BLACKWOOD’S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE

NO. CCCXXXI. MAY, 1843. VOL. LIII.

CONTENTS.

• DUMAS IN ITALY
• AMMALÁT BEK. A TRUE TALE OF THE CAUCASUS FROM THE
  RUSSIAN OF MARLÍNSKI
• REYNOLDS’S DISCOURSES. CONCLUSION
• LEAP-YEAR.—A TALE
• THE BATTLE OF THE BLOCKS. The PAVING QUESTION
• POEMS AND BALLADS OF SCHILLER.—No. VIII.
• NATURAL HISTORY OF SALMON AND SEA-TROUT
• CALEB STUKELY. PART THE LAST
• COMMERCIAL POLICY. SPAIN
• [FOOTNOTES]

DUMAS IN ITALY.

[Souvenirs de Voyage en Italie, par ALEXANDRE DUMAS. 5 vols. duod.]

France has lately sent forth her
poets in great force, to travel, and to
write travels. Delamartine, Victor
Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, and others,
have been forth in the high-ways and
the high-seas, observing, portraying,
poetizing, romancing. The last-mentioned
of these, M. Dumas, a dramatist
very ingenious in the construction
of plots, and one who tells a story
admirably, has travelled quite in character.
There is a dramatic air thrown
over all his proceedings, things happen
as pat as if they had been rehearsed,
and he blends the novelist
and tourist together after a very bold
and original fashion. It is a new
method of writing travels that he has
hit upon, and we recommend it to the
notice of our countrymen or countrywomen,
who start from home with the
fixed idea, happen what may, of inditing
a book. He does not depend
altogether upon the incidents of the
road, or the raptures of sight-seeing,
or any odd fantasy that buildings or
scenery may be kind enough to suggest:
he provides himself with full
half of his materials before he starts,
in the shape of historical anecdote and
romantic story, which he distributes
as he goes along. A better plan for
an amusing book could not be devised.
Your mere tourist, it must be confessed,
however frivolous he submits
for our entertainment to become,
grows heavy on our hands; that rapid
and incessant change of scene which
is kindly meant to enliven our spirits,
becomes itself wearisome, and we long
for some resting-place, even though it
should be obtained by that most illegitimate
method of closing the volume.
On the other hand, a teller of tales
has always felt the want of some enduring
thread—though, as some one
says in a like emergency, it be only
packthread—on which his tales may
be strung—something to fill up the
pauses, and prevent the utter solution
of continuity between tale and tale—something
that gives the narrator a reasonable
plea for going on again, and
makes the telling another story an indispensable
duty upon his part, and the
listening to it a corresponding obligation
upon ours; and ever since the time
when that young lady of unpronounceable
and unrememberable name told
the One Thousand and One Tales,
telling a fragment every morning to
keep her head upon her shoulders,
there has been devised many a strange
expedient for this purpose. Now, M.
Dumas has contrived, by uniting the
two characters of tourist and novelist,
to make them act as reliefs to each
other. Whilst he shares with other
travellers the daily adventures of the
road—the journey, the sight, and the
dinner—he is not compelled to be
always moving; he can pause when
he pleases, and, like the fableur of
olden times, sitting down in the market-place,
in the public square, at the
corner of some column or statue, he
narrates his history or his romance.
Then, the story told, up starts the
busy and provident tourist; lo! the
voiture is waiting for him at the hotel;
in he leaps, and we with him, and off
we rattle through other scenes, and to
other cities. He has a track in space
to which he is bound; we recognize
the necessity that he should proceed
thereon; but he can diverge at pleasure
through all time, bear us off into
what age he pleases, make us utterly
oblivious of the present, and lap us in
the Elysium of a good story.

With a book written palpably for
the sole and most amiable purpose of
amusement, and succeeding in this
purpose, how should we deal? How
but receive it with a passive acquiescence
equally amiable, content solely
to be amused, and giving all severer
criticism—to him who to his other
merits may add, if he pleases, that of
being the first critic. Most especially
let us not be carping and questioning as
to the how far, or what precisely, we
are to set down for true. It is all
true—it is all fiction; the artist cannot
choose but see things in an artistical
form; what ought not to be there
drops from his field of vision. We
are not poring through a microscope,
or through a telescope, to discover
new truths; we are looking at the old
landscape through coloured glasses,
blue, or black, or roseate, as the occasion
may require. And here let us
note a favourable contrast between
our dramatic tourist, bold in conception,
free in execution, and those compatriots
of our own, authors and authoresses,
who write travels merely because
they are artists in ink, yet without
any adequate notion of the duties
and privileges of such an artist.

When a writer has got a name,
the first rational use to make of the
charming possession is to get astride
of it, as a witch upon her broomstick,
and whisk and scamper over half the
kingdoms of the earth. Talk of bills
of exchange!–letters of credit!–we
can put our name to a whole book,
and it will pass—it will pass. The
idea is good—quite worthy of our
commercial genius—and to us its origin,
we believe, is due; but here, as in
so many other cases, the Frenchman
has given the idea its full development.
Keeping steadily in view the
object of his book, which is—first,
amusement—secondly, amusement—thirdly,
amusement; he adapts his
means consistently to his end. Does
he want a dialogue?—he writes one:
a story?—he invents one: a description?—he
takes his hint from
nature, and is grateful—the more
grateful, because he knows that a hint
to the wise is sufficient. It is the
description only which the reader will
be concerned with; what has he to
do with the object? That is the
merely traveller’s affair. Now, your
English tourists have always a residue
of scruple about them which balks
their genius. Not satisfied with pleasing,
they aspire to be believed; are
almost angry if their anecdote is not
credited; content themselves with
adding graces, giving a turn, trimming
and decorating—cannot build a structure
boldly from the bare earth. This
necessity of finding a certain straw for
their bricks, which must be picked up
by the roadside, not only impedes the
work of authorship, but must add
greatly to their personal discomfort
throughout the whole of their travels.
They are in perpetual chase of something
for the book. They bag an
incident with as much glee as a sportsman
his first bird in September. They
are out on pleasure, but manifestly
they have their task too; it is not quite
holiday, only half-holiday with them.
The prospect or the picture gives no
pleasure till it has suggested the appropriate
expression of enthusiasm,
which, once safely deposited in the
note-book, the enthusiasm itself can
be quietly indulged in, or permitted
to evaporate. At the dinner-table,
even when champagne is circulating,
if a jest or a story falls flat, they see
with an Aristotelian precision the
cause of its failure, and how an additional
touch, or a more auspicious
moment, would have procured for it a better
fate; they stop to pick it up,
they clean it, they revolve the chapter
and the page to which it shall lend its
lustre. Nay, it is noticeable, that
without much labour from the polisher,
many a dull thing in conversation has
made a good thing in print; the conditions
of success are so different.
Now, from all such toils and perplexities
M. Dumas is evidently free;
free as the wildest Oxonian who flies
abroad in the mere wanton prodigality
of spirits and of purse. His book is
made, or can be made, when he
chooses: fortune favours the bold,
and incidents will always dispose
themselves dramatically to the dramatist.

Our traveller opens his campaign at
Nice. It may be observed that M.
Dumas cannot be accused, like the
present minister of his country, of any
partiality to the English; if the mortifying
truth must be told, he has no
love of us at all; to which humour,
so long as he delivers himself of it
with any wit or pleasantry, he is
heartily welcome. Our first extract
will be thought, perhaps, to taste of
this humour; but we quote it for the
absurd proof it affords of the manner
in which we English have overflooded
some portions of the Continent:—

The little town of Monaco is his
next resting-place. This town, which
is now under the government of the
King of Sardinia, was at one time an
independent principality; and M.
Dumas gives a lively sketch of the
vicissitudes which the little state has
undergone, mimicking, as it has, the
movements of great monarchies, and
being capable of boasting even of its
revolution and its republic. During
the reign of Louis XIV. the territory
of Monaco gave the title of prince to a
certain Honore III., who was under
the protection of the Grand Monarque.

From Monaco our traveller proceeds
to Geneva; from Geneva, by water,
to Livorno, (Anglicé, Leghorn.) Now
there is little or nothing to be seen at
Livorno. There is, in the place della
Darnesa, a solitary statue of Ferdinand
I., some time cardinal, and
afterwards Grand-Duke of Florence.
M. Dumas bethinks him to tell us the
principal incident in the life of this
Ferdinand; but then this again is
connected with the history of Bianca
Capello, so that he must commence
with her adventures. The name of
Bianca Capello figures just now on
the title-page of one of Messrs Colburn’s
and Bentley’s last and newest.
Those who have read the novel, and
those who, like ourselves, have seen
only the title, may be equally willing
to hear the story of this high-spirited
dame told in the terse, rapid manner—brief,
but full of detail—of Dumas.
We cannot give the whole of it in the
words of M. Dumas; the extract
would be too long; we must get over
a portion of the ground in the shortest
manner possible.

What immediately follows need not
be told at any length. Francesco was
enamoured: he obtained an interview.
Bianca released and enriched her
lover, but became the mistress of the
young duke. Pietro was quite
content with this arrangement; he had
himself given the first example of
inconstancy. He entered upon a
career of riotous pleasure, which ended
in a violent death.

Francesco, in obedience to his father,
married a princess of the house
of Austria; but Bianca still retained
her influence. His wife, who had
been much afflicted by this preference
of her rival, died, and the repentant
widower swore never again to see
Bianca. He kept the oath for four
months; but she placed herself as if
by accident in his path, and all her
old power was revived. Francesco,
by the death of his father, became the
reigning Duke of Tuscany, and Bianca
Capello, his wife and duchess. And
now we arrive at that part of the story
in which Ferdinand, the brother of
Francesco, and whose statue at Livorno
led to this history, enters on the
scene.

But presto! Mr Dumas is traveller
as well as annalist He must
leave the Middle Ages to themselves;
the present moment has its exigences;
he must look to himself and his baggage.
He had great difficulty in doing
this on his landing at the Port of
Livorno; and now, on his departure,
he is beset with vetturini. Let us recur
to some of these miseries of travel,
which may at least claim a wide
sympathy, for most of us are familiar
with them. It is not necessary even
to leave our own island to find how
great an embarrassment too much help
may prove, but we certainly have
nothing in our own experience quite
equal to the lively picture of M.
Dumas:—

This was on his landing at Livorno:
on his departure he gives us an account,
equally graphic, of the vetturini:—

The only question that remains to
be decided is that of the drink-money—the
buona-mano, as the Italian calls
it. This is a matter of grave importance,
and should be gravely considered.
On this buona-mano depends
the rapidity of your journey; for the
time may vary at the will of the driver
from six to twelve hours. Hereupon
M. Dumas tells an amusing story
of a Russian prince, which not only
proves how efficient a cause this buona
mano may be in the accomplishment
of the journey, but also illustrates very
forcibly a familiar principle of our
own jurisprudence, and a point to
which the Italian traveller must pay
particular attention. We doubt if the
necessity of a written agreement, in
order to enforce the terms of a contract,
was ever made more painfully
evident than in the following instance:—

M. Dumas, however, arrives at
Florence without any such disagreeable
adventure as sleeping in a coach-house.
He gives a pleasing description
of the Florentine people, amongst
whom the spirit of commerce has died
away, but left behind a considerable
share of the wealth and luxury that
sprang from it. There is little spirit
of enterprise; no rivalry between a
class enriching itself and the class
with whom wealth is hereditary; the
jewels that were purchased under the
reign of the Medici still shine without
competitors on the promenade and at
the opera. It is a people that has
made its fortune, and lives contentedly
on its revenues, and on what it gets
from the stranger. “The first want of
a Florentine,” says our author, “is repose;
even pleasure is secondary; it
costs him some little effort to be amused.
Wearied of its frequent political
convulsions, the town of the Medici
aspires only to that unbroken and enchanted
slumber which fell, as the
fairy tale informs us, on the beautiful
lady in the sleepy wood. No one here
seems to labour, except those who are
tolling and ringing the church-bells,
and they indeed appear to have rest
neither day nor night.”

There are but three classes visible
in Florence. The nobility—the foreigner—and
the people. The nobility,
a few princely houses excepted,
spend but little, the people work but
little, and it would be a marvel how
these last lived if it were not for the
foreigner. Every autumn brings them
their harvest in the shape of a swarm
of travellers from England, France,
or Russia, and, we may now add,
America. The winter pays for the
long delicious indolence of the summer.
Then the populace lounges,
with interminable leisure, in their
churches, on their promenades, round
the doors of coffee-houses that are
never closed either day or night; they
follow their religious processions; they
cluster with an easy good-natured curiosity
round every thing that wears
the appearance of a fête; taking whatever
amusement presents itself, without
caring to detain it, and quitting it
without the least distrust that some
other quite as good will occupy its
place. “One evening we were roused,”
says our traveller, “by a noise in the
street: two or three musicians of the
opera, on leaving the theatre, had
taken a fancy to go home playing a
waltz. The scattered population of
the streets arranged themselves, and
followed waltzing. The men who
could find no better partners, waltzed
together. Five or six hundred persons
were enjoying this impromptu ball,
which kept its course from the opera
house to the Port del Prato, where
the last musician resided. The last
musician having entered his house,
the waltzers returned arm-in-arm,
still humming the air to which they
had been dancing.”

Shall we visit the churches of Florence
with M. Dumas? No, we are
not in the vein. Shall we go with
him to the theatres—to the opera—to
the Pergola? Yes, but not to discuss
the music or the dancing. Every
body knows that at the great theatres
of Italy the fashionable part of the
audience pay very little attention to
the music, unless it be a new opera,
but make compensation by listening
devoutly to the ballet. The Pergola
is the great resort of fashion. A
box at the Pergola, and a carriage
for the banks of the Arno, are the indispensables,
we are told, at Florence.
Who has these, may eat his macaroni
where he pleases—may dine for
sixpence if he will, or can: it is his
own affair, the world is not concerned
about it—he is still a gentleman, and
ranks with nobles. Who has them
not—though he be derived from the
loins of emperors, and dine every
day off plate of gold, and with a dozen
courses—is still nobody. Therefore
regulate your expenditure accordingly,
all ye who would be somebody.
We go with M. Dumas to
the opera, not, as we have said, for
the music or the dancing, but because,
as is the way with dramatic authors,
he will there introduce us, for the
sake of contrast with an institution
very different from that of an operatic
company—

It is not to be supposed that our
dramatist pursues the same direct and
unadventurous route that lies open to
every citizen of Paris and London.
At the end of the first volume we
leave him still at Florence; we open
the second, and we find him and his
companion Jadin, and his companion’s
dog Milord, standing at the port of
Naples, looking out for some vessel
to take them to Sicily. So that we
have travels in Italy with Rome left
out. Not that he did not visit Rome,
but that we have no “souvenirs” of
his visit here. As the book is a mere
capriccio, there can be no possible objection
taken to it on this score. Besides,
the island of Sicily, which becomes
the chief scene of his adventures,
is less beaten ground. Nor do
we hear much of Naples, for he quits
Naples almost as soon as he had entered
it. This last fact requires explanation.

M. Dumas has had the honour to
be an object of terror or of animosity
to crowned heads. When at Genoa,
his Sardinian Majesty manifested this
hostility to M. Dumas—we presume
on account of his too liberal politics—by
dispatching an emissary of the
police to notify to him that he must
immediately depart from Genoa.
Which emissary of his Sardinian
Majesty had no sooner delivered his
royal sentence of deportation, than
he extended his hand for a pour boire.
Either M. Dumas must be a far more
formidable person than we have any
notion of, or majesty can be very nervous,
or very spiteful. And now,
when he is about to enter Naples——but
why do we presume to relate M.
Dumas’s personal adventures in any
other language than his own? or language
as near his own as we—who
are, we must confess, imperfect translators—can
hope to give.

Our dramatical traveller ran immediately
to a young friend, an artist
then studying at Rome, and prevailed
on him to take out a passport, in his
own name for Naples. Fortified
with this passport, and assuming the
name of his friend, he left Rome that
evening. The following day he reached
Naples. But as he was exposed
every moment to detection, it was necessary
that he should pass over immediately
to Sicily. The steam-boats
at Naples, unlike the steam-boats
every where else, start at no fixed period.
The captain waits for his contingent
of passengers, and till this has
been obtained both he and his vessel
are immovable. M. Dumas and his
companion, therefore, hired a small
sailing vessel, a speronara as it is
called, in which they embarked the
next morning. But before weighing
anchor M. Dumas took from his portfolio
the neatest, purest, whitest, sheet
of paper that it contained, and indited
the following letter to the Count de
Ludorf:—

With the crew of this speronara
we became as familiar as with the
personages of a novel; and, indeed,
about this time the novelist begins to
predominate over the tourist.

On leaving the bay of Naples our
traveller first makes for the island of
Capri. The greatest curiosity which
he here visits and describes in the
azure grotto. He and his companion
are rowed, each in a small skiff, to a
narrow dark aperture upon the rocky
coast, and which appears the darker
from its contrast with the white surf
that is dashing about it. He is told
to lie down on his back in the boat, to
protect his head from a concussion
against the low roof.

From Capri our travellers proceed
to Sicily. We have a long story and
a violent storm upon the passage, and
are landed at Messina. Here M. Dumas
enlarges his experience by an acquaintance
with the Sirocco. His
companion, M. Jadin, had been taken
ill, and a physician had been called
in.

Seeing there was no chance of
bringing the doctor to the hotel, unless
he carried him there by main
force, Mr Dumas contented himself
with relating the symptoms of his
friend. To drink lemonade—much
lemonade—all the lemonade he could
swallow, was the only prescription
that the physician gave. And the
simple remedy seems to have sufficed;
for the patient shortly after recovered.

Not the least agreeable portion of
these travels, is the pleasant impression
they leave of the traveller himself,
one who has his humours doubtless,
but who is social, buoyant,
brave, generous, and enterprising. A
Frenchman—as a chemist, in his peculiar
language, would say—is a creature
“endowed with a considerable
range of affinity.” Our traveller has
this range of affinity; he wins the
heart of all and several—the crew of
his speronara. We will close with
the following extract, both because it
shows the frank and lively feelings of
the Frenchman, and because it introduces
a name dear to all lovers of
melody. The father of Bellini was a
Sicilian, and Dumas was in Sicily.

Sicily is one of those romantic
countries, where you may still meet
with adventures in your travels, where
you may be shot at by banditti with
pointed hats and long guns. M. Dumas
passes not without his share of
such adventures. Perhaps, as Sicily
is less trodden ground than Italy, his
“Souvenirs” will be found more interesting
as he proceeds. We have
naturally taken our quotations in the
order in which they presented themselves,
and we have not advanced further
than the second of the five delectably
small volumes in which these
travels are printed. Would our space
permit us to proceed, it is probable
that our extracts would increase, instead
of diminishing, in interest.

AMMALÁT BEK.

A TRUE TALE OF THE CAUCASUS. FROM THE RUSSIAN OF MARLÍNSKI.

CHAPTER VI.

Fragments from the Diary of Ammalát Bek.—Translated from the Tartar.

… Have I been asleep till
now, or am I now in a dream?…
This, then, is the new world called
thought!… O beautiful world!
thou hast long been to me cloudy
and confused, like the milky way,
which, they say, consists of thousands
of glittering stars! It seems to me
that I am ascending the mountain of
knowledge from the valley of darkness
and ignorance; each step opens
to me views further and more extensive….
My breast breathes freer,
I gaze in the face of the sun….
I look below—the clouds murmur under
my feet!… annoying clouds!
You prevent me from seeing the heavens
from the earth; from the heaven
to look upon the earth!

I wonder how the commonest questions,
whence and how, never before
came into my head? All God’s world,
with every thing in it good or evil,
was seen reflected in my soul as in
the sea: I only knew as much of it
as the sea does, or a mirror. In my
memory, it is true, much was preserved:
but to what end did this serve?
Does the hawk understand why the
hood is put on his head? Does the
steed understand why they shoe him?
Did I understand why in one place
mountains are necessary, in another
steppes, here eternal snows, there
oceans of sand? Why storms and
earthquakes were necessary? And
thou, most wondrous being, Man!
it never has entered my head to follow
thee from thy cradle, suspended
on a wandering mule, to that magnificent
city which I have never seen,
and which I am enchanted merely to
have heard of!… I confess that I
am already delighted with the mere
outside of a book, without understanding
the meaning of the mysterious
letters … but V. not only makes
knowledge attractive, but gives me
the means of acquiring it. With him,
as a young swallow with its mother, I
try my new wings…. The distance
and the height still astonish, but no
longer alarm me. The time will come
when I shall mount upwards to the
heavens!…

… But yet, am I happy because
V. and his books teach me to think?
The time was, when a spirited steed,
a costly sabre, a good gun, delighted
me like a child. Now, that I know
the superiority of mind over body,
my former pride in shooting or horsemanship
appears to me ridiculous—nay,
even contemptible. Is it worth
while to devote oneself to a trade, in
which the meanest broad-shouldered
noúker can surpass me?… Is it
worth while to seek honour and happiness,
of which the first wound may
deprive me—the first awkward leap?
They have taken from me this plaything,
but with what have they replaced it?…
With new wants,
with new wishes, which Allah himself
can neither weary nor satisfy. I
thought myself a man of consequence;
but now I am convinced of my own
nothingness. Formerly, to my memory,
my grandfather and great-grandfather
were at the beginning of
the night of the past, with its stories
and dreaming traditions…. The
Caucasus contained my world, and I
peacefully slept in that night. I
thought to be famous in Daghestán—the
height of glory. And what then?
History has peopled my former desert
with nations, shattering each other
for glory; with heroes, terrifying the
nations by valour to which we can
never rise. And where are they?
Half forgotten, they have vanished in
the dust of ages. The description of
the earth shows me that the Tartars
occupy a little corner of the world;
that they are miserable savages in comparison
with the European nations;
and that of the existence, not only of
their brave warriors, but of the whole
nation, nobody thinks, nobody knows,
nobody wishes to know. It is worth
while to be a glow-worm amongst insects.
Was it worth while to expand
my mind, in order to be convinced of
such a bitter truth?

What is the use of a knowledge of
the powers of nature to me, when I
cannot change my soul, master my
heart? The sea teaches me to build
dykes—but I cannot restrain my tears!…
I can conduct the lightning
from the roof, but I cannot throw off
my sorrows! Was I not unhappy
enough from my feelings alone, without
calling around me my thoughts,
like greedy vultures? What does the
sick man gain by knowing that his
disease is incurable?… The tortures
of my hopeless love have become
sharper, more piercing, more various,
since my intellect has been enlightened.

No! I am unjust. Reading shortens
for me the long winter-like night—the
hours of separation. In teaching
me to fix on paper my flying
thoughts, V. has given me a heartfelt
enjoyment. Some day I shall
meet Seltanetta, and I shall show her
these pages; in which her name is
written oftener than that of Allah in
the Korán. “These are the annals
of my heart,” I shall say: “Look!
on such a day thus thought about
you—on such a night, I saw you thus
in my dreams! By these little leaves,
as by a string of diamond beads, you
may count my sighs, my tears for
you.” O lovely, and beloved being!
you will often smile at my strange
phantasies—long will they supply
matter for our conversations. But,
by your side, enchantress, shall I be
able to remember the past?… No,
no!… Every thing before me,
every thing around me, will then fade
away, except the present bliss—to be
with you! O, how burning, and how
light will my soul be! Liquid sunshine
will flow in my veins—I shall
float in heaven, like the sun! To forget
all by your side is a bliss prouder
than the highest wisdom!

I have read stories of love, of the
charms of woman—of the perfidy of
man—but no heroine approaches my
Seltanetta in loveliness of soul or body—not
one of the heroes do I resemble—I
envy them the fascination, I admire
the wisdom of lovers in books—but
then, how weak, how cold is their
love! It is a moonbeam playing on
ice! Whence come these European
babblers of Tharsis—these nightingales
of the market-place—these sugared
confections of flowers? I cannot
believe that people can love passionately,
and prate of their love—even
as a hired mourner laments over
the dead. The spendthrift casts his
treasure by handfuls to the wind; the
lover hides it, nurses it, buries it in
his heart like a hoard.

I am yet young, and I ask “what
is friendship?” I have a friend in
V.—a loving, real, thoughtful friend;
yet I am not his friend. I feel it, I
reproach myself that I do not reciprocate
his regard as I ought, as he
deserves—but is in my power? In
my soul there is no room for any one
but Seltanetta—in my heart there is
no feeling but love.

No! I cannot read, I cannot understand
what the Colonel explains to
me. I cheated myself when I thought
that the ladder of science could be
climbed by me … I am weary at the
first steps, I lose my way on the first
difficulty, I entangle the threads, instead
of unravelling them—I pull and
tear them—and I carry off nothing of
the prey but a few fragments. The
hope which the Colonel held out to
me I mistook for my own progress.
But who—what—impedes this progress?
That which makes the happiness
and misery of my life—love.
In every place, in every thing, I hear
and see Seltanetta—and often Seltanetta
alone. To banish her from my
thoughts I should consider sacrilege;
and, even if I wished, I could not perform
the resolution. Can I see without
light? Can I breathe without
air? Seltanetta is my light, my air,
my life, my soul!

My hand trembles—my heart flutters
in my bosom. If I wrote with
my blood, ‘twould scorch the paper.
Seltanetta! your image pursues me
dreaming or awake. The image of
your charms is more dangerous than
the reality. The thought that I may
never possess them, touch them, see
them, perhaps, plunges me into an incessant
melancholy—at once I melt
and burn. I recall each lovely feature,
each attitude of your exquisite person—that
little foot, the seal of love, that
bosom, the gem of bliss! The remembrance
of your voice makes my
soul thrill like the chord of an instrument—ready
to burst from the clearness
of its tone—and your kiss! that
kiss in which I drank your soul! It
showers roses and coals of fire upon
my lonely bed—I burn—my hot lips
are tortured by the thirst for caresses—my
hand longs to clasp your waist—to
touch your knees! Oh, come—Oh,
fly to me—that I may die in delight,
as now I do in weariness!

Colonel Verkhóffsky, endeavouring
by every possible means to divert Ammalát’s
grief, thought of amusing him
with a boar-hunt, the favourite occupation
of the Beks of Daghestán. In
answer to his summons, there assembled
about twenty persons, each attended
by his noúkers, each eager to
try his fortune, or to gallop about the
field and vaunt his courage. Already
had grey December covered the tops
of the surrounding mountains with the
first-fallen snow. Here and there in the
streets of Derbénd lay a crust of ice,
but over it the mud rolled in sluggish
waves along the uneven pavement.
The sea lazily plashed against the
sunken turrets of the walls which descended
to the water, a flock of bustards
and of geese whizzed through
the fog, and flew with a complaining
cry above the ramparts; all was dark
and melancholy—even the dull and
tiresome braying of the asses laden
with faggots for the market, sounded
like a dirge over the fine weather.
The old Tartars sat in the bazárs,
wrapping their shoubes over their
noses. But this is exactly the weather
most favourable to hunters. Hardly
had the moóllahs of the town proclaimed
the hour of prayer, when the
Colonel, attended by several of his
officers, the Beks of the city, and Ammalát,
rode, or rather swam, through
the mud, leaving the town in the direction
of the north, through the principal
gate Keerkhlár Kápi, which is
covered with iron plates. The road
leading to Tárki is rude in appearance,
bordered for a few paces to the
right and left with beds of madder—beyond
them lie vast burying-grounds,
and further still towards the sea, scattered
gardens. But the appearance
of the suburbs is a great deal more
magnificent than those of the Southern
ones. To the left, on the rocks
were seen the Keifárs, or barracks of
the regiment of Koúrin; while on both
sides of the road, fragments of rock
lay in picturesque disorder, rolled
down in heaps by the violence of the
mountain-torrents. A forest of ilex,
covered with hoar-frost, thickened
as it approached Vellikent, and at
each verst the retinue of Verkhóffsky
was swelled by fresh arrivals of
Beglar and Agalar⁴. The hunting
party now turned to the left, and they
speedily heard the cry of the ghayálstchiks⁵
assembled from the surrounding
villages. The hunters formed
into an extended chain, some on horseback,
and some running on foot; and
soon the wild-boars also began to show
themselves.

The umbrageous oak-forests of
Daghestán have served, from time
immemorial, as a covert for innumerable
herds of wild hogs; and although
the Tartars—like the Mussulmans—hold
it a sin not only to eat, but even
to touch the unclean animal, they consider
it a praiseworthy act to destroy
them—at least they practise the art of
shooting on these beasts, as well as
exhibit their courage, because the
chase of the wild-boar is accompanied
by great danger, and requires cunning
and bravery.

The lengthened chain of hunters
occupied a wide extent of ground;
the most fearless marksmen selecting
the most solitary posts, in order to divide
with no one else the glory of success,
and also because the animals
make for those points where there are
fewer people. Colonel Verkhóffsky,
confident in his gigantic strength and
sure eye, posted himself in the thickest
of the wood, and halted at a small
savannah to which converged the
tracks of numerous wild-boars. Perfectly
alone, leaning against the branch
of a fallen tree, he awaited his game.
Interrupted shots were heard on the
right and left of his station; for a
moment a wild-boar appeared behind
the trees; at length the bursting
crash of falling underwood was heard,
and immediately a boar of uncommon
size darted across the field like a ball
fired from a cannon. The Colonel
took his aim, the bullet whistled, and
the wounded monster suddenly halted,
as if in surprise—but this was but for
an instant—he dashed furiously in the
direction whence came the shot. The
froth smoked from his red-hot tusks,
his eye burned in blood, and he flew
at the enemy with a grunt. But
Verkhóffsky showed no alarm, waiting
for the nearer approach of the brute:
a second time clicked the cock of his
gun—but the powder was damp and
missed fire. What now remained for
the hunter? He had not even a dagger
at his girdle—flight would have
been useless. As if by the anger of
fate, not a single thick tree was near
him—only one dry branch arose from
the oak against which he had leaned;
and Verkhóffsky threw himself on it
as the only means of avoiding destruction.
Hardly had he time to
clamber an arschine and a half⁶ from
the ground, when the boar, enraged
to fury, struck the branch with
his tusks—it cracked from the force
of the blow and the weight which
was supported by it…. It was in
vain that Verkhóffsky tried to climb
higher—the bark was covered with ice—his
hands slipped—he was sliding
downwards; but the beast did not
quit the tree—he gnawed it—he attacked
it with his sharp tusks a tchétverin
below the feet of the hunter.
Every instant Verkhóffsky expected
to be sacrificed, and his voice died
away in the lonely space in vain.
No, not in vain! The sound of a
horse’s hoofs was heard close at hand,
and Ammalát Bek galloped up at full
speed with uplifted sabre. Perceiving
a new enemy, the wild-boar turned at
him, but a sideway leap of the horse
decided the battle—a blow from Ammalát
hurled him on the earth.

The rescued Colonel hurried to embrace
his friend, but the latter was
slashing, mangling, in a fit of rage,
the slain beast. “I accept not unmerited
thanks,” he answered at length,
turning from the Colonel’s embrace.
“This same boar gored before my
eyes a Bek of Tabasóran, my friend,
when he, having missed him, had entangled
his foot in the stirrup. I
burned with anger when I saw my
comrade’s blood, and flew in pursuit
of the boar. The closeness of the
wood prevented me from following his
track; I had quite lost him; and God
has brought me hither to slay the accursed
brute, when he was on the
point of sacrificing a yet nobler victim—you,
my benefactor.”

“Now we are quits, dear Ammalát.
Do not talk of past events. This day
our teeth shall avenge us on this tusked
foe. I hope you will not refuse to
taste the forbidden meat, Ammalát?”

“Not I! nor to wash it down with
champagne, Colonel. Without offence
to Mahomet, I had rather strengthen
my soul with the foam of the
wine, than with the water of the true
believer.”

The hunt now turned to the other
side. From afar were heard cries and
hallooing, and the drums of the Tartars
in the chase. From time to time
shots rang through the air. A horse
was led up to the Colonel: and he,
feasting his sight with the boar, which
was almost cut in two, patted Ammalát
on the shoulder, crying “A brave
blow!”

“In that blow exploded my revenge,”
answered the Bek; “and the
revenge of an Asiatic is heavy.”

“You have seen, you have witnessed,”
replied the Colonel, “how
injury is avenged by Russians—that
is, by Christians; let this be not a
reproach, but—a lesson to you.”

And they both galloped off towards
the Line.

Ammalát was remarkably absent—sometimes
he did not answer at all—at
others, he answered incoherently to
the questions of Verkhóffsky, by whom
he rode, gazing abstractedly around
him. The Colonel, thinking that, like
an eager hunter, he was engrossed by
the sport, left him, and rode forward.
At last, Ammalát perceived him whom
he was so impatiently expecting, his
hemdjék, Saphir Ali, flew to meet him,
covered with mud, and mounted on a
smoking horse. With cries of “Aleikoúm
Selam,” they both jumped off
their horses, and were immediately
locked in each other’s embrace.

“And so you have been there—you
have seen her—you have spoken
to her?” cried Ammalát, tearing off
his kaftán, and choking with agitation.
“I see by your face that you
bring good news; here is my new
tchoukhá⁷ for you for that. Does
she live? Is she well? Does she love
me as before?”

“Let me recollect myself,” answered
Saphir Ali. “Let me take
breath. You have put so many questions,
and I myself are charged with
so many commissions, that they are
crowding together like old women at
the door of the mosque, who have
lost their shoes. First, at your desire,
I have been to Khounzákh. I crept
along so softly, that I did not scare a
single thrush by the road. Sultan
Akhmet Khan is well, and at home.
He asked about you with great anxiety,
shook his head, and enquired if
you did not want a spindle to dry the
silk of Derbénd. The khánsha sends
you tchokh selammóum, (many compliments,)
and as many sweet cakes.
I threw them away, the confounded
things, at the first resting-place.
Soúrkhai-Khan, Noutzal-Khan”——

“The devil take them all! What
about Seltanetta?”

“Aha! at last I have touched the
chilblain of your heart. Seltanetta,
my dear Ammalát, is as beautiful as
the starry sky; but in that heaven I
saw no light, until I conversed about
you. Then she almost threw herself
on my neck when we were left alone
together, and I explained the cause of
my arrival. I gave her a camel-load
of compliments from you—told her
that you were almost dead with love—poor
fellow!–and she burst into
tears!”

“Kind, lovely soul! What did
she tell you to say to me?”

“Better ask what she did not. She
says that, from the time that you left
her, she has never rejoiced even in her
dreams; that the winter snow has
fallen on her heart, and that nothing
but a meeting with her beloved, like
a vernal sun, can melt it…. But
if I were to continue to the end of her
messages, and you were to wait to the
end of my story, we should both reach
Derbénd with grey beards. Spite of
all this, she almost drove me away,
hurrying me off, lest you should doubt
her love!”

“Darling of my soul! you know
not—I cannot explain what bliss it is
to be with thee, what torment to be
separated from thee, not to see
thee!”

“That is exactly the thing, Ammalát;
she grieves that she cannot rejoice
her eyes with a sight of him
whom she never can be weary of
gazing at. ‘Is it possible,’ she says,
‘that he cannot come but for one little
day, for one short hour, one little moment?'”

“To look on her, and then die, I
would be content!”

“Ah, when you behold her, you
will wish to live. She is become
quieter than she was of old; but even
yet she is so lively, that when you see
her your blood sparkles within you.”

“Did you tell her why it is not in
my power to do her will, and to accomplish
my own passionate desire?”

“I related such tales that you would
have thought me the Shah of Persia’s
chief poet. Seltanetta shed tears like
a fountain after rain. She does nothing
else but weep.”

“Why, then, reduce her to despair?
‘I cannot now’ does not mean ‘it is
for ever impossible.’ You know what
a woman’s heart is, Saphir Ali: for
them the end of hope is the end of
love.”

“You sow words on the wind,
djanníon (my soul.) Hope, for lovers,
is a skein of worsted—endless. In
cool blood, you do not even trust your
eyes; but fall in love, and you will
believe in ghosts. I think that Seltanetta
would hope that you could ride
to her from your coffin—not only from
Derbénd.”

“And how is Derbénd better than a
coffin to me? Does not my heart feel
its decay, without power to escape it?
Here is only my corpse: my soul is far
away.”

“It seems that your senses often
take the whim of walking I know not
where, dear Ammalát. Are you not
well at Verkhóffsky’s—free and contented?
beloved as a younger brother,
caressed like a bride? Grant that Seltanetta
is lovely: there are not many
Verkhóffskys. Cannot you sacrifice
to friendship a little part of love?”

“Am not I then doing so, Saphir
Ali? But if you knew how much it
costs me! It is as if I tore my heart
to pieces. Friendship is a lovely
thing, but it cannot fill the place of
love.”

“At least, it can console us for love—it
can relieve it. Have you spoken
about this to the Colonel?”

“I cannot prevail on myself to do
so. The words die on my lips, when
I would speak of my love. He is so
wise, that I am ashamed to annoy
him with my madness. He is so kind,
that I dare not abuse his patience.
To say the truth, his frankness invites,
encourages mine. Figure to
yourself that he has been in love since
his childhood with a maiden, to whom
he was plighted, and whom he certainly
would have married if his name
had not been by mistake put into a
list of killed during the war with the
Feringhis. His bride shed tears, but
nevertheless was given away in marriage.
He flies back to his country,
and finds his beloved the wife of another.
What, think you, should I
have done in such a case? Plunged
a dagger in the breast of the robber
of my treasure!–carried her away to
the end or the world to possess her
but one hour, but one moment! Nothing
of this kind happened. He
learned that his rival was an excellent
and worthy man. He had the calmness
to contract a friendship with him:
had the patience to be often in the
society of his former love, without
betraying, either by word or deed, his
new friend or his still loved mistress.”

“A rare man, if this be true!” exclaimed
Saphir Ali, with feeling,
throwing away his reins. “A stout
friend indeed!”

“But what an icy lover! But this
is not all. To relieve both of them
from misrepresentation and scandal,
he came hither on service. Not long
ago—for his happiness or unhappiness—his
friend died. And what then?
Do you think he flew to Russia. No!
his duty kept him away. The Commander-in-chief
informed him that his
presence was indispensable here for a
year more, and he has remained—cherishing
his love with hope. Can
such a man, with all his goodness,
understand such a passion as mine?
And besides, there is such a difference
between us in years, in opinions. He
kills me with his unapproachable dignity;
and all this cools my friendship,
and impedes my sincerity.”

“You are a strange fellow, Ammalát;
you do not love Verkhóffsky for
the very reason that he most merits
frankness and affection!”

“Who told you that I do not love
him? How can I but love the man
who has educated me—my benefactor?
Can I not love any one but Seltanetta?
I love the whole world—all men!”

“Not much love, then, will fall to
the share of each!” said Saphir Ali.

“There would be enough not only
to quench the thirst, but to drown the
whole world!” replied Ammalát, with
a smile.

“Aha! This comes of seeing beauties
unveiled—and then to see nothing
but the veil and the eyebrows. It
seems that you are like the nightingales
of Ourmis; you must be caged
before you can sing!”

Conversing in this strain, the two
friends disappeared in the depths of
the forest.

CHAPTER VII.

FRAGMENT OF A LETTER FROM COLONEL VERKHÓFFSKY TO HIS BETROTHED.

Derbénd, April.

Fly to, me, heart of my heart,
dearest Maria! Rejoice in the sight
of a lovely vernal night in Daghestán.
Beneath me lies Derbénd, slumbering
calmly, like a black streak of lava
flowing from the Caucasus and cooled
in the sea. The gentle breeze bears
to me the fragrant odour of the almond-trees,
the nightingales are calling
to each other from the rock-crevices,
behind the fortress: all breathes
of life and love; and beautiful nature,
full of this feeling, covers herself with
a veil of mists. And how wonderfully
has that vaporous ocean poured
itself over the Caspian! The sea
below gleams wavingly, like steel damasked
with gold on an escutcheon—that
above swells like a silver surge
lighted by the full moon, which rolls
along the sky like a cup of gold, while
the stars glitter around like scattered
drops. In a moment, the reflection of
the moonbeams in the vapours of the
night changes the picture, anticipating
the imagination, now astounding
by its marvels—now striking by its
novelty. Sometimes I seem to behold
the rocks of the wild shore, and
the waves beating against them in
foam. The billows roll onward to the
charge: the rocky ramparts repel the
shock, and the surf flies high above
them; but silently and slowly sink
the waves, and the silver palms arise
from the midst of the inundation, the
breeze stirs their branches, playing
with the long leaves, and they spread
like the sails of a ship gliding over
the airy ocean. Do you see how she
rolls along, how the spray-drops
sparkle on her breast, how the waves
slide along her sides. And where is
she?… and where am I?…
You cannot imagine, dearest Maria,
the sweetly solemn feeling produced
in me by the sound and sight of the
sea. To me, the idea of eternity is
inseparable from it; of immensity—of
our love. That love seems to me,
like it, infinite—eternal. I feel as if
my heart overflowed to embrace the
world, even as the ocean, with its
bright waves of love. It is in me and
around me; it is the only great and
immortal feeling which I possess. Its
spark lights and warms me in the
winter of my sorrows, in the midnight
of my doubts. Then I love so blindly!
I believe so ardently! You smile
at my fantasy, friend and companion
of my soul. You wonder at this dark
language; blame me not. My spirit,
like the denizen of another world,
cannot bear the chill and frosty moonlight—it
shakes off the dust of the
grave; it soars away, and, like the
moonlight, dimly discovers all things
darkly and uncertainly. You know
that it is to you alone that I write
down the pictures which fall on the
magic-glass of my heart, assured that
you will guess, not with cold criticism,
but with the heart, what I would describe.
Besides, next August, your
happy bridegroom will himself explain
all the dark passages in his letters.
I cannot think without ecstasy of the
moment of our meeting. I count the
sand-grains of the hours which separate
us. I count the versts which lie
between us. And so in the middle of
June you will be at the waters of the
Caucasus. And nought but the icy
chain of the Caucasus will be between
two ardent hearts…. How near—yet
how immeasurably far shall we be
from each other! Oh! how many
years of life would I not give to hasten
the hour of our meeting! Long,
long, have our hearts been plighted….
Why have they been separated
till now?

My friend Ammalát is not frank or
confiding. I cannot blame him. I
know how difficult it is to break
through habits imbibed with a mother’s
milk, and with the air of one’s
native land. The barbarian despotism
of Persia, which has so long oppressed
Aderbidján, has instilled the basest
principles into the Tartars of the Caucasus,
and has polluted their sense of
honour by the most despicable subterfuge.
And how could it be otherwise
in a government based upon the
tyranny of the great over the less—where
justice herself can punish only
in secret—where robbery is the privilege
of power? “Do with me what
you like, provided you let me do with
my inferior what I like,” is the principle
of Asiatic government—its ambition,
its morality. Hence, every
man, finding himself between two
enemies, is obliged to conceal his
thoughts, as he hides his money.
Hence every man plays the hypocrite
before the powerful; every man endeavours
to force from others a present
by tyranny or accusation. Hence
the Tartar of this country will not
move a step, but with the hope of
gain; will not give you so much as a
cucumber, without expecting a present
in return.

Insolent to rudeness with every one
who is not in power, he is mean and
slavish before rank or a full purse.
He sows flattery by handfuls; he will
give you his house, his children, his
soul, to get rid of a difficulty, and if
he does any body a service, it is sure
to be from motives of interest.

In money matters (this is the weakest
side of a Tartar) a ducat is the
touchstone of his fidelity; and it is
difficult to imagine the extent of their
greediness for profit! The Armenian
character is yet a thousand times more
vile than theirs; but the Tartars
hardly yield to them in corruption
and greediness—and this is saying a
good deal. Is it surprising that, beholding
from infancy such examples,
Ammalát—though he has retained the
detestation of meanness natural to
pure blood—should have adopted concealment
as an indispensable arm
against open malevolence and secret
villany? The sacred ties of relationship
do not exist for Asiatics. With
them, the son is the slave of the father—the
brother is a rival. No one trusts
his neighbour, because there is no
faith in any man. Jealousy of their
wives, and dread of espionage, destroy
brotherly love and friendship.
The child brought up by his slave-mother—never
experiencing a father’s
caress, and afterwards estranged by
the Arabian alphabet, (education,)
hides his feelings in his own heart
even from his companions; from his
childhood, thinks only for himself;
from the first beard are every door,
every heart shut for him: husbands
look askance at him, women fly from
him as from a wild beast, and the first
and most innocent emotions of his
heart, the first voice of nature, the
first movements of his feelings—all
these have become crimes in the eyes
of Mahometan superstition. He dares
not discover them to a relation, or
confide them to a friend…. He
must even weep in secret.

All this I say, my sweet Maria, to
excuse Ammalát: he has already
lived a year and a half in my house,
and hitherto has never confessed to
me the object of his love; though he
might well have known, that it was
from no idle curiosity, but from a real
heartfelt interest, that I wished to
know the secret of his heart. At last,
however, he has told me all; and thus
it happened.

Yesterday I took a ride out of the
town with Ammalát. We rode up
through a defile in the mountain on
the west, and we advanced further
and further, higher and higher, till we
found ourselves unexpectedly close to
the village of Kelík, from which may
be seen the wall that anciently defended
Persia from the incursions of
the wandering tribes inhabiting the
Zakavkáz, (trans-Caucasian country,)
which often devastated that territory.
The annals of Derbénd (Derbéndnámé)
ascribe, but falsely, the construction
of it to a certain Iskender—i.e.
Alexander the Great—who, however,
never was in these regions.
King Noushirván repaired it, and
placed a guard along it. More than
once since that time it has been restored;
and again it fell into ruin, and
became overgrown, as it now is, with
the trees of centuries. A tradition
exists, that this wall formerly extended
from the Caspian to the Black Sea,
cutting through the whole Caucasus,
and having for its extremity the “iron
gate” of Derbénd, and Dariál in its
centre; but this is more than doubtful
as far as regards the general facts,
though certain in the particulars. The
traces of this wall, which are to be
seen far into the mountains, are interrupted
here and there, but only by
fallen stones or rocks and ravines, till
it reaches the military road; but from
thence to the Black Sea, through Mingrelia,
I think there are no traces of
its continuation.

I examined, with curiosity, this
enormous wall, fortified by numerous
towers at short distance; and I wondered
at the grandeur of the ancients,
exhibited even in their unreasonable
caprices of despotism—that greatness
to which the effeminate rulers of the
East cannot aspire, in our day, even
in imagination. The wonders of Babylon,
the lake of Mœris, the pyramids
of the Pharaohs, the endless wall
of China, and this huge bulwark, built
in sterile places, on the summits of
mountains, through the abyss of ravines—bear
witness to the gigantic
iron will, and the unlimited power, of
the ancient kings. Neither time, nor
earthquake, nor man, transitory man,
nor the footstep of thousands of years,
have entirely destroyed, entirely trodden
down, the remains of immemorial
antiquity. These places awake in me
solemn and sacred thoughts. I wandered
over the traces of Peter the
Great; I pictured him the founder,
the reformer, of a young state—building
it on these ruins of the decaying
monarchies of Asia, from the centre
of which he tore out Russia, and with
a mighty hand rolled her into Europe.
What a fire must have gleamed in his
eagle eye, as he glanced from the
heights of Caucasus! What sublime
thoughts, what holy aspirations, must
have swelled that heroic breast! The
grand destiny of his country was disclosed
before his eyes; in the horizon,
in the mirror of the Caspian,
appeared to him the picture of Russia’s
future weal, sown by him, and
watered by his red sweat. It was not
empty conquest that was his aim, but
victory over barbarism—the happiness
of mankind. Derbénd, Báka, Astrabád,
they are the links of the chain
with which he endeavoured to bind
the Caucasus, and rivet the commerce
of India with Russia.

Demigod of the North! Thou
whom nature created at once to flatter
the pride of man, and to reduce it
to despair by thine unapproachable
greatness! Thy shade rose before
me, bright and colossal, and the cataract
of ages fell foaming at thy feet!
Pensive and silent, I rode on.

The wall of the Caucasus is faced
on the north side with squared stones,
neatly and firmly fixed together with
lime. Many of the battlements are
still entire; but feeble seeds, falling
into the crevices and joints, have burst
them asunder with the roots of trees
growing from them, and, assisted by
the rains, have thrown the stones to
the earth, and over the ruins triumphantly
creep mallows and pomegranates;
the eagle, unmolested, builds
her nest in the turret once crowded
with warriors, and on the cold hearthstone
lie the fresh bones of the wild-goat,
dragged thither by the jackals.
Sometimes the line of the ruins
entirely disappeared; then fragments
of the stones again rose from among
the grass and underwood. Riding in
this way, a distance of about three
versts, we reached the gate, and passed
through to the south side, under a
vaulted arch, lined with moss and
overgrown with shrubs. We had not
advanced twenty paces, when suddenly,
behind an enormous tower, we
came upon six armed mountaineers,
who seemed, by all appearance, to
belong to those gangs of robbers—the
free Tabasaranetzes. They were
lying in the shade, close to their horses,
which were feeding. I was astounded.
I immediately reflected how foolishly
I had acted in riding so far from
Derbénd without an escort. To gallop
back, among such bushes and rocks,
would have been impossible; to fight
six such desperate fellows, would have
been foolhardiness. Nevertheless, I
seized a holster-pistol; but Ammalát
Bek, seeing how matters stood,
advanced, and cried in a calm slow
voice: “Do not handle your arms,
or we are dead men!”

The robbers, perceiving us, jumped
up and cocked their guns, one fine,
broad-shouldered, but extremely
savage-looking Lezghín, remaining
stretched on the ground. He lifted
his head coolly, looked at us, and
waved his hand to his companions.
In a moment we found ourselves
surrounded by them, while a path in
front was stopped by the Ataman.

“Pray, dismount from your horses,
dear guests,” said he with a smile,
though one could see that the next
invitation would be a bullet. I
hesitated; but Ammalát Bek jumped
speedily from his horse, and walked
up to the Ataman.

“Hail!” He said to him: “hail,
sorvi golová! I thought not of seeing
you. I thought the devils had
long ago made a feast of you.”

“Softly, Ammalát Bek!” answered
the other; “I hope yet to feed
the eagles with the bodies of the
Russians and of you Tartars, whose
purse is bigger than your heart.”

“Well, and what luck, Shermadán?”
carelessly enquired Ammalát
Bek.

“But poor. The Russians are
watchful: and we have seldom been
able to drive the cattle of a regiment,
or to sell two Russian soldiers at a
time in the hills. It is difficult to
transport madder and silk; and of
Persian tissue, very little is now carried
on the arbás. We should have had
to quest like wolves again to-day, but
Allah has had mercy; he has given
into our hands a rich bek and a
Russian colonel!”

My heart died within me, as I heard
these words.

“Do not sell a hawk in the sky:
sell him,” answered Ammalát, “when
you have him on your glove.”

The robber sat down, laid his hand
on the cock of his gun, and fixed on
us a piercing look. “Hark’e,
Ammalát!” said he; “is it possible that
you think to escape me?—is it possible
that you will dare to defend yourselves?”

“Be quiet,” said Ammalát; “are
we fools, to fight two to six? Gold
is dear to us, but dearer is our life.
We have fallen into your hands, so
there is nothing to be done, unless
you extort an unreasonable price for
our ransom. I have, as you know,
neither father nor mother: and the
Colonel has yet less—neither kinsmen
nor tribe.”

“If you have no father, you have
your father’s inheritance. There is
no need then to count your relations
with you: however, I am a man of
conscience. If you have no ducats, I
will take your ransom in sheep. But
about the colonel, don’t talk any more
nonsense. I know for him the soldiers
would give the last button on
their uniforms. Why, if for Sh——
a ransom of ten thousand rubles was
paid, they will give more for this
man. However, we shall see, we shall
see. If you will be quiet…. Why,
I am not a Jew, or a cannibal—Perviáder
(the Almighty) forgive me!”

“Now that’s it, friend: feed us
well, and I swear and promise by my
honour, we will never think of harming
you—nor of escaping.”

“I believe, I believe! I am glad
we have arranged without making any
noise about it. What a fine fellow you
have become, Ammalát! Your horse
is not a horse, your gun is not a gun:
it is a pleasure to look at you; and
this is true. Let me look at your
dagger, my friend. Surely this is the
Koubatchín mark upon the blade.”

“No, the Kizliár mark,” replied
Ammalát, quietly unbuckling the
dagger-belt from his waist; “and look
at the blade. Wonderful! it cuts a
nail in two like a candle. On this
side is the maker’s name; there—read
it yourself: Alióusta—Kóza—Nishtshekói.”
And while he spoke, he
twirled the naked blade before the
eyes of the greedy Lezghín, who
wished to show that he knew how to
read, and was decyphering the
complicated inscription with some
difficulty. But suddenly the dagger
gleamed like lightning…. Ammalát,
seizing the opportunity, struck
Shermadán with all his might on the
head; and so fierce was the blow, that
the dagger was stopped by the teeth
of the lower jaw. The corpse fell
heavily on the grass. Keeping my
eyes upon Ammalát, I followed his
example, and with my pistol shot the
robber who was next me, and had hold
of my horse’s bridle. This was to the
others a signal for flight; the rascals
vanished; for the death of their Ataman
dissolved the knot of the leash
which bound them together. Whilst
Ammalát, after the oriental fashion,
was stripping the dead of their arms,
and tying together the reins of the
abandoned horses, I lectured him on
his dissembling and making a false
oath to the robber. He lifted up his
head with astonishment: “You are a
strange man, Colonel!” he replied.
“This rascal has done an infinity of
harm to the Russians, by secretly
setting fire to their stacks of hay, or
seizing and carrying straggling
soldiers and wood-cutters into slavery.
Do you know that he would have
tyrannized over us—or even tortured us,
to make us write more movingly to
our kinsmen, to induce them to pay
a larger ransom?”

“It may be so, Ammalát, but to
lie or to swear an oath, either in jest
or to escape misfortune, is wrong.
Why could we not have thrown
ourselves directly at the robbers, and have
begun as you finished?”

“No, Colonel, we could not. If I
had not entered into conversation
with the Ataman, we should have
been riddled with balls at the first
movement. Moreover, I know that
pack right well: they are brave only
in the presence of their Ataman, and
it was with him it was necessary to
begin!”

I shook my head. The Asiatic
cunning, though it had saved my life,
could not please me. What confidence
can I have in people accustomed
to sport with their honour and their
soul? We were about to mount our
horses, when we heard a groan from
the mountaineer who had been wounded
by me. He came to himself, raised
his head, and piteously besought us
not to leave him to be devoured by the
beasts of the forest. We both
hastened to assist the poor wretch; and
what was Ammalát’s astonishment
when he recognized in him one of the
noúkers of Sultan Akhmet Khan of
Avár. To the question how he
happened to be one of a gang of robbers,
he replied: “Shairán tempted me:
the Khan sent me into Kemék, a
neighbouring village, with a letter to
the famous Hakím (Doctor) Ibrahim,
for a certain herb, which they say
removes every ailment, as easily as if
it were brushed away with the hand.
To my sorrow, Shermadán met me in
the way! He teazed me, saying,
‘Come with me, and let us rob on the
road. An Armenian is coming from
Kouba with money.’ My young heart
could not resist this … oh,
Allah-il-Allah! He hath taken my soul
from me!”

“They sent you for physic, you
say,” replied Ammalát: “why, who
is sick with you?”

“Our Khanóum Seltanetta is dying:
here is the writing to the leech
about her illness:” with these words
he gave Ammalát a silver tube, in
which was a small piece of paper rolled
up. Ammalát turned as pale as death;
his hands shook—his eyes sank under
his eyebrows when he had read the
note: with a broken voice he uttered
detached words. “Three nights—and
she sleeps not, eats not—delirious!–her
life is in danger—save her! O
God of righteousness—and I am idling
here—leading a life of holidays—and
my soul’s soul is ready to quit the
earth, and leave me a rotten corse!
Oh that all her sufferings could fall on
my head! and that I could lie in her
coffin, if that would restore her to
health. Sweetest and loveliest! thou
art fading, rose of Avár, and destiny
has stretched out her talons over thee.
Colonel,” he cried at length, seizing
my hand, “grant my only, my solemn
prayer—let me but once more look on
her!”——

“On whom, my friend?”

“On my Seltanetta—on the daughter
of the Khan of Avár—whom I love
more than my life, than my soul! She
is ill, she is dying—perhaps dead by
this time—while I am wasting words—and
I could not receive into my heart
her last word—her last look—could
not wipe away the icy tear of death!
Oh, why do not the ashes of the ruined
sun fall on my head—why will not the
earth bury me in its ruins!”

He fell on my breast, choking with
grief, in a tearless agony, unable to
pronounce a word.

This was not a time for accusations
of insincerity, much less to set forth
the reasons which rendered it
unadvisable for him to go among the enemies
of Russia. There are circumstances
before which all reasons must
give way, and I felt that Ammalát
was in such circumstances. On my
own responsibility I resolved to let
him go. “He that obliges from the
heart, and speedily, twice obliges,” is
my favourite proverb, and best maxim.
I pressed in my embrace the unhappy
Tartar, and we mingled our tears together.

“My friend Ammalát,” said I,
“hasten where your heart calls you.
God grant that you may carry thither
health and recovery, and bring back
peace of mind! A happy journey!”

“Farewell, my benefactor,” he cried,
deeply touched, “farewell, and
perhaps for ever! I will not return to
life, if Allah takes from me my Seltanetta.
May God keep you!”

He took the wounded Aváretz to the
Hakím Ibrahim, received the medicinal
herb according to the Khan’s prescription,
and in an hour Ammalát
Bek, with four noúkers, rode out of
Derbénd.

And so the riddle is guessed—he
loves. This is unfortunate, but what
is yet worse, he is beloved in return.
I fancy, my love, that I see your
astonishment. “Can that be a misfortune
to another, which to you is happiness?”
you ask. A grain of patience,
my soul’s angel! The Khan,
the father of Seltanetta, is the irreconcilable
foe of Russia, and the more so
because, having been distinguished by
the favour of the Czar, he has turned
a traitor; consequently a marriage is
possible only on condition of Ammalát’s
betraying the Russians, or in case
of the Khan’s submission and pardon—both
cases being far from probable.
I myself have experienced misery and
hopelessness in love; I have shed many
tears on my lonely pillow; often have
I thirsted for the shade of the grave,
to cool my anguished heart! Can I,
then, help, pitying this youth, the
object of my disinterested regard, and
lamenting his hopeless love? But this
will not build a bridge to good-fortune;
and I therefore think, that if
he had not the ill-luck to be beloved
in return, he would by degrees forget
her.

“But,” you say, (and methinks I
hear your silvery voice, and am
revelling in your angel’s smile,) “but
circumstances may change for them, as
they have changed for us. Is it
possible that misfortune alone has the
privilege of being eternal in the world?”

I do not dispute this, my beloved,
but I confess with a sigh that I am
in doubt. I even fear for them and
for ourselves. Destiny smiles before
us, hope chaunts sweet music—but
destiny is a sea—hope but a sea-syren;
deceitful is the calm of the
one, fatal are the promises of the
other. All appears to aid our union—but
are we yet together? I know
not why, lovely Mary, but a chill
penetrates my breast, amid the warm
fountains of future bliss, and the idea
of our meeting has lost its distinctness.
But all this will pass away, all will
change into happiness, when I press
your hand to my lips, your heart to
mine. The rainbow shines yet brighter
on the dark field of the cloud, and the
happiest moments of life are but the
anticipations of sorrow.

CHAPTER VIII.

Ammalát knocked up two horses,
and left two of his noúkers on the
road, so that at the end of the second
day he was not far from Khounzákh.
At each stride his impatience grew
stronger, and with each stride increased
his fear of not finding his beloved
amongst the living. A fit of trembling
came over him when from the rocks
the tops of the Khan’s tower arose
before him. His eyes grew dark.
“Shall I meet there life or death?”
he whispered to himself, and arousing
a desperate courage, he urged his
horse to a gallop.

He came up with a horseman
completely armed: another horseman
rode out of Khounzákh to meeting,
and hardly did they perceive one another
when they put their horses to
full speed, rode up to each other, leaped
down upon the earth, and suddenly
drawing their swords, threw themselves
with fury upon each other without
uttering a word, as if blows were
the customary salutation of travellers.
Ammalát Bek, whose passage they intercepted
along the narrow path between
the rocks, gazed with astonishment
on the combat of the two adversaries.
It was short. The horseman
who was approaching the town
fell on the stones, bedewing them with
blood from a gash which laid open his
skull; and the victor, coolly wiping his
blade, addressed himself to Ammalát:
“Your coming is opportune: I am
glad that destiny has brought you in
time to witness our combat. God, and
not I, killed the offender; and now
his kinsmen will not say that I killed
my enemy stealthily from behind a
rock, and will not raise upon my head
the feud of blood.”

“Whence arose your quarrel with
him?” asked Ammalát: “why did
you conclude it with such a terrible
revenge?”

“This Kharám-Záda,” answered
the horseman, “could not agree with
me about the division of some stolen
sheep, and in spite he killed them all
so that nobody should have them … and
he dared to slander my wife. He
had better have insulted my father’s
grave, or my mother’s good name,
than have touched the reputation of
my wife! I once flew at him with my
dagger, but they parted us: we agreed
to fight at our first encounter, and
Allah has judged between us! The
Bek is doubtless riding to Khounzákh—surely
on a vizit to the Khan?”
added the horseman.

Ammalát, forcing his horse to leap
over the dead body which lay across
the road, replied in the affirmative.

“You go not at a fit time, Bek—not
at all at a fit time.”

All Ammalát’s blood rushed to his
head. “Why, has any misfortune
happened in the Khan’s house?” he
enquired, reining in his horse, which
he had just before lashed with the
whip to force him faster to Khounzákh.

“Not exactly a misfortune, his
daughter Seltanetta was severely ill,
and now”——

“Is dead?” cried Ammalát, turning
pale.

“Perhaps she is dead—at least dying.
As I rode past the Khan’s gate,
there arose a bustling, crying, and
yelling of women in the court, as if
the Russians were storming Khounzákh.
Go and see—do me the favour”——

But Ammalát heard no more, he
dashed away from the astounded Ouzdén;
the dust rolled like smoke from
the road, which seemed to be set on
fire by the sparks from the horse’s
hoofs. Headlong he galloped through
the winding streets, flew up the hill,
bounded from his horse in the midst
of the Khan’s court-yard, and raced
breathlessly through the passages to
Seltanetta’s apartment, overthrowing
and jostling noúkers and maidens,
and at last, without remarking the
Khan or his wife, pushed himself to
the bed of the sufferer, and fell, almost
senseless, on his knees beside it.

The sudden and noisy arrival of
Ammalát aroused the sad society present.
Seltanetta, whose existence
death was already overpowering,
seemed as if awakening from the deep
forgetfulness of fever; her cheeks
flushed with a transient colour, like
that on the leaves of autumn before
they fall: in her clouded eye beamed
the last spark of the soul. She lad
been for several hours in a complete
insensibility; she was speechless,
motionless, hopeless. A murmur of
anger from the bystanders, and a loud
exclamation from the stupefied Ammalát,
seemed to recall the departing
spirit of the sick, she started up—her
eyes sparkled…. “Is it thou—is
it thou?” she cried, stretching, forth
her arms to him: “praise be to Allah!
now I am contented, now I am
happy,” she added, sinking back on
the pillow. Her lips wreathed into a
smile, her eyelids closed, and again
she sank into her former insensibility.

The agonized Asiatic paid no attention
to the questions of the Khan,
or the reproaches of the Khánsha:
no person, no object distracted his
attention from Seltanetta—nothing
could arouse him from his deep despair.
They could hardly lead him
by force from the sick chamber; he
clung to the threshold, he wept bitterly,
at one moment praying for the
life of Seltanetta, at another accusing
heaven of her illness! Terrible, yet
moving, was the grief of the fiery
Asiatic.

Meanwhile, the appearance of Ammalát
had produced a salutary influence
on the sick girl. What the rude
physicians of the mountains were unable
to accomplish, was effected by
his arrival. The vital energy, which
had been almost extinguished, needed
some agitation to revivify its action;
but for this she must have perished,
not from the disease, which had been
already subdued, but from languor—as
a lamp, not blown out by the wind,
but failing for lack of air. Youth at
length gained the victory; the crisis
was past, and life again arose in the
heart of the sufferer. After a long
and quiet slumber, she awoke unusually
strengthened and refreshed.
“I feel myself as light, mother,” she
cried, looking gaily around her, “as
if I were made wholly of air. Ah,
how sweet it is to recover from illness;
it seems as if the walls were
smiling upon me. Yet, I have been
very ill—long ill. I have suffered
much; but, thanks to Allah! I am now
only weak, and that will soon pass
away. I feel health rolling, like drops
of pearl, through my veins. All the
past seems to me a sort of dark vision.
I fancied that I was sinking into a
cold sea, and that I was parched with
thirst: far away, methought, there
hovered two little stars; the darkness
thickened and thickened; I sank
deeper, deeper yet. All at once it
seemed as if some one called me by
my name, and with a mighty hand
dragged me from that icy, shoreless
sea. Ammalát’s face glanced before
me, almost like a reality; the little
stars broke into a lightning-flash,
which writhed like a serpent to my
heart: I remember no more!”

On the following day Ammalát
was allowed to see the convalescent.
Sultan Akhmet Khan, seeing that it
was impossible to obtain a coherent
answer from him while suspense tortured
his heart, that heart which boiled
with passion, yielded to his incessant
entreaties. “Let all rejoice
when I rejoice,” he said, as he led his
guest into his daughter’s room. This
had been previously announced to
Seltanetta, but her agitation, nevertheless,
was very great, when her
eyes met those of Ammalát—Ammalát,
so deeply loved, so long and fruitlessly
expected. Neither of the lovers
could pronounce a word, but the ardent
language of their looks expressed
a long tale, imprinted in burning letters
on the tablet of their hearts. On
the pale cheek of each other they read
the traces of sorrow, the tears of separation,
the characters of sleeplessness
and grief, of fear and of jealousy.
Entrancing is the blooming loveliness
of an adored mistress; but her paleness,
her languor, that is bewitching,
enchanting, victorious! What heart
of iron would not be melted by that
tearful glance, which, without a reproach,
says so tenderly to you, “I
am happy, but I have suffered by thee
and for thy sake?”

Tears dropped from Ammalát’s
eyes; but remembering at length that
he was not alone, he mastered himself,
and lifted up his head to speak;
but his voice refused to pour itself in
words, and with difficulty he faltered
out, “We have not seen each other
for a long time, Seltanetta!”

“And we were wellnigh parted
for ever,” murmured Seltanetta.

“For ever!” cried Ammalát, with
a half reproachful voice. “And can
you think, can you believe this? Is
there not, then, another life, in which
sorrow is unknown, and separation
from our kinsmen and the beloved?
If I were to lose the talisman of my
life, with what scorn would I not cast
away the rusty ponderous armour of
existence! Why should I wrestle
with destiny?”

“Pity, then, that I did not die!”
answered Seltanetta, sportively. “You
describe so temptingly the other side
of the grave, that one would be eager
to leap into it.”

“Ah, no! Live, live long, for
happiness, for—love!” Ammalát
would have added, but he reddened,
and was silent.

Little by little the roses of health
spread over the cheeks of the maiden,
now happy in the presence of her
lover. All returned into its customary
order. The Khan was never
weary of questioning Ammalát about
the battles, the campaigns, the tactics
of the Russians; the Khánsha
tired him with enquiries about the
dress and customs of their women,
and could not omit to call upon Allah
as often as she heard that they go
without veils. But with Seltanetta
he enjoyed conversations and tales, to
his, as well as her, heart’s content.
The merest trifle which had the slightest
connexion with the other, could
not be passed over without a minute
description, without abundant repetitions
and exclamations. Love, like
Midas, transforms every thing it
touches into gold, and, alas! often
perishes, like Midas, for want of finding
some material nourishment.

But, as the strength of Seltanetta
was gradually re-established, with the
reappearing bloom of health on Ammalát’s
brow, there often appeared
the shadow of grief. Sometimes, in
the middle of a lively conversation,
he would suddenly stop, droop his
head, and his bright eyes would be
dimmed with a filling of tears; heavy
sighs would seem to rend his breast;
he would start up, his eyes sparkling
with fury; he would grasp his dagger
with a bitter smile, and then, as if
vanquished by an invisible hand, he
would fall into a deep reverie, from
whence not even the caresses of his
adored Seltanetta could recall him.

Once, at such a moment, Seltanetta,
leaning enraptured on his shoulder,
whispered, “Asis, (beloved,) you are
sad—you are weary of me!”

“Ah, slander not him who loves
thee more than heaven!” replied
Ammalát; “but I have felt the hell
of separation; and can I think of it
without agony? Easier, a hundred
times easier, to part from life than
from thee, my dark-eyed love!”

“You are thinking of it, therefore
you desire it.”

“Do not poison my wounds by
doubting, Seltanetta. Till now you
have known only how to bloom like a
rose—to flutter like a butterfly; till
now your will was your only duty.
But I am a man, a friend; fate has
forged for me an indestructible chain—the
chain of gratitude for kindness—it
drags me to Derbénd.”

“Debt! duty! gratitude!” cried
Seltanetta, mournfully shaking her
head. “How many gold-embroidered
words have you invented to cover, as
with a shawl, your unwillingness to
remain here. What! Did you not
give your heart to love before it was
pledged to friendship? You had no
right to give away what belonged to
another. Oh, forget your Verkhóffsky,
forget your Russian friends and the
beauty of Derbénd. Forget war and
murder-purchased glory. I hate blood
since I saw you covered with it. I
cannot think without shuddering, that
each drop of it costs tears that cannot
be dried, of a sister, a mother, or a
fair bride. What do you need, in
order to live peacefully and quietly
among our mountains! Here none
can come to disturb with arms the
happiness of the heart. The rain
pierces not our roof; our bread is not
of purchased corn; my father has
many horses, he has arms, and much
precious gold; in my soul there is
much love for you. Say, then, my
beloved, you will not go away, you
will remain with us!”

“No, Seltanetta, I cannot, must
not, remain here. To pass my life
with you alone—for you to end it—this
is my first prayer, my last desire,
but its accomplishment depends on
your father. A sacred tie binds me
to the Russians; and while the Khan
remains unreconciled with them, an
open marriage with you would be
impossible—the obstacle would not be
the Russians, but the Khan”——

“You know my father,” sorrowfully
replied Seltanetta; “for some
time past his hatred of the infidels
has so strengthened itself, that he
hesitates not to sacrifice to it his
daughter and his friend. He is particularly
enraged with the Colonel for
killing his favourite noúker, who was
sent for medicine to the Hakím Ibrahim.”

“I have more than once begun to
speak to Akhmet Khan about my
hopes; but his eternal reply has
been—’Swear to be the enemy of the
Russians, and then I will hear you
out.'”

“We must then bid adieu to hope.”

“Why to hope, Seltanetta? Why
not say only—farewell, Avár!”

Seltanetta bent upon him her expressive
eyes. “I don’t understand
you,” she said.

“Love me more than any thing in
the world—more than your father and
mother, and your fair land, and then
you will understand me, Seltanetta!
Live without you I cannot, and they
will not let me live with you. If you
love me, let us fly!”

“Fly! the Khan’s daughter fly
like a slave—a criminal! This is
dreadful—this is terrible!”

“Speak not so. If the sacrifice is
unusual, my love also is unusual.
Command me to give my life a thousand
times, and I will throw it down
like a copper poull.⁸ I will cast my
soul into hell for you—not only my
life. You remind me that you are
the daughter of the Khan; remember,
too, that my grandfather wore, that
my uncle wears, the crown of a
Shamkhál! But it is not by this
dignity, but by my heart, that I feel
I am worthy of you; and if there be
shame in being happy despite of the
malice of mankind and the caprice of
fate, that shame will fall on my head
and not on yours.”

“But you forget my father’s vengeance.”

“There will come a time when he
himself will forget it. When he sees
that the thing is done, he will cast
aside his inflexibility; his heart is not
stone; and even were it stone, tears
of repentance will wear it away—our
caresses will soften him. Happiness
will cover us with her dove’s wings,
and we shall proudly say, ‘We ourselves
have caught her!'”

“My beloved, I have lived not long
upon earth, but something at my
heart tells me that by falsehood we can
never catch her. Let us wait: let us
see what Allah will give! Perhaps,
without this step, our union may be
accomplished.”

“Seltanetta, Allah has given me
this idea: it is his will. Have pity
on me, I beseech you. Let us fly,
unless you wish that our marriage-hour
should strike above my grave!
I have pledged my honour to return
to Derbénd; and I must keep that
pledge, I must keep it soon: but to
depart without the hope of seeing you,
with the dread of hearing that you are
the wife of another—this would be
dreadful, this would be insupportable!
If not from love, then from pity, share
my destiny. Do not rob me of paradise!
Do not drive me to madness!
You know not whither disappointed
passion can carry me. I may forget
hospitality and kindred, tear asunder
all human ties, trample under my feet
all that is holy, mingle my blood with
that of those who are dearest to me,
force villany to shake with terror
when my name is heard, and angels to
weep to see my deeds!–Seltanetta,
save me from the curse of others,
from my own contempt—save me from
myself! My noúkers are fearless—my
horses like the wind; the night is
dark, let us fly to benevolent Russia,
till the storm be over. For the last
time I implore you. Life and death,
my renown and my soul, hang upon
your word. Yes or no?”

Torn now by her maiden fear, and
her respect for the customs of her
forefathers, now by the passion and
eloquence of her lover, the innocent
Seltanetta wavered, like a light cork,
upon the tempestuous billows of contending
emotions. At length she
arose: with a proud and steady air
she wiped away the tears which, glistened
on her eyelashes, like the amber-gum
on the thorns of the larch-tree,
and said, “Ammalát! tempt me not!
The flame of love will not dazzle, the
smoke of love will not suffocate, my
conscience. I shall ever know what
is good and what is bad; and I well
know how shameful it is, how base, to
desert a father’s house, to afflict loving
and beloved parents! I know all this—and
now, measure the price of my
sacrifice. I fly with you—I am yours!
It is not your tongue which has convinced—it
is my own heart which has
vanquished me! Allah has destined
me to see and love you: let, then, our
hearts be united for ever—and indissolubly,
though their bond be a crown
of thorns! Now all is over! Your
destiny is mine!”

If heaven had clasped Ammalát in
its infinite wings, and pressed him to
the heart of the universe—to the sun—even
then his ecstacy would have
been less strong than at this divine
moment. He poured forth the most
incoherent cries and exclamations of
gratitude. When the first transports
were over, the lovers arranged all the
details of their flight. Seltanetta consented
to lower herself by her bed-coverings
from her chamber, to the
steep bank of the Ouzén. Ammalát
was to ride out in the evening with his
noúkers from Khounzákh, as if on a
hawking party; he was to return to
the Khan’s house by circuitous roads
at nightfall, and there receive his fair
fellow-traveller in his arms. Then
they were to take horses in silence,
and then—let enemies keep out of
their road!

A kiss sealed the treaty; and the
lovers separated with fear and hope in
heart.

Ammalát Bek, having prepared his
brave noúkers for battle or flight, looked
impatiently at the sun, which seemed
loth to descend from the warm sky
to the chilly glaciers of the Caucasus.
Like a bridegroom he pined for night,
like an importunate guest he followed
with his eyes the luminary of day.
How slowly it moved—it crept to its
setting! An interminable space seemed
to intervene between hope and enjoyment.
Unreasonable youth! What
is your pledge of success? Who will
assure you that your footsteps are not
watched—your words not caught in
their flight? Perhaps with the sun,
which you upbraid, your hope will
set.

About the fourth hour after noon,
the time of the Mozlem’s dinner, the
Sultan Akhmet Khan was unusually
savage and gloomy. His eyes gleamed
suspiciously from under his frowning
brows; he fixed them for a long space,
now on his daughter, now on his
young guest. Sometimes his features
assumed a mocking expression, but it
again vanished in the blush of anger.
His questions were biting, his conversation
was interrupted; and all this
awakened in the soul of Seltanetta
repentance—in the heart of Ammalát
apprehension. On the other hand,
the Khánsha, as if dreading a separation
from her lovely daughter, was so
affectionate and anxious, that this unmerited
tenderness wrung tears from
the gentle-hearted Seltanetta, and her
glance, stealthily thrown at Ammalát,
was to him a piercing reproach.

Hardly, after dinner, had they concluded
the customary ceremony of
washing the hands, when the Khan
called Ammalát into the spacious
court-yard. There caparisoned horses
awaited them, and a crowd of noúkers
were already in the saddle.

“Let us ride out to try the mettle
of my new hawks,” said the Khan to
Ammalát; “the evening is fine, the
heat is diminishing, and we shall yet
have time, ere twilight, to shoot a few
birds.”

With his hawk on his fist, the
Khan rode silently by the side of Ammalát.
An Avarétz was climbing up
to a steep cliff on the left, by means
of a spiked pole, fixing it into the
crevices, and then, supporting himself
on a prong, he lifted himself higher.
To his waist was attached a cap containing
wheat; a long crossbow hung
upon his shoulders. The Khan stopped,
pointed him out to Ammalát, and
said meaningly, “Look at yonder old
man, Ammalát Bek! He seeks, at
the risk of his life, a foot of ground
on the naked rock, to sow a handful
of wheat. With the sweat of his brow
he cultivates it, and often pays with
his life for the defence of his herd
from men and beasts. Poor is his
native land; but why does he love
this land? Ask him to change it for
your fruitful fields, your rich flocks.
He will say, ‘Here I do what I
please; here I bow to no one; these
snows, these peaks of ice, defend my
liberty.’ And this freedom the Russians
would take from him: of these
Russians you have become the slave,
Ammalát.”

“Khan, you know that it is not
Russian bravery, but Russian generosity,
that has vanquished me. Their
slave I am not, but their companion.”

“A thousand times the worse, the
more disgraceful for you. The heir
of the Shamkhál pines for a Russian
epaulette, and glories in being the dependent
of a colonel!”

“Moderate your words, Sultan
Akhmet. To Verkhóffsky I owe more
than life: the tie of friendship unites
us.”

“Can there exist a holy tie between
us and the Giaour? To injure them,
to destroy them, when possible, to
deceive them when this cannot be
done, is the commandment of the Korán,
and the duty of every true believer.”

“Khan! let us cease to play with
the bones of Mahomet, and to menace
others with what we do not believe.
You are not a moólla, I am no fakir.
I have my own notions of the duty of
an honest man.”

“Really, Ammalát Bek? It were
well, however, if you were to have
this oftener in your heart than on
your tongue. For the last time, allow
me to ask you, will you hearken to the
counsels of a friend whom you quitted
for the Giaour? Will you remain
with us for good?”

“My life I would lay down for the
happiness you so generously offer;
but I have given my promise to return,
and I will keep it.”

“Is this decided?”

“Irrevocably so.”

“Well then, the sooner the better.
I have learned to know you. Me you
know of old. Insincerity and flattery
between us are in vain. I will not
conceal from you, that I always wished
to see you my son-in-law. I rejoiced
that Seltanetta had pleased you;
your captivity put off my plans for a
time. Your long absence—the rumours
of your conversion—grieved
me. At length you appeared among
us, and found every thing as before;
but you did not bring to us your former
heart. I hoped you would fall
back into your former course; I was
painfully mistaken. It is a pity; but
there is nothing to be done. I do not
wish to have for my son-in-law a servant
of the Russians.”

“Akhmet Khan, I once”——

“Let me finish. Your agitated
arrival, your ravings at the door of
the sick Seltanetta, betrayed to every
body your attachment, and our mutual
intentions. Through all the mountains,
you have been talked of as the
affianced bridegroom of my daughter:
but now the tie is broken, it is time to
destroy the rumours; for the honour
of my family—for the tranquillity of
my daughter—you must leave us—and
immediately. This is absolutely
necessary and indispensable. Ammalát,
we part friends, but here we
will meet only as kinsmen, not otherwise.
May Allah turn your heart,
and restore you to us as an inseparable
friend. Till then, farewell!”

With these words the Khan turned
his horse, and rode away at full gallop
to his retinue. If on the stupefied
Ammalát the thunderbolt of heaven
had fallen, he could not have been
more astounded than by this unexpected
explanation. Already had the
dust raised by the horse’s hoofs of the
retiring Khan been laid at rest; but he
still stood immovable on the hill now
darkening in the shadow of sunset.

CHAPTER IX.

Colonel Verkhóffsky, engaged in
reducing to submission the rebellious
Daghestánetzes, was encamped with
his regiment at the village of Kiáfir-Kaúmik.
The tent of Ammalát Bek
was erected next to his own, and in
it Saphir-Ali, lazily stretched on the
carpet, was drinking the wine of the
Don, notwithstanding the prohibition
of the Prophet. Ammalát Bek, thin,
pale, and pensive, was resting his head
against the tent-pole, smoking a pipe.
Three months had passed since the
time when he was banished from his
paradise; and he was now roving with
a detachment, within sight of the
mountains to which his heart flew,
but whither his foot durst not step.
Grief had worn out his strength;
vexation had poured its vial on his
once serene character. He had
dragged a sacrifice to his attachment
to the Russians, and it seemed
as if he reproached every Russian
with it. Discontent was visible in
every word, in every glance.

“A fine thing wine!” said Saphir
Ali, carefully wiping the glasses;
“surely Mahomet must have met with
sour dregs in Aravéte, when he forbade
the juice of the grape to true
believers! Why, really these drops
are as sweet as if the angels themselves,
in their joy, had wept their
tears into bottles. Ho! quaff another
glass, Ammalát; your heart will float
on the wine more lightly than a bubble.
Do you know what Hafiz has sung
about it?”

“And do you know? Pray, do not
annoy me with your prate, Saphir Ali:
not even under the name of Sadi and
Hafiz.”

“Why, what harm is there? If
even this prate is my own, it is not an
earring: it will not remain hanging
in your ear. When you begin your
story about your goddess Seltanetta,
I look at you as at the juggler, who
eats fire, and winds endless ribbons
from his cheeks. Love makes you
talk nonsense, and the Donskoi (wine
of the Don) makes me do the same.
So we are quits. Now, then, to the
health of the Russians!”

“What has made you like the Russians?”

“Say rather—why have you ceased
to love them?”

“Because I have examined them
nearer. Really they are no better
than our Tartars. They are just as
eager for profit, just as ready to blame
others, and not with a view of improving
their fellow-creatures, but to excuse
themselves: and as to their laziness—don’t
let us speak of it. They
have ruled here for a long time, and
what good have they done; what firm
laws have they established; what useful
customs have they introduced; what
have they taught us; what have they
created here, or what have they constructed
worthy of notice? Verkhóffsky
has opened my eyes to the faults of my
countrymen, but at the same time to
the defects of the Russians, to whom
it is more unpardonable; because
they know what is right, have grown
up among good examples, and here,
as if they have forgotten their mission,
and their active nature, they sink, little
by little, into the insignificance of
the beasts.”

“I hope you do not include Verkhóffsky
in this number.”

“Not he alone, but some others,
deserve to be placed in a separate circle.
But then, are there many such?”

“Even the angels in heaven are
numbered, Ammalát Bek: and Verkhóffsky
absolutely is a man for whose
justice and kindness we ought to thank
heaven. Is there a single Tartar who
can speak ill of him? Is there a soldier
who would not give his soul for
him? Abdul-Hamet, more wine!
Now then, to the health of Verkhóffsky!”

“Spare me! I will not drink to
Mahomet himself.”

“If your heart is not as black as
the eyes of Seltanetta, you will drink,
even were it in the presence of the
red-bearded Yakhoúnts of the Shakhéeds⁹
of Derbént: even if all the
Imáms and Shieks not only licked their
lips but bit their nails out of spite to
you for such a sacrilege.”

“I will not drink, I tell you.”

“Hark ye, Ammalát: I am ready
to let the devil get drunk on my
blood for your sake, and you won’t
drink a glass of wine for mine.”

“That is to say, that I will not
drink because I do not wish—and I
don’t wish, because even without wine
my blood boils in me like fermenting
boozá.”

“A bad excuse! It is not the first
time that we have drunk, nor the first
time that our blood boils. Speak
plainly at once: you are angry with
the Colonel.”

“Very angry.”

“May I know for what?”

“For much. For some time past
he has begun to drop poison into the
honey of his friendship: and at last
these drops have filled and overflowed
the cup. I cannot bear such lukewarm
friends! He is liberal with his
advice, not sparing with his lectures;
that is, in every thing that costs him
neither risk nor trouble.”

“I understand, I understand! I
suppose he would not let you go to
Avár!”

“If you bore my heart in your bosom
you would understand how I felt
when I received such a refusal. He
lured me on with that hope, and then
all at once repulsed my most earnest
prayer—dashed into dust, like a crystal
kalián, my fondest hopes….
Akhmet Khan was surely softened,
when he sent word that he wished to
see me; and I cannot fly to him, or
hurry to Seltanetta.”

“Put yourself, brother, in his place,
and then say whether you yourself
would not have acted in the same way.”

“No, not so! I should have said
plainly from the very beginning,
‘Ammalát, do not expect any help
from me.’ I even now ask him not
for help. I only beg him not to hinder
me. Yet no! He, hiding from me
the sun of all my joy, assures me that
he does this from interest in me—that
this will hereafter bring me fortune.
Is not this a fine anodyne?”

“No, my friend! If this is really
the case, the sleeping-draught is given
to you as to a person on whom they
wish to perform an operation. You
are thinking only of your love, and
Verkhóffsky has to keep your honour
and his own without spot; and you
are both surrounded by ill-wishers.
Believe me, either thus or otherwise,
it is he alone who can cure you.”

“Who asks him to cure me? This
divine malady of love is my only joy:
and to deprive me of it is to tear out
my heart, because it cannot beat at
the sound of a drum!”——

At this moment a strange Tartar
entered the tent, looked suspiciously
round, and bending down his head,
laid his slippers before Ammalát—according
to Asiatic custom, this signified
that he requested a private conversation.
Ammalát understood him,
made a sign with his head, and both
went out into the open air. The night
was dark, the fires were going out,
and the chain of sentinels extended
far before them. “Here we are alone,”
said Ammalát Bek to the Tartar:
“who art thou, and what dost thou
want?”

“My name is Samit: I am an inhabitant
of Derbénd, of the sect of
Souni: and now am at present serving
in the detachment of Mussulman
cavalry. My commission is of greater
consequence to you than to me….
The eagle loves the mountains!”

Ammalát shuddered, and looked
suspiciously at the messenger. This
was a watchword, the key of which
Sultan Akhmet had previously written
to him. “How can he but love the
mountains?” … he replied; “In
the mountains there are many lambs
for the eagles, and much silver for
men.”

“And much steel for the valiant,” (yigheeds.)

Ammalát grasped the messenger
by the hand. “How is Sultan Akhmet
Khan?” he enquired hurriedly:
“What news bring you from him—how
long is it since you have seen his
family?”

“Not to answer, but to question,
am I come…. Will you follow me?”

“Where? for what?”

“You know who has sent me.
That is enough. If you trust not
him, trust not me. Therein is your
will and my advantage. Instead of
running my head into a noose to-night,
I can return to-morrow to the
Khan, and tell him that Ammalát
dares not leave the camp.”

The Tartar gained his point: the
touchy Ammalát took fire. “Saphir
Ali!” he cried loudly.

Saphir Ali started up, and ran out of
the tent.

“Order horses to be brought for
yourself and me, even if unsaddled;
and at the same time send word to
the Colonel, that I have ridden out to
examine the field behind the line, to
see if some rascal is not stealing in
between the sentries. My gun and
shashka in a twinkling!”

The horses were led up, the Tartar
leaped on his own, which was tied up
not far off, and all three rode off to
the chain. They gave the word and
the countersign, and they passed by
the videttes to the left, along the
bank of the swift Azen.

Saphir Ali, who had very unwillingly
left his bottle, grumbled about
the darkness, the underwood, the
ditches, and rode swearing by Ammalát’s
side; but seeing that nobody
began the conversation, he resolved
to commence it himself.

“My ashes fall on the head of this
guide! The devil knows where he is
leading us, and where he will take us.
Perhaps he is going to sell us to the
Lezghíns for a rich ransom. I never
trust these squinting fellows!”

“I trust but little even to those
who have straight eyes,” answered
Ammalát; “but this squinting fellow
is sent from a friend: he will not betray
us!”

“And the very first moment he
thinks of any thing like it, at his first
movement I will slice him through
like a melon. Ho! friend,” cried
Saphir Ali, to the guide; “in the
name of the king of the genii, it
seems you have made a compact with
the thorns to tear the embroidery from
my tschoukhá. Could you not find
a wider road? I am really neither a
pheasant nor a fox.”

The guide stopped. “To say the
truth, I have led a delicate fellow like
you too far!” he answered. “Stay
here and take care of the horses,
whilst Ammalát and I will go where
it is necessary.”

“Is it possible you will go into the
woods with such a cut-throat looking
rascal, without me?” whispered Saphir
Ali to Ammalát.

“That is, you are afraid to remain
here without me!” replied Ammalát,
dismounting from his horse, and giving
him the reins: “Do not annoy
yourself, my dear fellow. I leave
you in the agreeable society of wolves
and jackals. Hark how they are singing!”

“Pray to God that I may not have
to deliver your bones from these singers,”
said Saphir Ali. They separated.
Samit led Ammalát among the
bushes, over the river, and having
passed about half a verst among stones,
began to descend. At the risk of
their necks they clambered along
the rocks, clinging by the roots of
the sweet-briar, and at length, after
a difficult journey, descended into the
narrow mouth of a small cavern parallel
with the water. It had been excavated
by the washing of the stream,
erewhile rapid, but now dried up.
Long stalactites of lime and crystal
glittered in the light of a fire piled in
the middle. In the back-ground lay
Sultan Akhmet Khan on a boúrka,
and seemed to be waiting patiently
till Ammalát should recover himself
amid the thick smoke which rolled in
masses through the cave. A cocked
gun lay across his knees; the tuft in
his cap fluttered in the wind which
blew from the crevices. He rose politely
as Ammalát hurried to salute
him.

“I am glad to see you,” he said,
pressing the hands of his guest; “and
I do not hide the feeling which I
ought not to cherish. However, it is
not for an empty interview that I have
put my foot into the trap, and troubled
you: sit down, Ammalát, and let us
speak about an important affair.”

“To me, Sultan Akhmet Khan?”

“To us both. With your father
I have eaten bread and salt. There
was a time when I counted you likewise
as my friend.”

“But counted!”

“No! you were my friend, and
would ever have remained so, if the
deceiver, Verkhóffsky, had not stepped
between us.”

“Khan, you know him not.”

“Not only I, but you yourself
shall soon know him. But let us
begin with what regards Seltanetta.
You know she cannot ever remain
unmarried. This would be a disgrace
to my house: and let me tell you candidly,
that she has already been demanded
in marriage.”

Ammalát’s heart seemed torn asunder.
For some time he could not
recover himself. At length he tremblingly
asked, “Who is this bold
lover?”

“The second son of the Shamkhál,
Abdoul Moússelin. Next after you,
he has, from his high blood, the best
right, of all our mountaineers, to Seltanetta’s
hand.”

“Next to me—after me!” exclaimed
the passionate Bek, boiling with
anger: “Am I, then, buried? Is
then my memory vanished among my
friends?”

“Neither the memory, nor friendship
itself is dead in my heart; but be
just, Ammalát; as just as I am frank.
Forget that you are the judge of your
own cause, and decide what we are
to do. You will not abandon the
Russians, and I cannot make peace
with them.”

“Do but wish—do but speak the
word, and all will be forgotten, all
will be forgiven you. This I will
answer for with my head, and with
the honour of Verkhóffsky, who has
more than once promised me his mediation.
For your own good, for the
welfare of Avár, for your daughter’s
happiness, for my bliss, I implore
you, yield to peace, and all will be
forgotten—all that once belonged to
you will be restored.”

“How boldly you answer, rash
youth, for another’s pardon, for another’s
life! Are you sure of your
own life, your own liberty?”

“Who should desire my poor life?
To whom should be dear the liberty
which I do not prize myself?”

“To whom? Think you that the
pillow does not move under the Shamkhál’s
head, when the thought rises
in his brain, that you, the true heir
of the Shamkhalát of Tarki, are
in favour with the Russian Government?”

“I never reckoned on its friendship,
nor feared its enmity.”

“Fear it not, but do not despise it.
Do you know that an express, sent
from Tarki to Yermóloff, arrived a
moment too late, to request him to
show no mercy, but to execute you as
a traitor? The Shamkhál was before
ready to betray you with a kiss, if he
could; but now, that you have sent
back his blind daughter to him, he no
longer conceals his hate.”

“Who will dare to touch me, under
Verkhóffsky’s protection?”

“Hark ye, Ammalát; I will tell
you a fable:—A sheep went into a
kitchen to escape the wolves, and rejoiced
in his luck, flattered by the
caresses of the cooks. At the end of
three days he was in the pot. Ammalát,
this is your story. ‘Tis time
to open your eyes. The man whom
you considered your first friend has
been the first to betray you. You are
surrounded, entangled by treachery.
My chief motive in meeting you was
my desire to warn you. When Seltanetta
was asked in marriage, I was
given to understand from the Shamkhál,
that through him I could more
readily make my peace with the Russians,
than through the powerless
Ammalát—that you would soon be
removed in some way or other, and
that there was nothing to be feared
from your rivalry. I suspected still
more, and learned more than I suspected.
To-day I stopped the Shamkhál’s
noúker, to whom the negotiations
with Verkhóffsky were entrusted,
and extracted from him, by torture,
that the Shamkhál offers a thousand
ducats to get rid of you. Verkhóffsky
hesitates, and wishes only to send you
to Siberia for ever. The affair is not
yet decided; but to-morrow the detachment
retires to their quarters, and
they have resolved to meet at your
house in Bouináki, to bargain about
your blood. They will forge denunciations
and charges—they will poison
you at your own table, and cover you
with chains of iron, promising you
mountains of gold.” It was painful
to see Ammalát during this dreadful
speech. Every word, like red-hot
iron, plunged into his heart; all within
him that was noble, grand, or consoling,
took fire at once, and turned into
ashes. Every thing in which he had
so long and so trustingly confided,
fell to pieces, and shrivelled up in the
flame of indignation. Several times
he tried to speak, but the words died
away in a sickly gasp; and at last
the wild beast which Verkhóffsky had
tamed, which Ammalát had lulled to
sleep, burst from his chain: a flood of
curses and menaces poured from the lips
of the furious Bek. “Revenge, revenge!”
he cried, “merciless revenge,
and woe to the hypocrites!”

“This is the first word worthy of you,”
said the Khan, concealing the joy of
success; “long enough have you crept
like a serpent, laying your head under
the feet of the Russians! ‘Tis time to
soar like an eagle to the clouds; to
look down from on high upon the
enemy who cannot reach you with
their arrows. Repay treachery with
treachery, death with death!”

“Then death and ruin be to the
Shamkhál, the robber of my liberty;
and ruin be to Abdoul Moússelin, who
dared to stretch forth his hand to my
treasure!”

“The Shamkhál? His son—his
family? Are they worthy of your
first exploits? They are all but little
loved by the Tarkovétzes; and if we
attack the Shamkhál, they will give
up his whole family with their own
hands. No, Ammalát, you must aim
your first blow next to you; you must
destroy your chief enemy; you must
kill Verkhóffsky.”

“Verkhóffsky!” exclaimed Ammalát,
stepping back…. “Yes!…. he
is my enemy; but he was my
friend. He saved me from a shameful
death.

“And has now sold you to a shameful
life!…. A noble friend! And
then you have yourself saved him from
the tusks of the wild-boar—a death
worthy of a swine-eater! The first
debt is paid, the second remains due:
for the destiny which he is so deceitfully
preparing for you”….

“I feel … this ought to be … but
what will good men say? What
will my conscience say?”

“It is for a man to tremble before
old women’s tales, and before a
whimpering child—conscience—when
honour and revenge are at stake? I
see Ammalát, that without me you
will decide nothing; you will not
even decide to marry Seltanetta. Listen
to me. Would you be a son-in-law
worthy of me, the first condition
is Verkhóffsky’s death. His head shall
be a marriage-gift for your bride,
whom you love, and who loves you.
Not revenge only, but the plainest
reasoning requires the death of the
Colonel. Without him, all Daghestán
will remain several days without
a chief, and stupefied with horror. In
this interval, we come flying upon the
Russians who are dispersed in their
quarters. I mount with twenty thousand
Avarétzes and Akoushétzes: and
we fall from the mountains like a cloud
of snow upon Tarki. Then Ammalát,
Shamkhál of Daghestán, will embrace
me as his friend, as his father-in-law.
These are my plans, this is
your destiny. Choose which you
please; either an eternal banishment,
or a daring blow, which promises you
power and happiness; but know, that
next time we shall meet either as kinsmen,
or as irreconcilable foes!”

The Khan disappeared. Long stood
Ammalát, agitated, devoured by new
and terrible feelings. At length Samit
reminded him that it was time to
return to the camp. Ignorant himself
how and where he had found his way
to the shore, he followed his mysterious
guide, found his horse, and without
answering a word to the thousand
questions of Saphir Ali, rode up to his
tent. There, all the tortures of the
soul’s hell awaited him. Heavy is the
first night of sorrow, but still more
terrible the first bloody thoughts of
crime.

REYNOLDS’S DISCOURSES. CONCLUSION.

We omit any notice of the other
written works of Sir Joshua—his
“Journey to Flanders and Holland,”
his Notes to Mason’s verse translation
of Du Fresnoy’s Latin poem, “Art
of Painting,” and his contributions to
the “Idler.” The former is chiefly a
notice of pictures, and of value to
those who may visit the galleries
where most of them may be found;
and in some degree his remarks will
attach a value to those dispersed; the
best part of the “Journey,” perhaps,
is his critical discrimination of the
style and genius of Rubens. The
marrow of his Notes to Du Fresnoy’s
poem, and indeed of his papers
in the “Idler,” has been transferred
to his Discourses, which, as
they terminate his literary labours,
contain all that he considered important
in a discussion on taste and art.
The notes to Du Fresnoy may, however,
be consulted by the practical
painter with advantage, as here and
there some technical directions may
be found, which, if of doubtful utility
in practice, will at least demand
thought and reasoning upon this not
unimportant part of the art. To
doubt is to reflect; judgment results,
and from this, as a sure source, genius
creates. There are likewise some
memoranda useful to artists to be read
in Northcote’s “Life.” The influence
of these Discourses upon art in this
country has been much less than
might have been expected from so
able an exposition of its principles.
They breathe throughout an admiration
of what is great, give a high aim
to the student, and point to the path
he should pursue to attain it: while
it must be acknowledged our artists
as a body have wandered in another
direction. The Discourses speak to
cultivated minds only. They will
scarcely be available to those who
have habituated their minds to lower
views of art, and have, by a fascinating
practice, acquired an inordinate
love for its minor beauties. It is true
their tendency is to teach, to cultivate:
but in art there is too often as much
to unlearn as to learn, and the unlearning
is the more irksome task;
prejudice, self-gratulation, have removed
the humility which is the first
step in the ladder of advancement.
With the public at large, the Discourses
have done more; and rather
by the reflection from that improvement
in the public taste, than from
any direct appeal to artists, our exhibitions
have gained somewhat in refinement.
And if there is, perhaps,
less vigour now, than in the time of
Sir Joshua, Wilson, and Gainsborough,
those fathers of the English School,
we are less seldom disgusted with the
coarseness, both of subject and manner,
that prevailed in some of their
contemporaries and immediate successors.
In no branch of art is this improvement
more shown than in scenes
of familiar life—which meant, indeed
“Low Life.” Vulgarity has given
place to a more “elegant familiar.”
This has necessarily brought into play
a nicer attention to mechanical excellence,
and indeed to all the minor
beauties of the art. We almost fear
too much has been done this way, because
it has been too exclusively pursued,
and led astray the public taste
to rest satisfied with, and unadvisedly
to require, the less important perfections.
From that great style which
it may be said it was the sole object
of the Discourses to recommend, we
are further off than ever. Even in
portrait, there is far less of the historical,
than Sir Joshua himself introduced
into that department—an adoption
which he has so ably defended by
his arguments. But nothing can be
more unlike the true historical, as defined
in the precepts of art, than the
modern representation of national (in
that sense, historical) events. The
precepts of the President have been
unread or disregarded by the patronized
historical painters of our day.
It would seem to be thought a greater
achievement to identify on canvass the
millinery that is worn, than the characters
of the wearers, silk stockings,
and satins, and faces, are all of the
same common aim of similitude; arrangement,
attitude, and peculiarly
inanimate expression, display of finery,
with the actual robes, as generally
announced in the advertisement, render
such pictures counterparts, or
perhaps inferior counterfeits to Mrs
Jarley’s wax-work. And, like the wax-work,
they are paraded from town to
town, to show the people how much
the tailor and mantua-maker have to
do in state affairs; and that the greatest
of empires is governed by very
ordinary-looking personages. Even
the Venetian painters, called by way
of distinction the “Ornamental
School,” deemed it necessary to avoid
prettinesses and pettinesses, and by
consummate skill in artistical arrangement
in composition, in chiaro-scuro
and colour, to give a certain greatness
to the representations of their national
events. There is not, whatever
other faults they may have, this
of poverty, in the public pictures of
Venice; they are at least of a magnificent
ambition: they are far removed
from the littleness of a show.
We are utterly gone out of the way
of the first principles of art in our
national historical pictures. Yet was
the great historical the whole subject
of the Discourses—it was to be the
only worthy aim of the student. If
the advice and precepts of Sir Joshua
Reynolds have, then, been so entirely
disregarded, it may be asked what
benefit he has conferred upon the
world by his Discourses. We answer,
great. He has shown what
should be the aim of art, and has
therefore raised it in the estimation
of the cultivated. His works are
part of our standard literature; they
are in the hands of readers, of scholars;
they materially help in the formation
of a taste by which literature
is to be judged and relished. Even
those who never acquire any very
competent knowledge of, or love for
pictures, do acquire a respect for art,
connect it with classical poetry—the
highest poetry, with Homer, with the
Greek drama, with all they have read
of the venerated works of Phidias,
Praxiteles, and Apelles; and having
no too nice discrimination, are credulous
of, or anticipate by remembering
what has been done and valued—the
honour of the profession. We assert
that, by bringing the precepts of art
within the pale of our accepted literature,
Sir Joshua Reynolds has given
to art a better position. Would that
there were no counteracting circumstances
which still keep it from reaching
its proper rank! Some there are,
which materially degrade it, amongst
which is the attempt to force patronage;
the whole system of Art Unions,
and of Schools of Design, the “in formâ
pauperis” petitioning and advertising,
and the rearing innumerable artists,
ill-educated in all but drawing, and
mere degrading still, the binding art,
as it were, apprenticed to manufacture
in such Schools of Design; connecting,
in more than idea, the drawer of
patterns with the painter of pictures.
Hence has arisen, and must necessarily
arise, an inundation of mediocrity,
the aim of the painter being to reach
some low-prize mark, an unnatural
competition, inferior minds brought
into the profession, a sort of painting-made-easy
school, and pictures, like
other articles of manufacture, cheap
and bad. We should say decidedly,
that the best consideration for art, and
the best patronage too, that we would
give to it, would be to establish it in
our universities of Cambridge and
Oxford. In those venerated places to
found professorships, that a more sure
love and more sure taste for it may be
imbedded with every other good and
classical love and taste in the early
minds of the youth of England’s pride,
of future patrons; and where painters
themselves may graduate, and associate
with all noble and cultivated minds,
and be as much honoured in their profession
as any in those usually called
“learned.” But to return to Sir Joshua.
He conferred upon his profession not
more benefit by his writings and paintings,
than by his manners and conduct.
To say that they were irreproachable
would be to say little—they were such
as to render him an object of love and
respect. He adorned a society at that
time remarkable for men of wit and
wisdom. He knew that refinement
was necessary for his profession, and
he studiously cultivated it—so studiously,
that he brought a portion of his
own into that society from which he
had gathered much. He abhorred
what was low in thought, in manners,
and in art. And thus he tutored his
genius, which was great rather from
the cultivation of his judgment, by
incessantly exercising his good sense
upon the task before him, than from
any innate very vigorous power. He
thought prudence the best guide of
life, and his mind was not of an eccentric
daring, to rush heedlessly beyond
the bounds of discretion. And
this was no small proof of his good
sense; when the prejudice of the age
in which he lived was prone to consider
eccentricity as a mark of genius; and
genius itself, inconsistently with the
very term of a silly admiration, an
inspiration, that necessarily brought
with it carelessness and profligacy.
By his polished manners, his manly
virtues, and his prudential views,
which mainly formed his taste, and
enabled him to disseminate taste, Sir
Joshua rescued art from this degrading
prejudice, which, while it flattered
vanity and excused vice, made the objects
of the flattery contemptible and
inexcusable. If genius be a gift, it
is one that passes through the mind,
and takes its colour; the love of all
that is pure, and good, and great, can
alone invest genius with that habit of
thought which, applied to practice,
makes the perfect painter. Castiglione
considered painting the proper acquirement
of the perfect gentleman—Sir
Joshua Reynolds thought that to be in
mind and manners the “gentlemen,”
was as necessary to perfect the painter.
The friend of Johnson and Burke,
and of all persons of that brilliant
age, distinguished by abilities and
worth, was no common man. In
raising himself, he was ever mindful
to raise the art to which he had
devoted himself, in general estimation.

We have noticed a charge against
the writer of the Discourses, that
he did not pursue that great style
which he so earnestly recommended.
Besides that this is not quite true—for
he unquestionably did adopt so much
of the great manner as his subjects
would, generally speaking, allow—there
was a sufficient reason for the
tone he adopted, that it was one useful
and honourable, and none can deny
that it was suited to his genius. He
was doubtless conscious of his own
peculiar powers, and contemplated the
degree of excellence which he attained.
He felt that he could advance
that department of his profession, and
surely no unpardonable prudential
views led him to the adoption of it. It
was the one, perhaps, best suited to his
abilities; and there is nothing in his
works which might lead us to suspect
that he would have succeeded so well
in any other. The characteristic of
his mind was a nice observation.
It was not in its native strength
creative. We doubt if Sir Joshua
Reynolds ever attempted a perfectly
original creation—if he ever designed
without having some imitation in
view. We mean not to say, that in
the process he did not take slight
advantages of accidents, and, if the
expression may be used, by a second
sort of creation, make his work in the
end perfectly his own. But we should
suppose that his first conceptions for
his pictures, (of course, we speak
principally of those not strictly portraits,)
came to him through his admiration
of some of the great originals,
which he had so deeply studied.
In almost every work by his hand,
there is strongly marked his good
sense—almost a prudent forbearance.
He ever seemed too cautious not to
dare beyond his tried strength, more
especially in designing a subject of
several figures. His true genius as
alone conspicuous in those where
much of the portrait was admissible;
and such was his “Tragic Muse,” a
strictly historical picture: was it
equally discernible in his “Nativity”
for the window in New College Chapel?
We think not. There is nothing
in his “Nativity” that has not
been better done by others; yet, as a
whole, it is good; and if the subject
demands a more creative power, and
a higher daring than was habitual to
him, we are yet charmed with the
good sense throughout; and while we
look, are indisposed to criticise. We
have already remarked how much Sir
Joshua was indebted to a picture by
Domenichino for the “Tragic Muse.”
Every one knows that he borrowed
the “Nativity” from the “Notte” of
Correggio, and perhaps in detail from
other and inferior masters. His
“Ugolino” was a portrait, or a study,
in the commencement; it owes its
excellence to its retaining this character
in its completion. If we were to point
to failures, in single figures, (historical,)
we should mention his “Puck”
and his “Infant Hercules.” The
latter we only know from the print.
Here he certainly had an opportunity
of displaying the great style of Michael
Angelo; it was beyond his
daring; the Hercules is a sturdy
child, and that is all, we see not the
ex pede Herculem. We can imagine
the colouring, especially of the serpents
and back-ground, to have been
impressive. The picture is in the
possession of the Emperor of Russia.
The “Puck” is a somewhat mischievous
boy—too substantially, perhaps
heavily, given for the fanciful
creation. The mushroom on which
he is perched is unfortunate in shape
and colour; it is too near the semblance
of a bullock’s heart. His
“Cardinal Beaufort,” powerful in
expression, has been, we think, captiously
reprehended for the introduction
of the demon. The mind’s eye
has the privilege of poetry to imagine
the presence; the personation is therefore
legitimate to the sister art. The
National Gallery is not fortunate
enough to possess any important picture
of the master in the historical style.
The portraits there are good.
There was, we have been given to
understand, an opportunity of purchasing
for the National Gallery the
portrait of himself, which Sir Joshua
presented to his native town of Plympton
as his substitute, having been
elected mayor of the town—an honour
that was according to the expectation
of the electors thus repaid. The
Municipal Reform brought into office
in the town of Plympton, as elsewhere,
a set of men who neither valued art
nor the fame of their eminent townsman.
Men who would convert the
very mace of office into cash, could
not be expected to keep a portrait;
so it was sold by auction, and for a mere
trifle. It was offered to the
nation; and by those whose business
it was to cater for the nation, pronounced
a copy. The history of its
sale did not accompany the picture;
when that was known, as it is said,
a very large sum was offered, and refused.
It is but justice to the committee
to remind them of the fact,
that Sir Joshua himself, as he tells us,
very minutely examined a picture
which he pronounced to be his own,
and which was nevertheless a copy.
Unquestionably his genius was for
portrait; it suited his strictly observant
character; and he had this great
requisite for a portrait-painter, having
great sense himself, he was able to
make his heads intellectual. His
female portraits are extremely lovely;
he knew well how to represent intellect,
enthusiasm, and feeling. These
qualities he possessed himself. We
have observed, in the commencement
of these remarks upon the Discourses,
that painters do not usually paint
beyond themselves, either power or
feeling—beyond their own grasp and
sentiments; it was the habitual good
sense and refinement of moral feeling
that made Sir Joshua Reynolds so
admirable a portrait-painter. He has
been, and we doubt not justly, celebrated
as a colourist. Unfortunately,
we are not now so capable of judging,
excepting in a few instances, of this his
excellence. Some few years ago, his
pictures, to a considerable amount in
number, were exhibited at the British
Institution. We are forced to confess
that they generally looked too
brown—many of them dingy, many
loaded with colour, that, when put
on, was probably rich and transparent:
we concluded that they had
changed. Though Sir Joshua, as
Northcote in his very amusing Memoirs
of the President assures us,
would not allow those under him to
try experiments, and carefully locked
up his own, that he might more effectually
discourage the attempt—considering
that, in students, it was beginning
at the wrong end—yet was
he himself a great experimentalist.
He frequently used wax and varnish;
the decomposition of the latter (mastic)
would sufficiently account for the
appearance those pictures wore. We
see others that have very much faded;
some that are said to be faded may
rather have been injured by cleaners;
the colouring when put on with
much varnish not bearing the process
of cleaning, may have been removed,
and left only the dead and crude
work. It has been remarked, that
his pictures have more especially suffered
under the hands of restorers.
It must be very difficult for a portrait-painter,
much employed, and called
upon to paint a portrait, where short
time and few sittings are the conditions,
to paint a lasting work. He is
obliged to hasten the drying of the
paint, or to use injurious substances,
which answer the purpose only for a
short present. Sir Joshua, too, was
tempted to use orpiment largely in
some pictures, which has sadly changed.
An instance may be seen in the “Holy
Family” in our National Gallery—the
colour of the flesh of the St John is
ruined from this cause. It is, however,
one of his worst pictures, and
could not have been originally designed
for a “holy family.” The
Mater is quite a youthful peasant
girl: we should not regret it if it were
totally gone. Were Sir Joshua living,
and could he see it in its present state,
he would be sure to paint over it, and
possibly convert it into another subject.
We do not doubt, however, that
Sir Joshua deserved the reputation he
obtained as a colourist in his day. We
attribute the brown, the horny asphaltum
look they have, to change. It is
unquestionably exceedingly mortifying
to see, while the specimens of the
Venetian and Flemish colourists are
at this day so pure and fresh, though
painted centuries before our schools,
our comparatively recent productions
so obscured and otherwise injured. Tingry,
excellent authority, the Genevan
chemical professor, laments the practice
of the English painters of mixing varnish
with their colours, which, he says,
shows that they prefer a temporary
brilliancy to lasting beauty; for that it
is impossible, that with this practice,
pictures should either retain their
brilliancy or even be kept from decay.
We do not remember to have seen a
single historical picture of Sir Joshua’s
that has not suffered; happily there
are yet many of his portraits fresh,
vigorous, and beautiful in colouring.
It should seem, that he thought it
worth while to speculate upon those
of least value to his reputation.

Portrait-painting, at the commencement
of Sir Joshua’s career, was certainly
in a very low condition. A general
receipt for face-making, with
the greatest facility seemed to have
been current throughout the country.
Attitudes and looks were according to
a pattern; and, accordingly, there was
so great a family resemblance, however
unconnected the sitters, that it
might seem to have been intended to
promote a brotherly and sisterly bond
of union among all the descendants of
Adam. Portrait-painting, which had
in this country been so good, was in
fact, with here and there an exception,
and generally an exception not
duly estimated, in a degraded state:
the art in this respect, as in others,
had become vulgarized. From this
universal family-likeness recipe, Reynolds
came suddenly, and at once successfully,
before the world, with individual
nature, and variety of character,
and portraits that had the merit
of being pictures as well as portraits.
He led to a complete revolution in this
department, so that if he had rivals—and
he certainly had one in Gainsborough—they
were of his own making.
The change is mostly perceptible in
female portraits. They assumed grace
and beauty. Our grandmothers and
great-grandmothers were strangely
vilified in their unpleasing likenesses.
The somewhat loose satin evening-dress,
with the shepherdess’s crook,
was absurd enough; and no very great
improvement upon the earlier taste of
complimenting portraits with the personation
of the heathen deities. The
poetical pastoral, however, very soon
descended to the real pastoral; and,
as if to make people what they were
not was considered enough of the historical
of portrait, even this took.
We suspect Gainsborough was the
first to sin in this degradation line,
by no means the better one for being
the furthest from the divinities. He
had painted some rustic figures very
admirably, and made such subjects a
fashion; but why they should ever be
so, we could never understand; or
why royalty should not be represented
as royalty, gentry as gentry; to represent
them otherwise, appears as
absurd as if our Landseer should attempt
a greyhound in the character
of a Newfoundland dog. A picture
of Gainsborough’s was exhibited, a
year or two ago, in the British Institution,
Pall-Mall, which we were
astonished to hear was most highly
valued; for it was a weak, washy,
dauby, ill-coloured performance, and
the design as bad as well could be.
It was a scene before a cottage-door,
with the children of George the Third
as peasant children, in village dirt
and mire. The picture had no merit
to recommend it; if we remember
rightly, it had been painted over, or
in some way obscured, and unfortunately
brought to light. Although
Sir Joshua Reynolds generally introduced
a new grace into his portraits,
and mostly so without deviating from
the character as he found it, dispensing
indeed with the old affectation,
we fear he cannot altogether be acquitted
from the charge of deviating
from the true propriety of portrait.
Ladies as Miranda, as Hebe, and even
as Thais, no very moral compliment,
are examples—some there are of the
lower pastoral. Mrs Macklin and her
daughter were represented at a spinning-wheel,
and Miss Potts as a
gleaner. There is one of somewhat
higher pretensions, but equally a deviation
from propriety, in his portraits
of the Honourable Mistresses Townshend,
Beresford, and Gardiner. They
are decorating the statue of Hymen;
the grace of one figure is too theatrical,
the others have but little. The
one kneeling on the ground, and collecting
the flowers, is, in one respect,
disagreeable—the light of the sky,
too much of the same hue and tone as
the face, is but little separated from
it—in fact, only by the dark hair;
while all below the face and bosom is
a too heavy dark mass. Portrait-painters
are very apt to fail whenever
they colour their back-grounds to the
heads of a warm and light sky-colour;
the force of the complexion is very
apt to be lost, and the portrait is sure
to lose its importance. The “General
on Horseback,” in our National Gallery,
(Ligonier,) a fine picture, is in
no small degree hurt by the absence
of a little greyer tone in the part of
the sky about the head. By far the
best portraits by Sir Joshua—and, fortunately,
they are the greater part—are
those in real character. His very
genius was for unaffected simplicity;
attitudinizing recipes could never have
been adopted by him with satisfaction
to himself. Some of his slight, more
sketchy portraits, as yet unexperimented
upon by his powerful, frequently
rather too powerful, colouring,
his deep browns and yellows, are
unrivalled. Such is his Kitty Fisher,
not long since exhibited in the British
Gallery, Pall-Mall. There the character
is not overpowered by the
effect.

Gainsborough was the only painter
of his day that could, with any pretension,
vie with Sir Joshua Reynolds
in portrait. In some respects they
had similar excellences. Both were
alike, by natural taste, averse to affectation,
and both were colourists. As
a colourist, Gainsborough, as his pictures
are now, may be even preferred
to Reynolds. They seem to have
been painted off more at once, and
have therefore a greater freshness;
his flesh tints are truly surprising,
most true to life. He probably painted
with a more simple palette. The
pains and labour which Sir Joshua
bestowed, and which were perhaps
very surprising when his pictures
were fresh from the easel, have lost
much of their virtue. The great difference
between these great cotemporaries
lay in their power of character.
Gainsborough was as true as
could be to nature, where the character
was not of the very highest order.
Plain, downright common sense he
would hit off wonderfully, as in his
portrait of Ralphe Schomberg—a
picture, we are sorry to find, removed
from the National Gallery. The
world’s every-day men were for his
pencil. He did not so much excel in
women. The bent of Sir Joshua’s
mind was to elevate, to dignify, to intellectualize.
Enthusiasm, sentiment,
purity, and all the varied poetry of
feminine beauty, received their kindred
hues and most exquisite expression
under his hand. Whatever was
dignified in man, or lovely in woman,
was portrayed with its appropriate
grace and strength. Sir Joshua was,
in fact, himself the higher character;
ever endeavouring to improve and
cultivate his own mind, to raise it by
a dignified aim in his art and in his
life, and gathering the beauty of sentiment
to himself from its best source—the
practice of social and every
amiable charity—he was sure to transfer
to the canvass something characteristic
of himself. Gainsborough
was, in his way, a gentle enthusiast,
altogether of an humbler ambition.
Even in his landscapes, he showed
that he saw little in nature but what
the vulgar see; he had little idea that
what is commonly seen are the materials
of a better creation. Gainsborough
was unrivalled in his portraiture
of common truth, Reynolds in
poetical truth. Gainsborough spoke
in character in one of his letters,
wherein he said, that he “was well
read in the volume of nature, and that
was learning sufficient for him.” It
is said that he was proud—perhaps
his pride was shown in this remark—but
it was not a pride allied with
greatness. The pride of Reynolds
was quite of another stamp; it did not
disagree with his soundest judgment;
his estimate of himself was more true,
and it showed itself in modesty. That
such men should meet and associate
but little, is not surprising. That
Reynolds withdrew in “cold and
carefully meted out courtesy,” is not
surprising, though the expressions
quoted are written to disparage Reynolds.
The man of fixed purpose may
appear cold when he does not assimilate
with the man of caprice, (as was
Gainsborough,) in whose company
there is nothing to call forth a congeniality,
a sympathy; and it is probable
that Gainsborough felt as little
disposed as Sir Joshua, to preserve, or
even to seek, an intimacy. Their
final parting at the deathbed of Gainsborough
was most honourable to them
both; and the merit of seeking it was
entirely Gainsborough’s. It is singular
that any facts should be so perverted,
as to justify an insinuation
that Reynolds, whose whole life exhibited
the continued acts of a kind
heart, was a cautious and cold calculator.
Good sense has ever a reserve
of manner, the result of a habit of
thinking—and in one of a high aim,
it is apt to acquire almost a stateliness;
but even such stateliness is not inconsistent
with modesty and with feeling;
it is, in fact, the carriage of the
mind, seen in the manner and the
person. We make these remarks
under a disgust produced by the singularly
illiberal Life of Reynolds
by Allan Cunningham; we think we
should not err in saying, that it is
maliciously written. We were reading
this Life, and made many indignant
remarks as we read, when the
death of the author was announced
in the newspapers. We had determined,
as far as our power might extend,
to rescue the name and fame of
Reynolds from the mischief which so
popular a writer as Allan Cunningham
was likely to inflict. Death has
its sanctity, and we hesitated; indeed,
in regret for the loss of a man of talent,
we felt for a time little disposed
to think of the ill he may have done;
nor was, on mature consideration, the
regret less, that he could not, by our
means, be called to review his own
work—his “Lives of the British
Painters”—in a more candid spirit
than that in which they appear to have
been written. It is to be lamented
that he did not revise it. Its illiberality
and untruth render it very unfit
for a “Family Library,” for which it
was composed. Yet it must be confessed,
that such regret was rather
one of momentary feeling, than accompanied
with any thing like conviction,
or even hope, that our endeavour
would have been successful.
There was no one better acquainted
with the life of one of the painters in
his work than ourselves. His Life,
too, was written in a most illiberal
spirit, though purposely in praise of
the artist. But it was as untrue as it
was illiberal. In a paper in Blackwood,
some years ago, we noticed some
of the errors and mistatements. This,
we happen to know, was seen by the
author of the “Lives;” for we were,
in consequence, applied to upon the
subject; and there being an intention
expressed to bring out a new edition,
we were invited to correct what was
wrong. We did not hesitate, and
wrote some two or three letters for
the purpose, and entertained but little
doubt of their having been favourably
received, and that they would be used,
until we were surprised by a communication,
that the author “was
much obliged, but was perfectly satisfied
with his own account.” That is,
that he was much obliged for an endeavour
to mislead him by falsehood.
For both accounts could not
be true. There were, then, but small
grounds to hope that Allan Cunningham
would have so revised his
work, as to have done justice to Sir
Joshua Reynolds. Besides, after
all, “respect for the dead” moves
both ways. The question is between
the recently dead and the long since
dead. In the literary world, and in
the world of art, both yet live; and
the author of the Life has this advantage,
that thousands read the “Family
Library,” whilst but few, comparatively
speaking, make themselves
acquainted with Sir Joshua Reynolds
and his works. We revere this founder
of our English school, and feel it due
to the art we love, to condemn the
ungenerous and sarcastic spirit of
The Life, by Allan Cunningham.
And if the dead could have any interest
in and guidance of things on earth,
we can imagine no work that would
be more pleasing to them, than the
removal of even the slightest evils
they may have inflicted; thus making
restitution for them. It is very evident
throughout the “Lives,” that the
author has a prejudice against, an absolute
dislike to, Sir Joshua Reynolds.
We stay not to account for it. There
are men of some opinions who, whether
from pride, or other feeling, have
an antipathy to courtly manners, and
what is called higher society: jealous
and suspicious lest they should not
owe, and seen to owe, every thing to
themselves, there is a constant and irritable
desire to set aside, with a feigned,
oftener than a real, contempt, the
influence and the homage the world
pays to superiority of rank, station,
and education. They would wish to
have nothing above themselves. How
far such may have been the case with
the writer of the “Lives,” we know
not, totally unacquainted as we have
ever been, but by his writings. In
them there appears very strongly
marked this vulgar feeling. He has stepped
out of his way in other lives, such
as those of Wilson and Gainsborough,
to attack Sir Joshua by surmises and
insinuations of meanness, blurring the
fair character of his best acts. The
generous doings of the President were
too notorious not to be admitted, but
generally a sinister or selfish motive
is insinuated. His courtesy was unpleasing,
while extreme coarseness
met with a ready apologist. In the
several Lives of Sir Joshua Reynolds,
there does not appear the slightest
ground upon which to found a charge
of meanness of character: it is inconceivable
how such should have ever
been insinuated, while Northcote’s
“Life” of him was in existence, and
Northcote must have known him well.
He was most liberal in expenditure,
as became his station, and the dignity
which he was ambitiously desirous of
conferring upon the art over which
he presided. To artists and others in
their distresses he was most generous:
numerous, indeed, are the recorded
instances; those unrecorded may be
infinitely more numerous, for generosity
was with him a habit. In the
teeth of Mr Cunningham’s insinuations
we will extract from Northcote some
passages upon this point. “At that
time, indeed, Johnson was under many
pecuniary obligations, as well as literary
ones, to Sir Joshua, whose generous
kindness would never permit his
friends to ask a pecuniary favour, his
purse and heart being always open.”
That his heart as well as his purse was
open, the following anecdote more
than indicates. We are tempted to
give it unaltered, as we find it in the
words of Northcote:—

The following anecdote is delightful:—

Of such traits of benevolence certainly
many other instances may be
recorded, but I shall only mention
two; “the one is the purchasing a picture
of Zoffani, who was without a
patron, and selling it to the Earl of
Carlisle for twenty guineas above the
price given for it; and he sent the
advanced price immediately to Zoffani,
saying ‘he thought he had sold the
picture at first below its real value.'”

The other is—”the clergyman who
succeeded Sir Joshua’s father as master
of the grammar-school at Plympton,
at his decease left a widow, who,
after the death of her husband, opened
a boarding school for the education of
young ladies. The governess who
taught in this school had but few
friends in situations to enable them to
do her much service, and her sole dependence
was on her small stipend
from the school: hence she was unable
to make a sufficiently reputable appearance
in apparel at their accustomed
little balls. The daughter of
the schoolmistress, her only child,
and at that time a very young girl,
felt for the poor governess, and the
pitiable insufficiency in the article of
finery; but being unable to help her
from her own resources, devised within
herself a means by which it might be
done otherwise. Having heard of the
great fame of Sir Joshua Reynolds,
his character for generosity, and charity,
and recollecting that he had
formerly belonged to the Plympton
school, she, without mentioning a syllable
to any of her companions, addressed
a letter to Sir Joshua, whom
she had never even seen, in which she
represented to him the forlorn state
of the poor governess’s wardrobe,
and begged the gift of a silk gown for
her. Very shortly after, they received
a box containing silks of different patterns,
sufficient for two dresses, to the
infinite astonishment of the simple governess,
who was totally unable to
account for this piece of good fortune,
as the compassionate girl was afraid
to let her know the means she had
taken in order to procure the welcome
present.”—P. 307.

Mr Duyes, the artist, says—”malice
has charged him with avarice,
probably from his not having been
prodigal, like too many of his profession;
his offer to me proves the contrary.
At the time that I made the
drawings of the King at St Paul’s after
his illness, Reynolds complimented
me handsomely on seeing them, and
afterwards observed, that the labour
bestowed must have been such, that I
could not be remunerated from selling
them; but if I would publish them
myself, he would lend me the money
necessary, and engage to get me a
handsome subscription among the nobility.”—P. 35l.

We will here mention an anecdote
which we believe has never been published;
we heard it from our excellent
friend, and enthusiastic admirer
of all that taste, good sense, and good
feeling should admire and love, in
art or out of it—now far advanced in
years, and, like Sir Joshua, blind, but
full of enjoyment and conversation
fresh as ever upon art, for he remembers
and hears, beloved by all who
know him, G. Cumberland, Esq., author
of “Outlines,” &c. &c. He it was
who recommended Collins, the miniature-painter,
to Sir Joshua. Now
poor Collins was one of the most nervous
of men, morbidly distrustful of
himself and his powers. Our friend
showed us a portrait of Collins, painted
by himself, the very picture of most
sensitive nervousness. Well—Collins
waited upon Sir Joshua, who gave him
a picture to copy for him in miniature.
Collins took it, and trembled, and
looked all diffidence as he examined
Sir Joshua’s original. However, he
took it home with him, and after some
time came to Cumberland in great
agitation, expressing a conviction
that he never could copy it, that he
had destroyed three attempts, and
this, said he, is the best I can do, and
I will destroy it. This Cumberland
would not allow, and took possession
of it, and an admirable performance
it is. Soon another was done, and
Collins took it to Sir Joshua, with
many timid expressions and apologies
for his inability, that he feared displeasure
for having undertaken a work
above him. Sir Joshua looked at it,
declared it to be, as it was, a most excellent
copy, and gave him more to
do in the same way—telling him to
go to his scrutoire, open a drawer,
and he would find some guineas,
and to take out twenty to pay himself.
“Twenty guineas!” said Collins,
“I should not have thought
of receiving more than three!” This
kindness and liberality set up poor
Collins with a better stock of self-confidence,
and he made his way to
celebrity in his line, and to fortune.

Is it in human nature, that the man
of whom such anecdotes are told, and
truly told, could be guilty of a mean
unworthy action? Perhaps the reader
will be curious to see how the
writer of the “British Painters,” who,
from the recent date of his publication,
must have known all these incidents,
excepting the last, has converted
some of them, by insinuating
sarcasm, into charges that blurr their
virtue. We should say that he has
omitted, where he could omit—where
he could not, he is compelled to contradict
himself; for it is impossible that
the insinuations, and the facts, and
occasional acknowledgments, should
be together true of one and the same
man. We shall offer some specimens
of this illiberal style:—A neighbour of
Reynolds’s first advised him to settle
in London. His success there made
him remember this friendly advice—(the
neighbour’s name was Cranch.)
We quote now from Cunningham.
“The timely counsel of his neighbour
Cranch would have long afterwards
been rewarded with the present
of a silver cup, had not accident interfered.
‘Death,’ says Northcote,
‘prevented this act of gratitude. I
have seen the cup at Sir Joshua’s
table.’ The painter had the honour
of the intention and the use of the
cup—a twofold advantage, of which he
was not insensible.”—Lives of British
Painters, Vol. i, p. 220.—”Of lounging
visitors he had great abhorrence,
and, as he reckoned up the fruits of
his labours, ‘Those idle people,’ said
this disciple of the grand historical
school of Raphael and Angelo—’those
idle people do not consider that my
time is worth five guineas an hour.’
This calculation incidentally informs
us, that it was Reynolds’s practice, in
the height of his reputation and success,
to paint a portrait in four hours.”—P. 251.
In this Life, he could depreciate
art, (in a manner we are persuaded
he could not feel,) because it
lowered the estimation of the painter
whom he disliked. “One of the biographers
of Reynolds imputes the
reflections contained in the conclusion
of this letter, ‘to that envy, which
perhaps even Johnson felt, when comparing
his own annual gains with
those of his more fortunate friend.’
They are rather to be attributed to
the sense and taste of Johnson, who
could not but feel the utter worthlessness
of the far greater part of the
productions with which the walls of
the Exhibition-room were covered.
Artists are very willing to claim for
their profession and its productions
rather more than the world seems disposed
to concede. It is very natural
that this should be so; but it is also
natural, that man of Johnson’s taste
should be conscious of the dignity of
his own pursuits, and agree with the
vast majority of mankind in ranking
a Homer, a Virgil, a Milton, or a
Shakspeare, immeasurably above all
the artists that ever painted or carved.
Johnson, in a conversation with Boswell,
defined painting to be an art which
could illustrate, but could not inform.”—P. 255.
Does he so speak
of this art in any other Life; and
is not this view false and ill-natured?
Were not Raffaelle, Michael Angelo,
Correggio, Titian, Piombo, epic
poets?

“Johnson was a frequent and a
welcome guest. Though the sage was
not seldom sarcastic and overbearing,
he was endured and caressed, because
he poured out the riches of his conversation
more lavishly than Reynolds
did his wines.” He was compelled,
a sentence or two after, to add,
“It was honourable to that distinguished
artist, that he perceived the
worth of such men, and felt the honour
which their society shed upon
him; but it stopped not here, he often
aided them with his purse, nor insisted
upon repayment.”—P. 258. We
have marked “insisted”—it implies repayment
was expected, if not enforced;
and it might have been said, that a
mutual “honour” was conferred.
Speaking of Northcote’s and Malone’s
account of Sir Joshua’s “social
and well-furnished table,” he adds,
“these accounts, however, in as far
as regards the splendour of the entertainments,
must be received with some
abatement. The eye of a youthful
pupil was a little blinded by enthusiasm.
That of Malone was rendered
friendly, by many acts of hospitality,
and a handsome legacy; while literary
men and artists, who came to
speak of books and paintings, cared
little for the most part about the delicacy
of the entertainment, provided
it were wholesome.” Here he quotes
at length, no very good-natured account
of the dinners given by Courteney.—P.
273. Even his sister, poor
Miss Reynolds, whom Johnson loved
and respected, must have her share of
the writer’s sarcasm. “Miss
Reynolds seems to have been as indifferent
about the good order of her
domestics, and the appearance of her
dishes at table, as her brother was
about the distribution of his wine and
venison. Plenty was the splendour,
and freedom was the elegance, which
Malone and Boswell found in the entertainments
of the artist.”—P. 275.
If Reynolds was sparing of his wine,
the word “plenty” was most inappropriate.
Even the remark of Dunning,
Lord Ashburton, is perverted from its
evident meaning, and as explained by
Northcote, and the perversion casts a
slur upon Sir Joshua’s guests; yet is
it well known who they were. “Well,
Sir Joshua,” he said, “and who have
you got to dine with you to-day?—the
last time I dined in your house,
the company was of such a sort, that
by ——, I believe all the rest of the
world enjoyed peace for that
afternoon.”—P. 276. This is a gross
idea, and unworthy a gentle mind.
“By an opinion so critically sagacious,
and an apology for portrait-painting,
which appeals so effectually
to the kindly side of human nature,
Johnson repaid a hundred dinners.”—P.
276. The liberality to De Gree
is shortly told.—P. 298. “I have
said that the President was frugal in
his communications respecting the
sources from whence he drew his own
practice—he forgets his caution in one
of these notes.”—P. 303. We must
couple this with some previous remarks;
it is well known that Sir
Joshua, as Northcote tells us, carefully
locked up his experiments, and
for more reasons than one: first, he
was dissatisfied, as these were but
experiments; secondly, he considered
experimenting would draw away
pupils from the rudiments of the art.
Surely nothing but illiberal dislike
would have perverted the plain meaning
of the act. “The secret of Sir
Joshua’s own preparations was
carefully kept—he permitted not even the
most favoured of his pupils to acquire
the knowledge of his colours—he had
all securely locked, and allowed no
one to enter where these treasures
were deposited. What was the use
of all this secrecy? Those who stole
the mystery of his colours, could not
use it, unless they stole his skill and
talent also. A man who, like Reynolds,
chooses to take upon himself
the double office of public and private
instructor of students in painting,
ought not surely to retain a secret in
the art, which he considers of real
value.”—P. 287. He was, in fact,
too honest to mislead; and that he
did not think the right discovery made,
the author must have known; for
Northcote says—”when I was a student
at the Royal Academy, I was accidentally
repeating to Sir Joshua
the instructions on colouring I had
heard there given by an eminent painter,
who then attended as visitor. Sir
Joshua replied, that this painter was
undoubtedly a very sensible man, but
by no means a good colourist; adding,
that there was not a man then
on earth who had the least notion of
colouring. ‘We all of us,’ said he,
‘have it equally to seek for and find
out—as, at present, it is totally lost to
the art.'”—”In his economy he was
close and saving; while he poured out
his wines and spread out his tables to
the titled or the learned, he stinted
his domestics to the commonest fare,
and rewarded their faithfulness by
very moderate wages. One of his
servants, who survived till lately, described
him as a master who exacted
obedience in trifles—was prudent in
the matter of pins—a saver of bits of
thread—a man hard and parsimonious,
who never thought he had enough of
labour out of his dependents, and
always suspected that he overpaid them.
To this may be added the public opinion,
which pictured him close, cautious,
and sordid. On the other side, we
have the open testimony of Burke,
Malone, Boswell, and Johnson, who
all represent him as generous,
open-hearted, and humane. The servants
and the friends both spoke, we doubt
not, according to their own experience
of the man. Privations in early
life rendered strict economy
necessary; and in spite of many acts of
kindness, his mind, on the whole,
failed to expand with his fortune. He
continued the same system of saving
when he was master of sixty thousand
pounds, as when he owned but sixpence.
He loved reputation dearly,
and it would have been well for his
fame, if, over and above leaving legacies
to such friends as Burke and
Malone, he had opened his heart to
humbler people. A little would have
gone a long way—a kindly word and
a guinea prudently given.”—P. 319.
Opened his heart to humbler people!
was the author of this libel upon a
generous character, ignorant of his
charity to humbler people, which
Johnson certified? Why did he not
narrate the robbery of the black
servant, and his kindness to the
humblest and the most wretched? What
was fifty guineas to poor De Gree?
Who were the humbler people to
whom he denied his bounty? And is
the fair fame, the honest reputation—the
honourable reputation, we
should say—of such a man as Sir
Joshua Reynolds—such as he has
been proved to be—such as not only
such men as Burke and Johnson knew
him, but such as his pupil and inmate
Northcote knew him—to be vilified by
a low-minded biography, the dirty
ingredients of which are raked up from
lying mouths, or, at least, incapable
of judging of such a character—from
the lips of servants, whose idle tales of
masters who discard them, it is the
common usage of the decent, not to
say well-bred world, to pay no attention
to—not to listen to—and whom
none hear but the vulgar-curious, or
the slanderous? But if a servant’s
evidence must be taken, the fact of
the exhibition of Sir Joshua’s works
for his servant Kirkly should have
been enough—to say nothing here of
his black servant. But the story of
Kirkly is mentioned—and how
mentioned? To rake up a malevolent or
a thoughtless squib of the day, to
make it appear that Sir Joshua shared
in the gains of an exhibition ostensibly
given to his servant. The joke
is noticed by Northcote, and the
exhibition, thus:—”The private exhibition
of 1791, in the Haymarket, has
been already mentioned, and some
notice taken of it by a wicked wit,
who, at the time, wished to insinuate
that Sir Joshua was a partaker in the
profits. But this was not the truth;
neither do I believe there were any
profits to share. However, these lines
from Hudibras were inserted in a
morning paper, together with some
observations on the exhibition of
pictures collected by the knight—

thus gaily making a sacrifice of truth
to a joke.” It is very evident that this
was a mere newspaper squib, and
suggested by the “knight and his
squire Ralph;” but Cunningham so
gives it as “the opinion of many,”
and with rather more than a suspicion
of its truth. “Sir Joshua made an
exhibition of them in the Haymarket,
for the advantage of his faithful
servant Ralph Kirkly; but our painter’s
well-known love of gain excited public
suspicion; he was considered by
many as a partaker in the profits, and
reproached by the application of two
lines from Hudibras.”—P. 117. But
this report from a servant is evidently
no servant’s report at all, as far as the
words go: they are redolent throughout
of the peculiar satire of the author
of the “Lives,” who so loves point
and antithesis, who tells us Sir Joshua
“poured” out his wines, (the
distribution of which he had otherwise
spoken of,) that the stint to the
servants may have its fullest opposition.
And again, as to the humbler, does he
not contradict himself? He prefaces
the fact that Sir Joshua gave a
hundred guineas to Gainsborough, who
asked sixty, for his “Girl and Pigs,”
thus—”Reynolds was commonly
humane and tolerant; he could indeed
afford, both in fame and purse, to
commend and aid the timid and
needy.”—P. 304. This is qualifying
vilely a generous action, while it
contradicts his assertion of being sparing
of “a kindly word and a guinea.” Nor
are the occasional criticisms on
passages in the “Discourses” in a better
spirit, nor are they exempt from a
vulgar taste as to views of art; their
sole object is, apparently, to depreciate
Reynolds; and though a selection of
individual sentences might be picked
out, as in defence, of an entirely
laudatory character, they are contradicted
by others, and especially by the
sarcastic tone of the Life, taken as
a whole. But it is not only in the
Life of Reynolds that this attempt
is made to depreciate him. In his
“Lives” of Wilson and Gainsborough,
he steps out of his way to throw his
abominable sarcasm upon Reynolds.
One of many passages in Wilson’s
Life says, “It is reported that
Reynolds relaxed his hostility at last, and,
becoming generous when it was too
late, obtained an order from a nobleman
for two landscapes at a proper price.”
So he insinuates an unworthy hypocrisy,
while lauding the bluntness of
Wilson. “Such was the blunt
honesty of his (Wilson’s) nature, that,
when drawings were shown him which
he disliked, he disdained, or was
unable to give a courtly answer, and
made many of the students his
enemies. Reynolds had the sagacity to
escape from such difficulties, by looking
at the drawings and saying
‘Pretty, pretty,’ which vanity invariably
explained into a compliment.”—P. 207.
After having thus spoken
shamefully of Sir Joshua Reynolds in
the body of his work, he reiterates all
in a note, confirming all as his not
hasty but deliberate opinion, having
“now again gone over the narrative
very carefully, and found it impossible,
without violating the truth, to
make any alteration of importance as
to its facts;” and though he has
omitted so much which might have
been given to the honour of Reynolds,
he is “unconscious of having omitted
any enquiry likely to lead him aright.”—P. 320.
He may have made the
enquiry without using the information—a
practice not inconsistent in
such a biographer. For instance,
when he assumes, that in the portrait
of Beattie, the figures of Scepticism,
Sophistry, and Infidelity, represent
Hume, Voltaire, and Gibbon;
remarking, that they have survived the
“insult of Reynolds.” An enquiry
from Northcote ought to have led him
to conclude otherwise, for Northcote,
who had the best means of knowing,
says, “Because one of those figures
was a lean figure, (alluding to the
subordinate ones introduced,) and the
other a fat one, people of lively
imaginations pleased themselves with
finding in them the portraits of
Voltaire and Hume. But Sir Joshua, I
have reason to believe, had no such
thought when he painted those figures.”
We have done with this disgusting
Life. We would preserve to art
and the virtue-loving part of mankind
the great integrity of the character of
Sir Joshua Reynolds. Documents and
testimonies are sufficient to establish
as much entire worth as falls to the
lot and adornment of the best; and to
bring this conviction, that, for the
justice, candour, liberality, kindness,
and generosity, which he showed in
his dealings with all, even his
professional rivals, if he had not had the
extraordinary merit of being the greatest
British painter, he deserved, and
will deserve, the respect of mankind;
and to have had his many and great
virtues recorded in a far other manner
than in that among the “Lives of
the British Painters.” His pictures
may have faded, and may decay; but
his precepts will still live, and tend to
the establishment and continuance of
art built upon the soundest principles;
and the virtues of the man will ever
give a grace to the profession which
he adorned, and, for the benefit of art,
contribute mainly to his own fame.

“Nihil enim est opere aut manu
factum, quod aliquando non conficiat
et consumat Vetustas; at vero hæc
tua justitia et lenitas animi florescet
quotidie magis, ita ut quantum operibus
tuis dinturnitas detrahet, tantum
afferet laudibus.”

“He had,” says Burke, “from the
beginning of his malady, a distinct
view of his dissolution; and he
contemplated it with that entire composure,
which nothing but the innocence,
integrity, and usefulness of his life,
and an unaffected submission to the
will of Providence, could bestow.”

LEAP-YEAR.—A TALE.

CHAPTER I.

In the summer of 1838, in the pleasant
little county of Huntingdon, and
under the shade of some noble elms
which form the pride of Lipscombe
Park, two young men might have
been seen reclining. The thick, and
towering, and far-spreading branches
under which they lay, effectually
protected them from a July sun, which
threw its scorching brilliancy over
the whole landscape before them.
They seemed to enjoy to the full that
delightful retired openness which an
English park affords, and that easy
effortless communion which only old
companionship can give. They were,
in fact, fellow collegians. The one,
Reginald Darcy by name, was a ward
of Mr Sherwood, the wealthy
proprietor of Lipscombe Park; the other,
his friend, Charles Griffith, was passing
a few days with him in this agreeable
retreat. They had spent the
greater part of the morning strolling
through the park, making short
journeys from one clump of trees to
another, and traversing just so much of
the open sunny space which lay
exposed to all the “bright severity of
noon,” as gave fresh value to the shade,
and renewed the luxury of repose.

“Only observe,” said Darcy, breaking
silence, after a long pause, and
without any apparent link of
connexion between their last topic of
conversation and the sage reflection he
was about to launch—”only
observe,” and, as he raised himself upon
his elbow, something very like a sigh
escaped from him, “how complete, in
our modern system of life, is the
ascendency of woman over us! Every art
is hers—is devoted to her service.
Poetry, music, painting, sculpture—all
seem to have no theme but
woman. It is her loveliness, her power
over us, that is paraded and chanted
on every side. Poets have been always
mad on the beauty of woman, but
never so mad as now; we must not
only submit to be sense-enthralled,
the very innermost spirit of a man is
to be deliberately resigned to the
tyranny of a smooth brow and a soft
eye. Music, which grows rampant
with passion, speaks in all its tones of
woman: as long as the strain lasts
we are in a frenzy of love, though it
is not very clear with whom, and
happily the delirium ends the moment
the strings of the violin have ceased
to vibrate. What subject has the
painter worth a rush but the beauty
of woman? We gaze for ever on the
charming face which smiles on us
from his canvass; we may gaze with
perfect license—that veil which has
just been lifted to the brow, it will
never be dropt again—but we do not
gaze with perfect impunity; we turn
from the lovely shadow with knees how
prone to bend! And as to the sculptor,
on condition that he hold to the pure
colourless marble, is he not permitted
to reveal the sacred charms of Venus
herself? Every art is hers. Go to
the theatre, and whether it be tragedy,
or comedy, or opera, or dance,
the attraction of woman is the very life
of all that is transacted there. Shut
yourself up at home with the poem or
the novel, and lo! to love, and to be
loved, by one fair creature, is all that
the world has to dignify with the name
of happiness. It is too much. The
heart aches and sickens with an
unclaimed affection, kindled to no
purpose. Every where the eye, the ear,
the imagination, is provoked, bewildered,
haunted by the magic of this
universal syren.

“And what is worse,” continued
our profound philosopher—and here
he rose from his elbow, and supported
himself at arm’s length from the
ground, one hand resting on the turf,
the other at liberty, if required, for
oratorical action—”what is worse,
this place which woman occupies in
art is but a fair reflection of that
which she fills in real life. Just
heavens! what a perpetual wonder it is,
this living, breathing beauty! Throw
all your metaphors to the winds—your
poetic raptures—your ideals—your
romance of position and of
circumstance: look at a fair, amiable,
cultivated woman, as you meet her in
the actual, commonplace scenes of
life: she is literally, prosaically
speaking, the last consummate result of
the creative power of nature, and the
gathered refinements of centuries of
human civilization. The world can
show nothing comparable to that light,
graceful figure of the girl just blooming
into perfect womanhood. Imagination
cannot go beyond it. There
is all the marvel, if you think of it,
in that slight figure, as she treads
across the carpet of a modern drawing-room,
that has ever been expressed
in, or given origin to, the nymphs,
goddesses, and angels that the fancy of
man has teemed with. I declare that
a pious heathen would as soon insult
the august statue of Minerva herself,
as would any civilized being treat
that slender form with the least show
of rudeness and indignity. A Chartist,
indeed, or a Leveller, would do it;
but it would pain him—he would be
a martyr to his principles. Verily
we are slaves to the fair miracle!”

“Well,” said his companion, who
had all this time been leisurely pulling
to pieces some wild flowers he had
gathered in the course of the morning’s
ramble, “what does it all end
in? What, at last, but the old story—love
and a marriage?”

“Love often where there is no possibility
of marriage,” replied Darcy,
starting up altogether from his recumbent
posture, and pacing to and fro under
the shadow of the tree. “The full
heart, how often does it swell only to
feel the pressure of the iron bond of
poverty! This very sentiment, which
our cultivation refines, fosters, makes
supreme, is encountered by that harsh
and cruel evil which grows also with
the growth of civilization—poverty—civilized
poverty. Oh, ’tis a frightful
thing, this well-born, well-bred poverty!
There is a pauper state,
which, loathsome as it is to look upon,
yet brings with it a callousness to
endure all inflictions, and a recklessness
that can seize with avidity whatever
coarse fragments of pleasure the
day or the hour may afford. But this
poverty applies itself to nerves strung
for the subtlest happiness. No torpor
here; no moments of rash and unscrupulous
gratification—unreflected
on, unrepented of—which being often
repeated make, in the end, a large
sum of human life; but the heart incessantly
demands a genuine and enduring
happiness, and is incessantly
denied. It is a poverty which even
helps to keep alive the susceptibility
it tortures; for the man who has
never loved, or been the object of affection,
whose heart has been fed only
by an untaught imagination, feels a
passion—feels a regret—it may be
far more than commensurate with
that envied reality which life possesses
and withholds from him. No!
there is nothing in the circle of human
existence more fearful to contemplate
than this perpetual divorce—irrevocable,
yet pronounced anew each instant
of our lives—between the soul and its
best affections. And—look you!–this
misery passes along the world under
the mask of easy indifference, and
wears a smiling face, and submits to
be rallied by the wit, and assumes itself
the air of vulgar jocularity. Oh,
this penury that goes well clad, and
is warmly housed, and makes a mock
of its own anguish—I’d rather die on
the wheel, or be starved to death in a
dungeon!

“My excellent friend!” cried Griffith,
startled from his quiescent posture,
and tranquil occupation, by the
growing excitement of his companion,
“what has possessed you? Is it the
daughter of our worthy host—is it
Emily Sherwood, the nymph who
haunts these woods—who has given
birth to this marvellous train of reflection?
to this rhapsody on the omnipresence
of woman, which I certainly
had never discovered, and on the
misery of a snug bachelor’s income,
which to me is still more incomprehensible?
I confess, however, it
would be difficult to find a better specimen
of this fearfully fascinating sex.”—

“Pshaw!” interrupted Darcy, “what
is the heiress of Lipscombe Park to
me?—a girl who might claim alliance
with the wealthiest and noblest of the
land—to me, who have just that rag
of property, enough to keep from open
shame one miserable biped? Can a
man never make a general reflection
upon one of the most general of all
topics, without being met by a personal
allusion? I thought you had
been superior, Griffith, to this dull
and hackneyed retort.”

“Well, well; be not wroth”—

“But I am. There is something
so odious in this trite and universal
banter. Besides, to have it intimated,
even in jest, that I would take advantage
of my position in this family to
pay my ridiculous addresses to Miss
Sherwood—I do declare, Griffith, I
never will again to you, or any other
man, touch upon this subject, but in
the same strain of unmeaning levity
one is compelled to listen to, and imitate,
in the society of coxcombs.”

“At all events,” said Griffith,
“give me leave to say that I admire
Miss Sherwood, and that I shall think
it a crying shame if so beautiful and
intelligent a girl is suffered to fall into
the clutches of this stupid baronet who
is laying siege to her—this pompous,
empty-headed Sir Frederic Beaumantle.”

“Sir Frederic Beaumantle,” said
Darcy, with some remains of humour,
“may be all you describe him, but he
is very rich, and, mark me, he will
win the lady. Old Sherwood suspects
him for a fool, but his extensive estates
are unincumbered—he will approve his
suit. His daughter makes him a constant
laughing-stock, she is perpetually
ridiculing his presumption and his vanity;
but she will end by marrying
the rich baronet. It will be in the
usual course of things; society will
expect it; and it is so safe, so prudent,
to do what society expects. Let
wealth wed with wealth. It is quite
right. I would never advise any man
to marry a woman much richer than
himself, so as to be indebted to her
for his position in society. It is useless
to say, or to feel, that her
wealth was not the object of your suit. You
may carry it how you will—what says
the song?

“But come, our host is punctual to
his dinner hour, and if we journey
back at the same pace we have travelled
here, we shall not have much
time upon our hands.” And accordingly
the two friends set themselves in
motion to return to the house.

Our readers have, of course, discovered
that, in spite of his disclaimer,
Reginald Darcy was in love with
Emily Sherwood. He was, indeed,
very far gone, and had suffered great
extremities; but his pride had kept
pace with his passion. Left an orphan
at an early age, and placed by
the will of his father under the guardianship
of Mr Sherwood, Darcy had
found in the residence of that gentleman
a home during the holidays when
a schoolboy, and during the vacations
when a collegian. Having lately taken
his degree at Cambridge, with
high honours, which had been strenuously
contended for, and purchased by
severe labour, he was now recruiting
his health, and enjoying a season of
well-earned leisure under his guardian’s
roof. As Mr Sherwood was old
and gouty, and confined much to his
room, it fell on him to escort Emily
in her rides or walks. She whom he
had known, and been so often delighted
with, as his little playmate, had grown
into the young and lovely woman.
Briefly, our Darcy was a lost man—gone—head
and heart. But then—she
was the only daughter of Mr
Sherwood, she was a wealthy heiress—he
was comparatively poor. Her
father had been to him the kindest of
guardians: ought he to repay that
kindness by destroying, perhaps, his
proudest schemes? Ought he, a man
of fitting and becoming pride, to put
himself in the equivocal position which
the poor suitor of a wealthy heiress must
inevitably occupy? “He invites me,”
he would say to himself, “he presses
me to stay here, week after week,
and month after month, because the
idea that I should seek to carry away
his daughter never enters into his
head. And she—she is so frank, so
gay, so amiable, and almost fond, because
she has never recognized, with
the companion of her childhood, the
possibility of such a thing as marriage.
There is but one part for me—silence,
strict, unbroken silence!”

Charles Griffith was not far from
the truth, when he said that it would
be difficult to find a better specimen
of her fascinating sex than the daughter
of their host. But it was not her
beauty, remarkable as this was—it
was not her brightest of blue eyes, nor
her fairest of complexions, nor those
rich luxuriant tresses—that formed the
greatest charm in Emily Sherwood.
It was the delightful combination she
displayed of a cheerful vivacious temper
with generous and ardent feelings.
She was as light and playful as one of
the fawns in her own park, but her
heart responded also to every noble
and disinterested sentiment; and the
poet who sought a listener for some
lofty or tender strain, would have
found the spirit that he wanted in the
gay and mirth-loving Emily Sherwood.

Poor Darcy! he would sit, or walk,
by her side, talking of this or that, no
matter what, always happy in her presence,
passing the most delicious hours,
but not venturing to betray, by word
or look, how very content he was.
For these hours of stolen happiness
he knew how severe a penalty he must
pay: he knew and braved it. And
in our poor judgment he was right.
Let the secret, stealthy, unrequited
lover enjoy to the full the presence,
the smiles, the bland and cheerful society
of her whom his heart is silently
worshipping. Even this shall in future
hours be a sweet remembrance.
By and by, it is true, there will come
a season of poignant affliction. But
better all this than one uniform, perpetual
torpor. He will have felt that
mortal man may breathe the air of
happiness; he will have learned something
of the human heart that lies
within him.

But all this love—was it seen—was
it returned—by her who had inspired
it? Both, both. He thought, wise
youth! that while he was swallowing
draught after draught of this delicious
poison, no one perceived the deep intoxication
he was revelling in. Just
as wisely some veritable toper, by putting
on a grave and demure countenance,
cheats himself into the belief
that he conceals from every eye that
delectable and irresistible confusion
in which his brain is swimming. His
love was seen. How could it be otherwise?
That instantaneous, that complete
delight which he felt when she
joined him in his rambles, or came to
sit with him in the library, could not
be disguised nor mistaken. He was
a scholar, a reader and lover of books,
but let the book be what it might
which he held in his hand, it was abandoned,
closed, pitched aside, the moment
she entered. There was no
stolen glance at the page left still
open; nor was the place kept marked
by the tenacious finger and thumb.
If her voice were heard on the terrace,
or in the garden—if her laugh—so
light, merry, and musical, reached his
ear—there was no question or debate
whether he should go or stay, but
down the stairs, or through the avenues
of the garden—he sprung—he
ran;—only a little before he came in
sight he would assume something of
the gravity becoming in a senior
wrangler, or try to look as if he came
there by chance. His love was seen,
and not with indifference. But what
could the damsel do? How presume
to know of an attachment until in due
form certified thereof? If a youth
will adhere to an obstinate silence,
what, we repeat, can a damsel do but
leave him to his fate, and listen to
some other, who, if he loves less, at least
knows how to avow his love?

CHAPTER II.

We left the two friends proceeding
towards the mansion; we enter before
them, and introduce our readers
into the drawing-room. Here, in a
spacious and shaded apartment, made
cool, as well by the massive walls of
the noble edifice as by the open and
protected windows, whose broad balcony
was blooming with the most
beautiful and fragrant of plants, sat
Emily Sherwood. She was not, however,
alone. At the same round table,
which was covered with vases of
flowers, and with books as gay as
flowers, was seated another young
lady, Miss Julia Danvers, a friend
who had arrived in the course of the
morning on a visit to Lipscombe Park.
The young ladies seemed to have been
in deep consultation.

“I can never thank you sufficiently,”
said Miss Danvers, “for your
kindness in this affair.”

“Indeed but you can very soon
thank me much more than sufficiently,”
replied her more lively companion,
“for there are few things in the world
I dislike so much as thanks. And yet
there is one cause of thankfulness you
have, and know not of. Here have I
listened to your troubles, as you call
them, for more than two hours, and
never once told you any of my own.
Troubles! you are, in my estimation,
a very happy, enviable girl.”

“Do you think it then so great a
happiness to be obliged to take refuge
from an absurd selfish stepmother, in
order to get by stealth one’s own lawful
way?”

“One’s own way is always lawful,
my dear. No tautology. But you
have it—while I”——

“Well, what is the matter?”

“Julia, dear—now do not laugh—I
have a lover that won’t speak. I have
another, or one who calls himself such,
who has spoken, or whose wealth, I
fear, has spoken, to some purpose—to
my father.”

“And you would open the mouth
of the dumb, and stop the mouth
of the foolish?”

“Exactly.”

“Who are they? And first, to proceed
by due climax, who is he whose
mouth is to be closed?”

“A baronet of these parts, Sir
Frederic Beaumantle. A vain, vain,
vain man. It would be a waste of
good words to spend another epithet
upon him, for he is all vanity. All
his virtues, all his vices, all his actions,
good, bad, and indifferent, are nothing
but vanity. He praises you from vanity,
abuses you from vanity, loves and
hates you from vanity. He is vain of
his person, of his wealth, of his birth,
of his title, vain of all he has, and all
he has not. He sets so great a value
on his innumerable and superlative
good qualities, that he really has not
been able (until he met with your
humble servant) to find any individual
of our sex on whom he could, conscientiously,
bestow so great a treasure
as his own right hand must inevitably
give away. This has been the only
reason—he tells me so himself—why
he has remained so long unmarried;
for he has rounded the arch, and is
going down the bridge. To take his
own account of this delicate matter, he
is fluctuating, with an uneasy motion,
to and fro, between forty and forty-five.”

“Old enough, I doubt not, to be
your father. How can he venture on
such a frolicsome young thing as
you?”

“I asked him that question myself
one day; and he told me, with a
most complacent smile, that I should
be the perfect compendium of matrimony—he
should have wife and child
in one.”

“The old coxcomb! And yet
there was a sort of providence in
that.—Now, who is he whose mouth
is to be opened?”

“Oh—he!–can’t you guess?”

“Your cousin Reginald, as you
used to call him—though cousin
I believe he is none—this learned
wrangler?”

“The same. Trust me, he loves
me to the bottom of his heart; but
because his little cousin is a great
heiress, he thinks it fit to be very
proud, and gives me over—many
thanks to him—to this rich baronet.
But here he comes.”

As she spoke, Darcy and Griffith
entered the room.

“We have been canvassing,” said
Emily, after the usual forms of introduction
had been gone through, “the
merits of our friend, Sir Frederic
Beaumantle. By the way, Reginald,
he dines here to-day, and so will another
gentleman, whom I shall be
happy to introduce to you, Captain
Garland, an esteemed friend of mine
and Miss Danvers’.”

“Sir Frederic seems,” said Griffith,
by way merely of taking part
in the conversation, “at all events, a
very good-natured man. I have seen
him but once, and he has already
promised to use all his influence in my
behalf, in whatever profession I may
embark. If medicine, I am to have
half-a-dozen dowagers, always ailing
and never ill, put under my charge
the moment I can add M.D. to my
name; not to speak of certain mysterious
hints of an introduction at
court, and an appointment of physician
extraordinary to Her Majesty.
I suppose I may depend upon Sir
Frederic’s promises?”

“Oh, certainly,” said Miss Sherwood,
“you may depend upon Sir
Frederic Beaumantle’s promises; they
will never fail; they are inexhaustible.”

“The fool!” said Darcy with impatience,
“I could forgive him any
thing but that ridiculous ostentation
he has of patronizing men, who, but
they have more politeness than himself,
would throw back his promises
with open derision.”

“Reginald,” said Miss Sherwood,
“is always forgiving Sir Frederic
every fault but one. But then that
one fault changes every day. Last
time he would pardon him every
thing except the fulsome eulogy he is
in the habit of bestowing upon his
friends, even to their faces. You
must know, Mr Griffith, that Sir
Frederic is a most liberal chapman in
this commodity of praise: he will
give any man a bushel-full of compliments
who will send him back the
measure only half filled. Nay, if
there are but a few cherries clinging
to the wicker-work he is not wholly
dissatisfied.”

“What he gives he knows is trash,”
said Darcy; “what he receives he
always flatters himself to be true coin.
But indeed Sir Frederic is somewhat
more just in his dealings than you,
perhaps, imagine. If he bestows excessive
laudation on a friend in one
company, he takes it all back again
in the very next he enters.”

“And still his amiability shines
through all; for he abuses the absent
friend only to gratify the self-love
of those who are present.”

The door opened as Miss Sherwood
gave this coup-de-grace to the character
of the baronet, and Sir Frederic
Beaumantle was announced,
and immediately afterwards, Captain
Garland.

Miss Sherwood, somewhat to the
surprise of Darcy, who was not aware
that any such intimacy subsisted between
them, received Captain Garland
with all the cordiality of an old
acquaintance. On the other hand she
introduced the baronet to Miss Danvers
with that slightly emphatic manner
which intimates that the parties
may entertain a “high consideration”
for each other.

“You are too good a herald, Sir
Frederic,” she said, “not to know
the Danverses of Dorsetshire.”

“I shall be proud,” replied the
baronet, “to make the acquaintance
of Miss Danvers.”

“She has come to my poor castle,”
continued Miss Sherwood, “like the
distressed princess in the Faery Queen,
and I must look out for some red-cross
knight to be her champion,
and redress her wrongs.”

“It is not the first time,” said the
lady thus introduced, “that I have
heard of the name of Sir Frederic
Beaumantle.”

“I dare say not, I dare say not,”
answered the gratified baronet.
“Mine, I may venture to say, is an
historic name. Did you ever peruse,
Miss Danvers, a work entitled ‘The
History of the County of Huntingdon?’
You would find in it many
curious particulars relating to the
Beaumantles, and one anecdote especially,
drawn, I may say, from the archives
of our family, which throws
a new light upon the reign and character
of Charles II. It is a very
able performance is this ‘History of
the County of Huntingdon;’ it is written
by a modest and ingenious person
of my acquaintance, and I felt great
pleasure in lending him my poor assistance
in the compilation of it. My
name is mentioned in the preface.
Perhaps,” he added with a significant
smile, “it might have claimed a still
more conspicuous place; but I hold
it more becoming in persons of rank
to be the patrons than the competitors
of men of letters.”

“I should think,” said Miss Danvers
very quietly, “it were the more
prudent plan for them to adopt. But
what is this anecdote you allude
to?”

“An ancestor of mine—But I am
afraid,” said the baronet, casting a deprecatory
look at Miss Sherwood,
“that some here have read it, or
heard me repeat it before.”

“Oh, pray proceed,” said the
young lady appealed to.

“An ancestor of mine,” resumed
the baronet, “on being presented at
the Court of Charles II., soon after
the Restoration, attracted the attention
of that merry monarch and his
witty courtiers, by the antique fashion
of his cloak. ‘Beaumantle! Beaumantle!’
said the king, ‘who gave
thee that name?’ My ancestor, who
was a grave man, and well brought up,
answered, ‘Sire, my godfathers
and my godmothers at my baptism.’
‘Well responded!’ said the king with
a smile; ‘and they gave thee thy
raiment also, as it seems.’ These last
words were added in a lower voice,
and did not reach the ear of my ancestor,
but they were reported to him
immediately afterwards, and have been
treasured up in our family ever since.
I thought it my duty to make it known
to the world as an historical fact,
strikingly illustrative of a very important
period in our annals.”

“Why, your name,” said Miss
Danvers, “appears to be historical in
more senses than one.”

“I hope soon—but I would not wish
this to go beyond the present company,”
said Sir Frederic, and he looked
round the circle with a countenance
of the most imposing solemnity—”I
hope soon that you will hear of it
being elevated to the peerage—that
is, when Sir Robert Peel comes into
power.”

“You know Sir Robert, then?”
said Griffith, with perfect simplicity.

“Public men,” said Sir Frederic,
“are sufficiently introduced by public
report. Besides, Mr Griffith—we
baronets!–we constitute a sort of
brotherhood. I have employed all my
influence in the county, and I may
safely say it is not little, to raise the
character and estimation of Sir Robert,
and I have no doubt that he will
gladly testify his acknowledgment of
my services by this trifling return.
And as it is well known that my
estates”—

But the baronet was interrupted in
mid career by the announcement of
dinner.

Miss Sherwood took the arm of
Captain Garland, and directed Sir
Frederic to lead down Miss Danvers.

“You will excuse my father,” she
said, as they descended, “for not
meeting us in the drawing-room. His
gout makes him a lame pedestrian.
We shall find him already seated at
the table.”

At the dinner-table the same
arrangement was preserved. Miss
Sherwood had placed Captain Garland
by her side, and conversed almost
exclusively with him; while the Baronet
was kept in play by the sedulous
flattery of Miss Danvers.

After a few days, it became evident
to all the household at Lipscombe
Park that a new claimant for the hand
of Miss Sherwood had appeared in
the person of Captain Garland. The
captain did not reside in the house,
but, on the pretence of a very strong
passion for trout-fishing, he had taken
up his quarters in apartments within
a most convenient distance of the
scene of operations. It was not forgotten
that, at the very time he made
his appearance, Miss Danvers also
arrived at the Park, and between these
parties there was suspected to be some
secret understanding. It seemed as
if our military suitor had resolved to
assail the fort from within as well
as from without, and therefore had
brought down with him this fair ally.
Nothing better than such a fair ally.
She could not only chant his praises
when absent, (and there is much in
that,) but she could so manœuvre as
to procure for the captain many a
tête-à-tête, which otherwise would not
fall to his share. Especially, (and
this task she appeared to accomplish
most adroitly,) she could engage to
herself the attentions of his professed
and redoubtable rival, Sir Frederic
Beaumantle. In fifty ways she could
assist in betraying the citadel from
within, whilst he stood storming at
the gates, in open and most magnanimous
warfare. Darcy was not slower
than others to suspect the stratagem,
and he thought he saw symptoms of
its success. His friend Griffith had
now left him; he had no dispassionate
observer to consult, and his own desponding
passion led him to conclude
whatever was most unfavourable to
himself. Certainly there was a confidential
manner between Miss Sherwood
and these close allies, which
seemed to justify the suspicion alluded
to. More than once, when he had
joined Miss Sherwood and the captain,
the unpleasant discovery had been
forced upon him, by the sudden pause
in their conversation, that he was the
one too many.

But jealousy? Oh, no! What had
he to do with jealousy? For his part,
he was quite delighted with this new
attachment—quite delighted; it would
set at rest for ever the painful controversy
so often agitated in his own
breast. Nevertheless, it must be confessed
that he felt the rivalry of Captain
Garland in a very different manner
from that of Sir Frederic Beaumantle.
The baronet, by virtue of
his wealth alone, would obtain success;
and he felt a sort of bitter satisfaction
in yielding Emily to her opulent suitor.
She might marry, but she could
not love him; she might be thinking
of another, perhaps of her cousin
Reginald, even while she gave her
hand to him at the altar. But if the
gallant captain, whose handsome person,
and frank and gentlemanly manners,
formed his chief recommendation,
were to be the happy man, then
must her affections have been won,
and Emily was lost to him utterly.
And then—with the usual logic of the
passions, and forgetting the part of
silence and disguise that he had played—he
taxed her with levity and unkindness
in so soon preferring the
captain to himself. That Emily should
so soon have linked herself with a
comparative stranger! It was not
what he should have expected. “At
all events,” he would thus conclude
his soliloquy, “I am henceforward
free—free from her bondage and from
all internal struggle. Yes! I am
free!” he exclaimed, as he paced his
room triumphantly. The light voice
of Emily was heard calling on him to
accompany her in a walk. He started,
he flew. His freedom, we suppose,
gave him wings, for he was at her side
in a moment.

Reginald had intended, on the first
opportunity, to rally his cousin upon
her sudden attachment to the captain,
but his tongue absolutely refused the
office. He could not utter a word of
banter on the subject. His heart was
too full.

On this occasion, as they returned
from their walk through the park, there
happened one of those incidents which
have so often, at least in novels and
story-books, brought about the happiness
of lovers, but which in the present
instance served only to bring into
play the most painful feelings of both
parties.

A prize-fight had taken place in the
neighbourhood, and one of the numerous
visitors of that truly noble exhibition,
who, in order to do honour to
the day, had deprived Smithfield market
of the light of his countenance,
was returning across the park from
the scene of combat, accompanied by
his bull-dog. The dog, who doubtless
knew that his master was a trespasser,
and considered it the better
policy to assume at once the offensive,
flew at the party whom he saw
approaching. Emily was a little in
advance. Darcy rushed forward to
plant himself between her and this
ferocious assailant. He had no weapon
of defence of any kind, and, to
say truth, he had at that moment no
idea of defending himself, or any distinct
notion whatever of combating
his antagonist. The only reflection
that occurred to his mind was, that if
the animal satiated its fury upon him,
his companion would be safe. A strong
leg and a stout boot might have done
something; Darcy, stooping down,
put the fleshy part of his own arm
fairly into the bulldog’s jaws; assured
that, at all events, it could not
bite two persons at the same time, and
that, if its teeth were buried in his
own arm, they could not be engaged
in lacerating Emily Sherwood. It is
the well-known nature of the bull-dog
to fasten where it once bites, and
the brute pinned Darcy to the ground,
until its owner, arriving on the spot,
extricated him from his very painful
position.

In this encounter, our senior wrangler
probably showed himself very
unskilful and deficient in the combat
with wild beasts, but no conduct
could have displayed a more engrossing
anxiety for the safety of his fair
companion. Most men would have
been willing to reap advantage from
the grateful sentiment which such a
conduct must inspire; Darcy, on the
contrary, seemed to have no other
wish than to disclaim all title to such
a sentiment. He would not endure
that the incident should be spoken of
with the least gravity or seriousness.

“I pray you,” said he, “do not
mention this silly business again.
What I did, every living man who
had found himself by your side would
have done, and most men in a far
more dexterous manner. And, indeed,
if instead of yourself, the merest
stranger—the poorest creature in the
parish, man, woman, or child, had
been in your predicament, I think I
should have done the same.”

“I know you would, Reginald. I
believe,” said Emily, “that if the
merest idiot had been threatened with
the danger that threatened me, you
would have interposed, and received
the attack yourself. And it is because
I believe this of you, Reginald”——

Something apparently impeded her
utterance, for the sentence was left
unfinished.

“For this wound,” resumed Darcy,
after a pause, and observing that
Emily’s eye was resting on his arm,
“it is really nothing more than a just
penalty for my own want of address
in this notable combat. You should
have had the captain with you,” he
added; “he would have defended
you quite as zealously, and with ten
times the skill.”

Emily made no answer; and they
walked on in silence till they entered
the Hall. Reginald felt that he had
been ungracious; but he knew not
how to retrieve his position. Just before
they parted, Emily resuming, in
some measure, her natural and cheerful
manner, turned to her companion,
and said—”Years ago, when you were
cousin Reginald, and condescended to
be my playfellow, the greatest services
you rendered were to throw me
occasionally out of the swing, or
frighten me till I screamed by putting
my pony into a most unmerciful trot;
but you were always so kind in the
making up, that I liked you the better
afterwards. Now, when you preserve
me, at your own hazard, from a very
serious injury—you do it in so surly a
manner—I wish the dog had bitten
me!” And with this she left him and
tripped up stairs.

If Darcy could have followed her
into her own room, he would have
seen her throw herself into an armchair,
and burst into a flood of tears.

CHAPTER III.

Miss Danvers, it has been said,
(from whatever motive her conduct
proceeded, whether from any interest
of her own, or merely a desire to serve
the interest of her friend, Captain
Garland,) showed a disposition to engross
the attentions of Sir Frederic
Beaumantle as often as he made his
appearance at Lipscombe Park. Now,
as that lady was undoubtedly of good
family, and possessed of considerable
fortune, the baronet was not a little
flattered by the interest which a person
who had these excellent qualifications
for a judge, manifestly took in
his conversation. In an equal degree
was his dignity offended at the preference
shown by Miss Sherwood for
Captain Garland, a man, as he said, but
of yesterday, and not in any one point
of view to be put in comparison with
himself. He almost resolved to
punish her levity by withdrawing his
suit. The graver manner, and somewhat
more mature age of Miss Danvers
were also qualities which he was
obliged to confess were somewhat in
her favour.

The result of all this was, that one
fine morning Sir Frederic Beaumantle
might have been seen walking to
and fro in his own park, with a
troubled step, bearing in his hand a
letter—most elaborately penned—carefully
written out—sealed—but not directed.
It was an explicit declaration
of his love, a solemn offer of his hand;
it was only not quite determined to
whom it should be sent. As the letter
contained very little that referred
to the lady, and consisted almost entirely
of an account, not at all disparaging,
of himself and his own good
qualities, it was easy for him to proceed
thus far upon his delicate negotiation,
although the main question—to
whom the letter was to be addressed—was
not yet decided. This letter
had indeed been a labour of love. It
was as little written for Miss Sherwood
as for Miss Danvers. It was
composed for the occasion whenever
that might arise; and for these ten
years past it had been lying in his
desk, receiving from time to time
fresh touches and emendations. The
necessity of making use of this epistle,
which had now attained a state of
painful perfection, we venture to say
had some share in impelling him into
matrimony. To some one it must
be sent, or how could it appear to any
advantage in those “Memoirs of Sir
Frederic Beaumantle,” which, some
future day, were to console the world
for his decease, and the prospect of
which (for he saw them already in
beautiful hot-pressed quarto) almost
consoled himself for the necessity of
dying? The intended love-letter!–this
would have an air of ridicule,
while the real declaration of Sir Frederic
Beaumantle, which would not
only adorn the Memoirs above mentioned,
but would ultimately form a
part of the “History of the County of
Huntingdon.” We hope ourselves, by
the way, to have the honour of editing
those Memoirs, should we be so
unfortunate as to survive Sir Frederic.

But we must leave our baronet with
his letter in his hand, gazing profoundly
and anxiously on the blank
left for the superscription, and must
follow the perplexities of Reginald
Darcy.

That good understanding which
apparently existed between Emily
and Captain Garland seemed rather
to increase than to diminish after the
little adventure we recorded in the
last chapter. It appeared that Miss
Sherwood had taken Darcy at his
word, and resolved not to think any
the more kindly of him for his conduct
on that occasion. The captain was
plainly in the ascendant. It even
appeared, from certain arrangements
that were in stealthy preparation, that
the happiness of the gallant lover
would not long be delayed. Messages
of a very suspicious purport had passed
between the Park and the vicarage.
The clerk of the parish had been seen
several times at Lipscombe. There
was something in the wind, as the
sagacious housekeeper observed; surely
her young missus was not going to
be married on the sly to the captain!
The same thought, however, occurred
to Darcy. Was it to escape the suit
of Sir Frederic Beaumantle, which had
been in some measure countenanced
by her father, that she had recourse
to this stratagem?—hardly worthy of
her, and quite unnecessary, as she
possessed sufficient influence with her
father to obtain his consent to any
proposal she herself was likely to approve.
Had not the state of his own
feelings made him too interested a
party to act as counsellor or mediator,
he would at once have questioned
Emily on the subject. As it was, his
lips were closed. She herself, too,
seemed resolved to make no communication
to him. The captain, a man
of frank and open nature, was far
more disposed to reveal his secret: he
was once on the point of speaking to
Darcy about his “approaching marriage;”
but Emily, laying her finger
on her lip, suddenly imposed silence
on him.

One morning, as Darcy entered
the breakfast-room, it was evident
that something unusual was about to
take place. The carriage, at this
early hour, was drawn up to the door,
and the two young ladies, both dressed
in bridal white, were stepping into
it. Before it drove off Miss Sherwood
beckoned to Darcy.

“I have not invited you,” she said,
“to the ceremony, because Captain
Garland has wished it to be as private
as possible. But we shall expect your
company at breakfast, for which you
must even have the patience to wait
till we return.” Without giving any
opportunity for reply, she drew up
the glass, and the carriage rolled off.

However Darcy might have hitherto
borne himself up by a gloomy sense
of duty, by pride, and a bitter—oh,
what bitter resignation!–when the
blow came, it utterly prostrated him.
“She is gone!–lost!–Fool that I
have been!–What was this man more
than I?” Stung with such reflections
as these, which were uttered in such
broken sentences, he rapidly retreated
to the library, where he knew he should
be undisturbed. He threw himself
into a chair, and planting his elbows
on the table, pressed his doubled fists,
with convulsive agony, to his brows.
All his fortitude had forsaken him:
he wept outright.

From this posture he was at length
aroused by a gentle pressure on his
shoulder, and a voice calling him by
his name. He raised his head: it
was Emily Sherwood, enquiring of
him, quite calmly, why he was not at
the breakfast-table. There she stood,
radiant with beauty, and in all her
bridal attire, except that she had
thrown of her bonnet, and her beautiful
hair was allowed to be free and
unconfined. Her hand was still upon
his shoulder.

“You are married, Emily,” he said,
as well as that horrible stifling sensation
in the breast would let him speak;
“you are married, and I must be for
evermore a banished man. I leave
you, Emily, and this roof, for ever.
I pronounce my own sentence of exile,
for I love you, Emily!–and ever
shall—passionately—tenderly—love
you. Surely I may say this now—now
that it is a mere cry of anguish,
and a misery exclusively my own.
Never, never—I feel that this is no
idle raving—shall I love another—never
will this affection leave me—I
shall never have a home—never care
for another—or myself—I am alone—a
wanderer—miserable. Farewell!
I go—I know not exactly where—but
I leave this place.”

He was preparing to quit the
room, when Emily, placing herself
before him, prevented him. “And
why,” said she, “if you honoured me
with this affection, why was I not to
know of it till now?”

“Can the heiress of Lipscombe
Park ask that question?”

“Ungenerous! unjust!” said Emily.
“Tell me, if one who can himself feel
and act nobly, denies to another the
capability of a like disinterested
conduct—denies it rashly, pertinaciously,
without cause given for such a
judgment—is he not ungenerous and unjust?”

“To whom have I acted thus? To
whom have I been ungenerous or unjust?”

“To me, Reginald—to me! I am
wealthy, and for this reason alone you
have denied to me, it seems, the possession
of every worthy sentiment.
She has gold, you have said, let her
gold content her, and you withheld
your love. She will make much boast,
and create a burdensome obligation,
if she bestows her superfluous wealth
upon another: you resolved not to
give her the opportunity, and you
withheld your love. She has gold—she
has no heart—no old affections
that have grown from childhood—no
estimate of character: she has wealth—let
her gratify its vanity and its
caprice; and so you withheld your
love. Yes, she has gold—let her
have more of it—let her wed with
gold—with any gilded fool—she has
no need of love! This is what you
have thought, what your conduct has
implied, and it was ungenerous and
unjust.”

“No, by heaven! I never thought
unworthily of you,” exclaimed Darcy.

“Had you been the wealthy cousin,
Reginald, of wealth so ample, that an
addition to it could scarcely bring an
additional pleasure, would you have
left your old friend Emily to look out
for some opulent alliance?”

“Oh, no! no!”

“Then, why should I?”

“I may have erred,” said Darcy.
“I may have thought too meanly of
myself, or nourished a misplaced
pride, but I never had a disparaging
thought of you. It seemed that I was
right—that I was fulfilling a severe—oh,
how severe a duty! Even now I
know not that I was wrong—I know
only that I am miserable. But,”
added he in a calmer voice, “I, at all
events, am the only sufferer. You, at
least, are happy.”

“Not, I think, if marriage is to
make me so. I am not married, Reginald,”
she said, amidst a confusion of
smiles and blushes. “Captain Garland
was married this morning to
Miss Julia Danvers, to whom he has
been long engaged, but a silly selfish
stepmother”——

“Not married!” cried Darcy, interrupting
all further explanation.—”Not
married! Then you are free—then
you are”—— But the old
train of thought rushed back upon his
mind—the old objections were as
strong as ever—Miss Sherwood was
still the daughter of his guardian, and
the heiress of Lipscombe Park. Instead
of completing the sentence, he
paused, and muttered something about
“her father.”

Emily saw the cloud that had come
over him. Dropping playfully, and
most gracefully, upon one knee, she
took his hand, and looking up archly
in his face, said, “You love me, coz—you
have said it. Coz, will you
marry me?—for I love you.”

“Generous, generous girl!” and
he clasped her to his bosom.

“Let us go in,” said Emily, in a
quite altered and tremulous voice,
“let us join them in the other room.”
And as she put her arm in his, the
little pressure said distinctly and triumphantly—”He
is mine!–he is mine!”

We must take a parting glance into
old Mr Sherwood’s room. He is
seated in his gouty chair; his daughter
stands by his side. Apparently
Emily’s reasonings have almost prevailed;
she has almost persuaded the
old gentleman that Darcy is the very
son-in-law whom, above all others,
he ought to desire. For how could
Emily leave her dear father, and how
could he domicile himself with any
other husband she could choose, half
so well as with his own ward, and his
old favourite, Reginald?

“But Sir Frederic Beaumantle,”
the old gentleman replied, “what is
to be said to him? and what a fine
property he has!”

As he was speaking, the door opened,
and the party from the breakfast
table, consisting of Captain Garland,
and his bride, and Reginald, entered
the room.

“Oh, as for Sir Frederic Beaumantle,”
said she who was formerly
Miss Danvers, and now Mrs Garland,
“I claim him as mine.” And forthwith
she displayed the famous declaration
of the baronet—addressed to
herself!

Their mirth had scarcely subsided,
when the writer of the letter himself
made his appearance. He had called
early, for he had concluded, after
much deliberation, that it was not consistent
with the ardour and impetuosity
of love, to wait till the formal
hour of visiting, in order to receive
the answer of Miss Danvers.

That answer the lady at once gave
by presenting Captain Garland to him
in the character of her husband. At
the same time, she returned his epistle,
and, explaining that circumstances
had compelled the captain and herself
to marry in a private and secret
manner, apologized for the mistake into
which the concealment of their engagement
had led him.

“A mistake indeed—a mistake altogether!”
exclaimed the baronet,
catching at a straw as he fell—”a
mistake into which this absurd fashion
of envelopes has led us. The letter
was never intended, madam, to be enclosed
to you. It was designed for the hands”——

And he turned to Miss Sherwood,
who, on her part, took the arm of Reginald
with a significance of manner
which proved to him that, for the present
at least, his declaration of love
might return into his own desk, there
to receive still further emendations.

“No wonder, Sir Frederic,” said
Mr Sherwood, compassionating the
baronet’s situation—”no wonder your
proposal is not wanted. These young
ladies have taken their affairs into
their own hands. It is Leap-Year.
One of them, at least, (looking to his
daughter,) has made good use of its
privilege. The initiative, Sir Frederic,
is taken from us.”

The baronet had nothing left but
to make his politest bow and retire.

“Reginald, my dear boy,” continued
the old gentleman, “give me
your hand. Emily is right. I don’t
know how I should part with her. I
will only make this bargain with you,
Reginald—that you marry us both.
You must not turn me out of doors.”

Reginald returned the pressure of
his hand, but he could say nothing.
Mr Sherwood, however, saw his answer
in eyes that were filling involuntarily
with tears.

THE BATTLE OF THE BLOCKS.

THE PAVING QUESTION.

The subject of greatest metropolitan
interest which has occurred for
many years, is the introduction of
wood paving. As the main battle
has been fought in London, and nothing
but a confused report of the
great object in dispute may have penetrated
beyond the sound of Bow
bells, we think it will not be amiss to
put on record, in the imperishable
brass and marble of our pages, an
account of the mighty struggle—of
the doughty champions who couched
the lance and drew the sword in the
opposing ranks—and, finally, to what
side victory seems to incline on this
beautiful 1st of May in the year
1843.

Come, then, to our aid, oh ye heavenly
Muses! who enabled Homer to
sing in such persuasive words the fates
of Troy and of its wooden horse; for
surely a subject which is so deeply
connected both with wood and horses,
is not beneath your notice; but perhaps,
as poetry is gone out of fashion
at the present time, you will depute
one of your humbler sisters, rejoicing
in the name of Prose, to give us a few
hints in the composition of our great
history. The name of the first pavier,
we fear, is unknown, unless we
could identify him with Triptolemus,
who was a great improver of Rhodes;
but it is the fate of all the greatest
benefactors of their kind to be neglected,
and in time forgotten. The first
regularly defined paths were probably
footways—the first carriages broad-wheeled.
No record remains of what
materials were used for filling up the
ruts; so it is likely, in those simple
times when enclosure acts were unknown,
that the cart was seldom taken
in the same track. As houses were
built, and something in the shape of
streets began to be established, the
access to them must have been more
attended to. A mere smoothing of the
inequalities of the surface over which
the oxen had to be driven, that brought
the grain home on the enormous
plaustra of the husbandman, was the
first idea of a street, whose very name
is derived from stratum, levelled.
As experience advanced, steps would
be taken to prevent the softness of the
road from interrupting the draught.
A narrow rim of stone, just wide
enough to sustain the wheel, would,
in all probability, be the next improvement;
and only when the gentle operations
of the farm were exchanged
for war, and the charger had to be
hurried to the fight, with all the equipments
necessary for an army, great
roads were laid open, and covered
with hard materials to sustain the
wear and tear of men and animals.
Roads were found to be no less necessary
to retain a conquest than to
make it; and the first true proof of
the greatness of Rome was found in
the long lines of military ways, by
which she maintained her hold upon
the provinces. You may depend on
it, that no expense was spared in
keeping the glorious street that led
up her Triumphs to the Capitol in excellent
repair. All the nations of the
Orbis Antiquus ought to have trembled
when they saw the beginning of
the Appian road. It led to Britain
and Persia, to Carthage and the White
Sea. The Britons, however, in ancient
days, seem to have been about the
stupidest and least enterprising of all
the savages hitherto discovered. After
an intercourse of four hundred years
with the most polished people in the
world, they continued so miserably
benighted, that they had not even
acquired masonic knowledge enough
to repair a wall. The rampart raised
by their Roman protectors between
them and the Picts and Scots, became
in some places dilapidated. The unfortunate
natives had no idea how to
mend the breach, and had to send
once more for their auxiliaries. If
such their state in regard to masonry,
we cannot suppose that their skill in
road-making was very great; and yet
we are told that, even on Cæsar’s invasion,
the Britons careered about in
war-chariots, which implies both good
roads and some mechanical skill; but
we think it a little too much in historians
to ask us to believe BOTH these
views of the condition of our predecessors
in the tight little island; for it
is quite clear that a people who had
arrived at the art of coach-making,
could not be so very ignorant as not
to know how to build a wall. If it
were not for the letters of Cicero, we
should not believe a syllable about the
war-chariots that carried amazement
into the hearts of the Romans, even
in Kent or Surrey. But we here boldly
declare, that if twenty Ciceros were
to make their affidavits to the fact of
a set of outer barbarians, like Galgacus
and his troops, “sweeping their
fiery lines on rattling wheels” up and
down the Grampians—where, at a
later period, a celebrated shepherd fed
his flocks—we should not believe a
word of their declaration. Tacitus,
in the same manner, we should prosecute
for perjury.

The Saxons were a superior race,
and when the eightsome-reel of the
heptarchy became the pas-seul of
the kingdom of England, we doubt
not that Watling Street was kept in
passable condition, and that Alfred,
amidst his other noble institutions,
invented a highway rate. The fortresses
and vassal towns of the barons,
after the Conquest, must have covered
the country with tolerable cross-roads;
and even the petty wars of those steel-clad
marauders must have had a good
effect in opening new communications.
For how could Sir Reginald Front-de-Bœuf,
or Sir Hildebrand Bras-de-Fer,
carry off the booty of their discomfited
rival to their own granaries without
loaded tumbrils, and roads fit to pass
over?

Nor would it have been wise in rich
abbots and fat monks to leave their
monasteries and abbeys inaccessible to
pious pilgrims, who came to admire
thigh-bones of martyred virgins and
skulls of beatified saints, and paid
very handsomely for the exhibition.
Finally, trade began, and paviers
flourished. The first persons of that
illustrious profession appear, from the
sound of the name, to have been
French, unless we take the derivation
of a cockney friend of ours, who maintains
that the origin of the word is not
the French pavé, but the indigenous
English pathway. However that may
be, we are pretty sure that paving was
known as one of the fine arts in the
reign of Queen Elizabeth; for, not to
mention the anecdote of Raleigh and
his cloak—which could only happen
where puddles formed the exception
and not the rule—we read of Essex’s
horse stumbling on a paving-stone in
his mad ride to his house in the Strand.
We also prove, from Shakspeare’s
line—

the fact of stones forming the main
body of the streets in his time; for it
is absurd to suppose that he was so
rigid an observer of the unities as to
pay the slightest respect to the state
of paving in the time of Julius Cæsar
at Rome.

Gradually London took the lead in
improving its ways. It was no longer
necessary for the fair and young to be
carried through the mud upon costly
pillions, on the backs of high-stepping
Flanders mares. Beauty rolled over
the stones in four-wheeled carriages,
and it did not need more than half-a-dozen
running footmen—the stoutest
that could be found—to put their
shoulders occasionally to the wheel,
and help the eight black horses to
drag the ponderous vehicle through
the heavier parts of the road. Science
came to the aid of beauty in these distressing
circumstances. Springs were
invented that yielded to every jolt;
and, with the aid of cushions, rendered
a visit to Highgate not much more
fatiguing than we now find the journey
to Edinburgh. Luxury went on—wealth
flowed in—paviers were
encouraged—coach-makers grew great
men—and London, which our ancestors
had left mud, was now stone.
Year after year the granite quarries
of Aberdeen poured themselves out
on the streets of the great city, and a
million and a half of people drove, and
rode, and bustled, and bargained, and
cheated, and throve, in the midst of a
din that would have silenced the artillery
of Trafalgar, and a mud which,
if turned into bricks, would have built
the tower of Babel. The citizens
were now in possession of the “fumum
et opes strepitumque Romæ;” but
some of the more quietly disposed,
though submitting patiently to the
“fumum,” and by no means displeased
with the “opes,” thought the “strepitumque”
could be dispensed with, and
plans of all kinds were proposed for
obviating the noise and other inconveniences
of granite blocks. Some
proposed straw, rushes, sawdust; ingenuity
was at a stand-still; and
London appeared to be condemned to
a perpetual atmosphere of smoke and
sound. It is pleasant to look back on
difficulties, when overcome—the best
illustration of which is Columbus’s
egg; for, after convincing the sceptic,
there can be no manner of doubt that
he swallowed the yelk and white,
leaving the shell to the pugnacious
disputant. In the same way we look
with a pleasing kind of pity on the
quandaries of those whom we shall
call—with no belief whatever in the
pre-Adamite theory—the pre-Macadamites.