TRADE AND PHILANTHROPY 243
World-Knowledge.
MISCELLANEA 244
PREDICTIONS OF SUCCESS 247
Conclusion.
EASE OF MIND 250
THE LIFE OF MAN 251
THE GOOD MAN’S LIFE 253
PREDICTIONS OF FLOWERS 255
THE WORLD’S CYCLES 256
DEATH ALL-ELOQUENT 256
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THINGS TO BE REMEMBERED.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Time.
THE conventional personification of Time, with which every one is
familiar, is the figure of Saturn, god of Time, represented as an old
man, holding a scythe in his hand, and a serpent with its tail in its
mouth, emblematical of the revolutions of the year: sometimes he carries
an hour-glass, occasionally winged; to him is attributed the invention
of the scythe. He is bald, except a lock on the forehead; hence Swift
says: “Time is painted with a lock before, and bald behind, signifying
thereby that we must take him (as we say) by the forelock; for when it
is once passed, there is no recalling it.”
The scythe occurs in Shirley’s lines, written early in the seventeenth
century:
The glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against fate;
Death lays his icy hand on kings.
Sceptre and crown
Must tumble down,
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade.
Shakspeare prefers the scythe:
Time doth transfix the flourish set on youth,
And delves the parallels in beauty’s brow,
Feeds on the rarities of nature’s truth,
And nothing stands but for his scythe to mow.
The stealthiness of his flight is also told by Shakspeare:
Let’s take the instant by the forward top;
For we are old, and our quick’st decrees
The inaudible and noiseless foot of Time
Steals ere we can effect them.
Mayne thus quaintly describes his flight:
Time is the feather’d thing,
And whilst I praise
The sparklings of thy locks, and call them rays,
Takes wing—
Leaving behind him, as he flies,
An unperceived dimness in thine eyes.
Gascoigne also thus paints the flight:
The heavens on high perpetually do move;
By minutes’ meal the hour doth steal away,
By hours the days, by days the months remove,
And then by months the years as fast decay;
Yea, Virgil’s verse and Tully’s truth do say,
That Time flieth, and never clasps her wings;
But rides on clouds, and forward still she flings.
Shakspeare pictures him as the fell destroyer:
Misshapen time, copesmate of ugly night;
Swift subtle post, carrier of grisly care;
Eater of youth, false slave to false delight,
Base watch of woes, sin’s pack-horse, virtue’s snare:
Thou nursest all, and murderest all that are.
And Spenser brands him as
Wicked Time, that all good thoughts doth waste,
And workes of noblest wits to naught outweare.
The present section partakes much of the aphoristic character, which has
its recommendatory advantages.—Bacon says: “Aphorisms representing a
knowledge broken do invite men to inquire further; whereas methods,
carrying the show of a total, do secure men as if they were at
farthest.” Again: “Nor do apophthegms only serve for ornament and
delight, but also for action and civil use, as being the edge-tools of
speech, which cut and penetrate the knots of business and affairs.”
Coleridge is of opinion that, exclusively of the Abstract Sciences, the
largest and worthiest portion of our knowledge consists of Aphorisms;
and the greatest and best of men is but an Aphorism.
“Truths, of all others the most awful and interesting, are too often
considered as so true, that they lose all the power of truth, and lie
bedridden in the dormitory of the soul, side by side with the most
despised and exploded errors.
“There is one way of giving freshness and importance to the most
commonplace maxims,—that of reflecting on them in direct reference to
our own state and conduct, to our own past and future being.”
Mature and sedate wisdom has been fond of summing up the results of its
experience in weighty sentences. Solomon did so; the wise men of India
and Greece did so; Bacon did so; Goethe in his old age took delight in
doing so.
Lucretius has his philosophical view of Time, which Creech has thus
Englished:
Time of itself is nothing, but from Thought
Receives its rise, by lab’ring fancy wrought
From things consider’d, while we think on some
As present, some as past, or yet to come.
No thought can think on Time,
But thinks on things in motion or at rest.
Ovid has some illustrations, which Dryden has thus translated:
Nature knows
No steadfast motion, but or ebbs or flows.
Ever in motion, she destroys her old,
And casts new figures in another mould.
Even times are in perpetual flux, and run,
Like rivers from their fountains rolling on.
For Time, no more than streams, is at a stay,—
The flying hour is ever on her way;
And as the fountain still supplies her store,
The wave behind impels the wave before;
Thus in successive course the minutes run,
And urge their predecessor minutes on,
Still moving, ever anew; for former things
Are set aside, like abdicated kings;
And every moment alters what is done,
And innovates some act till then unknown.
* * * *
Time is th’ effect of motion, born a twin,
And with the worlds did equally begin:
Time, like a stream that hastens from the shore,
Flies to an ocean where ’tis known no more:
All must be swallow’d in this endless deep,
And motion rest in everlasting sleep.
* * * *
Time glides along with undiscover’d haste,
The future but a length behind the past,
So swift are years.
* * * *
Thy teeth, devouring Time! thine, envious Age!
On things below still exercise your rage;
With venom’d grinders you corrupt your meat,
And then, at ling’ring meals, the morsels eat.
The comparison to a river is more amply developed by a modern poet:
The lapse of time and rivers is the same:
Both speed their journey with a restless stream;
The silent pace with which they steal away,
No wealth can bribe, no prayers persuade to stay:
Alike irrevocable both when past,
And a wide ocean swallows both at last.
Though each resembles each in every part,
A difference strikes, at length, the musing heart:
Streams never flow in vain; where streams abound,
How laughs the land with various plenty crown’d!
But time, that should enrich the nobler mind,
Neglected, leaves a dreary waste behind.
An old playwright makes him a fisher by the stream:
Nay, dally not with time, the wise man’s treasure,
Though fools are lavish on’t—the fatal fisher
Hooks souls, while we waste moments.
Horace has some lines, thus paraphrased by Oldham:
Alas! dear friend, alas! time hastes away,
Nor is it in your power to bribe its stay;
The rolling years with constant motion run,
Lo! while I speak, the present minute’s gone,
And following hours still urge the foregoing on.
’Tis not thy wealth, ’tis not thy power,
’Tis not thy piety can thee secure;
They’re all too feeble to withstand
Gray hairs, approaching age, and thy avoidless end.
When once thy glass is run,
When once thy utmost thread is spun,
‘Twill then be fruitless to expect reprieve;
Could’st thou ten thousand kingdoms give
In purchase for each hour of longer life,
They would not buy one gasp of breath,
Nor move one jot inexorable death.
Perhaps there is no illustration in our language more impressive than
Young’s noble apostrophe, commencing:
The bell strikes one. _We take no note of time
But from its loss_: to give it, then, a tongue
Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke,
I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright,
It is the knell of my departed hours.
Where are they? With the years beyond the flood.
* * * *
O time! than gold more sacred; more a load
Than lead to fools, and fools reputed wise.
What moment granted man without account?
What years are squandered, wisdom’s debt unpaid!
Our wealth in days all due to that discharge.
* * * *
Youth, is not rich in time; it may be poor;
Part with it as with money, sparing; pay
No moment, but in purchase of its worth;
And what’s it worth, ask death-beds; they can tell.
Part with it as with life, reluctant; big
With holy hope of nobler time to come.
* * * *
But why on time so lavish is my song?
On this great theme kind Nature keeps a school
To teach her sons herself. Each night we die—
Each morn are born anew; each day a life;
And shall we kill each day? If trifling kills,
Sure vice must butcher. Oh, what heaps of slain
Cry out for vengeance on us; time destroyed
Is suicide, where more than blood is spilt.
Throw years away!
Throw empires, and be blameless: moments seize;
Heaven’s on their wing: a moment we may wish,
When worlds want wealth to buy. Bid day stand still,
Bid him drive back his car, and re-impart
The period past, regive the given hour.
O for yesterdays to come!
How exquisite is this beguiling of time in _Paradise Lost_.
With thee conversing I forget all time;
All seasons, and their change, all please alike.
How beautifully has Burns alluded to these influences, in his “Lines to
Mary in Heaven:”
Time but the impression deeper makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear.
The Hon. W. R. H. Spencer has something akin to this in his “Lines to
Lady A. Hamilton:”
Too late I stay’d; forgive the crime;
Unheeded flew the hours;
How noiseless falls the foot of Time
That only treads on flow’rs!
Edward Moore, in one of his pleasing Songs, thus points to these
charming influences:
Time still, as he flies, adds increase to her truth,
And gives to her mind what he steals from her youth.
The best lessons of life are to be learnt in his school:
Taught by time, my heart has learn’d to glow
For others’ good, and melt at others’ woe.
How well has Shakspeare expressed this work of the great reconciler:
Time’s glory is to calm contending kings,
To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light,
To stamp its seal on aged things,
To wake the morn, and sentinel the night,
To wrong the wronger, till he render right.
Elsewhere Shakspeare paints him as the universal balm:
Cease to lament for that thou can’st not help,
And study help for that which thou lament’st.
Time is the nurse and breeder of all good.
It is notorious to philosophers, that joy and grief can hasten and delay
time. Locke is of opinion that a man in great misery may so far lose his
measure, as to think a minute an hour; or in joy make an hour a minute.
Shakspeare’s “divers paces” of Time is too familiar for quotation here.
Time’s Garland is one of the beauties of Drayton’s “Elysium of the
Muses:”
The garland long ago was worn
As Time pleased to bestow it:
The Laurel only to adorn
The conqueror and the poet.
The Palm his due who, uncontroll’d,
On danger looking gravely,
When fate had done the worst it could,
Who bore his fortunes bravely.
Most worthy of the Oaken wreath
The ancients him esteemed,
Who in a battle had from death
Some man of worth redeemed.
About his temples grave they tie,
Himself that so behaved,
In some strong siege by th’ enemy,
A city that hath saved.
A wreath of Vervains heralds wear,
Amongst our garlands named,
Being sent that dreadful news to bear,
Offensive war proclaimed.
The sign of peace who first displays,
The Olive wreath possesses;
The lover with the Myrtle sprays
Adorns his crisped tresses.
In love the sad forsaken wight
The Willow garland weareth;
The funeral man, befitting night,
The baleful Cypress beareth.
To Pan we dedicate the Pine,
Whose slips the shepherd graceth;
Again the Ivy and the Vine
On his front Bacchus placeth.
They who so stanchly oppose innovations, should remember Bacon’s words:
“Every medicine is an innovation, and he that will not apply new
remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator; and
if time of course alter things to the worse, and wisdom and counsel
shall not alter them to the better, what shall be the end?”
How much time has to do with our successes is thus solemnly told by the
Preacher: “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,
neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding,
nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them
all.”—_Ecclesiastes_ ix. 11.
How truthfully has Dr. Johnson said: “So little do we accustom ourselves
to consider the effects of time, that things necessary and certain often
surprise us like unexpected contingencies. We leave the beauty in her
bloom, and, after an absence of twenty years, wonder, at our return, to
find her faded. We meet those whom we left children, and can scarcely
persuade ourselves to treat them as men. The traveller visits in age
those countries through which he rambled in his youth, and hopes for
merriment in the old place. The man of business, wearied with
unsatisfactory prosperity, retires to the town of his nativity, and
expects to play away the last years with the companions of his
childhood, and recover youth in the fields where he once was young.”
Dr. Armstrong, the friend of Thomson, has left this solemn apostrophe on
the Wrecks and Mutations of Time:
What does not fade? the tower that long had stood
The crush of thunder and the warring winds,
Shook by the slow but sure destroyer Time,
Now hangs in doubtful ruins o’er its base,
And flinty pyramids and walls of brass
Descend. The Babylonian spires are sunk;
Achaia, Rome, and Egypt moulder down.
Time shakes the stable tyranny of thrones,
And tottering empires rush by their own weight.
This huge rotundity we tread grows old,
And all these worlds that roll around the sun;
The sun himself shall die, and ancient night
Again involve the desolate abyss,
Till the Great Father, through the lifeless gloom,
Extend his arm to light another world,
And bid new planets roll by other laws.
We remember a piece of stage sentiment, beginning
“Time! Time! Time! why ponder o’er thy glass,
And count the dull sands as they pass?” &c.
It was touchingly sung, but had too much of gloom and despondency for
the theatre: possibly it may have reminded some of its hearers of their
own delinquency.
With what solemnity has our great Dramatic Bard foreshadowed Time’s
waning:
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.
His departure is again sketched in _Troilus and Cressida:_
Time is like a fashionable host,
That slightly shakes his parting guest by th’ hand,
But with his arms outstretch’d, as he would fly,
Grasps the incomer.
Sir Walter Scott thus paints Time’s evanescence:
Time rolls his ceaseless course.—The race of yore,
Who danced our infancy upon their knee,
And told our marvelling boyhood legends store
Of their strange ’ventures happ’d by land or sea,
How are they blotted from the things that be!
Cowley has this significant couplet:
To things immortal Time can do no wrong,
And that which never is to die for ever must be young.
Yet, what a treasure is this:
My inheritance! how wide and fair!
Time is my estate; to Time I’m heir.
_Wilhelm Meister:_ Carlyle.
“Time is almost a human word, and change entirely a human idea: in the
system of nature we should rather say progress than change. The sun
appears to sink in the ocean in darkness, but rises in another
hemisphere; the ruins of a city fall, but they are often used to form
more magnificent structures, as at Rome; but even when they are
destroyed, so as to produce only dust, nature asserts her empire over
them, and the vegetable world rises in constant youth, and in a period
of annual successions, by the labours of man, providing food, vitality,
and beauty upon the wreck of monuments which were once raised for
purposes of glory, but which are now applied to objects of utility.”
As this beautiful passage was written by Sir Humphry Davy nearly
three-and-thirty years since, the above use of the word _progress_ had
nothing to do with the semi-political sense in which it is now commonly
employed. Nevertheless, there occur in the writings of our great
chemical philosopher occasional views of the advancement of the world in
knowledge, and its real authors, with which the progressists of the
present day fraternise.
At the above distance, Davy wrote in the following vein: “In the common
history of the world, as compiled by authors in general, almost all the
great changes of nations are confounded with changes in their dynasties;
and events are usually referred either to sovereigns, chiefs, heroes, or
their armies, which do, in fact, originate entirely from different
causes, either of an intellectual or moral nature. Governments depend
far more than is generally supposed upon the opinion of the people and
the spirit of the age and nation. It sometimes happens that a gigantic
mind possesses supreme power, and rises superior to the age in which he
is born: such was Alfred in England, and Peter in Russia. Such instances
are, however, very rare; and in general it is neither amongst sovereigns
nor the higher classes of society that the great improvers and
benefactors of mankind are to be found.”—_Consolations in Travel_, pp.
34, 35.
Brilliant as was Davy’s own career, it had its life-struggles: his last
days were embittered with sufferings, mental as well as physical; and in
these moments he may have written these somewhat querulous remarks.
TIME: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE.
Harris, in his _Hermes_, in his disquisition on Time, gives the
distinction between the grammatical or conventional phrase, “Present
Time,” and the more philosophical and abstract “Now,” or “Instant.”
Quoting Nicephorus Blemmides, Harris would define the former as follows:
“Present Time is that which adjoins to the Real Now, or Instant, on
either side being a limited time made up of Past and Future; and from
its vicinity to that Real Now, said to be Now also itself.” Whilst upon
the latter term he remarks: “As every Now or Instant always exists in
Time, and without being Time is Time’s bound; the Bound of Completion to
the Past, and the Bound of Commencement to the Future; and from hence we
may conceive its nature or end, which is to be the medium of continuity
between the Past and the Future, so as to render Time, through all its
parts, one Intire and Perfect Whole.”
Thus, logically, “Time Present” must be regarded as a mathematical
point, having no parts or magnitude, being simply the end of the Past,
and the beginning of the Future. Thus, perishing in action and eluding
the grasp of thought, it is a nonentity, of which, at best, an
intangible and shadowy existence can be predicated:
Dum loquimur fugerit invida
Ætas. _Hor._
And we may ask of it, with its _carpe diem_, its manifold attributes,
and imputed influences, as the poet Young does of the King of Terrors:
Why start at Death? Where is he? Death _arrived_
Is _past;_ not _come_, or _gone_, he’s never _here_.
_Night Thoughts_, iv.
It is, however, in the more conventional sense that the phrase “Present
Time” is generally made use of in writing and conversation. So Johnson,
in his well-known passage: “Whatever withdraws us from the power of our
senses, whatever makes the _past_, the _distant_, or the _future_,
predominate over the _present_, advances us in the dignity of thinking
beings,” &c. Here we have “the Present” invested with the dignity of
individual existence, and compared with the Past and the Future, as
having duration or extension with these; as if we should speak of a
series of numbers, ascending on each side of nothing to infinity, as
being divisible into negative, zero, and positive.
Among coincident forms of expression, on the part of writers who have
spoken of the “Present Time” in its more precise and philosophical
sense, is the following by Cowley, in a note to one of his “Pindarique
Odes:” “There are two sorts of Eternity; from the Present backwards to
Eternity, and from the present forwards, called by the Schoolmen
_Æternitas à parte ante_, and _Æternitas à parte post_. These two make
up the whole circle of Eternity, which _Present Time_ cuts like a
_Diameter_.”
Carlyle, in his _Essays_ (“Signs of the Times”), has this knowledgeful
passage: “We admit that the present is an important time; as all present
time necessarily is. _The poorest day that passes over us is the conflux
of two Eternities_, and is made up of currents that issue from the
remotest Past, and flow onwards into the remotest Future. We were wise,
indeed, could we discover truly the signs of our own times; and, by
knowledge of its wants and advantages, wisely adjust our own position in
it. Let us, then, instead of gazing idly into the obscure distance, look
calmly around us for a little on the perplexed scene where we stand.
Perhaps, on a more serious inspection, something of its perplexity may
disappear, some of its distinctive characters and deeper tendencies more
clearly reveal themselves; whereby our own relations to it, our own true
aims and endeavours in it, may also become clearer.”[1]
Lord Strangford has left these pathetic stanzas:
Time was—when all was fresh, and fair, and bright,
My heart was bounding with delight,
It knew no pain, it felt no aching:
But o’er it all its airy woes
As lightly passed, or briefly staid,
Like the fleet summer-cloud which throws
On sunny lands a moment’s shade,
A momentary darkness making.
Time is—when all is drear, and dim, and wild,
And that gay sunny scene which smiled
With darkest clouds is gloomed and saddened;
When tempest-toss’d on passion’s tide
Reason’s frail bark is madly driven,
Nor gleams one ray its course to guide
From yon o’ercast and frowning heaven,
Till peace is wreck’d and reason maddened.
Time come—but will it e’er restore
The peace my bosom felt before,
And soothe again my aching, tortured breast?
It will, for there is One above
Who bends on all a Father’s eye;
Who hears with all a Father’s love
The broken heart’s repentant sigh,
Calms the vexed heart, and bids the spirit rest.
---------------------
Footnote 1:
Abridged from an excellent Communication, by William Bates, to _Notes
and Queries_, 2d series, vol. x. p. 245.
----------------------------
MEASUREMENT OF TIME.
Sir Thomas Browne, treating of Errors regarding Numbers, observes: “True
it is that God made all things in number, weight, and measure; yet
nothing by them, or through the efficacy of either. Indeed, our days,
actions, and motions being measured by time (which is but _motion
measured_), whatever is observable in any, falls under the account of
some number; which, notwithstanding, cannot be denominated the cause of
these events. So do we unjustly assign the power of action even unto
time itself; nor do they speak properly who say that time consumeth all
things; for time is not effective, nor are bodies destroyed by it, but
from the action and passion of their elements in it; whose account it
only affordeth, and, measuring out their motion, informs us in the
periods and terms of their duration, rather than effecteth or physically
produceth the same.”[2]
Time can only be measured by motion: were all things inanimate or fixed,
time could not be measured. A body cannot be in two places at the same
instant; and if the motion of any body from one point to another were
regular and equal, the divisions and subdivisions of the space thus
marked over would mark portions of time.
The sun and the moon have served to divide portions of time in all ages.
The rising and setting of the sun, the shortening and lengthening of the
shadows of trees, and even the shadow of man himself, have marked the
flight of time. The phases of the moon were used to indicate greater
portions; and a certain number of full moons supplied us with the means
of giving historical dates.
Fifteen geographical miles, east or west, make one minute of time. The
earth turning on its axis produces the alternate succession of day and
night, and in this revolution marks the smallest division of time by
distances on its surface.
If each of the 360 degrees into which the circumference of the earth is
divided, be subdivided into twenty-four hours, it will be found that 15
degrees pass under the sun during each hour, which proves that 15
degrees of longitude mark one hour of time: thus, as Berlin is nearly 15
degrees east of London, it is almost one o’clock when it is twelve at
London.
Time, like bodies, is divisible nearly _ad infinitum_. A second (a mere
pulsation) is divided into four or five parts, marked by the vibrations
of a watch-balance; and each of these divisions is frequently required
to be lessened an exact 2880th part of its momentary duration. It is,
however, impossible to see this; for Mr. Babbage, speaking of a piece of
mechanism which indicated the 300th part of a second, tells us that both
himself and friend endeavoured to stop it twenty times successively at
the same point, but could not be confident of even the 20th part of a
second.
It has been said that many simple operations would astonish us, did we
but know enough to be so; and this remark may not be inapplicable to
those who, having a watch losing half a minute per day, wish it
corrected, though they may not reflect that as half a minute is the
2880th part of 24 hours, each vibration of the balance, which is only
the fifth part of a second, must be accelerated the 2880th part of its
instantaneous duration; while to make a watch, losing one minute per
week, go correctly, each vibration must be accelerated the 1008th part
of its duration, or the 50,400th part of a second.[3]
Among the early methods of measuring Time, we must not omit to notice
Alfred’s “Time-Candles,” as they have been called. His reputed
biographer, Asser, tells us that Alfred caused six tapers to be made for
his daily use: each taper, containing twelve pennyweights of wax, was
twelve inches long, and of proportionate breadth. The whole length was
divided into twelve parts, or inches, of which three would burn for one
hour, so that each taper would be consumed in four hours; and the six
tapers, being lighted one after the other, lasted twenty-four hours. But
the wind blowing through the windows and doors and chinks of the walls
of the chapel, or through the cloth of his tent, in which they were
burning, wasted these tapers, and consequently they burnt with no
regularity; he therefore designed a lantern made of ox or cow horn, cut
into thin plates, in which he enclosed the tapers; and thus protecting
them from the wind, the period of their burning became a matter of
certainty. But the genuineness of Asser’s work is doubted,—so the story
is discredited. Nevertheless, there is nothing very questionable in
Alfred’s reputed method; and it is curious to see that an “improvement”
was patented so recently as 1859, which consists in graduating the
exterior of candles, either by indentation or colouring at intervals,
and equal distances apart, according to the size of the candles. The
marks are to consist of hours, half-hours, and, if necessary,
quarter-hours; the distance to be determined by the kind of candle used.
Bishop Wilkins, in his _Mathematical Magic_, in the chapter relating to
“such engines as did receive a regular and lasting motion from something
belonging to their own frame, whether weights or springs, &c.,” quotes
Pancirollus, “taken from that experiment in the multiplication of wheels
mentioned in Vitruvius, where he speaks of an instrument whereby a man
may know how many miles or paces he doth go in any space of time,
whether or no he pass by water in a boat or ship, or by land in a
chariot or coach. They have been contrived also into little pocket
instruments, by which, after a man hath walked a whole day together, he
may easily know how many steps he hath taken.” More curious is “the
alarum, mentioned by Walchius, which, though it were but two or three
inches big, yet would both wake a man and of itself light a candle for
him at any set hour of the night. And those great springs, which are of
so great force as to turn a mill (as some have contrived), may be easily
applied to more various and difficult labours.”
Occasionally, in these old curiosities, we trace anticipations of some
of the scientific marvels of the present day. Thus, when the Grand Duke
of Tuscany, in 1669, visited the Royal Society at Arundel House, he was
shown “a clock, whose movements are derived from the vicinity of a
loadstone; and it is so adjusted as to discover the distance of
countries, at sea, by the longitude.” The analogy between this clock and
the electrical clock of the present day is not a little remarkable. The
Journal-book of the Society for 1669 contains many allusions to “Hook’s
magnetic watch going slower or faster according to the greater or less
distance of the loadstone, and so moving regularly in every posture.” On
the occasion of the visit of illustrious strangers, this clock and
Hook’s magnetic watches were always exhibited as great curiosities.[4]
---------------------
Footnote 2:
_Vulgar and Common Errors_, book iv. chap. xii.
Footnote 3:
_Time and Timekeepers._ By Adam Thomson, 1842.
Footnote 4:
See Weld’s _History of the Royal Society_, vol. i. pp. 220, 221.
----------------------------
PERIODS OF REST.
The terrestrial day, and consequently the length of the cycle of light
and darkness, being what it is, we find various parts of the
constitution both of animals and vegetables which have a periodical
character in their functions, corresponding to the diurnal succession of
external conditions; and we find that the length of the period, as it
exists in their constitution, coincides with the length of the natural
day.
Man, in all nations and ages, takes his principal rest once in
twenty-four hours; and the regularity of this practice seems most
suitable to his health, though the duration of the time allotted to
repose is extremely different in different cases. So far as we can
judge, this period is of a length beneficial to the human frame,
independently of the effect of external agents. In the voyages made into
high northern latitudes, where the sun did not rise for three months,
the crews of the ships were made to adhere, with the utmost punctuality,
to the habit of retiring to rest at nine, and rising a quarter before
six; and they enjoyed, under circumstances apparently the most trying, a
state of salubrity quite remarkable. This shows that, according to the
common constitution of such men, the cycle of twenty-fours is very
commodious, though not imposed on them by external circumstances.
The succession of exertion and repose in the muscular system, of excited
and dormant sensibility in the nervous, appears to be fundamentally
connected with the muscular and nervous powers, whatever the nature of
these may be. The necessity of these alternations is one of the measures
of the intensity of these vital energies; and it would seem that we
cannot, without assuming the human powers to be altered, suppose the
intervals of tranquillity which they require to be much changed. This
view agrees with the opinion of the most eminent physiologists. Thus,
Cabanis notices the periodical and isochronous character of the desire
of sleep, as well as of other appetites. He states that sleep is more
easy and more salutary, in proportion as we go to rest and rise every
day at the same hours; and observes that this periodicity seems to have
a reference to the motions of the solar system.
Now, how should such a reference be at first established in the
constitution of man, animals, and plants, and transmitted from one
generation of them to another? If we suppose a wise and benevolent
Creator, by whom all the parts of nature were fitted to their uses and
to each other, this is what we might expect and understand. On any other
supposition, such a fact appears altogether incredible and
inconceivable.[5]
---------------------
Footnote 5:
Abridged from Whewell’s _Bridgwater Treatise_.
----------------------------
RECKONING DISTANCE BY TIME.
In Oriental countries, it has been the custom from the earliest ages to
reckon distances by _time_, rather than by any direct reference to a
standard of measure, as is commonly reckoned in the present day. In the
Scriptures we find distances described by “a day’s journey,” “three
days’ journey,” and other similar expressions. A day’s journey is
supposed to have been equal to about thirty-three British statute miles,
and denoted the distance that could be performed without any
extraordinary fatigue by a foot-passenger; “a Sabbath day’s journey” was
peculiar to the Jews, being equal to rather less than one statute mile.
It may not be in exact accordance with our habits of thought, and usual
forms of expression, thus to describe distances by time; yet it seems to
possess some advantages. A man knowing nothing of the linear standards
of measure employed in foreign countries, would receive no satisfactory
information on being told that a particular city, or town, was distant
from another a certain number of miles[6] or leagues,[7] as the case
might happen to be. But if he were told that such city or town was
distant from another a certain number of _hours_ or _days_, there would
be something in the account that would commend itself to his
understanding. A sea-voyage is oftener described by reference to time
than to _distance_. We frequently hear persons inquire how many _weeks_
or _months_ it will occupy to proceed to distant parts of the world, but
they rarely manifest any great anxiety about the number of _miles_. This
mode of computation seems especially applicable to steam navigation: a
voyage by a steam-packet, under ordinary circumstances, being performed
with such surprising regularity, that it might, with greater propriety,
be described by minutes, or hours, or days, than by miles.
---------------------
Footnote 6:
In Holland a _mile_ is nearly equal to three and three-quarters; in
Germany it is rather more than four and a half; and in Switzerland it
is about equal to five and three-quarters British miles.
Footnote 7:
A _league_ in France is equal to two and three-quarters; in Spain to
four; in Denmark to four and three-quarters; in Switzerland to five
and a half; and in Sweden to six and three-quarters British miles.
----------------------------
SUN-DIALS.
Sun-dials are little regarded but as curiosities in these days; although
the science of constructing Sun-dials, under the name of Gnomonics, was,
up to a comparatively recent period, part of a mathematical course. As
long as watches were scarce, and clocks not very common, the dial was an
actual time-keeper. Of the mathematical works of the seventeenth century
which are found on book-stalls, none are so common as those on Dialling.
Each of the old dials usually had its monitory inscription; and although
the former have mostly disappeared, the mottoes have been preserved, so
that all their good is not lost.
The stately city of Oxford, which Waagen declared it was worth a special
journey from Germany to see, has, upon its churches and colleges, and in
their lovely gardens, several dials. Christopher Wren, when a boy of
fifteen at Wadham College, designed on the ceiling of a room a
reflecting dial, embellished with various devices and two figures,
Astronomy and Geometry, with accessories, tastefully drawn with a pen,
and bearing a Latin inscription; but his more elaborate work is the
large and costly dial which he erected at All Souls’ College, of which
he was a Fellow.
The Rev. W. Lisle Bowles was a sincere respecter of dials. In the garden
of his parsonage at Bremhill he placed a Sun-dial—a small antique
twisted column, gray with age, and believed to have been the dial of the
abbot of Malmesbury, and counted his hours at the adjoining lodge; for
it was taken from the garden of the farmhouse, which had originally been
the summer retirement of this mitred lord: it is of monastic character,
but a more ornate capital has been added, which bears the date of 1688;
it has the following inscription by the venerable Canon:
To count the brief and unreturning hours,
This Sun-dial was placed among the flowers,
Which came forth in their beauty—smiled and died,
Blooming and withering round its ancient side.
Mortal, thy day is passing—see that Flower,
And think upon the Shadow and the Hour.
From beneath a venerable yew, which has seen the persecution of the
loyal English clergy, you look into the adjoining churchyard of
Bremhill, on an old Sun-dial, once a cross. Bowles tells us: “The
_cross_ was found broken at its foot, probably by the country
iconoclasts of the day. I have brought the interesting fragment again
into light, and placed it conspicuously opposite to an old Scotch fir in
the churchyard, which I think it not unlikely was planted by Townson on
his restoration. The accumulation of the soil of centuries had covered
an ascent of four steps at the bottom of this record of silent hours.
These steps have been worn in places, from the act of frequent
prostration or kneeling by the forefathers of the hamlet, perhaps before
the church existed.” Upon this old dial Bowles wrote one of his most
touching poems, of which these are the opening verses:
So passes silent o’er the dead thy shade,
Brief Time! and hour by hour, and day by day,
The pleasing pictures of the present fade,
And like a summer-vapour steal away.
And have not they, who here forgotten lie
(Say, hoary chronicler of ages past),
Once more the shadow with delighted eye,
Nor thought it fled,—how certain and how fast?
Since thou hast stood, and thus thy vigil kept,
Noting each hour, o’er mould’ring stones beneath,
The Pastor and his flock alike have slept,
And “dust to dust” proclaim’d the stride of death.
Any thing that reminds us of the lapse of time should remind us also of
the right employment of time in doing whatever business is required to
be done.
A similar lesson is solemnly conveyed in the Scripture motto to a
Sun-dial: “The night cometh, when no man can work.” Another solemn
injunction is conveyed in the motto to a Sun-dial erected by Bishop
Copleston in a village near which he resided: “Let not the sun go down
upon your wrath” (_Ephesians_ iv. 26).
A more subtle motto is, “Septem sine horis;” signifying that there are
in the longest day seven hours (and a trifle over) during which the
Sun-dial is useless.
Upon the public buildings and in the pleasure-grounds of Old London the
Sun-dial was placed as a silent monitor to those who were sailing on the
busy stream of time through its crowded haunts and thoroughfares, or
seeking meditation in quiet nooks and plaisances of its river mansions
and garden-houses. Upon churches the dial commonly preceded the clock:
Wren especially introduced the dial in his churches.
Sovereigns and statesmen may have reflected beside the palace-dials upon
the fleetingness of life, and thus have learned to take better note of
time. Whitehall was famous for its Sun-dials. In Privy Garden was a dial
set up by Edward Gunter, professor of astronomy at Gresham College (and
of which he published a description), by command of James I., in 1624. A
large stone pedestal bore four dials at the four corners, and “the great
horizontal concave” in the centre; besides east, west, north, and south
dials at the sides. In the reign of Charles II. this dial was defaced by
an intoxicated nobleman of the Court; upon which Marvell wrote:
This place for a dial was too unsecure,
Since a guard and a garden could not defend;
For so near to the Court they will never endure
Any witness to show how their time they misspend.
In the court-yard facing the Banqueting-house was another curious dial,
set up in 1669 by order of Charles II. It was invented by one Francis
Hall, _alias_ Lyne, a Jesuit, and professor of mathematics at Liège.
This dial consisted of five stages rising in a pyramidal form, and
bearing several vertical and reclining dials, globes cut into planes,
and glass bowls; showing, “besides the houres of all kinds,” “many
things also belonging to geography, astrology, and astronomy, by the
sun’s shadow made visible to the eye.” Among the pictures were portraits
of the king, the two queens, the Duke of York, and Prince Rupert. Father
Lyne published a description of this dial, which consists of
seventy-three parts: it is illustrated with seventeen plates: the
details are condensed in No. 400 of the _Mirror_. About 1710, William
Allingham, a mathematician in Canon-row, asked 500_l._ to repair this
dial: it was last seen by Vertue, the artist and antiquary, at
Buckingham House.
The bricky towers of St. James’s palace had their Sun-dials; and in the
gardens of Kensington palace and Hampton Court palace are to this day
superb dials.
Upon a house-front in the Terrace, New Palace Yard, Westminster, is a
Sun-dial, having the motto from Virgil, “Discite justitiam, moniti,”
which had probably been inscribed upon the old clock-tower of the
palace, in reference to its having been built with a fine that had been
levied on the Chief Justice of the King’s Bench for altering a record.
The Inns of Court, where time runs its golden sand, have retained a few
of their Sun-dials. In Lincoln’s Inn, on two of the old gables, are: 1.
A southern dial, restored in 1840, which shows the hours by its gnomon,
from 6 A.M. to 4 P.M., and is inscribed, “Ex hoc monumento pendet
æternitas.” 2. A western dial, restored in 1794 and 1848, from the
different situation of its plane, only shows the hours from noon till
night: inscription, “Quam redit nescitis horam.” And in Serle’s-court
(now New-square), on the west side, was a dial inscribed, “Publica
privatis secernite, sacra prophanis.”
Gray’s Inn has lost its Sun-dials: but in the gardens was a dial,
opposite Verulam Buildings, not far from Bacon’s summer-house; and the
turret of the great Hall had formerly a southern declining dial, with
this motto, “Lux diei, lex Dei.”
Furnival’s Inn had its garden and dial, which disappeared when the old
Inn buildings were taken down in 1818, and the Inn rebuilt.
Staple Inn had upon its Hall a well-kept dial, above a luxuriant
fig-tree.
Clement’s Inn had, in its small garden, a kneeling figure supporting a
dial,—one of the leaden garden embellishments common in the last
century. In New Inn, adjoining, the Hall has a large vertical Sun-dial,
motto: “Time and Tide tarry for no man.”
Lyon’s Inn, which had been an Inn “since 1420, or sooner,” had, in 1828,
an old Sun-dial, which had lost its gnomon and most of its figures.
The Temple garden, Inner and Middle, has each a large pillar Sun-dial;
the latter very handsome. There are vertical dials in various courts;
but the old dial of Inner Temple terrace, with its “Begone about your
business,”—in reality the reply of a testy bencher to the painter who
teased him for an inscription,—disappeared in the year 1828. There
remain three dials with mottoes: Temple-lane, “Pereunt et imputantur;”
Essex-court, “Vestigia nulla retrorsum;” Brick-court, “Time and tide
tarry for no man;” and in Pump-court and Garden-court are two dials
without mottoes. Charles Lamb has this charmingly reflective passage,
suggested by the Temple dials:
What an antique air had the now almost effaced sun-dials, with their
moral inscriptions, seeming coevals with that Time which they
measured, and to take their revelations of its flight immediately
from heaven, holding correspondence with the fountain of light! How
could the dark line steal imperceptibly on, watched by the eye of
childhood, eager to detect its movement, never catched, nice as an
evanescent cloud, or the first arrests of sleep!
And yet doth beauty like a dial-hand
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived!
What a dead thing is a clock, with its ponderous embowelments of
lead and brass, its pert or solemn dulness of communication,
compared with the simple altar-like structure and silent
heart-language of the old dial! It stood as the garden god of
Christian gardens. Why is it almost every where vanished? If its
business be superseded by more elaborate inventions, its moral uses,
its beauty, might have pleaded for its continuance. It spoke of
moderate labours, of pleasures not protracted after sunset, of
temperance and good hours. It was the primitive clock, the horologe
of the first world. Adam could scarce have missed it in Paradise. It
was the measure appropriate for sweet plants and flowers to spring
by, for the birds to apportion their silver warblings by, for flocks
to pasture and be led to fold by. The shepherd ‘carved it out
quaintly in the sun,’ and, turning philosopher by the very
occupation, provided it with mottoes more touching than tombstones.
It was a pretty device of the gardener, recorded by Marvell, who, in
the days of artificial gardening, made a dial out of herbs and
flowers:
How well the skilful gardener drew,
Of herbs and flowers, this dial new!
Where from above, the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run:
And, as it works, the industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we.
How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckon’d, but with herbs and flowers?
_From “The Garden.”_
Another noted dial gave name to a locality of the metropolis, which has
known many mutations, viz. Seven Dials, built in the time of Charles II.
for wealthy tenants. Evelyn notes, 1694: “I went to see the building
near St. Giles’s, where Seven Dials make a star from a Doric pillar
placed in the middle of a circular area, said to be by Mr. Neale (the
introducer of the late lotteries), in imitation of Venice, now set up
here for himself twice, and once for the state.”
Where famed St. Giles’s ancient limits spread,
An in-rail’d column rears its lofty head:
Here to seven streets seven dials count their day,
And from each other catch the circling ray:
Here oft the peasant, with inquiring face,
Bewilder’d trudges on from place to place;
He dwells on every sign with stupid gaze,
Enters the narrow alleys’ doubtful maze,
Tries every winding court and street in vain,
And doubles o’er his weary steps again.
Gay’s _Trivia_, book ii.
The seven streets were Great and Little Earl, Great and Little White
Lion, Great and Little St. Andrew’s, and Queen; though the dial-stone
had but six faces, two of the streets opening into one angle. The column
and dials were removed in June 1773, to search for a treasure said to be
concealed beneath the base. They were never replaced; but in 1822 were
purchased of a stone-mason, and the column was surmounted with a ducal
coronet, and set up on Weybridge Green as a memorial to the late Duchess
of York, who died at Oatlands in 1820. The dial-stone is now a
stepping-stone at the adjoining Ship inn.[8]
The Sun-dial was also formerly used with a compass. The Hon. Robert
Boyle relates, “that a Boatman one day took out of his pocket a little
Sun-dial, furnished with an excited needle to direct how to set it, such
dials being used among mariners, not only to show them the hour of the
day, but to inform them from what quarter the wind blows.”
A Cape Town Correspondent of _Notes and Queries_ describes a Sun-dial
and compass in his possession, made by “Johann Willebrand, in Augsburg,
1848:” it has a curious perpetual calendar attached, and is of highly
finished work in silver, parcel-gilt. Another Sun-dial and compass is
mentioned as made by Butterfield, at Paris: it is small, of silver, and
horizontal; upon its face are engraved dials for several latitudes, and
at the back a table of principal cities; it is set by a compass, and the
gnomon adjusted by a divided arc. The N. point of the compass-box is
_fixed_ in a position to allow for variation, probably at Paris; and,
judging from this, it would appear to have been made about 1716.[9]
We should also notice the pocket ring-dial, such as that which gave
occasion to the Fool in the Forest of Arden to “moral on the time:”
And then he drew a dial from his poke,
And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
Says, very wisely, “It is ten o’clock.”
This is a ring of brass, much like a miniature dog-collar, and has,
moving in a groove in its circumference, a narrower ring with a boss,
pierced by a small hole to admit a ray of light. The latter ring is made
movable, to allow for the varying declination of the sun in the several
months of the year, and the initials of these are marked in the
ascending and descending scale on the larger ring, which bears also the
motto:
Set me right, and use me well,
And I y^e time to you will tell.
The hours are lined and numbered on the opposite concavity. When the
boss of the sliding ring is set, and the ring is suspended by the ring
directly towards the sun, a ray of light passing through the hole in the
boss impinges on the concave surface, and the hour is told with fair
accuracy. Mr. Thomas Q. Couch, of Bodmin, thus describes this Dial in
_Notes and Queries_, 3d series, No. 36. Mr. Charles Knight, in his
_Pictorial Shakspeare_, has engraved a dial of this kind, as an
illustration of _As you like it_.
Mr. Redmond, of Liverpool, describes the old pocket ring-dial as common
in the county of Wexford some twenty-five years ago: there was hardly a
farm-house where one could not be had. The same Correspondent of _Notes
and Queries_, 3d series, No. 39, describes a door-sill marked with the
hour for every day in the year: the sill had a full southern aspect, so
that when the sun shone, the time could be read as correctly as by any
watch.
Another Correspondent of _Notes and Queries_, 2d series, No. 38, has an
ingenious pocket-dial, sold by one T. Clarke: it is merely a card, with
a small plummet hanging by a thread, and a gnomon, which lies flat on
the card, but, when lifted up, casts the shadow to indicate the hour of
the day, and also the hours of sunrise and sunset.
In the United Service Museum, Whitehall, is a Sun-dial, with a
burning-glass arranged to fire a small gun at noon; also a large
Universal Dial, with a circle showing minutes; and another large
Universal Dial, with horizontal plate and spirit-level.
Suppose we collect a few of the monitory inscriptions on dials in
various places. Hazlitt, in a graceful paper “On a Sun-dial,” tells us
that
Horas non numero nisi serenas
is the motto of a Sun-dial near Venice; and the same line is painted in
huge letters over the Sun-dial in front of an old farmhouse near
Farnworth, in Lancashire.
At Hebden Bridge, in Yorkshire, is this quaint motto:
Quod petis, umbra est.
Canon Bowles, in his love of the solemn subject, prescribed the
following, with paraphrastic translations:
_Morning Sun._—Tempus volat.
Oh! early passenger, look up—be wise,
And think how, night and day, _time onward flies_.
_Noon._—Dum tempus habemus, operemur bonum.
Life steals away—this hour, oh! man, is lent thee.
Patient to work the work of Him who sent thee.
_Setting Sun._—Redibo, tu nunquam.
Haste, traveller, the sun is sinking now:
He shall return again, but never thou.
Over the Sun-dial on an old house in Rye:
Tempus edax rerum.[10]
Underneath it:
That solar shadow,
As it measures life, it life resembles too.
In Brading churchyard, Isle of Wight, on a Sun-dial fixed to what
appears originally to have been part of a churchyard cross, is the
motto:
Hora pars vitæ.
Near the porch of Milton church, Berks, is:
Our Life’s a flying Shadow; God’s the Pole,
Death, the Horizon, where our sun is set;
The Index, pointing at him, is our Soul,
Which will, through Christ, a Resurrection get.
Butler has this couplet:
True as the dial to the sun,
Although it be not shin’d upon.
_Hudibras_, part iii. canto 2.
Upon this Dr. Nash notes: “As the dial is invariable, and always open to
the sun whenever its rays can show the time of day, though the weather
is often cloudy, and obscures its lustre: so true loyalty is always
ready to serve its king and country, though it often suffers great
afflictions and distresses.”
There cannot be a more faithful indicator, according to Barton Booth’s
song:
True as the needle to the pole,
Or as the dial to the sun.
After all, the _sun_-dial is but an occasional timekeeper; a defect
which the pious Bishop Hall ingeniously illustrates in the following
beautiful Meditation “On the Sight of a Dial:” “If the sun did not shine
upon this dial, nobody would look at it: in a cloudy day it stands like
an useless post, unheeded, unregarded; but, when once those beams break
forth, every passenger runs to it, and gazes on it.
“O God, while thou hidest thy countenance from me, methinks all thy
creatures pass by me with a willing neglect. Indeed, what am I without
thee? And if thou have drawn in me some lines and notes of able
endowments; yet, if I be not actuated by thy grace, all is, in respect
of use, no better than nothing; but when thou renewest the light of thy
loving countenance upon me, I find a sensible and happy change of
condition: methinks all things look upon me with such cheer and
observance, as if they meant to make good that word of thine, _Those
that honour me, I will honour:_ now, every line and figure, which it
hath pleased thee to work in me, serve for useful and profitable
direction. O Lord, all the glory is thine. Give thou me light: I will
give others information: both of us shall give thee praise.”
The Pyramids of Egypt, the most ancient and the most colossal structures
on the earth,—the purpose and appropriation of which has been much
controverted by antiquaries and men of science,—have been considered by
some to have served as Sun-dials. Sir Gardner Wilkinson does not pretend
to explain the real object for which these stupendous monuments were
constructed, but feels persuaded that they have served for tombs, and
have also been intended for astronomical purposes. “The form of the
exterior might lead to many useful calculations. They stand exactly due
north and south; and while the direction of the faces to the east and
west might serve to fix the return of a certain period of the year, the
shadow cast by the sun, or the time of its coinciding with their slope,
might be observed for a similar purpose.”
There is an interesting association of the Great Pyramid with the
ambitious dream of one of the world’s celebrities, which may be noticed
here. When Napoleon I. was in Egypt, in 1799, he rode on a camel to the
Great Pyramid and the Sphinx, that relic of mystic grandeur. Karl
Girardet has painted this impressive visit; and the picture has been
engraved by Gautier, and inscribed, “Forty Centuries look down upon
him.”
Charles Mackay has written a graceful poem as a pendent to this print;
in which the poet makes the young Napoleon thus invoke the colossal
monuments:
Ye haughty Pyramids!
Thou Sphinx, whose eyeless lids
On my presumptuous youth seem bent in scorn!
What though thou’st stood
Coeval with the flood,
Of all earth’s monuments the earliest born,
And I so mean and small,
With armies at my call,
Am recent in thy sight as grass of yestermorn!
Yet in this soul of mine
Is strength as great as thine,
O dull-eyed Sphinx that wouldst despise me now;
Is grandeur like thine own,
O melancholy stone,
With forty centuries furrow’d on thy brow;
Deep in my heart I feel
What time shall yet reveal,
That I shall tower o’er men, as o’er these deserts thou.
The dreamer of empire proceeds, bespeaking:
Nations yet to be,
Surging from Time’s deep sea,
Shall teach their babes the name of great Napoleon.
But hear the reply of the decaying oracle:
Over the mighty chief
There came a shadow of grief.
The lips gigantic seemed to move and say,
“Know’st thou his name that bid
Arise yon Pyramid?
Know’st thou who placed me where I stand to-day?
Thy deeds are but as sand
Strewn on the heedless land:
Think, little mortal, think, and pass upon thy way!
Pass, little mortal, pass!
Grow like the vernal grass—
The autumn sickle shall destroy thy prime.
But nations shout the word
Which ne’er before they heard,
The name of glory, fearful yet sublime.
The Pharaohs are forgot,
Their works confess them not:
Pass, hero! pass,—poor straw upon the gulf of Time!”
It will be remembered how Napoleon’s disastrous Egyptian campaign ended;
and how he secretly embarked for France, and read during his passage
both the Bible and the Koran with great assiduity.
Among the interesting memorials of Mary Queen of Scots at Holyrood
Palace, Edinburgh, there remains the Sun-dial placed in the centre of
the palace-garden, and usually denominated “Queen Mary’s Dial.”
It is the apex of a richly-ornamented pedestal, which rests upon a
hexagonal base, consisting of three steps. The form of the
‘horologe’ is multangular; for though its principal sections are
pentagonal, yet from their terminating in pyramidal points, and
being diametrically opposed to each other, again connected by
triangular interspaces, it presents no fewer than twenty sides, on
which are placed twenty-two dials, inserted into circular,
semicircular, and triangular cavities. Between the dials are the
royal arms of Scotland, with the initials M. R., St. Andrew, St.
George, _fleurs-de-lis_, and other emblems. This memorial carries us
back nearly three centuries, when Holyrood was a palace
Where “Mary of Scotland” kept her court.
---------------------
Footnote 8:
The _Town and Country Magazine_, edited by Albert Smith.
Footnote 9:
N. T. Heineken; _Notes and Queries_, 3d series.
Footnote 10:
We remember this motto for many years beneath a large figure of Time,
executed in Coade and Seeley’s composition, and placed at the corner
of the lane leading from Westminster Bridge Road to Pedlar’s Acre.
----------------------------
THE HOUR-GLASS.
The use of the Hour-glass can be traced to ancient Greece. In Christie’s
Greek Vases, one is engraved from a scarabæus of sardonyx, in the
Towneley collection: it is exactly like the modern hour-glass. The first
mention of it occurs in a Greek tragedian named Bato. On a bas-relief of
the Mattei Palace, of the marriage of Thetis and Peleus, Morpheus holds
an hour-glass; and from Athenæus it appears that persons, when going
out, carried it about with them, as we do a watch. In a woodcut in
Hawkins’s _History of Music_, the frame is more solid, and the glass
probably slipped in and out. There is another cut of one in Boissard,
held by Death, precisely of the modern form.
The hour or sand-glass is liable to the objection, that it requires a
horary attendant, as is intimated in the glee:
Five times by the taper’s light
The hour-glass we have turned to-night.
But the Hour-glass is a better measurer of time than is generally
imagined. The flow of the sand from one bulb to another is perfectly
equable, whatever may be the quantity of sand above the aperture. The
stream flows no faster when the upper bulb is almost full than when it
is almost empty; the lower heap not being influenced by the pressure of
the heap above.[11] Bloomfield, in one of his rural tales, “The Widow to
her Hour-glass,” sings:
I’ve often watched thy streaming sand,
And seen the growing mountain rise,
And often found life’s hope to stand
On props as weak in wisdom’s eyes:
Its conic crown
Still sliding down,
Again heaped up, then down again:
The sand above more hollow grew,
Like days and years still filtering through,
And mingling joy and pain.
Ford, contemporary with Massinger, has this impressive picture of the
primitive time-keeper:
Minutes are number’d by the fall of sands,
As, by an hour-glass, the span of time
Doth waste us to our graves; and we look on it.
An age of pleasures, revell’d out, comes home
At last, and ends in sorrow: but the life,
Weary of riot, numbers every sand,
Wailing in sighs, until the last drop down;
So to conclude calamity in rest: numbering wasted life.
How cleverly the old dramatist, Shirley, illustrates this philosopher in
glass:
Let princes gather
My dust into a glass, and learn to spend
Their hour of state, that’s all they have; for when
That’s out, Time never turns the glass again.
The Hour-glass has almost entirely given place to the more useful,
because to a greater extent self-acting, instrument; and it is now
seldom seen except upon the table of the lecturer or private teacher, in
the study of the philosopher, in the cottage of the peasant, or in the
hand of the old emblematic figure of Time.[12] We still sometimes see it
in the workshop of the cork-cutter. The half-minute glass is still
employed on board ship; and the two and a half or three minute glass for
boiling an egg with exactness.
Preaching by the Hour-glass was formerly common; and public speakers
are _timed_, in the present day, by the same means. In the
church-wardens’ books of St. Helen’s, Abingdon, date 1599, is a
charge of fourpence for an hour-glass for the pulpit; in 1564, we
find in the books of St. Katherine’s, Christ Church, Aldgate, “paid
for an hour-glass that hangeth by the pulpit when the preacher doth
make a sermon, that he may know how the hour passeth away—one
shilling;” and in the books of St. Mary’s, Lambeth, 1579 and 1615,
are similar entries. Butler, in _Hudibras_, alludes to pulpit
hour-glasses having been used by the Puritans: the preacher having
named the text, turned up the glass; and if the sermon did not last
till the sand was out, it was said by the congregation that the
preacher was lazy; but if, on the other hand, he continued much
longer, they would yawn and stretch till the discourse was finished.
At the old church of St. Dunstan-in-the-West, Fleet-street, was a
large hour-glass in a silver frame, of which latter, when the
instrument was taken down, in 1723, two heads were made for the
parish staves. Hogarth, in his “Sleepy Congregation,” has introduced
an hour-glass on the west side of the pulpit. A very perfect
hour-glass is preserved in the church of St. Alban, Wood-street,
Cheapside; it is placed on the right of the reading-desk within a
frame of twisted columns and arches, supported on a spiral column:
the four sides have angels sounding trumpets; and each end has a
line of crosses _patées_ and fleurs-de-lis, somewhat resembling the
imperial crown.
---------------------
Footnote 11:
Le Jeune has painted two children watching with wonder the sand
flowing in the hour-glass.
Footnote 12:
The Hour-glass is the sign of Calvert’s Brewery, in Upper
Thames-street.
----------------------------
CLOCKS AND WATCHES.
The clock was also the horologe of our old poets, from the Latin
_horologium:_
He’ll watch the horologe a double set,
If drink rock not his cradle.—_Othello_, act ii. sc. 3.
Drayton calls the cock the country horologe.
Rabelais thus capriciously ridicules the use of the clock: “The greatest
loss of time that I know, is to count the hours. What good comes of it?
Nor can there be any greater dotage in the world, than for one to guide
and direct his course by the sound of a bell, and not by his own
judgment and discretion.” In similar exuberance has this gay satirist
said: “There is only one quarter of an hour in human life passed ill,
and that is between the calling for the reckoning and paying it.”
With more serious purpose has Sir Walter Scott, in his “Lay of the
Imprisoned Huntsman,” thus anathematised the clock and the dial:
I hate to learn the ebb of time
From yon dull steeple’s drowsy chime,
Or mark it as the sunbeams crawl
Inch after inch along the wall.
Richard II., in the dungeon of Pomfret Castle, soliloquises more
solemnly:
Now hath Time made me his numb’ring clock:
My thoughts are minutes, and with sighs they jade
Their watches on to mine eyes, the outward watch
Whereto my finger, like a dial’s point,
Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears.
Now, sir, the sound that tells what hour it is,
Are clamorous groans, that strike upon my heart,
Which is the bell: so sighs, and tears, and groans
Show minutes, times, and hours.
Lucian, who died A.D. 180, refers to an instrument, mechanically
constructed with water, which reported the hours by a bell. “Before the
time of Jerome” (born A.D. 332), says Browne, “there were horologies
that measured the hours, not only by drops of water in glasses, called
_clepsydra_, but also by sand in glasses, called _clepsummia_.” It was
the clepsydra to which Lucian alludes. When the water, which was
constantly dripping out of the vessel, reached a certain level, it drew
away, by means of a rope connected with the piston in the water-vessel,
the ledge on which a weight rested; and the falling of this weight,
which was attached to a bell, caused it to strike. This, perhaps, was
the earliest kind of striking clock.
A public striking clock may well be termed the regulator of society: it
reminds us of our engagements, and announces the hours for exertion or
repose; and in the silence of night it tells us of the hours that are
past, and how many remain before day.
The earliest public clock set up in England was that with three bells,
which was placed in the clochard or bell-tower of the Palace at
Westminster, built by Edward III. in 1365-6: the palace was then the
most frequent residence of the king and his family; and the three bells
were “usually rung at Coronations, Triumphs, Funeralls of Princes, and
their Obits.”[13] This bell-tower stood very near to the site of the
great clock-tower of the new palace; the gilding of the exterior of
which cost no less than 1500_l._
A public clock is a public monitor; and the dimensions of its dial, and
works, and striking-bell add much to the solemnity of its proclaiming
the march of time. The great clocks in the International Exhibition of
1862 were among its colossal marvels.
The clocks of St. Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Palace, and the Royal
Exchange, are three of the largest clocks in London. The St. Paul’s
hour-hands are the height of a tall man; the hour struck by this clock
has been heard at midnight on the terrace of Windsor Castle; and from
the telegraph station on Putney-heath the hour has been read by the St.
Paul’s clock-face without the aid of a telescope: the hour-numerals are
2 feet 2½ inches in height. This clock once struck thirteen, which being
heard by a sentinel, accused of being asleep at his post at that hour,
was the means of saving his life; this striking thirteen was caused by
the lifting-piece holding on too long.
The former church of St. Paul, Covent Garden, built by Inigo Jones,
contained within the pediment a pendulum-clock, made by Richard Harris
in 1641, and stated by an inscription in the vestry to be the first
pendulum-clock made.[14]
The Horse Guards Clock is properly described by Mr. Denison as “a
superstitiously venerated and bad clock;” it is minutely described by
Mr. B. L. Vulliamy in the _Curiosities of London_, pp. 378-380.
St. James’s Palace Clock, made by Clay, clockmaker to George II.,
strikes the hours and quarters upon three bells; it requires to be wound
up every day, and originally had but one hand. We were told by the late
Mr. B. L. Vulliamy, that when the gatehouse was repaired in 1831, the
clock was removed, and not put up again, on account of the roof being
reported unsafe to carry the weight. The inhabitants of the
neighbourhood then memorialised William IV. for the replacement of the
timekeeper: the King, having ascertained its weight, shrewdly inquired
how, if the tower-roof was not strong enough to carry the clock, it was
safe for the number of persons occasionally seen upon it to witness
processions, &c. The clock was forthwith replaced, and a minute-hand was
added, with new dials: the original dials were of wainscot, in a great
number of very small pieces curiously dovetailed together.
Trinity College, Cambridge, has a double-striking clock, put up by the
famous Dr. Bentley; striking, as it used to be said, once for Trinity
and once for his former college, St. John’s, which had no clock.
The clock of St. Clement’s Danes, in the Strand, strikes twice; the hour
being first struck on a larger bell, and then repeated on a smaller one;
so that if the first has been miscounted, the second may be more
correctly observed.
Wren has introduced the gilt projecting dial in several of the City
churches: that at St. Magnus, London Bridge, was the gift of Sir Charles
Duncomb, who, it is related, when a poor boy, had once to wait upon
London Bridge a considerable time for his master, whom he missed through
not knowing the hour; he then vowed that if ever he became successful in
the world, he would give to St. Magnus a public clock, that passengers
might see the time; and this dial proves the fulfilment of his vow. It
was originally ornamented with several richly gilded figures: upon a
small metal shield inside the clock are engraven the donor’s arms, with
this inscription: “The gift of Sir Charles Duncomb, Knight, Lord Major,
and Alderman of this ward; Langley Bradley fecit, 1709.”
The former church of St. Dunstan-in-the-West, Fleet-street, within
memory possessed one of London’s wonders: it had a large gilt dial
overhanging the street, and above it two figures of savages, life-size,
carved in wood, and standing beneath a pediment, each having in his
right hand a club, with which he struck the quarters upon a suspended
bell, moving his head at the same time. To see the men strike was
considered very attractive; and opposite St. Dunstan’s was a famous
field for pickpockets, who took advantage of the gaping crowd. So it had
long been; for Ned Ward, in his _London Spy_, says: “We added to the
number of fools, and stood a little, making our ears do penance to
please our eyes, with the conceited notion of their (the puppets’) heads
and hands, which moved to and fro with as much deliberate stiffness as
the two wooden horologists at St. Dunstan’s when they strike the
quarters.” Cowper thus describes them in his _Table-Talk:_
When labour and when dulness, club in hand,
Like the two figures at St. Dunstan’s, stand,
Beating alternately, in measur’d time,
The clockwork tintinnabulum of rhyme,
Exact and regular the sounds will be,
But such mere quarter-strokes are not for me.
These figures and the clock were put up in 1671. Among those who were
struck by their oddity was the third Marquis of Hertford, born in 1777:
“When a child, and a good child, his nurse, to reward him, would take
him to see _the giants_ at St. Dunstan’s; and he used to say that when
he grew to be a man _he would buy those giants_” (Cunningham’s _Handbook
of London_). Many a child of rich parents may have used the same words;
but in the present case the Marquis kept his word. When the old church
of St. Dunstan was taken down, in 1830, Lord Hertford attended the
second auction-sale of the materials, and purchased the clock, bells,
and figures for 200_l.;_ he had them placed at the entrance to the
grounds of his villa in the Regent’s Park, thence called St. Dunstan’s
Villa; and here the figures do duty to the present day.
These automata remind us of the Minute-Jacks in Shakspeare’s _Timon of
Athens_, generally interpreted as Jacks of the Clock-house:
You fools of fortune, trencher friends, time’s flies,
Cap and knee slaves, vapours, and minute-jacks.
Still, the Minute-Jacks only struck hours and quarters; and the term is
rather thought to mean “fellows that watch their minutes to make their
advantage, time-servers.” There is no doubt that by the “Jack that keeps
the stroke,” in _Richard III._, is meant the Jack of the
Clock-house.[15]
A much more noteworthy sight than the Fleet-street clock-figures is
possessed by the Londoners of the present day in the Time-ball Signal
upon the roof of the Electric Telegraph Office, No. 448 West Strand.
The signal consists of a zinc ball, 6 feet in diameter, supported by
a rod, which passes down the centre of a column, and carries at the
base a piston, which, in its descent, plunges into a cast-iron
air-cylinder; the escape of the air being regulated so as at
pleasure to check the momentum of the ball, and prevent concussion.
The raising of the ball, half-mast high, takes place daily at 10
minutes to 1 o’clock; at 5 minutes to 1 it is raised to the full
height; and at 1 precisely, and simultaneously with the fall of the
Time-ball at Greenwich Observatory (by which navigators correct
their chronometers), it is liberated by the galvanic current sent
from the Observatory, through a wire laid for that purpose. The same
galvanic current which liberates the Ball in the Strand moves a
needle upon the transit-clock of the Observatory, the time occupied
by the transition being about 1-3000th part of a second; and by the
unloosing of the machinery which supports the ball, less than
one-fifth part of a second. The true moment of one o’clock is
therefore indicated by the first appearance of the line of light
between the dark cross over the ball and the body of the ball
itself. There is a similar Time-ball upon the roof of a clockmaker’s
in Cornhill.
At Edinburgh, also, is a Time-ball connected with a Time-gun signal,
consisting of a large iron cannon, in the Half-moon Battery, at the
Castle; which cannon, having been duly loaded and primed some time
between twelve and one o’clock, is fired off precisely at the latter
hour by an electric influence from the corrected Mean-time of the Royal
Observatory, at a distance of three-quarters of a mile; which, however,
first passes to another clock close to the gun, and thus affords a short
fraction of a second _before_ one o’clock for the train of processes; so
that the actual final flash of the exploding gun in the Castle occurs
absolutely coincidently with the tick of the sixtieth second of the
corrected mean-time clock in the Royal Observatory. The whole is well
described by Professor Piazzi Smith, Astronomer-Royal for Scotland, in
_Good Words_, 1862, part iv.
We now return to the details of the great London Clocks. Mr. Dent
undertook the construction of the Royal Exchange Clock in 1843: it was
required to be superior to any public clock in England, and to satisfy
certain conditions proposed for the first time by the Astronomer-Royal,
and such as could not be satisfied by any clock of the common
construction. Mr. Dent had then no factory of his own for making large
clocks, and he could not get the clock made for him; “but with the
energy and genius by which that remarkable man raised himself from a
tallow-chandler’s apprentice to the position of the first horologist in
the world, he set up a factory for himself at a great expense, and made
the clock there; and of this, the first turret-clock he had ever made,
the Astronomer-Royal certified, in 1845, that it not only satisfied his
conditions, but that Mr. Dent had made some judicious improvements upon
his suggestions, and that he had no doubt it was the best public clock
in the world.”[16] It is true to a second of time, and has a
compensation-pendulum.
The Westminster Palace Clock, designed by Mr. Denison, has four dials,
each 22½ feet wide: they are not the largest in the world, being
considerably less than the dial at Mechlin; but there is no other clock
in the world which has to work four dials of such great width,
especially a clock going 8½ days. St. Paul’s Clock has only two 17-feet
dials, and is wound up every day, which makes a vast difference in the
power and strength required. Each pair of hands weighs above 2 cwt.:
they are made of gun-metal, instead of sheet-iron or copper. The
hour-sockets are iron tubes, 5 inches in diameter; the dials are of
cast-iron framework, filled with opal glass, and stand out 5 feet from
the main walls.
The size of public dials is often very inadequate to their height, and
the distance at which they are intended to be seen. They ought to be at
least one foot in diameter for every ten feet of height above the
ground, and in many cases more, whenever the dial will be seen far off.
Now, the clock-dials of St. Pancras, Euston-square, are but 6½ feet in
diameter, though at the height of 100 feet, and therefore are much too
small.
The Clock, of silver-gilt, presented by Henry VIII. to Anne Boleyn on
the morning of their marriage, is one of the earliest chamber-clocks in
the kingdom: the case is richly chased and engraved, and on the weights
are the initial letters of Henry and Anne, with true-lovers’ knots. This
clock was purchased at the Strawberry Hill sale in the year 1842, for
110_l._, and is now in the collection of Queen Victoria.
We may here mention that the late Duke of Sussex possessed, at
Kensington Palace, an invaluable collection of the early as well as the
most perfect specimens of Time-keepers, among which was “Harrison’s
first Clock, the forerunner of that invaluable machine, without which
the compass itself would be but an imperfect guide to the mariner.”[17]
John Harrison received for his improved chronometers, in 1749, the
Copley Medal; and, thus encouraged by the Royal Society, and by the
hope of sharing the reward of 20,000_l._ offered by Parliament for
the discovery of the longitude, Harrison produced in 1758 a
time-keeper, which was sent for trial on a voyage to Jamaica. After
161 days, the error of the instrument was only one minute five
seconds, and the maker received from the nation 5000_l._ For other
chronometers, subjected, with perfect success, to a trial in a
voyage to Barbadoes, Harrison received 10,000_l._ more. Dr. Stukeley
writes of this ingenious man: “I passed by Mr. Harrison’s house at
Barrow, that excellent genius of clock-making, who bids fair for the
golden prize for the discovery of the longitude. I saw his famous
clock last winter at Mr. George Graham’s: the sweetness of its
motion, the contrivances to take off friction, to defeat the
lengthening and shortening of the pendulum through heat and cold,
and to prevent the disturbance of motion by that of the ship, cannot
be sufficiently admired.”—_Ms. Journal._[18]
An exact measure of time is of the utmost importance to many of the
sciences. Horology is indispensable to astronomy, in which the variation
even of two or three seconds is of the greatest consequence. By means of
a clock the Danish astronomer, Roemer, was enabled to discover that the
eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites took place a few seconds later than he
had calculated, when the earth was in that part of its orbit the
farthest from Jupiter. Speculating on the cause of this phenomenon, he
calculated that light was not propagated instantaneously, but took time
to reach us; and, from calculations founded on this theory, light has
been discovered to dart through space with a velocity of about 192,000
miles in a second: thus, the light of the sun takes eight minutes to
reach the earth.
Horology has also enabled us to discover that when the wind passes one
mile per hour, it is scarcely perceptible; while at the rate of one
hundred miles per hour it acquires sufficient force to tear up trees,
and destroy the produce of the earth. And, without the aid of a
seconds-clock, it would have been scarcely possible to ascertain that a
cannon-ball flies at the rate of 600 feet in a second.
The use of Chronometers in geography and navigation is well known; since
it is only necessary to ascertain the exact difference in time between
two places, to determine their distance east or west of each other.
Graham applied the motion of a Clock showing sidereal time to make a
telescope point in the direction of any particular star, even when
before the horizon.
Alexander Cummins made a Clock for George III. which registered the
height of the barometer during every day throughout the year. This was
effected by a circular card, of about 2 feet in diameter, being made to
turn round once in a year. The card was divided by radii lines into 365
divisions, the months and days of the month being marked round the edge,
while the usual range of the barometer was indicated in inches and
tenths by circular lines described from the centre. A pencil with a fine
point pressed on the card by a spring, and, held by an upright rod
floating on the mercury, faithfully marked the state of the barometer;
the card, being carried forward by the clock, brought each day to the
pencil. Wren proposed to have a clock constructed on a similar
principle, to register the position and force of the wind; which idea
has been adopted.
In the Armoury of George IV. was a model of a small cannon, with a clock
attached to the lock in such a manner that the trigger could be
discharged at any desired time by setting the clock as an alarum.
Breguet contrived a Clock to set a Watch to time. This clock is of the
size of a chamber-clock, and has a fork and support on a top to carry
the watch. When the clock strikes twelve, a piece of steel like a needle
rises, and entering a hole in the rim of the watch-case, comes in
contact with a piece which carries the minute-hand, and by pressure
makes the hand of the watch correspond with that of the clock, provided
the difference be not more than twenty minutes.
The same artist constructed for George IV. a Chronometer which had two
pendulums, one making the machine show mean time, the other to make it
act as a metronome by beating the time for music. This pendulum was
merely a small ball attached to a slight chain carried round a pulley,
on the centre of which was an index, which, when brought to any of the
musical measures engraved on the scale, shortened or lengthened the
chain, so as to cause the pendulum to perform its oscillations in the
time required, and a hammer struck on a bell the beats contained in each
bar; these would be silently struck by placing a piece of wood between
the hammer and the bell; the musical time was also indicated by the
seconds-hand of the clock.
A certain dynamical theory of chemistry has been propounded, founded
upon precipitations and decompositions taking place in a definite space.
Time forms, too, the very key by which alone we can be admitted to a
proper view of the archives of the ancient world. Want of time for the
due development of the geological periods, for a long season, hindered
men’s conceptions upon this subject from taking a sharp, clear cast of
thought. Linnæus constructed a _Clock of Flora_—a dial of flowers, each
opening and shutting at an appointed time.[19]
By a series of comparisons with Pendulums placed at the surface and the
interior of the earth, the Astronomer-Royal has ascertained the
variation of gravity in descending to the bottom of a deep mine, as the
Harton coal-pit, near South Shields. By calculations from these
experiments, he has found the mean density of the earth to be 6·566, the
specific gravity of water being represented by unity. In other words, it
has been ascertained by these experiments that if the earth’s mass
possessed every where its average density, it would weigh, bulk for
bulk, 6·566 times as much as water. The immediate result of the
computations of the Astronomer-Royal is: supposing a clock adjusted to
go true time at the top of the mine, it would gain 2¼ seconds per day at
the bottom. Or it may be stated thus: that gravity is greater at the
bottom of a mine than at the top by 1/19190th part.[20]
The Electric Clock is an invention of our own time. An ordinary clock
consists essentially of a series of wheels acting on each other, and
carrying round, as they revolve, the hands which mark the seconds,
minutes, and hours. The wheels are moved by the falling of a weight, or
the unwinding of a spring; and the rate at which they revolve is
determined by the length of a pendulum made to oscillate by the wheels.
In electric or (as they should rather be called) electro-magnetic
clocks, there are neither weights nor springs; so that they never run
down, and never require to be wound up. To produce motion, electricity
is employed alternately to make and remake an electro-magnet, or
alternately to reverse the poles of a permanent magnet, which, by
lifting up and letting fall, or attracting and repelling a lever, moves
the wheels.
M. Bouilly endeavoured to show that character was much influenced by
Time-keepers. He describes two young persons who were allowed to select
Watches for themselves: one chose a plain watch, being told that its
performance could be depended on; the other, attracted by the elegance
of a case, decided upon one of inferior construction. The possessor of
the good Watch became remarkable for punctuality; while the other,
although always in a hurry, was never in time, and discovered that, next
to being too late, there is nothing worse than being too early.
The choice of a good Watch is, however, a difficult matter: none but a
good workman is capable of forming a correct opinion; and a Watch must
be bad indeed for an inexperienced eye to detect the errors either of
the principle or its construction; even a trial of a year or two is no
proof, for wear seldom takes place within that time; and while a good
Watch can but go well, a bad one, by chance, may occasionally do so.
A Watch must not only be well constructed, and on a good principle, but
the brass must be hard, and the steel properly tempered. The several
parts must be in exact proportion, and well finished, so as to continue
in motion with the least possible wear. It must also be so made that,
when taken to pieces, all its parts may be replaced as firmly as before.
A bad Watch is one in which no more attention has been paid to the
proportion of the parts, or durability of the material, than was
necessary to make it perform for a time: it is either the production of
inefficient workmen, or of those who, being limited in price, are unable
to give sufficient time to perfect the work. In some instances these
Watches will go well for a time; but as they wear, from friction, they
require frequent repair, which cannot be effectually done.
The most useful lesson is, that low price is not exactly another word
for cheapness. If you wish to possess a good Watch, apply to a maker of
known honesty and ability in the art he professes, and who, therefore,
should be implicitly trusted.
It has been said, that “no man ever made a true circle, or a straight
line, except by chance;” and the same may be said of any machine which
measured time exactly; indeed, positive accuracy can never be attained
until an unchangeable material is discovered, of which the works may be
constructed. These practical instructions are by Mr. Adam Thomson.
How beautifully has Lord Herbert of Cherbury sung “to his Watch when he
could not sleep:”
Uncessant minutes, whilst you move you tell
The time that tells our life, which though it run
Never so fast or far, your new begun
Short steps shall overtake: for though life well
May ’scape his own account, it shall not yours.
You are Death’s auditors, that both divide
And sum whate’er that life inspir’d endures,
Past a beginning; and through you we bide
The doom of fate, whose unrecall’d decree
You date, bring, execute; making what’s new,
Ill, and good, old; for as we die in you,
You die in time, time in eternity.
---------------------
Footnote 13:
_Archæologia_, vol. xxxvii.
Footnote 14:
Cunningham’s _Handbook_, 2d edit. p. 386. If this inscription be
correct, it negatives the claim of Huyghens to having first applied
the pendulum to the clock, about 1657; although Justus Bergen,
mechanician to the Emperor Rodolphus, who reigned from 1576 to 1612,
is said to have attached one to a clock used by Tycho Brahe. Inigo
Jones, the architect of St. Paul’s, having been in Italy during the
time of Galileo, it is probable that he communicated what he heard of
the pendulum to Harris. Huyghens, however, violently contested for the
priority; while others claimed it for the younger Galileo, who, they
asserted, had, at his father’s suggestion, applied the pendulum to a
clock in Venice which was finished in 1649.—Adam Thomson’s _Time and
Timekeepers_, pp. 67, 68.
Footnote 15:
Nares’s _Glossary_.
Footnote 16:
_Denison on Clocks._
Footnote 17:
_Adam Thomson._
Footnote 18:
There is an odd traditionary story told of a Watch at Somerset House.
A little above the entrance-door to the Stamps and Taxes is a white
watch-face,—of which it is told, that when the wall was being built, a
workman had the misfortune to fall from the scaffolding, and was only
saved from destruction by the ribbon of his watch, which caught in a
piece of projecting work. In thankful remembrance of his wonderful
preservation, he is said to have inserted his watch into the face of
the wall. Such is the popular belief, and hundreds of persons go to
Somerset House to see this fancied memento, and hear the above tale.
But the watch-face was placed in its present position many years ago
by the Royal Society, as a meridian mark for a portable transit
instrument in one of the windows of the anteroom. Captain Smyth
assisted in mounting the instrument, and perfectly recollects the
watch-face placed against the opposite wall.
Footnote 19:
_The Relations of Science_, by J. M. Ashley.
Footnote 20:
_Letter to James Mather, Esq., South Shields._ See also _Professor
Airy’s Lecture_, 1854. Baily approximately weighed the earth by
another contrivance, described and illustrated in _Things not
generally Known_, First Series, which see.
----------------------------
EARLY RISING.
Get up, sweet slug-a-bed, and see
The dew-bespangling herb and tree;
Each flower has wept and bowed towards th’ east
Above an hour since, yet you are not drest;
Nay, not so much as out of bed,
When all the birds have matins said,
And sung their thankful hymns.—_Herrick._
“Up with the sun” implies, in common parlance, very early habits, of
difficult attainment. But, “we rise with the sun at Christmas: it were
but continuing to do so till the middle of April, and without any
perceptible change we should find ourselves then rising at five o’clock;
at which hour we might continue till September, and then accommodate
ourselves again to the change of season, regulating always the time of
retiring in the same proportion. They who require eight hours sleep
would, upon such a system, go to bed at nine during four months.”
Thus wrote Southey, in his loved sojourn upon the Derwent, of which he
says:
Hither I came in manhood’s active prime,
And here my head hath felt the touch of time.
In our great Public Schools, Early Rising appears to have been practised
from very remote periods. A manuscript document, showing the system at
Eton College about the year 1560, records that the boys rose at five to
the loud call of “Surgite;” they repeated a prayer in alternate verses
as they dressed themselves, and then made their beds, and each swept the
part of the chamber close to his bed. They then went in a row to wash,
and then to the school, where the under-master read prayers at six; then
the præpositor noted absentees, and one examined the students’ faces and
hands, and reported any boys that came unwashed.
The great Lord Burghley, when at St. John’s College, Cambridge, was
distinguished by the regularity of his conduct, and the intensity of his
application: that he might early devote several hours to study, without
any hazard of interruption, he was called up by the bell-ringer every
morning at four o’clock. Such was the educational basis upon which Cecil
laid the foundation of his brilliant but sound reputation; and by which
means, conjoined with the strong natural gift of sagacity, and a mind
tinctured with piety, he acquired the esteem and confidence successively
of three sovereigns, and held the situation of prime minister of England
for upwards of half a century.
Of Sir Edward Coke’s laborious course of study at the Inner Temple, we
have some interesting records. Every morning at three, in the winter
season lighting his own fire, he read Bracton, Littleton, the Year
Books, and the folio Abridgments of the Law, till the courts met at
eight. He then went by water to Westminster, and heard cases argued till
twelve, when pleas ceased for dinner. After a short repast in the Inner
Temple Hall, he attended “readings” or lectures in the afternoon, and
then resumed his private studies till five, or supper-time. This meal
being ended, the _moots_ took place, when difficult questions of law
were proposed and discussed,—if the weather was fine, in the garden by
the river-side; if it rained, in the covered walks near the Temple
Church. Finally, he shut himself up in his chamber, and worked at his
common-place book, in which he inserted, under the proper heads, all the
legal information he had collected during the day. When nine o’clock
struck, he retired to bed, that he might have an equal portion of sleep
before and after midnight.[21]
Bishop Ken, when a scholar at William of Wykeham’s College at
Winchester, in the words of his fellow Wykehamist, the Rev. W. Lisle
Bowles, on the glimmering and cold wintry mornings, would perhaps repeat
to himself—watching the slow morning through the grated window—one of
the beautiful ancient hymns composed for the scholars on the foundation:
Jam lucis ordo sydere
Deum precemur supplices,
Ut in diurnis actibus
Nos servet a nocentibus.
Now the star of morning light
Rises on the rear of night;
Suppliant to our God we pray,
From ills to guard us through this day.
Rising before the others, he had little to do except apply a candle to a
large fagot, in winter, which had been already laid.
Ken composed a devotional Manual for the use of the Winchester scholars;
but his most interesting compositions are those affecting and beautiful
hymns which were sung by himself, and written to be sung in the chambers
of the boys, before chapel in the morning, and before they lay down on
their small boarded beds at night. Of Ken’s own custom of singing his
hymn to the Creator at the earliest dawn, Hawkins, his biographer,
relates, “that neither his (Ken’s) study might be the aggressor on his
hours of instruction, nor what he judged duty prevent his improvement,
he strictly accustomed himself to but one hour’s sleep, which obliged
him to rise at one or two o’clock in the morning, or sometimes earlier;
and he seemed to go to rest with no other purpose than the refreshing
and enabling him with more vigour and cheerfulness to sing his Morning
Hymn, as he used to do, to his lute, before he put on his clothes.” When
he composed those delicious hymns, he was in the fresh morn of life; and
who does not feel his heart in unison with that delightful season, when
such a strain as this is heard?
Awake, my soul, and with the sun
Thy daily stage of duty run;
Shake off dull sloth, and early rise
To pay thy morning sacrifice.
* * * *
Lord, I my vows to thee renew;
Disperse my sins as morning dew.
May we not also say that when the evening hymn is heard, like the sounds
that bid farewell to evening’s parting plaint, it fills the silent heart
with devotion and repose?
All praise to thee, my God, this night
For all the blessings of the light;
Keep me, oh, keep me, King of kings,
Under thine own almighty wings.
Forgive me, Lord, for thy dear Son,
The ills that I this day have done;
That with the world, myself, and thee,
I, ere I sleep, at peace may be.
Ken died, Bishop of Bath and Wells, in 1711, in his 74th year, and was
carried to his grave, in Frome churchyard, by six of the poorest men of
the parish, and buried under the eastern window of the church, at
_sunrise_, in reference to the words of his Morning Hymn:
Awake, my soul, and _with the sun_.
The same words are sung, to the same tune, every Sunday, by the parish
children, in the church of Frome, and over the grave of him who composed
the words, and sung them himself, to the same air, nearly two centuries
since.
Rubens, the consummate painter, enlightened scholar, skilful
diplomatist, and accomplished man of the world, was in the habit of
rising very early,—in summer at four o’clock; and he made it a law of
his life to begin the day by prayer. After this he went to work, and
before his first meal made those beautiful sketches known by the name of
_breakfast sketches_. While painting, he habitually employed a person to
read to him from one of the classical authors (his favourites being
Livy, Plutarch, Cicero, Seneca), or from some eminent poet. This was the
time when he generally received his visitors, with whom he entered
willingly into conversation on a variety of topics in the most animated
and agreeable manner. An hour before dinner was always devoted to
recreation; which consisted either in allowing his thoughts to dwell, as
they listed, on subjects connected with science or politics,—which
latter interested him deeply,—or in contemplating his treasures of art.
As work was his great happiness, he indulged but sparingly in the
pleasures of the table, and drank but little wine. After working again
till the evening, he usually mounted a spirited Andalusian horse, and
rode for an hour or two. On his return home, he customarily received a
few friends, principally men of learning, or artists, to partake of a
frugal supper, and passed the evening in conversation. This active and
regular mode of life could alone have enabled Rubens to satisfy all the
demands which were made upon him as an artist; for, including copies,
the engravings from works of Rubens amount to more than 1500; and the
astonishing number of his works, the genuineness of which is beyond all
doubt, can only be accounted for by his union of extraordinary diligence
with the acknowledged fertility of his productive powers.
John Wesley, at an early age, was sent to the Charter-house, where he
suffered under the tyranny which the elder boys were permitted to
exercise. The boys of the higher forms were then in the practice of
taking their portion of meat from the younger ones, by the law of the
strongest; and during great part of the time that Wesley remained there,
a small daily portion of bread was his only food. He strictly performed
an injunction of his father’s, that he should run round the
Charter-house playing-green, of three acres, three times every morning;
and to this early practice he attributed his great length of days.
Wesley satisfied himself of the expediency of rising early by
experiment, which he describes thus:
I waked every night about twelve or one, and lay awake for some
time. I readily concluded that this arose from my being longer in
bed than nature required. To be satisfied, I procured an alarum,
which waked me the next morning at seven (near an hour earlier than
I rose the day before), yet I lay awake again at night. The second
morning I rose at six; notwithstanding this I lay awake the second
night. The third morning I rose at five; nevertheless I lay awake
the third night. The fourth morning I rose at four, as I have done
ever since; and I lay awake no more. And I do not now lie awake,
taking the year round, a quarter of an hour together in a month. By
the same experiment, rising earlier and earlier every morning, may
one find out how much sleep he really wants.
But Wesley’s moderation in sleep, and his rigid constancy in rising
early, admit of explanation. Mr. Bradburn, who travelled with him almost
constantly for years, said that Wesley generally slept several hours in
the course of the day; that he had himself seen him sleep three hours
together often enough. This was chiefly in his carriage, in which he
accustomed himself to sleep on his journeys as regularly, as easily, and
as soundly, as if he had gone to bed.
When at Oxford, he formed for himself a scheme of studies: Mondays and
Tuesdays were allotted for the Classics; Wednesdays to logic and ethics;
Thursdays to Hebrew and Arabic; Fridays to metaphysics and natural
philosophy; Saturdays to oratory and poetry, but chiefly to composition
in those arts; and the Sabbath to divinity. It appears by his diary,
also, that he gave great attention to mathematics. Full of business as
he now was, he found time for writing by rising an hour earlier in the
morning, and going into company an hour later in the evening: he had
generally from ten to twelve hours in the day which he could devote to
study: and thus he became alike familiar with the literature of his day,
as well as with that of past ages.
Dr. Philip Doddridge attributes the production of his various writings
to his rising early; adding, “the difference between rising at five and
seven o’clock in the morning for the space of forty years, supposing a
man to go to bed at the same hour at night, is nearly equivalent to the
addition of ten years to his life.”
Through life, Gibbon the historian was a very early riser. Before the
first volume of his _Decline and Fall_ had given him celebrity, six
o’clock was his usual hour of rising: fashionable parties and the House
of Commons brought him down to eight.
The day of the profound German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, was begun
early. Precisely at five minutes before five o’clock, winter or summer,
Lampe, Kant’s servant, who had formerly served in the army, marched into
his master’s room with the air of a sentinel on duty, and cried aloud in
a military tone, “Mr. Professor, the time is come.” This summons Kant
invariably obeyed without one moment’s delay, as a soldier does the word
of command—never, under any circumstances, allowing himself a respite,
not even under the rare accident of having passed a sleepless night. As
the clock struck five, Kant was seated at the breakfast-table, where he
drank what he called _one_ cup of tea, and no doubt he thought it such;
but the fact was, that, in part from his habit of reverie, and in part
also for the purpose of refreshing its warmth, he filled up his cup so
often, that in general he is supposed to have drunk two, three, or some
unknown number. Immediately after, he smoked a pipe of tobacco; during
which operation he thought over his arrangements for the day, as he had
done the evening before during the twilight.
Thomson, who has advocated early rising more eloquently than any other
writer, was himself an indolent man; he usually lay in bed till noon,
and his principal time for composition was midnight. One of his early
pictures is:
When from the opening chambers of the east,
The morning springs, in thousand liveries drest,
The early larks their morning tribute pay,
And in shrill notes salute the blooming day.
* * * *
The crowing cock and chattering hen awakes
Dull sleepy clowns, who know the morning breaks.
In his Golden Age of Innocence—
The first fresh dawn then waked the gladdened race
Of uncorrupted man, nor blushed to see
The sluggard sleep beneath its sacred beam,
Then, his charming Summer morn:
Falsely luxurious, will not man awake,
And, springing from the bed of sloth, enjoy
The cool, the fragrant, and the silent hour,
To meditation due, and sacred song?
For is there aught in sleep can charm the wise?
To lie in dead oblivion, losing half
The fleeting moments of too short a life,—
Total extinction of the enlightened soul!
Or else to feverish vanity alive,
Wildered, and tossing through distempered dreams!
Who would in such a gloomy state remain
Longer than Nature craves; when every muse
And every blooming pleasure wait without,
To bless the wildly devious morning walk?
Lord Chatham, writing to his nephew, January 12, 1754, says: _Vitanda
est improba Syren, Desidia_, I desire may be affixed to the curtains of
your bedchamber. If you do not rise early, you can never make any
progress worth mentioning. If you do not set apart your hours of
reading, if you suffer yourself or any one else to break in upon them,
your days will slip through your hands unprofitably and frivolously,
unpraised by all you wish to please, and really unenjoyed by yourself.
Harford relates of Dr. Burgess, Bishop of Salisbury:
Of his literary labours and self-denying life, writes a clergyman,
“few can have any conception. I was frequently admitted to see him
on business, even as early as six in the morning, when, rather than
detain me, he has seen me in his dressing-room. Often he kindly
remarked, ‘Your time is not your own, and is as precious to you as
mine; scruple not to send to me when you really want to see me.’ On
one of my early morning visits, about eight o’clock, in the winter,
I found him seated in his greatcoat and hat, writing at a table, in
a room without a carpet, the floor covered with old folios, and his
candles only just extinguished. ‘I have been writing and reading,’
he said, ’since five o’clock.’ At another time I breakfasted with
him one morning, by appointment, at his hotel in town; and found him
at eight o’clock, about Christmas, writing by candlelight; the whole
room being strewed with old books, collected from various places in
the metropolis. The untiring perseverance with which he prosecuted
his researches for evidence on any particular subject is
inconceivable.”
Sir Astley Cooper, in one of his Lectures to his pupils, used to say:
“The means by which I preserve my own health are: temperance, early
rising, and sponging my body every morning with cold water,—a practice I
have pursued for thirty years; and though I go from this heated theatre
into the squares of the Hospital in the severest winter-nights, with
merely silk stockings on my legs, yet I scarcely ever have a cold. An
old Scotch physician, for whom I had a great respect, and whom I
frequently met professionally in the City, used to say, as we were
entering the patient’s room, ‘Weel, Mister Cooper, we ha’ only twa
things to keep in meend, and they’ll sarve us for here and herea’ter:
one is always to have the fear of the Laird before our ees, that ’ill do
for herea’ter; and the t’other is to keep your booels open, and that
will do for here.’”
William Cobbett, who had great contempt for conventionalities, was an
early riser from his boyhood,—when his first occupation was driving the
small birds from the turnip-seed and the rooks from the peas; when he
trudged with his wooden bottle and his satchel, and was hardly able to
climb the gates and stiles; when he weeded wheat, and had a single horse
at harrowing barley; drove the team, or held the plough—which
employments he apostrophises as “Honest pride, and happy days!” He tells
us that to the husbanding well of his time he owed his extraordinary
promotion in the army. He says: “I was always ready: if I had to mount
guard at ten, I was ready at nine; never did any man or any thing wait
one moment for me. Being at an age under twenty years, raised from
Corporal to Sergeant-Major at once, over the heads of thirty Sergeants,
I naturally should have been an object of envy and hatred; but the habit
of early rising really subdued these passions; because every one felt
that what I did he had never done, and never could do. Before my
promotion, a clerk was wanted to make out the morning report of the
regiment. I rendered the clerk unnecessary; and long before any other
man was dressed for the parade, my work for the morning was all done,
and I myself was on the parade, walking, in fine weather, for an hour
perhaps. My custom was this: to get up in summer at daylight, and in
winter at four o’clock; shave, dress, and even to the putting of the
sword-belt over my shoulder, and having the sword lying on the table
before me, ready to hang by my side. Then I ate a bit of cheese, or
pork, and bread. Then I prepared my report, which was filled up as fast
as the companies brought me in the materials. After this I had an hour
or two to read, before the time came for my duty out of doors, unless
when the regiment, or part of it, went out to exercise in the morning.
When this was the case, and the matter was left to me, I always had it
on the ground in such time as that the bayonets glistened in the rising
sun; a sight which gave me delight, of which I often think, but which I
should in vain endeavour to describe. When I was commander, the men had
a long day of leisure before them: they could ramble into the town or
into the woods; go to get raspberries, to catch birds, to catch fish, or
to pursue any other recreation; and such of them as chose and were
qualified, to work at their trades. So that here, arising solely from
the early habits of one very young man, were pleasant and happy days
given to hundreds.”
Elsewhere Cobbett addresses this advice “to a lover:” “Early rising is a
mark of industry; and though, in the higher situations of life, it may
be of no importance in a mere pecuniary point of view, it is, even
there, of importance in other respects: for it is, I should imagine,
pretty difficult to keep love alive towards a woman who never sees the
dew, never beholds the rising sun, and who constantly comes directly
from a reeking bed to the breakfast-table, and there chews about without
appetite the choicest morsels of human food. A man might, perhaps,
endure this for a month or two without being disgusted; but that is
ample allowance of time. And as to people in the middle rank of life,
where a living and a provision for children is to be sought by labour of
some sort or other, late rising in the wife is certain ruin; and never
was there yet an early-rising wife who had been a late-rising girl. If
brought up to late rising, she will like it; it will be her habit; she
will, when married, never want excuses for indulging in the habit: at
first she will be indulged without bounds; to make change afterwards
will be difficult; it will be deemed a wrong done to her; she will
ascribe it to diminished affection; a quarrel must ensue, or the husband
must submit to be ruined, or, at the very least, to see half the fruit
of his labour snored and lounged away. And is this being rigid? is it
being harsh? is it being hard upon women? Is it the offspring of the
frigid severity of the age? It is none of these: it arises from an
ardent desire to promote the happiness, and to add to the natural,
legitimate, and salutary influence of the female sex. The tendency of
this advice is to promote the preservation of their health; to prolong
the duration of their beauty; to cause them to be beloved to the last
day of their lives; and to give them, during the whole of their lives,
weight and consequence, of which laziness would render them wholly
unworthy.”
When Cobbett had become a public writer, he constantly inveighed against
those who
O’er books consumed the midnight oil.
In country or in town, at Barn Elms, in Bolt-court, or at Kensington, he
wrote his Registers early in the morning: these, it must be admitted,
had force enough; for he said truly, “Though I never attempt to put
forth that sort of stuff which the intense people on the other side of
the Channel call _eloquence_, I bring out strings of very interesting
facts; I use pretty powerful arguments; and I hammer them down so
closely upon the mind, that they seldom fail to produce a lasting
impression.” This he owed, doubtless, to his industry, early rising, and
methodical habits.
Daniel Webster, the famous American statesman, unlike most men of his
day, usually went to bed by nine o’clock, and rose very early in the
morning. General Lynian had heard Webster say, that while in Washington,
there were periods when he shaved and dressed himself for six months
together by candlelight. The morning was his time for study, writing,
thinking, and all kinds of mental labour: from the moment when the first
streak of dawn was seen in the east, till nine or ten o’clock in the
forenoon, scarcely a moment was lost; and it was then that his work was
principally done. Persons who occasionally called upon him as early as
ten in the morning, and found him ready to converse with them, wondered
when he did his work; for they knew that he did work, yet they rarely,
if ever, found him, like other men of business, engaged. The truth was,
that when their day’s work began, his ended; and while they were
indulging in their morning dreams, Webster was up, looking “quite
through the deeds of men.” This habit, followed from his youth, enabled
him to make those remarkable acquisitions of knowledge on all subjects,
and afforded him so much leisure to devote to his friends.
The college-life of Albert, Prince Consort of Queen Victoria, presents
us with some of the beneficial results of the habit of early rising. The
people of England were not a little surprised, at first, to hear that
the Queen and the royal Consort were seen walking together at a very
early hour on the morning of the very day after their marriage. But,
while at Bonn, Prince Albert was particularly distinguished from the
other students of the same rank for the salutary habit of getting up
early, one which he had uniformly persevered in from his boyhood:
therefore, it is very natural that he should have adhered to it after he
had come of age, whether in England or in any other country, and be
likely to do so all the days of his life. At Bonn, the prince generally
rose about half-past five o’clock in the morning, and never prolonged
his repose after six. From that hour up to seven in the evening, he
assiduously devoted his whole time to his studies, with the exception of
an interval of three hours, which he allowed himself for dinner and
recreation. At seven he usually went out, and paid visits to those
individuals or families who were honoured with his acquaintance.[22]
To these instances of the remarkable labours which have been
accomplished by rising early, it can scarcely be considered necessary to
add any thing to enforce the benefits to be derived from the practice.
Nevertheless, something has been said on the other side. An able
essayist has urged that most people who get up unusually early find that
there is nothing to do when they are dressed. There are comparatively
few mornings in the year when it is pleasant to take an hour’s walk
before breakfast in the country. Then, if the early riser stays within
doors, the sitting-rooms are not ready for his reception. Among the
physical inconveniences, this writer shows that the early riser, if not
tormented with a consequent headache, is often troubled with a feeling
of sleepiness and heaviness through the latter part of the day; and, as
far as time goes, he is apt to lose afterwards much more, while he in
some way or other compensates himself for his activity, than he gained
by the extra hour we are supposing him to have had early in the morning.
Then, the moral effect on the early riser, it is said, is to cause in
him an exuberant feeling of conscious goodness: he has performed a feat
which raises him, by his moral self-approval, above ordinary people, who
merely come down to breakfast. There is some truth in all this, which,
however, we think to be the exception rather than the rule; for if early
rising be the general practice in a house, these minor inconveniences
will soon disappear. The above writer is inclined to allow that the
objections to early rising may too exclusively rest on exceptional
cases. He admits, with great fairness, in favour of the practice, that
“if the spare hour can be turned to serious profit, so much the better.
Coming at the beginning of the day, it finds the mind tranquil,
sanguine, and fresh. The time it gives is likely to be free from
interruptions; and the good effect of the study will tell more
powerfully than when it has, as it were, the whole day in its grasp,
than if it were merely slipt in among the other thoughts and occupations
of busier hours. Health, too, is said to profit by early rising; and so
many people have stated this as a fact, that it may perhaps be taken for
granted.”[23]
---------------------
Footnote 21:
See _School-days of Eminent Men_, by the Author of the present volume.
Second edition, 1862.
Footnote 22:
_History of the University of Bonn._
Footnote 23:
_Saturday Review_, March 26, 1859.
----------------------------
THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME.
The Aristotelian philosopher has well expressed its value by saying,
“Nothing is more precious than time; and those who misspend it are the
greatest of all prodigals.”
Again:
The time of life is short:
To spend that shortness basely, were too long
If life did ride upon a dial’s point,
Still ending at the arrival of an hour.
Fuller has this quaint instruction upon our present topic: “Lay down
such rules to thyself, of observing stated hours for study and business,
as no man shall be able to persuade thee to recede from. For when thy
resolutions are once known, as no man of ingenuity will disturb thee, so
thou wilt find this method will become not only more practicable, but of
singular benefit in abundance of things.
“He that loseth his morning studies, gives an ill precedent to the
afternoon, and makes such a hole in the beginning of the day, that all
the winged hours will be in danger of flying out thereat: think how much
work is behind; how slow thou hast wrought in thy time that is past; and
what a reckoning thou shouldst make, if thy Master should call thee this
day to thine account.
“There is no man so miserable as he that is at a loss how to spend his
time. He is restless in his thoughts, unsteady in his counsels,
dissatisfied with the present, solicitous for the future.
“Be always employed; thou wilt never be better pleased than when thou
hast something to do. For business, by its motion, brings heat and life
to the spirits; but idleness corrupts them like standing water.
“Make use of time, if thou valuest eternity. Yesterday cannot be
recalled; to-morrow cannot be assured; to-day only is thine, which if
thou procrastinatest, thou losest; which loss is lost for ever.”
Dr. South, in one of his nervous Discourses, speaking of the uncertainty
of the present, says: “The sun shines in his full brightness but the
very moment before he passes under a cloud. Who knows what a day, what
an hour may bring forth? He who builds upon the present, builds upon the
narrow compass of a point; and where the foundation is so narrow, the
superstructure cannot be high and strong too.”
Sir William Jones, the profound scholar, of whom it was said that if he
were left naked and friendless on Salisbury-plain he would nevertheless
find the road to fame and riches, left among his manuscripts the
following lines on the management of his time, which he had written in
India, on a small piece of paper:
_Sir Edward Coke:_
Six hours in sleep, in law’s great study six;
Four spend in prayer—the rest on nature fix.
_Rather:_
Seven hours to law, to soothing slumbers seven;
Ten to the world allot, and all to heaven.
Dr. Johnson has moralised on Money and Time as “the heaviest burdens of
life;” adding, “the unhappiest of mortals are those who have more of
either than they know how to use. To set himself free from these
incumbrances, one hurries to Newmarket; another travels over Europe; one
pulls down his house, and calls architects about him; another buys a
seat in the country, and follows his hounds over hedges and through
rivers; one makes collections of shells; and another searches the world
for tulips and carnations.”
Elsewhere Johnson has these pertinent remarks: “Among those who have
contributed to the advancement of learning, many have risen to eminence
in opposition to all the obstacles which external circumstances could
place in their way,—amidst the tumults of business, the distresses of
poverty, or the dissipation of a wandering and unsettled state. A great
part of the life of Erasmus was one continued peregrination: ill
supplied with the gifts of fortune, and led from city to city and from
kingdom to kingdom by the hopes of patrons and preferment, hopes which
always flattered and always deceived him, he yet found means, by
unshaken constancy and a vigilant improvement of those hours which in
the midst of the most restless activity will remain unengaged, to write
more than another in the same condition could have hoped to read.
Compelled by want to attendance and solicitation, and so much versed in
common life that he has transmitted to us the most perfect delineation
of the manners of his age, he joined to his knowledge of the world such
application to books, that he will stand for ever in the first rank of
literary heroes. Now, this proficiency he sufficiently discovers, by
informing us that the _Praise of Folly_, one of his most celebrated
performances, was composed by him on the road to Italy, lest the hours
which he was obliged to spend on horseback should be tattled away,
without regard to literature.”
These are two memorable instances of the employment of minute portions
of time. We are told of Queen Elizabeth, that, except when engaged by
public or domestic affairs, and the exercises necessary for the
preservation of her health and spirits, she was always employed in
either reading or writing, in translating from other authors, or in
compositions of her own; and that, notwithstanding she spent much of her
time in reading the best writings of her own and former ages, yet she by
no means neglected that best of books, the Bible; for proof of which,
take the Queen’s own words: “I walk many times in the pleasant fields of
the Holy Scriptures, where I pluck up the godlisome herbs of sentences
by pruning, eat them by reading, digest them by musing, and lay them up
at length in the high seat of memory by gathering them together; that
so, having tasted their sweetness, I may the less perceive the
bitterness of life.” Her piety and great good sense were undeniable.
The Chancellor of France, D’Aguesseau, finding that his wife always kept
him waiting a quarter of an hour after the dinner-bell had rung,
resolved to devote the time to writing a book on jurisprudence; and
putting the subject in execution, in course of time produced a work in
four quarto volumes. His literary tastes greatly distinguished him from
the mass of mere lawyers.
He whose mind the world wholly occupies imagines that no time can be
spared for divine duties. But many circumstances in the lives of good
men inform him that he is mistaken. The wise statesman, the sound
lawyer, the eminent merchant, the skilful physician, the most profound
mathematician, astronomer, or general student, will rise up in judgment
against the man who endeavours to excuse the observance of his religious
duties under the plea of learned or professional employment. Addison,
Hale, Thornton, Boerhaave, Bacon, Boyle, Newton, Locke, and many others,
prove that while the most important of worldly studies and occupations
employed their outward attention, _God rested at their hearts_. The
Ethiopian treasurer read Isaiah in his chariot, and Isaac meditated in
the fields. The friends of the good Hooker, when they went to visit him
at his parsonage, found him with a book in his hand, tending his own
sheep. In short, the true Christian will neither want place nor
opportunity for devotion, nor for the cultivation of those useful and
general talents which may contribute to the benefit or happiness of man.
Lord Woodhouselee, in his _Life of Lord Kames_, has well remarked, that
the professional occupations of the best-employed lawyer or the most
distinguished judge cannot fill up every interval of his time. The
useful respite of vacation, the hours of sickness, the surcease of
employment from the infirmities of age,—all necessarily induce seasons
of languor, against which a wise man would do well to provide a store in
reserve, and an antidote and cordial to cheer and support his spirits.
In this light the pursuits of science and literature afford an unbounded
field and endless variety of useful occupations; and even in the latest
hours of life the reflection on the time thus spent, and the
anticipation of an honourable memorial in after ages, are sources of
consolation of which every ingenuous mind must fully feel the value. How
melancholy was the reflection uttered on his deathbed by one of the
ablest lawyers and judges of the last age, but whose mental stores were
wholly limited to the ideas connected with his profession, “_My life has
been a chaos of nothing!_”
Sir Matthew Hale, one of the most upright judges that ever sat upon the
English bench, was of a benevolent and devout, as well as righteous
disposition; and in addition to his great legal works, found time to
write several volumes on natural philosophy and divinity. His
_Contemplations Moral and Divine_, written two centuries since, retain
their popularity to this day. Bishop Burnet, his biographer, tells us
that “his whole life was nothing else but a continual course of labour
and industry; and when he could borrow any time from the public service,
it was wholly employed either in philosophical or divine meditation.”
... “He that considers the active part of his life, and with what
unwearied diligence and application of mind he despatched all men’s
business that came under his care, will wonder how he could find time
for contemplation; he that considers, again, the various studies he
passed through, and the many collections and observations he made, may
as justly wonder how he could find any time for action. But no man can
wonder at the exemplary piety and innocence of such a life so spent as
this was, wherein, as he was careful to avoid every evil word, so it is
manifest _he never spent an idle day_.”
At every turn we are defeated through want of due regard to this
preciousness of time. “In early life we lay long plans of conduct. After
a considerable interval, we find most of our plans unexecuted; we then
begin to reflect that if they _are_ to be accomplished, a far smaller
portion of our time than we had originally allotted to them can be
employed in their execution, and, what is perhaps more fatal to our
schemes, that portion is uncertain. An awful thought for those who have
in their possession many of the chief blessings of life, and are
approaching, by a rapid progress, that mortal bourn from whence no
traveller returns.”[24]
How much of our time would be saved by the cultivation of the habit of
being content to be ignorant of certain subjects! Nothing can be more
beneficial to the mind than this habit; since it has thereby a more free
and open access to matters of the highest importance.
How much of our time is wasted in paying visits of insincerity! Boileau
being one day visited by an indolent person of rank, who reproached him
with not having returned his former call; “You and I,” replied the
satirist, “are upon unequal terms: I lose my time when I pay you a
visit; you only get rid of yours when you pay me one.”
One of the most familiar methods of taking note of time is by what are
usually termed family parties. When these are given on public holidays,
the effect is doubtless beneficial. Southey has well remarked:
“Festivals, when duly observed, attach men to the civil and religious
institutions of their country: it is an evil, therefore, when they fall
into disuse.” They do more,—in reminding us of the fewer anniversaries
we have to witness.
Boyle has these wholesome reflections upon _profuse talkers_: he tells
us “that easiness of admitting all Kind of Company, provided men have
boldness enough to intrude into ours, is one of the uneasiest Hardships
(not to say Martyrdoms) to which Custom has expos’d us, and does really
do more Mischief than most Men take notice of; since it does not only
keep impertinent Fools in countenance, but encourages them to be very
troublesome to Wise Men. The World is pester’d with a certain sort of
Praters, who make up in Loudness what their Discourses want in Sense;
and because Men are so easie natur’d as to allow the hearing to their
Impertinencies, they presently presume that the things they speak are
none; and most Men are so little able to discern in Discourse betwixt
Confidence and Wit, that to any that will but talk loud enough they will
be sure to afford answers. And (which is worse) this readiness to hazard
our Patience, and certainly lose our Time, and thereby incourage others
to multiply idle words, of which the Scripture seems to speak
threateningly, is made by Custom an Expression, if not a Duty, of
Civility; and so even a Virtue is made accessory to a Fault.
“For my part, though I think these Talkative people worse publick
Grievances than many of those for whose prevention or redress
Parliaments are wont to be assembled and Laws to be enacted; and though
I think their Robbing us of our time a much worse Mischief than those
petty Thefts for which Judges condemn Men, as a little Money is a less
valuable good than that precious Time, which no sum of it can either
purchase or redeem; yet I confess I think that our great Lords and
Ladies, that can admit this sort of Company, deserve it: For if such
Persons have but minds in any measure suited to their Qualities, they
may safely, by their Discountenance, banish such pitiful Creatures, and
secure their Quiet, not only without injuring the Reputation of their
Civility, but by advancing that of their Judgment.”
Sir John Harrington, the epigrammatic poet in the reign of Elizabeth,
and a dangler at her court, appears, by the following confession, from
his _Breefe Notes and Remembrances_, to have been a disappointed man: “I
have spente my time, my fortune, and almost my honestie, to buy false
hope, false friends, and shallow praise;—and be it remembered, that he
who casteth up this reckoning of a courtlie minnion, will sette his
summe like a foole at the ende, for not being a knave at the beginninge.
Oh, that I could boaste, with chaunter David, _In te speravi Domine!_”
Many ill-regulated persons thoughtlessly waste their own time
simultaneously with that of others. Lord Sandwich, when he presided at
the Board of Admiralty, paid no attention to any memorial that extended
beyond a single page. “If any man,” he said, “will draw up his case, and
will put his name to the bottom of the first page, I will give him an
immediate reply: where he compels me to turn over the page, he must wait
my pleasure.”
George III., though always willing and ready for business, disliked (as
who does not?) long speeches out of season; and grievously lamented the
well-informed but verbose and ill-timed eloquence of his minister,
Grenville. “When,” such were the King’s own words to Lord Bute, “he has
wearied me for two hours, he looks at his watch to see if he may not
tire me for one hour more.”
Paley had an ingenious mode of economising his time, and keeping off
these time-wasters. The Earl of Ellenborough is in possession of the
only original portrait of the Doctor, which was painted for the earl’s
father by Romney. Paley was painted with the fishing-rod, by his own
particular desire; not because he cared much about fishing, but because
while he was so occupied he could keep intruders at a distance, and give
his mind to uninterrupted thought. He kept people away, not because they
disturbed the fish, but because they disturbed him. _He composed his
works while he seemed to fish._[25]
Sterne, in one of his fascinating Letters, writes: “Time wastes too
fast: every letter I trace tells me with what rapidity life follows my
pen: the days and hours of it more precious, my dear Jenny, than the
rubies about thy neck, are flying over our heads like light clouds of a
windy day, never to return more. Every thing presses on; whilst thou art
twisting that lock,—see, it grows gray; and every time I kiss thy hand
to bid adieu, and every absence which follows it, are preludes to that
eternal separation which we are shortly to make.”
Thomson’s habit of composition while he lay in bed has been mentioned.
We knew a reverend vicar who usually composed his sermon in bed, and
committed it to paper next morning. Dr. Wallis, who nearly two centuries
ago was professor of geometry at Oxford, attained the power of making
arithmetical calculations “without the assistance of pen and ink, or
aught equivalent thereunto,” to such an extent, that he extracted the
square root of three down to twenty places of decimals. We must indeed
suppose him to have had originally some peculiar aptitude for such
calculations; but he describes himself to have acquired it by practising
at night and in the dark, when there was nothing to be seen, and nothing
to be heard, that would disturb his attention. It is in such
uninterrupted intervals that we best learn to think; and Sir Benjamin
Brodie[26] acknowledges that in these ways he had not unfrequently
derived ample compensation for the wearisome hours of a sleepless night.
Division of time is the grand secret of successful industry. Lockhart,
in his _Life of Scott_, shows how effectually the illustrious subject of
his memoir found opportunity for unequalled literary labour, even while
enjoying all the amusements of a man of leisure. “Sir Walter rose by
five o’clock, lit his own fire when the season required one, and shaved
and dressed with great deliberation; for,” says his biographer, “he was
a very martinet as to all but the mere coxcombries of the toilet, not
abhorring effeminate dandyism itself so cordially as the slightest
approach to personal slovenliness, or even those ‘bed-gown and slipper
tricks,’ as he called them, in which literary men are so apt to indulge.
Arrayed in his shooting-jacket, or whatever dress he meant to use till
dinner-time, he was seated at his desk by six o’clock, all his papers
arranged before him in the most accurate order, and his books of
reference marshalled around him on the floor, while at least one
favourite dog lay watching his eye just beyond the line of
circumvallation. Thus, by the time the family assembled for breakfast,
between nine and ten, he had done enough (in his own language) ‘to break
the neck of the day’s work.’ After breakfast a couple of hours more were
given to his solitary tasks, and by noon he was, as he used to say, ‘his
own man.’ When the weather was bad, he would labour incessantly all the
morning; but the general rule was to be out and on horseback by one
o’clock at the latest; while, if any more distant excursion had been
proposed overnight, he was ready to start on it by ten; his occasional
rainy days of unintermitted study forming, as he said, a fund in his
favour, out of which he was entitled to draw for accommodation whenever
the sun shone with special brightness.”
Sir Walter Scott, writing to a friend who had obtained a situation, gave
him this excellent practical advice: “You must be aware of stumbling
over a propensity, which easily besets you from the habit of not having
your time fully employed; I mean what the women very expressively call
_dawdling_. Your motto must be _Hoc age_. Do instantly whatever is to be
done, and take the hours of recreation after business, and never before
it. When a regiment is under march, the rear is often thrown into
confusion because the front does not move steadily and without
interruption. It is the same thing with business. If that which is first
in hand is not instantly, steadily, and readily despatched, other things
accumulate behind, till affairs begin to press all at once, and no human
brain can stand the confusion. Pray mind this: this is a habit of mind
which is very apt to beset men of intellect and talent, especially when
their time is not regularly filled up, and left at their own
arrangement. But it is like the ivy round the oak, and ends by limiting,
if it does not destroy, the power of manly and necessary exertion. I
must love a man so well, to whom I offer such a word of advice, that I
will not apologise for it, but expect to hear you are become as regular
as a Dutch clock,—hours, quarters, minutes, all marked and appropriated.
This is a great cast in life, and must be played with all skill and
caution.”
Coleridge observes: “It would, indeed, be superfluous to attempt a proof
of the importance of Method in the business and economy of active or
domestic life. From the cotter’s hearth, or the workshop of the artisan,
to the palace or the arsenal, the first merit, that which admits neither
substitute nor equivalent, is, that _every thing is in its place_. Where
this charm is wanting, every other merit loses its name, or becomes an
additional ground of accusation and regret. Of one by whom it is
eminently possessed, we say proverbially, he is like clockwork. The
resemblance extends beyond the point of regularity, and yet falls short
of the truth. Both do, indeed, at once divide and announce the silent
and otherwise undistinguishable lapse of time. But the man of methodical
industry and honourable pursuits does more: he realises its ideal
divisions, and gives a character and individuality to its moments. If
the idle are described as killing time, he may be justly said to call it
into life and moral being, while he makes it the distinct object not
only of the consciousness, but of the conscience. He organises the
hours, and gives them a soul; and that the very essence of which is to
fleet away, and ever more _to have been_, he takes up into his own
permanence, and communicates to it the imperishableness of a spiritual
nature. Of the good and faithful servant, whose energies, thus directed,
are thus methodised, it is less truly affirmed, that he lives in time,
and that time lives in him. His days, months, and years, as the stops
and punctual marks in the records of duties performed, will survive the
wreck of worlds, and remain extant when time itself shall be no
more.”[27] This is admirable reasoning.
A great deal has been said against routine and red tape, or rather the
abuse of the latter; but its proper use has much to do with success.
Curran, when Master of the Rolls, once said to Grattan, “You would be
the greatest man of your age, Grattan, if you would buy a few yards of
red tape, and tie up your bills and papers;” though another version of
the anecdote has, “_tie up your thoughts_.” This was the fault and
misfortune of Sir James Mackintosh: he never knew the use of red tape,
and was utterly unfit for the common business of life. That a guinea
represented a quantity of shillings, and that it would barter for a
quantity of cloth, he was well aware; but the accurate number of the
baser coin, or the just measurement of the manufactured articles to
which he was entitled for his gold, he could never learn, and it was
impossible to teach him. Hence his life was often an example of the
ancient and melancholy struggle of genius with the difficulties of
existence.
The tying-up thoughts corresponds with Fuller’s aphorism, “Marshall thy
thoughts into a handsome method. One will carry twice more weight
trussed and perched up in bundles, than when it lies untoward, flapping
and hanging about his shoulders. Things orderly fardled up under heads
are most portable.” This is the plan adopted by lawyers upon their
tables. The Duke of Wellington had a table upon which his papers were
thus arranged; and, during his absence for any length of time, a sort of
lid was placed upon the table and locked, so as to secure the papers
without disturbing their arrangement.
The Duke of Wellington is also known to have been an early riser; the
advantages of which were illustrated throughout his long life. His
service of the Sovereigns and the public of this country for more than
half a century,—in diplomatic situations and in councils, as well as in
the army,—has scarcely a parallel in British history. His Despatches are
the best evidence of his well-regulated mind in education. No letters
could ever be more temperately or more perspicuously expressed than
those famous documents. They show what immense results in the aggregate
were obtained by the Duke, solely in virtue of habits which he had
sedulously cultivated from his boyhood—early rising, strict attention to
details, taking nothing ascertainable for granted, unflagging industry,
and silence, except when speech was necessary, or certainly harmless.
His early habit of punctuality is pleasingly illustrated in the
following anecdote: “I will take care to be punctual at five to-morrow
morning,” said the engineer of New London Bridge, in acceptance of the
Duke’s request that he would meet him at that hour the following
morning. “Say a quarter before five,” replied the Duke, with a quiet
smile; “I owe all I have achieved to being ready a quarter of an hour
before it was deemed necessary to be so; and I learned that lesson when
a boy.”
Whoever has seen “the Duke’s bedroom” at Apsley-house, and its plain
appointments, will not regard it as a chamber of indolence. It was, a
few years since, narrow, shapeless, and ill-lighted; the bedstead small,
provided only with a mattress and bolster, and scantily curtained with
green silk; the only ornaments of the walls were an unfinished sketch,
two cheap prints of military men, and a small portrait in oil: yet here
slept the Great Duke, whose “eightieth year was by.” In the grounds and
shrubbery he took daily walking exercise, where with the garden-engine
he was wont to enjoy exertion; reminding one of General Bonaparte at St.
Helena, “amusing himself with the pipe of the fire-engine, spouting
water on the trees and flowers in his favourite garden.”
---------------------
Footnote 24:
Brewster’s _Meditations for the Aged_.
Footnote 25:
Communication to _Notes and Queries_, 3d series, No. 47.
Footnote 26:
_Psychological Inquiries_, part ii. 1862. The Author died in the
autumn of 1862, at his beautiful retreat, Broome Park (formerly
Tranquil Dale), at the foot of the fine range of the Betchworth Hills,
in Surrey. In the _Inquiries_ are some interesting traces of the work
having been written in the tranquillity of Broome, and its picturesque
characteristics of noble cedars, elms, and chestnuts, stream and sheet
of water, and mineral spring. In the opening pages, “the fresh air and
quiet of his residence in the country” evidently refers to Broome; and
throughout the volume are occasional references to the geniality of
the place for the group of philosophers who keep up the mode of
dialogue. Sir Benjamin Brodie was some time President of the Royal
Society; and it may be worthy of notice, that his two volumes of
“Inquiries,” in their thoughtful tone and reflective colour, bear some
resemblance to the two volumes produced in the retirement of his
illustrious predecessor in the Chair of the Royal Society—Sir Humphry
Davy; but with this difference,—that Sir Benjamin Brodie’s Researches
are of more practical application than the speculative Dialogues of
our great chemical philosopher, Davy.
Footnote 27:
Coleridge, however, was a better preacher than practitioner of what he
so urgently recommends. When in his younger days he was offered a
share in the _London Journal_, by which he could have made two
thousand pounds a year, provided he would devote his time seriously to
the interest of the work, he declined,—making the reply, so often
praised for its disinterestedness, “I will not give up the country,
and the lazy reading of old folios, for two thousand times two
thousand pounds; in short, beyond three hundred and fifty pounds a
year, I consider money a real evil.” The “lazy reading of old folios”
led to laziness, the indolent gratification of mind and sense.
Degenerating into an opium-eater, and a mere purposeless theoriser,
Coleridge wasted time, talents, and health; came to depend, in old
age, on the charity of others; and died at last, with every one
regretting, even his friends, that he had done nothing worthy of his
genius. The world is full of men having Coleridge’s faults, without
Coleridge’s abilities; men who cannot, or will not, see beyond the
present; who are too lazy to work for more than a temporary
subsistence, and who squander, in pleasure or idleness, energy and
health, which ought to lay up a capital for old age.
----------------------------
TIME AND ETERNITY.
Sir Thomas More, when a youth, painted for his father’s house in London
a hanging with nine pageants, with verses over each. There were
Childhood, Manhood, Venus and Cupid, Age, Death, and Fame. In the sixth
pageant was painted the image of Time, and under his feet was lying the
picture of Fame that was in the sixth pageant. And over this seventh
pageant was (spelling modernised):
TIME.
I whom thou seest with horologe in hand
Am named Time, the lord of every hour:
I shall in space destroy both sea and land.
O simple Fame, how darest thou man honour,
Promising of his name an endless flower!
Who may in the world have a name eternal,
When I shall in process destroy the world and all?
In the eighth pageant was pictured the image of Lady Eternity, sitting
in a chair under a sumptuous cloth of state, crowned with an imperial
crown. And under her feet lay the picture of Time that was in the
seventh pageant. And above this eighth pageant was written as follows:
ETERNITY.
Me needeth not to boast: I am Eternity,
The very name signifieth well
That mine empire infinite shall be.
Thou mortal Time, every man can tell,
Art nothing else but the mobility
Of sun and moon changing in every degree;
When they shall leave their course, thou shalt be brought,
For all thy pride and boasting, unto naught.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Life, and Length of Days.
---------------------
LIFE—A RIVER.
PLINY has compared a River to Human Life; and Sir Humphry Davy was a
hundred times struck with the analogy, particularly among mountain
scenery. A full and clear River is the most poetical object in nature;
and contemplating this, Davy wrote: “The river, small and clear in its
origin, gushes forth from rocks, falls into deep glens, and wantons and
meanders through a wild and picturesque country, nourishing only the
uncultivated tree or flower by its dew or spray. In this, its state of
infancy and youth, it may be compared to the human mind, in which fancy
and strength of imagination are predominant; it is more beautiful than
useful. When the different rills or torrents join, and descend into the
plain, it becomes slow and stately in its motions; it is applied to move
machinery, to irrigate meadows, and to bear upon its bosom the stately
barge;—in this mature state, it is deep, strong, and useful. As it flows
on towards the sea, it loses its force and its motion; and at last, as
it were, becomes lost and mingled with the mighty abyss of waters.”
Again, Life is often compared to a River, because one year follows
another, and vanishes like the ripples on its surface. A flood, without
ebb, bears us onward; “we can never cast anchor in the river of life,”
as Bernardin de St. Pierre finely and profoundly observes.
But the comparison can be still further developed. “It is taking a false
idea of life,” says Cuvier, “to consider it as a single link, which
binds the elements of the living body together, since, on the contrary,
it is a power which moves and sustains them unceasingly. These
elements,” he adds, “do not for an instant preserve the same relations
and connexions; or, in other words, the living body does not for an
instant keep the same state and composition.”
But this is only the new enunciation of a very old idea in science. Long
before Cuvier, Leibnitz said, “Our body is in a perpetual flux, like a
river; particles enter and leave it continually.” And long before
Leibnitz, physiologists had compared the human body to the famous ship
of Theseus, which was always the same ship, although, from having been
so often repaired, it had not a single piece with which it was
originally constructed. The truth is, that the idea of the continued
renovation of our organs[28] has always existed in science; but it is
also true that it has always been disputed.
M. Flourens has proved by direct experiment that the mechanism of the
development of the bones consists essentially in a continual irritation
of all the parts composing them. But it is the change of _material_; for
its _form_ changes very little. Cuvier has further developed this fine
idea:
In living bodies no molecule remains in its place; all enter and
leave it successively: life is a continued whirlpool, the direction
of which, complicated as it is, remains always constant, as well as
the species of molecules which are drawn into it, but not the
individual molecules themselves; on the contrary, the actual
material of the living body will soon be no longer in it; and yet it
is the depository of the force which will constrain the future
material in the same direction as itself. So that the form of these
bodies is more essential to them than the material, since this
latter changes unceasingly, while the other is maintained.
---------------------
Footnote 28:
One may well say of a given individual, that he lives and is the same,
and is spoken of as an identical being from his earliest infancy to
old age, without reflecting that he does not contain the same
particles, which are produced and renewed unceasingly, and die also in
the old state, in the hair and in the flesh, in the bone and in the
blood,—in a word, in the whole body.—_Plato; The Banquet._
----------------------------
THE SPRING-TIME OF LIFE.
The Spring-time of Life,—the meeting-point of the child and the man,—the
brief interval which separates restraint from liberty,—has a warmth of
life, which Dr. Temple thus pictures with glowing eloquence. “To almost
all men this period is a bright spot to which the memory ever afterwards
loves to recur; and even those who can remember nothing but
folly,—folly, of which they have repented, and relinquished,—yet find a
nameless charm in recalling such folly as that. For indeed even folly at
that age is sometimes the cup out of which men quaff the richest
blessings of our nature,—simplicity, generosity, affection. This is the
seed-time of the soul’s harvest, and contains the promise of the year.
It is the time for love and marriage, the time for forming life-long
friendships. The after-life may be more contented, but can rarely be so
glad and joyous. Two things we need to crown its blessings,—one is, that
the friends whom we then learn to love, and the opinions which we then
learn to cherish, may stand the test of time, and deserve the esteem and
approval of calmer thoughts and wider experience; the other, that our
hearts may have depth enough to drink largely of that which God is
holding to our lips, and never again to lose the fire and spirit of the
draught. There is nothing more beautiful than a manhood surrounded by
the friends, upholding the principles, and filled with the energy of the
spring-time of life. But even if these highest blessings be denied, if
we have been compelled to change opinions and to give up friends, and
the cold experience of the world has extinguished the heat of youth,
still the heart will instinctively recur to that happy time, to explain
to itself what is meant by love and what by happiness.”[29]
---------------------
Footnote 29:
_Education of the World._
----------------------------
THE FIRST TWENTY YEARS OF LIFE.
It is a saying of Southey’s, “that, live as long as you may, the first
twenty years are the longest half of your life. They appear so while
they are passing; they seem to have been so when we look back to them;
and they take up more room in our memory than all the years that succeed
them.”
But in how strong a light has this been placed by the American teacher,
Jacob Abbott, whose writings have obtained so wide a circulation in
England. “Life,” he says, “if you understand by it the season of
preparation for eternity, is more than half gone; life, so far as it
presents opportunities and facilities for penitence and pardon,—so far
as it bears on the formation of character, and is to be considered as a
period of probation,—is unquestionably more than half gone to those who
are between fifteen and twenty. In a vast number of cases it is more
than half gone even _in duration_; and if we consider the thousand
influences which crowd around the years of childhood and youth, winning
us to religion, and making a surrender of ourselves to Jehovah easy and
pleasant,—and, on the other hand, look forward beyond the years of
maturity, and see these influences losing all their power, and the heart
becoming harder and harder under the deadening effects of continuance in
sin,—we shall not doubt a moment that the years of immaturity make a far
more important part of our time of probation than all those that
follow.”
That pious man, who, while he lived, was the Honourable Charles How, and
might properly now be called the honoured, says, that “twenty years
might be deducted for education from the threescore and ten, which are
the allotted sum of human life; this portion,” he adds, “is a time of
discipline and restraint, and young people are never easy till they are
got over it.”
There is indeed during those years much of restraint, of weariness, of
hope, and of impatience; all which feelings lengthen the apparent
duration of time. Sufferings are not included here; but with a large
portion of the human race, in all Christian countries (to our shame be
it spoken), it makes a large item in the account; there is no other
stage of life in which so much gratuitous suffering is endured,—so much
that might have been spared,—so much that is a mere wanton, wicked
addition to the sum of human misery, arising solely and directly from
want of feeling in others, their obduracy, their caprice, their
stupidity, their malignity, their cupidity, and their cruelty.[30]
---------------------
Footnote 30:
_The Doctor._
----------------------------
PASSING GENERATIONS.
“The deaths of some, and the marriages of others,” says Cowper, “make a
new world of it every thirty years. Within that space of time the
majority are displaced, and a new generation has succeeded. Here and
there one is permitted to stay longer, that there may not be wanting a
few grave dons like myself to make the observation.”
Man is a self-survivor every year;
Man, like a stream, is in perpetual flow.
Death’s a destroyer of quotidian prey:
My youth, my noontide his, my yesterday;
The bold invader shares the present hour,
Each moment on the former shuts the grave.
While man is growing, life is in decrease,
And cradles rock us nearer to the tomb.
Our birth is nothing but our death begun,
As tapers waste that instant they take fire.—_Young._
Yet, infinitely short as the term of human life is when compared with
time to come, it is not so in relation to time past. A hundred and forty
of our own generations carry us back to the Deluge, and nine more of
antediluvian measure to the Creation,—which to us is the beginning of
time; “for time itself is but a novelty, a late and upstart thing in
respect of the ancient of days.”[31] They who remember their
grandfather, and see their grandchildren, have seen persons belonging to
five out of that number; and he who attains the age of threescore, has
seen two generations pass away. “The created world,” says Sir Thomas
Browne, “is but a small parenthesis in eternity, and a short
interposition, for a time, between such a state of duration as was
before it, and may be after it.” There is no time of life, after we
become capable of reflection, in which the world to come must not to any
considerate mind appear of more importance to us than this; no time in
which we have not a greater stake there. When we reach the threshold of
old age, all objects of our early affections have gone before us, and in
the common course of mortality a great proportion of the later. Not
without reason did the wise compilers of our admirable Liturgy place
next in order after the form of Matrimony, the services for the
Visitation and Communion of the Sick, and for the Burial of the
Dead.[32]
A home-tourist, halting in the quiet churchyard of Mortlake, in Surrey,
about half a century since, fell into the following reflective train of
calculation of generations:
“I reflected that, as it is now more than four hundred years since this
ground became the depository of the dead, some of its earliest occupants
might, without an hyperbole, have been ancestors of the whole
contemporary English nation. If we suppose that a man was buried in this
churchyard 420 years ago, who left six children, each of whom had three
children, who again had, on an average, the same number in every
generation of thirty years; then, in 420 years, or fourteen generations,
his descendants might be multiplied as under:
1st generation 6
2d ” 18
3d ” 54
4th ” 162
5th ” 486
6th ” 1458
7th ” 4374
8th ” 13,122
9th ” 39,366
10th ” 118,098
11th ” 354,274
12th ” 1,062,812
13th ” 3,188,436
14th ” 9,565,308
That is to say, nine millions and a half of persons; or, as nearly as
possible, the exact population might at this day be descended in a
direct line from any individual buried in this or any other churchyard
in the year 1395, who left six children, each of whose descendants have
had on the average three children! And, by the same law, every
individual who has six children may be the root of as many descendants
within 420 years, provided they increase on the low average of only
three in every branch. His descendants would represent an inverted
triangle, of which he would constitute the lower angle.
“To place the same position in another point of view, I calculated also
that every individual now living must have had for his ancestor every
parent in Britain living in the year 1125, the age of Henry I., taking
the population of that period at 8,000,000. Thus, as every individual
must have had a father and mother, or two progenitors, each of whom had
a father and mother, or four progenitors, each generation would double
its progenitors every thirty years. Every person living may, therefore,
be considered as the apex of a triangle, of which the base would
represent the whole population of a remote age.
1815. Living individual 1
1785. His father and mother 2
1755. Their fathers and mothers 4
1725. ” ” 8
1695. ” ” 16
1665. ” ” 32
1635. ” ” 64
1605. ” ” 128
1575. ” ” 256
1545. ” ” 512
1515. ” ” 1,024
1485. ” ” 2,048
1455. ” ” 4,096
1425. ” ” 8,192
1395. ” ” 16,384
1365. ” ” 32,768
1335. ” ” 65,536
1305. ” ” 131,072
1275. ” ” 262,144
1245. ” ” 524,288
1215. ” ” 1,048,576
1185. ” ” 2,097,152
1155. ” ” 4,194,304
1125. ” ” 8,388,608
That is to say, if there have been a regular co-mixture of marriages,
every individual of the living race must of necessity be descended from
parents who lived in Britain in 1125. Some districts or clans may
require a longer period for the co-mixture, and different circumstances
may cut off some families, and expand others; but, in general, the lines
of families would cross each other, and become interwoven, _like the
lines of lattice-work_. A single intermixture, however remote, would
unite all the subsequent branches in common ancestry, rendering the
contemporaries of every nation members of one expanded family, after the
lapse of an ascertainable number of generations.”[33]
---------------------
Footnote 31:
Dr. Johnson.
Footnote 32:
_The Doctor._
Footnote 33:
Sir Richard Phillips’s _Morning’s Walk from London to Kew_.
----------------------------
AVERAGE DURATION OF LIFE.
The Assurance of Lives has often been regarded, by weak-minded persons,
as an interference with the ways of Providence, which is highly
reprehensible. But it can be shown that calculation of lives can be
averaged with certainty. Mr. Babbage, in his work on the Assurance of
Lives, observes: “Nothing is more proverbially uncertain than the
duration of human life, where the maxim is applied to an individual; yet
there are few things less subject to fluctuation than the average
duration of a multitude of individuals. The number of deaths happening
amongst persons of our own acquaintance is frequently very different in
different years; and it is not an uncommon event that this number shall
be double, treble, or even many times larger in one year than in the
next succeeding. If we consider larger societies of individuals, as the
inhabitants of a village or small town, the number of deaths is more
uniform; and in still larger bodies, as among the inhabitants of a
kingdom, the uniformity is such, that the excess of deaths in any year
above the average number seldom exceeds a small fractional part of the
whole. In the two periods, each of fifteen years, beginning at 1780, the
number of deaths occurring in England and Wales in any year did not fall
short of, or exceed, the average number one-thirteenth part of the
whole; nor did the number dying in any year differ from the number of
those dying in the next by a tenth part.”
In a paper on Life Assurance, in the _Edinburgh Review_, the Average
Mortality of Europe is thus stated: “In England 1 person dies annually
in every 45; in France, 1 in every 42; in Prussia, 1 in every 38; in
Austria, 1 in every 33; in Russia, 1 in every 28. Thus England exhibits
the lowest mortality; and the state of the public health is so improved,
that the present duration of existence may be regarded (in contrast to
what it was a hundred years ago) as, in round numbers, _four to three_.”
The Registrar-General gives the following statistical results: “The
average age of life is 33⅓ years. One-fourth of the born die before they
reach the age of seven years, and the half before the seventeenth year.
Out of 100 persons, only six reach the age of 60 years and upwards,
while only 1 in 1000 reaches the age of 100 years. Out of 500, only 1
attains 80 years. Out of the thousand million living persons,
330,000,000 die annually, 91,000 daily, 3730 every hour, 60 every
minute, consequently 1 every second. The loss is, however, balanced by
the gain in new births. Tall men are supposed to live longer than short
ones. Women are generally stronger than men until their fiftieth year,
afterwards less so. Marriages are in proportion to single life
(bachelors and spinsters) as 100:75. Both births and deaths are more
frequent in the night than in the day.”
PASTIMES OF CHILDHOOD RECREATIVE TO MAN.
Paley regarded the pleasure which the amusements of childhood afford as
a striking instance of the beneficence of the Deity. We have several
instances of great men descending from the more austere pursuits to
these simple but innocent pastimes. The Persian ambassadors found
Agesilaus, the Lacedæmonian monarch, riding on a stick. The ambassadors
found Henry the Fourth playing on the carpet with his children; and it
is said that Domitian, after he had possessed himself of the Roman
empire, amused himself by catching flies. Socrates, if tradition speaks
truly, was partial to the recreation of riding on a wooden horse; for
which, as Valerius Maximus tells us, his pupil Alcibiades laughed at
him. (Is not this the origin of our rocking-horse?) Did not Archytas,
He who could scan the earth and ocean’s bound,
And tell the countless sands that strew the shore,
as Horace says, invent the children’s rattle? Toys have served to unbend
the wise, to occupy the idle, to exercise the sedentary, and to instruct
the ignorant. To come to our own times: we have heard of a
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, a man of grave years and thoughts, being
surprised playing at leap-frog with his young nephews.
The same desire to unstring the bow, as old Æsop taught, impels sturdy
workmen, let loose from their toil, to seek diversion in the amusements
of boyhood. Often have we seen scores of men break forth from a factory
or printing-office for their dinner-hour, and in great measure disport
themselves like schoolboys in a playground.
PLEASURES OF THE IMAGINATION LATE IN LIFE.
Dugald Stewart, in his _Essay on the Cultivation of Intellectual
Habits_, predicates, in persons of mature age, what may be termed the
enjoyment of a second season of enjoyments far more refined than the
first. Thus he says: “Instances have frequently occurred of individuals
in whom the power of imagination has, at an advanced period of life,
been found susceptible of culture to a wonderful degree. In such men,
what an accession is gained to their most refined pleasures! What
enchantments are added to their most ordinary perceptions! The mind,
awakening, as if from a trance, to a new existence, becomes habituated
to the most interesting aspects of life and of nature; the intellectual
eye is ‘purged of its film;’ and things the most familiar and unnoticed
disclose charms invisible before. The same objects and events which were
lately beheld with indifference occupy now all the powers and capacities
of the soul, the contrast between the present and the past serving only
to enhance and to endear so unlooked-for an acquisition. What Gray has
so finely said of _the pleasures of vicissitude_ conveys but a faint
image of what is experienced by the man who, after having lost in vulgar
occupations and vulgar amusements his earliest and most precious years,
is thus introduced at last to a new heaven and a new earth:
The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are op’ning Paradise.
Nothing can be more deplorable than a man who has outlived the likings,
and perchance the innocence, of his early life; which is by no means
rare, if they have not grown out of the study and love of nature, for
this clings to the heart in all the vicissitudes of life,—in adversity
as well as in prosperity; in sickness as well as in health; even to
extreme old age, when almost every other worldly source of pleasure is
dried up. Hear the testimony of Hannah More, at the age of eighty-two:
“The only one of my youthful fond attachments,” says she, “which exists
still in full force, is a passion for scenery, raising flowers, and
landscape gardening.” Well indeed will it be for the young if they
follow the example of this venerable woman, and early acquire a passion
for scenery and flowers. For as they pass through life, they will find
the world often frowning upon them, but the flowers will always smile.
And it is sweet, in the day of adversity, to be met with a smile.
We remember a touching instance of the love of flowers lighting up the
last hours of a botanist who had wooed nature in the picturesque vale of
Mickleham, in Surrey. A few short hours before his death, he turned to
his niece and said: “Mary, it is a fine morning; go and see if _Scilla
verna_ is come in flower.”
WHAT IS MEMORY?
Man possesses a nervous system pervaded by a nervous force, the
modification of which manifests itself to our consciousness in the
varied phenomena of what we call Sensation. From Sensation, the next
step is to Perception. Sensation, we know, as such, dies away from the
consciousness, or rather is obliterated by fresh impressions upon the
sensorium. We cannot retain a feeling in perpetuity. But when a definite
sensation has been excited, or a distinct experience has been acquired,
something remains behind; and upon these _residua_, left in the
structure of the nerves, or the cerebral tissues, or the animating soul,
and on the permanence of these _residua_, rests the whole possibility of
reminiscence. Upon this blending and organisation round the centre of
mind-life follows the faculty of Memory, or that power which the mind
possesses of making a peculiar representation of an object for itself,
of creating a special idea of it by giving greater prominence to some
features, and letting others sink away unthought of, till there remains
an image, the product of its own free activity, which it can mentally
connect with other trains of ideas, and thus multiply, as it were, the
bridges by which it can return to it at any period.[34]
Byron has beautifully personified this paramount image:
She was a form of life and light,
That seen became a part of sight;
And rose, where’er I turned mine eye,
The Morning-star of Memory!
“Mere abstraction, or what is called absence of mind, is often
attributed, very unphilosophically, to a want of memory. La Fontaine, in
a dreaming mood, forgot his own child, and, after warmly commending him,
observed how proud he should be to have such a son. In this kind of
abstraction external things are either only dimly seen, or are utterly
overlooked; but the memory is not necessarily asleep. In fact, its too
intense activity is frequently the cause of the abstraction. This
faculty is usually the strongest when the other faculties are in their
prime, and fades in old age, when there is a general decay of mind and
body. Old men, indeed, are proverbially narrative; and from this
circumstance it sometimes appears as if the memory preserves a certain
portion of its early acquisitions to the last, though in the general
failure of the intellect it loses its active energy. It receives no new
impressions, but old ones are confirmed. The brain seems to grow harder.
Old images become fixtures. It is recorded of Pascal, that, till the
decay of his health had impaired his memory, he forgot nothing of what
he had done, read, or thought in any part of his rational age. The
Admirable Crichton could repeat backwards any speech he had made.
Magliabecchi, the Florentine librarian, could recollect whole volumes;
and once supplied an author from memory with a copy of his own work, of
which the original was lost. Pope has observed that Bolingbroke had so
great a memory, that if he was alone and without books he could refer to
a particular subject in them, and write as fully on it as another man
would with all his books about him. Woodfall’s extraordinary power of
reporting the debates in the House of Commons without the aid of written
memoranda is well known. During a debate he used to close his eyes and
lean with both hands upon his stick, resolutely excluding all extraneous
associations. The accuracy and precision of his reports brought his
newspaper into great repute. He would retain a full recollection of a
particular debate a fortnight after it had occurred, and during the
intervention of other debates. He used to say that it was put by in a
corner of his mind for future reference.”[35]
---------------------
Footnote 34:
See an admirable paper on Dr. Morell’s _Introduction to Mental
Philosophy_, in _Saturday Review_; also _Mysteries of Life, Death, and
Futurity_, for the following articles: “What is Memory?” “How the
Function of Memory takes place;” “Persistence of Impressions;” “Value
of Memory;” “Registration;” and “Decay of Memory;” pp. 69-75.
Footnote 35:
_Literary Leaves_, by D. L. Richardson.
----------------------------
CONSOLATION IN GROWING OLD.
Montaigne said of Cicero _On Old Age_, “It gives one an appetite for old
age.” Its persuasive eloquence is the inspiration of an elevated
philosophy. Flourens has cleverly said, “The moral aspect of old age is
its best side. We cannot grow old without losing our _physique_, nor
also without our _morale_ gaining by it. This is a noble compensation.”
M. Reveillé-Parise says: “In a green old age, when from fifty-five to
seventy-five years, and sometimes more, the life of the mind has a
scope, a consistence, and remarkable solidity, man having then truly
attained to the height of his faculties.”
Patience is the privilege of age. A great advantage to the man who has
lived is, that he knows how to wait. Again, experience is an old man’s
memory.
Buffon was seventy years of age (this was young for Buffon, he lived to
eighty-one) when he wrote _The Epochs of Nature_, in which he calls old
age a prejudice. Without our arithmetic we should not, according to
Buffon, know that we were old. “Animals,” he says, “do not know it; it
is only by our arithmetic that we judge otherwise.”
Buffon having settled on his estate at Montbard, in Burgundy, there
pursued his studies with such regularity that the history of one day
seems to have been that of all the others through a period of fifty
years. After he was dressed, he dictated letters, and regulated his
domestic affairs; and at six o’clock he retired to his studies in a
pavilion in his garden, about a furlong from the house. This
pavilion was only furnished with a large wooden secretary and an
arm-chair; and within it was another cabinet, ornamented with
drawings of birds and beasts. Prince Henry of Prussia called it the
cradle of natural history; and Rousseau, before he entered it, used
to fall on his knees, and kiss the threshold. Here Buffon composed
the greater number of his works. At nine o’clock he usually took an
hour’s rest; and his breakfast, a piece of bread and two glasses of
wine, was brought to him. When he had written two hours after
breakfast, he returned to the house. At dinner he enjoyed the
gaieties and trifles of the table. After dinner he slept an hour in
his room; took a solitary walk; and during the rest of the evening
he either conversed with his family or guests, or examined his
papers at his desk. At nine o’clock he went to bed, to prepare
himself for the same routine of judgment and pleasure. He had a most
fervid imagination; and his anxious solicitude for a literary
immortality, “that last infirmity of noble minds,” continually
betrayed him to be a vain man.
“Every day that I rise in good health,” said Buffon to a conceited young
man, “have I not the enjoyment of this day as fully as you? If I conform
my actions, my appetites, my desires, to the strict impulses of wise
nature, am I not as wise and happy as you are? And the view of the past,
which causes so much regret to old fools, does it not afford me, on the
contrary, the pleasures of memory, agreeable pictures of precious
images, which are equal to your objects of pleasure? For these images
are sweet; they are pure; they leave upon the mind only pleasing
remembrances; the uneasiness, the disappointments, the sorrowful troop
which accompanies your youthful pleasures, disappear from the picture
which presents them to me. Regrets must disappear also; they are the
last sparks of that foolish vanity that never grows old.
“Some one asked Fontenelle, when ninety-five years old, which were the
twenty years of his life he most regretted. He replied that he had
little to regret; but the age at which he had been most happy was that
from forty-five to seventy-five. He made this avowal in sincerity, and
he proved what he said by natural and consoling truths. At forty-five,
fortune is established; reputation made; consideration obtained; the
condition of life established; dreams vanished or fulfilled; projects
miscarried or matured; most of the passions calmed, or at least cooled;
the career in the work that every man owes to society nearly completed;
enemies, or rather the enemies, are fewer, because the counterpoise of
merit is known by the public voice,” &c.
Galen, speaking of Hippocrates, and wishing to represent in one word the
man who, in his eyes, constitutes the most perfect type of slowly
matured wisdom and profound experience, simply calls him _the old man_.
The first rule of the Art of Preserving Life is to know how to be old.
“Few men know how to be old,” said La Rochefoucauld. Voltaire has—
Qui n’a pas l’esprit de son âge,
De son âge a tous les malheurs.
The first rule is more philosophic than medical, but is perhaps none the
less valuable.
The second rule is to know yourself well; which is also a philosophical
precept applied to medicine.
The third rule is properly to conform to regular habits. Old men, who
spend one day like another, with the same moderation, the same
appetites, live always. “My miracle is existence,” said Voltaire; and if
that foolish vanity which never grows old had not induced him, when
eighty-four years of age, to make a ridiculous journey to Paris, his
miracle would have continued a century, as was the case with Fontenelle.
“Few would believe,” said M. Reveillé-Parise, “how far a little health,
well managed, may be made to go.” And Cicero said: “To use what we have,
and to act in every thing according to our strength,—such is the rule of
the sage.”
Most men die of disease, very few die of mere age. Man has made for
himself a sort of artificial life, in which the moral is often worse
than the physical; and the physical itself often worse than it would be
with habits more serene and calm, more regularly and judiciously
exercised.
Haller, the physiologist, says: “Man should be placed among the animals
that live the longest: how very unjust, then, are our complaints of the
brevity of life!” He then inquires what can be the extreme limit of the
life of man; and he gives it as his opinion that man might live not less
than two centuries. M. Flourens,[36] however, decides on a century of
ordinary life; and at least half a century of extraordinary life is the
prospect science holds out to man. Still, as these inferences are drawn
from the exceptions of Jenkins and Parr, the opinions must be received
accordingly.
Haller, who has collected a great number of examples of Longevity, says
that he has found more than
1000 who have lived from 100 to 110 years
60 ” ” 110 to 120 ”
29 ” ” 120 to 130 ”
15 ” ” 130 to 140 ”
6 ” ” 140 to 160 ”
and one who reached the astonishing age of 169 years.
---------------------
Footnote 36:
_Human Longevity and the Amount of Life upon the Globe._ By P.
Flourens, Perpetual Secretary to the Academy of Sciences, Paris, 1855.
----------------------------
LENGTH OF DAYS.
There are few records so generally interesting as those of human
existence being protracted beyond “threescore years and ten,” and the
Psalmist’s limit of “fourscore years.” It is natural to expect every
man, woman, and child to take a kindred interest in such matters: the
girl or boy reads with wonder the dates upon the tombstones of very aged
persons; and old men and women approach these memorials with awe, in
proportion to their fancied distance from the same earthly bourn. All
cannot alike read the story of the pictured urn, or the mysteries of the
inverted torch or the winged mundus; but the uneducated young and old
are sensible of the solemnity of the line, “Aged 102 years;” whilst the
more pretentious “Hic jacet” only teaches the comparatively few that
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
We are not, therefore, surprised at the implicit belief in such records
in times gone by, when no populous village in England was without a man
or woman of fourscore years old. It has, however, become of late a
matter of some moment to inquire into the authority on which statements
of extreme old age have usually rested; and the result has been to shake
the testimony of many recorded cases of great longevity.
Lord Bacon, in his _History of Life and Death_, quotes as a fact
unquestioned, that a few years before he wrote, a morris-dance was
performed in Herefordshire, at the May-games, by eight men, whose ages
in the aggregate amounted to eight hundred years! In the seventeenth
century, some time after Bacon wrote, two Englishmen are reported to
have died at ages greater than almost any of those which have been
attained in other nations. According to statements which are printed in
the _Philosophical Transactions_ of the Royal Society, as well as his
epitaph in Westminster Abbey, Thomas Parr lived 152 years and 9 months;
Henry Jenkins, 169 years. The testimony in these extraordinary instances
is, however, considered by the Registrar-General by no means conclusive,
as it evidently rests on uncertain tradition, and on the very fallible
memories of illiterate old men; for there is no mention of documentary
evidence in Parr’s case, and the births date back to a period (1538)
before the parish registers were instituted by Cromwell.
Yet parish registers are sometimes astounding; for in that of
Evercreech, in Somersetshire, occurs this entry: “1588, 20th Dec., Jane
Britton, of Evercriche, a Maidden, as she afirmed, of the age of 200
years, was buried.”
Here is a difficulty of belief cleared up. In the register of the parish
of St. Leonard, Shoreditch, is entered, among the “Burialles, Thomas
Cam, y^e 22d inst. of January 1588 (curiously enough the date of the
Somersetshire entry), Aged 207 years, Holywell-street. George Garrow,
parish clerk.” In a newspaper paragraph of 1848, this entry is stated to
add: “he was born in the year 1381, in the reign of King Richard II.,
and lived in the reigns of twelve kings and queens.” These words are
not, however, in the register; and it is evident that some mischievous
person has altered the figure 1 into 2. Sir Henry Ellis, in his _History
of Shoreditch_, gives the entry correctly as follows: “Thomas Cam, aged
107, 28 January 1588.”
Another instance, less known, but better authenticated, is that of Sir
Ralph Vernon, of Shipbrooke, who was born some time in the thirteenth
century, died at the great age of 150; and is said to have been
succeeded by his descendant in the sixth generation; he was called “Old
Sir Ralph,” or Sir R. “the long-liver.” A deed of settlement by him was
the cause of long litigation; and it is said that the papers respecting
this law-suit still exist, to prove the fact of the old knight’s
patriarchal age.[37]
In Conway churchyard is the tombstone of Lowry Owens, stated to have
died “May the 1st, 1766, aged 192;” but the inscription has evidently
been recut, and, it is presumed, with a difference, especially as the
round of the “9” is above the date-line.
In the church of Abbey Dore, Herefordshire, is a slab to the memory of
Elizabeth Lewis, who died “aged 141 years,” which is stated to be
confirmed by the parish register.
In the churchyard of Cheve Prior, Worcestershire, is a record of a man
who died at the age of 309; doubtless meant for 39, the blundering
stonecutter having put the 30 first and 9 afterwards.
In these and similar cases our belief should be in proportion to the
trustworthiness of the record, allowance being made for the imperfect
state of documents of times when writing was a comparatively rare
accomplishment. It is curious to contrast this state of things with the
chronicle of our times, when, occasionally, one day’s newspaper records
several instances of longevity:
In the _Morning Post_, January 30th, 1858, out of thirty-five deaths
recorded, with the ages, there were five upwards of 60 and under 70;
70 and under 80, seven; in 80th year and upwards, nine; one female,
95; and Mrs. E. Miles, of Bishop Lidyard, near Taunton, 112.
In the obituary of the _Times_, February 20th, 1862, were recorded
the deaths of persons who had attained the following ages: one of
103, one of 94, two of 90, one of 85, one of 84, one of 82, and
eight of 70 years and upwards. And, on April 20th of the same year,
were recorded the deaths of ten persons, whose united ages amount to
828 years, or an average of nearly 83. They comprise one of 100 and
one of 99.
---------------------
Footnote 37:
See Burke’s _Peerage and Baronetage_, ed. 1848.
----------------------------
HISTORIC TRADITIONS THROUGH FEW LINKS.
Of late years considerable interest has been added to the attraction of
records of Longevity, by showing through how few individuals may be
traced the evidence of far-distant events and incidents in our history.
Mr. Sidney Gibson, F.S.A., relates some curious instances of this class.
A person living in 1847, then aged about 61, was frequently assured by
his father that, in 1786, he repeatedly saw one Peter Garden, who died
in that year at the age of 127 years; and who, when a boy, heard Henry
Jenkins give evidence in a court of justice at York, to the effect that,
when a boy, he was employed in carrying arrows up the hill before the
battle of Flodden Field.
This battle was fought in 1513
Henry Jenkins died in 1670,
at the age of 169
Deduct for his age at the time of
the battle of Flodden Field 12
——— 157
Peter Garden, the man who heard
Jenkins give his evidence, died at 127
Deduct for his age when he saw 11
Jenkins
——— 116
The person whose father knew Peter
Garden was born shortly before
1786,
or seventy years since 70
————
A.D. 1856
So that a person living in 1786 conversed with a man that fought at
Flodden Field.
Mr. Gibson then passes on to some remarkable instances of longevity from
the Scrope and Grosvenor Roll, the record of the celebrated cause in the
reign of Richard II., when, among the noble and knightly deponents who
gave evidence in the following year, 1386, were:
Sir John Sully, Knight of the Garter and a distinguished soldier of the
cross, who had served for eighty years, was then, by his own account,
105 years of age, and who is supposed to have died in his 108th year.
But, more remarkable, John Thirlwall, an esquire of an ancient
Northumbrian house, deposes to what he heard from his father, who died
forty-four years before, at the age of 145.
Not far from Thirlwall Castle, at Irthington, Mr. B. Gibson has seen the
register of the burial of Robert Bowman, one of the most remarkable of
the long-lived yeomen of that parish, who died in the year 1823, at the
age of 118.
Mr. John Bruce, F.S.A., has also illustrated our subject by the
following curious evidence. Lettice, Countess of Leicester, was born in
1539 or ’40, and was consequently 7 years old at the death of Henry
VIII. She may very well have had a recollection of the bluff monarch,
who cut off the head of her great-aunt, Anne Boleyn. She was thrice
married, and had seen six English sovereigns, or seven if Philip be
counted; her faculties were unimpaired at 85; and until a year or two of
her death, on Christmas-day 1634, at the age of 94, she “could yet walk
a mile of a morning.” Lettice was one of a long-lived race: her father
lived till 1596; two of her brothers attained the ages of 86 and 99.
There is nothing (says Mr. Bruce) incredible, or even very
extraordinary, in Lettice’s age; but even her years will produce curious
results if applied to the subject of possible transmission of knowledge
through few links. I will give one example: “Dr. Johnson, who was born
in 1709, might have known a person who had seen the Countess Lettice. If
there are not now (1857), there were amongst us within the last three or
four years, persons who knew Dr. Johnson. There might, therefore, be
only two links between ourselves and the Countess Lettice, who saw Henry
VIII.”[38]
Mr. John Pavin Philips writes from Haverfordwest: “A friend of mine, now
(1857) in his 80th year, knew an old woman resident in his parish who
remembered her grandmother, who saw Cromwell when he was in
Pembrokeshire, in 1648. I myself, when a student in Edinburgh in 1837,
knew a centenarian lady, named Butler, who well recollected being taken
by her mother to witness the public entry of Prince Charles Edward into
the city in 1745.” And in Haverfordwest might be seen daily walking, in
1857, in perfect health, a man who was born four years previous to the
death of George II.[39]
Mary Yates, of Shiffnal, Salop, who died 1776, aged 128, well remembered
walking to view the ruins of the Great Fire of London, 1666.
In the _News Letter_ of June 1st, 1724, Bodl. Mss., Rawl. C., it is
related, that on the King’s birthday, as the nobility and others of
distinction passed through Pall Mall to Court at St. James’s, there sat
in the street one Elinor Stuart, being 124 years old. She had kept a
linen-shop at Kendal, and had nine children living at the time King
Charles I. was beheaded, and was undone by adhering to the royal cause.
“She is reckoned,” says the account (Jane Skrimshaw, who was now dead,
being 128), “the oldest woman in London.”[40]
Margaret Mapps, of Eaton, near Leominster, who died in 1800, aged 109,
had so retentive a memory, that to her last hours she could relate many
incidents which she had witnessed in the reign of Queen Anne.
In 1858 died Mrs. Milward, of Blackheath, at the age of 102. She was,
consequently, born four years previous to the accession of George III.;
she saw the separation of the American colonies from the mother country;
the three French revolutions, and the great war with France; she well
remembered the London riots of 1780, and was placed in some jeopardy in
Hyde-park in one of the incidents.
Jane Forrester, of Cumberland, is stated in the _Public Advertiser_,
March 9th, 1766, as then living in her 138th year: she remembered
Cromwell’s siege of Carlisle, in 1646; and in 1762 she gave evidence in
a Chancery-suit of an estate having been enjoyed by the ancestors of the
then heir 101 years.
One Evans, of Spitalfields, who died 1780, is stated to have reached the
age of 139 years: he remembered the execution of Charles I., at which
time he was 7 years old.
In the London newspapers of November 7th, 1788, is recorded the
celebration of the centenary of the Revolution, at which was present a
person who remembered that glorious event; he was 112 years old, and
belonged to the French Hospital, Old Street-road, where were then ten
persons whose ages together were 1000 years.
In 1826 there died at Corby, near Carlisle, aged 102, one Joseph Liddle,
a shoemaker, who was at work in his shop, in the market-place of
Carlisle, when the Scotch rebels entered the town, in 1745; he was very
fond of horticulture, and, with little help, kept in order a large
garden nearly until the day of his death.
Samuel Rogers, the banker-poet, who died on December 18th, 1855, aged
96, among many accomplishments possessed a most retentive memory; and
his sweep of recollections was very wide.
He remembered when one of the Rebels’ heads remained on Temple Bar;
when schoolboys chased butterflies in the fields in cocked hats;
when gentlemen universally wore wigs and swords; when Ranelagh was
in all its glory, and ladies going thither had head-dresses so
preposterously high that they had to sit on stools placed in the
bottom of the coach; when Garrick crowded the theatre, Reynolds
crowded the lecture-room, and Johnson crowded the club; he had heard
the Duke of York relate how he and his brother George, when young
men, were robbed by footpads on Hay-hill, Berkeley-street; he had
shaken hands with John Wilkes, dined with Lafayette, Condorcet, &c.
at Paris, before the great Revolution began, and been present at
Warren Hastings’ trial in Westminster Hall; he had seen Lady
Hamilton go through her “attitudes” before the Prince of Wales, and
Lord Nelson spin a teetotum with his _one_ hand for the amusement of
children.—_R. Carruthers._
Mr. Peter Cunningham noted, a few days after the death of our Poet:
“When Rogers made his appearance as a poet, Lord Byron was
unborn—and Byron has been dead thirty-one years! When Percy Bysshe
Shelley was born, Rogers was in his 30th year—and Shelley has been
dead nearly thirty-four years! When Keats was born, _The Pleasures
of Memory_ was looked upon as a standard poem—and Keats has been
dead thirty-five years! When this century commenced, the man who
died but yesterday, and in the latter half too of the century, had
already numbered as many years as Burns and Byron had numbered when
they died. Mr. Rogers was born before the following English poets:
Scott, Southey, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Moore, Campbell,
Bloomfield, Cunningham, Hogg, James Montgomery, Shelley, Keats,
Wilson, Tom Hood, Kirk White, Lamb, Joanna Baillie, Felicia Hemans,
L. E. L.; and he outlived them all.”
On April 24th, 1858, died Mr. James Nolan, at Auchindrane, Carlow,
Ireland, aged 115 years and 9 months. There is something more
interesting than his being the oldest subject of her Majesty, who had
lived in the reigns of five sovereigns of England; and no doubt it is
curious to be carried back by two lives—Mr. Nolan and his father—to the
reign of Charles II., and almost to the time of Cromwell.
Here is a remarkable instance: Commander Pickernell, R.N., who died
April 20th, 1859, aged 87, knew well in his youth a man who was a
soldier encamped on Hounslowheath at the time of the Revolution in 1688.
This same man played an instrument in the band at Queen Anne’s
coronation, and served through Marlborough’s wars; in his old age he
returned to the neighbourhood of his native place, Whitby, where he
died, considerably over a century, when Commander Pickernell was a boy
about 7 or 8 years old.[41]
The venerable President of Magdalen College, Oxford, Dr. Routh, who died
1855, in his hundredth year, brought up old memories of times and men
long passed away. Dr. Routh had known Dr. Theophilus Lee, the
contemporary of Addison; had seen Dr. Johnson “in his brown wig
scrambling up the steps of University College;” and had been told by a
lady of her aunt who had been present when Charles II. walked round the
parks at Oxford.
Dr. Routh had maintained an immediate and personal connexion with the
University of Oxford for upwards of 80 years; and his long life supplied
many instructive links between the present and the past. He was born in
the reign of King George II., before the beginning of the Seven Years’
War; before India was conquered by Clive, or Canada by Wolfe; before the
United States ever dreamt of independence; and before Pitt had impressed
the greatness of his own character on the policy of Britain. The life of
this college student comprehended three most important periods in the
history of the world. Martin Routh saw the last years of the old state
of society which introduced the political deluge; he saw the deluge
itself—the great French Revolution, with all its catastrophes of thrones
and opinions; and he lived to see the more stirring but not less
striking changes which forty years of peace had engendered. It is
therefore not a little curious to read of such a man, that the times on
which his thoughts chiefly dwelt were those of the Stuarts; which is
not, however, altogether surprising, as he might himself have shaken
hands with the Pretender. This Prince did not die till young Routh was
ten years of age; so that, if accident had put the chance in his way, he
might easily have had an interview with the representative of James
II.[42] What an interval was there between this epoch and Dr. Routh
sitting for a photograph on his hundredth birthday!
---------------------
Footnote 38:
See _Notes and Queries_, 2d series, Nos. 51 and 53.
Footnote 39:
Ibid. No. 58.
Footnote 40:
W. D. Macray; _Notes and Queries_, 2d series, No. 23.
Footnote 41:
_Notes and Queries_, 2d series, No. 169.
Footnote 42:
Condensed from the _Times_ journal.
----------------------------
LONGEVITY IN FAMILIES.
The long life of different members of the same family is remarkable. In
1836, Mrs. H. P., residing near the Edgeware-road, attained her 103d
year: she had three sisters,—one 107, another 105; and the other, who
died about 1834, 100.
Mr. Bailey records the death of Widow Stephenson, of Wolverton, Durham,
in 1816, aged 104: her mother lived to be 106, two sisters 106 and 107,
and a brother 97; making an aggregate of 519 years as the age of these
five relatives.
Edward Simon, 81 years a dock-labourer in Liverpool, died 1821, aged
101: his mother lived to 103; his father 101; and a brother 104.
Gilbert Wakefield states that his wife’s great-grandfather and
great-grandmother’s matrimonial connexion lasted seventy-five years:
they died nearly at the same time, she at the age of 98, he at the age
of 108. He was out hunting a short time before his death. His portrait
is in the hall of Mr. Legh, of Lyme.
Mary Tench, of Cromlin, Ireland, who died 1790, aged 100, was of aged
parents; her father attained 104, and her mother 96; her uncle reached
110 and she left two sisters, whose aggregate ages made 170.
In the year 1811, within four miles of the house at Alderbury formerly
occupied by Parr, there died, in the month of September, four persons,
whose ages were 97, 80, 96, and 97. There were then living in the
neighbourhood a man aged 100, and two others of 90.
The Costello family, county Kilkenny, lived to very great ages. On June
12, 1824, died Mary Costello, aged 102; her mother died at precisely the
same age; her grandmother at 120; her great-grandmother exceeded 125:
long before her death, she had to be rocked in a cradle, like an infant.
Mary Costello’s brother lived beyond 100 years; and when 90, cut down
half an acre of grass in a day.[43]
In Appleby churchyard is a tombstone in memory of three persons named
Hall: the grandfather died in 1716, aged 109, and the father aged 86;
and the son died in 1821, aged 106. “So that the father had seen a man
(his father) who saw James I., and also a man (his son) who saw me, or
might have done so.”[44]
The Countess of Mornington, who died in 1831, attained the age of 90:
her eldest son, the Marquis Wellesley, ennobled for his administration
in India, reached 82; his brother, Lord Maryborough, 83; Lady
Maryborough, 91; and their brother, the Great Duke of Wellington, 83. We
possess a small portrait of Lady Mary Irvine, aunt to Lady Maryborough,
painted in her 82d year; the face is without a wrinkle, but of _riant_
beauty.
The London bankers, Joseph and William Joseph Denison, exceeded 80; and
the sister of the latter, Dowager Marchioness of Conyngham, 90.
Lady Blakiston, died, November 1862, in her 102d year; and her eldest
son, Sir Matthew Blakiston, died December following, in his 82d year.
“On 8th April 1860, Mr. S. Cronesberry died at Farmer’s Bridge, aged 99.
His grandfather died in 97th year; his father died in 97th year; his
mother in 98th year.”[45]
Archibald, 9th Earl of Dundonald, died 1831, aged 83; and his son, 10th
Earl, 1860, reached 82: both in the naval service, and distinguished by
their scientific attainments.
---------------------
Footnote 43:
_Dublin Warder_, 1824.
Footnote 44:
Letter of Baron Alderson, in his _Life_, by his Son, date Feb. 19,
1833.
Footnote 45:
_Kilkenny Moderator._
----------------------------
FEMALE LONGEVITY.
One of the most celebrated personages in the history of Female Longevity
is the Countess of Desmond, who is usually said to have died early in
the 17th century, aged 140 years. Bacon, in his _Natural History_,
describes her as “the old Countess of Desmond, who lived till she was
sevenscore years old, that she did _dentire_ (produce teeth) twice or
thrice.” Sir Walter Raleigh, in his _History of the World_, says: “I
myself _knew_ the old Countess of Desmond of Inchiquin, in Munster, who
lived in the year 1589, and many years since, who was married in Edward
IV.’s time, and held her jointure from all the Earls of Desmond since
then: and that this is true, all the noblemen and gentlemen in Munster
can witness.”[46] Sir William Temple was told by Robert Earl of
Leicester of the Countess married in Edward IV.’s time, “and who lived
far in King James’s reign, and was counted to have died some years above
140.” There has been much controversy respecting the portraits of this
lady which are said to exist: that in the possession of the Knight of
Kerry, and engraved in 1806, is reputed authentic; and after much
discussion, the Countess has been identified as Katharine, second wife
of Thomas 12th Earl of Desmond, who died in 1534. Fynes Morrison, the
traveller, who was in Ireland from 1599 to 1603, tells of the Countess
living to the age of about 140 years; of her walking four or five miles
weekly to the market-town in her last years; and of her death by falling
out of a tree which she had climbed to gather nuts. There is a tradition
which might be true, of her having danced at Court with the Duke of
Gloucester (Richard III.), of whom she affirmed that he was the
handsomest man in the room, except his brother Edward, and was very well
made.[47]
Of Margaret Patten, stated to have died 136 and 138 years old, a curious
portrait was found at Glasgow, amongst some family papers, in 1853. She
was born in the parish of Locknugh, near Paisley, in Scotland, and is
described beneath the portrait as “now living in the workhouse of St.
Margaret’s, Westminster, aged 138.” And in the Boardroom of St.
Margaret’s workhouse is another portrait of Margaret (there stated to be
136), the gift of the overseers of the parish in 1737. The old woman was
buried in the burial-ground of the Broadway church, now Christ-church,
Westminster, where a stone is inscribed, “Near this place lieth Margaret
Patten, who died June 26, 1739, in the Parish Workhouse, aged 136.” “She
was brought to England to prepare Scotch broth for King James II.; but
owing to the abdication of that monarch, fell into poverty, and died in
St. Margaret’s workhouse. Her body was followed to the grave by the
parochial authorities and many of the principal inhabitants, while the
children sung a hymn before it reached its last resting-place.”[48]
In the Dublin Exhibition of 1853 was a print with this inscription:
“Mary Gore, born at Cottonwith in Yorkshire, A.D. 1582; lived upwards of
one hundred years in Ireland, and died in Dublin, aged 145 years. This
print was done from a picture _taken_ (the word is torn off) when she
was one hundred and forty-three. Vanluych _pinxit_, T. Chambers
_del._”[49]
The following instances of long widowhoods are interesting: the widow of
Thomas, second Lord Lyttleton, who died in 1779, survived his lordship
in a state of widowhood sixty-one years, dying in 1840, aged 97.
The widow of David Garrick died in 1822, in the same house, on the
Adelphi-terrace, wherein her celebrated husband died forty-three years
previously. We remember a small etching of the old lady appearing in the
print-shops just after her death, portraying her characteristic
dignified deportment. Among the legacies bequeathed to her husband’s
family was a service of pewter used by him when a bachelor, and having
the name of Garrick engraven on it.
The widow of Charles James Fox, the statesman, died in 1842, aged 96,
having survived her husband thirty-six years.
Amelia Opie, the amiable novelist, died in 1853, in her 85th year,
having survived her husband, the painter, forty-six years. He painted a
remarkable picture of Mrs. Opie,—two portraits, full-face and profile,
upon the same canvas; they are said to be faithful likenesses.
Some years since, writes the editor of the _Quarterly Review_, “we
beheld the strange sight of an old woman, aged 102, bent double,
crooning over the fire, and nursing in her lap an infant a few days old.
The infant was the grandchild of the old woman’s grandchild. The only
remarkable circumstance in the veteran’s history was, that she had
nursed Wordsworth in his infancy. She had lived the greater part of her
life in Westmoreland, near the poet’s residence, and there her
descendants had been chiefly born and lived.”
Here are a few instances of women of remarkable talent attaining great
ages:
Caroline Lucretia Herschel, who discovered seven comets, and passed
years of nights as amanuensis to her brother, Sir William Herschel, in
his astronomical labours, attained the age of 97, with her intellect
clear, and princes and philosophers alike striving to do her honour.
Miss Linwood, whose Needlework Pictures were exhibited nearly sixty
years, died in 1844, at the age of 90. No needlework of ancient or
modern times has ever surpassed these productions. The collection
consisted of sixty-four pictures, mostly of large or gallery size; the
finest work, from the “Salvator Mundi,” by Carlo Dolci, was bequeathed
by Miss Linwood to Queen Victoria; for this picture 3000 guineas had
been refused.
Dr. Webster, F.R.S., who takes great interest in records of Longevity,
in 1860 contributed to the _Athenæum_ a copy of the certificate of birth
of a lady in her 100th year, living at Hampstead, namely, the surviving
sister of the authoress Miss Joanna Baillie, who died 1851, aged 89.
This document is as follows:
Copy of an entry in a separate register of the Presbytery of
Hamilton, under the head “Shotts.”—That Mr. James Baillie had a
daughter named Agnes, born 24th September 1760, attested and signed
at Hamilton the 25th day of November 1760, in presence of the
Presbytery.—Signed, James Baillie; John Kirk, Clerk; Patrick
Maxwell, Moderator.
In the same year, 1859, died Lady Morgan, the novelist, at 76; Leigh
Hunt, the poet and _littérateur_, at 75; Washington Irving, at 77; and
Thomas de Quincey, at 76.
Lady Charlotte Bury, the novelist, attained the age of 88, retaining her
beauty and conversational accomplishments to the last; she died 1861.
The Dowager Countess of Hardwicke, who died in 1858, in her long life
brought points of time together which, at first, seem separated by
impassable spaces. She was born in 1763, and was consequently 95 years
of age; but her father, the Earl of Balcarres, having been advanced in
years at the time of her birth, their two lives extend back to before
the beginning of the eighteenth century; and it was strange to hear, in
1858, that a person just dead could speak of her father as having been
“out in the Fifteen” (1715) with Lord Derwentwater and Forster, and
having been begged off by the great Duke of Marlborough. Yet such was
the fact; and not only so, but having been born in 1649, the three lives
of grandfather, son, and granddaughter stretched over a period of 200
years; and, when her grandmother was married, Charles II. gave away the
bride! When this venerable lady was born, Pitt the younger was 4 years
old; Fox, a lad of 14; and Sheridan of 12,—so that they were strictly
her contemporaries; Burke was turned of 30; she was 21 years old when
Dr. Johnson died, and a well-grown girl when Goldsmith died, so that she
might have known them both; and Sir Joshua Reynolds may have painted
her, as she was near 30 when he died. All the literature of this
century, running back to the birth of Scott and Wordsworth, eight or
nine years after her own, was as much hers as ours. She was married and
26 before the French Revolution began; and the whole of the American
Revolution must have been within her personal recollection.
Then there was Viscountess Keith, who died at about the same age, 95,
and who had been “the plaything often, when a child,” of Johnson, and
who received his last blessing on his death-bed. She was the daughter of
Mrs. Thrale, and was a link that directly connected us with the Literary
Club at its foundation, all the members of which she must have seen, and
most of whom she was old enough to know well as a grown-up young lady.
Lady Louisa Stuart, the daughter of the Marquess of Bute, actually
remembered her grandmother, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who died in
1762. She herself died 1851, aged 94, and was the intimate friend of
Scott, and one of the few original depositaries of the Waverley secret.
And Mary Berry, aged 89, and her sister Agnes, 88, both died in 1852,
having lived in the best of London society for sixty years. For the
amusement of these ladies, Horace Walpole wrote his most delightful
_Reminiscences_.
---------------------
Footnote 46:
_History of the World_, book i. chap. 5.
Footnote 47:
Chambers’s _Book of Days_, vol. i.
Footnote 48:
Walcott’s _Westminster_, p. 238.
Footnote 49:
Eironnach; _Notes and Queries_, No. 215.
----------------------------
LONGEVITY AND DIET.
It may now be as well to glance at the modes of living of a few of the
patriarchal folks. Cornaro, who is one of the _penates_ of healthful
longevity, was born at Venice in 1464, of a noble family. In early life
he injured his health by intemperance, and by indulging his propensity
to anger; but he succeeded in acquiring such a command over himself, and
in adopting such a system of temperance, as to recover his health and
vigour, and to enjoy life to an extreme old age. At 83 he wrote a comedy
“abounding with innocent mirth and pleasant jests.” At 86 he wrote: “I
contrive to spend every hour with the greatest delight and pleasure.” He
was fond of literature and the conversation of men of sense and good
manners, and his principal delight was to be of service to others. Every
year he travelled, visited architects, painters, sculptors, musicians,
and husbandmen; and he was especially fond of natural scenery. “Being
freed, by God’s grace, from the perturbations of the mind and the
infirmities of the body,” he no longer experienced any of those contrary
emotions which torment a number of young men, and many old ones
destitute of strength and health, and every other blessing. His diet
consisted of bread, meat, eggs, and soup, not exceeding in the day
three-quarters of a pound of food, and a pint of new wine. He passed
with health and comfort beyond his hundredth year; and at Padua, in
1566, sitting in his arm-chair, he died, as he had lived for his last
threescore years, exempt from pain and suffering.
Thomas Parr[50] was an early riser. Taylor, the Water-poet, quaintly
sings of his mode of living:
Good wholesome labour was his exercise,
Down with the lamb, and with the lark would rise;
In wise and toiling sweat he spent the day,
And to his team he whistled time away;
The cock his night-clock, and till day was done,
His watch and chief sun-dial was the sun.
He was of old Pythagoras’ opinion,
That new cheese was most wholesome with an onion;
Coarse meslin bread; and for his daily swig,
Milk, butter-milk, and water, whey and whig;
Sometimes metheglin, and, by fortune happy,
He sometimes sipped a cup of ale most nappy,
Cider or perry, when he did repair
To a Whitson ale, wake, wedding, or a fair,
Or when in Christmas-time he was a guest,
At his good landlord’s house among the rest;
Else he had little leisure-time to waste,
Or at the alehouse buff-cup ale to taste;
His physic was good butter, which the soil
Of Salop yields, more sweet than Candy-oil;
And garlic he esteemed above the rate
Of Venice treacle, or best mithridate;
He entertained no gout, no ache he felt,
The air was good and temperate where he dwelt;
Thus living within bounds of Nature’s laws,
Of his long-lasting life may be some cause.
Taylor thus describes the person of Parr:
From head to heel, his body had all over
A quick-set, thick-set, natural hairy cover.
The Vegetarians maintain that their system of living conduces highly to
longevity. We find in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_, 1774, this recorded
instance: “At Brussels, Elizabeth de Val, aged 103, who was remarkable
for never having eaten a bit of meat in her life.”
An advocate of vegetable diet adduces the Norwegian and Russian
peasantry as the most remarkable instances of extreme longevity: “The
last returns of the Greek Church population of the Russian empire give
(in the table of the deaths of the male sex) more than one thousand
above 100 years of age, many between 140 and 150.... Slaves in the West
Indies are recorded from 130 to 150 years of age.” Widow Rogers, of
Penzance, Cornwall, who died 1779, aged 118, for the last sixty years
lived entirely on vegetable diet.
Among the Pythagoreans of our time should be mentioned Sir Richard
Phillips, who from his twelfth year conceived an abhorrence of the
slaughter of animals for food; and from that period to his death, at the
age of 72, he lived entirely on vegetable products, enjoying such robust
health that no stranger could have suspected his studious and sedentary
habits.[51] Sometimes this Pythagorean principle was strongly
enunciated; as, when about to take his seat at a supper-party,
perceiving a lobster on the table, he loudly denounced the cruelty of
his friends’ sitting down to eat a creature which had been boiled alive!
and the offensive dish had to be removed. Sir Richard often published
his Reasons for not eating Animal Food; his abstinence drew upon him the
harmless ridicule of a writer in the _Quarterly Review_, observing that,
although he would not eat meat, he was addicted to gravy over his
potatoes.
One Wilson, of Worlingworth, Suffolk, who died 1782, aged 116, for the
last forty years of his life supped off roasted turnips, to which he
ascribed his long life.
The Hon. Mrs. Watkins, of Glamorganshire, who died 1790, aged 110, for
her last thirty years lived principally on potatoes. The year before her
death she came from Glamorgan to London to see Mrs. Siddons play, and
attended the theatre nine nights; and one morning she mounted to the
Whispering-gallery of St. Paul’s Cathedral.
It is rarely that table-wits attain such longevity as did Captain
Morris, the Anacreon of the Beef-steak Club, who wrote lyrics at the age
of 90. He died three years afterwards. He was of short stature, and
usually wore a buff waistcoat, such as he apostrophised in one of his
latest lyrics, “The old Whig Poet to his old Buff Waistcoat.” He lies in
the churchyard of Betchworth, Surrey,—his grave simply marked by a head
and foot stone, 1838.
Civic annals present few such instances of long life as that of Richard
Clark, Chamberlain of London, who died 1831, in his 92d year. He was one
of the latest of the contemporaries of Dr. Johnson, whom he had known
from his 15th year: when sheriff, he took the Doctor to a “Judges’
Dinner” at the Old Bailey, the judges being Blackstone and Eyre.
In the autumn of 1831 died the Rev. Dr. Shaw, aged 83, of Chesley,
Somerset, said to have been the last surviving friend of Dr. Johnson.
Few persons addicted to riotous living attain great ages. A remarkable
exception is recorded of George Kirton, Esq., of Oxcrop Hall, Yorkshire,
who died in 1762, aged 125. He was a stanch foxhunter, and hunted till
after he was 80; thenceforth, till his hundredth year, he attended the
“breaking cover” in his single chair. He was a heavy drinker till within
a few years of his death.
Thomas Whittington, who died at Hillingdon, Middlesex, in 1804, aged
104, retained his faculties to the last, and could walk two or three
miles; yet he was a great drinker, gin being the only fluid he took into
his stomach, and of this a pint and a half daily, until a fortnight of
his death. He remembered William III. and Queen Anne; and in 1745 he
conveyed troops and baggage from Uxbridge to London. His father died at
exactly the same age (104) as the son, and both lie in Hillingdon
churchyard.
---------------------
Footnote 50:
In the Ashmolean Collection at Oxford is a portrait of Old Parr,
presumed to have been painted from the life, and, we believe, not
engraved. The portrait by Rubens is well known.
Footnote 51:
The portrait of Sir Richard Phillips as Sheriff, painted by Saxon,
shows him as above described. The picture is of gallery size, and in
the possession of his grandson and representative, Mr. Bacon Phillips,
M.R.C.S., of Brighton. The bust of Sir Richard, by Turnerelli, conveys
a similar _personnel_.
----------------------------
LONGEVITY AND LOCALITIES.
With respect to the atmosphere most favourable to health and longevity,
Sir John Sinclair says, “More depends upon a current of pure air than
mere elevation. There is no place in Scotland, proportionably with its
population, where a greater number of aged people are to be found than
in the neighbourhood of Loch Lomond.” The purest atmosphere, Sir John
maintains, is in the neighbourhood of a small stream running over a
rocky or pebbly bottom.
Mr. Thomas Bailey, in his _Records of Longevity_, states that
“Nottinghamshire has the driest atmosphere of any district in England,
the depth of rain which falls there being something like 50 per cent
below what falls in Lancashire, Devonshire, and one or two of the
northern counties;” yet the records show that it enjoys no superiority,
in point of the longevity of its inhabitants, over those moister
districts. Hence it is concluded that moderately moist air is most
conducive to great age. The reason Hufeland assigns for this is, that
moist air, being in part already saturated, has less attractive power
over bodies,—that is to say, consumes them less. Besides, in a moist
atmosphere there is always more uniformity of temperature, fewer rapid
revolutions of heat being possible than in a dry atmosphere. Lastly, an
atmosphere somewhat moist keeps the muscular tissue of the body longer
pliable, whereas that which is dry or arid brings on much sooner
rigidity of the muscles and vessels of the body, and all the
characteristics of old age. It is this very dry air, joined with the
heat of the sun, which gives to the dried and shrivelled skin of the
face of some old men, in the felicitous humour of Charles Dickens, “the
appearance of a walnut-shell.”
We now proceed to cite instances of Long Life from various localities.
On the fly-leaves of a book named _Long Livers_, published in 1722, were
written the following notes of several old persons in Yorkshire: Ursula
Chicken, at Holderness, 120 years in 1718, and she lived some years
later. In Firbeck churchyard were buried a brother and son, one 113 and
the other 109 years old, both of whom had lived in caves at Roche Abbey.
Mr. Philip, of Thorner, born in Cleveland (the birthplace of Old
Jenkins), had his picture taken when he was 116 years old, with all his
senses perfect. Thomas Rudyard, Vicar of Everton, in Bedfordshire, died
in King Charles’s time, aged 140 years, as appears by the parish
register. Early in June 1768 died, at Burythorpe, near Malton, Francis
Consit, aged 150 years. A few years previously there were three women,
each 100 years old, or upwards, who lived in and about Whitwell, met at
that town and danced a Yorkshire reel. About 1758 a woman died at Sutton
107 years old. “Old Robinson’s father, at Boltby, lived to 108,” and he
himself beyond 98.[52]
The register of Middleton Tyas, adjoining, contains, in sixteen years,
entries of 230 persons buried, of whom seventy-six had reached the age
of 70 years or upwards. In 1813, of fifteen deceased, three were 90, 91,
and 92; in 1815 a person died 97; and thirty-three of the number
specified were 80 years old and upwards; and in the churchyard are
buried two persons of 103 and 101 years. But within the last thirty-five
years instances of longevity in this parish, once so common, form the
exception.
Mr. Durrant Cooper, F.S.A., has communicated to _Notes and Queries_, No.
212, these interesting records from the burial register of
Skelton-in-Cleveland, in the North Riding of Yorkshire:
Out of 799 persons buried between 1813 and 1852, no less than 263,
or nearly one-third, attained the age of 70. Of these, two were
respectively 101. Nineteen others were 90 years of age and upwards,
viz. one 97, one 96, one 95, four 94, one 93, five 92, three 91, and
three 90. Between the ages of 80 and 90 there died 109; and between
70 and 80 there died 133. In one page of the register, containing
eight names, six were above 80, and in another five were above 70.
In the parish of Skelton there was then living a man named Moon, 104
years old, who was blind, but managed a small farm till nearly or
quite 100; and a blacksmith, named Robinson Cook, aged 98, who
worked at his trade until within six months of this age.
In the chapelry of Brotton, adjoining Skelton township, the
longevity was even more remarkable. Out of 346 persons buried since
the new register came into force in 1813, down to Oct. 1, 1853, more
than one-third attained the age of 70. One Betty Thompson, who died
in 1834, was 101; nineteen were more than 90, of whom one was 98,
two 97, three 95, one 93, four 92, five 91, and three 90; forty-four
died between 80 and 90 years old, and fifty-seven between 70 and 80,
of whom thirty-one were 75 and upwards. That celibacy did not lessen
the chance of life was proved by a bachelor named Simpson, who died
at 82, and his maiden sister at 91.
Gilling, in Richmondshire, shows also a very great length of life, and
in persons above 90 years of age a larger proportion even than in the
Cleveland parishes. Between 1813 and 1853, of 701 persons buried, 207,
or rather more than one-third, attained the age of 70 and upwards. Three
were 100, or upwards; between 90 and 100, twenty-one; one 96, 95, and
94; two 92, six 91, and ten 90. Between 80 and 90 there died 87; between
70 and 80, ninety-six.
George Stephenson, a farm-labourer, of Runald-Kirk, near Barnard-Castle,
Durham, who died 1812, aged 105, was a very early riser; he used to
reprove (for lying a-bed) his daughter and her husband, both about 70
years of age, but who rose before six o’clock in the morning,—George
saying, “if they would not work while they were _young_, what would they
do when they became old?”
Mr. Carruthers, of Inverness, whose evidence is entitled to respect,
wrote in 1836, that “the patriarchs of the glen of Strathcarron have
been gathered to their fathers. The primitive manners of the olden time
are disappearing even in that remote corner, and human life is dwindling
down to its ordinary brief limits.” This experience is the converse of
the opinion that civilisation and refinement tend to lengthen life.
The Western Isles of Scotland have long been noted for persons of great
age. Martin describes a male native of Jura, who had kept 180 Christmas
festivals in his own house, and this marvellous account was confirmed to
Pennant; but the evidence is not given, and the man died fifty years
before Martin’s visit. Buchanan, in his _History of Shetland_, gives an
account of one Laurence, a Shetlander, who lived to 140; Dr. Derham, in
his _Physico-Theology_, confirms this, and Martin received from
Laurence’s family particulars of his fishing to the last year of his
life. At Orkney Martin heard of a man aged 112; and that one William
Muir, of Westra, lived to be near 140. Tarquis M’Leod, near Stornoway,
in the island of Lewis, died in 1787, aged 113; he had fought at
Killiecrankie, Sheriffmuir, and Culloden, under the Stuarts.
In the _Aberdeen Journal_ we find this evidence: Died, at Strichen,
Widow Reid, aged 81; and in the following fortnight, Christian Grant,
aged 97 years. The surviving resident paupers number only twenty-five,
and among them there are seven individuals whose respective ages are 92,
90, 88, 86, 83, 82, and 80 years—making a total of 601 years, and an
average of nearly 86 years to each. These statistics, in a parish
containing a population of only 947, are perhaps unparalleled in
Scotland.
A well-authenticated instance is that of Mrs. Elizabeth Gray, who died
at Edinburgh on the 2d of April 1856, at the age of 108, having been
born in May 1748, as chronicled in the register of her father’s parish.
Her mother attained 96, and two of her sisters died at 94 and 96
respectively. In 1808 died the Hon. Mrs. Hay Mackenzie, of Cromartie, at
the age of 103. The well-known Countess Dowager of Cork died in 1840,
having just completed her 94th year; she was to the last accustomed to
dine out every day when she had not company at home. Mr. Francis
Brokesby, in 1711, wrote of a woman then living near the Tower of
London, aged about 130, and who remembered Queen Elizabeth; to the last
there was not a gray hair on her head, and she never lost memory or
judgment. Mr. Brokesby also records the death, about 1660, of the wife
of a labouring man at Hedgerow, in Cheshire; she is said to have
attained the age of 140.[53]
Reflecting upon this record, Mr. Robert Chambers observes, with poetic
feeling, “When we think of such things, the ordinary laws of nature seem
to have undergone some partial relaxation; and the dust of ancient times
almost becomes living flesh before our eyes.” We confess to the weakness
of being occasionally depressed in the society of some very aged
persons. We remember Louis Pouchée to have died about twenty years
since, considerably above 100 years old: his voice was a childish
treble, and there was at last a sort of forced gaiety in his manner
which was any thing but cheerful; his piping of “I’ve kissed and I’ve
prattled with fifty fair maids” was a lugubrious rendering of that
lively lyric.
In White’s _Suffolk Directory_ for 1844, the following living instances
are recorded. “W. A. Shuldham, Esq., resides at the Hall, in which, on
July 18, 1843, he celebrated the hundredth anniversary of his birthday.
Mrs. Susan Godbold, who was born at Flixton, has resided at Metfield
eighty years, and walked round the village on her 104th birthday, Sept.
13, 1843. Thomas Morse, Esq., of Lound, is now in his 99th year.” Dr.
Smith, residing at Bawdsea, a few years since completed his 109th; when,
in the fulness of his spirits, he expressed a belief that he should live
for some years to come.
Here is an instance of remarkable memory. George Kelson (”the Woodman,”
in illustration of Cowper’s poem) died near Bath in 1820, aged 101; he
gave evidence before the Commissioners of Public Charities, deposing,
with great clearness, to facts which had occurred ninety years before
his examination.
The parish register of Bremhill, Wiltshire, records: “Buried, September
the 29th, 1696, Edith Goldie, Grace Young, Elizabeth Wiltshire. Their
united ages make 300 years.”[54]
Two centuries ago, the now sleepy town of Woodstock, Oxon., was
proverbial for its long livers. The Rev. John Ward, Vicar of
Stratford-upon-Avon, in his Diary, 1648-9, records: “Old Bryan, of
Woodstock, a taylor by profession, and a fiddler by present practice, of
age 90, yet very lively, and will travail well. George Green and Cripps,
each 90, very hard labourers. Thomas Cock, _alias_ Hawkins, 112 years of
age when he died. Woodstock men frequently long lived. Goody Jones, of
Woodstock, and old Bryan, two such old people as it is thought England
does not afford, nor two such travailors of their age.”
In 1637 there was living in Blackboy-lane, Oxford, “Mother George,” who,
although 120 years of age, could thread a fine needle without the help
of spectacles.[55]
Between February and May 1767, there died in Oxford seven persons whose
ages together amount to 616, viz. 88, 93, 86, 87, 90, 82, and 90. In the
same year is recorded the death of Francis Ange, in Maryland, aged 130;
he was born at Stratford-upon-Avon, remembered the death of King Charles
I., and left England soon after.[56]
The heads of Colleges in Oxford have frequently attained great ages: we
have mentioned Dr. Routh, President of Magdalen, who died in his 100th
year. There are generally very old people living in Oxford; and at
Iffley the ages recorded in the churchyard commonly exceed 70.
Midhurst, in Sussex, must be a healthy locality; for, according to the
_Dublin Chronicle_, December 2, 1788, the town, then containing only 140
houses and cottages, had seventy-eight inhabitants whose ages were above
70; thirty-two were 80 and upwards; and five were between 90 and 100;
and the seventy-eight persons, except four, were in some business or
occupation.
Wye, near Ashford, Kent, is another noted locality for long life; the
ages of 70, 80, and even 90, being by no means rare in the parish
register.
In 1800 twenty-two men died in England and Wales who had reached or
passed the age of 100, and forty-seven women. The oldest woman, 111
years of age, died in Glamorganshire. With the men there was a tie: a
man aged 107 died in Hampshire, and another of the same age in
Pembrokeshire. Four of the centenarians died in London, two others at
Camberwell, one also at Greenwich, and one at Lewisham. More men died in
the year than women; but of the 595 persons who had reached the age of
95 or upwards before they died, nearly two-thirds were women.
Great longevity is attained in some of the murky streets, lanes, and
alleys of London. In 1767 died Widow Prossen, of Oxford-road, in her
102d year, having passed nearly her whole life among old clothes in a
pawnbroker’s shop, accumulating a large fortune. In the same year died
her neighbour, Benjamin Perryn, aged 103.
In 1767 also we find Widow Waters, of Saffron-hill, dying at the age of
103; and one Wood, of Markam-court, Chandos-street, at 100.
In 1846 there died in grimy Holywell-street, Strand, one Harris, a Jew
clothesman, who had lived in the same street more than seventy years:
his wife died a few years before him, at the age of 93; and his eldest
son was 73 at the time of his father’s death. In 1780 there died in St.
Martin’s workhouse Widow Pettit, aged 114; and next year, Widow Parker,
of White-Hart-yard, Drury-lane, aged 108, with all her faculties
unimpaired.
In 1788 there died at Hoxton, aged 121, a widow, who, up to a very
advanced period, cried gray peas for sale about the streets of London;
and was well remembered by many aged persons as a woman apparently
beyond the middle stage of life, full twenty years before the time of
her decease.[57]
Occasionally we find very old persons almost _growing to the spot_ on
which they were born. In 1780 died at Englefield, Hants, James Hopper,
an agricultural labourer, aged 108, who had never quitted his native
Englefield even for a few miles. And in 1799 died Mr. Humphries, a
carpenter, born at Newington, Surrey, aged 102, and who would never go
more than two or three miles from the house in which he was born. One
Trundle, a farmer of Rotherhithe, who died 1766, aged 100, had lived in
the same house eighty-two years. Sometimes this takes the turn of
misanthropic seclusion: Christopher Tarran, of Sutton, near Richmond,
Yorkshire, who died 1827, aged 93, shut himself up in his chamber, from
which he never stirred during the last twenty years of his life, and
only twice admitted any one into the room. In 1811 there died at
Desford, Leicestershire, one John Upton, aged 100; he had been a worsted
framework-knitter for one firm in Leicester for ninety-three years.
Widow Richardson, of Holwell, Leicestershire, who died 1806, aged 97,
kept school in the parish 75 years, and was never five miles from home
during her long life.
We remember two stalwart millers, brothers, Joseph and John Saunders,
aged 79 and 73, born at Pixham-mill, and then of Pixham-house, hard by,
near the foot of Boxhill, Surrey, where they died, at the above ages.
---------------------
Footnote 52:
Edward Hailstone, Horton Hall; _Notes and Queries_, 2d series, No.
230.
Footnote 53:
Condensed from Chambers’s _Book of Days_, vol. i.
Footnote 54:
Britton’s _Wilts_. vol. iii.
Footnote 55:
_Walks in Oxford_, 1817.
Footnote 56:
_Select. Gent. Mag._ iv.
Footnote 57:
Bailey’s _Records of Longevity_, p. 249.
----------------------------
LONGEVITY OF CLASSES.
Deep-thinking philosophers have at all times been distinguished by their
great age, especially when their philosophy was occupied in the study of
Nature, and afforded them the divine pleasure of discovering new and
important truths,—the purest enjoyment; a beneficial exaltation of
ourselves, and a kind of restoration which may be ranked among the
principal means of prolonging the life of a perfect being. The most
ancient instances are to be found among the Stoics and the Pythagoreans,
according to whose ideas subduing the passions and sensibility, with the
observation of strict regimen, were the most essential duties of a
philosopher. Thus, we have the examples of a Plato and an Isocrates.
Apollonius of Tyana, an accomplished man, endowed with extraordinary
powers both of body and mind, who by the Christians was considered as a
magician, and by the Greeks and Romans as a messenger of the gods, in
his regimen a follower of Pythagoras, and a friend to travelling, was
above 100 years of age. Xenophilus, a Pythagorean also, lived 106 years.
The philosopher Demonax, a man of the most severe manners and uncommon
stoical apathy, lived likewise 100. Even in modern times philosophers
seem to have obtained this preëminence; and the deepest thinkers appear
in that respect to have enjoyed, in a higher degree, the fruits of their
mental tranquillity. Kepler and Bacon both attained to a great age; and
Newton, who found all his happiness and pleasure in the higher spheres,
attained to the age of 84. Euler, a man of incredible industry, whose
works on the most abstruse subjects amount to above three hundred,
approached near to the same age; and Kant, who reached the age of 80,
showed that philosophy not only can preserve life, but that it is the
most faithful companion of the greatest age, and an inexhaustible source
of happiness to one’s self and to others. Academicians, in this respect,
have been particularly distinguished. We need only mention the venerable
Fontenelle,[58] who wanted but one year of a hundred, and that Nestor,
Formey; both perpetual secretaries, the former of the French, and the
latter of the Berlin Academy.
We find also many instances of long life among schoolmasters, so that
one might almost believe that continual intercourse with youth may
contribute something towards our renovation and support. But poets and
artists, in short all those fortunate mortals whose principal occupation
leads them to be conversant with the sports of fancy and self-created
worlds, and whose whole life, in the properest sense, is an agreeable
dream, have a particular claim to a place in the history of longevity.
Anacreon, Sophocles, and Pindar attained a great age. Young, Voltaire,
Bodmer, Haller, Metastasio, Gleim, Utz, and Oeser, all lived to be very
old; and Wieland, the prince of German poets, lived to the age of 80.
(See _Wilson on Longevity_.)
Among the clergy are several remarkable instances. The venerable Bishop
Hough, the Cato of Sir Thomas Bernard’s _Comforts of Old Age_, through
an extraordinary degree of health of body and mind, attained the age of
92. “Blessed be God for his great mercies to me! I have to-day entered
my ninetieth year, with less infirmity than I could have presumed to
hope, and certainly with a degree of calmness and tranquillity of mind,
which is gradually increasing as I daily approach the end of my
pilgrimage. I think, indeed, that my life must now be but of short
duration; and, I thank God, the thought gives me no uneasiness.”[59]
Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, after he had been deprived and
ejected from Lambeth, for refusing to take any new oaths to William and
Mary, retired to his paternal estate, of 50_l._ a year, at Fresingfield,
in Suffolk, his birthplace. He was then approaching fourscore; and here
he was visited by Bishop Hough, in 1693.
I found him (says the Bishop) working in his garden, and taking
advantage of a shower of rain which had fallen to transplant some
lettuces. I was struck with the profusion of his vegetables, the
beauty and luxuriance of his fruit-trees, and the richness and
fragrance of his flowers, and noticed the taste which had directed
every thing. “You must not compliment too hastily (says he) on the
_directions_ which I have given. Almost all you see is the work of
my own hands. My old woman does the weeding, and John mows my turf
and digs for me; but all the nicer work,—the sowing, grafting,
budding, transplanting, and the like,—I trust to no other hand but
my own; so long, at least, as my health will allow me to enjoy so
pleasing an occupation. And in good sooth (added he) the fruits here
taste more sweet, and the flowers have a richer perfume, than they
had at Lambeth.” I looked up to our deprived metropolitan with more
respect, and thought his gardening-dress shed more splendour over
him, than ever his robes and lawn-sleeves could have done when he
was the first subject in this great kingdom.[60]
The Rev. Mr. Sampson, Incumbent of Keyham, Leicestershire, who died
1655, is stated by Thoresby to have held the living of his parish 92
years; so that he could scarcely be less than 116 years old.
The Rev. R. Lufkin, Rector of Ufford, Suffolk, died September 1678, aged
110, having preached the Sunday before he died.
Morton, Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, who died 1695, aged 95,
constantly rose at four o’clock to his studies when he was 80 years old;
he usually lay upon a straw bed, and seldom exceeded one meal a day.
Here are two lengthy incumbencies: “1753, December 22. Rev. Mr.
Braithwaite, of Carlisle, [died] aged 110. He had been 100 years in the
cathedral, having commenced singing-boy in the year 1652.” “1763. Rev.
Peter Alley (Rector of Donamow, Ireland, 73 years), [died] in the 111th
year of his age. He did his own duty till within a few days of his
death; he was twice married, and had thirty-three children.”[61]
The Rev. John Bedwell, Rector of Odstock, near Salisbury, according to
the Bishop’s registry, held that benefice 73 years; and, by the parish
register, died at the age of 108.
The Rev. S. W. Warneford, the munificent benefactor to colleges and
schools, died 1855, aged 92; and Maltby, Bishop of Durham, 1859, at 90.
Soldiers who survive the chances of war are proverbial for long life:
there are several instances recorded in the Chelsea Hospital
burial-ground. The lists of the survivors of England’s great battles
present instances ranging from 100 to 120 years.[62] The oldest General
of our time was Marshal Count Joseph Radetzsky, who died January 5,
1858, in his 92d year.
“History only mentions a single man who, at such an advanced age,
commanded an army in the field; and that was Dandolo, the Doge of
Venice, who was 95 years of age, and almost blind, when he commanded the
Venetians in the great Crusade, and who was the first to enter
Constantinople at the time of the assault on it in 1203. Talbot, Earl of
Shrewsbury, was 83 years old when he commanded in Guienne, in 1453; but
he was killed in the same year at the battle of Chatillon. Fuentes,
General of the Spanish troops at the battle of Rocroy, in 1643, was 82;
but he was gouty, and was carried in an arm-chair. He fell in that
battle, and with him disappeared the glory of the Spanish arms. The
Prussian Field-Marshal Mollendorf was present, in his 82d year, at the
defeat of Auerstadt, but not as commander-in-chief. One octogenarian of
modern times has been more fortunate than the preceding, and that is
Marshal de Villars, who, in his 81st year, undertook the campaign of
1712, crowned by the victory of Denain, which saved the French
monarchy.”[63]
Quakers attain great ages. In the Obituary of the _Friend_ Magazine,
1860, we find the following ages of some deceased members of the Society
of Friends: 84, 84, 85, 85, 85, 86, 86, 87, 87, 88, 88, 89, 89, 89, 91,
91, 91, 91, 91, 91, 92, 92, 93, 93—making a total of 2128 years, with an
average for each life of rather more than 88½ years. Fifty lives in the
same period give 4258 years, with an average of 85 per life. The average
duration of life in the Society of Friends during 1860 was 58 years and
6 months; but one girl died under 6 months old; five girls and thirteen
boys—in all eighteen out of the 324, or 5½ per cent—did not reach the
age of one year.
Hard-workers are often long livers. Hobson, the noted Cambridge carrier,
died on New-year’s Day, 1630-1, it is said in his 86th year. His visits
to London were suspended on account of the Plague, and during this
cessation he died; whereupon Milton remarked that Death would never have
hit him had he continued dodging it backwards and forwards between
Cambridge and the Bull Inn, Bishopsgate.
One John King, of Nokes, Oxon, died in 1766, at the age of 130: he was a
farm-labourer, and at the age of 128 walked to and from the market at
Oxford—twelve miles. One Wilks, a farm-labourer, of Stourbridge,
Worcestershire, who died 1777, aged 109, was suspected by his ignorant
neighbours of having purchased the secret of long life from a witch with
whom he had become acquainted.
An Irish fisherman, Jonas Warren, who died 1787, Mr. Bailey states, at
167, had for ninety-five years drawn his subsistence from the ocean.
Another fisherman, Worrell, of Dunwich, Suffolk, died 1789, aged 119,
having fished till he was 107.
On June 3, 1862, there died at his farm, Tullyskerra, near
Castleblayney, Gilbert Hand, at the advanced age of 105 years. Two days
before his death deceased travelled round his farm, apparently taking
his last farewell of the fields in which he so often toiled.
Of Ephraim Pratt, who was living at Shaftesbury, U.S., in 1803, aged 116
years, the Rev. Timothy Dwight relates that he had mown grass 101 years
successively. He drank large quantities of milk, and in his latter years
it was almost his sole sustenance. His descendants, to the fifth
generation, it was publicly stated, numbered more than 1500 persons.
Margaret Woods, of Great Waltham, who died 1797, aged 100, had, with her
ancestors, lived in the service of one Essex family for 400 years.
Here is well-authenticated evidence of long service from Sussex. At
Battle is the gravestone of Isaac Ingoll, who died April 2, 1798, aged
120 years; his register is to be seen in the parish, and he lived 101
years in the service of the Webster family, of Battle Abbey, having
entered it at the age of 19.[64]
Philip Palfreman, who had been box-keeper at the first Covent Garden
Theatre in Garrick’s time, died in 1768, aged 100: he almost lived in
the theatre, and by his thrift saved a fortune of 10,000_l._ In 1845
died William Ward, aged 98, of the Sun Fire Office, London, where he had
filled a situation seventy years.
Jockeys, from the severe effects of training, are proverbially
short-lived; yet John Scott, of Brighton, once a jockey, reached the age
of 96.
Great pedestrian feats have been performed by very old men. Mr. M’Leod,
of Inverness, who died 1790, aged 102, two years previously walked from
Inverness to London (five hundred miles) in nineteen days: he had served
in Marlborough’s wars.
On May 28, 1802, a lunatic named James Coyle, 47 years old, was admitted
a patient into St. Patrick’s (Swift’s) Hospital, Dublin: he continued
there upwards of fifty-eight years, and eventually died July 17, 1860,
at the age of 105. There can surely be no mistake as to this great age.
Peter Breman, of Dyott-street, St. Giles’s, London, is one of the few
instances on record of long life attained by tall men: he stood 6 feet 6
inches high, and was in the army from the age of 18 nearly until his
decease, in 1769, at the age of 104 years. Another tall man, Edmund
Barry, of Watergrass-hill, Ireland, died 1822, aged 113: he was 6 feet 2
inches in height, and walked well to the last.
One John Minniken, of Maryport, Cumberland, who died 1793, aged 112, was
remarkable for the fast growth and profusion of his hair, which he sold,
in successive croppings, to a hairdresser of the town, for a penny a
day, during the remainder of his life; and more than seventy wigs were
made of Minniken’s hair.
Among aged persons of diminutive stature was Mary Jones, of Wem, Salop,
who died 1773, aged 100: she was only 2 feet 8 inches in height. Elspeth
Watson, of Perth, who died 1800, aged 115, did not exceed 2 feet 9
inches in height, but was bulky in person.
Old age can rarely withstand intense grief. John Tice, of Hagley,
Worcestershire, having recovered from a fall out of a tree when he was
80 years old, and from being much burned when he was 100, after the
death of his patron, Lord Lyttleton, became so depressed in spirits,
that he took to his bed and died. Sir Francis Burdett had withstood the
storms and tumults of political life for more than half a century, and
had reached the age of 74, when his dear wife died, Jan. 10, 1844: from
that instant Sir Francis refused food or nourishment of any kind, and he
died of intense grief on the 23d of the same month: both were buried in
the same vault, in the same hour, on the same day, in the church of
Ramsbury, Wilts.
Cardinal Fleury, the great French minister, who died in 1743, had
attained the age of 90. For fourteen years he essentially contributed to
the peace and prosperity of France; but the three last years of his
administration were unfortunate. On the death of the Emperor Charles
XI., in 1740, without male issue, a war ensued respecting the imperial
succession, the calamitous events of which preyed on the Cardinal’s mind
and occasioned his death.
Sir John Floyer, Physician to Queen Anne, seems to have found the golden
mean of happiness. He died in 1734; four years previous to which he
visited Bishop Hough, at Hartlebury. “Sir John Floyer (writes the Bishop
to a friend) has been with me some weeks; and all my neighbours are
surprised to see a man of eighty-five, who has his memory,
understanding, and all his senses good; and seems to labour under no
infirmity. _He is of a happy temper, not to be moved with what he cannot
remedy;_ which I really believe has, in a great measure, helped to
preserve his health and prolong his days.” This is the grand secret. Sir
John wrote a curious Essay on Cold Bathing, among the benefits of which
he does not omit long life.
Dr. Cheyne, the Scottish physician, of this period, in his well-known
Essay, advocates strict regimen for preventing and curing diseases: by
milk and vegetable diet he reduced himself from thirty-two stone weight
almost a third, recovered his strength, activity, and cheerfulness, and
attained the good age of 72.
Jeremy Bentham, the eminent philosophical jurist and writer on
legislation, died in 1832, in Queen-square-place, Westminster, where he
had resided nearly half a century, in his 85th year. Up to extreme old
age he retained much of the intellectual power of the prime of manhood,
the simplicity and freshness of early youth; and even in the last
moments of his existence the serenity and cheerfulness of his mind did
not desert him. “He was capable,” says Dr. Southwood Smith, to whom he
bequeathed his body for purposes of anatomical science, in the lecture
delivered over his remains, “of great severity and continuity of mental
labour. For upwards of half a century he devoted seldom less than eight,
often ten, and occasionally twelve hours of every day to intense study.
This was the more remarkable as his physical constitution was by no
means strong. His health during the periods of childhood, youth, and
adolescence was infirm; it was not until the age of manhood that it
acquired some degree of vigour; but that vigour increased with advancing
age, so that during the space of sixty years he never laboured under any
serious malady, and rarely suffered even from slight indisposition; and
at the age of 84 he looked no older, and constitutionally was not older,
than most men are at 60; thus adding another illustrious name to the
splendid catalogue which establishes the fact, that severe and constant
mental labour is not incompatible with health and longevity, but
conducive to both, provided the mind be unanxious and the habits
temperate.
“He was a great economist of time. He knew the value of minutes. The
disposal of his hours, both of labour and of repose, was a matter of
systematic arrangement; and the arrangement was determined on the
principle that it is a calamity to lose the smallest portion of time. He
did not deem it sufficient to provide against the loss of a day or an
hour; he took effectual means to prevent the occurrence of any such
calamity to him. But he did more: he was careful to provide against the
loss of even a single minute; and there is on record no example of a
human being who lived more habitually under the practical consciousness
that his days are numbered, and that ‘the night cometh in which no man
can work.’”
It should, however, be added, that Mr. Bentham’s lot in life was a happy
one. Even though he did not enjoy a widely diffused reputation in his
own country, and his peculiar views exposed him to the attacks of
contemporary writers, his easy circumstances and excellent health
enabled him to devote his whole time and energies to those pursuits
which exercised his highest faculties, and were to him a rich and
unfailing source of the most delightful excitement. His retired habits
likewise preserved him from personal contact with any but those who
valued his acquaintance; and as for the writers who spoke of him with
ridicule and contempt, he never read them, and therefore they never
disturbed the serenity of his mind, or ruffled the tranquil surface of
his contemplative and happy life.
It would be well for public writers if they possessed more of such
equanimity as Mr. Bentham’s, to shield them from the venom of adverse
criticism and the attacks of those dishonest critics who abuse every
indication of success which they conceive to stand in the way of their
own advancement. We have something of the old leaven of Grub-street in
our times, though the name is blotted out from our metropolitan
streetology. It is true that the patronage of great men is no longer
valued by men of letters,—it is but as dust in the balance against the
weight of public opinion,—but something of the old trade of factious
criticism which Swift, Pope, and Warburton so mercilessly exposed, has
survived even to our days.
Mr. Thackeray, to our thinking one of the most masculine and unaffected
writers of his day, has well described the Grub-street association of
“author and rags—author and dirt—author and gin,” such as were the
literary hacks of the reign of George II.; but literature now takes its
rank with other learned professions.
---------------------
Footnote 58:
Fontenelle attributed his longevity to a good course of strawberry
eating every season: his only ailment was fever in the spring; when he
used to say, “If I can only hold out till strawberries come in, I
shall get well.” His long life may, however, rather be attributed to
his insensibility, of which he himself boasted: he was rarely known to
laugh or cry.
Footnote 59:
Bishop Hough; _Comforts of Old Age_.
Footnote 60:
Ibid.
Footnote 61:
_Selections Gent. Mag._ vol. iv. p. 299.
Footnote 62:
See _Choice Notes_ (History), pp. 170-177; and Military Centenarians,
_Notes and Queries_, 2d series, No. 232, pp. 238, 239, for several
well-authenticated records.
Footnote 63:
_Morning Advertiser._
Footnote 64:
_Notes and Queries_, 2d series, No. 250.
----------------------------
Great Ages
To return to Longevity. The following additional instances are mostly of
our own time:
Among Lawyers, Francis Maseres, fifty years Cursitor-Baron of the
Court of Exchequer, died 1824, at the age of 93: he was a ripe
classical scholar, and one of the ablest mathematicians of his day.
The Eldon family present three noteworthy examples: Mr. Scott, the
Newcastle merchant, father of Lord Stowell and the Earl of Eldon,
died 1800, at the age of 92: the two eminent sons, Stowell, 1836, at
91, and Eldon, 1838, at 87. Lord Plunket, the statesman and lawyer,
who died 1854, had reached 90. Lord Chancellor Campbell, who in his
busy law-life wrote many volumes of biography, attained the age of
81.
Sir William Blizard, the Surgeon, who died in 1835, in his 94th
year, rose to eminence under many disadvantages. With all his
activity and industry, except a fever caught by working night and
day in the dissecting-room, his health never failed him till the
last; he was temperate; and the only wine he drank was Cape. Sir
William Burnett, the physician and scientific inventor, reached 82.
In 1862 two eminent Mathematicians died within a month of each
other: Jean Baptiste Biot, aged 88; and Peter Barlow, 86. Prof.
Narrien, of Sandhurst, died 1860, at 77; and, same year and age,
Finlaison, the actuary.
Francis Place, the Westminster Politician, who died 1854, had
reached 82. The Duc de Pasquier, the celebrated French statesman,
attained the great age of 96: he died 1862, and was the oldest
statesman of our time. Talleyrand, next to Napoleon the most
extraordinary man of the revolutionary period of France, died 1838,
aged 84.
The oldest Poets of our time were W. L. Bowles, 1850, aged 88; same
year, Wordsworth, poet-laureate, 80; James Montgomery, 1854, at 82;
Samuel Rogers, 1855, aged 96; Arndt, the German poet, 1860, at 91;
and Dr. Croly, the poet and divine, 86.
Mitscherlich, the German Philologist, died 1854, at 94; same
year, Gresnall, biographer, 89, and Faber, theologian, 80.
Hamner-Purgstall, the Oriental historian, who died 1856, had
attained 87; 1857, Hincks, the Orientalist, 90.
Sir John Stoddart, the Newspaper editor, who died 1855, had reached
85,—a rare age for a public journalist. John Sharpe, the tasteful
_littérateur_, who died 1860, reached 83.
Dr. Lingard, the Historian, died 1851, aged 82. In 1859, Hallam, the
historian; same year, Elphinstone, the historian of India, aged 81.
John Britton, the Topographer and antiquary, who died 1857, had
reached 86: he was cheerful and chirping almost to the end. His
brother topographer, Brayley, died 1854, aged 85. John Adey Repton,
the architect and archæologist, died 1860, aged 86; Joseph Hunter,
archæologist, 1861, 78.
Kirby, the Entomologist, who died 1860, had reached 91. Professor
Jameson, the naturalist, died 1854, aged 81. Brunel, the engineer of
the Thames Tunnel, died 1849, aged 81. Captain Manby, who invented
apparatus for saving shipwrecked persons, and who died 1854, had
reached 89. Sir John Ross, the Arctic navigator, died 1856, at 79.
The chemists, Andrew Ure, at 79, and Thenard, at 80, died 1857.
Baron Humboldt, who died 1859, reached 92; same year, Sir G.
Staunton, the Chinese scholar, at 79. Colonel Leake, the geographer,
1860, at 83; and in the same year Carl Ritter, the geographer, 81;
and Bishop Rigaud, astronomer, 85.
In 1858 died an unusually large number of Men of Science and
Letters, and Artists, at great ages. Count Radetzsky, at 92;
Creuzer, the German antiquary, 87; Thomas Tooke, political
economist, 85; three musical composers, Neukomm, 80; J. B. Cramer,
88; and Horsley, 84;—Esenbach, botanist, 82; Aimé de Bonpland, 85;
Robert Brown, botanist, 84; Bunting, Wesleyan preacher, 80; Mrs.
Marcet, educational writer, 89; Edward Pease, “the Father of
Railways,” 92; Robert Owen, socialist, 87; Richard Taylor, of the
_Philosophical Magazine_, 77.
In 1860 we lost the following eminent Engineers: Vicat (France),
aged 75; General Pasley, 80; Eaton Hodgkinson, 72; Sir Howard
Douglas, 86. In 1862 there died General Tulloch, at 72; and James
Walker, at 81; and in 1860, Jesse Hartley, 80.
Charles Macklin, the oldest English Actor and playwright, who died
1797, had reached the age of 107: for his last twenty years he never
took off his clothes, except to change them, or to be rubbed over
with warm brandy or gin; he ate, drank, and slept without regard to
set times, but according to his inclination.
M. Delphat, the French Musician, who died 1855, had reached 99; and
in the same year died Robert Linley, the violoncellist, at 83. John
Braham lived far beyond the usual age of singers, namely, to his 82d
year: he died February 17, 1856; he first sung in public when ten
years old. Ludwig Spohr, the German composer, died 1859, at 80.
Some aged persons have literally fallen asleep in death. Sir
Christopher Wren passed his latter years at Hampton Court, and his
townhouse in St. James’s-street. He caught cold, and this hastened
his death. He was in town; he was accustomed to sleep a short time
after dinner; and on February 25, 1723, his servant, thinking his
master had slept longer than usual, went into his room, and found
Wren dead in his chair; he was in his 91st year. James Elmes, who
wrote Wren’s life, died 1862, aged 80.
Copley, the Painter, died 1815, aged 78; his son, Lord Lyndhurst, in
1863, attained his 91st year: his mother lived to see her son a
second time Lord High Chancellor. Stothard, for several months
before his decease, though his bodily infirmities prevented his
attending to his labours as an artist, would not relinquish his
attendance at the meetings and lectures of the Royal Academy and in
the library, notwithstanding extreme deafness prevented his hearing
what was passing. Mr. Constable, in a letter to a friend, written in
1838, says: “I passed an hour or two with Mr. Stothard on Sunday
evening. Poor man! the only elysium he has in this world he finds in
his own enchanting works. His daughter does all in her power to make
him happy and comfortable.” Leslie remarks that Stothard must have
possessed great constitutional serenity of mind; he was also, no
doubt, much supported by his art. His easel, indeed, bore evidence
of the many years he had passed before it; the lower bar, on which
his foot rested, being nearly worn through. He died April 27, 1834,
in his 80th year, at his house in Newman-street, where he had
resided more than forty years.
Sir M. A. Shee, Painter, P.R.A., died 1850, at the age of 80. J. M.
W. Turner, the greatest landscape painter, R.A., 1851, at 77; and
1854, Geo. Clint, painter of humour, 82; Wachter, the famous
historical painter, who died 1852, reached 90. Two aged Frenchmen
died 1853: Fontaine, the architect, 90; and Renouard, bibliographer,
98. James Ward, the animal painter, who died 1859, reached 91;
Alfred Chalon, 1860, at 80; and in 1859, David Cox, founder of our
Water-Colour School, 76.
In 1850 died Schadow, the Hungarian Sculptor, 86. In 1856, Sir R.
Westmacott, the sculptor, R.A.; and next year, Christian Rauch, the
German sculptor, at 80.
Matthew Cotes Wyatt, the Sculptor of the colossal Wellington statue,
died 1862, at 86. The oldest engraver of the above period was John
Landseer, who died 1852, aged 90.
Sir John Soane, R.A., the Architect, died 1837, having reached the
age of 84, bequeathing his museum, in Lincoln’s-inn Fields, to the
nation. Sir John was the son of a Berkshire bricklayer, and by his
own energy rose to eminence as an architect: he designed a greater
number of public edifices than any contemporary. His last work
(1833), the State-Paper Office, in St. James’s-park, was very unlike
any other of his designs; it was taken down in 1862.
Foster, the Artist, of Derby, celebrated the hundredth anniversary
of his birthday on November 8, 1862, when he was entertained by his
friends in the county hall. Mr. Foster served under Abercrombie in
Egypt, and left the army on the day on which Nelson died. He has
been five times married; and his youngest child, born sixty-eight
years after his eldest, is now (1862) only ten years of age.
The great ages in the following records must be considered very
remarkable:
Mr. Henry H. Breen, writing from St. Lucia, states that Louis Mutal,
a Negro, died in the island in 1851, at the age of 135 years. Mutal
was a native of Macouba, in the island of Martinique, and about 1785
settled in St. Lucia as a dealer in trade; after his death was found
among his papers his marriage contract with his slave, Marie
Catherine, in 1771, which establishes the fact of his being then 55
years of age, and consequently of his having been born in 1716. This
is followed by a certificate, showing that the marriage contract was
published and recorded in 1772. The date of his death in the parish
register has been carefully verified by Mr. Breen, who adds: “There
are now living in this island several persons of the age of 90, or
upwards,” in a population of about 26,000 souls. The particulars
are:
Madame Toraille, coloured aged 90
Madame Morel, coloured ” 90
Madame Jacob, coloured ” 92
Madame St. Philip, white ” 92
Madame Guy de Mareil, white ” 93
Mademoiselle Vitalis, white ” 96
Madame Anne, black ” 102
Madame Coudrey, coloured ” 106
Madame Baudoin, white ” 106 [65]
Another Correspondent, writing from Malta in 1855, states that Tony
Proctor, a free coloured man, died at Tallahassee, Florida, June 16,
1854, aged 112. He was at the battle of Quebec, as the servant of an
English officer, in 1759; and he was at the beginning of the
revolutionary war in the vicinity of Boston, at the time the tea was
thrown overboard; and was afterwards present at the battle of
Lexington.[66]
---------------------
Footnote 65:
Communicated to _Notes and Queries_, August 4, 1855.
Footnote 66:
_Notes and Queries_, September 8, 1855.
----------------------------
THE HAPPY OLD MAN.
The wisest and best productions of the human intellect, says Dr.
Moore,[67] have proceeded from those who have lived through the bustling
morning and meridian periods of their day, and calmly sat down to think
and instruct others in the meditative evening of life. Even when the
brilliancy of reason’s sunset yields to the advancing gloom, there is an
indescribable beauty haunting the old man still, if in youth and vigour
his soul was conversant with truth; and even when the chill of night is
upon him, his eye seems to rest upon the glories for awhile departed; or
he looks off into the stars, and reads in them his destiny with a
gladness as quiet and as holy as their light.
How instructive is the usual state of memory and hope in advanced life!
As the senses become dull, the nervous system slow, and the whole body
unfit for active uses, the old man necessarily falls into constant
abstraction. Like all debilitated persons, he feels his unfitness for
action, and, of course, becomes querulous if improperly excited.
Peacefulness, gentle exercise among flowers and trees, unstimulating
diet, and the quiet company of books and philosophic toys, are suitable
for him. With such helps his heart will beat kindly, and his intellect,
however childlike, will maintain a beautiful power to the last. Objects
of affection occasionally move him with more than their accustomed
force. Young children are especially agreeable to him. When approaching
him with the gentle love and reverence which unspoiled childhood is so
apt to exhibit, his heart seems suddenly to kindle as the little fingers
wander over his shrivelled hand and wrinkled brow. He smiles, and at
once goes back in spirit to his childhood, and finds a world of fun,
frolic, and liveliness before him; and he has tales of joy and beauty,
which children and age and holy beings can best appreciate. Next to the
children of his children, the old man, whose thoughts have been directed
by the Bible, loves the society of persons of holy habits; and as he
finds these more frequently among females, such are generally his
associates. But all aged and infirm persons he deems fit company,
because they, like himself, are busied in reviewing past impressions,
rather than planning or plotting for a livelihood, or reasoning about
ways and means. The past is his own, and he cons it over like a puzzling
but at least an interesting lesson. If his soul have been trained to
delight in truth, his will becomes weaned from this world of effort in
proportion as he feels the weakness that disqualifies him from
struggling on in it. Yet _in our ashes live their wonted fires:_ he
feels an internal, a spiritual energy, awakening in a new manner the
sympathies that belong to his being, and he feels as if his affections
had been laid by to ripen into an intensity out of keeping with the
usages and objects about him. He realises most fully the facts of a
coming life, and even now lives apart from the present; and if his
habits of reflection be not distracted, and his heart broken by hard and
ignorant treatment, and if his soul have not been wedded to care by a
love of gold without the possibility of divorce, and mammon have not
branded his spirit with indelible misery, then is the old man ready to
enter on a purely spiritual existence with alacrity and joy.
---------------------
Footnote 67:
_The Use of the Body to the Mind._
----------------------------
PREPARATORY TO DEATH.
Jeremy Taylor, in his _Holy Dying_ (General Considerations Preparatory
to Death), has this memorable passage, in which he illustrates the daily
experiences of every thoughtful mind:
And because this consideration is of great usefulness and of great
necessity to many purposes of wisdom and the spirit, all the
succession of time, all the changes in nature, all the varieties of
light and darkness, the thousand thousands of accidents in the
world, and every contingency to every man and to every creature,
doth preach our funeral sermon, and calls us to look and see how the
old sexton Time throws up the earth and digs a grave where we must
lay our sins or our sorrows, and sow our bodies till they rise again
in a fair or in an intolerable eternity. Every revolution which the
sun makes about the world divides between life and death; and death
possesses both those portions by the next morrow, and we are dead to
all those months which we have already lived, and we shall never
live them over again: and still God makes little periods of our age.
First we change our world, when we come from the womb to feel the
warmth of the sun. Then we sleep and enter into the image of death,
in which state we are unconcerned in all the changes of the world
[who hath not felt this when stretched upon his bed at the close of
day?]: and if our mothers or our nurses die, or a wild boar destroy
our vineyards, or our king be sick, we regard it not, but during
that state are as disinterested as if our eyes were closed with the
clay that weeps in the bowels of the earth. At the end of seven
years our teeth fall and die before us, representing a formal
prologue to the tragedy; and still every seven years it is odds but
we shall finish the last scene: and when nature, or chance, or vice,
takes our bodies in pieces, weakening some parts and loosing others,
we _taste the grave_ and the solemnities of our own funerals, first
in those parts that ministered to vice, and next in them that served
for ornament; and in a short time even they that served for
necessity become useless, and entangled like the wheels of a broken
clock. _Baldness_ is but a dressing to our funerals, the proper
ornament of mourning, and of a person entered very far into the
regions and possession of death: and we have many more of the same
signification: gray hairs, rotten teeth, dim eyes, trembling joints,
short breath, stiff limbs, wrinkled skin, short memory, decayed
appetite. Every day’s necessity calls for a reparation of that
portion which death fed on all night when we lay in his lap and
slept in his outer chambers. The very spirits of a man prey upon the
daily portion of bread and flesh, and every meal is a rescue from
one death, and lays up for another: and while we think a thought we
die; and the clock strikes, and reckons on our portion of eternity;
we form our words with the breath of our nostrils, we have the less
to live upon for every word we speak.
Thus nature calls us to meditate of death by those things which are
the instruments of acting it: and God by all the variety of his
Providence makes us see death every where, in all variety of
circumstances, and dressed up for all the fancies and the
expectation of every single person.
Nature hath given us one harvest every year, but death hath two: and
the spring and the autumn sends throngs of men and women to
charnel-houses; and all the summer long men are recovering from
their evils of the spring, till the dog-days come, and then the
Syrian star makes the summer deadly; and the fruits of autumn are
laid up for all the year’s provision, and the man that gathers them
eats and surfeits, and dies and needs them not, and himself is laid
up for eternity; and he that escapes till the winter only stays for
another opportunity, which the distempers of that quarter minister
to him with great variety. Thus death reigns in all the portions of
our time. The autumn with its fruits provides disorders for us, and
the winter’s cold turns them into sharp diseases, and the spring
brings flowers to strew our hearse, and the summer gives green turf
and brambles to bind upon our graves. Calentures and surfeit, cold
and agues, are the four quarters of the year, and all minister to
death; and you can go no whither but you tread upon a dead man’s
bones.
DEATH BEFORE ADAM.
Two hundred years ago, long before the science of Geology called for the
belief that mortality had been stamped on creation, and had manifested
its proofs in the animal races previously to Adam’s appearance, Jeremy
Taylor could write as follows regarding Adam himself before the Fall. He
considers him to have been created mortal; not merely liable to become
mortal, but actually mortal.
“For ‘flesh and blood,’ that is, whatsoever is born of Adam, ‘cannot
inherit the kingdom of God.’ And they are injurious to Christ who think
that from Adam we might have inherited immortality. Christ was the giver
and preacher of it; ‘he brought life and immortality to light through
the Gospel.’”
Again: “For that Adam was made mortal in his nature is infinitely
certain, and proved by his very eating and drinking, his sleep and
recreation, &c.”
And in another passage, quoted by Professor Hitchcock: “That death which
God threatened to Adam, and which passed upon his posterity, is not the
going out of this world, but the manner of going. If he had stayed in
innocence, he should have gone placidly and fairly, without vexatious
and affective circumstances; he should not have died by sickness,
defect, misfortune, or unwillingness.” These sentiments Archdeacon
Pratt[68] quotes, not as necessarily approving them, but to show that so
good and learned a man as Jeremy Taylor had a view regarding death and
mortality no less unusual than that which Geology demands.
---------------------
Footnote 68:
_Science and Scripture not at Variance_, 2d ed. 1858.
----------------------------
FUTURE EARTHLY EXISTENCE OF THE HUMAN RACE.
Regarding Man, independently of any revealed knowledge of his future
destiny, but simply with reference to his relations with the physical
world about him, Mr. Hopkins, the able geologist, asks: “Do we see in
his character and position here any indication that this earth is his
destined abiding place for indefinite periods of time? We conceive that
a negative answer to the question is suggested at least by the fact that
the extent of the earth’s surface and its powers of production are
_finite_, whereas the tendency in human population to increase is
unlimited. It is undoubtedly easy to conceive this tendency to be
arrested, but not probably by causes consistent with the moral and
physical well-being of the race. Whether human population may have
increased or not during the last two thousand years, is a matter of
little import, we conceive, to the question before us. We know that it
is now spreading itself over many parts of the globe, under influences
far different from those under which it has heretofore extended,—the
influence of Christianity, and of that higher civilisation which must
attend the pure doctrines of our religion. We believe that this
extension and increase of the civilised races of mankind will continue;
and, however it may be temporarily checked by the hardships and evils to
which man is subject, we can hardly understand how this tendency can be
effectively and finally arrested before the population of the globe
shall have approximated to that limit which must be necessarily imposed
upon it by the finite dimensions of man’s dwelling-place. We know not
what might be the views of political economists on this ultimate
condition of human population; but we feel it difficult to conceive its
existence, under merely human influences, independently of physical
want, and possibly of that moral debasement which so frequently attends
it. In fact, those who regard man simply in his human character and in
his relations to _nature_, and not in his relations to God, must find in
his earthly future the most insoluble problem which can offer itself to
the speculative philosopher. It would seem equally difficult to assign
to the human race an indefinite term of existence, or to sweep it away
by natural causes from the face of the earth. But it is in such
questions as this that a steady faith in man’s Creator and Redeemer
affords to the embarrassed mind a calm and welcome resting-place. Those
who believe man’s introduction on the earth to have been a direct act of
his Almighty Creator, will not think it necessary to look for his final
earthly destiny in the operation of merely secondary causes, but will
refer it to the same Divine Agency as that to which he refers the origin
of the race.”[69]
---------------------
Footnote 69:
_Geology_, by William Hopkins, M.A., F.R.S.; _Cambridge Essays_, 1857.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The School of Life.
WHAT IS EDUCATION?
BISHOP BURNET seems to have given the reply in the fewest words when he
observes: “The education of youth is the foundation of all that can be
performed for bettering the next age.”
“Education,” says Paley, “in the most extensive sense of the word, may
comprehend every preparation that is madef in our youth for the sequel
of our lives; and in this sense I use it. Some such preparation is
necessary for all conditions, because without it they must be miserable,
and probably will be vicious, when they grow up, either from the want of
the means of subsistence, or from want of rational and inoffensive
occupation. In civilised life, every thing is affected by art and skill.
Whence a person who is provided with neither (and neither can be
acquired without exercise and instruction) will be useless, and he that
is useless will generally be at the same time mischievous, to the
community. So that to send an uneducated child into the world is
injurious to the rest of mankind; it is little better than to turn out a
mad dog or a wild-beast into the streets.”
Who are the uneducated? is a question not easily to be answered in a
time when books have come to be household furniture in every habitation
of the civilised world. All that men have contrived, discovered, done,
felt, or imagined, is recorded in books; wherein whoso has learned to
spell printed letters may find such knowledge, and turn it to
advantageous account.
D’Israeli the younger, in one of his politico-economic speeches,
remarks: “As civilisation has gradually progressed, it has equalised the
physical qualities of man. Instead of the strong arm, it is now the
strong head that is the moving principle of society. You have
disenthroned Force, and placed on her high seat Intelligence; and the
necessary consequence of this great revolution is, that it has become
the duty and the delight equally of every citizen to cultivate his
faculties.”
TEACHING YOUNG CHILDREN.
Coleridge relates that Thelwall thought it very unfair to influence a
child’s mind by inculcating any opinions before it should have come to
years of discretion, and be able to choose for itself. “I showed him my
garden,” says Coleridge, “and told him it was my botanical garden.” “How
so?” said he; “it is covered with weeds.” “Oh!” I replied, “that is only
because it has not yet come to its age of discretion and choice. The
weeds you see have taken the liberty to grow, and I thought it unfair in
me to prejudice the soil towards roses and strawberries.”
Madame de Lambert, in her work _Sur l’Education d’une jeune Demoiselle_,
says: “The greatest enemy that we have to combat in the education of
children is self-love; and to this enemy we cannot give attention too
early. Our business is to weaken it, and we must be careful not to
strengthen it by indiscriminate praise. Frequent praise encourages
pride, induces a child to value herself as superior to her companions,
and renders her unable to bear any reproach or objection however mild.
We should be cautious, even in the expression of affection, not to lead
children to suppose that we are constantly occupied with them. Timid
children may be encouraged by praise; but it must be judiciously
bestowed, and for their good conduct, not for personal graces. Above all
things, it is necessary to inspire them with a love of truth; to teach
them to practise it at their own expense; and to impress it upon their
minds that there is nothing so truly great as the frank acknowledgment,
‘I am wrong.’”
Harriet Martineau observes: “It is a matter of course that no mother
will allow any ignorant person to have access to her child who will
frighten it with goblin stories or threats of the old black man. She
might as well throw up her charge at once, and leave off thinking of
household education altogether, as permit her child to be exposed to
such maddening inhumanity as this. The instances are not few of idiotcy
or death from terror so caused.”
Children should not be hedged-in with any great number of rules and
regulations. Such as are necessary to be established, they should be
required implicitly to observe. But there should be none that are
superfluous. It is only in rich families, where there is a plentiful
attendance of governors and nurses, that many rules can be enforced; and
it is believed that the constant attention of governors and nurses is
one of the greatest moral disadvantages to which the children of the
rich are exposed.
Coleridge has well said: “The most graceful objects in nature are little
children—before they have learned to dance.”
“Grace,” says Archbishop Whately, “is in a great measure a natural gift;
elegance implies cultivation, or something of more artificial character.
A rustic, uneducated girl may be graceful, but an elegant woman must be
accomplished and well trained. It is the same with things as with
persons; we talk of a graceful tree, but of an elegant house or other
building. Animals may be graceful, but they cannot be elegant. The
movements of a kitten or a young fawn are full of grace; but to call
them ‘elegant’ animals would be absurd. Lastly, ‘elegant’ may be applied
to mental qualifications, which ‘graceful’ never can. Elegance must
always imply something that is made or invented by man. An imitation of
nature is not so; therefore we do not speak of an ‘elegant picture,’
though we do of an elegant pattern for a gown, an elegant piece of work.
The general rule is, that elegance is the characteristic of art, and
grace of nature.”
EDUCATION AT HOME.
Education at Home has been thus aptly illustrated: History and Geography
should begin at home. If we want a boy to know some day the families of
the Herods and the Cæsars, let him start by learning who was his own
grandfather. The Church Catechism rightly commences by making the child
tell his own name; it would be in many cases almost puzzling, but in all
cases and senses a most proper question, to ask him, further, the names
of his godfathers and godmothers; and so carrying him gradually onward,
he would know, what seldom happens, the kings of England before he
attempts those of Israel and Judah. This principle holds as true of
places as of persons. The things that touch us nearest interest us most.
Geography should begin from the school-walls: “Which side of this room
does the sun rise on?” “Does Church-lane run west or north?” “Whither
does the brook flow that rises on Squash-hill?” In this way the young
scholar would in time be brought to comprehend the round world and his
own position on it, and probably with some clearer perception of the
truth and relation of things than if he had begun by rote: “The earth is
a terraqueous globe, depressed at the poles, consisting of,” &c. But we
are all taught on the contrary plan. We begin at the wrong end; for, in
the ladder of learning, _Ego_, not Adam, is the true No. 1. We start
from the equator instead of High-street, and the result is the
lamentable fact, that even educated men are strangers in their own
country, and thousands die within the sound of Bow-bells who have never
seen the inside of St. Paul’s. Topography, then, should precede
geography. Yet perhaps there is not a schoolroom in England where a
county map is to be found hung up on the wall. Frightened by the
remembrance of having been once the deluded subscriber to a
Topographical Dictionary, even students have a horror of the word; and
the subject is consigned, in expensive folios, to a few professed
antiquaries, or to some eccentric member of a county family, who emerges
every third or fourth generation to preserve a provincial dignity which
he would not willingly let die.[70]
---------------------
Footnote 70:
_Quarterly Review._
----------------------------
TENDERNESS OF YOUTH.
Leaving home the first time, for school, has been thus pathetically
described by Southey: “The pain which is felt when we are first
transplanted from our native soil, when the living branch is cut from
the parent tree, is one of the most poignant griefs which we have to
endure through life. There are after-griefs which wound more deeply,
which leave behind them scars never to be effaced, which bruise the
spirit, and sometimes break the heart: but never do we feel so keenly
the want of love, the necessity of being loved, and the utter sense of
desertion, as when we first leave the haven of home, and are, as it
were, pushed off upon the stream of life.” Nelson, when he was sent a
boy first to rough it out at sea, felt this loneliness most acutely: he
paced the deck most of the day without being noticed by any one; and it
was not till the second day that somebody, as he expresses it, “took
compassion on him.” Nelson had a feeble body and an affectionate heart,
and he remembered through life his first days of wretchedness in the
service.
Humanity to animals has been thus eloquently enjoined upon children by
Dr. Parr: “He that can look with rapture upon the agonies of an
unoffending and unresisting animal, will soon learn to view the
sufferings of a fellow-creature with indifference: and in time he will
acquire the power of viewing them with triumph, if that fellow-creature
should become the victim of his resentment, be it just or unjust. But
the minds of children are open to impressions of every sort, and indeed
wonderful is the facility with which a judicious instructor may
habituate them to tender emotions. I have therefore always considered
mercy to beings of an inferior species as a virtue which children are
very capable of learning, but which is most difficult to be taught if
the heart has been once familiarised to spectacles of distress, and has
been permitted either to behold the pangs of any living creature with
cold insensibility, or to inflict them with wanton barbarity.”
BUSINESS OF EDUCATION.
Among the many recommendations which will always attach to a public
system of education, the value of early emulation, the force of example,
the abandonment of sulky and selfish habits, and the acquirement of
generous, manly dispositions, are not to be overlooked. To begin at the
beginning is the only royal road to learning; and this is only to be
reached by attention to elementary truths. Yet this is difficult, even
for cultivated men. “In reality,” says Dr. Temple, “elementary truths
are the hardest of all to learn, unless we pass our childhood in an
atmosphere thoroughly impregnated with them; and then we imbibe them
unconsciously, and find it difficult to perceive their difficulty.”[71]
Yet how few children have this advantage: so many false impressions are
received in childhood, that the first business of education proper is to
_unlearn_.
The superior influence of example over precept is thus eloquently
illustrated by Carlyle: “Is not love, from of old, known to be the
beginning of all things? And what is admiration of the great but love of
the truly lovable? The first product of love is imitation, that
all-important peculiar gift of man, whereby mankind is not only held
socially together in the present time, but connected in like union with
the past and future; so that the attainment of the innumerable departed
can be conveyed down to the living, and transmitted with increase to the
unborn. Now, great men, in particular spiritually great men (for all men
have a spirit to guide, though all have not kingdoms to govern and
battles to fight), are the men universally imitated and learned of, the
glass in which whole generations survey and shape themselves.”
Lord Jeffrey has remarked upon the necessity of early restraint, that
Young people who have been habitually gratified in all their desires
will not only more indulge in capricious desires, but will
infallibly take it more amiss when the feelings or happiness of
others require that they should be thwarted, than those who have
been practically trained to the habit of subduing and restraining
them; and consequently will in general sacrifice the happiness of
others to their own selfish indulgence. To what else is the
selfishness of princes and other great people to be attributed? It
is in vain to think of cultivating principles of generosity and
beneficence by mere exhortation and reasoning. Nothing but the
_practical habit_ of overcoming our own selfishness, and of
familiarly encountering privations and discomfort on account of
others, will ever enable us to do it when required. And therefore I
am firmly persuaded that indulgence infallibly produces selfishness
and hardness of heart, and that nothing but a pretty severe
discipline and control can lay the foundation of a magnanimous
character.
---------------------
Footnote 71:
_Education of the World._
----------------------------
THE CLASSICS.
Especially was Dr. Arnold an orthodox Oxonian in his belief of the
indispensable usefulness of Classical Learning, not only as an important
branch of knowledge, but as the substantial basis of education itself,
the importance of which he thus forcibly illustrates: “The study of
Greek and Latin, considered as mere languages, is of importance mainly
as it enables us to understand and employ well that language in which we
commonly think and speak and write. It does this because Greek and Latin
are specimens of language at once highly perfect and incapable of being
understood without long and minute attention: the study of them,
therefore, naturally involves that of the general principles of grammar;
while their peculiar excellences illustrate the points which render
language clear and forcible and beautiful. But our _application_ of this
general knowledge must naturally be to our own language: to show us what
are its peculiarities, what its beauties, what its defects; to teach us,
by the patterns or the analogies offered by other languages, how the
effect we admire in them may be produced with a somewhat different
instrument. Every lesson in Greek or Latin may and ought to be made a
lesson in English; the translation of every sentence in Demosthenes or
Tacitus is properly an extemporaneous English composition; a problem,
how to express with equal brevity, clearness, and force, in our own
language, the thought which the original author has so admirably
expressed in his.”
In other words, Dr. Arnold was the first English commentator who gave
life to the study of the Classics, by bringing the facts and manners
which they disclose to the test of real life.
Mr. Buckle, siding with the anti-classicists, remarks that, “With the
single exception of Porson, not one of the great English scholars has
shown an appreciation of the beauties of his native language; and many
of them, such as Parr (in all his works) and Bentley (in his mad edition
of Milton) have done every thing in their power to corrupt it. And there
can be little doubt that the principal reason why well-educated women
write and converse in a purer style than well-educated men, is because
they have not formed their taste according to those ancient classical
standards, which, admirable as they are in themselves, should never be
introduced into a state of society unfitted for them. To this may be
added, that Cobbett, the most racy and idiomatic of all our writers, and
Erskine, by far the greatest of our forensic orators, knew little or
nothing of any ancient language; and the same observation applies to
Shakspeare.”[72]
Our author has been just to Porson, to whom chiefly English scholarship
owes its accuracy and its certainty; and this as a branch of
education—as a substratum on which to rest other branches of knowledge
often infinitely more useful in themselves—really takes as high a rank
as any of those studies which can contribute to form the character of a
well-educated English gentleman.
---------------------
Footnote 72:
_History of Civilisation in England._
----------------------------
LIBERAL EDUCATION.
Dean Hook has written the following able defence of a Liberal Education,
as distinguished from the special training for a profession:
A Liberal Education is to the present time the characteristic of
what is called a University Education. By a liberal education is
meant a non-professional education. By a non-professional education
is meant an education conducted without reference to the future
profession, or calling, or special pursuit for which the person
under education is designed. It is an education which is regarded
not merely as a means, but as something which is in itself an end.
The end proposed is not the formation of the divine, or the
physician, or the lawyer, or the statesman, or the soldier, or the
man of business, or the botanist, or the chemist, or the man of
science, or even the scholar; but simply of the thinker.
It is admitted that the highest eminence can only be attained by the
concentration of the mind, with a piercing intensity and singleness
of view, upon one field of action. In order to excel, each mind must
have its specific end. A man may know many things well, but there is
only one thing upon which he will be preëminently learned, and
become an authority. The professional man may be compared to one
whose eye is fixed upon a microscope. The rest of the world is
abstracted from his field of vision, and the eye, though narrowed to
a scarcely perceptible hole, is able to see what is indiscernible by
others. When he observes accurately, he becomes, in his department,
a learned man; and when he reveals his observations, he is a
benefactor of his kind. All that the university system does is to
delay the professional education as long as possible; it would apply
to the training of the mind a discipline analogous to that which
common sense suggests in what relates to bodily exercise. A father,
ambitious for his son that he might win the prize at the Olympian
games or in the Pythian fields, devoted his first attention not to
the technicalities of the game, but to the general condition and
morals of the youth. The success of the athlete depended upon his
first becoming a healthy man. So the university system trains the
man, and defers the professional education as long as circumstances
will permit. It makes provision, before the eye is narrowed to the
microscope, that the eye itself shall be in a healthy condition; it
expands the mind before contracting it; it would educate mind as
such before bending it down to the professional point; it does not
regard the mind as an animal to be fattened for the market, by
cramming it with food before it has acquired the power of digestion,
but treats it rather as an instrument to be tuned, as a metal to be
refined, as a weapon to be sharpened.
This is the system which the old universities of Europe have
inherited.
Philology, logic, and mathematics are still the instruments employed
for the discipline of the mind, which is the end and object of a
Liberal Education.[73]
The best education has been thus bodied forth: “Let a man’s pride be to
be a gentleman: furnish him with elegant and refined pleasures, imbue
him with the love of intellectual pursuits, and you have a better
security for his turning out a good citizen and a good Christian, than
if you have confined him by the strictest moral and religious
discipline, kept him in innocent and unsuspecting ignorance of all the
vices of youth, and in the mechanical and orderly routine of the
severest system of education.”[74]
---------------------
Footnote 73:
_Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury._
Footnote 74:
_Quarterly Review_, No. 103.
----------------------------
DR. ARNOLD’S SCHOOL REFORM.
Dr. Arnold, from his entering upon the head-mastership of Rugby, threw
himself into the great work of school reform, based upon the
associations of his boyhood, and the convictions of his more mature
experience. “To do his duty was the height of his ambition,—those truly
English sentiments by which Nelson and Wellington were inspired; and,
like them, he was crowned with victory; for soon were verified the
predictions of the Provost of Oriel, that _he would change the face of
education through the public schools of England_. He was minded,
_virtute officii_, to combine the care of souls with that of the
intellects of the rising generation, and to realise the Scripture in
principle and practice, without making an English school a college of
Jesuits. His principles were few: the fear of God was the beginning of
his wisdom; and his object was not so much to teach knowledge, as the
means of acquiring it; to furnish, in a word, the key to the temple. He
desired to awaken the intellect of each individual boy, and contended
that the main movement must come from within and not from without the
pupil; and that all that could be, should be _done by_ him and not _for_
him. In a word, his scheme was to call forth in the little world of
school those capabilities which best befitted the boy for his career in
the great one.”[75]
---------------------
Footnote 75:
_Quarterly Review_, No. 204. In the latter sentence is conveyed the
advantage which education in a large school has over education at
home.
----------------------------
SCHOOL INDULGENCE.
Nothing is more prejudicial to after-success in life than indulgence to
youth when at school. Sir James Mackintosh felt and acknowledged this
error. He tells us that when he left school he could only imperfectly
construe a small part of Virgil, Horace, and Sallust: he adds, “Whatever
I have done beyond, has been since added by my own irregular reading.
But no subsequent circumstance could make up for that invaluable habit
of vigorous and methodical industry which the indulgence and
irregularity of my school-life prevented me from acquiring, and of which
I have painfully felt the want in every part of my life.”
Another mistake is a profuse allowance of Pocket-money at School: we
once heard an old Westminster declare that to his unlimited supply of
money when at the college he attributed over-indulgence in luxuries
which had injured his health, and often rendered him the dupe of mean
and designing persons—full-grown parasites—mischievous as the plants of
that name, which bear down the trees they attack, and rob them of the
food intended for their own leaves and fruit.
UNSOUND TEACHING.
The general unsoundness of what is termed an English education is, to a
great extent, accounted for by the little attention paid in the
Universities, Colleges, and Schools to teaching our native language, and
especially to the proper teaching of English in schools for the people.
The results of this neglect of the mother-tongue are multitudinous. “The
mass of our population, in spite of all that has been done, must be
considered densely ignorant. Millions never open a book. Nearly fifteen
millions never enter church or chapel. Other causes may operate, but the
want of a knowledge of language is a potent one. People whose vocabulary
is limited to about three hundred words cannot follow a sermon, and
clergymen who have never been taught the value of plain Saxon English
cannot preach one. Then, amongst the middle and upper classes, how
superficial is the knowledge of English. How few can write a common
letter without faults in grammar, choice of words, or spelling.
Punctuation is absolutely ignored by many. What are the speeches at
public meetings, or rather, how would they appear in print but for the
talent of the reporters, who bring order out of chaos? The results of
the Civil-Service Examinations abundantly prove the justice of these
strictures; and the fruits of University training, or rather
non-training, are too patent to require illustration. Our clergy often
carry into the prayer-desk and pulpit all the defects of early life,—the
provincial accent, the sing-song tone, the nasal twang, the lisp, or
burr, or stammer; indistinct utterance, inaudible reading and
vociferation, wrong emphasis, undue stress on enclitics, and many other
faults. Good sermons are the exception rather than the rule; for if
sound in doctrine and full of zeal, the style is often obscure or
pedantic or inflated, and the delivery monotonous and soporific. In the
Senate, though most of the Members are University men, there are but few
really effective speakers. Were our senators trained to speak well—that
is, to the point—much time would be saved, and public business
despatched more rapidly.”
The remedies suggested by the Rev. Dr. D’Orsey are:
1. Training-schools for nursery governesses, who, without knowing or
pretending to know French and Italian, should speak English without
vulgarisms. 2. Greater attention in our present training colleges
for schoolmasters to due instruction in English, especially in
correct and fluent speaking. 3. More encouragement to men of talent
and education to become and to remain schoolmasters, by holding out
the prospect of honourable offices to distinguished teachers. Why
should Inspectorships of Schools be always given to clergymen and
barristers, to the exclusion of the schoolmaster? 4. The appointment
of a thoroughly accomplished scholar as English Master in every
great public school, of equal rank with the other masters. 5. The
endowment of at least one Professorship in every University. 6. The
recognition of English as a subject in every examination not
strictly scientific, and rewarding distinction in composition or
oratory in the same substantial manner as eminence in classics or
mathematics.
Sir John Coleridge relates the following inefficient examples of
school-teaching which have come under his observation: “An Examiner was
about, and he had a class before him—the first class in arithmetic. They
were able to answer questions; they had gone through all the higher
branches of arithmetic, and were prepared to answer any thing. But he
said, ‘I will give you a sum in simple addition.’ He accordingly
dictated a sum, and cautiously interspersed a good many ciphers.
Suppose, for instance, he said, ‘a thousand and forty-nine.’ He found
there was not one in the class who was able to put down that sum in
simple addition; they could not make count of the ciphers. That showed
him the boys had been suffered to pass over far too quickly the
elementary parts of arithmetic. The examiner took them in grammar, and
quoted a few lines from Cowper—
I am monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute.
‘What governs right?’ There was not a boy could say, till it was put to
them, ‘none to dispute my right.’
“Let me impress upon you that the best motto you can take for yourselves
in this respect is that which was taken by a most eminent man who made
his way from a hair-dresser’s shop to be Chief Justice Tenterden. What
was his motto? When a man is made a judge, he is made a serjeant; and as
serjeant he gives rings to some of the great officers of State, with a
motto upon each. His motto was ‘Labore.’ He did not refer to his own
talents. It was not ‘Invita Minerva.’ To his immortal honour be it
said—from the hair-dresser’s shop in Canterbury to the Free School in
Canterbury; from the Free School in Canterbury to Corpus Christi
College; from Corpus Christi College to the bar; from the bar to the
bench; from the bench to the peerage—he achieved all with unimpeachable
honour, and always practising that which was his motto at last. One of
the most gratifying scenes I have ever witnessed was when that man went
up to the House of Peers in his robes for the first time, attended by
the whole bar of England.”
SELF-FORMATION.
The one great object—the finality—of rational Education is
Self-instruction. In mind as well as body we are children at first, only
that we may afterwards become men; dependent upon others, in order that
we may learn from them such lessons as may tend eventually to our
edification on an independent basis of our own. The knowledge of facts,
or what is generally called learning, however much we may possess of it,
is useful so far only as we erect its materials into a mental framework;
but useless, utterly, as long as we suffer it to lie in a heap, inert
and without form. The instruction of others, compared with
self-instruction, is like the law compared with faith; a discipline of
preparation, beggarly elements, a schoolmaster to lead us on to a state
of greater worthiness, and there give up the charge of us.
“Every man,” says Gibbon, “who rises above the common level, receives
two educations—the first from his instructors; the second, the most
personal and important, from himself.” Almost all Lord Eldon’s legal
education was from himself, without even the ordinary helps, which he
disdainfully flung from him; and of no one could it be more truly
predicated, that he was not “rocked and dandled” into a lawyer.
The Rev. Sydney Smith has thus sketched a scheme, in which he deems it
of the highest importance that the education of a British youth were
directed to the true principles of legislation: what effect laws can
produce upon opinions, and opinions upon laws; what subjects are fit for
legislative interference, and when men may be left to the management of
their own interests. The mischief occasioned by bad laws, and the
perplexity which arises from a multiplicity of laws; the causes of
national wealth; the relations of foreign trade; the encouragement of
agricultures and manufactures; the fictitious wealth occasioned by
paper-credit; the use and abuse of monopoly; the theory of taxation; the
consequences of the public debt: these are some of the subjects and some
of the branches of civil education, to which we would turn the minds of
future judges, future senators, and future noblemen. After the first
period of life had been given up to the cultivation of the classics, and
the remaining powers were beginning to evolve themselves, these are some
of the propensities in study which we would endeavour to inspire.
PRACTICAL DISCIPLINE.
The want of Practical Discipline has been thus put by a writer in
_Blackwood’s Magazine_: “What is the use of battering a man’s brains
full of Greek and Latin pothooks, that he forgets before he doffs his
last round-jacket or puts on his first long-tailed blue, if ye don’t
teach him the old Spartan virtue of obedience, hard living, early
rising, and them sort of classics? Where’s the use of instructing him in
hexameters or pentameters, if you would leave him in ignorance of the
value of a pennypiece? What height of stupidity it is to be fillin’ a
boy’s brains with the wisdom of the ancients, and then turn him out like
an _omadhaum_, to pick up his victuals among the moderns!”
With equal truth, but finer humour, has Sydney Smith, at his own
expense, exposed this neglect of the practical as a fair indication of
the mode of English education. He is writing to his publisher, whom he
tells: “I have twice endeavoured to write the word _skipping_—‘_skipping
spirit_.’ Your printer first printed it ’stripling,’ and then altered it
into _stripping_. The fault is entirely mine. I was fifteen years at
school and college—I know something about the Romans and the Athenians,
and have read a good deal about the præter-perfect tense—but I cannot do
a sum in simple addition, or _write a handwriting which any body can
read_.”
“CRAMMING.”
Cramming, which in our time was a cant term in the Universities for the
art of preparing a student to pass an examination by furnishing him
beforehand with the requisite answers, has travelled far beyond the
tether of Oxford or Cambridge. Its abuse is well described by Watts: “As
a man may be eating all day, and for want of digestion is never
nourished, so these endless readers may cram themselves in vain with
intellectual food.” It reminds one also of the Baconian saw—of those who
can pack the cards, yet know not how to play them.
A president Examiner of articled clerks at the Law Institution has
observed upon this forcing system:
I for one, and I am glad of the opportunity of expressing it, abhor
all Cramming; and I hold very cheaply the system of Competitive
Examination, which is nowadays begun almost in the nursery, and
thought so highly of in some quarters as a test. It is not to be
expected, without inverting the natural order of things, that a
youth of twenty or twenty-one should have exhausted those stores of
learning which Coke speaks of as requiring not less than the
_lucubrationes viginti annorum_; and remember that those twenty
years would begin at that period of life on which most of you are
now but entering. In this view the papers before you have been
prepared, and our aim as examiners has been to set such questions as
will prove you to possess the elements of a liberal education; and
that you have so far acquired the principles of common law, equity,
conveyancing, criminal law, and bankruptcy, that you are entitled to
enter upon the practice of your profession, leaving its complete
mastery to that experience which time alone can supply. I need not
remind you of the men who, beginning as attorneys, have attained to
high positions in the State. The portrait of Lord Chancellor Truro
hangs before you on these walls. I had the privilege of knowing him
personally; his example may well stimulate your ambition, and
animate your exertions, for never man won high place with more
unremitting labour than he did; not, however, at the expense of his
childhood or of his youth, not by the sacrifice of all else for mere
mental culture, but by the full-grown energies, by the well-directed
vigour and power of the man, for he was between thirty and forty
years of age before he was called to the bar.
MATHEMATICS.
Mathematics drew from Edmund Gurney the odd definition, that “a
mathematician is like one that goes to market to buy an axe to break an
egg.”
Bacon complains that men do not sufficiently understand the excellent
use of the Pure Mathematics, in that they do remedy and cure many
defects in the wit and faculties intellectual. For if the wit be too
dull, they sharpen it; if too wandering, they fix it; if too inherent in
the sense, they abstract it. So that as tennis is a game of no use in
itself, but of great use in respect it maketh a quick eye, and a body
ready to put itself into any postures; so in the mathematics, that use
which is collateral and intervenient is no less worthy than that which
is principal and intended. And as for the Mixed Mathematics, I only make
this prediction, that there cannot fail to be more kinds of them, as
nature grows further disclosed;” thus foretelling the advance of Natural
Philosophy.
However, the understanding of Applied Mathematics is not unattainable
under ordinary circumstances. Lord Rosse has observed that, without any
special mathematical knowledge, a well-informed man may often, in the
results announced, and from the observations elicited, obtain very
interesting glimpses of the nature of mathematical processes, and some
general idea as to the progress making in that direction. In applied
mathematics there is much more of general interest, and the results are
often perfectly intelligible without special education. In proof of this
Lord Rosse adduces, that “at the meeting of the British Association at
Oxford, the general results of a very abstruse investigation in applied
mathematics in physical astronomy were made very interesting. The
subject was so brought forward as to rivet the attention of the whole
section, and there were many ladies present. The paper was given in by
M. Leverrier, and the subject was the identification of a comet. How
wonderful from its origin has been the progress of mathematical science!
Beginning perhaps three thousand years ago almost from nothing—one
simple relation of magnitude suggesting another, and those relations
gradually becoming more complicated, more interesting, I may add more
important, till at length in our day it has expanded into a science
which enables us to _weigh the planets_, and, more wonderful still, to
calculate the course they will take when acted continually upon by
forces varying in magnitude and direction.”
We trace in Porson’s habits of thought the influence which the study of
mathematics had upon him.[76] He was to his dying day fond of these
studies. There are still preserved many papers of his scribbled over
with mathematical calculations; and when the fit seized him in the
street which caused his death, an equation was found in his pocket.
---------------------
Footnote 76:
In enabling him to give to English scholarship its accuracy and
certainty,—as a substratum on which to rest other branches of
knowledge often more useful in themselves. See Mr. Luard’s able
_Cambridge Essay_.
----------------------------
ARISTOTLE.
Aristotle’s Philosophy, from its being upheld by the Roman Catholic
theology, was lowered in a corresponding degree by the Reformation.
Hence it fell into undeserved neglect during the latter part of the
seventeenth and the whole of the eighteenth century. Of late years,
however, the true worth of his writings has been more fully appreciated,
and the study of his best treatises has been much revived. Dr. Holland
remarks: “The whole of Aristotle’s writings on Sleep, and other
collateral topics, deserve much more frequent perusal than is given to
them in the present day.” The geological theory of Lyell, viz. that the
causes which produce geological phenomena are in constant and gradual
operation, is the theory of Aristotle and John Ray brought down to our
present state of knowledge.
It has been well said that Solomon, Aristotle, and Bacon are the only
three men, since our race appeared on earth, who would have been
justified in saying that “they took all knowledge for their province.”
GEOLOGY IN EDUCATION.
The genius of Werner, of De Saussure, and of Cuvier, laid the
foundations on which Geology now rests. They gave us the first glimpse
of the fauna and flora of the earlier ages of our planet. Professor
Jameson soon saw that these investigations would also lead to much
curious information in regard to the former physical and geographical
distribution of plants and animals; and to the changes which the
animated world in general, and particular genera and species, have
undergone, and probably are still undergoing; and he would naturally be
led to speculate on the changes that must have taken place in the
climate of the globe during these various changes and revolutions. The
writings of Blumenbach, Von Hoff, Cuvier, Brongniart, Steffens, and
other naturalists, are proofs of what has been done by following up the
views of Werner. Ami Boué, speaking of the services Professor Jameson
has rendered to science, says: “He has spread valuable working pupils
all over the world, and he was the electric spark which originated the
beginning of true geology in Great Britain.”
It is not much more than seventy years since Bishop Watson, a man of
no mean abilities and of no slight distinction, turned the science
of geology into open ridicule. He said that the geologists who
attempted to speculate on the internal formation of the globe
reminded him only of a gnat which might be perched upon the
shoulders of an elephant, and might, by the reach of its tiny
puncture, affect to tell him what was the whole internal structure
of the majestic animal below.[77] Listen now to the language of an
eminent man of the present day, Sir David Brewster, on the same
great subject: “How interesting must it be to study such
phenomena—to escape for a while from the works of man—to go back to
primeval times, and learn how its Maker moulded the earth—how He
wore down the primitive mass into the strata of its present
surface—how He deposited the precious metals in its bowels—how He
filled it with races of living animals, and again buried them in its
depths, to chronicle the steps of creative power—how He covered its
surface with its fruit-bearing soil, and spread out the waters of
the deep as the great highway of nations, to unite into one
brotherhood the different races of his creatures, and to bless them
by the interchange of their produce and their affections!” And
again, referring to the discoveries of the great Cuvier in connexion
with geology, he says: “In thus deciphering the handwriting of
nature on her tablets of stone, the same distinguished naturalist
discovered that all organised beings were not created at the same
period. In the commissariat of Providence the stores were provided
before the arrival of the host that was to devour them. Plants were
created before animals, the molluscous fishes next appeared, then
the reptiles, and last of all the mammiferous quadrupeds completed
the scale of animal life.” Such are the terms in which able men now
refer to geological science.[78]
Fortunately, the science of Geology is an eminently popular one. The
arguments which go to establish its leading doctrines require no long
course of previous study to make them intelligible, and its professors,
in this country at least, have been no way disposed to confine their
teaching to the sanctuaries of learning. Wherever an audience can be
gathered together, some eminent geologist is always ready to discourse
for the benefit of the gentiles of science, who have rewarded their
instructors by a larger share of popularity than is generally bestowed
on the professors of other branches of physical knowledge. The
consequence is, that a smattering of Geology is now very generally
diffused amongst the upper and middle classes in this country—an
excellent thing in itself, since even a smattering of natural science
helps to enlarge and elevate the mind, but sometimes inconvenient,
because few learn enough to get a correct idea of the extent of their
own ignorance as compared with the smallness of their knowledge. In the
interest of science, the main point to be gained is that, out of the
large number who approach the threshold, a sufficient number should be
induced to enter into her service, and that each of these should find
work fit for his strength and his special faculties. Measured in this
way, the progress of Geology seems to be sufficiently satisfactory.[79]
---------------------
Footnote 77:
Mr. Watson, among other qualities, which certainly contributed to his
advancement in life, possessed a happy confidence in himself, and an
opinion of his own fitness for any situation to which he should think
proper to aspire, though totally destitute at the time of every
qualification requisite to the discharge of its functions. On the 19th
of November 1764, he informs us, “I was unanimously elected by the
Senate, assembled in full congregation, Professor of Chemistry. At the
time this honour was conferred upon me _I knew nothing at all of
chemistry_; had never read a syllable on the subject, nor seen a
single experiment in it.”—_Quarterly Review_, vol. xviii. p. 233.
Footnote 78:
Sir John Pakington, M.P.
Footnote 79:
_Saturday Review._
----------------------------
THE BEST EDUCATION.
Philip de Mornay enjoins: “The best thing to be instilled into the minds
of children, is to fear God. This is the beginning, the middle, and the
end, of wisdom. Next, they ought to be induced to be kind one to
another. Great care ought to be taken to guard against speaking on
improper subjects in their presence, since lasting impressions are made
at a very early age; on the contrary, our conversation ought to be on
good and instructive topics. Imperceptibly to themselves or others, they
derive great benefit from such discourse; for it is quite certain that
children take the tinge either of good or evil, without the process
being discovered.”
True excellence is only to be arrived at by the true Education; for in
Education, as in all the rest of life, there are two ways of acting.
“The one way, when the learner looks upon his powers as his own, and
works them in a self-confident, hard spirit; which is by far the
quickest way to temporary success. The other, when the learner, looking
upon all his powers as given to him, works humbly in a tentative spirit,
distrusting self, keeping the heart open to improvement, thinking that
every body and every thing can teach him something; putting himself, in
fact, in God’s hand, as a learner, not as a judge. To such a spirit
belongs the promise that he shall be led into all truth. Directly we
imagine we know a thing, we close our stores, and shut the gates against
fresh treasures; but whilst laying up truth, still think that all is
incomplete, still humbly think, however broad and firm and deep the
foundation we have laid may be, that eternity shall not suffice for the
superstructure; in fact, still hold the vessel to be filled, and God
will ever fill it; still use that fulness in His service, and at the
right time the right thing shall come. Nothing but pride shuts out
knowledge. Who is not conscious, taking only the merest intellectual
work, how little really depends on himself, how many thoughts are direct
gifts, how much precious material _comes_ into his hands, is given—is
given—not his own; who will not admit, if nothing more, that a headache,
a qualm, may destroy his cherished hopes, so little can he rely on
self?”[80]
The late Baron Alderson, writing to his son, says: “I have sent you to
Eton that you may be taught your duties as an English young gentleman.
The first duty of such a person is to be a good and religious Christian;
the next is to be a good scholar; and the third is to be accomplished in
all manly exercises and games, such as rowing, swimming, jumping,
cricket, and the like. Most boys, I fear, begin at the wrong end, and
take the last first; and, what is still worse, never arrive at either of
the other two at all. I hope, however, better things of you; and to hear
first that you are a good, truthful, honest boy, and then that you are
one of the hardest workers in your class; and after that, I confess I
shall be by no means sorry to hear that you can show the idle boys that
an industrious one can be a good cricketer, and jump as wide a ditch, or
clear as high a hedge, as any of them.”
---------------------
Footnote 80:
Thring’s _Sermons delivered at Uppingham School_.
----------------------------
ADVICE TO THE STUDENT.
Dr. Arnold has given this sound counsel: “Preserve proportion in your
reading, keep your view of men and things extensive, and, _depend upon
it, a mixed knowledge is not a superficial one;_ as far as it goes, the
views that it gives are true; but he who reads deeply in one class of
writers only, gets views which are almost sure to be perverted, and
which are not only narrow but false.”
It is a great mistake to suppose that full employment shuts out leisure.
The secret of leisure is to have eight hours a day entirely devoted to
business, and you will then find you have time for other pursuits; this
for some time to come will seem to you a paradox; but you will one day
be convinced of the truth, that the man who is the most engaged has
always the most leisure.
KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM.
That Knowledge is not True Wisdom cannot be too strongly urged upon
youth. “There is a heaping up of knowledge just as amenable to this
censure as the ignorance of the unlearned, not indeed so censured by
man, but equally worthy of it in a true judgment. The intellectual fool,
full of knowledge but without wisdom, whose way is right in his own
eyes, is no less a fool, nay, more so, than the ignorant fool, and as
far from true wisdom. For knowledge is a very different thing from
wisdom; knowledge is but the collecting together of a mass of material
at best, whilst wisdom is the right perception and right use leading to
further riches. The mere heaper-up of knowledge digs, as it were, ore
out of the earth, working underground in darkness; whereas the wise man
fashions all his knowledge into use and beauty, praising and blessing
God with it, and receiving from Him a fuller measure in consequence.
Wisdom is knowledge applied to life and to the praise of God,—a thing of
the heart, the heart controlling and using all the head gathers;
knowledge by itself is a mere barren store of the head, quite separable
from goodness and love,—a thing capable of being possessed by devils.
For this we must mark, the humblest good heart which loves God alone can
attain to the knowledge of God. No mere intellectual power and pride can
do that. And hence we may see why the man whose way is right in his own
eyes is a fool.”[81]
Montaigne thus points out an educational error, common in our time as
well as in that of this charming writer, whom a gentleman is ashamed not
to have read:
The care and expense our parents are at have no other aim but to
furnish our heads with knowledge, but not a word of judgment and
virtue. Cry out of one that passes by to our people, “Oh, what a
learned man is that!” and of another, “Oh, what a good man is that!”
they will not fail to turn their eyes and pay their respects to the
former. There should then be a third man to cry out, “Oh, what
blockheads they are!” Men are ready to ask, “Does he understand
Greek or Latin—is he a poet or prose-writer?” But whether he is the
better or more discreet man, though it is the main question, is the
last; for the inquiry should be, who has the best learning, not who
has the most. We only take pains to stuff the memory, and leave the
understanding and conscience quite unfurnished. Of what service is
it to us to have a bellyful of meat, if it does not digest—if it
does not change its form in our bodies—and if it does not nourish
and strengthen us? We suffer ourselves to lean so much upon the arms
of others, that our strength is of no use to us. Would I fortify
myself against the fear of death, I do it at the expense of Seneca;
would I extract consolation for myself or my friend, I borrow it
from Cicero; whereas I might have found it in myself, if I had been
trained up in the exercise of my own reason. I do not fancy the
acquiescence in second-hand hearsay knowledge; for though we may be
learned by the help of another’s knowledge, we can never be wise but
by our own wisdom. Agesilaus being asked what he thought most proper
for boys to learn, replied: What they ought to do when they come to
be men.
---------------------
Footnote 81:
Thring’s _Sermons delivered at Uppingham School_.
----------------------------
EDUCATION ALARMISTS.
That a little learning is a dangerous thing, is an old saying, which has
been fearfully repeated in these days; but a little learning every one
will have, and the only way of averting the danger is, by providing the
people with all facilities for acquiring more.
Lord Stowell was no admirer of the prevailing rage for universal
education, and made a remark with which Lord Sidmouth was much struck:
“If you provide,” he said, “a larger amount of cultivated talent than
there is a demand for, the surplus is very likely to turn sour.”
Sir John Coleridge, in expressing his high sense of the obligations of
the country to the University of Oxford for their recent aids to
Middle-Class Education, says: “If the lower orders are to be raised in
political power in this country, to make that a blessing you must
cultivate the lower orders for discharging the duties to be thrown upon
them. Therefore it is that I think the University of Oxford conferred
the largest benefit that it had in its power to confer upon this country
at large, when, passing simply from the education of the higher orders
and those who were destined for the Church, it spread out its hands in a
frank and liberal spirit to all classes of society, and offered to
connect every body with itself, in a certain measure, who would only fit
himself for it by proper application.”
YORKSHIRE SCHOOLS.
The disappearance from our newspapers of strings of “Education”
advertisements of Schools with low tariffs in Yorkshire, shows the
effect of satiric humour in correcting abuses of our own time. The
dietary of a school in Yorkshire, barmecide breakfasts and dinners, was
often held up _in terrorem_ to refractory boys, who heard the threat of
“I’ll send you to Yorkshire,” with fear and trembling. Mr. Dickens gives
an admirable exposure of this Spartan system in his tale of _Nicholas
Nickleby_, in the preface to which he says:
I cannot call to mind now how I came to hear about Yorkshire
schools, when I was not a very robust child, sitting in bye places,
near Rochester Castle, with a head full of Partridge, Strap, Tom
Pipes, and Sancho Panza; but I know that my first impressions of
them were picked up at that time, and that they were, somehow or
other, connected with a suppurated abscess that some boy had come
home with in consequence of his Yorkshire guide, philosopher, and
friend having ripped it open with an inky penknife.
Before the book was written, Mr. Dickens went into Yorkshire to look for
a school in which the imaginary boy of an imaginary widow might be put
away until the thawing of a tardy compassion in that widow’s imaginary
friends. Then some stern realities were seen; and we are told also, in
the preface, of a supper with a real John Browdie, whose answer as to
the search for a cheap Yorkshire schoolmaster was, “Dom’d if ar can gang
to bed and not tellee, for weedur’s sak’, to keep the lattle boy from a’
sike scoundrels, while there’s a harse to hoold in a’ London, or a
goother to lie asleep in!”
BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG.
Great mistakes have been made in writing books for children. When Sir
Walter Scott was about to write his _Tales of a Grandfather_, he
remarked: “I am persuaded both children and the lower class of readers
hate books which are written _down_ to their capacity, and love those
that are composed for their elders and betters. I will make, if
possible, a book that a child shall understand, yet a man should feel
some temptation to peruse should he chance to take it up.... The grand
and interesting consists in ideas, not in words.” Again, “the problem of
narrating history is at once to excite and gratify the curiosity of
youth, and please and instruct the wisest of mature minds.”[82]
---------------------
Footnote 82:
Lockhart’s _Life of Scott_.
----------------------------
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.
The treasures of our tongue, says Dr. Richardson, the lexicographer, are
spread over continents, and cultivated among islands in the northern and
the southern hemisphere, from “the unformed Occident to the strange
shores of unknowing nations in the East.” The sun, indeed, now never
sets upon the empire of Great Britain. Not one hour of the twenty-four
in which the earth completes her diurnal revolution, not one round of
the minute-hand of the dial, is allowed to pass, in which, on some
portion of the surface of the globe, the air is not filled with “accents
that are ours.” They are heard in the ordinary transactions of life, or
in the administration of law, or in the deliberations of the
senate-house or council-chamber, or in the offices of private devotion,
or in the public observance of the rites and duties of a common faith.
Dr. Richardson’s _Dictionary of the English Language_, the foremost work
of its class, we owe greatly to the judicious energy of Mr. Pickering,
the publisher, who laid out two thousand pounds in books, specially for
this great labour, before it was commenced. If publishers would imitate
Mr. Pickering’s liberality oftener than is done, there would be fewer
incomplete and abortive compilations than are yearly issued from the
press. Dr. Richardson acknowledges this valuable aid in his Preface,
where he justly makes his boast of bringing within the circle of his
reading a large number of books which had never been employed for
lexicographical purposes before; and Dean Trench acknowledges that the
virgin soil which Richardson has tilled has often yielded him large and
rich returns.
Of the uselessness of our legions of words to be found in dictionaries,
a writer of the day observes:
Dictionary English is something very different not only from common
colloquial English, but even from that of ordinary written
composition. Instead of about 40,000 words, there is probably no
single author in the language from whose works, however voluminous,
so many as 10,000 words could be collected. Of the 40,000 words
there are certainly many more than one-half that are only employed,
if they are ever employed at all, on the rarest occasions. We should
any of us be surprised to find, if we counted them, with how small a
number of words we manage to express all that we have to say either
with our lips or even with the pen. Our common literary English
probably hardly extends to 10,000 words, our common spoken English
hardly to 5000. And the proportion of native or home-grown words is
undoubtedly very much higher in both the 5000 and the 10,000 than it
is in the 40,000. Perhaps of the 30,000 words, or thereabouts,
standing in the dictionaries, that are very rarely or never used,
even in writing, between 20,000 and 25,000 may be free of French or
Latin extraction. If we assume 22,500 to be so, that will leave 5000
Teutonic words in common use; and in our literary English, taken at
10,000 words, those that are non-Roman will thus amount to about
one-half. Of that half 4000 words may be current in our spoken
language, which will therefore be genuine English for four-fifths of
its entire extent. It will consist of about 4000 Gothic and 1000
Roman words.[83]
The Rev. Dr. D’Orsey has shown, by coloured charts and elaborate tables,
the proportion of the Teutonic and Romanic elements in the spoken
language of England, and in the writings of our great authors. Thus, out
of 100,000 words, at least 60,000 were Teutonic, 30,000 Romanic, and
10,000 from all other sources.
It would be almost impossible to compose a sentence of moderate length
consisting solely of words of Latin derivation. But there are many which
can be rendered wholly in Anglo-Saxon. It would be easy to make the
Lord’s Prayer entirely, as it is in present use almost entirely,
Anglo-Saxon. It consists of sixty words, and six of these only have a
Latin root. But for each of them, except one, we have an exact Saxon
equivalent. For “trespasses” we may substitute “sins;” for “temptation,”
“trials;” for “deliver,” “free;” and for “power,” “might.” Dr. Trench
proposes for “glory,” “brightness;” but this we think is not a good
substitute.
The gradual changes in language are very remarkable. Dean Trench, in one
of his popular manuals, observes: “How few aged persons, let them retain
the fullest possession of their faculties, are conscious of any
difference between the spoken language of their early youth and that of
their old age; that words, and ways of using words, are obsolete now
which were usual then; that many words are current now which had no
existence at that time. And yet it is certain that so it must be. A man
may fairly be supposed to remember clearly and well for sixty years
back; and it needs less than five of these sixties to bring us to the
period of Spenser, and not more than eight to set us in the time of
Chaucer and Wiclif. How great a change, how vast a difference in our
language, within eight memories! No one, overlooking this whole term,
will deny the greatness of the change. For all this, we may be tolerably
sure that, had it been possible to interrogate a series of eight
persons, such as together had filled up this time, intelligent men, but
men whose attention had not been especially roused on this subject, each
in his turn would have denied that there had been any change at all
during his lifetime. And yet, having regard to the multitude of words
which have fallen into disuse during these four or five hundred years,
we are sure that there must have been some lives in this chain which saw
those words in use at their commencement, and out of use before their
close. And so, too, of the multitude of words which have come into being
within the limits of each of these lives.”
---------------------
Footnote 83:
_Dublin University Magazine._
----------------------------
WHAT IS “ARGUMENT”?
The origin and proper value of the word “Argument” has been thus
explained by the Rev. Dr. Donaldson, in a paper read to the Cambridge
Philosophical Society:
The author first investigated the etymology and meaning of the Latin
verb _arguo_, and its participle _argutus_. He showed that _arguo_ was a
corruption of _argruo_ = _ad gruo_; that _gruo_ (in _argruo_, _ingruo_,
_congruo_) ought to be compared with κρούω, which means “to dash one
thing against another,” especially for the purpose of making a shrill,
ringing noise; that _arguo_ means “to knock something for the purpose of
making it ring, or testing its soundness,” hence “to test, examine, and
prove any thing;” and that _argutus_ signifies “made to ring,” hence
“making a distinct, shrill noise,” or “tested and put to the proof.”
Accordingly _argumentum_ means _id quod arguit_, “that which makes a
substance ring, which sounds, examines, tests, and proves it.”
It was then shown that these meanings were not only borne out by the
classical usage of the word, but also by the technical application of
“argument” as a logical term. For it is not equivalent to
“argumentation,” or the process of reasoning; it does not even denote a
complete syllogism; though Dr. Whately and some other writers on logic
had fallen into this vague use of the word, and though it was so
understood in the disputations of the Cambridge schools. The proper use
of the word “argument” in logic is to denote “the middle term,” _i. e._
“the term used for proof.” In a sense similar to this the word is
employed by mathematicians; and there can be no doubt that the oldest
and best logicians confine the word to this, which is still its most
common signification.
The author shows, by a collection of examples from the best English
poets, that the established meanings of the word “argument” are
reducible to three: (1) a proof, or means of proving; (2) a process of
reasoning, or controversy, made up of such proofs; (3) the
subject-matter of any discourse, writing, or picture. He maintains that
the second of these meanings should be excluded from scientific
language.
By this we are reminded of Swift’s dictum, of much wider
application—that “Argument, as generally managed, is the worst sort of
conversation; as it is generally in books the worst sort of reading.”
HANDWRITING.
The characters of writing have followed the genius of the barbarous
ages: they are well or ill formed, in proportion as the sciences have
flourished more or less. Antiquaries remark that the medals struck
during the consulship of Fabius Pictor, 250 years before Augustus, have
the letters better formed than those of the older date. Those of the
time of Augustus, and the following age, show characters of perfect
beauty. Those of Diocletian and Maximian are worse formed than those of
the Antonines; and again, those of the Justins and Justinians degenerate
into a Gothic taste. But it is not to medals only that these remarks are
applicable: we see the same inferiority of written characters generally
following in the train of barbarism and ignorance. During the first race
of the French kings, we find no writing which is not a mixture of Roman
and other characters. Under the empire of Charlemagne and of Louis le
Débonnaire, the characters returned almost to the same point of
perfection which distinguished them in the time of Augustus, but in the
following age there was a relapse to the former barbarism; so that for
four or five centuries we find only the Gothic characters in
manuscripts; for it is not worth while making an exception for short
periods which were somewhat more polished, and when there was less
inelegance in the formation of the letters.
The being _able to write_ has been taken by our statists as the best
evidence of the progress of education. Thus, twenty years ago, only 67
in every 100 men who married in England signed their names upon the
register, and 51 in every 100 women, and thirteen years later the
percentage was but 69·6 of the men and 56·1 of the women; but in the
last seven years, a period which probably shows in its marriages the
result chiefly of the education of the years 1840-45 or thereabouts, the
advance has been much greater, and the Registrar-General reports that in
1860 the proportion of men writing their names had risen to 74·5, and of
women to 63·8. In the whole twenty years the proportion of men who write
has risen from being only two-thirds to be three-fourths, and of women
from being a half to be nearly two-thirds, which may be expressed with
tolerable accuracy by saying that where four persons had to “make their
mark” then, only three do so now. This is for all England; but the rate
of progress has not been the same in every part of the kingdom.
In the reign of George III., when education had become more general, the
crosses of those who could not write lost the distinction and artistic
character of older times, and the large bold round-hand corresponds in
style with the buildings and furniture then in use. This writing,
although without much beauty, has, notwithstanding, the merit of
distinctness. In these railway times, with the exception of book-keepers
in banks and clerks in merchants’ offices, few seem to have time to trim
their letters. Few artists write a good hand. Physicians’ prescriptions
are often as difficult to decipher as ancient hieroglyphics; and it must
be confessed that writers for the press are not generally remarkable for
either the distinctness or beauty of their manuscript. As regards
artists, the practice of handling the brush and pencil is not favourable
to graceful penmanship; and in respect of the literary profession, it is
generally difficult for the pen to keep pace with the thoughts, to say
nothing of the fact, that time often presses.[84]
Short-Hand is of great antiquity; for Seneca tells us that in his time
reporting had been carried to such perfection, that a writer could keep
pace in his report with the most rapid speaker.
---------------------
Footnote 84:
Communicated to _The Builder_.
----------------------------
ENGLISH STYLE.
Style in writing has been well defined by Swift as “proper words in
proper places.” However, this is rarely seen.
To the unsettled state of our language, and owing to the want of proper
training in composition, may be attributed the general corruption of
English Style, which has scarcely ceased since Southey, in his
_Colloquies_, wrote the following vigorous condemnation of it:
More lasting effect was produced by translators, who, in later
times, have corrupted our idiom as much as, in early ones, they
enriched our vocabulary; and to this injury the Scotch have greatly
contributed; for, composing in a language which is not their mother
tongue, they necessarily acquired an artificial and formal style,
which, not so much through the merit of a few, as owing to the
perseverance of others, who for half a century seated themselves on
the bench of criticism, has almost superseded the vernacular English
of Addison and Swift. Our journals, indeed, have been the great
corrupters of our style, and continue to be so; and not for this
reason only. Men who write in newspapers, and magazines, and
reviews, write for present effect; in most cases, this is as much
their natural and proper aim, as it would be in public speaking; but
when it is so, they consider, like public speakers, not so much what
is accurate or just, either in matter or manner, as what will be
acceptable to those whom they address. Writing also under the
excitement of emulation and rivalry, they seek, by all the artifices
and efforts of an ambitious style, to dazzle their readers; and they
are wise in their generation, experience having shown that common
minds are taken by glittering faults, both in prose and verse, as
larks are with looking-glasses.
In this school it is that most writers are now trained; and after
such training, any thing like an easy and natural movement is as
little to be looked for in their compositions as in the step of a
dancing-master. To the views of style, which are thus generated,
there must be added the inaccuracies inevitably arising from haste,
when a certain quantity of matter is to be supplied for a daily or
weekly publication, which allows of no delay,—the slovenliness that
confidence as well as fatigue and inattention will produce,—and the
barbarisms which are the effect of ignorance, or that smattering of
knowledge which serves only to render ignorance presumptuous. These
are the causes of corruption in our current style; and when these
are considered, there would be ground for apprehending that the best
writings of the last century might become as obsolete as ours in the
like process of time, if we had not in our Liturgy and our Bible a
standard from which it will not be possible wholly to depart.
The days of sentences of one word, and of others without a verb, had not
then arrived; nor had the spasmodic and sensation style been introduced.
Southey’s own style, whether for narrative, for exposition, or for
animated argumentation, was perhaps the most effective English style of
the time. It combines in a remarkable degree a somewhat lofty dignity
with ease and idiomatic vigour. He was the most hard-working writer of
his time, and left about 12,000_l._ in money, besides a valuable
library.
Sir Thomas Browne satirises the strenuous advocacy of the classical
style by saying: “We are now forced to study Latin, in order to
understand English.” And Pope ridicules that
Easy Ciceronian style,
So Latin, yet so English all the while.
It is no paradox to say that the perfection of style is to have none,
but to let the words be suggested by the sentiments, unchecked by the
monotony of a manner, and untainted by affectation.
How striking is this short passage in a speech of Edward IV. to his
Parliament! “The injuries that I have received are known every where,
and the eyes of the world are fixed upon me to see with what countenance
I suffer.” If actual events could often be related in this way, there
would be more books in circulating libraries than romances and novels.
This lively and graphic style is plainly the best, though now and then
the historian’s criticism is wanted to support a startling fact, or to
explain a confused transaction. Thus, the learned Rudbeck, in his
_Atlantica_, four volumes folio, ascribing an ancient temple in Sweden
to one of Noah’s sons, warily adds, “’Twas probably the youngest.”
A more practical definition of style may be gathered from what Fox said
of his great antagonist, Pitt,—and therefore the more to be
trusted,—that he always used _the_ word; and each word had its own
place, not regulated by chance, but by law.
To write a good Letter is a rare accomplishment. It is owing to the want
of proper training in the laws of composition that so few persons in
England can write even a common letter correctly. We will give a
familiar instance of a very frequent solecism which occurs in one of the
most common acts of every-day life—the answer to a dinner invitation;
and it is one in which, we are sorry to say, well-educated ladies are
too often caught tripping. When “Mr. A. and Mrs. A. request the pleasure
of Mr. and Mrs. B.’s company at dinner,” the reply usually is, “Mr. and
Mrs. B. _will_ have the pleasure of accepting” the invitation. But the
acceptance is already _un fait accompli_ by the very act of writing
it,—it is a present, not a future event; and the answer of course ought
to be either “Mr. and Mrs. B. _have_ the pleasure of accepting,” or “Mr.
and Mrs. B. _will have_ the pleasure of _dining_.”[85]
---------------------
Footnote 85:
_Fraser’s Magazine._
----------------------------
ART OF WRITING.
“He that would write well,” says Roger Ascham, “must follow the advice
of Aristotle, to speak as the common people speak, and to think as the
wise think.”
Coleridge says: “To write or talk concerning any subject, without having
previously taken the pains to understand it, is a breach of the duty
which we owe to ourselves, though it may be no offence against the law
of the land. The privilege of talking, and even publishing, nonsense, is
necessary in a free state; but the more sparingly we make use of it, the
better.”[86]
Much reading and good company are supposed to be the best methods of
getting at the niceties and elegancies of a language; but this road is
long and irksome. The great point is to acquire our most usual
Anglicisms; all those phrases and peculiarities which form the
characteristics of our language. Nearly eighty years since, Mr. Sharp
took upon himself to say that we had no grammar capable of teaching a
foreigner to read our authors; adding, “but of this I am sure, that we
have none by which he can be enabled to understand our conversation.”
What an annoyance are long speakers, long talkers, and long
writers—people who will not take time to think, or are not capable of
thinking accurately! Once when Dr. South had preached before Queen Anne,
her majesty observed to him, “You have given me a most excellent
discourse, Dr. South; but I wish you had had time to make it longer.”
“Nay, madam,” replied the doctor, “if I had had time, I should have made
it shorter.”
Method in treating your subject is of great importance. Southey has well
illustrated the absence of this quality. A Quaker, by name Benjamin Lay
(who was a little cracked in the head, though sound at the heart), took
one of his compositions to Benjamin Franklin, that it might be printed
and published. Franklin, having looked over the manuscript, observed
that it was deficient in arrangement: “It is no matter,” replied the
author; “print any part thou pleaseth first.” Many are the speeches, and
the sermons, and the treatises, and the poems, and the volumes, which
are like Benjamin Lay’s book: the head might serve for the tail, and the
tail for the body, and the body for the head; either end for the middle,
and the middle for either end; nay, if you could turn them inside out,
like a polypus or a glove, they would be no worse for the operation.[87]
* * * * *
Free Translation is a rare accomplishment. Sir John Denham, who is
declared by Johnson “to have been one of the first that understood the
necessity of emancipating translation from the drudgery of counting
lines and interpreting single words,” gives the same praise to Sir
Richard Fanshawe, whom he addresses thus:
That servile path thou nobly dost decline,
Of tracing word by word and line by line;
A new and nobler way thou dost pursue,
To make translations and translators too:
They but preserve the ashes, thou the flame,
True to his sense, but truer to his fame.
Dryden said, all the translations of the old school “want to be
translated into English;” and verbal translation he compares to “dancing
on ropes with fettered legs.” Education cannot do all that Helvetius
supposes, but it can do much. _Elle fait danser l’ours_,—It makes a bear
dance. It is said that some insects take the colour of the leaf that
they feed upon. “I was common clay till roses were planted in me,” says
some aromatic earth, in an eastern fable.
To unlearn is harder than to learn, and the Grecian flute-player was
right in requiring double fees from those pupils who had been taught by
another master. “I am rubbing their father out of my children as fast as
I can,” said a clever widow of rank and fashion.
The Education of princes, or indeed the spoilt children of rich and
distinguished parents, must be the _experimentum crucis_ of teaching.
“If Fénelon did succeed, as it is recorded he did, in educating the
Dauphin, his success was little less than a miracle. How can any man,
though of advanced age and of high reputation, perhaps also of a sacred
profession and of elevated station, be expected to preserve any useful
authority over a child (probably a wayward little animal), if he, the
tutor, must always address the pupil by his title, or at least must
never forget that he is heir to a throne?”
There is some truth in the following remarks by a writer in _Blackwood’s
Magazine_, upon information overmuch:
We deal largely in general knowledge—an excellent article, no doubt;
but one may have too much of it. Sometimes ignorance is really
bliss. It has not added to my personal comfort to know to a decimal
fraction what proportion of red earth I may expect to find in my
cocoa every morning; to have become knowingly conscious that my
coffee is mixed with ground liver and litmus, instead of honest
chicory; and that bisulphuret of mercury forms the basis of my
cayenne. It was once my fate to have a friend staying in my house
who was one of these minute philosophers. He used to amuse himself
after breakfast by a careful analysis and diagnosis of the contents
of the teapot, laid out as a kind of _hortus siccus_ on his plate.
“This leaf, now,” he would say, “is fuchsia; observe the serrated
edges: that’s no tea-leaf—positively poisonous. This now, again, is
blackthorn, or privet—yes, privet; you may know it by the divisions
in the panicles: that’s no tea-leaf.” A most uncomfortable guest he
was; and though not a bad companion in many respects, I felt my
appetite improved the first time I sat down to dinner without him.
It won’t do to look into all your meals with a microscope. Of course
there is a medium between these over-curious investigations and an
implicit faith in every thing that is set before you.
---------------------
Footnote 86:
One fine morning, a stalwart anti-Newtonian, properly accredited,
presented himself to Baron Maseres, in the library of his mansion at
Reigate: “I am come to talk over my favourite subject,” he said (it
was, to overturn the universe!). “I am happy to see you,” replied the
Baron; “but before we commence, I must ask you if you consider
yourself proficient in mathematics?” The anti-Newtonian was
dumbfounded. “Then,” rejoined the Baron, “it would be unprofitable for
us to begin;” and he passed on to a more genial topic.
Footnote 87:
_The Doctor._
----------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Business-Life.
----------------------------
WANT OF A PURSUIT.
Such is the complicated constitution of human nature, that a man without
a predominant inclination is not likely to be either useful or happy.
He who is every thing is nothing, is as true of our sensitive as of our
intellectual nature. He is rather a bundle of little likings, than a
compact and energetic individual. A strong desire soon subdues the
weaker, and rules us with the united force of all that it subjugates.
Such being the force of human feelings, it must embitter our daily lives
if our employments are unsuited to our talents and our wishes; yet how
few, alas, are so fortunate as to be gaining either wealth or fame while
gratifying an inclination!
In the best of all arts, the art of living, the greatest skill is not to
wait; but, as you run along, snatch at every fruit and every flower
growing within your reach; for, after all that can be said, youth, the
age of hope and admiration, and manhood, the age of business and of
influence, are to be preferred to the period of extinguished passions
and languid curiosity. At that season, our hopes and wishes must have
been too long dropping, leaf by leaf, away. The last scenes of the fifth
act are seldom the most interesting, either in a tragedy or a comedy.
Yet many compensations arise as our sensibility decays:
Time steals away the rose, ’tis true;
But then the thorn is blunted too.[88]
Life, without some necessity for exertion (says Mr. Walker[89]), must
ever lack real interest. That state is capable of the greatest enjoyment
where necessity urges, but not painfully; where effort is required, but
as much as possible without anxiety; where the spring and summer of life
are preparatory to the harvest of autumn and the repose of winter. Then
is every season sweet, and, in a well-spent life, the last the best—the
season of calm enjoyment, the richest in recollections, the brightest in
hope. Good training and a fair start constitute a more desirable
patrimony than wealth; and those parents who study their children’s
welfare rather than the gratification of their own avarice or vanity,
would do well to think of this. Is it better to run a successful race,
or to begin and end at the goal?
---------------------
Footnote 88:
Richard Sharp.
Footnote 89:
In _The Original_, a series of Periodical Papers, published in 1835,
by Thomas Walker, M.A., one of the Police Magistrates of the
Metropolis.
----------------------------
THE ENGLISH CHARACTER.
Four and thirty years since, Sir Humphry Davy wrote:“The English as a
nation are preëminently active, and the natives of no other country
follow their objects with so much force, fire, and constancy. And as
human powers are limited, there are few examples of very distinguished
men living in this country to old age: they usually fail, droop, and
die, before they have attained the period naturally marked out for the
end of human existence. The lives of our statesmen, warriors, poets, and
even philosophers, offer abundant proofs of the truth of this opinion:
whatever burns, consumes; ashes remain. Before the period of youth is
passed, gray hairs usually cover those brows which are adorned with the
civic oak or the laurel; and in the luxurious and exciting life of the
men of pleasure, their tints are not even preserved by the myrtle wreath
or the garland of roses from the premature winter of time.” If these
characteristics were applicable to English life a third of a century
since, how much has their fitness been strengthened by the rapidity of
action, the excitement, and want of repose adding to the wear and tear
of existence, since that period.
That the Englishman is one of the most noble species of the genus to
which he belongs, seems to be generally conceded. The poet Southey
expressed the opinion of more thinkers than himself when he said that
the Englishman is the model or pattern man, at least of all the species
at present existing. But even those who are most thoroughly convinced of
this must admit that he has his peculiarities—foremost among which is
his nationality; and one of the most striking peculiarities of that
nationality is pride. Another potent element in the English character is
its practical worth,—this word “practical” being the shibboleth by which
we love to recognise ourselves; as the Greeks delighted to picture
themselves as more wise, the French as more polite, than other nations.
Our genius has a most real, concrete, and altogether terrestrial
tendency: there seems to be a considerable majority of Sadducees among
us, or, as Plato calls them, “uninitiated persons, who believe in
nothing but what they can lay hold of with their hands. These men will
make railways, telegraphs, and tunnels, and build crystal palaces, and
collect mechanical products from the ends of the earth, and exhibit in
every possible shape and variety the sublime of what is mechanical and
material; but for the supersensual ideas, they will have none of
them.”[90]
Nevertheless, if we look through the history of the world’s genius, we
shall find its greatest successes to lie in the practical. Homer begged;
Tasso begged in a different way; Galileo was racked; De Witt
assassinated,—and all for wishing to improve their species. At the same
time, Raffaelle, Michel Angelo, Zeuxis, Apelles, Rubens, Reynolds,
Titian, Shakspeare, were rich and happy. Why? because with their genius
they combined practical prudence. This is the grand secret of success.
---------------------
Footnote 90:
Professor Blackie; _Edinburgh Essays_, 1856.
----------------------------
WORTH OF ENERGY.
A man with knowledge but without energy is a home furnished but not
inhabited; a man with energy but no knowledge, a house dwelt in but
unfurnished.
Mr. Sharp[91] counsels us: “Prefer a life of energy to a life of
inaction. There are always kind friends enough ready to preach up
caution and delay, &c. Yet it is impossible to lay down any general rule
of a prudential kind. Every one must be judged of after a careful review
of all its circumstances; for if one, only one, be overlooked, the
decision may be injurious or fatal. Thus, there will ever be many
conflicting reasons for and against a spirit of enterprise and a habit
of caution.
“Those who advise others to withstand the temptations of hope will
always appear to be wiser than they really are, for how often can it be
made certain that the rejected and untried hazard would have been
successful? Besides, those who dissuade us from action have corrupt but
powerful allies in our indolence, irresolution, and cowardice. To
despond is very easy, but it requires works as well as faith to engage
successfully in a difficult undertaking.
“There are, however, few difficulties that hold out against real
attacks: they fly, like the visible horizon, before those who advance. A
passionate desire and an unwearied will can perform impossibilities, or
what seem to be so to the cold and the feeble. If we do but go on, some
unseen path will open among the hills.
“We must not allow ourselves to be discouraged by the apparent
disproportion between the result of single efforts and the magnitude of
the obstacles to be encountered. Nothing great or good is to be obtained
without courage and industry; but courage and industry must have sunk in
despair, and the world must have remained unornamented and unimproved,
if men had nicely compared the effect of a single stroke of the chisel
with the pyramid to be raised, or of a single impression of the spade
with the mountain to be levelled.
* * * * *
“Efforts, it must not be forgotten, are as indispensable as desires. The
globe is not to be circumnavigated by one wind. ‘It is better to wear
out than to rust,’ says Bishop Cumberland. ‘There will be time enough
for repose in the grave,’ said Nicole to Pascal. In truth, the proper
rest for man is change of occupation.
“The toils as well as risks of an active life are commonly overrated, so
much may be done by the diligent use of ordinary opportunities; but they
must not always be waited for. We must not only strike the iron while it
is hot, but strike it till ‘it is made hot.’ Herschel, the great
astronomer, declares that 90 or 100 hours, clear enough for observation,
cannot be called an unproductive year.
“The lazy, the dissipated, and the fearful, should patiently see the
active and the bold pass them in the course. They must bring down their
pretensions to the level of their talents. Those who have not energy to
work must learn to be humble, and should not vainly hope to unite the
incompatible enjoyments of indolence and enterprise, of ambition and
self-indulgence.”
These lines of fair encouragement are the advice of a man of the world,
but whose feelings had not become blunted by his intercourse with the
world: he was one of the most cheerful, amiable, and happy beings it
ever fell to our lot to know; his joyous manner was the true index to
his large and sound heart.
---------------------
Footnote 91:
Mr. Richard Sharp, F.R.S., and some time M.P. for Port-Arlington, in
Ireland. He was celebrated for his conversational talents, and hence
was known as “Conversation Sharp.” At Fridley-farm, Sir James
Macintosh, and other distinguished men of his day, were frequently Mr.
Sharp’s guests. Of his volume of _Letters, Essays, and Poems_, a third
edition appeared in 1834.
----------------------------
TEST OF GREATNESS.
The true test of a great man (says Lord Brougham),—that at least which
must secure his place among the highest order of great men,—is his
having been in advance of his age. This it is which decides whether or
not he has carried forward the grand plan of human improvement; has
conformed his views and adapted his conduct to the existing
circumstances of society, or changed those so as to better its
condition; has been one of the lights of the world, or only reflected
the borrowed rays of former luminaries, and sat in the same shade with
the rest of his generation at the same twilight or the same dawn.
Nature seldom invests great men with any outward signs, from which their
greatness may be known or foretold; and yet (says Lord Dudley) I own I
share fully in that curiosity of the vulgar, which induces them to
follow after and to gaze eagerly upon the mere bodily presence of
persons that have raised themselves high above the common level.
Almost all great men who have performed, or who are destined to perform,
great things, are sparing of words. Their communing is with themselves
rather than with others. They feed upon their own thoughts, and in these
inward musings brace those intellectual and active energies, the
development of which constitutes the great character. Napoleon became a
babbler only when his fate was accomplished, and his fortune was on the
decline.
Boyle has this pertinent reflection: “There is such a kind of difference
between vertue shaded by a private, and shining forth in a publick life,
as there is betwixt a candle carri’d aloft in the open air, and inclosed
in a lanthorn; in the former place it gives more light, but in the
latter ’tis in less danger to be blown out.”[92]
The real test of greatness is courage and respect for truth, generally
the earliest precept of childhood, yet of comparatively rare observance
through life. “Without courage,” says Sir Walter Scott, “there cannot be
truth; and without truth there can be no other virtue.” And how nobly
did Scott illustrate this in his own life-practice!
Truth was the redeeming virtue of one of the favoured men of our
political history. The qualities which raised Fox high as a party leader
were not merely his eloquence, his wit, his genius, but also his
engaging warmth of heart and kindliness of temper. To these a strong
testimony may be found in the memoirs of a great historian by no means
blind to his faults, and by no means attached to his principles. On
summing up his character, many years afterwards, Gibbon writes of Fox as
follows: “Perhaps no human being was ever more perfectly exempt from the
taint of malevolence, vanity, or falsehood.”
---------------------
Footnote 92:
_Occasional Reflections._
----------------------------
CHOICE OF A PROFESSION.
Keep not standing fix’d and rooted,
Briskly venture, briskly roam!
Hand and heart, where’er thou foot it,
And stout heart are still at home.
In each land the sun does visit
We are gay, whate’er betide;
To give space for wand’ring is it
That the world was made so wide.
_Wilhelm Meister:_ Carlyle.
We know of no more fertile source of crime than Idleness. It is the want
of a due impression of the importance and legitimate employment of time,
which is one of the main occasions of the luxury and profligacy of one
order of society; and it is the same cause which vitiates and defiles
the manners of another, and a subordinate rank, in the scale. It is
inquired by an ancient poet, who was a keen and accurate observer of
human character, why Ægisthus so grievously and wantonly deviated from
the path of virtue? and he immediately rejoins the reply, “The cause is
obvious,—he was idle!” And it is a circumstance worthy of remark, that
when Hogarth wished to give a portrait of a veteran criminal, he made
him commence his career as a boy lolling on the tombstones of the
churchyard on a Sunday.
Mr. Ruskin has written these beautiful words of encouragement: “God
appoints to every one of His creatures a separate mission; and if they
discharge it honourably—if they quit themselves like men, and faithfully
follow that light which is in them, withdrawing from it all cold and
quenching influence—there will assuredly come of it such burning as, in
its appointed mode and measure, shall shine before men, and be of
service, constant and holy. Degrees infinite of lustre there must always
be; but the weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial,
which is peculiar to him, and which, worthily used, will be a gift also
to his race for ever.”
‘Know thyself’ is an old precept; yet it is surprising how few are
sufficiently acquainted with themselves to see distinctly what their own
motives actually are. It is a rare thing, as well as a great advantage,
for a man to know his own mind.
Were but a tithe of the time and the thought usually spent in learning
the commonest accomplishments bestowed upon regulating our lives, how
many evils would be avoided or lessened; how many pleasures would be
created or increased!
In one of Steele’s papers, No. 173 of the _Tatler_, are some admirable
remarks upon the time lost by boys in learning that which, in
after-life, is of little service to them. “The truth of it is,” says
Steele, “the first rudiments of education are given very indiscreetly by
most parents. Whatever children are designed for, and whatever prospects
the fortune or interest of their parents may give them in their future
lives, they are all promiscuously instructed in the same way; and Horace
and Virgil must be thumbed by a boy as well before he goes to an
apprenticeship as to the university.... This is the natural effect of a
certain vanity in the minds of parents, who are wonderfully delighted
with the thought of breeding their children to accomplishments, which
they believe nothing but the want of the same care in their own fathers
prevented them being masters of. Thus it is that the part of life most
fit for improvement is generally employed against the bent of nature;
and a lad of such parts as are fit for an occupation where there can be
no calls out of the beaten path, is two or three years of his time
wholly taken up in knowing how well Ovid’s mistress became such a dress,
&c.... However, still the humour goes on from one generation to another;
and the pastrycook here in the lane, the other night, told me ‘he would
not take away his son from his learning; but has resolved, as soon as he
has had a little smattering in the Greek, to put him apprentice to a
soap-boiler.’ These wrong beginnings determine our success in the world;
and when our thoughts are originally falsely biassed, their agility and
force do but carry us the farther out of our way, in proportion to our
speed. But we are half-way on our journey when we have got into the
right road. If all our ways were usefully employed, and we did not set
out impertinently, we should not have so many grotesque professors in
all the arts of life; but every man would be in a proper and becoming
method of distinguishing or entertaining himself, suitably to what
nature designed him. As they go on now, our parents do not only force
upon us what is against our talents, but our teachers are also as
injudicious in what they put us to learn.”
The practice of the irresolute in deliberating without deciding is
another parlous error. “What I cannot resolve upon in half an hour,”
said the Duc de Guise, “I cannot resolve upon at all.”
Bacon has well described this irresolution in his complaint, “that some
men object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too
soon, and seldom drive business home.”
The strongest incentive to decision is self-dependence. Mr. Sharp writes
to a young friend at college:
I have confidence in your capacity. However, my favourable
anticipations arise chiefly from your being aware that your station
in society must depend entirely on your own exertions. Luckily, you
have not to overcome the disadvantage of expecting to inherit from
your father an income equal to your reasonable desires; for, though
it may have the air of a paradox, yet it is truly a serious
disadvantage when a young man going to the bar is sufficiently
provided for.
Vitam facit beatiorem
Res non parta, sed relicta,
says Martial, but not wisely; and no young man should believe him.
The necessity for instant decision in life renders it often prudent
to take the chance of being right or wrong, without waiting to
balance reasons very nicely. In such cases, and sometimes even in
speculation, this kind of credulity is more philosophical than
scepticism; though authority in abstruse investigations should
usually do little more than excite attention, while in practice it
must guide our conduct.
It is unfortunate when a man’s intellectual and his moral character
are not suited to each other. The horses in a carriage should go the
same pace and draw in the same direction, or the motion will be
neither pleasant nor safe.
Bonaparte has remarked of one of his marshals, that “he had a
military genius, but had not intrepidity enough in the field to
execute his own plans;” and of another he said, “he is as brave as
his sword, but he wants judgment and resources: neither,” he added,
“is to be trusted with a great command.”
This want of harmony between the talents and the temperament is
often found in private life; and, wherever found, is the fruitful
source of faults and sufferings. Perhaps there are few less happy
than those who are ambitious without industry; who pant for the
prize, but will not run the race; who thirst for truth, but are too
slothful to draw it up from the well.
Now this defect, whether arising from indolence or from timidity, is
far from being incurable. It may, at least in part, be remedied by
frequently reflecting on the endless encouragements to exertion held
out by our own experience and by example:
C’est des difficultés que naissent les miracles.
It is not every calamity that is a curse, and _early_ adversity
especially is often a blessing. Perhaps Madame de Maintenon would
never have mounted a throne had not her cradle been rocked in a
prison. Surmounted obstacles not only teach, but hearten us in our
future struggles; for virtue must be learnt, though unfortunately
some of the vices come, as it were, by inspiration. The austerities
of our northern climate are thought to be the cause of our abundant
comforts; as our wintry nights and our stormy seas have given us a
race of seamen perhaps unequalled, and certainly not surpassed, by
any in the world.
“Mother,” said a Spartan lad going to battle, “my sword is too
short.” “Add a step to it,” she replied; but it must be owned that
this advice was to be given only to a Spartan boy. They should not
be thrown into the water who cannot swim: I know your buoyancy, and
I have no fears of your being drowned.
----------------------------
OFFICIAL LIFE.
The grand scramble for place was thus vividly painted by Mr. Sharp some
eighty years since: “The young people of this country, in every rank,
from a peer’s son to a street-sweeper’s, are drawn aside from a
praiseworthy exertion in honest callings, by having their eyes directed
towards the public treasury. The rewards of persevering industry are too
slow for them, too small, and too insipid. They fondly trust to the
great lottery, although the wheel contains so many blanks and so few
prizes; hoping that their ticket may be drawn a place, a pension, or a
contract; a living, or a stall; a ship, or a regiment; a seat on the
bench, or the great seal.
“It is, indeed, most humiliating to witness the indecent scramble that
is always going on for these prizes, the highest born and best educated
rolling in the dirt to pick them up, just as the lowest of the mob do
for the shillings or the pence thrown among them by a successful
candidate at a contested election.”
In this rush there must always be a host of genius and talent neglected
or overlooked; and this from various causes, some of which have been
thus sketched by a living novelist, accustomed to see far beyond most of
his literary brethren:
In all men who have devoted themselves to any study, or any art,
with sufficient pains to attain a certain degree of excellence,
there must be a fund of energy immeasurably above that of the
ordinary herd. Usually, this energy is concentred on the objects of
their professional ambition, and leaves them, therefore, apathetic
to the other pursuits of men. But where those objects are denied,
where the stream has not its legitimate vent, the energy, irritated
and aroused, possesses the whole being; and if not wasted on
desultory schemes, or if not purified by conscience and principle,
becomes a dangerous and destructive element in the social system,
through which it wanders in riot and disorder. Hence, in all wise
monarchies—nay, in all well-constituted states—the peculiar care
with which channels are opened for every art and every science;
hence the honour paid to their cultivators by subtle and thoughtful
statesmen, who, perhaps, for themselves, see nothing in a picture
but coloured canvas—nothing in a problem but an ingenious puzzle. No
state is ever more in danger than when the talent which should be
consecrated to peace has no occupation but political intrigue or
personal advancement. Talent unhonoured is talent at war with
men.[93]
Reliance upon family influence with persons in high stations is but a
poor dependence.[94] We happen to know a large family of sons unprovided
for, who have been calculating for years upon the influence of a
maid-of-honour with her relative, the Premier. But ministers who have
the good things to give away are often so pressed by their political
supporters, that their own connexions are made to yield. The late Lord
Melbourne was proverbially a good-natured man; but in a case of the
above kind he acted with a sense of duty more stringent than might have
been expected. It appears that Lord John Russell had applied to Lord
Melbourne for some provision for one of the sons of the poet Moore; and
here is the Premier’s reply:
“My dear John,—I return you Moore’s letter. I shall be ready to do
what you like about it when we have the means. I think whatever is
done should be done for Moore himself. This is more distinct,
direct, and intelligible. Making a small provision for young men is
hardly justifiable; and it is of all things the most prejudicial to
themselves. They think what they have much larger than it really is;
and they make no exertion. The young should never hear any language
but this: ‘You have your own way to make, and it depends upon your
own exertions whether you starve or not.’—Believe me,
&c. MELBOURNE.”[95]
The foundation of the Sidmouth Peerage is traceable to one of those
fortunate turns which have much to do with worldly success. It is
related that while Lord Chatham was residing at Hayes, in Kent, his
first coachman being taken ill, the postillion was sent for the family
doctor; but not finding him, the messenger returned, bringing with him
Mr. Addington, then a practitioner in the place, who, by permission of
Lord Chatham, saw the coachman, and reported his ailment. His lordship
was so pleased with Mr. Addington, that he employed him as apothecary
for the servants, and then for himself; and, Lady Hester Stanhope tells
us, “finding he spoke good sense on medicine, and then on politics, he
at last made him his physician.” Dr. Addington subsequently practised in
the metropolis, then retired to Reading, and there married; and in 1757
was born his eldest son, Henry Addington, who was educated at Winchester
and Oxford, and called to the Bar in 1784. Through his father’s
connexion with the family of Lord Chatham, an intimacy had grown up
between young Addington and William Pitt when they were boys. Pitt was
now First Minister of the Crown, and through his influence Addington
entered upon his long political career, and became in very few years
Prime Minister of England: his administration was brief; but he was
raised to the Peerage in 1805, and held various offices until 1824, when
he retired. Lord Sidmouth was an unpopular minister, and not a man of
striking talent; but his aptitude for official business was great. He
survived until 1844, when he was succeeded by his eldest son, the
present Viscount, in holy orders.
The origin of Lord Liverpool is scarcely less striking. The father of
this statesman was Mr. Robert Jenkinson, a man of no patrimony, but who,
by his application and aptitude for State affairs, gave lustre to his
name. In 1778 he succeeded Lord Barrington as Secretary-at-War: he rose
at last to be Earl of Liverpool; and his son, the second Earl, to be
fifteen years First Lord of the Treasury.
Another instance of successful integrity in Official Life is presented
by the Right Hon. George Rose, one of the most valuable public servants
which this country has known,—“an able, clear-headed, straightforward
man of business, whose steady industry, devoted for years to the service
of the State, won for him, and most deservedly, not only political
importance, but the personal regard of his sovereign, and indeed of all
who knew him.”[96] He was, in early life, purser of a ship-of-war, where
his abilities became known to the Earl of Sandwich, by whom he was
recommended to Lord North, who gave him an appointment in the Treasury:
he was a man of frugal habits, and often ate his mutton-chop at the Cat
and Bagpipes tavern, at the corner of Downing-street; _pari passu_, he
was one of the early encouragers of Savings-Banks. He was the sincere
and devoted friend of Pitt, whose personal character and administrative
zeal are nobly vindicated by the recent publication of Mr. Rose’s
Diaries and Correspondence. In 1777 he superintended the publication of
the Journals of the House of Lords, in thirty-one folio volumes, from
which time he rarely failed to be employed in a public capacity by
successive administrations. In the intervals of his heavy official
duties, he was enabled to write several works upon political and
administrative questions of importance.
John Barrow, born in a lowly cottage at Dragley Beck, in Lancashire,
rose, by his own earnest industry, to the responsible post of a
Secretary to the Admiralty, for forty years, under thirteen
administrations. When sixteen years old, he made a voyage in a whaler to
Greenland; he next taught mathematics in a school at Greenwich. He
attended Lord Macartney in his celebrated embassy to China, and took
charge of the philosophical instruments carried out as presents to the
Emperor of China; of this journey Barrow subsequently published an
account in a quarto volume. He was next appointed Secretary to Lord
Macartney, Governor of the Cape of Good Hope; and during his leisure Mr.
Barrow, in various journeys, collected materials for a volume of
_Travels in South Africa_, which he published on his return to England.
Throughout his Admiralty secretaryship he was indefatigable in promoting
the progress of geographical or scientific knowledge, especially in
recommending to the governments under which he served various voyages to
the Arctic Regions. He was a man of untiring industry, and devoted his
leisure to literature and scientific pursuits: he published various
works; contributed 195 articles to the _Quarterly Review_; and at the
age of eighty-three (one year before his death) wrote his Autobiography.
His public services had been rewarded by a baronetcy in 1835; and
shortly after his death, in 1848, upon the lofty Hill of Hoad, near to
the humble cottage in which Sir John Barrow was born, there was erected,
by public subscription, to his memory, a sea-mark tower, as a record of
what noble distinction may be earned in this happy country by
well-directed energy and strictly moral worth.
---------------------
Footnote 93:
Sir E. L. Bulwer Lytton’s _Zanoni_.
Footnote 94:
Family reputation is generally considered but an insecure stock to
begin the world with: nevertheless there is much truth in the
experience of Lord Mahon (now Earl Stanhope), who says: “In public
life I have seen full as many men promoted for their father’s talents
as for their own.”
Footnote 95:
This letter is quoted in Mr. Smiles’s _Self-Help_.
Footnote 96:
_Notes and Queries._
----------------------------
OFFICIAL QUALIFICATIONS.
Swift’s happy illustration of a frequent cause of failure, drawn in the
reign of Queen Anne,—whose administrators were principally eminent
scholars,—is scarcely so applicable in our time. Men of great parts are
often unfortunate in the management of public business, because they are
apt to go out of the common road by the quickness of their imagination.
This Swift once said to Lord Bolingbroke, and desired he would observe
that the clerk in his office used a sort of ivory knife with a blunt
edge to divide a sheet of paper, which never failed to cut it even, only
requiring a steady hand; whereas, if they should make use of a sharp
penknife, the sharpness would make it go often out of the crease, and
disfigure the paper.
A model Court-letter has been preserved by singular accident. When Swift
was looking out for the prebend and sinecure of Dr. South, who was then
very infirm, he received the following letter from Lord Halifax, to whom
Addison had communicated Swift’s expectations:
“_October 6, 1709._
“Sir,—Our friend Mr. Addison telling me that he was to write to you
to-night, I could not let his packet go away without letting you
know how much I am concerned to find them returned without you. I am
quite ashamed, for myself and my friends, to see you left in a place
so incapable of testing you; and to see so much merit, and so great
qualities, unrewarded by those who are sensible of them. Mr. Addison
and I are entered into a new confederacy, never to give over the
pursuit, nor to cease reminding those who can serve you, till your
worth is placed in that light it ought to shine in. Dr. South holds
out still, but he cannot be immortal. The situation of his prebend
would make me doubly concerned in serving you; and upon all
occasions that shall offer, I will be your constant solicitor, your
sincere admirer, and your unalterable friend.—I am your most humble
and obedient servant,
HALIFAX.”
Sir W. Scott notes: “This letter from Lord Halifax, the celebrated and
almost professed patron of learning, is a curiosity in its way, being a
perfect model of a courtier’s correspondence with a man of
letters—condescending, obliging, and probably utterly unmeaning. Dr.
Swift wrote thus on the back of the letter: ‘_I kept this letter as a
true original of courtiers and court promises;_’ and, on the first leaf
of a small printed book, entitled _Poésies Chrétiennes de Mons.
Jollivet_, he wrote these words: ‘Given me by my Lord Halifax, May 3,
1709. I begged it of him, and desired him to remember it was the only
_favour_ I ever received from him or his party.’” Dr. South, it should
be added, survived until 1716, and then died, aged 83.
Diplomatic Handwriting has been a point of some moment with ministers,
but has been tested in some strange varieties. Lord Palmerston, who was
so long Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, was very particular as
to hand-writing, and the style in use in the Foreign-office is
attributable chiefly to him, but partly to Mr. Canning, who laid down
the rule that not more than ten lines should be put into a page of
foolscap. The handwriting of the Foreign-office is peculiar: the letters
are to be formed in a particular way, the writing to be large and
upright, and the words well apart, so as to be easily legible; it is not
what a writing-master would teach as a good hand, and a clerk has to
acquire it in the Office. The Foreign-office has been able to boast of
the best handwriting in the public service; but it is not so good as it
was formerly, owing to the great pressure for quick writing in order to
prepare papers that come down in the afternoon to go abroad the same
evening. A question put by Mr. Layard implied that he had heard of
despatches received from some of our ministers abroad so ill-written
that the originals could not be sent to her Majesty, and copies had to
be made for the purpose. Mr. Hammond, of the Foreign office, states that
this could certainly not have occurred of late years; but he has known
two ambassadors of ours whose handwriting was the most difficult to read
that it is possible to conceive.
----------------------------
PUBLIC SPEAKING.
The art of speaking well is unquestionably one of the showiest
qualifications for public life; although the drawback of unsoundness may
be as common now as when it was classically expressed: _Satis
eloquentiæ, sapientiæ parum_. Little or no attention has been bestowed
in modern times on oratory as a separate branch of study; and eloquence
has come to be more admired as one of the rare gifts of nature, than
sought after as one of the fruits of art. The diffusion of opinions and
arguments by means of the press has perhaps contributed in some degree
to the present neglect of oratory; for a speaker is mainly known to the
public through the press, and it is often more important to him to be
_read_ than to be _heard:_ the eloquence of the newspaper—that is, the
accomplishment of reporting—is the best oratory of our times; but the
following experiences may be useful.
First, of one of the greatest orators of antiquity—Demosthenes. Those
who expect to find in his style of oratory the fervid and impassioned
language of a man carried away by his feelings to the prejudice of his
judgment, will be disappointed. He is said not to have been a ready
speaker, and to have required preparation. All his orations bear the
marks of an effort to convince the understanding rather than to work on
the passions of his hearers. And this is the highest praise. Men may be
_persuaded_ by splendid imagery, well-chosen words, and appeals to their
passions; but to convince by a calm and clear address, when the speaker
has no unfair advantage of person or of manner, and calls to his aid
none of the tricks of rhetoric,—this is what Cicero calls the Oratory of
Demosthenes, the ideal model of true eloquence.[97]
Demosthenes laboured under great physical disadvantages: he was
naturally of a weak constitution, had a feeble voice, an indistinct
articulation, and a shortness of breath. To remedy these defects, he
climbed up hills with pebbles in his mouth, he declaimed on the
sea-shore, or with a sword hung so as to strike his shoulders when he
made an uncouth gesture. He is also said to have shut himself up at
times in a cave underground for study’s sake, and this for months
together.
Next, of a great master of eloquence in our own times—Charles James Fox,
whom Lord Ossory describes as “one of the most extraordinary men that
ever existed.” He was very young when his father, Henry, Lord Holland,
finished his political career; but hearing from his childhood a constant
conversation upon political subjects and the occurrences in the House of
Commons, he was, both by nature and education, formed for a statesman.
“His father delighted to cultivate his talents by argumentation and
reasoning with him upon all subjects. He took his seat in the House of
Commons before he was twenty-one, and very shortly began to show the
dawn of those prodigious talents which he has since displayed. He was
much caressed by the then Ministry, and appointed a Lord of the
Admiralty, and soon promoted to the Treasury. Lord North (which he must
ever since have repented) was inclined to turn him out upon some trivial
occasion or difference; and soon afterwards the fatal quarrel with
America commenced, Mr. Fox constantly opposing the absurd measures of
administration, and rising by degrees to be the first man the House of
Commons ever saw. His opposition continued from 1773 to 1782, when the
Administration was fairly overturned by his powers; for even the great
weight of ability, property, and influence that composed the Opposition,
could never have effected that great work, if he had not acquired the
absolute possession and influence of the House of Commons. He certainly
deserved their confidence; for his political conduct had been fair,
open, honest, and decided, against the system so fatally adopted by the
Court. He resisted every temptation to be brought over by that system,
however flattering to his ambition; for he must soon have been at the
head of every thing. But I do not know whether his abilities were not
the least extraordinary part about him. Perhaps that is saying too much;
but he was full of good nature, good temper, and facility of
disposition, disinterestedness with regard to himself, at the same time
that his mind was fraught with the most noble sentiments and ideas upon
all possible subjects. His understanding had the greatest scope I can
form an idea of, his memory the most wonderful, his judgment the most
true, his reasoning the most profound and acute, his eloquence the most
rapid and persuasive.”
Scarcely any person has ever become a great debater without long
practice and many failures. It was by slow degrees, as Burke said, that
Fox became the most brilliant and powerful debater that ever lived. Fox
himself attributed his own success to the resolution which he formed
when very young, of speaking, well or ill, at least once every night.
“During five whole sessions,” he used to say, “I spoke every night but
one; and I regret only that I did not speak that night too.”
The model of a debate is that given by Milton in the opening of the
second book of _Paradise Lost_.
Mr. Sharp tells of the first meetings of a society at a public school,
in which two or three evenings were consumed in debating whether the
floor should be covered with a sail-cloth or a carpet; and better
practice was gained in these unimportant discussions than in those that
soon followed,—on liberty, slavery, passive obedience, and tyrannicide.
It has been truly said, that nothing is so unlike a battle as a review.
Sir E. Bulwer Lytton has well illustrated a defect even in great
orators, namely, nervousness; he says: “I doubt whether there has been
any public speaker of the highest order of eloquence who has not felt an
anxiety or apprehension, more or less actually painful, before rising to
address an audience upon any very important subject on which he has
meditated beforehand. This nervousness will, indeed, probably be
proportioned to the amount of previous preparation, even though the
necessities of reply, or the changeful temperament which characterises
public assemblies, may compel the orator to modify, alter, perhaps
wholly reject, what, in previous preparation, he had designed to say.
The fact of preparation itself had impressed him with the dignity of the
subject—with the responsibilities that devolve on an advocate from whom
much is expected, on whose individual utterance results affecting the
interests of many may depend. His imagination had been roused and
warmed, and there is no imagination where there is no sensibility. Thus
the orator had mentally surveyed, as it were, at a distance, the
loftiest height of his argument; and now, when he is about to ascend to
it, the awe of the altitude is felt.”
The late Marquis of Lansdowne one day remarked to Thomas Moore, that he
hardly ever spoke in the House of Lords without feeling the approaches
of some loss of self-possession, and found that the only way to surmount
it was to talk on at all hazards. He added, what appears highly
probable, that those _commonplaces_ which most men accustomed to public
speaking have ready cut and dry, to bring in on all occasions, were, he
thought, in general used by them as a mode of getting out of those blank
intervals, when they do not know _what_ to say next, but, in the mean
time, must say _something_.
Mr. John Scott Russell, the eminent engineer, gives the following
practical hints: “In a large room, nearly square, the best place to
speak from is near one corner, with the voice directed diagonally to the
opposite corner. In all rooms of common forms, the lowest pitch of voice
that will reach across the room will be most audible. In all such rooms,
it is better to speak along the length of the room than across it; and a
low ceiling will, _cæteris paribus_, convey the sound better than a high
one. It is better, generally, to speak from pretty near a wall or
pillar, than far away from it. It is desirable that the speaker should
speak in the key-note of the room, and evenly, but not loud.”
To be well acquainted with the subject is of prime importance. Malone
relates an amusing instance of failure in this respect in one of our
greatest orators. Lord Chatham, when Mr. Pitt, on some occasion made a
very long and able speech in the Privy Council relative to some naval
matter. Every one present was struck by the force of his eloquence. Lord
Anson, who was by no means eloquent, being then at the head of the
Admiralty, and differing entirely in opinion from Mr. Pitt, got up, and
only said these words: “My Lords, Mr. Secretary is very eloquent, and
has stated his own opinion very plausibly. I am no orator; and all I
shall say is, that he knows nothing at all of what he has been talking
about.”
Mr. Flood, the Irish orator, being told that he seemed to argue with
somewhat less of his usual vigour when engaged on the wrong side of the
question, happily replied that he “could not escape from the force of
his own understanding.” This must be the origin of the shrewd
observation, that some clever persons are “educated beyond their own
understanding.”
Mr. Brougham, writing to the father of Thomas Babington Macaulay when
the latter was at Cambridge University, urged the following, with a view
to the great promise for public speaking which Macaulay then possessed,
and of which Lord Grey had spoken in terms of the highest praise. “He
takes his accounts from his son,” says Mr. Brougham; “but from all I
know, and have learnt in other quarters, I doubt not that his judgment
is well formed. Now, of course, you destine him for the Bar; and,
assuming that this, and the public objects incidental to it, are in his
views, I would fain impress upon you (and through you, upon him) a truth
or two which experience has made me aware of, and which I would have
given a great deal to have been acquainted with earlier in life from the
experience of others.
“1. The beginning of the art is to acquire a habit of _easy speaking_;
and in whatever way this can be had (which individual inclination or
accident will generally direct, and may safely be allowed to do so), it
must be had. Now, I differ from all other doctors of rhetoric in this: I
say, let him first of all learn to speak safely and fluently; as well
and as sensibly as he can, no doubt, but at any rate let him learn to
speak. This is to eloquence or good speaking what the being able to talk
in a child is to correct grammatical speech. It is the requisite
foundation, and on it you must build. Moreover, it can only be acquired
young: therefore, let it by all means, and at any sacrifice, be gotten
hold of forthwith. But in acquiring it, every sort of slovenly error
will also be acquired. It must be got by a habit of easy writing—which,
as Wyndham said, proved hard reading; by a custom of talking much in
company; by debating in speaking societies, with little attention to
rule, and more love of saying something at any rate, than of saying any
thing well. I can even suppose that more attention is paid to the matter
in such discussions than to the manner of saying it; yet still to say it
easily, _ad libitum_, to say what you choose, and what you have to say,
this is the first requisite; to acquire which every thing else must for
the present be sacrificed.
“2. The next step is the grand one: to convert this style of easy
speaking into chaste eloquence. And here there is but one rule. I do
earnestly entreat your son to set daily and nightly before him the Greek
models. First of all, he may look to the best modern speeches (as
probably he has already); but he must by no means stop here; if he would
be a great orator, he must go at once to the fountain-head, and be
familiar with every one of the great orations of Demosthenes. I take for
granted that he knows those of Cicero by heart; they are very beautiful,
but not very useful, except, perhaps, the _Milo, pro Ligario_, and one
or two more: but the Greek must positively be the model; and merely
reading it, as boys do, won’t do at all; he must enter into the spirit
of each speech, thoroughly know the positions of the parties, follow
each turn of the argument, and make the absolutely perfect and most
chaste and severe composition familiar in his mind. His taste will
improve every time he reads and repeats to himself (for he should have
the fine passages by heart); and he will learn how much may be done by
the skilful use of a few words, and a vigorous rejection of all
superfluities. In this view I hold a familiar knowledge of Dante as
being next to Demosthenes. It is in vain to say that imitation of these
models won’t do for our times. First, I do not counsel any imitation,
but only an imbibing of the same spirit. Secondly, I know from
experience that nothing is half so successful in these times (bad though
they be) as what had been formed on the Greek models. I use a very poor
instance in giving my own experience; but I do assure you, that both in
courts of law and Parliament, and even in mobs, I have never made so
much play (to use a very modern phrase) as when I was almost translating
from the Greek. I composed the peroration of my speech for the Queen in
the Lords, after reading and repeating Demosthenes for three or four
weeks, and I composed it over twenty times at least; and it certainly
succeeded in a very extraordinary degree, and far above any merits of
its own. This leads me to remark, that though speaking with writing
beforehand is very well until the habit of any speech is acquired, yet,
after that, he can never write too much: this is quite clear. It is
laborious, no doubt, and it is more difficult beyond comparison than
speaking offhand; but it is necessary to perfect oratory, and at any
rate it is necessary to acquire the habit of correct diction. But I go
further, and say, even to the end of a man’s life, he must prepare word
for word most of his fine passages. Now, would he be a great orator or
no? In other words, would he have almost absolute power of doing good to
mankind in a free country or no? So he wills this, he must follow these
rules.—Believe me truly yours,
H. BROUGHAM.”
A contemporary journalist[98] has well observed of the oratory of the
present day: “With all its great defects, which are perceptible enough
to any cultivated hearer, Public Speaking is one of the greatest treats
you can provide for the middle and higher population of one of our
towns. The extempore oration is of course often a rough production; it
does not at all come up to our ideas of the perfection of language, but
it fascinates and fetters attention as being extempore,—as displaying
the energy of an actual creation on the spot. Lord Derby’s is perhaps
the best oratorical language we have,—we mean when he speaks his best;
it is properly different from book-language, and yet does not run into
the technical inflation, and conventional bombast, and professional
phraseology, which are the dangers of oratory. Mr. Gladstone’s is
Parliamentary English—a very surprising and brilliant creation, but one
that has gone through a medium of technicality or conventionalism, and
does not come straight from the fount of language. The Bishop of
Oxford’s oratory is open to the criticism that it is overstrained, and
produces vivid pictorial effects at the cost of simplicity. This is no
very severe or invidious criticism, because in nine cases out of ten an
orator who selects an exaggerated phrase selects it because a simpler
one does not come to hand. A ready and inexhaustible command of the
simplest and truest words is, of course, the very triumph of oratory,
and a most rare triumph. Still, with all its defects, oratory is
oratory: it is an uncommon exhibition of power; it creates interest, and
sustains attention as such; and we are not sorry that our provincial
towns have now the opportunity of hearing most of our leading public
speakers.”
Akin to the present subject is the art of presiding over a festive
company, for which Sir Walter Scott has left these few simple practical
rules:
1st. Always hurry the bottle round for five or six rounds, without
prosing yourself, or permitting others to prose. A slight fillip of
wine inclines people to be pleased, and removes the nervousness
which prevents men from speaking—disposes them, in short, to be
amusing, and to be amused.
2d. Push on, keep moving! as young Rapid says. Do not think of
saying fine things—nobody cares for them any more than for fine
music, which is often too liberally bestowed on such occasions.
Speak at all ventures, and attempt the _mot pour rire_. You will
find people satisfied with wonderfully indifferent jokes, if you can
but hit the taste of the company, which depends much on its
character. Even a very high party, primed with all the cold irony
and _non est tanti_ feelings, or no feelings of fashionable folks,
may be stormed by a jovial, rough, round, and ready præses. Choose
your text with discretion—the sermon may be as you like. Should a
drunkard or an ass break in with any thing out of joint, if you can
parry it with a jest, good and well; if not, do not exert your
serious authority, unless it is something very bad. The authority
even of a chairman ought to be very cautiously exercised. With
patience, you will have the support of every one.
3d. When you have drunk a few glasses to play the good fellow and
banish modesty (if you are unlucky enough to have such a troublesome
companion), then beware of the cup too much. Nothing is so
ridiculous as a drunken preses.
Lastly, always speak short, and _Skeoch doch na skiel_—cut a tale
with a drink.
---------------------
Footnote 97:
_Orat._ c. 7.
Footnote 98:
The _Times_.
----------------------------
----------------------------
OPPORTUNITY.
To _bide the time_ is often the means, though slow, of reaping success.
Late in the last century, a printseller settled in a leading street of
the artistic locality of Soho: during the first six weeks he kept shop,
his receipts were not as many pence; nevertheless he was civil and
obliging to all callers and inquirers, to whom, in the printselling
business, customers are a very small proportion. This obliging
disposition was his main investment, and his shop grew to be the resort
of print-collectors of all grades—from the rich duke to the hard-working
engraver; he became wealthy, and died bequeathing to his family a
considerable fortune, and the finest stock of prints in the metropolis.
Extraordinary instances have occurred of latent genius having been
discovered by some lucky accident, and fostered to high position. Isaac
Ware, the architect and editor of _Palladio_, was originally a
chimney-sweeper, and, when a boy, was seated one day in front of
Whitehall-palace, upon the pavement, whereon he had drawn in chalk the
elevation of a building. This attracted the notice of a gentleman in
passing, and led him to inquire who had chalked out the building. The
boy replied, it was his own work; the unknown patron then took the lad
to the master-sweeper to whom he was apprenticed, purchased his
indenture, and forthwith had little Ware educated: he rose to be one of
the leading architects of his day, and among other edifices he built
Chesterfield-house, in South Audley-street, one of the handsomest
mansions in the metropolis. Ware died in 1766; and, it is said, retained
the stain of _soot_ in his face to the day of his death.
----------------------------
MEN OF BUSINESS.
Our forefathers appear to have conveyed much of their instructions in
Business Life by way of apophthegm. In the _Spectator_, No. 109, it is
observed that “the man proper for the business of money and the
advancement of gain, speaking in the general, is of a sedate, plain,
good understanding, not apt to go out of his way, but so behaving
himself at home that business may come to him. Sir William Turner, that
valuable citizen, has left behind him a most excellent rule, and couched
it in a very few words, suited to the meanest capacity. He would say,
‘Keep your shop, and your shop will keep you.’” [Alderman Thomas, the
mercer in Paternoster-row, made this one of the mottoes of his shop.]
“It must be confessed, that if a man of a great genius could add
steadiness to his vivacities, or substitute slower men of fidelity to
transact the methodical part of his affairs, such an one would outstrip
the rest of the world: but business and trade are not to be managed by
the same heads which write poetry and make plans for the conduct of life
in general.”
However, Bacon thought otherwise. “Let no man,” he says, “fear lest
learning should expulse business; nay, rather, it will keep and defend
the possessions of the mind against idleness and pleasure, which
otherwise, at unawares, may enter to the prejudice both of business and
pleasure.”
The proper time—“_rerum est omnium primum_.” “To choose time,” says
Bacon, “is to save time; and an unseasonable motion is but beating the
air. There be three parts of business: the preparation; the debate, or
examination; and the perfection; whereof, if you look for despatch, let
the middle only be the work of many, and the first and last the work of
few.”
Sir Robert Walpole had in his mind a man not apt to go out of his way,
when he described Henry Legge, his Chancellor of the Exchequer, as
having “very little rubbish in his head;” meaning that he was a
practical, useful man of business.
There are few persons who have not met with cases of hypochondriacs who
have been relieved and made more happy by useful and disinterested
occupation in promoting the welfare of others. Dr. Heberden used to
relate a striking case of this kind. Captain Blake was a hypochondriac
for several years, and during that time every week or two he consulted
the Doctor, who had not only prescribed all the medicines likely to
correct disease arising from bodily infirmity, but every argument which
humanity and good sense could suggest for the comfort of his mind; but
in vain. At length Dr. Heberden heard no more of his patient, till after
a considerable interval he found that Captain Blake had formed a project
for conveying fish to London, from some of the seaports in the west, by
means of light carts adapted for expeditious land-carriage. The
arrangement and various occupations of the mind in carrying out this
object entirely superseded all sense of his former malady, which from
that time never returned.
Innumerable are the instances of men retiring from business in middle
life, yet yearning to return to it,—so strong is the habit of
occupation. We all remember the story of the city tallow-chandler, who
retired into the suburbs, having sold his business, with the proviso
that he should come to town on a melting-day. One of the partners of a
large publishing house, some years since, retired into Wales; but did
not long survive the change, to enjoy his well-earned fortune. Another
instance occurs: a tradesman retired from business with a fortune, and
travelled for some time to divert _ennui_; but this not succeeding, he
returned to active life in manufacturing and patenting lamps and
kettles, night-lights and potato-saucepans, and, in such small
ingenuities, finds himself happy again.
The late Mr. Charles Tilt, the well-known publisher in Fleet-street,
retired from business in middle life; travelled many years in each
quarter of the world; and wrote a pleasant little book, entitled _The
Boat and the Caravan_. He had been articled to Longman and Co.; then
lived with Mr. Hatchard, in Piccadilly; and next established himself
with great success. Notwithstanding his long retirement, his business
habits never forsook him: he generously acted as trustee in the
settlement of the affairs of his late partner, Mr. David Bogue, who had
succeeded to the entire concern in Fleet-street; and he next officiated
as executor to the estate of the late Mr. Hatchard, with whom he had
formerly lived. Mr. Tilt died in 1862, leaving the large property of
180,000_l._
----------------------------
CHARACTER THE BEST SECURITY.
“I owe my success in business chiefly to you,” said a stationer to a
paper-maker, as they were settling a large account; “but let me ask how
a man of your caution came to give credit so freely to a beginner with
my slender means?” “Because,” replied the paper-maker, “at whatever hour
in the morning I passed to my business, I always observed you without
your coat at yours.” Upon this Mr. Walker, the police-magistrate,
observes: “I knew both parties. Different men will have different
degrees of success, and every man must expect to experience ebbs and
flows; but I fully believe that no one in this country, of whatever
condition, who is really attentive, and, what is of great importance,
who lets it appear that he is so, can fail in the long-run. Pretence is
ever bad; but there are many who obscure their good qualities by a
certain carelessness, or even an affected indifference, which deprives
them of the advantages they would otherwise infallibly reap, and then
they complain of the injustice of the world. The man who conceals or
disguises his merit might as well expect to be thought clean in his
person if he chose to go covered with filthy rags. The world will not,
and cannot in great measure, judge but by appearances; and worth must
stamp itself, if it hopes to pass current, even against baser metal:
Worth makes the man, want of it the fellow;
The rest is all but leather or prunello.—_Pope._”
----------------------------
ENGINEERS AND MECHANICIANS.
“No man can look back on the last twenty or thirty years without feeling
that it has been _the age of Engineers and Mechanicians_. The profession
has, in that period of time, done much to change the aspect of human
affairs; for what agency during that period, single or combined, can be
compared in its effects, or in its tendency towards the amelioration of
the condition of mankind, with the establishment of railroads, of the
electric telegraph, and to the improvement in steam navigation?”
“The wide range of the profession of an Engineer requires the
assistance of many departments of science and art, and must call
into employment important branches of manufacture. He can perform no
great work without the aid of a great variety of workmen; and it is
on their strength and skill, as well as on their scientific
direction, that the perfection of his work will depend. The personal
experience of one individual cannot fit him for the exigencies of a
profession which is ever extending its range of subjects, and is
constantly dealing with new and complex phenomena,—phenomena which
are all the more difficult to deal with from the fact, that they are
generally surrounded by such variable circumstances as render them
incapable of being submitted to precise measurement and calculation,
or of being made amenable to the deductions of exact science.
Consequently, nothing is more certain than that he who wishes to
reach the perfection of his art must avail himself of the experience
of others as well as his own, and that he will not unfrequently find
the sum of the whole little enough to guide him. And let no
inventive genius suppose that his own tendencies or capabilities
relieve him from this necessity.
“There is no such thing as discovery and invention, in the sense
which is sometimes attached to the words. Men do not suddenly
discover new worlds, or invent new machines, or find new metals.
Some indeed may be, and are, better fitted than others for such
purposes; but the progress of discovery is, and always has been,
much the same. _There is nothing really worth having that man has
obtained that has not been the result of a combined and gradual
progress of investigation._ A gifted individual comes across some
old footmark, and stumbles on a chain of previous research and
inquiry. He meets, for instance, with a machine, the result of much
previous labour; he modifies it, pulls it to pieces, constructs and
reconstructs it, and, by further trial and experiment, he arrives at
the long-sought-for result.”
Such were the emphatic words of Mr. Hawkshaw, F.R.S., in opening his
Address on his election as President of the Institution of Civil
Engineers, session 1861-62. It would not be difficult to illustrate the
President’s data by many bright instances of their truth. But we
remember too well the sad story of Myddleton bringing the New River to
our metropolis, a very early engineering labour, who, although he died
not so poor as is usually represented, yet his family fell into decay.
Almost equally familiar is the story of the life of George Stephenson,
the maturer of the locomotive engine; and the career of his son, Robert
Stephenson, the constructor of the London and Birmingham Railway, and
second only to his father as a railway engineer. George learned to read
and write at night-schools, and “figuring” by the engine-fires. As
Robert grew up, his father was enabled to send him to Edinburgh
University, where he acquired some knowledge in mathematics and geology:
these acquisitions afforded subjects for comment and discussion between
him and his father, and were of valuable use to both in their future
joint avocations; and when the father had retired, in the sphere of
railways Robert was recognised as the foremost man, the safest guide,
and the most active worker. In the great railway mania of 1844, he was
engineer for thirty-three new schemes; and his income was large, beyond
any previous instance of engineering gain. His other great railway
achievements were, the High-level Bridge at Newcastle; the Chester and
Holyhead line; he constructed the Britannia and Conway tubular bridges,
and designed the tubular bridges for Canada and Egypt. These intense
labours brought him to his grave in his fifty-sixth year. It has been
truly said of Robert Stephenson:
“He almost worshiped his father’s memory, and said he owed all to
his father’s training, his example, and his character; and he
declared in public: ‘It is my great pride to remember that, whatever
may have been done, and however extensive may have been my own
connexion in the railway development, all I owe, and all I have done
is primarily due, to the parent whose memory I cherish and revere.’
Like his father, he was eminently practical, and yet always open to
the influence and guidance of correct theory.
“In society Robert Stephenson was simple, unobtrusive, and modest;
but charming, and even fascinating, in an eminent degree. Sir John
Lawrence has said of him, that he was, of all others, the man he
most delighted to meet in England, he was so manly, yet gentle, and
withal so great.
“His great wealth enabled him to perform many generous acts in a
right noble and yet modest manner, not letting his right hand know
what his left hand did.”[99]
In the life of Thomas Telford, we have another striking instance of a
man who, by the force of natural talent, unaided save by uprightness and
persevering industry, raised himself from low estate to take his stand
among the master-spirits of the age. He was born in 1757, in
Dumfriesshire, sent to the parish-school, and employed as a
shepherd-boy; in his leisure, delighted to read the books lent him by
his village friends. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a
stone-mason, and for several years worked on bridges and
stone-buildings, village-churches, and manses, in his native district.
In 1780 he went to Edinburgh, and for two years closely attended to
architecture and drawing. He then removed to London, and worked upon the
quadrangle of Somerset House, under Sir William Chambers, as architect.
His next practice was in the construction of graving-docks, wharf-walls,
and similar engineering works; and he built above forty bridges in
Shropshire. His greatest works are, the Ellesmere Canal, 103 miles in
length, with its wonderful aqueduct-bridges; the Caledonian Canal, which
cost a million of money; the Bedford Level, and other important drainage
works; 1000 miles of Highland roads and 1200 bridges; St. Katherine’s
Docks, London, constructed with unexampled rapidity; and the great road
from London to Holyhead, and the works connected with it. The Menai
Suspension Bridge is a noble example of his boldness in designing, and
practical skill in executing a novel and difficult work; and it is
related of him that, just previous to the fixing of the last bar, he
knelt in private prayer to the Giver of all good for the successful
completion of the great work. Telford left an account of his labours of
more than half a century; yet he found time to teach himself Latin,
French, Italian, and German. He was the first president of the
Institution of Civil Engineers, in whose theatre is a noble portrait of
him; and in Westminster Abbey, where he is interred, is a marble statue
of the Eskdale shepherd-boy, whose works, in number, magnitude, and
usefulness, are unrivalled.
John Rennie, who designed three of the noblest bridges in the world, in
addition to other great engineering works, was born in 1761, in the
county of East Lothian. He learned his first lessons in mechanics in the
workshop of a millwright; before he was eleven years old he had
constructed a windmill, a pile-engine, and a steam-engine; he next
learned elementary mathematics and mechanics, and drawing machinery and
architecture, and attended lectures on mechanical philosophy and
chemistry. His greatest works are the Plymouth Breakwater; Waterloo,
Southwark, and London bridges; the London, East and West India Docks;
and great steam-engines; his principal undertakings having cost forty
millions sterling. He was rarely occupied in business less than twelve
hours a day; he seldom illustrated his information with any other
instrument than a two-foot rule, which he always carried in his pocket.
He owed his good fortune to talent, industry, prudence, perseverance,
boldness of conception, soundness of judgment, and habits of untiring
application: his works were indeed executed for posterity.
Sir Edward Banks, who built Rennie’s three stupendous bridges, was a
labourer at Chipstead on the Merstham railway, some sixty years since:
by his own natural abilities, which had not been cultivated to any
extent, and by his integrity and perseverance, he became contractor for
public works, and acquired great wealth: and it shows the simplicity of
his nature, that, struck with the retired picturesqueness of Chipstead
churchyard, he chose it for the depository of his remains, where the
tablet to his memory bears his bust, and an arch and the three great
bridges,—the goal of his remarkable career.
The history of the life of the elder Brunel is strangely tinged with
romance. He was born in Normandy in 1769, was early intended for the
priesthood; but when at the college of Gisors, he would steal away to
the village carpenter’s shop, and draw faces and plans, and learn to
handle tools; and one day, seeing a new tool in a cutler’s window, he
pawned his hat to purchase it. He was next sent to the ecclesiastical
seminary of St. Nicaise at Rouen; there, in his play-hours, he loved to
watch the ships along the quay; and seeing some large iron castings
landed from an English ship, he inquired, Where had they come from? and
on being told from England, the boy exclaimed, “Ah, when I am a man, I
will go and see the country where such grand machines are made.” On his
return home, he continued his mechanical recreations; made musical
instruments; and invented a nightcap-making machine, which is still used
by the peasantry in that part of Normandy. His father now gave up all
hope of his son for the priesthood, and had him qualified to enter the
navy, and at seventeen he was nominated to a royal corvette; but while
serving there he continued his mechanical pursuits, and made for himself
a quadrant in ebony. His ship having been paid off in 1792, Brunel went
to Paris, where he nearly fell a victim to the fury of the Revolution;
but he escaped to Rouen, and thence fled to the United States, where he
landed in 1793. While at New York, the idea of his block-machinery
occurred to him. He now executed canal surveys, and designed the Park
Theatre, and superintended its erection; he was next appointed chief
engineer for New York, and there erected a cannon-foundry, with novel
contrivances for casting and boring guns. He left New York in January
1799, and landed at Falmouth in the following March: there he met his
early love, Sophia Kingdom, and the pair were shortly after united for
life.
Brunel brought with him to England a duplicate writing and drawing
machine; a machine for twisting cotton-thread and forming it into balls;
a machine for trimmings and borders for muslins, lawns, and cambrics.
The famous block-machinery was Brunel’s next invention; then various
wood-working machinery, and machines for manufacturing shoes; and next
the Battersea saw-mills; but the failure of the two latter speculations
brought Brunel into difficulties, from which he was extricated by a
government grant of 5000_l._, in consideration of the savings by the use
of his block-machinery. He then improved the stocking-knitting machine
and steam-engine; metallic paper and crystallised tinfoil; improvements
in stereotyping and the treadmill. In engineering, he designed
suspension, swing, and other bridges, and machines for boring cannon. He
next experimented with a boat on the Thames, fitted with a double-action
engine, and made his first voyage in it to Margate in 1814, when he
narrowly escaped personal violence from the proprietors of the
sailing-boats. Marine engines and paddle-wheels were next improved by
Brunel; and these were followed by his carbonic-acid gas engine, which
proved too costly a machine. Then came the crowning event of his life,
the construction of the Thames Tunnel, taking the idea of his
excavating-machine from the boring operations of the _Teredo navalis_.
In this formidable work he was assisted by his son, Isambard Kingdom
Brunel, then only nineteen years of age; and after most perilous
operations, the tunnel was completed, and opened March 25th, 1843. This
was the engineer’s last work: as a commercial adventure it proved
disastrous, which preyed on the mind of Brunel; though he lived six
years longer, until he had attained his 81st year.
The younger Brunel’s first great work was the Clifton Suspension
Bridge, followed by docks at Bristol and Sunderland, and several
colliery tramways. In 1835, he was appointed engineer of the Great
Western Railway, being then only about twenty-eight years of age, but
skilful and ingenious, and anxious to strike out an entirely new
course in railway engineering. He adopted the broad-gauge, then a
great and novel enterprise, but now ascertained to be unnecessary: the
works were unusually costly, and so novel that the line was called the
Grand Experimental Railway; while it rendered Brunel famous as a
railway engineer. He next attempted the atmospheric principle; but
this proved unsuccessful, and the loss exceeded half a million of
money. His last and greatest railway engineering achievements were his
“bowstring-girder” bridges at Chepstow and Saltash: the latter has two
wrought-iron tubes, each weighing upwards of 1000 tons, and the
viaduct and bridge are nearly half a mile, or 300 feet longer than the
Britannia bridge. The central Saltash pier foundations, upon solid
rock, 90 feet below the surface of the river, were laid within a
wrought-iron cylinder 37 feet in diameter and 100 feet high, and the
whole work involved six years’ toil, anxiety, and peril.
Next, Brunel devised an iron-plated armed ship capable of withstanding
the fire of the Sebastopol forts; but his grand triumphs as a naval
engineer were, the _Great Western_, steam-ship, propelled by
paddle-wheels; and the _Great Britain_, propelled by a screw; but these
were thrown into the shade by his _Great Eastern_, combining the powers
of the paddle-wheel and the screw; and which, with the aid of Mr. Scott
Russell, its builder, was completed and launched,—the largest ship that
has ever floated. But this stupendous labour had undermined Mr. Brunel’s
health; he was seized with paralysis, and died at the comparatively
early age of fifty-three.[100]
Of Brunel’s great engineering skill there can be no question; he loved
difficulties and engineering perils: he has been styled “the Michael
Angelo of Railways;” and his victory in “the Battle of the Gauges”
gained him extraordinary prominence in the railway world. His ruling
passion was magnitude, without regard to cost: “he was the very Napoleon
of engineers, thinking more of glory than of profit, and of victory than
of dividends.” Capitalists subscribed to his projects freely, and he put
his own savings into the same risks; if shareholders suffered, he
suffered with them; and it must be conceded that both railway travelling
and steam navigation have been greatly advanced by the speculative
ability of Mr. Brunel’s Titanic labours.
The career of Joseph Locke, civil engineer, though less brilliant than
that of Brunel, was one of more sterling worth. He was born in
Yorkshire, in 1805, the son of a fellow-workman with George Stephenson
at the pit. Locke had little schooling, and failing in two or three
humble services, at the age of nineteen he became George Stephenson’s
pupil, and then his assistant, taking charge of the survey of railway
lines; he was appointed engineer-in-chief of the Grand Junction and
South-Western lines; and next initiated the Continental Railway system,
promoting the rapid communication between London and Paris. He was made
a chevalier and officer of the Legion of Honour, and sat in the British
Parliament for Honiton. He died at the early age of fifty-five, leaving
great wealth to his widow (a daughter of Mr. M‘Creery, the literary
printer), to form in the North a public park, and found a scholarship.
The high celebrity of Mr. Locke was not due to the fact of his
making railways. It was, that he made them within the estimated
cost,—an achievement which would sooner or later have been attained
by the ordinary operations of capital. The Grand Junction Railway
was eventually constructed for a sum within the estimate, and at an
average cost of less than 15,000_l._ a mile. The heavy works on the
Caledonian line were completed at less than 16,000_l._ a mile. This
economical success was in a great measure owing to the adoption of a
bold system of steep gradients—an expedient which Stephenson, it
appears, disliked to the last, and which was a prevailing feature in
his active rival’s designs. Locke hated a tunnel, and with
embankments and inclines would encounter any difficulty.[101]
Thomas Cubitt, the great metropolitan builder and contractor, was
another remarkable man of this class. He was born at Buxton, near
Norwich, in 1788. At the time of his father’s death he was nineteen
years old, and working as a journeyman carpenter. He next took a voyage
to India and back, as captain’s joiner; and, on his return to the
metropolis, with his savings began business as a master-carpenter.
Within six years he erected large workshops in Gray’s-inn-road. One of
his earliest works was building the London Institution in Moorfields.
About 1824, he began to build Tavistock-square, Gordon-square,
Woburn-place, and the adjoining streets; and next engaged to cover with
houses large portions of the Five Fields, Chelsea, of which engagement
Belgrave-square, Lowndes-square, and Chesham-place are the results.[102]
He subsequently contracted to build over the large open district between
Eaton-square and the Thames, now known as South Belgravia. He had
completed most of his large engagements, and had just built for himself
a mansion at Denbies, where he died in his sixty-seventh year, possessed
of great wealth. Through life he constantly promoted the intellectual
and moral improvement of his work-people. One of his brothers, and
partner in business, is Mr. William Cubitt, M.P., who has twice served
the office of Lord Mayor, and was, like his relative, originally a
ship’s carpenter.
Thomas Brassey, the railway contractor, is another remarkable instance
of colossal labour. Born at Buerton in 1805, and educated at Chester, he
commenced life as a surveyor at Birkenhead; and his first railway work
was a contract to supply the stone for a viaduct of the Liverpool and
Manchester line. From this period to the present hour, he has
constructed, upon his own responsibility and credit, many hundred miles
of railway in England, Scotland, France, Spain, and Canada, at the cost
of millions of money. A striking instance of his energy and enterprise
occurred in one of his French contracts. When the Barentine viaduct, of
twenty arches, on the Rouen and Havre Railway, was nearly completed, the
work gave way, and the casualty involved a loss of 30,000_l._ Mr.
Brassey was neither morally nor legally responsible—he had repeatedly
protested against the material used in the structure; but the viaduct
was rebuilt entirely at Mr. Brassey’s cost.
Mr. George Bidder, the engineer, presents one of the few examples of
early habits of calculation being matured to advantage. When about six
years of age, he was first introduced to the science of figures. His
father was a working man; his elder brother commenced instructing him
to count up to 10, then to 100, and there he stopped. He repeated the
process, and found that by stopping at 10, and repeating that every
time, he counted up to 100 much quicker than by going straight through
the series: he counted up to ten, then ten again = 20, 3 times 10 =
30, 4 times = 40, and so on. At this time he did not know one written
or printed figure from another, nor did he know there was such a word
as “multiply;” but, having acquired the power of counting up to 100 by
ten and by 5, he set about, in his own way, to acquire the
multiplication-table: he got a small bag of shot, which he arranged
into squares of 8 on each side, and then, on counting them, found they
amounted to 64; which fact once established, remained undisturbed in
Mr. Bidder’s mind until this day; and in this way he acquired the
whole multiplication-table up to 10 times 10, which was all he needed.
In a house opposite his father’s lived an aged blacksmith, who allowed
young Bidder to run about his workshop and blow the bellows for him,
and on winter-evenings to listen to the old man’s stories by the
forge-hearth. By practice his powers of numeration were drawn forth,
he was rewarded with halfpence, and thus he became more attached to
arithmetic. The “Calculating Boy” has now matured as an eminent
engineer; the process of reasoning, or action of the mind, by which,
when a boy, he trained himself in Mental Arithmetic, having laid the
basis of sound professional skill, which he has most beneficially
exercised in various great engineering works.
James Walker, civil engineer, who died in 1862, aged eighty-one, was the
oldest member of the profession. He was one of the earliest members of
the Institution of Civil Engineers, succeeded Telford as President, and
filled the chair fourteen years. Mr. Walker, through his long life, was
associated with many of the greatest hydraulic works in England and
Scotland, including lighthouses, harbours, bridges, embankments, and
drainage. He had accumulated in personalty 300,000_l._, which he took
great pains to distribute by his will; for he was a kind-hearted,
generous man, and considerate and liberal to those associated with him
in his profession.
---------------------
Footnote 99:
Smiles’s _Lives of the Engineers_, vol. iii.
Footnote 100:
He had more perilous escapes from violent death than fall to the lot
of most men. He had two narrow escapes from drowning by the river
suddenly bursting in upon the Thames-Tunnel works. During the Great
Western Railway inspection, he was one day riding a pony rapidly down
Boxhill, when the animal stumbled and fell, pitching the engineer on
his head; he was taken up for dead, but eventually recovered. One day,
when driving an engine through the Box-tunnel, he discerned some light
object standing on the same line of road along which his engine was
travelling; he turned on the full steam and dashed the object (a
contractor’s truck) into a thousand pieces. When on board the _Great
Western_ steam-ship, he fell down a hatchway into the hold, and was
nearly killed. But the most extraordinary accident which befel him
was, in showing a sleight-of-hand trick to his children, his
swallowing a half-sovereign, which dropped into his windpipe, remained
there for six weeks, when it was removed through an incision in the
windpipe, by Sir Benjamin Brodie and Mr. Key; his body was inverted,
and after a few coughs, the coin dropped into his mouth. Mr. Brunel
used afterwards to say, that the moment when he heard the gold piece
strike against his upper front teeth was perhaps the most exquisite in
his whole life.—Abridged from the _Quarterly Review_, No. 223.
Footnote 101:
_Saturday Review._
Footnote 102:
This district was originally a clayey swamp; but Mr. Cubitt finding
the strata to consist of gravel and clay of inconsiderable depth, the
clay he removed and burned into bricks; and by building upon the
substratum of gravel, he converted this spot from one of the most
unhealthy to one of the most healthy—a singular adaptation of the
means to the end.
----------------------------
SCIENTIFIC FARMING.
Southey, in _The Doctor_, remarks: “It is a fact not unworthy of notice,
that the most intelligent farmers in the neighbourhood of London are
persons who have taken to farming as a business, because of their strong
inclination for rural employments: one of the very best in Middlesex,
when the Survey of that county was published by the Board of
Agriculture, had been a tailor.”
Scientific farming has of late years largely multiplied these amateur
farmers; but, long before rural economy had taken this turn, we remember
a curious instance. Some five-and-forty years since, when Davy’s
_Agricultural Chemistry_ was the only work of its class, there lived in
a town of Surrey a gentleman-tradesman, who loved to relieve the
monotony of his own business by flying off to experimental pursuits. In
politics he was a disciple of Cobbett, and year after year foretold a
revolution in England,—an alarm which he raised throughout his
household. He took extreme interest in new mechanical projects; and kept
a chronological record of the progress of the Thames Tunnel. In
wine-making he was a very experimentalist, and knew by heart every line
of Macculloch on Wine from unripe fruit. Next, he turned over every inch
of his garden, analysed the soil _à la Davy_, and _salted_ all his
growing crops, as well as the soil. But he soon flew from horticultural
chemistry to real farming; and about the same time took to road-making
and macadamisation, and became surveyor of the highways. He next bought
the lease of a house in the neighbourhood for the sake of the large
garden attached to it; and here he passed much of his time in its
experimental culture. Had he lived to the days of Liebig, how he would
have revelled in his theories!
We have a strong confirmation of Southey’s remark in the present day in
the case of Alderman Mechi, who has become a memorable man in this kind
of experimental agriculture, and has transferred the _magic_ of his
Razor-Strop (by the sale of which, in ten years he realised a handsome
fortune) to the barren heath-land of Essex. In 1840 he commenced his
bucolic experiments by purchasing a small unproductive farm at
Tiptree-heath; and here he tried what could be effected by deep drainage
and the application of steam-power. The Essex farmers laughed at him as
an enthusiast, and the country gentlemen kept aloof from him. Mechi,
however, persevered, and brought his farm into such high productiveness
that he realises annually an average handsome profit. We have seen his
balance-sheet impugned: however, if public opinion is worth any thing,
he has rendered great service to agricultural science by the exhibition
of processes upon his model farm, Tiptree, which is known all over the
European continent; for the Alderman has been presented with a 500_l._
testimonial of plate by noblemen and gentlemen interested in science and
agriculture at home and abroad.
----------------------------
LARGE FORTUNES.
No single class can be pointed to in the present day as the first
favourite of fortune. The loan-monger is still powerful, and so is the
speculator; but bankers accumulate fortunes like those of the highest
nobles, and a linen-draper left the other day cash which would purchase
the fee-simple of the Woburn estates. The rate of fortunes has
enormously increased. Pitt thought it useless to tax fortunes above a
million, and now men die every day whose heirs chuckle over the saving
produced by this want of foresight. A “plum” has ceased to be even a
citizen’s goal, and there are tradesmen in London whose incomes while in
trade exceed “a great fortune” of the time of the second George. Very
enormous realised fortunes, properties that are producing 50,000_l._
a-year, are, however, still very scarce. Only fifty-seven are returned
to the English income-tax; and though that is a palpably erroneous
account, it may be doubted if there are a dozen individuals with that
amount in the world. There are none in France or Italy beyond a few
working capitalists, a few remaining in Germany, a considerable number
in Russia, and perhaps thirty individuals in America. There are perhaps
ten private incomes in India of that amount, as many in South America,
and a few officials in the Eastern world accumulate very considerable
sums; but there the list ends.[103] Yet, how often are large fortunes
wrecked by those who succeed to them!
Many a Londoner past middle age may recollect Thomas Clark, “the King of
Exeter ’Change,” who was long one of the most singular characters in the
metropolis. He took a stall in the ’Change in 1765, with 100_l._ lent
him by a stranger. By parsimony and perseverance he so extended his
business as to occupy nearly one-half of the entire building with the
sale of cutlery, turnery, &c. He grew rich, and once returned his income
at 6000_l._ a-year. He was penurious in his habits: he dined with his
plate on the bare board, and his meal, with a pint of porter, never cost
him a shilling; after dinner he took a glass of spirits-and-water at the
public-house opposite the end of the ’Change, and then returned to his
business. He resided in Belgrave-place, Pimlico; and morning and evening
saw him on his old horse, riding into town and home again—and thus he
figured in the print-shops. He died in 1817, in his eightieth year, and
left nearly half a million of money. His daughter was married to Hamlet,
the celebrated goldsmith of Coventry-street who, however, met with sad
reverses; and, among other unsuccessful speculations, built the Bazaar
and the Princess’s Theatre in Oxford-street.
The wealth of the celebrated Mr. Beckford, the son of the demagogue
Alderman, and Lord Chatham’s god-child, proved the shoal upon which his
happiness was wrecked. He succeeded to his father’s enormous fortune at
ten years of age. He was educated at home: he was quick and lively, and
had literary tastes; he had a great passion for genealogy and heraldry;
studied Oriental literature: in his seventeenth year he wrote a history
of extraordinary painters. His father had left him, principally in
Jamaica estates, a property which, on the conclusion of his minority,
furnished him with a million of ready money and an income of 100,000_l._
a-year. He travelled and resided abroad until his twenty-second year,
when he wrote _Vathek_, a work of startling beauty. At twenty-four he
married; but the lady died in three years. He passed many years in
travelling, principally in Spain and Portugal, before he got
sufficiently settled in mind to return to his family-seat, Fonthill in
Wiltshire. He began to reside there in 1796, and immediately commenced
the great squandering of his money. He had always a hundred, and often
two hundred, workmen engaged in carrying out his wayward fancies. But he
was haughty and reserved; and because some of his neighbours followed
game into his grounds, he had a wall, twelve feet high and seven miles
long, built round his home-estate, in order to shut out the world. He
then began the third house at Fonthill, considering the second too near
a piece of water. The new house was built in a sham monastic style, was
called the Abbey, and cost a quarter of a million; but never put to any
use, except on one occasion, to receive Lord Nelson. While Beckford was
indulging these gigantic follies, he lost, by an adverse decision in a
Chancery-suit, a considerable portion of his Jamaica property; he was
also cheated out of large sums of money, and in the end was obliged to
sell Fonthill; the purchaser was Mr. Farquhar, a rich but penurious
merchant. In a few years the lofty tower of the Abbey fell down. The
estate is now the property of the Marquis of Westminster. Mr. Beckford
removed to Bath, and there built, on Lansdowne Hill, an Italian villa,
with a lofty prospect-tower. While residing here he wrote an account of
the travels which he had made half a century before; and having got
through large sums of money in planting and building, he died in 1844,
in his eighty-fourth year; and upon his tomb a passage from _Vathek_ is
inscribed.
Mr. Beckford was unquestionably a man of genius and rare
accomplishments. “But his abilities were overpowered, and his character
tainted, by the possession of wealth so enormous. At every stage of life
his money was like a millstone round his neck. He had taste and
knowledge; but the selfishness of wealth tempted him to let these gifts
of the mind run to seed in the gratification of extravagant freaks. He
really enjoyed travelling and scenery, but he felt it incumbent on him,
as a millionnaire, to take a French cook with him wherever he went; and
he found that the Spanish grandees and ecclesiastical dignitaries who
welcomed him so cordially valued him as the man whose cook could make
such wonderful omelettes. From the day when Chatham’s proxy stood for
him at the font till the day when he was laid in his pink granite
sarcophagus, he was the victim of riches. Had he had only 5000_l._ a
year, and been sent to Eton, he might have been one of the foremost men
of his time, and have been as useful in his generation as, under his
unhappy circumstances, he was useless.”[104] It may be added, that he
was worse: for he so threw about his money at Fonthill as to corrupt and
demoralise the simple country-people. We remember three of his London
residences: one on the Terrace, Piccadilly, on the site of the
newly-built mansion of Baron Rothschild; another of Beckford’s town
residences was No. 1 Devonshire-place, New-road; and the third, No. 27
Charles-street, May Fair, a very small house, looking over the garden of
Chesterfield-house.
The vanity of wealth is exemplified in the following anecdote, which
Mrs. Richard Trench had from an ear-witness:
The late Duke of Queensberry, leaning over the balcony of his
beautiful villa near Richmond, where every pleasure was collected
which wealth could purchase or luxury devise, he followed with his
eyes the majestic Thames, winding through groves and buildings of
various loveliness, and exclaimed, “Oh, that wearisome river! Will
it never cease running, running, and I so tired of it?” To me this
anecdote conveys a strong moral lesson, connected with the
well-known character of the speaker, a professed voluptuary, who
passed his youth in pursuit of selfish pleasures, and his age in
vain attempts to elude the relentless grasp of _ennui_.
Now let us turn to some better uses of wealth earned by well-directed
industry. Old Mr. Strahan, the printer (the founder of the typarchical
dynasty), said to Dr. Johnson, that “there are few ways in which a man
can be more innocently employed than getting money;” and he added, that
“the more one thinks of this, the juster it will appear.” Johnson agreed
with him. Boswell also relates that Mr. Strahan once talked of launching
into the great ocean of London, in order to have a chance of rising into
eminence; and observing that many men were kept back from trying their
fortunes there because they had been born to a competency, said, “Small
certainties are the bane of men of talents;” which Johnson confirmed.
Mr. Strahan had taken a poor boy from the country as an apprentice, upon
Johnson’s recommendation. Johnson, having inquired after him, said, “Mr.
Strahan, let me have five guineas on account, and I’ll give this boy
one. Nay, if a man recommends a boy, and does nothing for him, it’s sad
work. Call him down.” Boswell followed Johnson into the courtyard behind
Mr. Strahan’s house, and there he heard this conversation:
“Well, my boy, how do you go on?” “Pretty well, sir; but they’re afraid
I a’n’t strong enough for some parts of the business.” _Johnson._ “Why,
I shall be sorry for it; for, when you consider with how little mental
power and corporeal labour a printer can get a guinea a week, it is a
very desirable occupation for you. Do you hear; take all the pains you
can; and if this does not do, we must think of some other way of life
for you. There’s a guinea.”
Here was one of the many instances of Johnson’s active benevolence. At
the same time, says Boswell, the slow and sonorous solemnity with which,
while he bent himself down, he addressed a little thick short-legged
boy, contrasted with the boy’s awkwardness and awe, could not but excite
some ludicrous emotions.
Johnson appears to have been generally alive to the policy of getting
money: we all remember when, as one of the executors of Mr. Thrale, he
was assisting in taking stock of the brewery in Southwark, how its
vastness impressed the doctor with “the potentiality of growing rich.”
William Strahan, a native of Edinburgh, came to London when a very young
man, and worked as a journeyman printer, having Dr. Franklin for one of
his fellow-workmen. Strahan, industrious and thrifty, prospered, and
purchased, in 1770, a share of the patent for King’s printer; and he
obtained considerable property in the copyrights of the works of the
most celebrated authors of the time. He was a great friend to Johnson,
and kept up his intimacy with Franklin. He died rich, bequeathing
munificent legacies. He was succeeded in his business by his third son,
Andrew Strahan, who inherited his father’s excellent qualities, and died
in 1831, aged eighty-three, leaving property to the amount of more than
a million of money. Among his many generous acts, he presented to James
Smith, one of the authors of the _Rejected Addresses_, the munificent
gift of 1000_l._
The vicissitudes of the Buckinghams, political as well as fiscal, can be
traced through the long lapse of eight centuries. In our own times, two
dukes have fallen from their high estate into neglect and poverty.
Richard, first Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, lived at Stowe, with
princely magnificence: his expenditure in rare books and works of art
was enormous; and his entertainment of the Royal Family of France and
their numerous retinues, upon one of his estates, not only drained his
exchequer, but burdened him with debt. Neither Louis XVIII. nor Charles
X., however, took the slightest notice of the obligation they had
incurred,—apparently regarding such imprudent generosity as the natural
acknowledgment of their exceeding merit. The Duke was, in 1827,
compelled to shut up his house and go abroad, till his large estates
could be nursed, so as to meet the heaviest and most pressing
demands.[105] While abroad, he had a dream, which he has recorded in his
_Private Diary_, published in 1862. He dreamed that he was at Stowe, his
dear and regretted home: all was deserted—not a soul appeared to receive
him. His good dog met him, licked his hand, and accompanied him through
all the apartments, which were desolate and solitary,—every room as he
had left it. He met his wife, who told him all his family were gone, and
she alone was left. He awoke with the distress of the moment, and slept
no more that night.
Mr. Rumsey Forster, in his piquant historical notice of Stowe, prefixed
to the _Priced and Annotated Catalogue_, relates that, Louis Philippe
being present when the Royal Family of France were enjoying the
hospitality of the Marquis of Buckingham at Stowe, as they were seated
together in the library, the conversation turned on events then enacting
on the other side of the Channel; upon which Louis Philippe,
recollecting his own position with the Revolutionists, threw himself
upon his knees, and begged pardon of his royal uncle for having ever
worn the tricoloured cockade. The anecdote is curious, when the
subsequent career of the ex-monarch is borne in mind.
The Duke died Jan. 17, 1839, and was succeeded by his only son, Richard
Plantagenet, who, though crippled in fortune by the paternal tastes,
celebrated the coming of age of his son with profuse hospitality at
Stowe, in 1844; and in 1845, entertained Queen Victoria and the Prince
Albert with great sumptuousness. The mansion at Stowe was partly
refurnished for the occasion, when the cost of the new carpets was
5000_l._ In 1848, the dream of the first Duke was strangely realised by
the dismantling of Stowe, and the compulsory dispersion of the whole of
the costly contents; the sale occupying forty days, and realising
75,562_l._ 4_s._ 6_d._ The Duke subsequently resided in the
neighbourhood; and he often indulged his sadness at his fallen fortunes
by walking to Stowe; and there, in one of the superb saloons in which
kings and princes had held courts and been feasted with regal
magnificence,—seated in a chair before a small table—the only furniture
in the room—would Richard Plantagenet pass many an hour of “bitter
fancy.” He died July 30, 1861, at the age of sixty-four. Sir Bernard
Burke, Ulster, writes of the Duke’s lineage: “Of all native-born British
subjects, his Grace was, after the present reigning family, the senior
representative of the Royal Houses of Tudor and Plantagenet.”[106]
“Day and Martin’s Blacking,” one of the inventions of the present
century, realised a large fortune, which was mostly appropriated to
beneficent purposes. Day is related to have been originally a
hair-dresser; and, as the story goes, one morning a soldier entered his
shop, representing that he had a long march before him to reach his
regiment; that his money was gone, and nothing but sickness, fatigue,
and punishment awaited him unless he could get a lift on a coach. The
worthy barber, who, with his small means, was a generous man, presented
him with a guinea, when the grateful soldier exclaimed, “God bless you,
sir! how can I ever repay you this? I have nothing in this world except”
(pulling a dirty piece of paper from his pocket) “a receipt for
blacking: it is the best ever was seen; many a half-guinea have I had
for it from the officers, and many bottles have I sold.” Mr. Day, who
was a shrewd man, inquired into the truth of the story, tried the
blacking, and finding it good, commenced the manufacture and sale of it,
and realised the immense fortune of which he died possessed in 1836;
bequeathing 100,000_l._ for the benefit of persons who, like himself,
suffered the deprivation of sight. The rebuilding of the Blacking
Factory, in High Holborn, cost 12,000_l._
Pianoforte-making has led to great money-making results. About the year
1776, Becker, a German, undertook to apply the pianoforte mechanism to
the harpsichord, assisted by John Broadwood and Robert Stodart, then
workmen in the employ of Burckhardt Tschudi, of Great Pulteney-street,
London. After many experiments, the grand-pianoforte mechanism was
contrived by these three. Messrs. Broadwood, from 1824 to 1850, made on
an average 2236 pianofortes per annum; and employed in their manufactory
573 workmen, besides persons working for them at home. In 1862 died the
head of the firm, Mr. Thomas Broadwood, sen., at the age of
seventy-five, leaving 350,000_l._ personal property, besides realty.
James Morison, who styled himself “the Hygeist,” and was noted for his
“Vegetable Medicines,” was a Scotchman, and a gentleman by birth and
education. His family was of the landed gentry of Aberdeenshire, his
brother being “Morison of Bognie,” an estate worth about 4000_l._ a
year. In 1816 James Morison, having sold his commission, for he was an
officer in the army, lived in No. 17 Silver-street, Aberdeen, a house
belonging to Mr. Reid, of Souter and Reid, druggists. He obtained the
use of their pill-machine, with which he made in their back-shop as many
pills as filled two large casks. The ingredients of these pills, however
he may have modified them afterwards, were chiefly oatmeal and bitter
aloes. With these two great “meal bowies” filled with pills, he started
for London; with the fag-end of his fortune advertised them far and
wide, and ultimately amassed 500,000_l._
Such is the statement of a Correspondent of the _Athenæum_. Morison’s
own story was, that his own sufferings from ill-health, and the cure he
at length effected upon himself by “vegetable pills,” made him a
disseminator of the latter article. He had found the pills to be “the
only rational purifiers of the blood;” of these he took two or three at
bedtime, and a glass of lemonade in the morning, and thus regained sound
sleep and high spirits, and feared neither heat nor cold, dryness nor
humidity. The duty on the pills produced a revenue of 60,000_l._ to
Government during the first ten years. Morison died at Paris, in 1840,
aged seventy.
The Denisons, father and son, accumulated two of the largest fortunes of
our time. About 120 years ago, Joseph Denison, who was the son of a
woollen-cloth merchant at Leeds, anxious to seek his fortune in London,
travelled thither in a wagon, being attended on his departure by his
friends, who took a solemn leave of him, as the distance was then
thought so great that they might never see him again. He at first
accepted a subordinate situation; but being industrious, parsimonious,
and fortunate, he speedily advanced himself in the confidence and esteem
of his employers, bankers in St. Mary Axe, and married successively two
wives with property. He continued to prosper; and by joining the
Heywoods, eminent bankers of Liverpool, his wealth rapidly increased. In
1787 he purchased the estate of Denbies, near Dorking in Surrey. By his
second wife he had one son, William Joseph Denison; and two
daughters—Elizabeth, married, in 1794, to Henry, first Marquis
Conyngham; and Maria, married, in 1793, to Sir Robert Lawley, Bart.,
created, in 1831, Baron Wenlock.
Mr. Denison died in 1806; his son, succeeding to the banking business,
continued to accumulate; and, at his death in his seventy-ninth year, in
August 1849, left two millions and a half of money. He had sat in
Parliament for Surrey from 1818. He was a man of cultivated tastes,
possessed a knowledge of art and elegant literature; he feared to be
thought ostentatious, and could with difficulty be prevailed on to have
a lodge erected at the entrance to a new road which he had just formed
on his estate, near Dorking. The Marchioness Conyngham was left a widow
in 1832; she died in 1861, having attained the venerable age of
ninety-two, and lived to see both her sons peers of the realm,—the one
in succession to his father; the second, Albert Denison, as heir to her
own brother’s great fortune and estates, with the title of Baron
Londesborough.
The career of George Hudson, ridiculously styled “the Railway King,” was
one of the _ignes fatui_ of the railway mania. He was born in a lowly
house in College-street, York, in 1800; here he served his
apprenticeship to a linendraper, and subsequently carried on the
business as principal, amassing considerable wealth. His fortune was
next increased by a bequest from a distant relative, which sum he
invested in North-Midland Railway shares; and, under his chairmanship,
they gradually rose from 70_l._ discount to 120_l._ premium. This led to
the creation of new shares in branch and extension lines, often
worthless, which were issued at a premium also: Hudson soon found
himself chairman of 600 miles of railway, extending from Rugby to
Newcastle; and he is stated in a single day to have cleared 100,000_l._
He was also elected M.P. for Sunderland; and served twice Lord Mayor of
York. The sum of 16,000_l._ was subscribed and presented to him as a
public testimonial; with which he purchased a mansion at Albert-gate,
Hyde-park; here he lived sumptuously, and went his round of visits among
the peerage. But the speculation of 1845 was followed by a sudden
reaction: shares fell, the holders sold to avoid payment of calls, and
many were ruined; then followed the unkingship of Hudson, who was hurled
down like the molten calf, and he lost a vast fortune in the general
wreck of the railway bubbles.
The most beneficial fortunes made in business are those by which, at the
same time, permanent advantages are secured to the public. Henry
Colburn, the well-known publisher, “was a man of much ability and
extraordinary enterprise. His public career connected him intimately
with the literature of the present century, and few are the
distinguished writers, during the last forty years, whose names were not
associated with that of Mr. Colburn. In one of Mr. Disraeli’s novels a
handsome tribute is paid to his acuteness of judgment and generosity of
dealing. The publication of the Diaries of Pepys and Evelyn will rank
among many sterling contributions to literature due in the first
instance to his enterprise. He originated those weekly literary reviews
which have since been so successful; he established more than one
newspaper, and conducted for a great many years the Magazine which still
bears his name; and was the original publisher of Sir Bernard Burke’s
_Peerage_. In private life he was known as a friendly, hospitable, kind
man, and acts of the greatest liberality marked his course through
life.”[107] He died at an advanced age.
Mr. James Morrison, the wealthy warehouseman of Cripplegate, started in
life as foreman to Mr. Todd, whose daughter he married; and succeeding
to his large property, distinguished himself as a sound political
economist, and for some years sat in Parliament. He obtained, by
purchase, the fine estates of Basilden, in Berkshire, and Fonthill, in
Wiltshire: at Basilden, in 1846, the Lord Mayor and Corporation, upon
the View of the Thames, were entertained by Mr. Morrison, who then
referred with much gratification to his having been brought up in the
City of London, “connected with it in a mercantile point of view, and
having, by his own industry, obtained every thing he could desire.” He
was a man of high commercial character; to which Mr. Edwin Chadwick, at
the Meeting of the British Association at Cambridge, in 1862, bore this
interesting testimony: “I had the pleasure,” said Mr. Chadwick, “of the
acquaintance of perhaps the most wealthy and successful merchant of the
last half-century,—a distinguished member of our political economy club,
the late Mr. James Morrison,—who assured me, that the leading principles
to which he owed his success in life, and which he vindicated as sound
elements of economical science, were—always to consult the interests of
the consumer, and not, as is the common maxim, to buy cheap and sell
dear, but to sell cheap as well as to buy cheap; it being to his
interest to widen the area of consumption, and to sell quickly and to
the many. The next maxim is involved in the first principle—always to
tell the truth, to have no shams: a rule which he confessed he found it
most difficult to get his common sellers to adhere to in its integrity,
yet most important for success, it being to his interest as a merchant
that any ship-captain might come into his warehouse and fill his ship
with goods of which he had no technical knowledge, but of which he well
knew that only a small profit was charged upon a close ready-money
purchasing price, and that go where he would he would find nothing
cheaper; it being, moreover, to the merchant’s interest that his bill of
prices should be every where received from experience as a truth, and
trustworthy evidence so far of a fair market-value. I might cite
extensive testimony of the like character to show that the very labour
and risks of continued deceits, however common, are detrimental to the
successful operation of economic principles, and that sound economy is
every where concurrent with high public morality.”
With this brilliant exception before us, we must, however, admit the
general truth of this experience: “The nobility of trade usually ends
with the second generation. A thrifty and persevering man falls into a
line of business by which he accumulates a large fortune, preserving
through life the habits, manners, and connexions of his trade; but his
children, brought up with expectations of enjoying his property,
understand only the art of spending. Hence, when deprived of fortune,
without industry or resources, they die in beggary, leaving a third
generation to the same chances of life as those with which their
grandfather began his career fourscore years before.”[108]
---------------------
Footnote 103:
_Spectator_ newspaper, 1862.
Footnote 104:
_Saturday Review._
Footnote 105:
When the Duke and Duchess, in taking farewell of Stowe, had reached
the flower-garden, they both burst into a violent fit of tears. They
went through the two gardens, and left them in silent sorrow: as he
passed along, the Duke gave the Duchess a rose, which she treasured as
the last gift.
Footnote 106:
See Ulster’s _Vicissitudes of Families_, in three volumes, for many
impressive narratives of the same class as the above.
Footnote 107:
The _Examiner_.
Footnote 108:
_Golden Rules of Social Philosophy_, by Sir Richard Phillips.
----------------------------
CIVIC WORTHIES.
The state and dignity of the office of Chief Magistrate of the City of
London have, during nearly centuries of its existence, pointed many a
moral,—from the nursery-tale of Whittington to the accessories of
Hogarth’s pictures and a homelier illustration of our own days:
Our Lord Mayor and his golden coach, and his gold-covered footmen
and coachman, and his golden chain, and his chaplain, and great
sword of state, please the people, and particularly the women and
girls; and when they are pleased, the men and boys are pleased: and
many a young fellow has been more industrious and attentive from his
hope of one day riding in that golden coach.—_Cobbett._
This is, however, but the bright side of the picture. Civic office is
often a costly honour; not only by large expenditure, but by neglect of
private business to attend to the public duties of the station.
All that we propose to do here is to record a few noteworthy Mayoralties
of the _present century_, to show that the office continues to be filled
by men of high character and moral worth.
Among the worthy citizens should be mentioned Sir James Shaw, born in
1764, in the humblest circumstances, and educated at the grammar-school
of Kilmarnock. He settled in London as a merchant, by his own
perseverance and integrity amassed a fortune, served as Lord Mayor
1805-6, sat in three parliaments for the City, and was subsequently
Chamberlain. He was unostentatiously charitable, encouraged industrious
poor men, and succoured the indigent, because he remembered his own
unpromising infancy; and he was one of the first to assist the helpless
children of Robert Burns. In commemoration of these estimable qualities,
a marble statue of Sir James Shaw was erected by public subscription at
Kilmarnock in 1848.
Sir Matthew Wood, Bart., the most popular Lord Mayor in the present
century, began life as a druggist’s traveller, and then settled in
London in the ward of Cripplegate, for which he rose to be alderman: he
served as Lord Mayor two successive years, and represented the City in
nine parliaments; his baronetcy was the first title conferred by Queen
Victoria shortly after her accession. He gained much popularity as the
adviser of the ill-fated Queen Caroline; for which, and his general
political conduct, a princely legacy was bequeathed to him by the
wealthy banker of Gloucester of the same name. He died in his 75th year:
his eldest son, the present baronet, is in holy orders; and his second
son, Sir William Page Wood, is a sound equity lawyer and a
Vice-Chancellor.
Alderman Birch, Lord Mayor in 1815, received a liberal education, and at
an early age wrote some poems of considerable merit: he succeeded his
father in business, as a cook and confectioner, in Cornhill. He produced
several dramatic pieces, of which the _Adopted Child_ is a stock
favourite: he was a sound scholar, and wrote the inscription for the
statue of George III. in the Council-chamber at the Guildhall, and took
an active part in founding the London Institution.[109]
Robert Waithman, Lord Mayor in 1823-24, was born of parents in humble
life, in 1764, and, when a boy, was adopted by his uncle, a linendraper
at Bath, and sent to a school where the boys were taught public and
extemporaneous speaking. He was taken into his uncle’s business, and
subsequently came to London, and opened a shop at the south end of
Fleet-market. In 1794 he began to take an active part in City politics,
and was next elected into the Common Council, where his speeches,
resolutions, petitions, and addresses, would fill a large volume. He sat
in five parliaments for the City, made a popular Sheriff and Lord Mayor;
and after his death, in 1833, his friends and fellow-citizens erected to
his memory a granite obelisk upon the site whereon he commenced
business. A memorial tablet was also placed in St. Bride’s church,
stating that “it was his happiness to see that great cause triumphant,
of which he had been the intrepid advocate from youth to age.” Curiously
enough, this tablet is placed in the vestibule of the church, directly
opposite a similar memorial to Mr. Blades, of Ludgate-hill, who was a
fine old Tory, and a stanch opponent to Waithman throughout his stormy
political life: as in life, so in death the great leveller has laid them
here.
Waithman made his first political speech at Founders’ Hall, “the caldron
of sedition,” when he and his fellow-orators were routed by constables
sent by the Lord Mayor, Sanderson, to disperse the meeting. When
Sheriff, in 1821, Waithman, in endeavouring to quell a tumult at
Knightsbridge, had a carbine presented at him by a lifeguardsman; and,
at the funeral of Queen Caroline, a bullet passed through the Sheriff’s
carriage, in the procession through Hyde-park. Latterly, the alderman
grew too moderate for his Farringdon-ward friends, and he was defeated
of being elected Chamberlain; he then withdrew to a farm near Reigate,
and in this bucolic retirement passed away. He was an intrepid, upright
man, but had been sparsely educated; and many of the Resolutions on the
War with France, by which he gained political notoriety, were written by
his friend and neighbour, Sir Richard Phillips.
In early life Waithman showed considerable genius for acting; and we
once heard him relate that his success in the character of Macbeth led
his friends to press upon him the stage as a profession; but he chose
another sphere. He was uncle to John Reeve, the clever comic actor.
Alderman Kelly, Lord Mayor at the accession of her Majesty in 1837, was
horn at Chevening, in Kent, and lived, when a youth, with Alexander
Hogg, the publisher, in Paternoster-row, for 10_l._ a year wages. He
slept under the shop-counter for the security of the premises; but was
reported to his master to be “too slow” for the situation: Mr. Hogg,
however, thought him “a biddable boy,” and he remained: this incident
shows _upon what apparently trifling circumstances a man’s future
prospects in life depend_. Kelly succeeded Mr. Hogg in the business,
became alderman of the ward, and lived upon the spot sixty years: he
died in his eighty-fourth year.[110] He was a man of active benevolence,
and reminded one of the pious Lord Mayor, Sir Thomas Abney.
Sir Chapman Marshall, Lord Mayor 1839-40, was also of humble origin, as
he narrated in 1831, when Sheriff, in replying to the toast of his
health: “My Lord Mayor and gentlemen, you now see before you a humble
individual who has been educated in a parochial school. I came to London
in 1803, without a shilling—without a friend. I have not had the
advantage of a classical education; therefore you will excuse my defects
of language. But this I will say, my Lord Mayor and gentlemen, that you
witness in me what may be done by the earnest application of honest
industry; and I trust my example may induce others to aspire, by the
same means, to the distinguished situation which I now have the honour
to fill.” Here is a similar instance.
Sir John Pirie, Lord Mayor 1841-2, received his baronetcy on the
christening of the Prince of Wales: at his inauguration dinner Sir John
said: “I little thought, forty years ago, when I came to the City of
London, a poor lad from the banks of the Tweed, that I should ever
arrive at so great a distinction.”
Alderman Wire, Lord Mayor 1858-9, was born 1801, and was one of the
large family of a tradesman at Colchester; yet he had the advantage of a
liberal education. He came to London and articled himself to a City
solicitor, and by his intelligence and industry was advanced to be
partner in the business, and ultimately became the head of the firm. He
was elected Alderman of his Ward (Walbrook), served Sheriff in 1853, and
then Lord Mayor. Early in his year of office he was afflicted with
paralysis, of which he recovered; but died on Lord-Mayor’s-day 1860! He
was an active advocate of sanitary and educational movements, a liberal
politician, and a man of cultivated taste, and made an able chief
magistrate.
Alderman Mechi deserves a niche among these civic worthies, by the
superior enterprise of his career. He is the son of a citizen of
Bologna, was brought to England by his father, and, obtaining a
clerkship in a house in the Newfoundland trade, he remained there eleven
years. Whilst in this service, he turned the hour allowed for dinner to
profitable account by selling, among his friends and acquaintance in the
City, a small and inexpensive article, of which he had bought the
patent. Mainly by these exertions, when in his twenty-fifth year, he
commenced business as a cutler, with the success we have already
intimated. He then studied how to remedy the defects of English farming
by scientific processes; rose to be Sheriff and an Alderman; took an
active part in the affairs of the Society of Arts, and was specially
sent by her Majesty’s Government to the Industrial Exhibition at Paris
in 1854.
Addison, we know, says, “the City has always been the province for
satire; and the wits of King Charles’s time jested upon nothing else
during his whole reign.” Nevertheless, “the Merry Monarch” dined with
the citizens no fewer than nine times in their Guildhall. Here also
Whittington had feasted Henry V. and his Queen, when he threw the King’s
bonds for 60,000_l._ into a fire of spice-wood. But a still more
memorable feast was that in 1497, when at the table of the Lord Mayor,
William Purchase, Erasmus first met Sir Thomas More; whence sprung one
of the most interesting friendships in literary history.
It has been well said that a dinner lubricates business; and it does
more—it fosters charity and good works. The annual banquet on
Lord-Mayor’s-day, in the Guildhall, is mostly to be viewed as a festival
of civic state: “the loving-cup and the barons of beef carrying the mind
back to medieval times and manners.”[111] The banquets at the Mansion
House—one of the most palatial edifices in the kingdom—are of a like
stately description; and for the more direct benefits of civic festivity
we must look to the Ward dinners, and the meetings of public officers at
table, when they forget the cares and heartburnings incident to every
grade of office, and enjoy with the feast the higher luxury of doing
good.
---------------------
Footnote 109:
Birch excelled in his art; and his _cuisine_ was unrivalled in the
City. Kitchiner immortalised his soups in print, and the Mansion-House
banquets and Court dinners of the Companies attested the alderman’s
practical skill in his business. The shop in Cornhill was established
in the reign of King George I. by Horton, who was succeeded by the
father of Alderman Birch, whose successors, in 1836, were the present
proprietors, Ring and Brymer. The premises present a curious specimen
of the decorated shop-front of the early part of the last century.
Footnote 110:
See _Life of Alderman Kelly_, by the Rev. R. C. Fell. 1856.
Footnote 111:
Cunningham.
----------------------------
WORKING AUTHORS AND ARTISTS.
Godwin, the novelist and political writer, used to say that an author
should have two heads,—one for his books, the other for worldly matters.
And Holcroft, Godwin’s contemporary, made a similar remark on
actors,—that they were so often filling other characters as to forget
their own. These observations are, happily, of rare application in the
cases of the present day.
We, however, remember the phrase of _Grub-street_ in occasional use, and
we find “the poor devil of an author” in one of Washington Irving’s
early works. But this species is now extinct; and authors build villas,
give large parties, and keep carriages, like other successful
professional men. Nor must it be forgotten that they do not receive
their money for corrupt services, as did the hacks of former days; and a
Grub-street Author would be now almost as great a rarity as a living
gorilla.
We remember a specimen of “author and rags—author and dirt—author and
gin,”—of forty years since. He lived in a garret,[112] in an old house
at the top of Red Lion-court, Fleet-street: in one corner of the room,
upon the floor, lay the bed; near the fire-place was an old chair; a box
placed endwise served for a table; and these, with an almost spoutless
coffee-pot, a maimed cup and saucer, a bottle for a candlestick, and an
old chest, nearly completed the contents of the miserable apartment. The
inmate was an old man turned of seventy, with shrunk shanks and
loosely-fitting coat and breeches, and the conventional
author’s-nightcap; his scratchwig being placed upon one of the uprights
of his chair, which served as a block. Every portion of the room bore
evidence of the _dirt;_ and the atmosphere was redolent of _gin_. He
wrote a large black, sermon-like hand, upon paper of all sorts and
sizes: his matter was as antiquated as his manner; his very talk was
scholastic pedantry, and the room was strewed with scraps and shreds of
his learning: but he lived within the classic shade of Valpy’s
printing-office. With all his labour and learning, whatever he wrote was
not half so serviceable or so interesting as a short-hand report of an
occurrence of yesterday.
Another humble practitioner of authorship had been driven to it by
failure in business; and an undecided Chancery-suit had made him a
pitiable, puling fellow; far less cheerful than the evergreen “Tom
Hill,” who, failing as a drysalter at unlettered Queenhithe, betook
himself to the editorship of the _Monthly Mirror_, but had to part with
a collection of book-rarities (chiefly English poetry), which he began
to make in early life as some relief to drysalting, which was any thing
but Attic work!
The life of this “merry bachelor” exemplified one venerable proverb, and
disproved another: born in 1760, and dying in 1840, he was “as old as
the Hills,” having led a long life and a merry one. He was a remarkably
early riser; but that which contributed more to his longevity was his
gaiety of heart, and his being merry and wise: he had his cares and
crosses, but when nearly ruined by an adverse speculation in indigo, he
retired with the remains of his property to chambers in the Adelphi. His
books were valued at 6000_l._ He had been a Mecænas in his time, and had
patronised two friendless poets, Bloomfield and Kirke White. He was the
Hull of his friend Theodore Hook’s _Gilbert Gurney_, and suggested some
of the eccentricities of Paul Pry.
Authorship and Trade are thought to be “wide as the poles asunder,”
though sometimes attempered by circumstances. David Booth, who wrote the
_Analytical Dictionary_ and a critical work on English Composition, was
originally a brewer, then a man of letters; and late in life he realised
much money by imparting to brewers the secret of preventing
Acidification in Brewing.
Among the strange successes of authorship may be mentioned the
popularity of works published anonymously, which their authors have not
cared to claim. The accomplished Dr. William Maginn wrote the tragic
story of the Polstead murder, in 1827, in the form of a novel, entitled
the _Red Barn_, the sale of which extended to many thousand copies; yet
no one suspected it to be the work of an elegant scholar, critic, and
poet.
Literary Fame, Lord Byron affected to despise, in the following entry in
his entertaining _Ravenna Journal_, January 4th, 1821:
I was out of spirits—read the papers—thought what _fame_ was, on
reading in a case of murder that Mr. Wych, grocer, at Tunbridge,
sold some bacon, flour, cheese, and, it is believed, some plums, to
some gipsy woman accused. He had on his counter (I quote faithfully)
a book, the _Life of Pamela_, which he was _tearing_ for _waste_
paper, &c. &c. In the cheese was found, &c., and a _leaf_ of _Pamela
wrapped round the bacon_. What would Richardson, the vainest and
luckiest of _living_ authors (_i. e._ while alive)—he who, with
Aaron Hill, used to prophesy and chuckle over the presumed fall of
Fielding (the prose Homer of human nature), and of Pope (the most
beautiful of poets)—what would he have said could he have traced his
pages from their place on the French prince’s toilets (see Boswell’s
_Johnson_) to the grocer’s counter and the gipsy murderess’s bacon?
What would he have said—what can any body say—save what Solomon said
long before us. After all, it is but passing from one counter to
another—from the bookseller’s to the other tradesman’s, grocer or
pastry-cook. For my part, I have met with most poetry upon trunks;
so that I am apt to consider the trunk-maker as the sexton of
authorship.
The Letters of Southey afford some of the most truthful experiences of
an author to be found in any record of human life and character. At the
age of thirty, when struggling with the world, he wrote thus
reverentially:
No man was ever more contented with his lot than I am; for few have
ever had more enjoyments, and none had ever better or worthier
hopes. Life, therefore, is sufficiently dear to me, and long life
desirable, that I may accomplish all which I design. But yet, I
could be well content that the next century were over, and my part
fairly at an end, having been gone well through. Just as at school
one wished the school-days over, though we were happy enough there,
because we expected more happiness and more liberty when we were to
be our own masters, might lie as much later in the morning as we
pleased, have no bounds, and do no exercise,—just so do I wish that
my exercises were over, that that ugly chrysalis state were passed
through to which we must all come, and that I had fairly burst my
shell, and got into the new world, with wings upon my shoulders, or
some inherent power like the wishing-cap, which should annihilate
all the inconveniences of space.
How lifelike also is the following passage upon Southey’s meeting his
friend and schoolfellow, Combe! “It is about six years since I saw him.
Both he and I have grown into men with as little change as possible in
either; and yet, after a few minutes, there was a dead weight upon me
which was not to be shaken off. We met with the heartiness of old and
thorough familiarity,—something like a family feeling,—but it was
necessary to go back to school; for the moment we ceased to be
schoolboys there was nothing in common between us. We had no common
acquaintance or pursuit; and I feel that of all things in the world
there is nothing more mortifying than to meet an old friend from whom
you have had no weaning, and to find your friendship cut through at the
root.”
The life of John Britton, the topographer and antiquary, presents a
remarkable instance of a man born to trouble, yet so successfully
struggling with difficulties of all kinds, as to attain a respectable
position in life, and to be honoured in his declining years with a
public testimonial of esteem. He was born at Kington, Wilts, in 1771:
his father, through failure in trade, became insane; the boy learnt his
letters from a hornbook, but received little further schooling. He came
to London, and, until manhood, worked hard in wine-cellars; but his
health breaking down in this employment, he engaged himself at fifteen
shillings a week as clerk to an attorney. He had grown fond of reading,
but could only get snatches at book-stalls from books, having no money
to buy them. However, he at length succeeded in getting a few, read
early and late, and made some attempts at authorship, which led him to
an enterprise that may be said to have indicated his future fortune. He
projected publishing a description of his native county, Wiltshire, and
with this view waited upon the Marquis of Lansdowne, at Bowood, to
solicit his patronage.[113] He had neither card nor prospectus; but he
told his early struggles and his love of reading so artlessly, that the
kind-hearted nobleman directed his librarian to provide young Britton
with books and maps; to allot him a bedroom; and depute a person to show
him over the house and pleasure-grounds. He remained at Bowood four
days, much of which time he passed in the well-stored library. All this
kindness[114] Mr. Britton gratefully acknowledges in his Autobiography,
adding that, had he been coldly repulsed by Lord Lansdowne, “it is
probable that the _Beauties of Wiltshire_ would never have appeared
before the public, nor its author become known in literature.” He wrote,
edited, and published nearly one hundred works, and in this way laboured
for some sixty years. This success we attribute to his great energy of
character, nurtured by the kindness with which he was received at
Bowood; and aided in after-life by qualities which we rarely see
associated in the same individual. Mr. Britton was not only industrious
and persevering, but cheerful under defeat; his evenness of temper was
very remarkable; yet he was not cold in his attachments. He tells us
that from his boyhood he was ambitious to be in the company of his
elders and superiors in knowledge: we can testify that he was
well-behaved, though not obsequious; well-ordered and accurate in
business and money-matters; always living within his means, from youth,
when he read books in bed to save the expense of fire,—to his green old
age of comfort in his quiet and elegant home in Burton-street: “years
had not blunted his sympathies, but to the last his heart overflowed
with genial kindness and benevolence;” and he passed away peacefully and
resignedly in his eighty-sixth year, on New-Year’s-day, 1857. It will
thus be seen that John Britton possessed qualities which, if less
striking than his industry, were equally essential to his success in
life, although they were but fully known to his more immediate circle of
friends and acquaintance.
The career of Mr. Britton’s friend and neighbour, Francis Baily, the
astronomer, presents a memorable instance of a well-spent life, although
commenced with a mistake. He was apprenticed to a London tradesman; but
disliking the business, at the expiration of the term, his taste for
science having already been developed, at the age of one-and-twenty he
made a very remarkable tour in the unsettled parts of North America.
Returning to England, he became a member of the Stock Exchange, wrote
some important papers upon subjects connected with commercial affairs,
and applied himself to astronomy in his leisure-hours. In 1820 he took a
conspicuous part in the foundation of the Astronomical Society. After
realising a competent fortune, he retired from business, and devoted
himself to his favourite pursuits. He died in 1844, in his seventieth
year, after performing a vast amount of valuable work, of which his
labours in the remodelling of the _Nautical Almanac;_ in the fixation of
the standard of length, involving more than 1200 hours’ watching the
oscillations of the pendulum; in the determination of the density of the
earth; and in the revision of catalogues of the stars,—were only a part.
He passed away with these memorable words almost upon his lips: “My life
is nearly closed. I leave life with the same tranquillity and equanimity
which I have generally felt and acted on in my personal intercourse with
friends and strangers. I have been blessed with uninterrupted health. In
short, I have had more than my share of terrestrial happiness, and leave
it, as fulfilling an inscrutable law of animal nature, with thankfulness
and resignation.” “Among Mr. Baily’s friends,” says Prof. de Morgan,
“there is surely not one who will venture to say positively that he ever
knew _a better or a happier man_.”
The rise of Chantrey, the sculptor, from peasant-life was nobly earned.
He was born in the village of Norton, Derbyshire, in 1781, of parents in
humble circumstances. When a boy carrying milk to the next town, he
would stop to form grotesque figures of the yellow clay; and he moulded
his mother’s butter on churning-days into various forms. From his
fondness for drawing and modelling he was apprenticed to a carver and
gilder at Sheffield. Thence he came to London, and began to work at
carving in stone, not having received a single lesson from any sculptor;
and he laboured for eight years without earning 5_l._ in his profession.
At length, a single bust brought him 12,000_l._-worth of commissions,
and he rose to be the first sculptor of his day. He died in 1841, and
was buried in a tomb which he had built for himself in the churchyard of
his native village, where a granite obelisk has been raised to his
memory. He was ever mindful of his lowly origin; for when he had become
famous, and had received knighthood, at a party given by his patron, Mr.
Thomas Hope, Sir Francis Chantrey was observed to notice a piece of
carved furniture; on being asked the reason, he replied, “This was my
first work.”
It is scarcely possible to name Chantrey without being reminded of his
friend, “honest Allan Cunningham,” who, born in the county of Dumfries,
in 1784, received but scanty education, and at the age of eleven was
apprenticed to a mason. In the intervals of his laborious occupation,
“he sought knowledge wherever he could obtain it,” and drew his earliest
poetic inspiration from the dear country of Burns—the wilds of
Nithsdale, and the lone banks of the Solway. Here he earned his daily
bread as a common stonemason until his twenty-sixth year, when he came
to London, wavering between labour and literature. He chose the latter,
in reporting for the newspapers; but, soon tired of its perplexities, he
resumed his first calling, and by a fortunate opportunity, to which his
own excellent character recommended him, he became foreman of the works
of Chantrey, in which honourable employment he remained until the
sculptor’s death, in 1841. In his intervals of business, by untiring
industry, Allan Cunningham produced a succession of works noteworthy in
the poetry and general literature of his day. His first poetry was
printed in 1807: he also wrote stirring romances; and in collecting
Tradition Tales of the Scottish Peasantry, by the light of an evening
fire, he sweetened many an hour of remission from daily labour. Later in
life he became a critic of the Fine Arts, and wrote with amiable
feeling, honesty, and candour, and mature and liberal taste: it was well
observed of him in his lifetime: “He needs no testimony either to his
intellectual accomplishments or his moral worth; nor, thanks to his own
virtuous diligence, does he need any patronage.” His genius and artistic
judgment have been inherited by his third son, Peter Cunningham, the
well-known critic, topographer, and antiquary.[115]
The greatest author of the present century, whether we regard the
beneficial influence of his writings, or its extent, is Sir Walter
Scott. We have already spoken of his diligence and economy of time; his
characteristics as an author have been ably sketched as follows:
With far less classical learning, fewer images derived from
travelling, inferior information on many historical subjects, and a
mind of a less impassioned and energetic cast than other writers of
his time, Sir Walter is far more deeply read in that book which is
ever the same—the human heart. This is his unequalled excellence:
there he stands, without a rival since the days of Shakspeare. It is
to this cause that his astonishing success has been owing. We feel
in his characters that it is not romance, but real life, which is
represented. Every word that is said, especially in the Scotch
novels, is nature itself. Homer, Cervantes, Shakspeare, and Scott,
alone have penetrated to the deep substratum of character, which,
however disguised by the varieties of climate and government, is at
bottom every where the same; and thence they have found a responsive
echo in every human heart. Every man who reads these admirable
works, from the North Cape to Cape Horn, feels that what the
characters they contain are made to say, is just what would have
occurred to themselves, or what they have heard said by others as
long as they lived. Nor is it only in the delineation of character,
and the knowledge of human nature, that the Scottish novelist, like
his great predecessors, is but for them without a rival. Powerful in
the pathetic, admirable in dialogue, unmatched in description, his
writings captivate the mind as much by the varied excellences which
they exhibit, as by the powerful interest which they maintain. He
has carried romance out of the region of imagination and sensibility
into the walks of actual life.[116]
Isaac Disraeli, who died in 1848, at the age of eighty-two, was “a
complete literary character, a man who really passed his life in his
library. Even marriage produced no change in these habits: he rose to
enter the chamber where he lived alone with his books, and at night his
lamp was ever lit within the same walls.” His father destined him for
business; but this he opposed so strongly as to compose a long poem
against commerce, which he attempted to get published. In spite of all
his father could say or do, young Disraeli determined to become a
literary man. His first efforts were in poetry and romance; but he soon
found out that his true destiny was literary history; and in 1790 he
published anonymously _Curiosities of Literature_, the success of which
led him to devote the remainder of his long life to literary and
historical researches, which he prosecuted partly in the British Museum,
where he was a constant visitor when the _readers_ were not more than
half a dozen daily: he also worked in his own library, which was very
extensive. His _Curiosities_ reached eleven editions; and in
acknowledgment of his _Life and Reign of Charles I._ he was made D.C.,
&c. by the University of Oxford. He is thus personally described by his
gifted son:
He was fair, with a Bourbon nose, and brown eyes of extraordinary
beauty and lustre. He wore a small black-velvet cap, but his white
hair latterly touched his shoulders in curls almost as flowing as in
his boyhood. His extremities were delicate and well formed, and his
leg, at his last hour, as shapely as in his youth, which showed the
vigour of his frame. Latterly he had become corpulent. He did not
excel in conversation, though in his domestic circle he was
garrulous. Every thing interested him; and blind, and eighty-two, he
was still as susceptible as a child. One of his last acts was to
compose some verses of gay gratitude to his daughter-in-law, who was
his London correspondent, and to whose lively pen his last years
were indebted for constant amusement. He had by nature a singular
volatility, which never deserted him. His feelings, though always
amiable, were not painfully deep, and amid joy or sorrow the
philosophic vein was ever evident. He more resembled Goldsmith than
any man that I can compare him to: in his conversation his apparent
confusion of ideas ending with some felicitous phrase of genius, his
_naïveté_, his simplicity not untouched with a dash of sarcasm
affecting innocence—one was often reminded of the gifted and
interesting friend of Burke and Johnson. There was, however, one
trait in which my father did not resemble Goldsmith: he had no
vanity. Indeed, one of his few infirmities was rather a deficiency
of self-esteem.
Mr. Disraeli had the pride and happiness to see the writer of the above,
Benjamin Disraeli, not only achieve high distinction in literature, but
become a minister of the Crown. We remember him in his twenty-fifth
year. “Who is that gentleman with a profusion of hair, whom I so often
see here?” was our inquiry of a publisher in Oxford-street. “That is
young Disraeli,” was the publisher’s reply; “and he would be glad to
execute any literary work for a guinea or two.” He had already produced
a piece of piquant satire, an _Account of the Great World_,[117] with a
Vocabulary; and shortly after there was announced for publication a
periodical to be called _The Star-Chamber_, to have been edited by Mr.
Disraeli. He published his first novel, _Vivian Grey_, in 1825;
_Coningsby_, a work of fiction and political history, he wrote chiefly
at Deepdene, in Surrey, the seat of his friend, Mr. H. T. Hope. Mr.
Disraeli entered Parliament in 1837: he succeeded Lord George Bentinck
as the Conservative leader; was Chancellor of the Exchequer under Lord
Derby’s administrations of 1852 and 1858-9; thus exemplifying that the
highest political honours are attainable in this country by intellectual
qualification for public life.
Lord Macaulay, the brilliant essayist, historian, and orator,
exemplifies in his successful career how genius may be most profitably
nurtured by systematic education. Of quick perception and great power of
memory, when a boy he would tell long stories from the _Arabian Nights_
and Scott’s novels; but the familiar books of his home were the Bible,
_Pilgrim’s Progress_, and a few Cameronian divines; and he was fond of
Scripture phraseology throughout his writings. He appears to have been a
great favourite of Hannah More, who thought him a little prodigy of
acquisition, and wrote of him, when on a visit to her in his boyhood:
The quantity of reading that Tom has poured in, and the quantity of
writing he has poured out, is astonishing. We have poetry for
breakfast, dinner, and supper. He recited all _Palestine_ (Bishop
Heber’s poem), while we breakfasted, to our pious friend, Mr.
Whalley, at my desire, and did it incomparably.... I sometimes fancy
I observe a daily progress in the growth of his mental powers. His
fine promise of mind, too, expands more and more; and, what is
extraordinary, he has as much accuracy in his expression as spirit
and vivacity in his imagination. I like, too, that he takes a lively
interest in all passing events, and that _the child_ is still
preserved; I like to see him as boyish as he is studious, and that
he is as much amused with making a pat of butter as a poem. Though
loquacious, he is very docile; and I don’t remember a single
instance in which he has persisted in doing any thing when he saw we
did not approve it. Several men of sense and learning have been
struck with the union of gaiety and rationality in his conversation.
More remarkable was the prevoyance of Macaulay’s power as a writer,
which Hannah More almost literally predicted: he cherished a warm
recollection of his obligations to her, and the influence she had in
directing his reading. He received his peerage in honour of his valuable
services to literature: he will long be remembered by his grasp of mind,
descriptive picturesqueness, strong feeling and vivid fancy, life-like
portraiture, and marvellous scenic skill. In his mastery of the art of
writing he was unrivalled.
It may take the reader by surprise to be told that, astounding as the
career of Lord Brougham has been, the rise of this distinguished man to
the highest honour of the realm appears to have been predicted thirty
years before its attainment. At the Social Science dinner at the Crystal
Palace, Sydenham, on June 14th, 1862, at which Lord Brougham presided,
Mr. J. W. Napier, Ex-Chancellor of Ireland, related that he remembered,
some years previously, meeting an old and respected lady in the north of
England, who was present at a party when the first writers in the
_Edinburgh Review_, including Henry Brougham, dined together at
Edinburgh, after the publication of the Second Number of the Review (in
1802). On that occasion, the lady’s husband, Mr. Fletcher, remarked that
the writer of a certain paper in the Review, of which he knew not the
author, was fit to be any thing. Mr. Brougham hearing this, observed,
“What! do you think he is fit to be Lord Chancellor?” The reply was,
“Yes; and I tell you more: he will be Lord Chancellor;” and the old lady
had the happiness to live thirty years after this, and to see her friend
Lord Chancellor of England. Lord Brougham well remembered old Mrs.
Fletcher, and corroborated the accuracy of Mr. Napier’s anecdote. Mr.
Napier then proposed, in an affectionate manner, the health of Lord
Brougham, whose answer was, as he said, but a repetition of words he had
spoken thirty years ago elsewhere. But on the present occasion they were
perhaps even more appropriate, and in themselves singularly beautiful:
“When I cease from my labours, the cause of freedom, peace, and progress
will lose a friend, and no man living will lose an enemy.” The noble
lord was much affected, and it is needless to tell of the applause which
followed the sentiment.
Henry Brougham was born in Edinburgh in 1779: his father was no
extraordinary man, but his mother is described as a woman of talent and
delightful character. The son was educated in Edinburgh, which, in 1857,
he declared in public he looked upon as a very great benefit conferred
on him by Providence. He was _dux_ of the Rector’s class at the
Edinburgh University in 1791; and he was preëminent in mathematics and
natural philosophy, in law, metaphysics, and political science. When not
more than seventeen, he contributed to the Royal Society a paper on the
Inflection and Reflection of Light; and next, a paper of Porisms in the
Higher Geometry. He chose the Scottish Bar as his profession; and, with
Horner, Jeffrey, and other Scottish Whigs, joined the renowned
Speculative Society for the sake of extemporaneous debate. He for some
time edited the _Edinburgh Review_, and was for five-and-twenty years
the most industrious and versatile of the contributors. In 1808 he was
called to the Bar at Lincoln’s Inn, and began to practise as an English
barrister. In 1810 he entered Parliament, and soon distinguished himself
on all the great questions of the day. His application to law,
literature, and science was alike intense. Sir Samuel Romilly said, he
seemed to have time for every thing; and Sydney Smith once recommended
him to confine himself to only the transaction of so much business as
three strong men could get through. Hazlitt, in a portrait-sketch taken
about 1825, says:
Mr. Brougham writes almost as well as he speaks. In the midst of an
election contest he comes out to address the populace, and goes back
to his study to finish an article for the _Edinburgh Review_,
sometimes indeed wedging three or four articles in the shape of
_rifacimenti_ of his own pamphlets or speeches in Parliament in a
single Number. Such indeed is the activity of his mind, that it
appears to require neither repose nor any other stimulus than a
delight in its own exercise. He can turn his hand to any thing, but
he cannot be idle. He is, in fact, a striking instance of the
versatility and strength of the human mind, and also, in one sense,
of the length of human life: _if we make good use of our time, there
is room enough to crowd almost every art and science into it_.
It is now nearly forty years since this was written, and it is almost as
applicable as ever. In 1828, in a debate in Parliament, Mr. Brougham
used the memorable words, “The schoolmaster is abroad.” He next, in a
speech of six hours’ delivery, moved for an inquiry into the state of
the Law; the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts, Catholic
Emancipation, and the Charities Commission, were next advocated by him;
and then, Parliamentary Reform, the Abolition of Punishment of Forgery
by Death, Local Courts, and the Abolition of Slavery. In 1830 he was
raised to the high office of Lord Chancellor. Mechanics’ Institutes, and
the foundation of University College, and the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge, were next advocated by Lord Brougham. His Chancellorship was
brief. But he continued to labour for the next thirty years in Law
Reform and Social Science, and in aiding the progress of liberal
opinion.
The universal energy which has marked Lord Brougham was thus ably summed
up, on the publication of his volume of scientific Tracts, in 1860:
If the fact of his scientific researches were less well known, there
would be something quite startling in the announcement of a volume
of mathematical tracts from the hand of a man who has had half a
score of other occupations, each sufficient to engross the whole
mind of an ordinarily constituted mortal. To be great as a circuit
leader, all-powerful as a popular chief, triumphant as a reforming
Chancellor—to be the prominent figure in the Anti-Slavery movement,
the promoter of education, the concocter of law-reforming statutes
almost without number—the statesman of all parties, the citizen of
two countries, and the orator of a thousand platforms—might have
sufficed most ambitions, without the renown of literary success and
scientific effort. But, not content with the public achievements of
his life, or the obscure glory of anonymous literature, Lord
Brougham has striven to reproduce in an English dress the eloquence
of Demosthenes, and to correct the real or supposed errors of no
less a philosopher than Newton himself.... Philosophical theories
may survive Lord Brougham’s attacks, and _savans_ may forget his
speculations; but generations of Englishmen will long remember the
career of a man who has exhibited in a thousand forms an amount of
mental vitality which it would be difficult to parallel in the
history of the most restless and eager aspirants to the glory of
universal genius.
It is impossible to reflect upon the politico-legal position of Lord
Brougham when he sat upon the woolsack, without remembering that
Brougham and Denman, at the trial of Queen Caroline, attacked with
virulence, then generally condemned, the Prince from whose hands, as
sovereign, ten years later, both received high legal office. This change
in feeling is alike creditable to all.
One of the most remarkable men of our day was Professor Wilson, the
Editor of _Blackwood’s Magazine_, in the pages of which he is thus
characterised, from his bust in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham: he was
born at Paisley, in Scotland, in 1785; and died at Edinburgh, in 1854.
The head tells the story of the whole man. It is the head of an
athlete, but an athlete possessing a soul, the grace of Apollo
sitting on the thews of Hercules. Such a man, you would say at once,
was none of your sedentary _litterati_, who appear to have the cramp
in their limbs whenever they move abroad, but one who could, like
the Greeks of old, ride, run, wrestle, box, dive, or throw the
discus at need, or put the stone like Ulysses himself, or one who
could do the same things, and in addition to them steer, pull an
oar, shoot, fish, follow hounds, or make a good score at cricket,
like a true Briton of modern times, in spite of all our physical and
intellectual degeneracy, about which, indeed, we have a right to be
sceptical, when we know that such an unmistakable man as Wilson was
living in the reign of Queen Victoria. It is an honour to Scotland
that she produced such a critic on Homer, only second to that which
is hers in having produced that poet who, of all the moderns, has
composed poetry the most Homeric—even Walter Scott.
---------------------
Footnote 112:
Such a room as Mr. Egg has painted in his masterly picture of “The
Death of Chatterton;” and, curiously enough, the house above referred
to was nearly upon the same spot.
Footnote 113:
This was William, first Marquis of Lansdowne, who, as Earl of
Shelburne, was Prime Minister in 1782; the date of Mr. Britton’s visit
was 1798. By the Marquis’s kindness, he tells us that he left Bowood
for Chippenham loaded with books, and a copy of a large Survey of
Wiltshire, in eighteen folio sheets. The Marquis was a liberal patron
of Art, and commenced at Bowood and Shelburne House the formation of a
gallery of modern art; and his fine taste was amply inherited by his
son Henry, the third Marquis, who died at Bowood in January 1863.
Footnote 114:
We remember a similarly gratifying incident in early life. We had
scarcely reached twenty-one, when we had occasion to wait upon Mr.
Chamberlain Clark, to request of him some particulars of the house of
Cowley the poet, at Chertsey, which was then in Mr. Clark’s tenancy.
The bland old Chamberlain inquired if we had ever written a book; to
which the reply was, that we had a volume of topography in the press.
“Then please to put down my name for a copy,” kindly rejoined the
Chamberlain, although the work was merely of local interest. What
kindness in one who was the chastener of refractory apprentices and
the terror of evil-doers!
Footnote 115:
Mr. P. Cunningham, in the _Builder_, Feb. 14, 1863, writes as follows:
“Chantrey died so suddenly that an inquest was held upon his body. I
was present. It was a solemn sight, not to be effaced whilst
unimpaired remembrance reigns. In an exquisite little gallery built
for him by Sir John Soane, lay (seen by many lighted tapers) the
breathless body and torpid hand that had given life to helpless clay
and shapeless stone. Around the body in its windingsheet were ranged
some of the finest casts from the antique that money and taste could
procure. Calm and solemn was the scene. My father kissed the cold
forehead of his friend with these words: “My dear master.” I looked
into his eyes as we left together; they were full of tears.”—_New
Materials for the Life of Chantrey._
Footnote 116:
Sir Archibald Alison.
Footnote 117:
Published by Ridgway, Piccadilly, 1829.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
WEAR AND TEAR OF PUBLIC LIFE.
The sudden death of Lord George Bentinck, the political leader, in 1848,
in his forty-seventh year, showed how the most ardent intellect and the
noblest frame are alike broken down by the turmoil of public life. After
a late debate in Parliament he would travel by rail many miles to hunt,
and return in time to attend the sittings of the House in the evening;
throwing a wrapper over his scarlet hunting-coat, and exercising
indefatigably the office of “whipper-in” in the House, and subsequently
leader of “the country party.” He had during these political avocations
continued his attention to racing and race-horses, declaring on one
occasion that the winning of the Derby was the “blue-ribbon” of the
turf. In August 1848 he retired to Welbeck Abbey for relaxation; he,
however, attended Doncaster races four times in one week, at which a
horse of his own breeding won the St. Leger stakes, to his great
gratification. On September 21st he left Welbeck on foot, soon after
four o’clock in the afternoon, to visit Earl Manvers, at Thoresby-park,
and sent his servants to meet him with a carriage at an appointed place.
He appeared not; the servants became alarmed; search was made for him;
but it was not till eleven at night that he was found quite dead, lying
on a footpath in a meadow about a mile from the house: his death having
been caused by spasms of the heart. In Cavendish-square has been set up
a colossal statue of this remarkable man: the pedestal simply bears his
name; his political and sporting celebrity has “waned with time; had the
awful circumstances of his death been inscribed upon the memorial, it
would have been a constant monition—a “siste viator”—of far greater
value than a political monument.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Home Traits.
LOVE OF HOME.
ENGLAND is, above all other countries, favourable to individual
industry, and that energy of character which, developed and well
directed, succeeds in the world. Still, failure neither is nor ever has
been rare; and private munificence and public benevolence have provided
“many happy ports and havens” for those whose evening of life is clouded
with storm. We have visited not a few of these sacred places—these
palaces of philanthropy; we have gone about their buildings—their noble
halls glowing with comfort, and their tables beaming with good cheer. We
have for a brief hour enjoyed the quiet of these retreats, and thought
how their decayed brethren, jaded with adversity and buffeted with
misfortune, may find here that consolation and repose which the outside
world has denied them. These may be found in the fellowship of the
dining-hall, the social walk in the garden, and the assembling for
worship in the chapel. All this, however, is but the bright side of this
mode of life; and when the time arrives for the brethren to retire, each
to his solitary chamber, then comes the pang of isolation from the
world—even the ungrateful world! And, perchance, they look from the
casement upon the larger foundation-buildings, and are by them still
more forcibly reminded that this noble place is _not their own_—in
short, that it presents not the joys nor the delights which are conveyed
to the sensitive heart by that brief but touching word—HOME!
It is scarcely possible to overrate the importance of this love of home
in our scheme of earthly happiness. Southey has well observed: “Whatever
strengthens our local attachments is favourable both to individual and
national character. Our home, our birthplace, our native land; think,
for a while, what the virtues are which rise out of the feelings
connected with these words.”
Then, how is man, in the loneliness we have referred to, parted from the
sweet solace he most needs in his hour of woe! Such consolation has been
thus picturesquely bodied forth by one of our happiest writers on
domestic life: “As the vine, which has long twined its graceful foliage
about the oak, and been lifted by it into sunshine, will, when the hardy
plant is rifted by the thunderbolt, cling round it with its caressing
tendrils, and bind up its shattered boughs; so it is beautifully ordered
by Providence, that woman, who is the mere dependent and ornament of man
in his happier hours, should be his stay and solace when smitten with
sudden calamity; winding herself into the rugged recesses of his nature,
tenderly supporting the drooping head, and binding up the broken
heart.”[118]
---------------------
Footnote 118:
Washington Irving.
----------------------------
FAMILY PORTRAITS.
We remember reading a humorous sketch entitled, “The late Mr. Smith,”
whose portrait after his death was removed by his widow to the
lumber-room, lest it should be displeasing to her second husband:
occasionally the children would bring out the portrait, and with a rusty
foil run “the ugly old man” through the eyes.
Here we have one of the reasons why family portraits are so often thrust
aside; but there are several others. The Rev. Mr. Eagles relates the
following, in _Blackwood’s Magazine:_ “I remember, when a boy, walking
with an elderly gentleman, and passing a broker’s stall, there was the
portrait of a fine florid gentleman in regimentals. He stopped to look
at it—he might have bought it for a few shillings. After he had gone
away—‘That,’ said he, ‘is the portrait of my wife’s great uncle—member
for the county, and colonel of militia: you see how he is degraded to
these steps.’ ‘Why do you not rescue him?’ said I. ‘Because he left me
nothing,’ was the reply. A relative of mine, an old lady, hit upon a
happy device; the example is worth following. Her husband was the last
of his race, for she had no children. She took all the family portraits
out of their frames, rolled up all the pictures, and put them in the
coffin with the deceased.”
Sheridan has turned an incident of this class to admirable account, in
his _School for Scandal_, in the reservation of Uncle Oliver’s portrait
from sale.
Sometimes a good picture has unpleasant associations. “That is an
excellent portrait of Ireland, the Shakspeare forger,” said a collector
to a picture-dealer in Wardour-street; whose ready reply was, “Will you
buy it, sir? it is but half a guinea.” “No,” answered the other; “it
would seem either that I admired Ireland’s dishonest ingenuity, or that
I had been his friend.”
----------------------------
HOW TO KEEP FRIENDS.
When Goldsmith once talked to Johnson of the difficulty of living on
very intimate terms with any one with whom you differed on an important
topic, Johnson replied: “Why, sir, _you must shun the subject as to
which you disagree_. For instance, I can live very well with Burke; I
love his knowledge, his genius, his diffusion, and effulgence of
conversation; but I would not talk to him of the Rockingham party.”
Mr. Helps, in his admirable work, _Friends in Council_, well observes:
“A rule for living happily with others is to avoid having stock subjects
of disputation. It mostly happens, when people live much together, that
they come to have certain set topics, around which, from frequent
dispute, there is such a growth of angry words, mortified vanity, and
the like, that the original difference becomes a standing subject for
quarrel; and there is a tendency in all minor disputes to drift down to
it. Again: if people wish to live well together, they must not hold too
much to logic, and supposing every thing is to be settled by sufficient
reason. Dr. Johnson saw this clearly with regard to married people when
he said, ‘Wretched would be the pair, above all names of wretchedness,
who should be doomed to adjust by reason every morning all the minute
detail of a domestic day.’ But the application should be much more
general than he made it. There is no time for such reasonings, and
nothing that is worth them. And when we recollect how two lawyers, or
two politicians, can go on contending, and that there is no end of
one-sided reasoning on any subject, we shall not be sure that such
contention is the best mode for arriving at truth. But certainly it is
not the way to arrive at good temper.”
The most gifted men are least addicted to depreciate either friends or
foes. Dr. Johnson, Mr. Burke, and Mr. Fox were always more inclined to
overrate them; your shrewd, sly, evil-speaking fellow is generally a
shallow person; and frequently he is as venomous, as false when he
flatters as when he reviles. He seldom praises John but to vex Thomas.
----------------------------
SMALL COURTESIES.
How much politeness and winning of the affections exist in small
courtesies, is well exemplified in the following anecdote related by a
lady of a gentleman who had been the politest man of his generation. On
returning once from school for the holidays, she had been put under his
charge for the journey. They stopped for the night at a Cornish inn.
Supper was ordered, and soon there appeared a dainty dish of woodcocks.
Her cavalier led her to the board with the air of a Grandison, and then
proceeded to place all the legs of the birds on her plate. At first,
with her school-girl prejudices in favour of wings and in disfavour of
legs and drumsticks, she felt rather angered at having these (as she
supposed) uninviting and least delicate parts imposed upon her; but in
after years, when gastronomic light had beamed on her, and the
experience of many suppers brought true appreciation, she did full
justice to the memory of the man who could sacrifice such _morceaux_ as
woodcocks’ thighs to the crude appetite of a girl, and who could thus
show his innate deference for womanhood even in such budding form.
----------------------------
LASTING FRIENDSHIPS.
The man who ill-naturedly said that the church would not hold his
acquaintance, but the pulpit would contain his friends, cannot be
congratulated upon the disproportion.
“Who is your friend?” is an every-day question, probably never better
answered than in the following forcible and eloquent rebuke by a modern
writer:
Concerning the man you call your friend, tell me, will he weep with
you in the hour of distress? Will he faithfully reprove to your
face, for actions which others are ridiculing or censuring behind
your back? Will he dare to stand forth in your defence, when
detraction is secretly aiming its deadly weapons at your reputation?
Will he acknowledge you with the same cordiality, and behave to you
with the same friendly attention, in the company of your superiors
in rank and fortune, as when the claims of pride or vanity do not
interfere with those of friendship? If misfortune and losses should
oblige you to retire into a walk of life in which you cannot appear
with the same distinction, or entertain your friends with the same
liberality as formerly, will he still think himself happy in your
society, and, instead of withdrawing himself from an unprofitable
connexion, take pleasure in professing himself your friend, and
cheerfully assist you to support the burden of your afflictions?
When sickness shall call you to retire from the gay and busy scenes
of the world, will he follow you into your gloomy retreat, listen
with attention to your “tale of symptoms,” and minister the balm of
consolation to your fainting spirits? And lastly, when death shall
burst asunder every earthly tie, will he shed a tear upon your
grave, and lodge the dear remembrance of your mutual friendship in
his heart, as a treasure never to be resigned? The man who will
_not_ do all this may be your companion,—your flatterer,—but, depend
upon it, _he is not your friend_.
Southey has left this charming picture of Friendship which ceases but
with existence:
It may safely be affirmed that generous minds, when they have once
known each other, never can be alienated as long as both retain the
characteristics which brought them into union. No distance of place
or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are
thoroughly persuaded of each other’s worth. There are even some
broken attachments in friendship, as well as in love, which nothing
can destroy, and it sometimes happens that we are not conscious of
their strength till after the disruption. There are a few persons
known to me in years long past, but with whom I lived in no
particular intimacy then, and have held no correspondence since,
whom I could not now meet without an emotion of pleasure deep enough
to partake of pain, and who, I doubt not, entertain for me feelings
of the same kind and degree—whose eyes sparkle when they hear, and
glisten sometimes when they speak of me, and who think of me, as I
do of them, with an affection that increases as we advance in years.
This is because our moral and intellectual sympathies have
strengthened, and because, though far asunder, we know that we are
travelling the same road towards our resting-place in heaven. “There
is such a pleasure as this,” says Cowper, “which would want
explanation to some folks, being perhaps a mystery to those whose
hearts are a mere muscle, and serve only for the purpose of an even
circulation.”[119]
And Professor Wilson has written these words of sweet consolation for
the loss of friends:
Friends are lost to us by removal—for then even the dearest are
often utterly forgotten. But let something that once was theirs
suddenly meet our eyes, and in a moment, returning from the region
of the rising or the setting sun, the friend of our youth seems at
our side, unchanged his voice and his smile; or dearer to our eyes
than ever, because of some affecting change wrought on face and
figure by climate and by years. Let it be but his name written with
his own hand on the title-page of a book; or a few syllables on the
margin of a favourite passage which long ago we may have read
together, “when life itself was new,” and poetry overflowed the
whole world; or a lock of _her_ hair in whose eyes we first knew the
meaning of the word “depth.” And if death hath stretched out the
absence into the dim arms of eternity, and removed the distance away
into that bourne from which no traveller returns—the absence and the
distance of her on whose forehead once hung the relic we adore—what
heart may abide the beauty of the ghost that doth sometimes at
midnight appear at our sleepless bed, and with pale uplifted arms
waft over us at once a blessing and a farewell!
It rarely happens that broken friendships can be repaired or renewed.
Mrs. Richard Trench, in her Journal, relates this remarkable instance of
a failure:
At last, after an interval of twenty-four years, which succeeded a
tolerably intimate acquaintance of seven weeks, I saw Count Münster
of Hanover again. We met like two ghosts that ought to have been
laid long since. I witnessed the whole process of the difficulty of
persuading him that I was I; and I thought him as much changed in
his degree as he could have found me. When we conversed, all the
persons we referred to were dead and gone; and our interview added
another link in my mind to the chain of proofs that, after a very,
very long interval, neither friends nor acquaintance ought to meet
in this world. He was kindly anxious to renew our acquaintance, and
visited me next day; but still it seemed as if seeing me had renewed
some painful associations.
---------------------
Footnote 119:
_The Doctor._
----------------------------
TRUE TONE OF POLITE WRITING.
Sir James Mackintosh, who has sometimes been unfairly characterised as a
writer of drawing-room essays, has left the following able view of what
may be termed “the True Tone of Polite Writing,”—a rare accomplishment
even in these days of assumed facility and literary pretension:
When a woman of feeling, fancy, and accomplishment has learned to
converse with ease and grace, from long intercourse with the most
polished society, and when she writes as she speaks, she must write
letters as they ought to be written, if she has acquired just as
much habitual correctness as is reconcilable with the air of
negligence. A moment of enthusiasm, a burst of feeling, a flash of
eloquence, may be allowed; but the intercourse of society, either in
conversation or in letters, allows no more. Though interdicted from
the long-continued use of elevated language, they are not without a
resource. There is a part of language which is disdained by the
pedant or the declaimer, and which both, if they knew its
difficulty, would approach with dread; it is formed of the most
familiar phrases and turns in daily use by the generality of men,
and is full of energy and vivacity, bearing upon it the marks of
those keen feelings and strong passions from which it springs. It is
the employment of such phrases which produces what may be called
colloquial eloquence. Conversation and letters may be thus raised to
any degree of animation, without departing from their character. Any
thing may be said, if it be spoken in the tone of society. The
highest guests are welcome if they come in the easy undress of the
club: the strongest metaphor appears without violence, if it is
_familiarly_ expressed; and we the more easily catch the warmest
feeling, if we perceive that it is intentionally lowered in
expression, out of condescension to our calmer temper. It is thus
that harangues and declamations, the last proof of bad taste and bad
manners in conversation, are avoided, while the fancy and the heart
find the means of pouring forth all their stores. To meet this
despised part of language in a polished dress, and producing all the
effects of wit and eloquence, is a constant source of agreeable
surprise. This is increased, when a few bolder and higher words are
happily wrought into the texture of this familiar eloquence. To find
what seems so unlike author-craft in a book raises the pleasing
astonishment to its highest degree. I once thought of illustrating
my notions by numerous examples from “La Sevigné.” And I must, some
day or other, do so; though I think it the resource of a bungler who
is not enough master of language to convey his conceptions into the
minds of others. The style of Madame de Sevigné is evidently copied,
not only by her worshiper, Walpole, but even by Gray; who,
notwithstanding the extraordinary merits of his matter, has the
double stiffness of an imitator and of a college recluse.
----------------------------
PRIDE AND MEANNESS.
Rousseau has well described this association of Pride and Stinginess,
which is very common: “We take from nature, from real pleasures, nay,
from the stock of necessaries, what we lavish upon opinion. One man
adorns his palace at the expense of his kitchen; another prefers a fine
service of plate to a good dinner; a third makes a sumptuous
entertainment, and starves himself the rest of the year. When I see a
sideboard richly decorated, I expect the wine to be very indifferent.
How often in the country, when we breathe the fresh morning air, are we
not tempted by the prospect of a fine garden! We rise early, and by
walking gain a keen appetite, which makes us wish for breakfast. Perhaps
the domestic is out of the way, or provisions are wanting, or the lady
has not given her orders, and you are tired to death with waiting.
Sometimes people prevent your desires, or make you a very pompous offer
of every thing, upon condition that you accept of nothing. You must fast
till three o’clock, or breakfast with the tulips. I remember to have
walked in a very beautiful park, which belonged to a lady who, though
extremely fond of coffee, never drank any but when at a very low price;
yet she liberally allowed her gardener a salary of a thousand crowns.
For my part, I should choose to have tulips less finely variegated, and
to drink coffee whenever my appetite called for it.”
----------------------------
HOME THOUGHTS.
There is much to be learned from domestic annals. Southey has well
observed: “The history of any private family, however humble, could it
be fairly related for five or six generations, would illustrate the
state and progress of society better than could be done by the most
elaborate historian.”
Cheerfulness and a festival spirit fills the soul full of harmony; it
composes music for churches and hearts; it makes and publishes
glorifications of God; it produces thankfulness, and serves the ends of
charity; and when the oil of gladness runs over, it makes bright and
tall emissions of holy fires, reaching up to a cloud, and making joy
round about: and therefore, since it is so innocent, and may be so
pious, and full of holy advantage, whatever can minister to this holy
joy does set forward the work of religion and charity.[120]
In how delightful a strain has the same writer said: “There is some
virtue or other to be exercised, whatever happens, either patience or
thanksgiving, love or fear, moderation or humility, charity or
contentedness; and they are, every one of them, equally in order to his
great end and immortal felicity: and beauty is not made by white or red,
by black eyes and a round face, by a straight body and a smooth skin,
but by a proportion to the fancy. Whatever we talk, things are as they
are; not as we grant, dispute, or hope, depending on neither our
affirmative nor negative; but upon the rate and value which God sets
upon things.”
Lord Macaulay, too, has left us this touching picture:
Children, look in those eyes, listen to that dear voice, notice the
feeling of even a single touch that is bestowed upon you by that
gentle hand! Make much of it while yet you have that most precious
of all good gifts—a loving mother. Read the unfathomable love of
those eyes; the kind anxiety of that tone and look, however slight
your pain. In after-life you may have friends—fond, dear, kind
friends—but never will you have again the inexpressible love and
gentleness lavished upon you which none but a mother bestows. Often
do I sigh in my struggles with the hard, uncaring world, for the
sweet, deep security I felt when, of an evening, nestling to her
bosom, I listened to some quiet tale, suitable to my age, read in
her tender and untiring voice. Never can I forget her sweet glances
cast upon me when I appeared asleep; never her kiss of peace at
night. Years have passed away since we laid her beside my father in
the old churchyard; yet still her voice whispers from the grave, and
her eye watches over me as I visit spots long since hallowed to the
memory of my mother.
We pass from these traits of sweet simplicity to a lesson for riper age,
by a living writer of sterling humour:
It is better for you to pass an evening once or twice a week in a
lady’s drawing-room, even though the conversation is slow, and you
know the girl’s song by heart, than in a club, tavern, or the pit of
a theatre. All amusements of youth to which virtuous women are not
admitted, rely on it, are deleterious to their nature. All men who
avoid female society have dull perceptions and are stupid, or have
gross tastes and revolt against what is pure. Your club-swaggerers,
who are sucking the butts of billiard-cues all night, call female
society insipid. Poetry is uninspiring to a yokel; beauty has no
charms for a blind man; music does not please a poor beast who does
not know one tune from another; but as a true epicure is hardly ever
tired of water, sancey, and brown bread and butter, I protest I can
sit for a whole night talking to a well-regulated, kindly woman
about her girl Fanny or her boy Frank, and like the evening’s
entertainment. One of the great benefits a man may derive from
woman’s society is, that he is bound to be respectful to her. The
habit is of great good to your moral men, depend upon it. Our
education makes of use the most eminently selfish men in the world.
We fight for ourselves, we push for ourselves, we yawn for
ourselves, we light our pipes and say we won’t go out, we prefer
ourselves and our ease; and the greatest that comes to a man from a
woman’s society is, that he has to think of somebody to whom he is
bound to be constantly attentive and respectful.—_Thackeray._
Every virtue enjoined by Christianity as a virtue, is recommended by
politeness as an accomplishment. Gentleness, humility, deference,
affability, and a readiness to assist and serve on all occasions, are as
necessary in the composition of a true Christian as in that of a
well-bred man. Passion, moroseness, peevishness, and supercilious
self-sufficiency, are equally repugnant to the characters of both, who
differ in this only, that the true Christian really is what the
well-bred man pretends to be, and would still be better bred if he
was.—_Soame Jenyns._
---------------------
Footnote 120:
Jeremy Taylor.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Spirit of the Age.
----------------------------
PROGRESS OF KNOWLEDGE.
THE zeal which Albert, Prince Consort, evinced in furthering good
works,—his sympathy with the wants of the poor, their bodily health and
comfort, and their intellectual and moral culture,—will long endear his
memory to the grateful people of the country of his adoption.
It was a characteristic of his genius that he would never consent to
take the lead in any movement until he had, as far as possible,
satisfied himself of its proper object and practicability. That he fully
understood and appreciated the requirements of the age, is evident from
the following passage in one of his manly Addresses:
“Whilst formerly the greatest mental energies strove at universal
knowledge, and that knowledge was confined to the few, now they are
directed on specialities, and in these again even to the minutest
points; but the knowledge acquired becomes at once the property of the
community at large; for, whilst formerly discovery was wrapped in
secrecy, the publicity of the present day causes, that no sooner is a
discovery or invention made, than it is already improved upon and
surpassed by competing efforts. The products of all quarters of the
globe are placed at our disposal, and we have only to choose which is
the best and the cheapest for our purposes, and the powers of production
are intrusted to the stimulus of competition and capital. So man is
approaching a more complete fulfilment of that great and sacred mission
which he has to perform in this world. His reason being created after
the image of God, he has to use it to discover the laws by which the
Almighty governs His creation, and, by making these laws his standard of
action, to conquer nature to his use; himself a Divine instrument.
Science discovers these laws of power, motion, and transformation;
industry applies them to the raw matter, which the earth yields us in
abundance, but which become valuable only by knowledge. Art teaches us
the immutable laws of beauty and symmetry, and gives to our productions
forms in accordance to them.” Again: “To the human mind nothing is so
fascinating as progress. It is not what we have long had that we most
prize. We highly prize new accessions; but we enjoy almost unconsciously
gifts, of far more value, we have long been in possession of. This is
our nature; thus we are constituted. It is not surprising, therefore,
that we should have a peculiar relish for new discoveries. The interest
of discovery, however, is not permanent. For a time we are dazzled by
its brilliancy; but gradually the impression fades away, and at last is
lost entirely in the splendour of some fresh discovery which carries
with it the charm of novelty. When we reflect upon this, we cannot help
perceiving in how very different a state the world would be from what it
is if mankind in the beginning had been in the possession of all the
knowledge we now have, and there had been no progress ever since.”
There is no royal death within memory of the present generation which
has caused such grave and regretful reflection as the sudden manner in
which the Prince Consort was taken from our beloved Sovereign and her
family, at the close of the year 1861. The nearest approach to the
public sorrow upon this melancholy occasion was the universal sympathy
expressed on the loss of the Princess Charlotte, in 1817, when the
mother and offspring were at once swept by the hand of death into the
same grave! Put widespread as was the lamentation of the people for
their hopes being thus crushed, it differed in this respect from the
sorrow for the Prince Consort,—that in the one case expectation was
blighted, but in the other realisation was extinguished when the fruits
of superior intelligence were fast ripening into the maturity of true
greatness.
Since the death of the Prince the country has learned the full extent of
its loss by this sad event. Yet it was plainly asserted in the _Leader_
newspaper, ten years ago, that the Prince was “becoming the most popular
man in England;” and the reader was assured that the above paper was
written to put the Prince’s “position and his services in the point of
view in which we may comprehend him, and be grateful to him.” This
statement was unheeded at the time it was made; but, in the year
following, other journalists had discovered that the Prince had some
voice in English foreign policy,—a charge which was admitted to be true
by Ministers in Parliament. Public attention was then turned in an
entirely different direction, and the Prince resumed his powerful
popular position. Yet his weighty influence, as we have said, was not
fully made known until recently. We have seen but one acknowledgment of
the service of the well-informed and far-seeing writer in the _Leader_,
and to this was not attached his name. We therefore add, in justice to
the memory of a man of rare talent, and the right spirit of
independence, which is the best characteristic of a public journalist,
that the writer in question was the late Mr. E. M. Whitty, who reprinted
the above in _The Governing Classes of Great Britain_.
----------------------------
SPECIAL PROVIDENCE IN SCIENCE.
The records of science furnish us with examples in which complicated
causes have operated through vast periods of duration anterior to man’s
existence, or even anterior to that of the existence of any of the more
perfect animals, in order to provide for the wants and happiness of
those animals, especially of man. Laws, apparently conflicting and
irregular in their action, have been so controlled and directed, and
made to conspire, as to provide for the wants of civilised life untold
ages before man’s existence. In those early times, vast forests, for
instance, might have been growing along the shores of estuaries; and
these dying, were buried deep in the mud, there to accumulate thick beds
of vegetable matter over huge areas; and this, by a long series of
changes, was at length converted into coal. This could be of no use
whatever till man’s existence, nor even then, till civilisation had
taught him to employ the substance for his comfort, and for a great
variety of useful arts.
Dr. Hitchcock illustrates this position as follows: Look, for instance,
at the small island of Great Britain. At this day 15,000 steam-engines
are driven by means of coal, with a power equal to that of 2,000,000 of
men; and thus is put into operation machinery equalling the unaided
power of 300,000,000 or 400,000,000 of men. The influence thence
emanating reaches the remotest portions of the globe, and tends mightily
to the civilisation and happiness of the race. And is all this an
accidental effect of nature’s laws? Is it not rather a striking example
of special protective providence? What else but divine power, intent
upon a specific purpose, could have so directed the countless agencies
employed through so many ages as to bring about such marvellous
results?[121]
---------------------
Footnote 121:
_Religious Truth illustrated from Science._
----------------------------
SCIENTIFIC PROGRESS.
School-learning is, undoubtedly, the best foundation: “In all industrial
pursuits connected with the natural sciences, in fact in all pursuits
not simply dependent on manual dexterity, the development of the
intellectual faculties, by what may be termed ’school-learning,’
constitutes the basis and chief condition of progress and of every
improvement. A young man with a mind well stored with solid scientific
acquirements will, without difficulty or effort, master the technical
part of an industrial pursuit; whereas, in general, an individual who
may be thoroughly master of the technical part is altogether incapable
of seizing upon any new fact that has not previously presented itself to
him, or of comprehending a scientific principle and its application.”
Lord Stanhope has thus strikingly illustrated the subject:
See how the field of human knowledge is extended. Within the last
fifty years there is scarce a branch of knowledge, even in those
which have been explored for hundreds of years—classical learning,
for example—which has not received some new and important additions.
But not only this; it may be said that new sciences have been
discovered. Who, seventy or eighty years ago, thought or heard of
the name of geology, or of men like Cuvier, who by their genius have
brought back to us the forms of long-extinct animals, and the state
of the earth as it must have existed thousands of years ago? Who
could have imagined that in art such vast resources should have been
opened up to us, as, for instance, the now-familiar science of
photography supplies? Who would have imagined that railways, which
have enabled us at so quick a rate to have communication with all
parts of the country, would become a study of well-regulated
curiosity; or that the instantaneous power of transmission which we
possess in the electric telegraph should be imparted to the whole of
the people who now crowd these busy shores?
Some of the noblest triumphs of science, however, do but show the
shortsightedness of man, and seem to dictate to him that great results
can only be obtained by gradual and patient labour, as if to keep in
check his overweening conceit. This is illustrated in the discovery of
Voltaism. “When Galvani,” says Lord Brougham, in his powerful manner,
“observed the contortions of the muscle in a dead frog, or even when
Volta gave an explanation of them, how little could it be foreseen that
the discovery would lead not only to the decomposition of bodies which
had resisted all attempts to ascertain their constituent parts, and
bring us acquainted with substances wholly unlike any before known, as
metals that floated in water and took fire on exposure to the air; but,
after having thus changed the face of chemical science, should also
impress a new character upon the moral, judicial, and political world!
Yet this has undeniably been the result of the discovery made by Volta.”
The histories of invention present many instances of “the slip between
the cup and the lip.” New modes of lighting have been very productive of
such disappointments. About thirty years since was patented a light by
the admixture of the vapour of hydrocarbons with atmospheric air, so as
to produce an illumination equal in brilliancy to that of the purest
gas; the power of light from a ten-hole burner equalling that of
22-1/8th wax-candles. This invention had been a long and costly labour;
a single set of experiments having cost 500_l._ At length the patent was
sold to a company for the large sum of 28,000_l._; a plant was
established, licenses were advertised for sale, and, among the confident
promises, it was held out that the gas-pipes and mains of the existing
companies might be bought up for the requirements of this new light! But
the working of the invention did not succeed in detail (indeed, it had
been purchased with the knowledge that it was incomplete); and the
entire capital invested, some 40,000_l._ or 50,000_l._, was lost!
----------------------------
TIME AND IMPROVEMENT.
The Rev. Dr. Temple, in his glowing Essay, “Education of the World,”
thus maintains that all human improvement is the result of the
accumulations of Time:
To the spirit all things that exist must have a purpose, and nothing
can pass away till that purpose be fulfilled. The lapse of time is
no exception to this demand. Each moment of time, as it passes, is
taken up in the shape of permanent results into the time that
follows, and only perishes by being converted into something more
substantial than itself. Thus, each successive age incorporates into
itself the substance of the preceding,—the power whereby the present
ever gathers itself into the past, transforms the human race into a
colossal man, whose life reaches from the Creation to the Day of
Judgment. The successive generations of men are days in this man’s
life. The discoveries and inventions which characterise the
different epochs of the world’s history are his works. The creeds
and doctrines, the opinions and principles of the successive ages,
are his thoughts. The states of society at different times are his
manners. He grows in knowledge, in self-control, in visible size,
just as we do. And his education is in the same way, and for the
same reason, precisely similar to ours. All this is no figure, but
only a compendious statement of a very comprehensive fact.
----------------------------
EVIL INFLUENCES.
It has been asked by a great author, “What does it signify whether you
deny a God or speak ill of Him?”—a question well answered by another
sage, when he declares, “I would rather men should say that there never
was such a man as Plutarch, than that Plutarch was an ill-natured,
mischievous fellow.”
Nearly eighty years ago Mr. Sharp wrote, “There can be no reasonable
doubt that it is better to believe too much than too little; since, as
Boswell observes (most probably in Johnson’s words), ‘A man may breathe
in foul air, but he must die in an exhausted receiver.’”
Much of the scepticism that we meet with is necessarily affectation or
conceit; for it is as likely that the ignorant, weak, and indolent
should become mathematicians as reasoning unbelievers. Patient study and
perfect impartiality must precede rational conviction, whether ending in
faith or doubt. Need it be asked, how many are capable of such an
examination? But whether they come honestly by their opinions or not, it
is much more advisable to refute than to burn, or even to scorch them.
It has been shrewdly remarked by a contemporary:
All the voices which have any real influence with an Englishman in
easy circumstances combine to stimulate a low form of energy, which
stifles every high one. The newspapers extol his wisdom by assuming
that the average intelligence which he represents is, under the name
of public opinion, the ultimate and irresponsible ruler of the
nation. The novels which he and his family devour with insatiable
greediness have no tendency to rouse his imagination, to say nothing
of his mind. They are pictures of the every-day life to which he has
always been accustomed,—sarcastic, sentimental, or ludicrous, as the
case may be,—but never rising to any thing which could ever suggest
the existence of tragic dignity or ideal beauty. The human mind has
made considerable advances in the last three-and-twenty centuries;
but the thousands of Greeks who could enjoy not only Euripides, but
Homer and Æschylus, were superior, in some important points, to the
millions of Englishmen who in their inmost hearts prefer Pickwick to
Shakspeare. Even the religion of the present day is made to suit the
level of commonplace Englishmen. There was a time when Christianity
meant the embodiment of all truth and holiness in the midst of a
world lying in wickedness. It afterwards included law, liberty, and
knowledge, as opposed to the energetic ignorance of the northern
barbarians. It now too often means philanthropic societies—excellent
things as far as they go, but rather small. Any doctrine now is
given up if it either seems uncomfortable or likely to make a
disturbance. It is almost universally assumed that the truth of an
opinion is tested by its consistency with cheerful views of life and
nature. Unpleasant doctrines are only preached under incredible
forms, and thus serve to spice the enjoyments which they would
otherwise destroy.[122]
---------------------
Footnote 122:
_Cornhill Magazine._
----------------------------
WORLDLY MORALITY.
Professor Blackie, in his eloquent Edinburgh Essay, has these stringent
remarks upon the lax morality of the day:
There is in the world always a respectable sort of surface
morality,—and nowhere more than in this British world at the present
hour,—a morality of convenience and utility, which pays respect to
the principles of right and wrong when generally formalised, but
which recognises them practically only in so far as local customs
and decencies, proprieties, etiquettes, and the round of certain
“inevitable charities,” are willing to recognise them. This morality
many a consumer of beefsteaks and swiller of porter in this lusty
and material land accepts, after eighteen hundred years of Gospel
preaching, as quite sufficient for all the purposes of a respectable
English life. But the perverse maxims and vicious practices with
which our British society is rank, make it evident to the most
superficial glance how far the current morality of our trades and
parties is from seeking to accommodate itself to the principles of
extreme moral purity laid down in every page of the New Testament. A
sermon may be a very proper thing as Sunday work, and may help to
bridge the way to heaven, when a bridge shall be required; but on
Monday a man must attend to his business, and act according to the
maxims of his trade, of his party, of his corporation, of his
vestry. Then the respectable sporting-man will stake his last
thousand on the leg of a race-horse, and think it quite like a
Christian gentleman to allow his tailor’s bill to be unpaid for
another year; then the respectable Highland proprietor will refuse
to renew the lease to the industrious poor cotter on his estate,
that the people, for whom he cares nothing, may make way for the
red-deer, which it is his only passion to stalk; then the
respectable brewer, instead of preparing wholesome drink from
wholesome grain, will infect his brewst with deleterious drugs in
order to excite a factitious thirst in the stomach of his customers,
and increase the amount of drinking; then a respectable corporation,
to maintain their own “vested rights,” will move heaven and earth to
prevent the national parliament from acting on the plainest rules of
justice and common sense in a matter seriously affecting the public
well-being; and the respectable members of society shall flutter
round the gilded wax-lights of aristocracy, and perform worship at
Hudson’s statue, and have respect to men with gold rings and goodly
apparel, and do every thing that is expressly forbidden in the
second chapter of the Epistle of James, which they profess to
receive as a divine rule of conduct. These are only one or two of
the more glaring points in which our commonly-received maxims and
practice of respectable British life run directly in the face of
that highest morality, which the most religious and church-going
Englishman professes to acknowledge as his rule of conduct.
Professor Blackie concludes with the gospel text, “What shall it profit
a man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” which the
Professor applies in the plain practical question: “What will it profit
England to spin more cotton, to pile more money-bags, to set more
steam-coaches a-going, if Mammon is to be worshiped every where, rather
than virtue and wisdom?” &c.
----------------------------
SPEAKING THE TRUTH.
One of the sublimest things in the world is plain Truth. Indeed it is so
sublime as to be entirely out of the reach of many people.
The ancients said many fine things of Truth; but nothing to exceed in
practical worth the love of Truth shown by the great Duke of Wellington
in every phase of his wonderful career, of which the majority of us have
been, more or less, contemporary witnesses.
“The foundation of all justice,” said this truly great man, “is Truth;
and the mode of discovering truth has always been to administer an oath,
in order that the witness may give his depositions under a high
sanction.”
Elsewhere he said, when advocating the cause of the Church of England,
“I am resolved to tell plainly and honestly what I think, quite
regardless of the odium I may incur from those whose prejudices my
candour and sincerity may offend. I am here to speak the truth, and not
to flatter the prejudices of any man. In speaking the truth, I shall
utter it in the language that truth itself most naturally suggests. It
is upon her native strength—upon her own truth—it is upon her spiritual
character, and upon the purity of her doctrines, that the Church of
England rests.”
When, upon the death of Sir Robert Peel, the Duke of Wellington sought
to express what seemed to him most admirable in the character of his
friend, he said that he was _the truest man he had ever known;_ adding:
“I was long connected with him in public life. We were both in the
councils of our sovereign together, and I had long the honour to enjoy
his private friendship. In all the course of my acquaintance with Sir
Robert Peel, I never knew a man in whose truth and justice I had a more
lively confidence, or in whom I saw a more invariable desire to promote
the public service. In the whole course of my communication with him I
never knew an instance in which he did not show the strongest attachment
to truth; and I never saw, in the whole course of my life, the smallest
reason for suspecting that he stated any thing which he did not firmly
believe to be the fact.”
It was the instinct of a man, himself as true as he was great, thus to
place the regard for truth in the front rank of human qualities. On that
simple and noble basis his own nature rested. Wellington could not
vapour, or even utter a lie in a bulletin. Every thing with him was
simple, direct, straightforward, and went to the heart of its purpose,
if any thing could. In all that has singled out England from the
nations, and given her the front place in the history of the world, the
Duke of Wellington was emphatically an Englishman. His patience, his
probity, his punctuality in the smallest things, in every thing the
practical fidelity and reliability of his character, we rejoice to
regard as the type of that which has made us the great people that we
are. It has indeed been well said that the Duke’s whole existence was a
practical refutation of all falsehood.
----------------------------
RESTLESSNESS AND ENTERPRISE.
An anxious, restless temper, that runs to meet care on its way, that
regrets lost opportunities too much, and that is over-painstaking in
contrivances for happiness, is foolish, and should not be indulged.[123]
If you cannot be happy in one way, be happy in another; and this
facility of disposition wants but little aid from philosophy, for health
and good-humour are almost the whole affair. Many run about after
felicity, like an absent man hunting for his hat while it is on his head
or in his hand. Though sometimes small evils, like invisible insects,
inflict great pain, yet the chief secret of comfort lies in not
suffering trifles to vex one, and in prudently cultivating an
undergrowth of small pleasures, since very few great ones, alas, are let
on long leases.
Nothing will justify, or even excuse, dejection. Untoward accidents will
sometimes happen; but, after many years’ experience (writes Mr. Sharp),
I can truly say, that nearly all those who began life with me have
succeeded, or failed, as they deserved:
Faber quisque fortunæ propriæ.
Though you may look to your understanding for amusement, it is to the
affections that we must trust for happiness, These imply a spirit of
self-sacrifice; and often our virtues, like our children, are endeared
to us by what we suffer for them. Conscience, even when it fails to
govern our conduct, can disturb our peace of mind. Yes, it is neither
paradoxical nor merely poetical to say:
That seeking others’ good, we find our own.
This solid yet romantic maxim is found in no less a writer than Plato;
who, it has been well observed, sometimes in his moral lessons, as well
as in his theological, is almost, though not altogether, a Christian.
The passion for enterprise and adventure is the shoal upon which high
hopes are constantly being wrecked. We remember, some thirty years
since, a merchant of London, who inherited a princely fortune, which he
embarked in speculations of almost astounding magnitude. He was a
large-minded and generous man; and among other instances of his
liberality, was his aid to scientific explorations, in acknowledgment of
which he received an honorary Fellowship of the Royal Society. He
published upon political economy and monetary questions; and with that
fatality which often attends those who aspire to public business, our
merchant, in some measure, out-ventured his own. Before the
problematical economy of vast steam-ships had been settled, he invested
large sums in this class of speculation. He was rather athirst for fresh
fields than for the gold itself; and with this view he and his family
ceded to a chartered company a group of islands discovered some forty
years previously through their enterprise, and which the Government had
granted them in consideration for their services in more recent
discoveries of the southern continent. It was then resolved to colonise
the islands as the head-station of the southern whale-fishery; our
merchant receiving the appointment of lieutenant-governor. Troops of
friends and well-wishers attended the leave-taking; the voyage out was
fair and auspicious, and the governor and his little staff planted their
bare emblem of authority upon the islands.
The scheme was reasonable; for whale-fishing was rife in the
neighbouring seas, and sperm-whales even came into the anchorage. The
country is luxuriantly wooded, the flowering plants abound; and the
climate is mild, temperate, and salubrious. But the fishery failed, and
the horizon soon grew dark with gathering clouds of discontent among the
colonists; and there arose cabals, the usual consequence of defeated
hopes: as success brightly colours all things in life, so failures
darken them. After many months of suffering from indignities heaped upon
him by exasperated adventurers, and the confusion which follows such
mischances, the governor’s brief authority was respected only by _two_
individuals among the six-score colonists. Such heartless desertion in a
land upon whose storm-beaten shores human foot had rarely set, would
have made many a stout heart quail: not so our almost friendless
representative of authority; and at length the many closed their cruel
indignities by determining that he should leave the islands by the first
ship which should touch there. This stern resolve was carried into
effect; and our merchant-prince, solitary in all respects save hope,
returned to the home which he had left amid a choir of aspirations. He
memorialised the Government for redress, and besought parliament-men to
assert his wrongs; but the only result was the usual official coldness
and disinclination to interfere in troublesome matters; although the
enterprise was, at the commencement, fully recognised by the colonial
authorities at home.
This is a painful story of a few years’ misadventure and wrecked
fortune, and ingratitude to a man whose honour and integrity, in the
face of misfortune, should at least have shielded him from insult. Yet
how forcibly does it illustrate the perils which so often beset the
restless spirit!
---------------------
Footnote 123:
Such a person knows as much of what true felicity consists as did
Horace Walpole’s gardener, who thought it “something of a bulbous
root.”
----------------------------
THE PRESENT AND THE PAST.
Sharon Turner, a man of sound, practical sense, as well as a reverential
and reflective writer of history, has these pertinent remarks upon the
tendency of historians to magnify the Present at the expense of the
Past:
Nothing is a greater reproach, to the reasoning intellect of any age
than a splenetic censoriousness on the manners and characters of our
ancestors. It is but common justice for us to bear in mind that in
those times we should have been as they were, as they in ours would
have resembled ourselves. Both are but the same men, acting under
different circumstances, wearing different dresses, and pursuing
different objects; but neither inferior to the other in talent,
industry, or intellectual worth. The more we study biography, we
shall perceive more evidence of this truth.
Disregarding what satire might, without being cynical, lash in our
own costumes, we are apt to look proudly back on those who have gone
before us, and to regale our self-complacency with comparisons of
their deficiencies, and of our greater merit. The retrospect is
pleasing, but it offers no ground for exultation. We are superior,
and we have in many things better taste and sounder judgment and
wiser habits than they possessed. And why? Because we have had means
of superiority by which they were not assisted. But a merit which
owes its origin merely to our having followed, instead of preceding,
in existence, gives us no right to depreciate those over whom our
only advantage has been the better fortune of a later chronology. We
may therefore allow those who have gone before us to have been
amused with what would weary or dissatisfy us, without either
sarcasms on their absurdities, or contemptuous wonder at their
stately childishness and pompous inanities.
One of our most popular historians indulges to excess in these brilliant
antitheses, which in his pages remind one of poppies in corn.
----------------------------
CIRCUMSTANCES AND GENIUS.
This episode in man’s history,—this stage in the great struggle of
life,—has been thus powerfully painted by a contemporary:
We presume there can be little doubt that circumstances have an
effect upon the lives and characters of men; to say any thing else
would be to contradict flatly the ordinary opinion of the world.
Notwithstanding, if one will but look at one’s private experience
among the most ordinary and obscure actors in the life-drama, how
wonderfully, one must allow, character, temper, heart, and spirit,
assert themselves beyond the reach of all external powers! How
triumphantly the poor prodigal, to whom Providence has given the
fairest prospects, and whose steps are guarded by love and kindness,
can vindicate his own instincts against all the virtuous force of
circumstance surrounding him, and go to destruction in its very
face! Who needs to be taught that ever-recurring lesson? Who can be
ignorant that scarcely a great career has ever been made in this
world otherwise than in the face of circumstances—in strenuous
defiance of all that external elements could do to overcome the
unconquerable soul? In the face of such examples, what are we to say
to the theory that adverse circumstances can excuse a man born with
all the compensations of genius for an unlovely and ignoble life, a
bitter and discontented heart, a course of vulgar vice and sordid
meanness? Never was genius more wickedly disparaged. That celestial
gift to which God has given capacities of enjoyment beyond the reach
of the crowd, is of itself an armour against circumstance more proof
than steel, and continually holds open to its possessor a refuge
against the affronts of the world, a shelter from its contumelies,
which is denied to other men. He who reckons of this endowment as of
something which gives only a more exquisite egotism, a finer touch
of selfishness, a sublimation of envy and self-assertion, and
dependence upon the applause of the crowd, forms a mean estimate,
against which it is the duty of every man who knows better to
protest. Outside circumstances, disappointment, neglect, dark want
and misery, have plagued the souls and disturbed the temper of great
men before now, but have never, so far as we are aware, polluted a
pure heart, or made a noble mind despicable. The bitter soreness of
unappreciated genius belongs proverbially to those whose gift is of
the smallest; and the man who excuses a bad life by the pretence
that this divine lymph contained within it has been soured by
popular neglect and turned to gall, speaks sacrilege and
profanity.[124]
---------------------
Footnote 124:
_Quarterly Review._
----------------------------
OUR UNIMAGINATIVE AGE.
We have now no great poets; and our poverty in this respect is not
compensated by the fact, that we once had them, and that we may, and do,
read their works. The movement has gone by; the charm is broken; the
bond of union, though not cancelled, is seriously weakened. Hence our
age, great as it is, and in nearly all respects greater than any the
world has yet seen, has, notwithstanding its large and generous
sentiments, its unexampled toleration, its love of liberty, and its
profuse and almost reckless charity, a certain material, unimaginative,
and unheroic character, which has made several observers tremble for the
future.... That something has been lost is unquestionable.
We have lost much of that imagination which, though in practical life it
often misleads, is, in speculative life, one of the highest of all
qualities, being suggestive as well as creative. Even practically we
should cherish it, because the commerce of the affections mainly depends
on it. It is, however, declining; while, at the same time, the
increasing refinement of society accustoms us more and more to suppress
our emotions, lest they be disagreeable to others. And as the play of
the emotions is the chief study of the poet, we see in this circumstance
another reason which makes it difficult to rival that great body of
poetry which our ancestors possessed. We quote the above from the second
volume of Mr. Buckle’s _History of Civilization_. We would add, that the
suppression of emotions to which the author refers is one great cause of
the difficulty of getting persons to speak the truth in the present day:
they are ever disguising their feelings, until hypocritical caution
becomes habit, and it requires a stronger light than the old cynic
possessed to find honest men. The low standard of commercial morality,
and the time-serving expediency which so greatly regulates the actions
of our rulers and those who make the laws, is traceable to this
over-refinement.
----------------------------
MARVELS OF THE UNIVERSE.
Nothing is more startling, or more likely to be received with
incredulity by minds unprepared for their reception, than what are, in
common parlance, termed the Marvels of the Universe. The philosophical
writers of our day have strikingly illustrated this fact, which should
be taken into account in writing of the _impedimenta_ to the progress of
science even in our own day. Sir John Herschel has thus forcibly stated
the case:
What mere assertion will make any one believe that in one second of
time, in one beat of the pendulum of a clock, a ray of light travels
over 192,000 miles, and would therefore perform the tour of the
world in about the same time that it requires to wink with our
eyelids, and in much less than a swift runner occupies in taking a
single stride? What mortal can be made to believe, without
demonstration, that the sun is almost a million times larger than
the earth? and that, although so remote from us that a cannon-ball
shot directly towards it, and maintaining its full speed, would be
twenty years in reaching it, yet it affects the earth by its
attraction in an appreciable instant of time? Who would not ask for
demonstration, when told that a gnat’s wing, in its ordinary flight,
beats many hundred times in a second; or that there exists animated
and regularly-organised beings, many thousands of whose bodies laid
close together would not extend an inch? But what are these to the
astonishing truths which modern optical inquiries have disclosed,
which teach us that every point of a medium through which a ray of
light passes, is affected with a succession of periodical movements,
regularly recurring at equal intervals, no less than five hundred
millions of millions of times in a single second! That it is by such
movements communicated to the nerves of our eyes that we see; nay,
more, that it is the difference in the frequency of their recurrence
which affects us with the sense of the diversity of colour. That,
for instance, in acquiring the sensation of redness, our eyes are
affected four hundred and eighty-two millions of millions of times;
of yellowness, five hundred and forty-two millions of millions of
times; and of violet, seven hundred and seven millions of millions
of times per second. Do not such things sound more like the ravings
of madmen than the sober conclusions of people in their waking
senses? They are, nevertheless, conclusions to which any one may
most certainly arrive who will only be at the trouble of examining
the chain of reasoning by which they have been obtained.
Professor Airy, however, considers this difficulty to be over-estimated.
He observes, that “persons who take great interest in Astronomy appear
to regard the determination of measures, like those of the distance of
the sun and moon, as mysteries beyond ordinary comprehension, based
perhaps upon principles which it is impossible to present to common
minds with the smallest probability that they will be understood; if
they accept these measures at all, they adopt them only upon loose
personal credit; in any case, the impression which the statement makes
on the mind is very different from that created by a record of the
distance in miles between two towns, or the number of acres in a field.”
Now, the measure of the moon’s distance involves no principle more
abstruse than the measure of the distance of a tree on the opposite bank
of a river; and the Professor shows that the methods used for measuring
astronomical distances are, in some applications, absolutely the same as
the methods of ordinary theodolite surveying, and are in other
applications equivalent to them; and that, in fact, there is nothing in
their principles which will present the smallest difficulty to a person
who has attempted the common practice of plotting from angular
measures.[125]
The habit of beholding the spectacle of the sun gradually sinking, to
disappear after a time below the level of the sea,—this habit, we say,
and our astronomical knowledge, have long since familiarised us with the
phenomenon which, undoubtedly, would appear inexplicable were we to
witness it for the first time, and without being prepared. Who has not
in childhood felt this wonder? The ancients were far from being able to
account for it: some Greek philosophers regarded the sun as an inflamed
mass, which plunged itself every night into the waters of the sea; and
they pretended to have heard a hissing noise! We have found the same
idea lingering among the credulous peasantry of Sussex. We remember our
first nurse, a native of Battle, used to relate that, from the cliffs at
Eastbourne, she had seen the comet of 1769 dip its tail into the sea,
and that she had distinctly heard the “hissing noise.” Such is the
persistence of certain impressions, which, monstrous as they are, can
only be explained away by reasoning.[126]
---------------------
Footnote 125:
See Prof. Airy’s _Six Lectures on Astronomy_.
Footnote 126:
See _Things not Generally Known_, First Series, p. 11.
----------------------------
PHYSIOGNOMY.
Sir David Brewster, in his introductory Address to the University of
Edinburgh, 1862-3, remarked that one of the characteristics of the age
in which we live was its love of the mysterious and marvellous.
I refer (said Sir David) to the so-called science of physiognomy,
but more especially to that morbid expansion of it called the
physiognomy of the human form, which has been elaborated in Germany,
and is now likely to obtain possession of the English mind. In want
of any other arguments, our physiognomists assert that it is simply
probable that the outer form would be designed on purpose to
represent the mental character, and on this ground they dogmatically
declare that the expressions of rage, or grief, or fear have been
“divinely designed on purpose that the inner mind may be known to
those who watch the outer man.” The persons who use such arguments
and have recourse to such assumptions never propose to make any
inductive comparison of a certain number of well-measured forms with
the well-ascertained mental phases with which they are associated.
Were such experiments made, they would yield no result. No two
physiognomists, acting separately, would agree in measuring and
characterising the forms and indications of the head, the features,
the hands, and the feet of the patient; and no two men—neither the
sagacious judge on the bench, nor the shrewd counsel at the
bar—could determine his real character were they to conjure with all
the events of his life. In this new physiognomy, a head large in the
mid region indicates a predominance of the feelings over the other
faculties; a proneness to superstition and fanaticism is shown by a
little increase in the elevation; and a head large behind evinces
practical ability; and, as Dr. Carus says, characterises a race
which will give birth to great historic names! Small heads, however,
are not to be despised. They indicate talent, but not genius; while
very small ones belong, he says, to the excitable class, from whom
“a great part of the misery of society arises.” In the varying
expressions of the human face physiognomists find a better support
for their views. That the emotions of the past and the present leave
permanent traces on the human countenance is doubtless true, and to
this extent we are all physiognomists, often very presumptuous ones,
and, excepting accidental coincidences, always in the wrong, when we
infer from any external appearance the character and disposition of
our neighbour. In every class of society we encounter faces which we
instinctively shun, and others to which we as instinctively cling.
But how frequently have we found our estimates to be false! The
repulsive aspect has proved to be the result of physical suffering,
of domestic disquiet, or of ruined fortunes; and under the bland and
smiling countenance a heart deceitful and vindictive, and
“desperately wicked,” has often been found concealed.
----------------------------
TRADE AND PHILANTHROPY.
In the Memoirs of Bulstrode Whitlocke, the following anecdote is told as
illustrative of the erroneous notions formerly entertained as to the
Employment of Machinery for purposes of economy. “The advantage of free
competition, and the inexhaustible resources of new inventions,
contrivances, and appliances were,” it is observed by the editor at that
time (1658), “utterly ignored. The Swedish ambassador” (to the court of
Oliver Cromwell) “seems to have had a gleam of the truth, a dawning
consciousness of how desirable it was to economise human labour by
introducing machinery whenever practicable. He told a pleasant story of
the Czar and a Dutchman; and how the latter, observing the boats passing
upon the Volga to be manned with three hundred men in each boat, who, in
a storm and high wind, held the bottom of the sails down with their
hands, offered to the former a mode of manning each boat quite as
efficiently with thirty men instead of the three hundred, by which the
cost of transport would be lessened. But the Emperor called him a knave;
and asked him if a boat that now went with three hundred men should be
brought to go as well with thirty only, how were the other two hundred
and seventy men to get their living?”
Cromwell, it will be remembered, protected by Act of Parliament a
sawmill erected in his time, it is imagined, on the site of the
Belvidere-road, Lambeth; in which locality at this day there is probably
more sawing by machinery than in any other part of England.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
World-Knowledge.
----------------------------
MISCELLANEA.
ENERGY and force of character are among the first requisites essential
to success in business. A man may possess a high degree of refinement,
large stores of knowledge, and even a well-disciplined mind; but if he
is destitute of this one principle, which may be termed resolution of
soul, he is like a watch without a mainspring—beautiful, but
inefficient, and unfit for service.
Never do too much at a time, is a good practical maxim. Sir Edward
Bulwer Lytton gives the following history of his literary habits: Many
persons, seeing me so much engaged in active life, and as much about the
world as if I had never been a student, have said to me, “When do you
get time to write all your books? How on earth do you contrive to do so
much work?” I shall surprise you by the answer I make. The answer is
this: “I contrive to do so much by never doing too much at a time. A
man, to get through work well, must not overwork himself; or, if he do
too much to-day, the reaction of fatigue will come, and he will be
obliged to do too little to-morrow. Now, since I began really and
earnestly to study, which was not till I had left college, and was
actually in the world, I may perhaps say I have gone through as large a
course of general reading as most men of my time. I have travelled much,
and I have seen much; I have mixed much in politics, and the various
business of life; and, in addition to all this, I have published
somewhere about sixty volumes, some upon subjects requiring much
research. And what time, do you think, as a general rule, I have devoted
to study—to reading and writing? Not more than three hours a day; and
when Parliament is sitting, not always that. But then, during those
hours, I have given my whole attention to what I was about.”
Sir Benjamin Brodie says that “humility leads to the highest
distinction, because it leads to self-improvement.” He adds—and the
advice cannot be too often repeated—”study your own characters;
endeavour to learn and supply your own deficiencies; never assume to
yourself qualities which you do not possess; combine all this with
energy and activity, and you cannot predicate of yourselves, nor can
others predicate of you, at what point you may arrive at last.”
Among the empiric arts of gaining notoriety, that by engraved portraits
has led to some curious results. When the late John Harrison Curtis, the
aurist, came to town to seek his fortune, he had his portrait engraved
in large handsome style, and offered the same to a printseller to
publish. He demurred, as the original was unknown; but recommended
Curtis to leave his prints at the different printshops “on sale, or
return.” The sudden appearance in the shop-windows of a large portrait
of the great unknown led to the question, “Who is _this_ Mr. Curtis?”
The repeated inquiries laid the foundation of his fortune, and led to
his living in good style for many years in Soho-square, and numbering
royalty and nobility among his patients; but he outlived his
professional reputation, and died in reduced circumstances.
Silence, says Boyle, discovers Wisdom and conceals Ignorance; and ’tis a
property that is so much belonging to Wise Men, that even a Fool, when
he holdeth his peace, may pass for one of that sort.
It is one thing to see that a line is crooked, and another thing to be
able to draw a straight one. It is not quite so easy to do a good thing
as those imagine who never try.
One of Sir Thomas Wyat’s common sayings was, that there were three
things which should always be strictly observed: “Never to play with any
man’s unhappiness or deformity, for that is inhuman; nor on superiors,
for that is saucy and undutiful; nor on holy matters, for that is
irreligious.”
A little grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt
the dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into
everything that is sordid, vicious, and low.[127]
One very common error misleads the opinion of mankind,—that,
universally, authority is pleasant, submission painful. In the general
course of human affairs, the very reverse of this is nearer the truth.
Command is anxiety; obedience, ease.[128]
Lamartine has well observed: “Travelling is summing up a long life in a
few years; it is one of the strongest exercises a man can give his heart
and his mind. The philosopher, the politician, the poet, should all have
travelled much. Changing the moral horizon is to change thought.”
“Begin at the Beginning” is an excellent maxim. The laborious pursuit of
first principles brings its own reward. To begin at the beginning in the
sciences, as well as in matters of fact, is the nearest and safest road
to the end. Even sensible men are too commonly satisfied with tracing
their thoughts a little way backwards, and they are, of course, soon
perplexed by a profounder adversary. In this respect, most people’s
minds are too like a child’s garden, where the flowers are planted
without their roots. It may be said of morals and of literature, as
truly as of sculpture and painting, that, to understand the outside of
human nature, we should be well acquainted with the inside.
Such is the Waywardness of Fate, that one man sucks an orange, and is
choked by a pip; another swallows a penknife, and lives: one runs a
thorn into his hand, and no skill can save him (a fact of recent date);
another has a shaft of a gig passed completely through his body, and
recovers: one is overturned on a smooth common, and breaks his neck;
another is tossed out of a gig over Brighton cliff, and survives: one
walks on a windy day, and meets death by a brickbat; another is blown up
into the air, like Lord Hatton, in Guernsey Castle, and comes down
uninjured. The escape of this nobleman was indeed a miracle. An
explosion of gunpowder, which killed his mother, wife, some of his
children, and many other persons, and blew up the whole fabric of the
castle, lodged him and his bed on a wall overhanging a tremendous
precipice. Perceiving a mighty disorder (as he might expect), he was
going to step out of his bed to know what was the matter, which, if he
had done, he would have been irrecoverably lost; but, in the instant of
this moving, a flash of lightning came and showed him the precipice,
whereupon he lay still till people came and took him down.[129]
There is an almost prophetic meaning in the following passage from
Berkeley’s “Essay towards Preventing the Ruin of Great Britain,” written
soon after the affair of the South-Sea Scheme: “All projects for growing
rich by sudden extraordinary methods, as they operate violently on the
passions of men, and encourage them to despise the slow moderate gains
that are to be made by an honest industry, must be ruinous to the
public; and even the winners themselves will at length be involved in
the public ruin.”
Theodore Hook was one of the most experienced exponents of the Town Life
of his day: in habits, a bachelor, notwithstanding his industry as a man
of letters, he saw more of the outside world than the majority of idle
men. He has left many of these experiences in his novels, which, as
pictures of life, are valuable.
Thus, in _Gilbert Gurney_, he gives this admirable bit of club
criticism: “People who are conscious of what is due to themselves never
display irritability or impetuosity; their manners insure civility—their
own civility secures respect: but the blockhead or the coxcomb, fully
aware that something more than ordinary is necessary to produce an
effect, is sure, whether in clubs or coffee-houses, to be the most
fastidious and factious of the community, the most overbearing in his
manners towards his inferiors, the most restless and irritable among his
equals, the most cringing and subservient before his superiors.” No man
could utter such criticism with more complete safety from being answered
with a _Tu quoque_.
---------------------
Footnote 127:
Swift.
Footnote 128:
Paley.
Footnote 129:
_New Monthly Magazine._
----------------------------
PREDICTIONS OF SUCCESS.
A few noteworthy incidents have occurred in the early lives of great
men, which have singularly accorded with their success in after-life.
The first notice of Lord Chancellor Somers as a boy is exceedingly
curious. In Cooksey’s _Life and Character of Lord Somers_, the following
is stated to be well authenticated. It is to the effect that the boy was
walking with one of his aunts, under whose care he was placed at the
time, when “a beautiful roost-cock flew upon his curly head, and while
perched there crowed three times very loudly.” The occurrence was
instantly viewed as an omen of his future greatness.
Pope, writing to Lord Orrery, after first witnessing Garrick’s
performance of Richard III., said, “That young man never had his equal
as an actor, and will never have a rival.” As yet the prophecy is
unshaken.
A few weeks before Lord Chatham died, Lord Camden paid him a visit.
Chatham’s son, William Pitt, left the room on Lord Camden’s coming in.
“You see that young man,” said the old lord; “what I now say, be
assured, is not the fond partiality of a parent, but grounded on a very
accurate examination. Rely upon it, that young man will be more
distinguished in this country than ever his father was.” His prophecy
was in part accomplished. At the age of twenty-four he was Chancellor of
the Exchequer; and before he had attained his twenty-fifth year, had
been offered, and refused, the place of First Minister.
When Horatio Nelson was a weakly child, he gave proofs of that resolute
heart and nobleness of mind which, during his whole career of labour and
of glory, so eminently distinguished him. When a mere boy, he strayed a
bird’s-nesting from his grandmother’s house, in company with a cow-boy;
the dinner-hour elapsed, he was absent, and could not be found; the
alarm of the family then became very great, for they apprehended that he
might have been carried off by gipsies. At length, after search had been
made for him in various directions, he was discovered alone, sitting
composedly by the side of a brook which he could not get over. “I
wonder, child,” said the old lady when she saw him, “that hunger and
fear did not drive you home.” “Fear! grandmamma,” replied the future
hero; “I never saw fear—what is it?”
Arthur Wellesley, when at school at Chelsea, was a boy of indolent and
careless manner, and rather than join in the amusements of the
playground delighted to lean against a large tree, observing his
schoolfellows when playing around him. If any boy played unfairly,
Arthur quickly apprised those engaged in the game: on the delinquent
being turned out, it was generally wished that he should supply his
place; but nothing could induce him to do so: when beset by a party of
five or six, he would fight with the utmost courage and determination
until he freed himself from their grasp; he would then retire again to
his tree, and look about him, as observant as before. Such was the love
of fair play in the boy who became the great Duke of Wellington.
An incident in the life of Parry, the intrepid Arctic navigator, may
also be related here. He left Bath, accompanied by an old and faithful
servant of the family, with whom he travelled to Plymouth, and who did
not leave him till he saw him finally settled in the _Ville de Paris_
man-of-war. To Parry all was new. He had never before beheld the sea,
and his experience of naval matters had been confined to the small craft
on the river Avon. He seemed almost struck dumb with astonishment at his
first sight of the ocean and of a line-of-battle ship; but, after a
while recovering himself, he began eagerly to examine every thing around
him, and to ask numberless questions of all who were inclined to listen.
While so engaged, he saw one of the sailors descending the rigging from
aloft; and in a moment, before the astonished servant knew what Parry
was about, he sprang forward, and, with his wonted agility, clambered up
to the mast-head, from which giddy elevation he waved his cap in triumph
to those whom he had left below. When he regained the deck, the sailors,
who had witnessed the feat, gathered round him and commended his spirit,
telling him he was “a fine fellow, and a true sailor every inch of him.”
We can well imagine with what gratification the various members of his
family would receive the account of this and every other incident
connected with his first entry on his new career, and how eagerly they
would hail his conduct on this occasion as a happy omen of future
success.[130]
---------------------
Footnote 130:
_Memoirs of Sir E. W. Parry._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conclusion.
----------------------------
EASE OF MIND.
IN order to enjoy Ease of Mind in our intercourse with the world, we
should introduce into our habits of business punctuality, decision, the
practice of being beforehand, despatch, and exactness; in our pleasures,
harmlessness and moderation; and in all our dealings, perfect integrity
and love of truth. Without these observances we are never secure of
ease, nor indeed taste it in its highest state. As in most other things,
so here, people in general do not aim at more than mediocrity of
attainment, and of course usually fall below their standard; whilst many
are so busy in running after what should procure them ease, that they
totally overlook the thing itself.
Ease of mind has the most beneficial effect upon the body, and it is
only during its existence that the complicated physical functions are
performed with the accuracy and facility which nature designed. It is,
consequently, a great preventive of disease, and one of the secret means
of effecting a cure when disease has occurred; without it, in many
cases, no cure can take place. By ease of mind many people have survived
serious accidents, from which nothing else could have saved them, and in
every instance is much retarded by the absence of it. Its effect upon
the appearance is no less remarkable. It prevents and repairs the
ravages of time in a singular degree, and is the best preservative of
strength and beauty. It often depends greatly upon health, but health
always depends greatly upon it. The torments of a mind ill at ease seem
to be less endurable than those of the body; for it scarcely ever
happens that suicide is committed from bodily suffering. As far as the
countenance is an index, “the vultures of the mind” appear to turn it
more mercilessly than any physical pain; and no doubt there have been
many who would willingly have exchanged their mental agony for the most
wretched existence that penury could produce. From remorse there is no
escape. In aggravated cases probably there is no instant, sleeping or
waking, in which its influence is totally unfelt. Remorse is the extreme
one way; the opposite is that cleanliness of mind which has never been
recommended any where to the same extent that it is by the precepts of
the Christian religion, and which alone constitutes “perfect freedom.”
It would be curious if we could see what effect such purity would have
upon the appearance and actions of a human being—a being who lived, as
Pope expresses it, in the “eternal sunshine of the spotless mind.”
Goldsmith has beautifully said:
How small of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!
Still to ourselves in every place consign’d,
Our own felicity we make or find.
Shakspeare observes: “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking
makes it so.”[131]
Charles James Fox, who was, from infancy, a spoiled child, would spend
night after night in gambling, and wasting his sweet nature in the
orgies of Bacchus. Then he would flee away to the delightful scenery and
refreshing air of St. Anne’s Hill, and there betake himself to
gardening, in a blue apron; or to the learned leisure of his study, in
the bosom of conjugal felicity and friendship.
---------------------
Footnote 131:
_The Original._ By Thomas Walker, M.A.
----------------------------
THE LIFE OF MAN.
It is impossible to say what analogy exists between the race and the
individual, and attempts to explain the history of the one by the stages
which mark the life of the other are at best more ingenious than
satisfactory; but almost every fact with which we are acquainted seems
to suggest that some such analogy exists, though its particulars are
altogether unknown, and though we cannot even say whether mankind ought
to be compared to one individual or to several. It may, however, be
allowable, in dealing with a subject which, after all, appeals rather to
the feelings and to the imagination than to the reason, to point out the
fact that the cessation of human society would present a striking
analogy to the death of individuals; and that there would be the same
contradictory mixture of completeness and incompleteness about a society
eternally renewed, as there would be about a human being who never died.
That the life of a man forms a moral whole, is a conviction which is so
thoroughly worked into our minds and our very language, that no one
doubts it. That it is a mysterious and utterly contradictory thing at
its best estate, is the experience of every person who has even ordinary
powers of reflection. It is hard to imagine the degree in which these
mysteries and contradictions would be heightened if man were immortal.
If, after arriving at that average degree of prudence and self-restraint
which almost every one attains comparatively early in life, people lived
on and on for centuries and millenniums, carrying on the same sort of
transactions, settling the same difficulties, enjoying the same
pleasures, and suffering from the same vexations, the question why they
ever were sent into the world at all (which is even now sufficiently
perplexing) would become altogether overwhelming; and the faith which
people at present maintain in the Divine government of the world would
have to be based on entirely different grounds, if it survived at all.
It is perhaps not merely fanciful to suggest that a somewhat similar
difficulty would exist if human society, after a long and laborious
education, were to attain to a stationary state, and were then to go on
indefinitely enjoying itself. Such a heaven on earth would be at best a
sort of high life below stairs.
The celebration of the triumphs of civilisation, which is at present in
full bloom, produces on many minds an effect not unlike that which
Robespierre’s feasts to the Supreme Being produced on his colleagues.
“You and your nineteenth century are beginning to be a bore,” is the
salutation which many a philosopher would receive in these days from a
sincere audience. Weigh and measure and classify as we will, we are but
poor creatures, when all is said and done. It would be a relief to think
that a day was coming when the world, whether more comfortable or not,
would at least see and know itself as it is, and when the real gist and
bearing of all the work, good and evil, that is done under the sun,
should at last be made plain. Till then, knowledge, science, and power
are, after all, little more than shadows in a troubled dream—a dream
which will soon pass away from each of us, if it does not pass away at
once from all.[132]
---------------------
Footnote 132:
_Saturday Review._
----------------------------
THE GOOD MAN’s LIFE.
Some are called _at age_ at fourteen, some at one-and-twenty, some
never; but all men late enough, for the life of a man comes upon him
slowly and insensibly. But as when the sun approaching towards the gates
of the morning, he first opens a little the eye of heaven, and sends
away the spirits of darkness, and gives light to a cock, and calls up
the lark to matins, and by and by gilds the fringes of a cloud, and
peeps over the eastern hills, thrusting out his golden horns, like those
which decked the brows of Moses when he was forced to wear a veil,
because himself had seen the face of God; and still while a man tells
the story, the sun gets up higher, till he shows a fair face and a full
light, and then he shines one whole day, under a cloud often, and
sometimes weeping great and little showers, and sets quickly: so is
man’s reason and his life. He first begins to perceive himself to see or
taste, making little reflections upon his actions of sense, and can
discourse of flies and dogs, shells and play, horses and liberty; but
when he is strong enough to enter into arts and little institutions, he
is at first entertained with trifles and impertinent things, not because
he needs them, but because his understanding is no bigger, and little
images of things are laid before him, like a cockboat to a whale, only
to play withal: but before a man comes to be wise, he is half-dead with
gouts and consumption, with catarrhs and aches, with sore eyes and a
worn-out body. So that if we must not reckon the life of a man but by
the amounts of his reason, he is long before his soul be dressed; and he
is not to be called a man without a wise and an adorned soul, a soul at
least furnished with what is necessary towards his well-being: but by
that time his soul is thus furnished, his body is decayed; and then you
can hardly reckon him to be alive, when his body is possessed by so many
degrees of death.
* * * * *
But if I shall describe a living man, a man that hath that life which
distinguishes him from a fool or a bird, that which gives him a capacity
next to angels, we shall find that even a good man lives not long;
because it is long before he is born to this life, and longer yet before
he hath a man’s growth. “He that can look upon death, and see its face
with the same countenance with which he hears its story; he that can
endure all the labours of his life with his soul supporting his body;
that can equally despise riches when he hath them, and when he hath them
not; that is not sadder if they lie in his neighbour’s trunks, nor more
brag if they shine round about his own walls; he that is neither moved
with good fortune coming to him, nor going from him; that can look upon
another man’s lands evenly and pleasantly as if they were his own, and
yet look upon his own, and use them too, just as if they were another
man’s; that neither spends his goods prodigally and like a fool, nor yet
keeps them avariciously and like a wretch; that weighs not benefits by
weight and number, but by the mind and circumstances of him that gives
them; that never thinks his charity expensive if a worthy person be the
receiver; he that does nothing for opinion sake, but every thing for
conscience, being as curious of his thoughts as of his actings in
markets and theatres, and is as much in awe of himself as of a whole
assembly; he that knows God looks on, and contrives his secret affairs
as if in the presence of God and his holy angels; that eats and drinks
because he needs it, not that he may serve a lust or load his belly; he
that is bountiful and cheerful to his friends, and charitable and apt to
forgive his enemies; that loves his country, and obeys his prince, and
desires and endeavours nothing more than that they may do honour to
God:”[133] this person may reckon his life to be the life of a man, and
compute his months not by the course of the sun, but the zodiac and
circle of his virtues; because these are such things which fools and
children and birds and beasts cannot have; these are therefore the
actions of life, because they are the seeds of immortality. That day in
which we have done some excellent thing, we may as truly reckon to be
added to our life, as were the fifteen years to the days of
Hezekiah.[134]
---------------------
Footnote 133:
Seneca, _De Vita Beata_.
Footnote 134:
Jeremy Taylor’s _Holy Dying_.
----------------------------
PREDICTIONS OF FLOWERS.
To what excellent account have our thoughtful old writers turned these
prophetic indications of changeful flowers! Bishop Hall, in his
_Occasional Meditations_, has the following “On the Light of Tulips, and
Marigolds, &c. in his Garden:” “These flowers are the true clients of
the sun; how observant they are of his motion and influence! At even,
they shut up, as mourning for his departure, without whom they neither
can see nor flourish; in the morning, they welcome his rising with a
cheerful openness; and at noon, are fully displayed in a free
acknowledgment of his bounty.
“Thus doth the good heart turn unto God. ‘_When thou turnedst away thy
face, I was troubled_,’ saith the man after God’s own heart. ‘_In thy
presence is life; yea, the fulness of joy._’ Thus doth the carnal heart
to the world: when that withdraws its favours, he is dejected; and
revives with a smile. All is in our choice. Whatsoever is our sun will
thus carry us.
“O God, be Thou to me such as Thou art in Thyself: Thou shalt be
merciful in drawing me; I shall be happy in following thee.”
The use of Perfumes in the last century exceeded that in the present
day. Possibly the old notion that they were employed to mask the
exhalations from diseased persons may have driven perfumes out of
fashion in our day; we recollect _musk_ to have been specially so
considered. Bishop Hall, in his _Occasional Meditations_, adverts to
this use of perfumes in a meditation illustrative of a custom which is
associated with the symbolic character of “flowers and redolent plants,
just emblems of the life of man, which has been compared in Holy
Scriptures to those fading beauties, whose roots, being buried in
dishonour, rise again in glory.”[135] The Bishop’s meditation is “On the
Sight of a Coffin stuck with Flowers:”
“Too fair in appearance is never free from just suspicion. While there
was nothing but wood, no flower was to be seen here; now that this wood
is lined with an unsavoury corpse, it is adorned with this sweet
variety. The fir, whereof that coffin is made, yields a natural
redolence alone; now that it is stuffed thus noisomely, all helps are
too little to countervail that scent of corruption.[136]
---------------------
Footnote 135:
Evelyn.
Footnote 136:
See “Flowers on Graves,” in _Mysteries of Life, Death, and Futurity_.
----------------------------
THE WORLD’S CYCLES.
There is a Revolution of History as of Knowledge: who does not remember
how often the same succession of events has happened in his memory! Dr.
Newman has well expressed this truth in a poem in the _Lyra Apostolica_,
entitled “Faith against Sight,” with the motto, “As it was in the days
of Lot, so shall it be in the days of the Son of Man:”
The World has Cycles in its course, when all
That once has been, is acted o’er again:
Not by some fatal law which need appal
Our faith, or binds our deeds as with a chain;
But by men’s separate sins, which blended still
The same bad round fulfil.
----------------------------
DEATH ALL-ELOQUENT.
Death and I have met in full, close contact;
And parted, knowing we should meet again;
Therefore, come when he may, we’ve looked upon
Each other far too narrowly for me
To fear the hour when we shall be so join’d,
That all eternity shall never sever us.—_F. Kemble._
What solemnity is there in the following passage, with which Sir Walter
Raleigh concludes his _Marrow of Historie!_ “O eloquent, just, and
mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none
have dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world have flattered, thou
only hast cast out of the world and despised: thou hast drawn together
all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of
man, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, HIC JACET.”
Finis.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
APPENDIX.
_Generations (page 71)._
MR. HATSELL TO LORD AUCKLAND.
Morden Park, Sunday, Nov. 23, 1813.
MY DEAR LORD,—I must correct the conclusion of your last letter,
"and so the world goes on," to "and so the world goes off." In the
same Marlborough family I have lived to see eight[137] generations:
1. Sarah Duchess of Marlborough.
2. Lady Sunderland.
3. Jack Spencer.
4. The first Lord Spencer.
5. The present Lord Spencer.
6. The Duchess of Devonshire.
7. Lady Morpeth.
8. Her children (the present Lord Carlisle and Duchess of
Sutherland).
I saw Sarah in Lincoln’s-inn consulting Mr. Fazakerly, who stood
close to her Grace’s chair; so, you see, I beat history out and
out.[138]...—From the _Auckland Correspondence_, vol. iv. p. 401.
---------------------
Footnote 137:
Only seven; the name of the second Lord Spencer ought to be omitted.
Footnote 138:
Mr. Hatsell died 1820.
----------------------------
_Memory_ (_page_ 75).
Professor Faraday, at the close of a Lecture on Gas Glass-house
Furnaces, delivered at the Royal Institution in 1862, alluded, in an
affecting manner, to his increasing loss of memory. There was a
time, he observed, when he inclined to think that Memory was a
faculty of secondary order; but he now feels its great importance;
and the deficiency of that power, he said, would prevent him from
again bringing before them any thing that was new; for he was often
unable to recollect even his own precious researches, and he could
no longer trust himself to lecture without notes.
----------------------------
_Great Ages_ (_page_ 114).
An old woman who died in 1858 in St. Patrick-street, Dublin, at the
age of 110 years, distinctly remembered and described the appearance
of Dean Swift, and added, that he never went outside the
Deanery-house that he was not attended through the streets by a vast
crowd of washed and unwashed admirers.
Mrs. Keith, of Newnham, Gloucestershire, who died in 1772, aged 133,
left three daughters, aged 111, 110, and 100.
In 1862, a lady residing at Cheltenham received a second donation of
5_l._ from her Majesty the Queen, for an old man of 107 years of
age, named William Purser, a native of Redmarley, but living in
Cheltenham.—_Worcestershire Chronicle._
In 1862, a curious fact occurred at Downton, showing how few
individuals are required to connect distant periods of history with
the present time. A man was buried in this parish whose father was
born in the reign of William III., and that father lived in three
centuries, having been born in 1698 and died in 1801.—_Salisbury
Journal._
In 1853, the Irish newspapers announced the death of Mrs. Mary
Power, aunt of the celebrated Mr. Shiel, at the Ursuline Convent,
Cork, at the age of 116 years; but this statement lacks legal
evidence to prove it.
The obituary of the _Times_ of January 21, 1863, records the decease
of persons who had attained the following advanced ages, viz.: 92,
90, 82, 82, 82, 80, 78, 78, 76, 74, 72, 72, 72, and 70 years
respectively.
Dr. Mead, grandfather of the celebrated physician and antiquary,
died at Ware, in Hertfordshire, 1652, aged 148.
In Scawen’s _Dissertation on the Cornish Tongue_, written in the
reign of Charles II., is mentioned a woman recently deceased, who
was "164 years old, of good memory, and healthful at her age; living
in the parish of Gwithian. She married a second husband after she
was 80, and buried him after he was 80 years of age."
A Philadelphia Correspondent of _Notes and Queries_, No. 213, 1853,
records the death of "Aunt Polly" (Mary Simondson), near
Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, at the age of 126 years.
Among the legacies bequeathed to the Middlesex Hospital in 1863, was
one which is deserving of special notice, inasmuch as the donor, Mr.
Cropper, exhibited a singular instance of rigid economy in his
personal expenditure, combined with a bountiful and almost princely
benevolence towards the poor. Mr. Cropper, who was 90 years old when
he died, had, it appears, survived all his relations. He was a
barrister-at-law, and lived in the most frugal manner in his
chambers at Gray’s-inn. The amount of his property at the time of
his decease is estimated at about 4000_l._ per annum, and 10,000_l._
in money, the whole of which he has bestowed on London charities,
selecting Middlesex Hospital as his residuary legatee.
In the _Express_ of February 11, 1863, it is recorded: Two
octogenarians, named Joseph and John Fitzwalter, brothers, lived
together with their sister in a house in Parliament street for a
great number of years. The brothers had been brought up to the
business of lace-designing, and the sister had acted in the capacity
of housekeeper. Joseph, the elder one, was a short time ago attacked
with bronchitis, under which he lingered for some time in much pain.
On Wednesday last (February 4), however, he died, at the ripe old
age of 84 years. The brother and sister of the deceased were much
affected by his death, the brother showing excessive signs of grief.
His grieving, however, was not long, for he expired in one hour
after his brother. The death of two brothers, to whom she was
devoutly attached, was a shock which the sister was unable to
withstand; and on the morning fixed for their interment she also
expired, at the age of 88 years.
----------------------------
_Baron Maseres_ (_page_ 149).
Baron Maseres long resided at Reigate, in a fine old brick mansion,
about midway between the church and town. His remains rest in a
vault in the churchyard towards the north-east; upon the tomb over
which Dr. Fellowes has inscribed an epitaph in elegant Latinity,
terminating thus: "Vale, vir optime! amice, vale, carissime; et
siqua rerum humanarum tibi sit adhuc conscientia, monimentum, quod
in tui memoriam, tui etiam in mortuis observantissimus Robertus
Fellowes ponendum curavit, solitâ benevolentiâ tuearis."
On Sundays the Baron, bent with age, might be seen advancing up the
nave of Reigate church; for he was a sound churchman, and testified
his sincerity by making an Endowment for an Afternoon Sermon to be
preached on Sundays, with this proviso, that, in case of
non-observance of the bequest, the endowment should be given in
bread to the poor. The chancels, with their faded pomp of effigied
monuments, hatchments, and armorial glass, have little attraction
compared with this interesting memorial of practical piety.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
INDEX.
Adam, Death before, 117.
Advice to the Student, 138.
Age, our Unimaginative, 239.
Ages, great, 81, 82.
Airy, Prof., 241.
Alarum, ancient, 14.
Albert, Prince Consort, Death of, 228.
Albert, Prince Consort, on the Progress of Knowledge, 227.
Alderson, Baron, on Education, 138.
Alfred’s Time-Candles, 13.
Antiquaries, long-lived, 111.
Aphorisms on Time, 2.
Archbishop Sancroft, 104.
Architects, aged, 113.
Argument, What is it? 144.
Aristotle’s Philosophy, 134.
Artists, aged, 112, 113.
Authors and Artists, Working, 204.
Average of Life, 71.
Babbage, Mr., on Life Assurance, 71.
Bacon, Francis, on Longevity, 80.
Bailey’s _Records of Longevity_, 96.
Baily, Francis, 208.
Banks, Sir Edward, 182.
Barrow, Sir John, 164.
Beckford, William, 189.
"Begin at the Beginning," 246.
Bentham, Jeremy, Age of, 109, 110.
Bentinck, Lord George, 217.
Berry, the Misses, 92.
Bidder, George, the engineer, 186.
Birch, Alderman, 200.
Blake, Captain, 174.
Books for the Young, 141.
Booth, David, 205.
Brassey, Thomas, 185.
Britton, John, Rise of, 207, 208.
Brodie, Sir Benjamin, _note_, 59, 60.
Brougham, Lord, 214, 215, 216.
Brougham, Lord, on Oratory, 170.
Bruce, John, on Longevity, 83.
Brunel, I. K., 182, 183.
Brunel, Sir I. M., 181.
Buckingham Family, the, 193, 194.
Buffon, on growing Old, 77.
Burke, Oratory of, 169.
BUSINESS-LIFE, 152-217.
Business, Men of, 174.
Byron, Lord, 206.
Carlyle’s Signs of the Times, 11.
Centenarians in 1800, 101.
Chambers, Robt., on Old Age, 99.
Chantrey the Sculptor, 209.
Character the best Security, 176.
Chatham, Lord, 170.
Cheyne, Dr., on Old Age, 109.
Childhood’s Pastimes, 72.
Children, Young, Teaching, 120.
Circumstances and Genius, 238.
Civic Hospitalities, 203.
Civic Worthies, 199.
Clark, "King of Exeter ’Change," 189.
Clark, Chamberlain, 95, 208.
Classics, Dr. Arnold on, 124.
Clergy, Great ages of, 104, 105.
CLOCKS AND WATCHES:
Anne Boleyn’s Clock, 35;
Cannon Clock, 37;
Chronometers, 37;
Clocks striking twice, 32;
Electric Clocks, 39;
Harrison’s improvements, 36;
Horologe, 29;
Horse-Guards Clock, 31;
Kensington-palace, 36;
Minute-Jacks, 33;
Pendulum Experiments, 38;
Rabelais on, 29;
St. Dunstan’s Clock, 32, 33;
St. James’s-palace Clock, 31;
St. Magnus Clock, 32;
St. Paul’s Cathedral Clock, 31, 35;
St. Paul’s, Covent-garden, Clock, 31;
Scott and Shakspeare on, 30;
Watch, to choose, 39;
Watch, Lord Herbert to his, 40;
Watch-face at Somerset-house, 36;
Water-clocks, 30;
Westminster-palace Clock, 30, 35.
Colburn, Henry, 197.
Coleridge, _note_, 62.
Coleridge, Sir John, on Education, 130, 140.
CONCLUSION, 250-256.
Consolation in growing Old, 76.
Cooper, Durrant, on great ages in Yorkshire, 97.
Cornaro, Great age of, 92.
Court letter, Model, 165.
Courtesies, Small, 221.
"Cramming," 132.
Cubitt, Thomas and William, 185, 186.
Cunningham, Allan, 210.
Cuvier on Life, 65.
Davy, Sir H., on Time, 8, 9.
Day and Martin’s Blacking, 194.
Death before Adam, 116.
Death, Eloquent, 256.
Death, Preparatory to, 115.
Debating Society, 169.
Demosthenes’ Oratory, 166, 167.
Denisons, the, 196.
Desmond, Old Countess of, 88.
Dials: see Sun-Dials.
Dickens, Charles, and Yorkshire Schools, 141.
Diplomatic Handwriting, 166.
Discipline, Practical, 132.
Disraeli, Isaac and Benjamin, 211, 212.
Distance reckoned by Time, 16.
Early Rising:
Albert, Prince Consort, 51;
Burgess, Bishop, 47;
Burghley, Lord, 41;
Cambridge University, 41;
Chatham, Lord, 47;
Cobbett, William, 48, 49, 50;
Coke, Sir Edward, 42;
Cooper, Sir Astley, 47;
Doddridge, 45;
Eton College, 41;
Gibbon, 46;
Kant, 46;
Ken, Bishop, 42, 43;
Rubens, 44;
Thomson, the poet, 46;
Webster, Daniel, 50;
Wesley, John, 44, 45.
Earthly existence, Future of the Human Race, 117.
Ease of Mind, 250.
Education Alarmists, 140.
Education, the best, 137.
Education, Business of, 123.
Education at Home, 121.
Education, Liberal, 126.
Education, Unsound, 128.
Education, What is it? 119.
Educations, Two, 131.
Energy, Worth of, 154.
Engineers, aged, 112.
Engineers and Mechanicians, eminent, 177.
English Character, the, 153.
Family Portraits, 219.
Farming, Scientific, 187.
Fate, Waywardness of, 246.
Flood, Mr., Oratory of, 170.
Flourens, M., on Longevity, 79.
Floyer, Sir John, his age, 108.
Fontenelle, on growing Old, 78, 103.
Fortunes, Large, 188.
Fox, C. J., 249.
Fox, C. J., Oratory of, 167.
Friends, How to Keep, 220.
Friendships, Lasting, 221.
Garrick’s Talent predicted, 248.
Generations, Passing, 68-71.
Geology in Education, 135.
Gibson, Sidney, on Longevity, 82.
Good Man’s Life, the, 253.
Grace, Dr. Whately on, 121.
Greatness, Test of, 156.
Grief and old Age, 108.
Growing to the spot, 103.
Grub-street and Criticism, 110.
Haller on Age, 79.
Handwriting, Character in, 145.
Hardwicke, Dowager Countess of, 91.
Hard workers long livers, 106.
Herschel, Caroline Lucretia, 90.
Herschel, Sir John, 240.
Hill, Thomas, 205.
Historians, long-lived, 111.
Historic Traditions through few Links, 82.
History and Geography, Teaching at Home, 121.
Home, Love of, 218.
Home Thoughts, 225.
HOME TRAITS, 218-226.
Hook, Theodore, 247.
Hooke’s Magnetic Watch, 14.
Hour-glass, the, 27, 28, 29.
How, Hon. Chas., on Life, 68.
Hudson, "the Railway King," 196.
Humanity to Animals, 123.
Humility and Self-Improvement, 244.
Journalists, Ages of, 111.
Keith, Viscountess, Great age of, 92.
Kelly, Alderman, 202.
Ken, Bishop, and Early Rising, 42, 43.
Knowledge, too much, 151.
Knowledge and Wisdom, 139.
Lansdowne, the late Lord, on Public Speaking, 169.
Lawyers, aged, 111.
Length of Days, 80, 97.
Letter-writing, 148.
Life of Man, 251.
Life—a River, 65.
Linwood, Miss, her great age, 91.
Liverpool, Lord, Origin of, 163.
Locke, Joseph, the engineer, 184.
London, long life in, 101.
Long Livers, noted, 96.
Long Services, 107.
Longevity and Diet, 92-95.
Longevity, Female, 88-92.
Longevity and Localities, 96-102.
Lord Mayors of London, 199.
Lytton, Sir Bulwer, on Office, 161.
Lytton, Sir Bulwer, on Oratory, 169.
Macaulay, Lord, 213, 226.
Marshall, Sir Chapman, 202.
Marvels of the Universe, 240.
Maseres, Baron, and Anti-Newtonian, _note_, 149, 258.
Mathematics, Lord Rosse on, 133, 134.
Mechi, Alderman, 187, 203.
Memory, What is it? 75.
Method in Books, 150.
Midhurst, Great ages at, 101.
Misadventure, Colonial, 235.
Montaigne on Education, 139.
More, Hannah, 74.
Morison, James, 195.
Morris, Capt., Great age of, 95.
Morrison, James, M.P., 198.
Musical Composers, aged, 112.
Negroes, aged, 113, 114.
Nelson, his boyhood, 248.
Official Life, 161.
Official Qualifications, 164.
Old Man, the Happy, 114.
Opportunity, 174.
Oxford, Great ages in, 100.
Painters, aged, 112.
Parr, Old, Diet of, 93.
Parry, the Arctic Navigator, 249.
Patten, Margaret, great age of, 89.
Peel, Sir Robert, 235.
Periods of Rest, 15.
Phillips, John Pavin, on Longevity, 83.
Phillips, Sir Richard, the Vegetarian, 69, 94.
Philosophers, Great ages of, 102, 103.
Physiognomy, Sir David Brewster on, 242.
Pianoforte-making, Fortune by, 195.
Pirie, Alderman Sir John, 202.
Pitt, his political Life predicted, 248.
Pleasures of the Imagination late in Life, 73.
Poets, aged, 111.
Poetry of Time, 1-8.
Polite Writing, True Tone of, 223.
Predictions of Flowers, 255.
Present and the Past, 238.
Pride and Meanness, 224.
Profession, Choice of, 157.
Progress of Knowledge, 227, 229.
Public Speaking, 166.
Pursuit, Want of, 152.
Quakers, Great ages of, 106.
Red Tape, 62.
Rennie, John, the Engineer, 180.
Rest, Periods of, 15.
Restlessness and Enterprise, 235.
Restraint, Early, 124.
Rogers, Samuel, Age of, 85.
Room, the best to speak in, 169.
Rose, Rt. Hon. George, 163.
Routh, Dr., Great age of, 86.
School-Indulgence, 128.
School-Reform, Arnold’s, 127.
Scientific Men, aged, 112.
Scientific Progress, 229.
Scotland, Longevity in, 98, 99.
Scott, Sir Walter, 211.
Scott, Sir W., on Presidency, 173.
Sculptors, aged, 113.
Self-dependence, Mr. Sharp on, 159.
Self-formation, 131.
Shaw, Sir James, 200.
Shoreditch, St. Leonard’s, and Longevity, 80.
Short-hand, Antiquity of, 147.
Sidmouth Peerage, the, 162.
Sinclair, Sir John, on Long Life, 96.
Smith, Sidney, on Education, 131.
Soldiers, Great ages of, 105.
Somers, Lord, Omen to, 247.
Southey, on English Style, 147.
Southey, Letters of, 206.
SPIRIT OF THE AGE, 227-243.
Spring-time of Life, 66.
Stanhope, Lord, on the Progress of Knowledge, 230.
Statesmen, aged, 111.
Steele, on the Choice of a Profession, 158.
Stephenson, George and Robert, 178, 179.
Stothard, the Painter, 112.
Strahan, William and Andrew, the Printers, 191, 192.
Strangford, Lord, on Time, 11.
Style, English, 147.
Suffolk, Great ages in, 99.
SUN-DIALS:
Bowles, Canon, on, 17, 18, 24;
Boyle, Robert, on, 22;
Bremhill, 17, 18;
Hall, Bishop, on, 25;
Lamb, Charles, on, 21;
London, Inns of Court, 20;
Mackay, Charles, Lines by, 26;
Mottoes for Dials, 24;
Mary Queen of Scots’ Dial, 27;
Oxford, 17;
Pyramids of Egypt, 25;
Ring Dials, 23;
Seven Dials, 21, 22;
Temple, 21;
Whitehall, 19.
Surgeons, aged, 111.
Talkers, Profuse, 57.
Teaching, Unsound, 128.
Telford, the engineer, 179.
Thackeray, W. M., 226.
Tilt, the late Charles, 176.
TIME, ART OF EMPLOYING:
Aguesseau, 55;
Boyle, Robert, 58;
Brodie, Sir Benjamin, 59;
Coke, Sir Edward, 53;
Coleridge, 61;
Curran and Grattan, 62;
Elizabeth, Queen, 55;
Erasmus, 54;
Fuller, 52;
George III., 58;
Hale, Sir Matthew, 56;
Harrington, Sir John, 58;
Johnson, Dr., 53;
Jones, Sir W., 53;
More, Sir Thomas, 64;
Paley, 59; Sandwich, Lord, 58;
Scott, Sir Walter, 61;
South, Dr., 53;
Sterne, 59;
Thomson, the poet, 59;
Wellington, Duke of, 63;
Woodhouselee, Lord, 55.
Time’s Garland, by Drayton, 6.
Time and Eternity, 64.
Time and Improvement, 231.
Time, Management of, 244.
Time, Measurement of, 12-15.
Time, painted by the Poets, 1-8.
Time, Past, Present, and Future, 9.
Time-balls, London and Edinburgh, 34.
Time-wasters, 57.
Trade, the nobility of, 189.
Trade and Philanthropy, 243.
Translation, Free, 150.
Truth, Speaking the, 234.
Twenty Years, First, of Life, 67.
Tying-up Thoughts, 62, 63.
Vegetarians and Long Life, 94.
Waithman, Alderman, 201.
Walker, Jas., the Engineer, 186.
Ware, the Architect, 174.
Watson, Bishop, _note_, 136.
Wear and Tear of Public Life, 217.
Webster, Dr., on Longevity, 91.
Wellington, Duke of, his boyhood, 248.
Wellington, Duke of, 63, 64, 234, 235.
Widows, aged, 90.
Wilson, Professor, 216.
Wire, Alderman, 203.
Wood, Sir Matthew, 200.
Woodstock, Great ages in, 100.
World’s Cycles, 256.
WORLD-KNOWLEDGE, 244-249.
Wrecks of Time, 7.
Writing, Art of, 149.
Writing, Learning, 147.
Yorkshire Schools, 141.
Youth, Tenderness of, 122.
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Transcriber’s Notes
Italic text in the original is delimited by _underscores_. Bold and
spaced-text in the original is delimited by =equal signs=. A caret [^]
has been used to indicate that the following number is an exponent—i.e.
raised above the base line.
1. Copyright notice was provided as in the original printed text—this
e-text is public domain in the country of publication.
2. Obvious typographical errors were silently corrected; non-standard
spellings and dialect were retained.
3. On page 23, an “i” was changed to an “I” where the meaning was first
person singular, nominative case.
4. Typo on page 23: “Habden” was changed to “Hebden”.
5. A section header was added for any section listed in the Table of
Contents which didn’t show in the text (other than as a page header).
6. In the first pararaph on page 98 there is an arithmetical error which
has been left uncorrected.
7. On p. 126, the first paragraph of quotation, “non-professional
educational” was changed to “non-professional education” to be
parallel to previous sentence.
8. On p. 173, both of the spellings, “preses” and “præses”, were used.
Neither is considered wrong. (It means President of a college.)
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