CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

WINDOW WILLIE

A TWEEDSIDE TRADITION, BY W. CHAMBERS, LL.D.

Crossing the tall and narrow old bridge of several
arches which spans the Tweed at Peebles, is seen an
aged gentleman riding composedly on a small white
pony. His head is bent droopingly down, as if
meditating on some important mission. From his
general aspect, he may be a gentleman-farmer,
disposed to take things easily at his time of life; or
he may be some retired public official who keeps a
pony, and in good weather pops about for amusement.
His dress has nothing particular about it.
He wears a blue coat with metal buttons and
capacious outside pockets. His legs are endued
in buff breeches, white rig-and-fur woollen stockings,
and black spats, a kind of short gaiters, over
the ankles. Any one may observe that he is no
common person. At the end of his watch-chain
dangle a gold seal, a Queen Anne sixpence, a small
and very pretty shell, and a flexible watch-key.
Instead of using a riding-whip, he has in his right
hand a perfectly respectable gold-headed cane,
with which he occasionally gives a gentle pat on
the side of the pony. Altogether a creditable
affair, as things went towards the end of last
century.

This imposing personage, according to tradition,
was proceeding in a southerly direction across the
bridge from his residence at Cabbage Hall, on
Tweed Green, in order to pursue his way down
the right bank of the river to the mansion of
Traquair. It is a pleasant ride of seven to
eight miles; and looking to the leisurely progress
of the little nag, it is not unlikely he may
reach his destination in an hour and a half. So
far well. But who is this venerable gentleman?
His proper designation is of no consequence.
Locally, and somewhat irreverently, he is known
as Window Willie, a man of genial temperament,
but who professionally commands a degree of
respect in the neighbourhood; for he is the district
inspector in relation to the tax on window-lights,
and it is not surprising that with all his
good humour people are a little afraid of him.

Is Window Willie going to inspect windows
in that old weather-beaten château of the Earl of
Traquair? Not at all. He is a chum of the old
Earl, and what his particular business happens to
be on the present occasion will afterwards appear.
In the meantime, as paving the way for Window
Willie’s interview, we may run over a few particulars
concerning the Traquair family. There
need be the less ceremony in speaking of them, as
all have gone to their rest. The family is extinct,
leaving not a shred behind.

The Stewarts of Traquair come first prominently
into notice in the reign of Charles I., 1628, when
Sir John Stewart of Traquair, Knight, was raised
to the peerage as Lord Stewart of Traquair, and
shortly afterwards elevated to the dignity of Earl
of Traquair, Lord Linton, and Caberston. In
looking into history, we cannot discover that this
gentleman had a single good quality. Like too
many at that period, he was a time-server, devoid
of anything like settled principle. In politics
and religion he discreetly sided with the uppermost—a
Puritan or an Anglican of the Laud type,
whichever seemed to promise to pay best.

There is a very curious old book, which few
know anything about, called the ‘Staggering State
of Scots Statesmen, for one hundred years from
1550 to 1650, by Sir John Scot of Scotstarvit.’ It
was printed from a manuscript in 1754, and is
exceedingly rare. This little book is full of
amusing gossip about the wretchedly struggling
noblemen and officers of state at that unhappy
period of Scottish history, during a large portion
of which the central ruling authority was in London,
and only a delegation of subordinates, who
domineered at will, in Edinburgh. These subordinates
were needy Scotsmen, of whom for more
than a century hardly a good word can be said.{338}
They did as they liked, plundered and tyrannised
without mercy. The Staggering State gives an
awful account of them. Among the whole, none
was such an adept at looking to his own interest
as the newly created Earl of Traquair. Appointed
Lord High Treasurer, he ‘managed matters so
nimbly’ that in a short time he was able, by
purchase, to vastly extend the possessions of the
family. He also enlarged the old mansion at
Traquair, and made a handsome avenue lined with
trees as an approach.

When Charles I. got into trouble, the Earl of
Traquair for a time stuck to his cause, which
in a half-hearted way he afterwards thought fit
to desert. The Commonwealth under Cromwell
proved a sore trial to every class of home-rulers
in Scotland. A stern system of honesty and justice
was introduced, at which the native nobility and
judges stood aghast. Monopolies were abolished.
Free trade was established between England and
Scotland. Very hard all this on those who had
been pocketing the public money, thriving on
monopolies, and selling justice to the highest
bidder. Turned out of office, and his estate being
sequestrated, the Earl of Traquair was ruined.
By some manœuvre, his son Lord Linton had the
address to save for himself and his heirs at least
a portion of the family property, and was able to
keep house at Traquair, while the Earl was exposed
to vicissitudes, uncheered by public respect or
sympathy. Lord Linton can hardly be acquitted of
having acted an unnatural part towards his father.
He allowed him to drop into such extreme poverty
that he was fain to accept an alms from an old
friend, and to dine on a salt herring and an
onion. Broken in spirit, he died in 1659; and as
evidencing the meanness of his circumstances, it is
recorded that at his burial there was no pall, but
only a black apron over the coffin.

So ended the first Earl, who though not without
the faults common to the period, was at least an
historical personage. His son, the second Earl, was
noted only for scandalous irregularities, and by
him Roman Catholicism was introduced into the
family, through his marriage with Lady Anne Seton.
He was succeeded by his elder son, William, as third
Earl; and he was succeeded by his brother, Charles,
as fourth Earl, who married Lady Mary Maxwell,
daughter of the fourth Earl of Nithsdale. We need
say nothing of the fifth Earl. In the sixth Earl
we begin to have a living interest. He had a son,
Charles, and three daughters, Christiana, Mary,
and Lucy. Lady Christiana caused serious trouble
in the family by what was deemed a mésalliance.
The story is that she fell in love with a young
man named Griffiths, who as a lawyer’s clerk had
visited Traquair on some piece of business, married
him—and was disowned. There is no doubt of
the marriage, whatever might have been the position
of Mr Griffiths; for it is recorded in the
Peerage of Sir Robert Douglas. Descendants of
Lady Christiana are still living, we believe, in
America.

The Ladies Mary and Lucy do not appear to
have been married. As genteel spinsters they
lived in the Canongate, Edinburgh, which even
in their time had not been entirely deserted by
noble families. Charles, their brother, who
succeeded as seventh Earl in 1779, and was
already married, dwelt for a time in Edinburgh.
There to him was born a daughter, Louisa, 20th
March 1776; and a son, Charles, 31st January
1781. After the birth of the two children, the
Earl and his Countess spent most of their time
at Traquair House. Here, for a number of years
the Earl flourished, if it can be called flourishing,
the more appropriate term being vegetating, at
the period when Window Willie was in his glory.

There lingered some traditions of the Countess
of Traquair in our young days. She was an
invalid. The rumour in Peebles was that she
had been afflicted with an ‘eating cancer in her
great toe.’ Whether there was any truth in the
report we cannot tell. All we know is, that the
ailment of her Ladyship gave rise to a droll and
popular myth. The cancer being an ‘eating’
cancer, required something to eat. If it was not
properly provided with food, it would eat off her
Ladyship’s foot, and finally eat her up bodily. To
avert this calamity, it was customary—so ran the
legend in Peebles—to provide the cancer every
morning regularly with a fresh pigeon, which it
devoured with a relish in the course of the day,
and so the foot of the Countess was luckily saved.
The gossip about the daily consumption of a pigeon
was possibly a piece of nonsense. At anyrate, the
Countess having been much of an invalid, the old
Earl her husband sought to amuse himself in a
way, immediately to be specified.

We are now ready for the interview with
Window Willie, who has been jogging on his
way to Traquair. For the last hour the Earl had
been expecting him, and now and then looks
out from a small apartment with a low ceiling
to see his approach down a side avenue. There
at length he comes on his little white pony; and
giving the animal to a groom, he enters the antiquated
mansion.

‘Glad to see you,’ said the Earl. ‘I’ve been out
of work for a week; at least hardly anything to do.
I hope you have brought something. How many
have you got?’

‘Well, my Lord,’ replied Willie, ‘I think I have
made a pretty good haul. I have just returned
from my circuit in the western district of the
county, and have managed to pick up a round
dozen.’

‘That will do capitally. Lay them out carefully
in a row, and tell me to whom they belong.’

So requested, Window Willie disburdened himself
by drawing from his pockets a dozen razors in
their respective cases, some of them having a very
common appearance, and he proceeded to arrange
and specify them as follows:

‘There’s one from Dickson of Hartree; one from
Loch of Rachan; one from Murray at Drachal;{339}
one from Kerr, minister of Stobo; one from
Marshall, minister of Manor; and one from
Bowed Davie; it’s sair lippit, but it will stand
grunden. That makes six. Then comes one from
Mr Findlater, the minister of Newlands; next
one from Sir James Naesmyth; one from Robbie
Symington at Edston; one from Mr Alexander at
Easter Happrew; one from Toll Tammie at the
Neidpath, which I got yesterday in passing; and
last of all, one from your lordship’s friend and
adviser, Commissary Robertson, at Peebles. That
makes the dozen.’

The row of razors made a splendid array, and
put the Earl in high spirits. Window Willie
must stay to dinner to talk over his adventures in
securing the razors, for each has its story, which
will furnish some amusement. Willie, of course,
as he had expected, dines with the Earl, and pops
home to Cabbage Hall in the evening.

Not to keep the reader in suspense: The Earl of
Traquair had a profound passion for sharpening
razors. Thankfully and gratuitously his Lordship
sharpened not only all the razors of his tenants
and their servants, but of all the landed gentlemen,
farmers, and traders throughout the county who
would favour him with a commission of the kind.
In his time, no one in Peeblesshire needed to
torture himself by shaving with a blunt razor.
Of course, the razors were not sent for sharpening
in a business fashion. Window Willie’s professional
rounds gave him an excellent opportunity
of collecting razors for the Earl, and of returning
them properly cuttled to their proprietors. When
he brought one batch he took away another. It
was a satisfactory arrangement all round. The
Earl was delighted to be kept working at his
favourite pursuit; people were glad to get their
razors on all occasions sharpened for nothing; and
Window Willie was pleased to have an employment
which made him everywhere an acceptable
guest, and afforded opportunities of visiting at
Traquair. I happen to have an agreeable remembrance
of various persons in Peebles telling me
several of the foregoing particulars, and of how
Window Willie used to call to ask if their razors
did not want a little touching up, as he was going
next day to visit the Earl.

The world was not then constituted exactly as
it now is. Nobody thought there was anything
particularly strange in an Earl sharpening razors
as a recreation. It was a harmless hobby; and,
besides, there was a gratification in thinking that
your razor was put in trim by a nobleman. The
Earl of Traquair was a general benefactor. He was
a sort of artist. He should have been born and
bred a cutler, in which capacity he excelled; but
as he had the misfortune to be born an heir to an
earldom, he had just to make the best of it. As
for Window Willie, he seemed to have been born
to be the Earl’s provider with blunt razors to be
sharpened; in which line he acquitted himself
admirably. Working to each other’s hands, they
in their time kept the county well and comfortably
shaved, and that is saying a good deal in the
way of eulogium.

The Earl had another eccentricity. He did not
patronise London or Edinburgh tailors. After
some experience, he had a firm belief that no man
could make clothes for him that would thoroughly
fit but Thorburn, a tailor at Eddleston, a small
village of forty to fifty houses, close to Darnhall,
the residence of Lord Elibank. We have never
heard how the Earl discovered Thorburn; in all
likelihood he heard of him through his factotum,
Window Willie, who knew something of everybody.
Having tried, he stuck to Thorburn. One
thing materially guided this selection. Thorburn
was exactly his own shape, body, legs, and arms.
That was a great point. The Earl had an invincible
hatred of putting on new-made clothes, which
required some time to settle down into the required
figure, and were at first a little awkward. Thorburn
was an accommodating fellow. He volunteered
to wear the Earl’s new clothes for a day or
two, to give them a set. The obliging offer was
accepted. When the Earl wanted a new pair of
black velvet breeches, Thorburn took care to wear
them for a Sunday at church, which gave the legs
the appropriately round baggy form, and then they
were ready for use. By the agency of Window
Willie and his little pony, the garment safely
reached Traquair House.

Dear old Earl, and dear good-hearted Window
Willie! Both have long since passed away. The
beards of the county are said to have been sensibly
affected by their decease. Charles, the eighth Earl,
had unfortunately none of his father’s aptitude for
razor-sharpening. As a bachelor and a recluse, he
was mainly noted for effecting improvements on
his various farm-steadings, which was by no means
a bad hobby for a nobleman. Partly perhaps on
account of a stammering in his speech, he shrank
from general society, and vegetated till the last
in the queer antiquated mansion of his forefathers,
in the society of his only sister, Lady
Louisa Stuart. We had the honour of several
interviews with him in relation to railways for the
district, and could not help feeling pained with that
distressing stammer. A very curious fact afterwards
came to our knowledge. The Earl having
spent a number of his early years abroad, acquired
a proficiency in speaking French, which he ever
afterwards retained. When he spoke French, he
never stammered! At his decease in 1861, the
male line and peerage became extinct; and on
the death of Lady Louisa Stuart in 1875, in the
hundredth year of her age, all the family had
departed, the property devolving by will on a
distant relative. Traquair House, which looks like
two ancient feudal keeps rolled into one, remains
embosomed in trees almost as it was left by the
Lord High Treasurer upwards of two hundred
years ago, and as it used to be visited of old by
Window Willie.

W. C.

THE LAST OF THE HADDONS.

CHAPTER XXVI.—PREPARATION.

Great was my relief the next day when, on Lilian
and I returning from a ramble in our beloved
woods, we heard Robert Wentworth talking to Mrs
Tipper in the parlour. But at first sight of him,
I shrank back. How altered he looked, how
terribly altered since we had last met! The kind
little lady’s hurried explanation as we entered the
room, that illness had kept him away, gave me
another blow, and he saw that it did.

‘Only a sort of cold,’ he cheerfully explained,
extending his hand towards me with a smile.
‘How do you do, Mary?’

My own hand shook; but he kept it long enough{340}
in his own to steady it, giving me a reassuring
look before releasing it.

But Lilian could not get over the shock which
the first sight of him had given her, involuntarily
exclaiming: ‘But I fear you have been ill—very
ill; and it has made you quite’—— She paused,
not liking to go on; but he lightly replied:
‘Gray, do you mean? My dear Lilian, the gray
season had set in long ago, only you saw me too
frequently to notice it.’

Mrs Tipper laid her hand for a moment on his
shoulder as she passed him on her way out of the
room to prepare some special dainty to tempt him
at tea-time; and I noticed that she was looking
much graver than usual.

‘And how have you been going on with your
work during my absence?’ he asked; ‘not carelessly,
I hope? I am in the humour to be very
exacting and critical to-night; so you must not
expect me to treat sins of omission or commission
with my usual amiability.’

‘Amiability, indeed!’ ejaculated Lilian. ‘The
idea of your setting up for being amiable! I do not
consider you at all considerate and good-natured to
failure, sir.’

He smiled. ‘I certainly have not much sympathy
with failure; it would not be orthodox, you
know. But get out your work, and let me find
a safe outlet for my savage propensity.’

He saw that it did me good to be taken to task
in the old fashion; and was quite as unsparing as
I could desire, when he came upon any error.
Whatever it cost him, Robert Wentworth succeeded
in setting my heart as well as theirs at rest before
he took his departure that night. If Mrs Tipper
saw something of the truth, she shewed her consideration
for me by carefully avoiding to give
any expression to her thoughts. Lilian evidently
guessed nothing. She openly expressed her surprise
and regret at the alteration which she perceived
in him.

‘I really felt quite shocked for the first few
moments,’ she said. ‘Even serious illness does
not seem quite to account for such an alteration as
there is in him. He looks as though he had
suddenly grown old. Do not you think so, auntie?—Don’t
you, Mary?’

Mrs Tipper was silent, leaving me to reply,
though I knew that she was watching me somewhat
closely the while. It required all the nerve
and self-command I could muster to make something
like a suitable reply; but I did make it;
and Lilian at anyrate remained in ignorance of
the true state of the case, although her ignorance
occasioned me almost as much pain as her knowledge
of it would have done, so very closely did
she sometimes approach to the truth, in her
speculations as to the possible and probable cause
of the change which had taken place in Robert
Wentworth.

I was becoming restless and anxious from more
causes than one. The time of Philip’s expected
arrival was drawing near, and my news remained
still untold. Whilst I was ashamed of my
reticence with two such friends, the difficulty of
approaching the subject seemed rather to increase
than diminish. My uneasiness was becoming
apparent too; even Lilian and Mrs Tipper were
beginning to notice a difference in me, which they
could not account for.

The dear little lady once ventured a few words
to me to the effect that no good man could be the
worse for loving a woman, though she could not
return his love; fancying, I believe, that possibly
I was uneasy upon Robert Wentworth’s account.
I could only kiss the hand laid so lovingly upon
mine.

It so happened that just at this juncture Mrs
Tipper required sundry little housekeeping errands
done in town; and partly to be alone a few hours,
partly to do a little shopping for myself, I volunteered
to go for her.

‘Are you sure you would prefer going, dear
Mary?’ said Mrs Tipper anxiously; ‘the days
are so hot, and the things could be sent down, if
we write, you know.’

I murmured something about wanting to replenish
my wardrobe a little, and she easily
acquiesced: ‘To tell the truth, my dear, I should
prefer your choosing the patty-pans,’ she candidly
allowed, when she found I really wished to go.
‘Becky and I will think over all we require, and
make a list,’ she added, trotting off in high-feather
to compare notes with Becky in the kitchen. If
we were proud of our ‘drawing-room,’ Mrs Tipper
was quite as proud of her kitchen. ‘There is a
place for everything and everything in its place,
my dear, clean and ready to hand.’ Becky in the
evening, seated in state, surrounded by her brilliantly
burnished tins, was a sight to behold.
Nothing would have delighted her mistress and
herself more than a sudden invasion of company
as a test of their resources. Lilian and I were
sometimes taxed beyond our powers, in our endeavours
to shew our appreciation of the little
dainty cakes, patties, &c. set before us. Indeed we
had more than once consulted together upon the
advisability of suggesting a party of children from
the village to relieve us.

Lilian looked, I thought, a little surprised at
not being invited to accompany me on my expedition
to town. But if she was surprised, she was
not offended; sensitive as she was, there was as
little self-love in Lilian as it is possible for any
human being to have. Hers was not fine-weather
friendship. She was content to stand quietly aside
until I should need her, without any complaints
about being neglected, or what not, which half-hearted
people are so apt to make at a fancied
slight. She knew that I loved her, and I knew
that she loved me, and we could trust each other,
without the repeated assurance of it, which some
people seem to require.

She was only a shade or two more tender and
loving in bidding me good-bye, when I set forth in
the morning, anxious to make me feel that my
return would be eagerly looked for; and whispering
a little jest about the necessity for bringing
back a good appetite. ‘Auntie and Becky will be
sure to be busily engaged in preparing treats all
day, you know; so you must come home hungry,
whatever you do. And do not forget your promise
to buy a pretty bonnet, Mary, and leave off that
old dowdy thing; it makes you look as though
nobody loved you, which is not fair to your sister
Lilian. And oh, Mary, I had almost forgotten; if
you bring any of this back, I shall say you don’t
care for me in real earnest;’ pressing a little roll of
paper into my hand.

I knew that she was genuinely disappointed
when I proved to her that I had as much as five-and-twenty
pounds in hand; and so I was obliged{341}
to promise to take from her store for my next
need. ‘Or else one may just as well not be a
sister,’ she said, with a discontented little shake of
the head.

How cheering it was—how precious the knowledge
that I was cared for in this way! And there
was dear old Mrs Tipper too! I thought I knew
why she was desirous just at that season to make
me feel that my presence was so much required at
the cottage.

‘I wanted to ask you to cut out the little pinafores
for Mercy Green’s child, Mary; but they
must wait till to-morrow, I suppose. And there’s
the curtains for my bed, dear; nobody would fit
them to please me but you;’ and so forth, and so
forth, until the last moment, when Lilian accompanied
me as far as the stile.

As I walked across the fields in that lovely
August morning, while the bright sun was

my thoughts attuned themselves to the summer
sights and sounds, and I shook off the morbid
doubts and fears which had so beset me of late. I
resolved to be no longer so weak and unfriendly as
to keep the truth from Mrs Tipper and Lilian. It
really was unfriendly not to tell them what I
knew they would both be glad to hear! That
very evening my secret should be told, and I
would at once begin brushing up for Philip, making
up my mind to overcome my shyness for finery,
and render myself as attractive as possible within
the compass of—five-and-twenty pounds. It appeared
to me a very large sum to spend at once
upon finery, and I could only hope the end would
justify the means. As it chanced, I really knew
very little about Philip’s taste in such matters.
The selection of the modest outfit which was purchased
for me nine years ago, I had been only too
glad to leave to my dear mother’s judgment, and
we had been neither of us inclined to trouble
Philip with chiffon talk.

But I told myself that I really must make a
beginning now, as I stood in the milliner’s show-room,
somewhat dolefully contrasting my appearance
with that of the elegant-looking beings
around me; wondering whether Philip would
wish me to look like them, and in that case,
whether it would be possible to make me do so.

I had been striving so earnestly and anxiously
to make myself worthy to be his companion, and
it had seemed of so little consequence what I
looked like during his absence, beyond being
attired with the dainty neatness befitting a gentlewoman,
that I now appeared quite behind the
times. I suddenly began to realise that I had
carried my disregard of pretty things too far; and
was seized with a desire to try what extraneous
aid could do for me.

I anxiously studied my face and figure in
the large glass, and then those of the obliging
shopwoman, who displayed an endless assortment
of pretty things for my selection. She was about
my own age, and possessed no greater natural
advantages than I myself could boast of; and yet
how very different was the general effect of her
appearance; how dowdy I looked beside her.
Yes; Lilian was quite right; ‘dowdy’ was the
proper word for me, from head to foot.

A little shyly and consciously, I ventured out
of my shell, and appealed to the shopwoman for
assistance, taking her so far into my confidence
as to confess a desire to be modernised and made
more attractive.

She displayed more interest in the matter than
I had ventured to hope for; and we gravely discussed
my capability of improvement. But I found
that the complications would be so many, and
the changes in the way of adaptation of hair, figure,
&c. so endless, that I presently began to grow very
impatient; and when she said something about
the possibility of the present fashion only lasting
another two months, I gave it up in despair. If
I were quite sure it would serve for the rest of my
life, I would go through it all; but for the fashion
of an hour; no! I would be content with a
simply made dress or two, and depend upon my
own taste for the finishing touches. Some of my
mother’s old point, and a crimson bow or two for
the pretty gray dress, and amber with the black
silk, and such like, I trusted might please Philip’s
artistic taste as well as though I were in the latest
fashion. And I pleased myself with the remembrance
that he used to admire my method of dressing
my hair in large coils round a comb; saying
that it suited my head and Spanish style of face.
‘Spanish! Yes; that certainly was the word,’ I
told myself, dwelling pleasantly upon the one only
compliment I could recollect having received from
Philip.

I tried to satisfy myself this way; nevertheless
I was a little out of spirits at finding myself so
different from other women whom I met as I walked
through the park on my way to the railway station,
and whom I scanned with curious critical eyes,
trying to understand the intricacies of their toilets,
and failing to obtain anything more than a general
impression that the tout ensemble was very effective.
The home dress might be compassed; but
how if it turned out that Philip wished his wife
to look picturesque and attractive out of doors—not
in Mrs Trafford’s style, but in Lilian’s more
refined way of being in the mode? I would take
Lilian into my confidence at once, and she would
help me. That very night I had determined to
make the truth known to her and to Mrs Tipper;
and after it was once known, the dress question
could be entered upon.

THE STORY OF THE PRISM.

When we see the brilliant colours reflected by the
glass lustres and chandeliers which are now so
commonly used for decorative purposes, we seldom
bestow a thought upon them, regarding them as
things too common, perhaps too trivial to be
worthy of any particular attention. We are content
to know that a triangular piece of glass will
exhibit certain bright colours—they look very
pretty, and it does not matter much how they
happen to be there. This is the common way of
dealing with the natural phenomena which meet
us at every turn in this wonderful world in which
we live. The progress of civilisation, with all its
triumphs of Science and Art, would indeed have
been slow, if not altogether at a dead-lock, if every
one had been content to treat such matters in this
summary fashion. But happily, this has not been
the case, for certain intellectual giants have from
time to time arisen, who have grappled with these{342}
things, and have devoted their lives to their
investigation.

Such a one was Sir Isaac Newton, who just
about two centuries ago, with rough appliances
fashioned by his own hands, inquired into the
meaning of the colours to which we have just
alluded. We cannot do better than quote his own
words, from a letter which he addressed to the
Royal Society in 1672; for his statement is so
clear that a child can easily understand what he
means. ‘I procured me a triangular glass prisme,’
writes he, ‘to try therewith the celebrated phenomena
of colours. And in order thereto having
darkened my chamber and made a small hole in
my window-shuts to let in a convenient quantity
of the sun’s light, I placed my prisme at his
entrance, that it might be thereby refracted to
the opposite wall.’

He goes on to say how surprised he was to find
that the ray of light, after passing through the
prism, instead of being thrown upon the wall in
the form of a round spot, was spread out into a
beautiful coloured ribbon; this ribbon being red
at one end, and passing through orange yellow
green and blue, to violet at its other extremity.
Upon this experiment is founded the theory of
colour, which with few modifications, still remains
unquestioned.

It was not until the beginning of the present
century that this experiment of Newton’s (repeated
as it had doubtless been in the meantime
by many philosophers) was found by Dr Wollaston
to possess certain peculiarities which defied all
explanation. He found that, by substituting a
slit in the shutter of the darkened room for the
round hole which Newton had used, the ribbon of
colour, or spectrum as it is now called, was intersected
by certain dark lines. This announcement,
although at the time it did not excite much
attention, led to further experiments by different
investigators, who, however, vainly endeavoured to
solve the meaning of these bands of darkness. It
was first observed by an optician of Munich that
they never varied, but always occupied a certain
fixed position in the spectrum; moreover he succeeded
in mapping them to the number of nearly
six hundred, for which reason they have been
identified with his name, as ‘Frauenhofer’s lines.’

In 1830, when improved apparatus came into
use, it was found that the number of these lines
could be reckoned by thousands rather than hundreds;
but their meaning still remained a puzzle
to all. By this time Newton’s darkened room
with the hole in the ‘window-shuts’ had been,
as we have just said, greatly improved upon. The
prism was now placed in a tube, at one end of
which was a slit to admit the light, while the retina
of the observer’s eye received the impression of
the spectrum at the other end. This is the simplest
form of the instrument now known as the spectroscope,
and which is, as we have shewn, a copy in
miniature of Newton’s arrangement for the decomposition
of white light into its constituent colours.

We must now go back a few years to record
some experiments carried out by Herschel, which,
quite independent of the spectroscope, helped
others to solve the problem connected with the
dark lines. He pointed out that metals, when
rendered incandescent under the flame of the
blow-pipe, exhibited various tints. He further
suggested that as the colour thus shewn was distinctive
for each metal, it might be possible by
these means to work out a new system of analysis.
A familiar instance of this property in certain
metals may be seen in the red and green fire which
is burned so lavishly during the pantomime season
at our theatres; the red owing its colour to a preparation
of the metal strontium, and the green
in like manner to barium. Pyrotechnists also
depend for their tints not only upon the two
metals just named, but also upon sodium, antimony,
copper, potassium, and magnesium. Wheatstone
also noticed the same phenomena when he
subjected metals to the intense heat of the electric
current; but it was reserved for others to examine
these colours by means of the spectroscope. This
was done by Bunsen and Kirchhoff in 1860, who
by their researches in this direction, laid the
foundation of a totally new branch of science.
They discovered that each metal when in an
incandescent state exhibited through the prism
certain distinctive brilliant lines. They also found
that these brilliant lines were identical in position
with many of Frauenhofer’s dark lines; or to put
it more clearly, each bright line given by a burning
metal found its exact counterpart in a dark line
on the solar spectrum. It thus became evident
that there was some subtle connection between
these brilliant lines and the dark bands which had
puzzled observers for so many years. Having this
clue, experiments were pushed on with renewed
vigour, until by some happy chance, the vapours
of the burning metals were examined through the
agency of the electric light. That is to say, the
light from the electric lamp was permitted to shine
through the vapour of the burning metal under
examination, forming, so to speak, a background
for the expected lines. It was now seen that what
before were bright bands on a dark ground, were
now dark bands on a bright ground. This discovery
of the reversal of the lines peculiar to a
burning metal, when such metal was examined in
the form of vapour, led to the enunciation of the
great principle, that ‘vapours of metals at a lower
temperature absorb exactly those rays which they
emit at a higher.’

To make this important fact more clear, we will
suppose that upon the red-hot cinders in an ordinary
fire-grate is thrown a handful of saltpetre.
(This salt is, as many of our readers will know, a
chemical combination of the metal potassium with
nitric acid—hence called nitrate of potash, or more
commonly nitre.) On looking through the spectroscope
at the dazzling molten mass thus produced,
we should find that (instead of the coloured ribbon
which the sunlight gives) all was black, with the
exception of a brilliant violet line at the one end
of the spectrum, and an equally brilliant red line
at the other end. This is the spectrum peculiar to
potassium; so that, had we not been previously
cognisant of the presence of that metal, and had
been requested to name the source of the flame
produced, the spectroscope would have enabled us
to do so without difficulty. We will now suppose
that we again examine this burning saltpetre
under altered conditions. We will place the red-hot
cinders in a shovel, and remove them to the
open air, throwing upon them a fresh supply of
the nitre. We can now examine its vapour, whilst
the sunlight forms a background to it; when we
shall see that the two bright coloured lines have
given place to dark ones. This experiment will{343}
prove the truth of Kirchhoff’s law so far as potassium
is concerned, for the molten mass first gave
us the bright lines, and afterwards by examining
the cooler vapour we saw that they were transformed
to bands of darkness; in other words they
were absorbed. (In describing the foregoing experiment,
we have purposely chosen a well-known
substance, such as saltpetre, for illustration; but in
practice, for reasons of a technical nature, a different
form of potassium would be employed.) Kirchhoff’s
discovery forms by far the most important
incident in the history of the spectroscope, for
upon it are based the new sciences of Solar and
Stellar Chemistry, to which we will now direct
our readers’ attention.

The examination of the heavenly bodies by
means of the spectroscope has not only corroborated
in a very marvellous manner the discoveries
of various astronomers, but it has also been instrumental
in correcting certain theories and giving
rise to new ones. The existence of a feebly luminous
envelope extending for hundreds of thousands
of miles beyond the actual surface of the sun, has
been made evident whenever an eclipse has shut
off the greater light, and so permitted it to be
viewed. The prism has shewn this envelope, or
chromosphere as it is called, to consist of a vast
sea of hydrogen gas, into which enormous flames
of magnesium are occasionally injected with great
force. (We need hardly remark that these facts
are arrived at analogously by identifying the absorption
lines with those given by the same elements
when prepared artificially in the laboratory.) This
chromosphere can, by the peculiar lines which it
exhibits in the spectroscope, be made manifest
whenever the sun itself is shining.

The foregoing discovery has given astronomers
the advantage—during a transit of Venus—of
viewing the position of the planet both before and
after its passage across the sun’s disc; for it is
evident that the presence of an opaque body in
front of the chromosphere will cut off the spectral
lines in the path which it follows; so that although
the planet is invisible its exact place can be noted.
From a comparison of these lines with those that
can be produced in the laboratory, it is rendered
probable that no less than thirteen different metals
are in active combustion in the body of the sun.
From certain geological appearances, it is conjectured
that our own earth was once in this state of
igneous fusion, and although our atmosphere is now
reduced to a few simple elements, it must once have
possessed a composition as varied as that of the sun.
As it is, the air which we breathe gives certain
spectral lines. These are much increased in number
when the sun is low, and when therefore it is
viewed through a thicker medium. In this case the
blue and green rays are quickly absorbed, while
the red pass without difficulty through the denser
mass of air, thus giving the setting sun his blood-red
colour. It will now be readily understood
how, by means of the spectroscope, the existence of
atmosphere in the superior planets can be verified.
What a world of conjecture is thus opened out to
us! for the existence of atmosphere in the planets
argues that there are seas, lakes, and rivers there
subject to the same laws of evaporation as those
upon our own earth. And if this is so, what kind
of beings are they who inhabit these worlds? The
moon shews no trace of atmosphere, so that we
may assume that if there be living beings there,
they must exist without air and without water.
The lines given by the moon and planets being in
number and position identical with those belonging
to the solar spectrum, is a further proof, if any
were needed, that their light is borrowed from the
sun.

The varied colours of the fixed stars may be
assumed to be due (from what we have already
stated with regard to metallic combustion) to their
chemical composition; and the spectroscope, by the
distinctive lines which it registers, renders this
still more certain. Their distance from us is so
vast, so immeasurably beyond any conception of
space that we can command, that the detection of
their composition is indeed a triumph of scientific
knowledge. It has been calculated that if a model
of the universe were made in which our earth
were depicted as the size of a pea, the earth itself
would not be one-fifth large enough to contain that
universe.

If we marvel at the extraordinary skill which
has brought these distant spheres under command
of an analytical instrument, we must wonder still
more when we are told that the spectra of these
bodies can be brought within range of the photographic
camera. This has lately been done by the
aid of the most complicated and delicate mechanism;
the difficulty of keeping the image stationary
on the sensitive collodion film during the
apparent motion of the stars from east to west,
having only just been surmounted. This power
of photographing the spectrum is (as we hinted
in a recent paper on Photographic Progress) likely
to lead to very great results, for the records thus
obtained are absolutely correct, and far surpass in
accuracy the efforts of the most skilful draughtsman.
It must be understood that in all these
researches the spectroscope is allied with the telescope,
otherwise the small amount of light furnished
by some of the bodies under examination
would not be enough to yield any practical result.

The clusters of matter which are called nebulæ,
and which the most powerful telescopes have resolved
into stars, are shewn by the prism to be
nothing but patches of luminous gas, possibly the
first beginnings of uncreated worlds. Comet-tails
are of the same nature, a doubt existing as to
whether their nuclei borrow their light from the
sun or emit light of themselves. We may close
a necessarily brief outline of this part of our subject
by stating that it is possible that the spectroscope
may some day supplant the barometer, more
than one observer having stated that he has discovered
by its aid signs of coming rain, when the
latter instrument told a flattering tale of continued
fine weather.

We have merely shewn hitherto how the spectroscope
is capable of identifying a metal; but its
powers are not limited to this; for by a careful
measurement of the length of the absorption lines,
a very exact estimate of the quantity present can
be arrived at. This method of analysis is so
delicate that in experiments carried on at the
Royal Mint, a difference of one ten-thousandth
part in an alloy has been recognised. Neither
must it be supposed that the services of the
spectroscope are confined to metals, for nearly
all coloured matter can also be subjected to its
scrutiny. Even the most minute substances, when
examined by the microscope in conjunction with
the prism, shew a particular spectrum by which{344}
they can always be identified. Nor does the form
of the substance present any difficulty in its
examination, for a solution will shew the necessary
absorption bands. Blood, for instance, can
be discovered when in a most diluted form. To
the physician the detection of the vital fluid in
any of the secretions is obviously a great help to
the diagnosis of an obscure case. But in forensic
medicine (where it might be assumed that this
test would be of value in the detection of crime)
the microscope can identify blood-stains in a more
ready manner.

The simple glass prism as used by Newton,
although it is the parent of the modern spectroscope,
bears very little resemblance to its gifted
successor. The complicated and costly instrument
now used consists of a train of several prisms,
through which the ray of light under examination
can be passed by reflection more than once. By
these means greater dispersion is gained; that is to
say, the resulting spectrum is longer, and consequently
far easier of examination. A detailed
description of the instrument would be impossible
without diagrams, but enough has been said to
enable the reader to understand theoretically its
construction and application.

It will be understood that we have but lightly
touched upon a phase of science which is at present
quite in its infancy. It is probable that many
more remarkable discoveries will in course of time
be due to the prism. Already, within the past
twenty years, four new metals have by its aid
been separated from the substances with which
they were before confounded; and although they
have not at present any commercial value, we may
feel sure that they have been created for some good
purpose not yet revealed to us. There are signs
that the spectroscope will some day become a recognised
adjunct to our educational appliances. It
is even now included under the head of Chemistry
in the examination of candidates for university
honours, and there is no doubt that it will gradually
have a more extended use. Many years hence,
when generations of School-Boards have banished
ignorance from the land, the spectroscope may
become a common toy in the hands of children,
enabling them to lisp:

THE ROMANCE OF A LODGING.

IN TWO CHAPTERS.—CHAP. I.

‘Where to, ma’am?’ inquired cabby as he opened
the door of his vehicle to a lady and her son who
had just arrived by the evening train at Victoria
Station.

‘I want apartments somewhere in the neighbourhood
of Chelsea; drive on until you find
them: they are procurable, I suppose?’ the lady
replied as she took her seat.

‘I do hope we may find a lodging,’ she remarked
to her companion, after they had been driving what
appeared to her a very long time. The lad made
no reply, being of a phlegmatic temperament, that
finds speech an exertion unless distinctly necessary.

The lateness of the hour together with the
influx of visitors, owing to the London season
being then in full swing, made the search a difficult
one; they were about to give up its continuance
and go to an hotel, when the cabman good-naturedly
proposed making one more attempt, and
drove down a fresh street. Stopping at a baker’s
shop on the way, he invited the assistance of those
serving, as it was growing too dark to discern the
cards of advertisement.

They directed him to a private house in a street
adjoining, but added: ‘The chances are they are
let; still you might just as well try, as Mrs
Griffiths has a yearly lodger who allows her to
sublet sometimes; perhaps he is away now.’

‘Shall we chance it, ma’am?’ inquired the
cabman.

‘Do; I am so weary. She may be able to give
us a corner for the night at least.’

When they reached the house, Mrs Griffiths—late
cook in a nobleman’s family, who had married the
footman—appeared, and in answer to the appeal,
asked hesitatingly: ‘For how long?’

‘We should take them for a week of course,’
said the lady.

‘I cannot let for so long,’ she replied, after a
brief calculation; ‘but I can accommodate you
for a couple of days, if you please; that will give
you time to find other rooms.’

‘Thank you very much,’ said the wearied traveller
gratefully, as she followed the landlady
into a good-sized room on the right of the entrance-hall,
and begged for lights and tea as soon as
Mrs Griffiths could make it convenient to send
them.

‘How very fortunate we are to have found a
night’s lodging,’ she said to the lad, who now joined
her. ‘I think I see an easy-chair in that corner;
what a comfort!’ and she sat down to rest, removing
some of her heavy wraps as she spoke. ‘Now at
least we shall have breathing-time to consider what
is best to be done after your examinations are over.
I can go in search of rooms to-morrow while you
are at them. I wish she would hasten with the
light and tea; this darkness is oppressive. Where
are you, Fred?’

‘Here,’ he replied, from the opposite side of the
room. ‘Can I do anything for you? I’ve seen to
the luggage and paid the cabman, and now am
quite ready to do justice to some tea.’

They were soon put out of their discomfort by
the entrance of the landlady, bearing a handsome
lamp which gave a brilliant light.

‘I’ve brought you my gentleman’s lamp, ma’am;
he is away just now; that is why I have been able
to accommodate you; for he’s most obliging, and
don’t mind my letting his rooms—this one and the
one inside behind the folding-doors, together with
the one I have given the young gentleman up-stairs,
which belongs to his man-servant. May I
ask what name, ma’am?’

‘Mrs Arlington; and the young gentleman is
my son.’

Mrs Griffiths glanced at the tall elegant woman
in widow’s weeds, and thought to herself: ‘She
looks more fit to be his sister than his mother; and
is a sweet-looking lady anyway, whoever she is;’
and she was glad she had taken her in and her
son, if such he were. And then she bustled out of
the room to prepare their meal.

As soon as they were alone, Mrs Arlington gazed
around the room indifferently. It was of the
usual stamp of lodging-house apartment, furnished
according to the taste and means of those who take
to letting for a livelihood. A dismal horse-hair{345}
suite were the chief articles of furniture, supplemented
by others which stood out in contrast
against the horse-hair background—a good piano,
an harmonium, a bookcase with glass doors filled
with a choice selection of the best works, and an
easel. On the walls hung several good paintings,
one of which was the portrait of a beautiful young
girl.

‘Some artist must live here, I imagine,’ said the
lad, as he went from picture to picture examining
them, finally stopping before the portrait of the
young girl, that hung immediately over the chair
in which Mrs Arlington sat.

‘I daresay,’ she replied weariedly, as though it
were a speculation which could not possibly concern
her; and too glad of repose to be roused to
any sense of curiosity upon the subject.

‘Just look at this, mother; it is so pretty.’

‘I cannot, Fred; I am too exhausted to turn
round. I cannot possibly think of or look at any
thing until I have had a cup of tea.—Ah! here it
comes. Go and pour it out for me, and never mind
the picture. But I forget. I am unfeeling and
unnatural to tell you not to mind, for you are just
at an age when young girls are beginning to
possess a powerful attraction for you; but you
must put the pleasing delusions out of your head
until you have passed your examination for Sandhurst;
that is the move-in-chief towards which all
your energies must now be directed. I long to see
your poor father’s wishes fulfilled; and shall not
feel quite contented until you are gazetted into the
army; then my trust will have been accomplished.
How many years is it now, Fred, since you first
became my child?’

‘Ten.’

‘Yes; you were a little fellow when I first took
you in hand as your governess, and you learnt to
love me so well that your father asked me to be
your mother.’

‘Was that why you married him?’ inquired the
lad, as he brought her a cup of tea. ‘Didn’t you
care for him for his own sake? You always
seemed to.’

‘Yes, since you could observe; but not at first,
Fred—not at first. I had no heart for any one or
anything just at that time but mayhap for a
little child like yourself, who was motherless and
needed tenderness. It was just such an uncared-for
flower which alone could have saved me then,
for I had gone through a bitter sorrow, born of
my own caprice and foolishness; and through it I
lost what could never be mine again. I must
have died of despair, had I not set myself the
task of working out my wrong-doing in atonement,
if not to the person—that was impossible—at
least to some one of God’s creatures who might
need me; and it was at that very time I took
up the paper containing your father’s advertisement
for a governess. It served me for a
suggestion and a field wherein I might find
that for which I sought. I had never been a
governess; but I determined to become one, notwithstanding
the opposition of my family, who
could not comprehend, and strongly disapproved
of my taking such a step; but I carried my point
through our doctor telling my mother she was
wrong to oppose me, as my mind needed distraction
after all I had gone through; and that my
choice, so far from being reproved, ought rather
to be commended, since I had preferred it to the
injurious remedy of a round of amusements, so
invariably prescribed for distraught spirits; which
need instead the healthy medicine of some reasonable
duty to restore them to their former mental
composure. Thus I became free to answer your
poor father’s advertisement, and was accepted by
him for the post, oddly enough. And that is how
I became your mother, Fred. I have tried to fulfil
my trust; perhaps that has atoned.’

‘Atoned for what?’

‘Ah, never mind! I was only a young girl
then, vain and imperious, because I found I possessed
a most dangerous power—the power of
making whom I would love me—a precious gift,
which I did not know how to value rightly until—— But
never mind. I hate recalling by-gones.
Life is such a perpetual stumbling up hill with
most of us, it is no use retarding our journey by
useless retrospection; so when I am inclined to
indulge in vain regrets, I always think of that
heart-stirring line of the poet’s, “Act, act in the
living present;” and therefore, Fred, please to
cut me another slice of bread and butter and give
me another cup of tea, my child;’ and she laughed
at the application she had given to her words,
which was commonplace enough to destroy all
their poetry.

The way in which the boy watched and waited
on her, and the look of quiet amusement and
interest on his face as she spoke, shewed how
thoroughly she had won his heart, and was indeed
his mother, sister, friend, all in one. Yes; whatever
might have been the fault of her girlhood,
her subsequent years had fully atoned for it; she
had used her gifts rightly in the case of her step-son,
and his father, who had died about a year
ago, blessing her for her unwearied devotion, and
the happiness she had given him, leaving her the
undisputed guardianship of his only child.

As soon as their meal was concluded she went
into the adjoining room, divided by folding-doors
from the one in which they had been sitting. It
bore no traces of a previous occupant like the other,
save for a few perfectly executed pictures which
hung above the mantel-piece. She had her travelling
bag in her hand as she entered, which she was
about to deposit upon a table, when her eye caught
sight of one of the pictures, and the bag fell to the
ground as she started forward to examine the
pencil-sketch.

‘Impossible!’ she exclaimed; and she gazed
around the room helplessly, to see if she could by
any means find aught therein that would throw a
light upon the mystery before her; but all was
void: tables, chairs, wardrobe, and dressing appliances
were what met her gaze; while, like one
fascinated, she continued standing before the sketch
as if spell-bound.

‘Are you coming soon?’ inquired Fred, knocking,
who, notwithstanding his disinclination to free
converse, could never bear her long out of his
sight when they were together.

‘I will be with you in a moment,’ she returned,
recalling herself with no slight effort.

‘What is the matter?’ he exclaimed as soon as
she joined him. ‘You look as white as a ghost;
you are over-tired, I suspect: had you not better get
to sleep as soon as you can?’ he inquired with concern,
as he noticed that she was suffering from an
amount of nervous exhaustion that alarmed him.

‘It is nothing,’ she returned: ‘the journey was{346}
fatiguing;’ and then her eye stole round the room
with suppressed interest.

‘Is that the pretty girl you wanted me to admire,
Fred, just now when I was too hungry to oblige
you?’

‘Yes. Is she not a picture? What I should
call a “stunner!”‘

‘When shall I ever knock the school-boy out of
you, Fred?’ she cried, laughing. ‘You are a long
way off from that refined phraseology I am labouring
to inculcate. But you are right in this case. It
is a beautiful picture, of what I should call a detestable
character. She is, as you remark, a “stunner.”
There is not the least soul in her face; nothing
but proud self-consciousness, as if she were saying:
“I am a beauty, and I know it.” Poor thing! she is
to be pitied, if that is a true picture, and it looks as
if it were.’

‘How is she to be pitied? I don’t see that at
all.’

‘Because you can’t see yet, Fred, from your brief
study of her face, that a girl like that may learn to
feel at some time or another; and when she does,
the lesson is generally such a painful one that few
have the courage to rise above it. The artist who
drew her was in no lenient mood; he could detect
nothing in her but the stern facts which possibly
made him suffer,’ she added in an undertone,
accompanied by a long-drawn sigh.—’I wish we
had a book to read; try the bookcase; it may be
unlocked.’

He did as she bade him; and shook his head
negatively as he went first to the bookcase and then
to the piano.

‘”The gentleman,” as our landlady calls him,
is a cautious man evidently,’ said Mrs Arlington.
‘Well, we must not find fault with him, for his
amiability towards his landlady has secured us a
night’s repose. I wonder if he is the artist of these
pictures? I am ashamed of my curiosity, but I
have a wish to know. Could you be diplomatic,
Fred, and find out for me?’

‘Why not ask the landlady straight out?’

‘I dislike to appear so inquisitive, as it is of no
moment to us who he is.’

‘I don’t know that. If he is an artist, he would
no doubt be much obliged to us for asking. Act
on that presumption. You admire the pictures,
and may possibly wish to order some, or to sit for
your portrait.’

‘How magnificent you are, Fred! We look a
likely pair—don’t we?—to order pictures or sit for
portraits! A hundred guineas or so are nothing to
us; are they, my poor boy? Rein in your fancy. I
am afraid of you in this respect, when you are once
fairly launched on your own resources, as I cannot
always be at your elbow, to control your lavish
ideas, and our means are not large.’

‘Well, I was only suggesting, you know, a ready
mode of solving your difficulty about finding out
who is the artist of these pictures,’ said the boy
as he wished her good-night.

As soon as he was gone, Mrs Arlington went
cautiously round the room making a minute survey
of every article, with a look of intense interest in
her face, as though she were searching for a clue
she could not find. Every vase on the mantel-piece
she subjected to a close scrutiny, to see if possibly
a card or old envelope lay concealed therein. But
everything was dumb, and refused to bear the
least witness as to the name or calling of the
previous occupant. Quite foiled, she sat down
and fell into a profound reverie, which continued
until the landlady knocked at the door, and
entered to inquire if there was anything more she
wanted, and when she would like her breakfast
in the morning.

‘Thank you; nothing more to-night; and breakfast
at nine. By the way, have you any other
lodgers in the house?’

‘Yes, ma’am; the first floors are taken by a lady
and gentleman for a month, leastways so they told
me when they came; but the lady has got a maid
who is that vexing I can’t abear her; and I would
be glad to give them notice to go if I could be
sure of another party for the same time; but you
see, ma’am, we who live by letting can’t afford to
have our rooms empty.’

‘You cannot let me have these rooms, you say,
beyond a couple of days?’

‘No, ma’am. Mr Meredith—the gentleman—takes
them by the year on the condition that they
are always to be ready for him when he writes;
and only this afternoon he sent me a letter to say
he would be here on Wednesday.’

‘Mr Meredith, did you say, was his name? An
artist, I suppose? if I may judge by the pictures
and the easel.’

‘Dear, no, ma’am!’ exclaimed the landlady, as
if a discreditable imputation had been cast upon
the character of her lodger by the question. ‘He’s
got no call to earn his living, not he! He’s got a
place in the country, which he has let for I don’t
know how many years, and he keeps himself free
to come and go as he likes. Such a fine noble-looking
gentleman as he is! He took these rooms
of me some eight years back, when I first married
and set up housekeeping, because he said he liked
the quiet of the place; and he keeps them by the
year; but he lets me take in lodgers when he is
away, so long as I don’t bring children into the
rooms. He has been here for a whole year at a
spell; and then again he is off, and maybe we
won’t see him for months at a time. He is a most
excellent lodger as ever was; and his man a nice
civil, handy fellow, with none of them airs and
graces as these minxes of girls give themselves;
but then, “Like master, like man,” say I, and I’ve
always found it so.’

‘And your first floors, you tell me, you would
be glad to re-let, were you sure of another tenant?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Very well then; as I have no maid likely to
disturb you, I will take them for a month certain,
if I can have them on Wednesday morning; and I
will further pay you the week’s rent you will have
to forfeit by giving the present lodgers notice to
quit summarily; but remember I only take them
on this one condition. It is now Monday night,
and I must move in on Wednesday morning.’

‘I’ll manage it for you, ma’am, even if I get a
summons for it.’

‘You shall be no loser in any case; I will pay
all expenses;’ and she drew out her purse to
deposit a week’s rent in advance.

‘Never mind it, ma’am; you look a lady as one
may trust, and I’ll see that you are in the rooms
on Wednesday morning. I can easily put the
blame on Mr Meredith, if they become very unpleasant,
by saying he takes the rooms by the
year; they are not to know whether he may not
want the first floors this time.’

{347}

Mutually satisfied with their bargain, landlady
and lodger parted for the night. On the face of
the latter could be discerned a compression of the
lips, which bespoke a sudden resolve she was bent
upon carrying out, even though it failed in the
end to prove successful.

MYSTICAL PLANTS.

Human cunning and human credulity have
dowered with mystery certain plants which are
worthy of being considered the most beautiful
and passive of created objects. One plant at
least has been said to utter shrieks on being
torn from the earth, and to have avenged the
violence by causing the death of him who removed
it. This plant was the mandragora of the
poets, the mandrake of Scripture, a species of
the Solanæ or Nightshade tribe; the belief in whose
qualities as a sedative or a charm was as old as
the days of the childless Rachel. Indigenous to
the East, where probably its uses as an anodyne
and soporific were early known to the initiated, it
may be that in order to enhance the wonder of
its effects, and prevent the extirpation of the root
by its too common use, miraculous powers were
imputed to it, and superstition hedged it round
with fabled terrors.

The evil reputation of the plant procured it
subsequently the name of Atropa mandragora, by
which our oldest botanists distinguish it; a name
borrowed from the most terrible of the Fates,
Atropos, and since transferred to its relative Atropa
belladonna (Dwale, or ‘Deadly Nightshade’). So
potent and valuable were the medical uses of the
root at a time when few anodynes were known,
that the ancient Romans made it the subject of a
weird ritual, without which they would have
deemed it impious to have taken it from the earth.
The operator stood with his back to the wind,
drew three circles round the root with the point
of a sword, poured a libation on the ground, and
turning to the west, began to dig it up.

The root of the mandrake, a plant with a tap-root,
frequently forked, as we see that of the
radish, and covered with fibrous rootlets, was
easily convertible into a grotesque likeness of
the human form. In the times of Henry VIII.
and Elizabeth, little images made of mandrake
roots, called abrunes, were imported in large
numbers from Germany, and found a ready sale
in England. The fable of the wondrous powers
of these vegetable idols was easily accepted by
our superstitious ancestors; and the pedlers who
travelled about from place to place with cases of
them drove a brisk trade. Sir Francis Bacon had
them in his mind’s eye when he wrote: ‘Some
plants there are, but rare, that have a mossy
or downy root, and likewise that have a number
of thread-like beards, as the mandrake, whereof
witches and impostors make an ugly image,
giving it the form of a face at top of the root, and
leave those strings to make a broad beard to the
foot.’ It is to the credit of the old herbalists Gerard
and Turner, that they both essayed, without fear of
consequences, to dig up and examine for themselves
the dreaded mandrake, and lost no time in publishing
the fallacy of the weird stories told of it.

Saturnine and poisonous plants were those most
affected by necromancers and witches—plants
dwelling in shady groves like that described by
Dryden in Œdipus:

or on wild heaths, like the potent moonwort, which
opened locks and unshoed horses; or amidst solitary
churchyards and old ruins, like the deadly
nightshade and fetid henbane, hound’s-tongue, and
digitalis. Plants with dusky or sad-green leaves,
and lurid-coloured flowers for the most part, and an
ill-favoured soporific scent. Nature herself distinguishes
hemlock from all others of the umbelliferous
tribe by the pink or purplish spots with which
its tall smooth stem is variegated. It grows by
hedgerows and in waste places; its large-winged,
finely-cut leaves and white umbels of flowers
give no indication of its dangerous nature; but
its speckled cuticle betrays it, and prevents its
being rashly meddled with by rustic herb-gatherers
and children.

Wolf’s-bane or monk’s-hood, a herb of Saturn,
sacred to Hecate, and which has since figured in
the floral calendar of witchcraft, had its first
name from the use the Anglo-Saxons made of the
juice, in which they dipped their arrows, and
literally kept the wolf from the doors of their
wattled huts. It was and is a brave herb for all
evil purposes. Its root resembles the tail of a
scorpion; its flowers, of lurid purple, have the
form of a helmet; features sufficiently significant
for those who sought such dangerous simples.
The very scent of the flowers on some sensitive
persons has produced swooning and loss of
sight for several days; others it has deprived
of speech; and there are instances on record of
persons who have eaten of the root being seized
with all the symptoms of mania. Imagine such
powers in the hands of a reputed witch, malevolent
enough to exercise them for reward or
malice, in days when medical science itself was
not without faith in magic! Dreadful as are its
proved effects, the monk’s-hood is a common plant
in cottage gardens, where we have seen it flourishing
three feet in height, crowned with its
handsome spikes of purplish flowers, and little
children playing with them.

Black hellebore had also a place in the category
of mystical plants; the Romans removed the root
with the same ceremonies as were observed in
taking up the mandrake, with this distinction,
that prayers were humbly offered to Apollo and
Æsculapius for permission, and the operator turned
to the east instead of to the west, on commencing
to dig it up.

No wayside plant is more simple in appearance
than the vervain, the ‘holy herb’ of so many{348}
nations. Its pale lilac spike of minute flowers
scarcely attracts attention, except from those who
know its ancient history and uses. In the sun-worship
of the ancient Persians, their magi carried
branches of vervain in their hands when approaching
the altar. So did the pagan priests of ancient
Greece and Rome; and ages subsequently, the
Druids in the forest temples of Gaul and Britain.
With the Greeks and Romans, it was never
absent from their religious rites. The plant was
long considered to be good against witchcraft and
the bites of venomous creatures; and being under
the dominion of Venus, was a great beautifier;
and when used in the baths of delicate women,
made a fair face and took away freckles. It
were ‘perhaps well,’ as Lord Bacon would say,
to notice the agreement between various writers
as to the cephalic virtues of the plant, and its
remedial efficacy in taking away headache, and
the ‘pin and web,’ or clouds and mists which
darken the optic nerve. From medical to magical
uses was but a step in those days, sometimes a
very short one; and accordingly we find a spray
of vervain used as a charm to keep houses and
persons from harm, and especially from evil
spirits and witchcraft. A relic of the later superstition
lingers in the rhyme—

St John’s wort, by virtue of its dedication to
the saint, whose birthday, according to the religious
calendar, is the anniversary of the summer
solstice, was said to have the power of putting to
flight ghosts, demons, and even Satan himself.
Jeremy Taylor, in his Dissuasions from Popery,
enumerating certain specifics used by the priests
to discover the presence of the evil one, adds, ‘and
specially St John’s wort, which therefore they call
“Devil’s Flight,”‘ which is an anglicised rendering
of the old pagan name Fuga Demonium, which
Pliny tells us it received from its property of
scaring demons; and retained in more modern
times in allusion to its supposed virtues in the
cure of distraction and melancholy. The Irish
peasant at the present day firmly believes in the
powers of St John’s wort which his Church originally
endorsed; and on the vigil of the saint’s
day, gathers bunches of the bright yellow, starry,
almost scintillating flowers, and after sprinkling
them with holy water, hangs them at the bed’s
head, and over the door, with a firm faith in the
potency of the plant to preserve him and his
household from evil spirits, fairies, and witchcraft.
Armed with this floral charm, the wanderer
through the most solitary places is as safe as on
the fire-lit hill, amidst the youth of a whole
village, who are dancing and making merry, and
leaping through the fire to Moloch—without an
idea that the revels of the sainted summer’s night
once meant the worship of the sun-god Belus. In
days when the occult powers of certain plants were
universally believed, it made part of the champion’s
oath, that he carried not about him any herb, spell,
or enchantment, by which he might procure the
victory.

Nowadays, the mistletoe generally affects old
crab and apple trees, and the boughs of beech and
ash; but in so-called Druidical times it appears
to have flourished in the oak-groves, which these
strange worshippers are said to have made their
temples, and under the name of the ‘All-heal
plant,’ was, we are told, severed from these trees
with solemn ceremonies. The mystery of its
appearance—its aërial place of growth—the pale
green antlered branches putting forth their pearly
berries in honour, as it were, of the high festival
of the winter solstice, ‘the mother of the nights’—probably
conduced to render it a miraculous plant.
Long after Druidism was but a name, the plant
retained its healing and protective properties for
the populace, whose teachers strengthened their
superstitious reverence for it, by calling it Lignum
Sanctæ Crucis (wood of the holy cross). Amulets
were made of it, and worn round the neck, to
defend the wearer from enchantment and other
dangers; and in more modern times, as a charm
against the falling-sickness and the plague.

The yew, like the oak, was sacred to the
Druids. Branches of it were anciently carried
by the mourners at funeral processions, and were
thrown into the grave before the coffin was
lowered. The awe in which it was originally
held is traceable in the traditions yet extant of
its dangerous and even deadly properties. The
beautiful crimson drupes scattered amongst its
dark-green linear leaves were reputed poisonous
if eaten. In clipping the tree, the greatest
care was necessary that the operator might not
inhale its dangerous fumes; while to sleep
under the shade of its widespread branches,
ragged and dusky as a raven’s wing, was to risk
sickness and even death.

The mountain-ash or rowan-tree has for ages
been endowed with mystical properties in Scotland.
The custom of carrying sprigs of it in
the pocket still obtains in the Isle of Man, where
it is extensively grown and cherished for warding
off demons, witchcraft, and the evil-eye. There,
on St John’s Eve, crosses are made of it and
hung upon the cattle, and placed over the doors,
and in the eaves of barns and houses, to avert the
evil influences supposed to be preternaturally
active on that night. Not such the reputation of
the Lunaria, described by Chaucer, Spenser, and
Drayton as one of the most powerful of vegetable
charms, and an ingredient in the most subtle spells
of night-hags and enchanters. This, the homely
‘Honesty’ of the cottage garden, the satin flower
that our grandmothers cherished, is a plant than
which none more apparently harmless is to be
found in the floral calendars of herbmen and
gardeners. But in days when plants were supposed
to bear witness in many instances to their own
attributes, when certain features were sought for
and believed in, as affording a key to the sympathies
and properties of herbs, its round flat
silvery frond shewed it to be under the dominion
of the moon, and endowed with magic
influences.

After all, a child’s hand might have clasped the
plants that were under the ban of our ancestors.
Amongst the most potent of these herbal talismans
were the trefoil and the wood-sorrel, the
triple leaves of which symbolised the Trinity, and
were on that account noisome to witches. Hence
arose the custom in Ireland for the lord of the soil
as well as the peasant to wear the shamrock as
a preservative from evil influences, a custom
annually returned to, without distinction of creed
or rank, by all true Irishmen on the anniversary of
St Patrick’s Day—a saint it will be remembered so
pure that all venomous things fled before him.{349}
In that country, as in this, there still lingers in
shady, rustic places an aged moribund belief in
the occult power of plants in the hands of weird
women who know how to use them.

MEMORY.

It is maintained by many psychologists that if an
impression is once made upon the memory, it
remains for ever. And it is undoubted that there
are certain seasons of life or certain circumstances
when memory is peculiarly susceptible, and when
the impressions made are deep and sharp and
definite. The objects familiar in childhood and
youth, the texts, the hymns, and lessons then
mastered become a lifelong bequest; the memory
has petrified them on its tablet for ever. Sometimes
the memory is in a state of spontaneous
receptivity, and without any trouble on the part of
the subject, the mind retains its interesting objects
for years, perhaps through the whole life.

Memory develops in every sound mind almost
as early as the powers of observation; and the
objects about which it is employed in the earlier
stage are much alike in all individuals. But very
early we discern a difference in the natural affinities:
one youthful reminiscent evinces a talent in finding
his way to the infant school; whilst a bewildered
companion of the same class uses leading-strings.

In glancing through the records of all ages
and all nations, we meet with certain individuals
who have been celebrated for their extraordinary
powers of memory; and some of these
would appear to us so wonderful, that we are
tempted to disbelieve them, and place them in
the list of human impossibilities. But it cannot
be denied that there are numberless instances upon
record, both ancient and modern, and also in our
own day, of persons retaining an almost incredible
recollection of a great diversity of matters, consisting
in some cases of long lists of dates and names,
or in others, countenances and circumstances, long
since forgotten by the majority of mankind, through
a lapse of time intervening.

We propose in this paper to submit to the reader
a few of the many most authentic examples of
retentive memory on record.

Within the range of their own experience, many
of our readers must have noticed examples of
quick or retentive memory. Frequently, however,
these powerful memories are filled with matters of
questionable value. Of such we may mention an
individual well known in London by the name of
‘Memory-Corner Thompson,’ who was remarkable
for an astonishing local memory. In the space of
twenty-four hours and at two sittings, he drew
from memory a correct plan of the whole parish of
St James. This plan contained all the squares,
streets, lanes, courts, passages, markets, churches,
chapels, houses, stables, angles of houses; and a
great number of other objects, as wells, parapets,
stones, trees, &c., and an exact plan of Carlton
House and St James’s Palace. He made out also
an exact plan of the parish of St Andrew; and he
offered to do the same with that of St Giles, St
Paul, Covent Garden, St Clement, and Newchurch.
If a particular house in any given street was
mentioned, he would tell at once what trade was
carried on in it, the position and appearance of the
shop, and its contents. In going through a large
hotel completely furnished, he was able to retain
everything and make an inventory from memory.
He possessed a most mechanical memory; and he
could, by reading a newspaper overnight, repeat
the whole of it next morning. He died in February
1843, at the age of eighty-six. Mr Paxton Hood
knew a man in London who could repeat the
whole of Josephus; and William Lyon, like
Thompson, could read the Daily Advertiser overnight,
and repeat it word for word next morning.

As a contrast to this, on the other hand we
know an individual who travelled through a
considerable extent of country, and passed through
several towns he had visited before, yet was
ignorant of the fact until informed of it by another
traveller!

Pliny, in the seventh book of his Natural
History, makes mention of one Charmidas or Charmadas,
a native of Greece, who was the possessor
of so singular a memory that he was able to
deliver word for word the entire contents of any
book which might be called out of a library, without
having read it. This, however, we should be
inclined to take cum grano salis.

Some cases are quoted of persons having a
remarkable gift of learning any number of foreign
languages in an incredibly short time. Mithridates
king of Pontus had an empire in which
two-and-twenty languages were spoken; yet it
is asserted that he had not a subject with
whom he could not converse in his own dialect.
But in later times the royal linguist has been
eclipsed by the late Cardinal Mezzofanti, who
died in 1849. He had a wonderful memory for
the retention of words, and with a grammatical
intuition which has never been property explained,
he went on acquiring languages, till at the age of
seventy he could converse in upwards of fifty,
besides having an acquaintance with at least twenty
more. He was at home in both of the dialects
of the Basque language, the most difficult in
Europe; also in the different dialects of German;
with Englishmen he never misapplied the sign
of a tense. Besides the foregoing, he was so
far master of at least one Chinese dialect that
he delivered a set speech to Chinese students at
the Vatican. So conversant was he with all the
dialects of each tongue that he could at once
detect the particular county, province, or district
to which a speaker belonged. He himself was
upon several occasions mistaken for a native of
totally different countries. According to his own
words, as related to his friend Cardinal Wiseman,
his method of studying a new language was to
read straight through the grammar, and when he
had arrived at the end he was master of the whole.
He never forgot anything he had once heard or
read.

Sir William Jones, in spite of his many duties{350}
as a legal student, had before his death acquired
so intimate a knowledge of fourteen languages,
that he translated from the most difficult and
obscure. Dr Alexander Murray, the learned
author of The History of European Languages,
was another of Britain’s greatest linguists, who
remembered every word he ever read; he had
the whole of Milton by heart. The Emperor
Claudius was another great memorist, also repeating
by heart the Iliad and Odyssey.

It is recorded of Dr Leyden the distinguished
oriental scholar, that when at Calcutta, a case
occurred in which it was necessary, before deciding
the issue, to know the exact wording of an act of
parliament, of which, however, a copy could not be
found in the Presidency. Leyden had had occasion
before leaving home to read the act, and undertook
to supply it from memory; and when nearly
a year afterwards a printed copy was obtained from
England, it was found to be identical with what
Leyden had dictated.

Richard Porson had a remarkable memory.
Being one day in the shop of Priestly the bookseller,
a gentleman came in and asked for a particular
edition of Demosthenes. Priestly did not
possess it; and as the gentleman seemed a good
deal disappointed, Porson inquired if he wished to
consult any particular passage. The gentleman
mentioned a quotation of which he was in search,
when Porson opened the Aldine edition of Demosthenes,
and after turning over a few leaves, put
his finger on the passage. On another occasion he
happened to be in a stage-coach; presently there
entered into it a young undergraduate with two
ladies. This young gentleman endeavoured to
make himself seem very learned; presently quoting
a Greek passage, which he said was from
Euripides. The great Greek scholar, who was
dozing at the other end of the coach, awoke
at the familiar sounds, and drawing a copy of
Euripides from the folds of his cloak, politely
asked him to favour him with the passage.
The student could not; and the ladies began to
titter. Reddening, the youth said that on second
thoughts, the passage he was sure was in Sophocles.
Porson thereupon produced a copy of
Sophocles, and again asked him to favour him
with the passage. The undergraduate again
failed; the ladies tittered greatly. ‘Catch me!’
said he, ‘if ever I quote Greek in a coach again.’
Stung by the laughter of his fellow-passengers, he
said: ‘I recollect now, sir; I perfectly recollect
that the passage is in Æschylus.’ His inexorable
tormentor, diving again in the capacious folds of
his cloak, produced a copy of Æschylus, and again
asked him to favour him with the passage. The
boiling-point was now reached. ‘Stop! stop!’
shouted he to the coachman. ‘Let me out! There
is a man inside who has got the whole Bodleian
library in his pocket!’ On another occasion, calling
upon a friend, Porson found him reading Thucydides.
Being asked casually the meaning of some
word, he immediately repeated the context. ‘But
how do you know that it was this passage I was
reading?’ asked his friend. ‘Because,’ replied
Porson, ‘the word only occurs twice in Thucydides;
once on the right-hand page in the edition
which you are now using, and once on the left. I
observed on which side you looked, and accordingly
I knew to which passage you referred.’

Once when in the house of Dr Burney at Hammersmith,
with some friends, examining some old
newspapers which detailed the execution of Charles
I., he came across various particulars thought by
some of them to have been overlooked by Rapin
and Hume; but Porson instantly repeated a long
passage from Rapin in which these circumstances
were all recounted. Upon one occasion he undertook
to learn by heart the entire contents of the
Morning Chronicle in a week; and he used to say
he could repeat Roderick Random from beginning
to end. His stupendous memory, however, on
account of his excesses, failed at last.

Dr Thomas Fuller, the worthy historian and
divine, was said to have been able to repeat five
hundred and nine strange names correctly after
having twice heard them; and he was known to
make use of a sermon verbatim if he once heard it.
He once undertook to name exactly backwards and
forwards every shop-sign from Temple Bar to the
extremity of Cheapside, on both sides of the way—a
feat of no ordinary magnitude, when we consider
that in his day every house had its sign.

‘Memory’ Thompson boasted he could remember
every shop from Ludgate Hill to the end
of Piccadilly; and another person who had earned
for himself the prefix of ‘Memory’ was William
Woodfall, the printer of the famous Letters of
Junius, who used to relate how he could put a
speech away upon a shelf in his mind for future
reference; and he was known to be able to remember
a debate for a fortnight, after many nights’
speaking upon other matters.

Dr Johnson was in the habit of writing abridged
reports of debates for the Gentleman’s Magazine
from memory.

Two noted frequenters of the Chapter Coffee-House
in Paternoster Row, in the last century,
were Murray and Hammond. Murray had read
through every morning and evening paper published
in London for thirty years, and his memory
was such that he was always applied to for dates
and facts by literary men and others.

Jedediah Buxton, who resided for some weeks
at St John’s Gate Clerkenwell, in 1754, had such
a memory that ‘he could conduct the most intricate
calculations by his memory alone, and such
was his power of abstraction that no noise could
disturb him.’ Singular to relate, he never learned
to read or write, though he was the son of a
schoolmaster.

Eugenia Jullian, a precocious child, well known
to the writer of this, at the age of five years had
a book given her to read; and looking through
it, she at length read a poem of several hundred
lines (it must be mentioned she knew her alphabet
at eleven months old, and could read at three years
of age) once through; and being asked what she
had read, she handed her mother the book, and
repeated the whole without a mistake. Unfortunately,
like most precocious children, her mind
proved too powerful for a delicate constitution,
and she died at an early age.

Among other possessors of very retentive memories
may be mentioned the learned Pope Clement
VI.; Dr Monsey, who died at Chelsea at the age
of ninety-five; and Mozart, who almost in every
case composed his pieces before he committed
them to paper.

At the present time, Elihu Burritt possesses a
remarkable memory. Born in America in 1811,
he had, at the age of twenty-seven, and while working{351}
at his trade, learned fifty languages. In 1846
he came to England, and was for some time United
States consul at Birmingham. Gustave Doré is
the owner of a good memory; and we have it from
a reliable authority, that Thomas Carlyle, ‘the
philosopher of Chelsea,’ lays a book aside when
he has read it, it being of no more use to him,
having abstracted and stored up in his mind all
the contents which he deems worthy of retention.

Every one has a memory, but every one has not
the same natural affinities, and therefore every one
does not retain with equal facility the same sort of
thing. One man, from taking a glance at an object,
will sketch it correctly; another could not give
a correct representation were he to labour for a
month. The mind of another is more for living
objects, and like Cuvier or Knox, he carries in
his memory the names and forms of hundreds of
plants and animals. A third has a propensity
for the faces of his fellow-creatures, and like
Themistocles, he can name each of the twenty
thousand of his fellow-citizens; or like Cyrus,
he could remember the name of every soldier
in his army; the like being related of L.
Scipio and the Romans. The day following the
arrival of Cinaes, ambassador of King Pyrrhus, in
Rome, he saluted by name all the senate and the
gentlemen of the city. Our own George III. had
an extraordinary power of recollecting faces. The
taste of a fourth is for languages, and like Mezzofanti
or Alexander Murray, every word he hears
or reads in a foreign tongue becomes a lifelong
heritage. Another retains mathematics, the symbols
of which require a peculiar cast of memory.
Such a mind is generally destitute of love of colour,
music, &c.; it wrestles with the artificial symbols
that express the most extensively important truths
of the world. The natural history memory has
to do with artificial symbols, but with these it
mixes the consideration of actual appearances to
the senses. The taste of another is for choice,
emphatic, and sublime diction; like Wakefield,
he can repeat the whole of Virgil and Horace,
Homer and Pindar.

The faculty of recollecting places is very large
in some of the inferior animals; pigeons and some
sorts of dogs have it very prominently. The falcon
of Iceland returns to its native spot from a distance
of several thousands of miles. And it seems
likely that this has at least something to do with
reference to those birds which migrate from one
country to another. It seems indispensable to a
successful traveller. Columbus, Cook, Park, and
Livingstone must have been largely endowed with
this faculty. These diversities have not been
sufficiently kept in view in the important business
of education, and the principle of cramming
the same things into every sort of memory still too
extensively prevails.

The memory may be strong where the intellect
is weak; but without the former faculty there can
be no intellectual growth; for is not memory the
power of the mind by which it retains its possessions?
If Sensation, Perception, and Attention
are the collecting faculties, Memory is ‘the conservative
faculty’—the retainer of the collected
treasures.

With the power of throwing our whole mental
vigour into any given act for the time being, a
strong will can generally insure a strong memory;
and for understanding then and retaining afterwards,
half an hour of such absorption and concentration
is worth more than the longest day of
day-dreaming—though day-dreaming, as an occasional
relaxation, is not to be despised.

Nowadays we are not at all surprised to see
placarded about our towns large announcements
of an ’eminent professor’ about to arrive, under
whose tuition we may be initiated into the ‘Art of
Memory,’ whereby we may be taught to remember
at will the heights of mountains, rows of dates,
chronological events, and all things coming within
the range of memory. It may be interesting
to learn that this is no new art, for by reference
to Pliny we find that the Art of Memory was
invented by Simonides des Melicus, and afterwards
perfected by Metrodorus Sepsius, ‘by which a
man might learne to rehearse againe the same
words of any discourse whatsoever after once
hearing.’

It does not fall within the scope of this paper
to enter upon the merits or demerits of this art;
but we may conveniently bring our subject to a
close by relating a couple of anecdotes that bear
upon it.

Upon one occasion, Fuller said: ‘None alive
ever heard me pretend to the art of memory, who
in my book have decried it as a trick, no art;
and indeed, is more fancy than memory. I
confess, some years since, when I came out of
the pulpit of St Dunstan’s East, one (who since
wrote a book thereof) told me in the vestry, before
credible people, that he, in Sidney College, had
taught me the art of memory. I returned unto
him: That it was not so, for I could not remember
that I had ever seen him before! which I conceive
was a real refutation.’

Not very long ago, a lecturer upon the art of
memory, whilst dining at an hotel in one of our
provincial towns, was inquired for and called
away suddenly; upon which he immediately
finished his repast and hurried from the room. A
moment or two afterwards, the waiter coming
round to the chair lately occupied by the professor,
held up his hands and exclaimed in astonishment:
‘Goodness gracious, the memory man has
forgotten his umbrella!’

GOSSIP ABOUT TAILS.

Everybody knows that tails serve a great variety
of purposes. To mention a few: The horse and ox
use their tail to drive off troublesome insects. Some
kinds of apes have long prehensile tails with which
they swing themselves from branches or reach
distant fruit. The kangaroo’s tail forms a kind of
extra leg, and is also serviceable in jumping. The
beaver is said to beat with its tail the mud of
which its house or dam is built, as well as to use
the organ in swimming. The tails of fishes act
like rudders, and in whales, for example, they are
powerful propellers, as also a means of attack or
defence. Birds of high flight have their tail
feathers adapted as a steering apparatus; while
the tails of parrots, toucans, and climbers generally,
incline downwards, and aid in laying hold of trees.
The tail in some reptiles is important for locomotion.
Scorpions have in their tail a formidable
weapon; and the noise made by the rattlesnake
when roused is given from its tail.

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There is a good deal of expression in tails. A
cat when unexcited has her tail bent towards the
ground and quiet; but when the animal is under
lively emotion, the tail shews movements which
are not of chance character, but predetermined by
nature—such and such an emotion causing such
and such a movement. When the cat feels afraid
when seized, for example by the neck, the tail
goes down between her legs. On sight of an
agreeable morsel of meat, the tail is raised straight
up. When angry, the cat bends her tail into two
curves of opposite direction—the greater curve at
the base, the lesser at the extremity—while the
fur is erect throughout. When on the alert for
prey, she lashes her tail from side to side. On
the other hand, the dog wags his tail to testify
joy; while (as with the cat) fear sends it
down between his legs. We are all familiar,
again, with the comical appearance of a herd
of cattle, driven to despair by insects, rushing
about a field on a hot day with their tufted tails
erect as posts. Dr John Brown, in one of his
racy sketches, tells of a dog of his whose tail had
rather a peculiar kind of expressiveness. This tail
of Toby’s was ‘a tail per se; it was of immense
girth, and not short, equal throughout like a policeman’s
baton; the machinery for working it was of
great power, and acted in a way, as far as I have
been able to discover, quite original. We called it
his ruler. When he wished to get into the house,
he first whined gently, then growled, then gave a
sharp bark, and then came a resounding mighty
stroke, which shook the house. This, after much
study and watching, we found was done by his
bringing the entire length of his solid tail flat
upon the door with a sudden and vigorous stroke.
It was quite a tour de force or a coup de queue, and
he was perfect in it at once, his first bang authoritative
having been as masterly and telling as his
last.’

There seems to be good reason for believing that
rats sometimes use their tails for feeding purposes
where the food to be eaten is contained in vessels
too narrow to admit the entire body of the animal.
A rat will push down his tail into the tall-shaped
bottle of preserves, and lick it after he has pulled
it out. A gentleman put two such jars of preserves
covered with a bladder, in a place frequented by
rats; and afterwards found the jelly reduced in each
to the same extent, and a small aperture gnawed
in the bladder just sufficient to admit the tail.
Another experiment was more decisive. Having
refilled the jars to about half an inch above the
level left by the rats, he put some moist paper over
the jelly and let it stand in a place where there
were no rats or mice, till the paper got covered by
mould. Then he covered the jars with a bladder
and put them where the rats were numerous; as
before, next morning the bladder had again been
eaten through, and on the mould there were numerous
distinct tracings of rats’ tails, evidently caused
by the animals sweeping these appendages about,
in the fruitless endeavour to find a hole in the
circle of paper which covered the jelly.

An example of the practice of vivisection (which
is happily less common in this country than on the
continent) is presented in an experiment made
lately by an eminent French physiologist with
the tail of a young rat. Readers are doubtless
aware of the curious results that may be obtained
by skin-grafting. The experimenter referred to
skinned a little portion of the tip of the rat’s tail,
made an incision in the back of the animal, inserted
the skinned tip in this hole, and fixed it
there. In course of time the wound healed, and
the animal went about with its tail thus transformed
into something like the handle of a teapot.
After eight months the savant cut the handle in
two; then on pinching the end of the part left
in the back, the rat appeared to feel pain, and tried
to escape. It was thus shewn that the sensitive
nerves in the end of the tail had formed a true
connection with the nerves in the back issuing
from the spinal cord; and that they conveyed an
excitation in an opposite direction to that in which
they convey it normally.

The trick which came under the notice of the
French correctional police will perhaps here recur
to recollection. A person complained that he had
been imposed upon by the purchase of an animal
represented to be ‘an elephant rat;’ that is, a rat
with a trunk and tusks resembling those of an
elephant. The trunk was nothing more than part
of a rat’s tail stuck into the snout of the animal,
where it grew as if natural. As for the tusks, they
were two of the teeth in the upper jaw which had
been suffered to grow by removing the two corresponding
teeth in the lower jaw against which they
used to grind and be kept short. More ingenious
than honest, the fraud was duly punished.

Crocodiles have enormous tails; of sixty vertebræ
there are more than forty which are caudal.
The organ is rather cumbrous to them on land,
and this fact affords an opportunity of escaping
from them by making quick turns, which they do
not readily follow. But their powerful tail must
be of immense value to them in swimming.

There is strong probability that the tail of some
animals covered with fur serves the purpose of a
protection to the air-passages of mouth and nose
during sleep, as also the retention of heat. This
will be apparent to any one who observes the
position into which the tail is curled in such cases,
and the face brought into contact with it.

Frogs have no proper tails, but in the tadpole
stage they have, and their locomotion by means of
them is familiar to everybody. A similar mode of
locomotion is observable in the minute animals
termed Flagellata, which advance by lashing their
tails from side to side. The motions of several of
those microscopic organisms known as Bacteria,
found in putrefying infusions of organic matter,
are at present somewhat enigmatical. But they
are to a certain extent explained by an interesting
observation made lately by MM. Colin and
Warming. With sufficient magnifying power
these naturalists have found tails in several of the
Bacteria. They vary in number from one to three,
are situated at one end of the axis of length, and
capable of rapid motion; by which the movements
of these minute creatures may fairly be accounted
for.

The last thing we have to say on the subject
is to express our gratification at the change which
has taken place in treating the tails of horses.
The odious and cruel practice of, docking them,
once so prevalent, has been happily abandoned,
and the horse’s tail is now left to attain its natural
graceful dimensions.