Sold!

Originally published in Harper's New Monthly Magazine (Harper and Brothers) vol.14 #84 (May 1857).

I was visiting the — Insane Asylum. The gentlemanly chaplain had conducted me from cell to cell, and exhibited to me the prisoner-patients as the keeper of a menagerie is wont to show the wild beasts to visitors. Having, at length, become surfeited with the conversation of love-lorn damsels, addle-headed philosophers, and crack-brained philanthropists, I was about to take my leave, when the chaplain exclaimed, "Stop, Mr. Prendergast, you must look at one more curiosity before you go. It's a man who, morning, noon, and night, is constantly muttering, 'Sold, sold, sold!' But I warn you not to be induced to listen to his story, or you will find yourself in the same predicament."
        "Sold, sold, sold!" moaned a querulous voice within, as my companion opened a cell-door. "Sold, by Heaven!" repeated the same voice, as I looked upon its proprietor, a shriveled, grizzled-haired gentleman, with woe-be-gone visage, who was reclining on an antiquated sofa. "Yes, Sir, sold, sold, sold!" he repeated, confidentially, as he turned his watery eyes upon me. "Stranger, allow me to unfold to you the tale of a man who has been sold."
        "There is neither head nor tail to it," said the gentlemanly chaplain, as I sat down on the antiquated sofa in the attitude of a listener; "however, you can listen to it if you choose." And the gentlemanly chaplain sat down and fell to reading a magazine that lay on the table.
        "Yes, Sir, I have been sold, emphatically sold!" said my entertainer, "and, what may seem strange to you, I have been laboring all my life to sell myself.
        "I was once young, like you, Sir. My eye was bright; my cheeks were red. My whiskers were as black as yours, and much more abundant. I had a heart, too. That's a thing, Sir, that wasn't quite out of fashion in those days. I had hopes, too.—Never mind—they are all sold. Yes, sold, sold, sold!
        "When I first came to live in New York, I loved a pretty, blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked, New Hampshire maiden with a merry laugh and elastic step and a form that wasn't all cotton and whalebone, and as loving a heart as there was in the Granite State. Country girls have hearts, Sir.
        "I came to New York to get a profession, and intended then to go back to New Hampshire, and marry this maiden, who was as poor as I was. People marry for love in the country, Sir.
        "But in New York I learned that my notions were antiquated. I found that love was obsolete in every thing but novels that men and women make to sell.
        "I found that in New York every body bought and sold, and that every thing was bought and sold. I learned that the chief end of man was to buy and sell. I saw that men and maidens, stocks and talents, dry-goods and characters, groceries and reputations, liquors and consciences, notes and votes, houses and friends, were bought and sold, all bought and sold.
        "The presiding genius of New York, the Demon of Bargain and Sale, a thrifty, bustling, persuasive demon in patent-leather boots, came to me one day, and whispered to me that when I was in Gotham, I should do as the Gothamites did. And he shook a bag of money in my ear. I was overpersuaded by its silvery eloquence.
        "I gave up my profession, and began to buy and sell. I gave up my New Hampshire maiden, too. Her love was all too cheap—so the demon said—it couldn't be bought and sold. They told me she shed some tears at being deserted, but she didn't pine away and die. Her heart was too strong for that. She married another man and, in due time, became the mother of ten children. That's the way New Hampshire girls take their revenge, Sir.
        "And so I bought and sold—bought and sold notes, and policies, and cargoes, and ships, and stores, and air-line railroads, and city lots in the moon.
        "I next sold promises and bought votes, and so got elected alderman of New York and, like other aldermen, sold myself every day in the year.
        "I then sold my principles and bought a nomination to Congress, wrote Honorable before my name, and sold my votes at rare bargains.
        "Meanwhile, I sold the heart-throbs of my best years, until, one morning, as I was looking in the glass, I observed a thread of silver over my right temple, and another ghostly intruder in my left whisker. At that sight, I felt a peculiar twinge in the place where my heart had once been. A subtle voice from the gray hair seemed to shout in my right ear, 'Sold!' the gray whisker echoed in my left ear, 'Sold!' and a voice from my heart-region responded, 'Sold!'
        "At this juncture, the Demon bowed himself into the room, and, rubbing his gloved hands together and jingling his bag of American coin, suggested that I had now reached a proper age for getting married. He also, still jingling the United States currency, gave me some important advice relative to the selection of a wife, which I promised to follow.
        "I first repaired to one of the emporiums of hair-dyes, cosmetics, pomatums, hair-invigorators, curling-irons, and French hair-dressers, where raven locks are bought by old New York, and mustaches are sold to young New York. There I had the silvery apparitions exorcised from my temple and whisker.
        "I was then prepared to enter the matrimonial market as a favored purchaser. Why shouldn't I be? I had gold, and houses, and land, and credit, and a name with Honorable before it; and, with all this, was not yet fifty by ten months. I visited Phalon's daily—the gray templar and white whisker had disappeared. I would make a rare young bridegroom. With the proceeds of my better years, I determined to invest largely in matrimonial felicity. 'None but the best for me—the best that can be bought!' I exclaimed, as I entered the market to buy me a wife.
        "You look surprised, Sir, because I speak of buying a wife. You may think that wives are sold only in such Mohammedan towns as Constantinople and Cairo, and in Thackeray's novels; but I assure you, on the word of a man whose sanity is above a shadow of suspicion, that, every day, here in New York city, Christian maidens are sold, sold, SOLD!
        "I met, at a 'crush' party—a kind of matrimonial fair, you know—one of the most dazzling and queenly of the dazzling and queenly maidens of New York. Her form was the perfection of symmetry; her complexion, the perfection of delicacy and bloom; her eye (she had just been taking wine), the perfection of melting tenderness; her hair, the perfection of mazy luxuriance. Her breath wafted the concentrated fragrance of Southern gales, or—a Parisian perfumery. She gleamed with diamonds, as a flower sparkles with dew-drops. Her ensemble was ravishingly artless and unstudied. She was an heiress, too.
        "I determined that she should be mine. The Demon whispered to me that she was the daughter of a Wall Street dealer in fancy stocks—that, like his other fancy stocks, she was for sale to the highest bidder.
        "After the customary preliminaries, in which I was duly instructed by the Demon, I approached the father with an offer. After some chaffering, and appraising, and praising, and beating down, we agreed upon particulars, and the transfer was made. Then he took out his memorandum-book to make a note of the transaction, and I fancied that he wrote thus: 'Daughter Maria sold.'
        "She consented to the bargain, as New York girls generally do—what else can they do? A duchy-less Italian Duke, who had sung duets with her, was dismissed, swore he should 'go dead,' and, the next week, married a widow with twice her money.
        "There was a poor, golden-haired young poet, who had long loved her and written three-verse sonnets to her. I saw him draw near to her, and heard him murmur something in low, earnest tones. I overheard her response: 'You are too late. I am sold!'
        "The young poet revenged himself by writing a satirical comedy on 'High Life in New York,' which was 'damned' on its first representation, and he died of chagrin. Some, however, said he starved to death.
        "The bargain which had been made in Wall Street was ratified in Grace Church, by a clergyman in robe and surplice, and duly witnessed by relatives and friends. As I gave the response 'I will,' the image of the New Hampshire maiden, looking just as she had when I had loved her long years before, glided to my side, and whispered, 'Sold.' That has always puzzled me, for I learned that on that very day she was seated in her cottage in New Hampshire, grown plain and matronly, nursing her tenth child, and superintending the washing and the churning of the butter.
        "As my bride responded, 'I will,' the ghost of the poor poet stepped between us, and murmured, 'Sold!' As the clergyman said, 'I pronounce you man and wife,' man and wife exchanged glances, and both inaudibly ejaculated, 'Sold!' The Wall Street dealer chuckled triumphantly, and repeated to himself, 'Daughter Maria sold!' Relatives and friends thronged around us to congratulate us on being—sold; and foremost among them came the Demon, still rubbing his gloved hands together, jingling his money-bag, and repeating complacently, 'Sold, sold, sold!'
        "No one noticed him but myself, however.
        "In my first light slumbers that night, brimstone-colored imps with flaming noses ensconced themselves in my ears. A portly imp seated himself astride my nose, and a whole bevy of imps perched in my hair and whiskers. Then the imp on my nose flourished a baton; the imp in my right ear began to growl bass; the imp in my left ear screeched tenor, and the whole company of imps joined in chanting a doggerel, which was all chorus, and the chorus was 'Sold, sold, sold!' When, at length, I awoke, my bride tossed uneasily by my side, and murmured in her sleep, 'Sold!'
        "Every night since that one, I have been favored with a 'free concert' by the same artists, with no change of programme.
        "Before the honey-moon was ended I discovered that my bride, like the other fancy stocks sold by her father—the purchasers of which are included in the inventory of the sold—was not all that she had seemed to be. Fool that I had been to expect it—I was deservedly sold!
        "Her form—I am telling you family secrets, my dear fellow, of course they'll go no further—her form, I say, was indeed symmetrical enough, but its most ravishing perfections, the exquisitely tapering waist, the voluptuously rounded bust, which I had deemed master-works of Nature, were triumphs of Art—the divine art of Madame Bellemode, her French dress-maker. Had my object been to possess a master-piece by Madame Bellemode, I should have bought that well-dressed statues, with waxen face, glass eyes, and imaginary continuations—that model for New York belles—that looks out on Broadway from the bow-window of Madame's shop. But as that had not been my object, I deemed that, in that respect, I had been sold.
        "Her complexion, too, which had so dazzled me, was all—well, I won't say what, but this I do say, that if my object had been to buy a painting, I should have ordered one from a French, or Italian, or native artist—from any other source, in fact, except the New York School of Designing Women.
        "When I first saw my wife without her complexion, however, I learned that she was at least ten years older than I had taken her to be. I found, too, that her tresses, which had bewildered me by their glossy luxuriance, had originally come from Paris—but not with her. Her diamonds, unlike the dew-drops which they had reminded me of, seldom sparkled except by gas-light, and, as I learned to my cost, were much more expensive than dew-drops. The bewitching artlessness of her expression was the result of a world of art, and her unstudied ensemble was her constant study. In these additional respects, I reluctantly admitted that I had been sold.
        "One day, before our honey-moon was ended, we had a visitor—a spectre—a fashionably-dressed spectre—a spectre of polite leisure. In the movements of his attenuated form there was the fashionable air of premature old age. His wan visage wore the fashionable blasé expression. You may have met him. His name was Ennui. He was the bosom-companion of many fashionable people, was much courted in fashionable circles, and had the easy confidence that generally distinguishes fashionable bores.
        "He dined with us on his first visit. Though he received but a cold welcome, he came again the next, and every following day. He would breakfast, lunch, dine, and even go abroad with us. His spectral constitution was afflicted with a proclivity for yawning. His yawns proved infectious, and so we three—my wife, the spectre, and I—would entertain one another principally by yawning, and between yawns would ever and anon murmur in succession, 'Sold, sold, sold!'
        "Dissatisfied with the result of my attempt to purchase domestic felicity, I consulted my wife as to the further investments necessary in order to secure it. Her advice was prompt, and on that advice, as a dutiful husband, I promptly acted.
        "I bought a choice lot on Fifth Avenue. On that lot I proceeded to erect a palace—a royal palace, five stories and a half high, and with brown stone front, all on the most modern and expensive plan. I decorated the interior with the most modern and expensive styles of gilding, and carving, and fresco, and furniture and plate. I filled the library with books in the most modern and expensive bindings. I filled the conservatory with the most modern and expensive plants. I filled the stables with horses of the most modern and expensive breed. As my palace would not be furnished without containing some gems of art, I bought for it a gallery of paintings, which—so the salesman assured me—were chef-d'œuvres of all the old masters. I observed that when I had bought them the salesman thrust his tongue into his cheek, and, referring, of course, to the pictures, exclaimed, 'sold!'
        'It was indispensable that the inhabitant of a Fifth Avenue palace possess a coat-of-arms. I had not inherited such an article. I sought the family archives and tried to trace back my pedigree, but lost it the third generation back—in a jail. You see I make you a confidant, my dear fellow. My grandfather's appropriate emblem would have been an aw) and waxed-end, and my father's a spade and plow; but neither of them kept a carriage, or had any coats but homespun ones. We visited the Heraldry Office, but were not suited. In my perplexity, the demon came to my relief, with a simple and appropriate device. It was a hollow heart, filled with American coin, with the motto, 'Sold, sold, sold!'
        "When my house was completed, my wife smiled on it and on me, and said we should be so happy! We took up our abode in it, and were happy—one week.
        "At the expiration of that week, the spectre walked in with his sickly smile, and suggested that our house was not perfectly well arranged, nor the embellishments in perfectly good taste, nor the furniture perfectly well assorted; that our establishment was inferior to the Joneses', two blocks above; and that the Smiths' new house across the way would eclipse it altogether; that Fifth Avenue palaces were troublesome, and expensive, and unsatisfactory luxuries at best, but were his favorite resorts, and that he had come to stay with us always. Then my wife and I yawned, and ejaculated in dismay, 'Sold, sold, sold!'
        "Presently my wife spoke. Said she, 'Let us give a grand party—a "crush" party—and invite two thousand people!' I acquiesced, and the cards were sent.
        "The grand night at length came, and Sexton Brown came, and the throng of carriages came, and the two thousand invited guests came, and among them the Smiths and Joneses came. They danced, and flirted, and crowded, and crushed one another in my parlors, and ate my oysters and ices, and drank my wine, and damaged my furniture, and criticised my pictures, and—went away. When the last carriage had rolled away I walked through my deserted parlors, and glanced at my damaged carpets, stumbled over a broken chair, and sat down on a disjointed sofa and murmured 'Sold!' And a chorus of voices, sounding strangely like those of my late guests, echoed, 'Sold, sold, sold!'
        "I repaired to my library, and sat down to my desk to look to my accounts. As I opened it, out sprang a bevy of pale phantoms with long bills. A phantom with the proportions of a fiddle and sinews of catgut, thrust into my ear a music-bill; another, with the sweet persuasiveness of sugar, insinuated into my lips a confectionery-bill; and a bottle-bellied phantom pecked at me with a wine-bill. They opened their bills and clamored, severally, for a thousand, eight hundred, six hundred, four hundred, and two hundred dollars. Then all croaked in concert, 'Five thousand!' I rushed in terror to bed, and dreamed of seeing five thousand little cherubs, with faces like gold dollars, borne away captive by relentless bills, and woke up screaming 'Sold, sold, sold!'
        "For years I continued dutifully to follow my wife's advice, and, by a strange coincidence, whenever I had done so was invariably haunted by the ornithological phantoms. In the mean time I had children—fast sons and dashing daughters, and, as they increased in number and stature, the phantoms increased likewise in number and length of bill, and I began to be afflicted with a sense of goneness in the region of my pocket, which gradually grew into a chronic emptiness. I sought relief from this sensation in gambling and drinking, At gambling my losses greatly exceeded my winnings, and my drinking brought on delirium tremens, in which, they said, I fought lustily with imaginary devils, and screamed as lustily 'Sold, sold, sold!'
        "Still my wife and children increased their demands. They gave more expensive parties, bought costlier furniture, and jewels, and horses, and carriages, and dry-goods, and finally succeeded in quite eclipsing the Smiths across the way. At about that time, by a strange coincidence, the last of my houses, and land, and stocks, were sold.
        "Then my wife continued to eclipse the Smiths on credit, until, one night, after we had given the greatest party of the season, the ornithological spectres, having pressed their claims in vain, set up a terrific clamor, and the next day I was pronounced bankrupt!
        "A few days after a red flag hung in front of my brown stone front.
        "A great crowd collected to see the contents of a Fifth Avenue palace sold.
        "The Smiths, whom we had eclipsed, looked out of their windows across the way, and chuckled in triumph to see the finery of their rivals sold.
        "Ladies—some of my wife's bosom friends—came early and chatted together delightfully, and made rare bargains all day long, until the last thing was sold.
        "People who had often attended my parties came, looking quite as merrily to see my household stuff sold.
        "Newspaper reporters came, to regale the delighted public with descriptions of each article and the exact sum for which it had sold.
        "The Demon was there, as he always was where any thing was to be sold.
        "My furniture, and plate, and books, and pictures, and wines, and horses, and carriages—all were sold.
        "At nightfall, the auctioneer threw down his hammer, drew a long breath, and exclaimed, 'All sold!'
        "And the Demon rubbed his gloved hands complacently as ever, and repeated, as he jingled his money-bag, 'Sold!'
        "Then the crowd dispersed reluctantly, murmuring as they went, 'Sold! sold! sold!'
        "As I sat down that evening in a plainly-furnished apartment, with my wife and children, they glanced reproachfully at me and muttered, 'Sold!' and I glanced reproachfully back at them and echoed, 'Sold!' and then each glanced reproachfully at all the rest and moaned, 'Sold! sold! sold!'
        "Then the Demon entered the room. He came without his patent leather boots, and in their stead, I saw hoofs—cloven hoofs! He was not gloved; his fingers were long, bony talons. Instead of a money-bag he jingled a chain. He sought to lay hold of me, but after a fierce struggle I drove him away.
        "The next day, owing to the kind efforts of my family, I was furnished with lodgings here—a nice place it is, too. The Demon followed me here, and has often tried to take me. I have kept him off as yet, but I am growing older and weaker. He will have me yet, for I am sold! yes, sold! sold! sold!
        "Every day, at about this hour—see! there he is now! by the window!—Ha, ha!"
        And the old gentleman sprang up from the antiquated sofa, and seizing a quarto volume, hurled it with maniac energy at the Demon, and—floored the gentlemanly chaplain, who had fallen asleep over the magazine, and was nodding in his chair. With no gentle impetus, he then pitched me, head foremost, over him, and as the chaplain and I made a hasty exit from the room, he laughed long, loud, and maliciously, and shouted, louder than ever, "Sold! sold! sold!"

Rival Discoverers

Originally published in Pearson's Weekly (C. Arthur Pearson Ltd.) vol.1 #31 (21 Feb 1891).

        It is a suggestive fact that there are usually two claimants for the honour of discovering an important fact in science. Anyone familiar with the history of discoveries and inventions can recall many illustrations of this singular fact.
        In mathematics we have the German Leibnitz disputing with the English Newton as to which of the two discovered the method of fluxions. In astronomy Adams, the Englishman, shares with Leverrier, the Frenchman, the honour of discovering the planet Neptune. Professor Morse, an American, had to contend with Mr. Wheatstone, the Englishman, for the honour of having invented the telegraph.
        The credit of discovering the circulation of the blood is given to William Harvey, an eminent London physician of the seventeenth century. This discovery, which revolutionised the practice of medicine, was made known by Harvey, it is said, in 1616, to his classes in surgery. In 1628 he published it to the world in a book dedicated to Charles I.
        The Italians ascribe this important discovery to Father Paul Sarpi, a learned Venetian monk, who died in 1623, at the age of seventy-one. Archdeacon Dixon says that, from personal examination of the controversy, he is satisfied that the world is indebted to Sarpi for this great discovery.
        Sarpi was a diligent student of natural philosophy, medicine, and anatomy. In a journal published in 1634 it is stated that Bart discovered the circulation of the blood, but did not make it public. His reticence was due to his fear of the Inquisition, whose hostility to scientific discoveries was well known, and with whom Sarpi had had trouble in his efforts to reform the Roman Church.
        He did, however, reveal the secret to his physician, Aquapendente, who had saved his life when wounded by Roman assassins. The physician wrote a book on the subject, based on Sarpi's notes. But he also was afraid that the publication of such a novel heresy would get him into trouble with the Inquisition. He therefore placed his manuscript in the library of St. Mark's.
        Aquapendente afterwards removed to Padua, where he was appointed professor. Among his pupils was a young Englishman, with whom he became so intimate that he revealed to him Sarpi's discovery. This young Englishman was Harvey. On his return to England, and after the death of Sarpi, in 1623, he claimed the honour of having made the discovery.

Starved at Spithead

Originally published in Tinsley's Magazine (Tinsley Bros.) vol.1 #1 (Aug 1867).

It was a bungle from the very first. A pleasant yachting party in a private steamer, with a joyous cultivated company of clever men and women, selected from a herd of eager competitors for their brilliant social qualities; a cheerful run to Littlehampton on the day before; private rooms and much jollity at the pretty little hotel there, and an easy cruise among the fleet the next morning,—was the programme which tempted me to the naval review. How all this broke down; how, after tickets for the best of the Admiralty vessels had been rejected with disdain, and the only dignified mode of seeing the show had been laid down with some severity at clubs, Greenwich dinners, and among our friends generally; how we fell from our high estate, and became mere targets for plebeian scorners,—is a thing to tell. "I confess I don't care about sights unless I can see them in perfect comfort; and to get up at six in the morning, to race off to Portsmouth by special train, to spend the day on a crowded government ship, jostled by manufacturing M.P.'s and third-class Admiralty clerks, and after waiting for hours at a railway station to return to town the same night hungry, weary, and forlorn, is not my notion of amusement. I should not dream of going at all, but that the plan we've hit upon includes a variety of pleasures, in the course of which seeing the sham-fight is a trivial incident. We're sure of a charming yachting cruise; we know what Juvenal can be when presiding at a dinner-party; and with Festus, Jokeley, Sinnike, and ourselves, we can count upon more fun and sprightliness than would fall to the lot of that dull beast the House of Commons if it remained as much 'at sea' for another session as it has been during this. We'll make what Oliver Goldsmith—whose style, I observe, you make feeble and ridiculous attempts to imitate—called 'a shoemaker's holiday' of it; and if you're the man I take you for, you won't miss an opportunity which may never occur again." Thus Scriblerius, the popular novelist, who had distinct republican tendencies when I first knew him, but who has become a terrible aristocrat since his books have been successful, and their author admitted into regions which involve having your name printed in the Morning Post. Having considerable faith in the keenness of the Scriblerian eye where personal comfort is concerned, and a profound admiration for that faculty of "putting the foot down" wherever the standing-ground is advantageous, for which its owner is sneered at by his unsuccessful confrères, I yielded, and consented to join his party. From that moment I was in his power. He fascinated me into believing that the rank and fashion of the metropolis, its wits, its philosophers, its beauties were metaphorically knocking at the gate for admission into our favoured ranks. Our creature-comforts were to be looked after by the great contractors Sting and Briber; our ears would be bewitched by the quadrille band; our sleeping accommodation would be at the ratio of six to one—our steamer's certificate being for six hundred, and our limit rigidly fixed at one hundred. But the great feature would be the congenial and exclusive society we should enjoy; and when, as a favour—the weight of which nearly turned me gray with the sense of obligation—Scriblerius graciously hinted that he would use his interest to procure me a couple of tickets besides my own, if I wished to make any two people happy for life, I nearly wept upon his shoulder, and murmured, "This is friendship indeed!"
        I never quite understood whether the mail-steamer and Littlehampton, the brilliant assemblage of fair women and clever men, the moral superiority over governments and parliaments, sovereign, peers, and commons, were the chimeras of a highly-gifted and imaginative brain, or whether a series of unparalleled catastrophes prevented the wits, philosophers, and nobles leaving their homes on the day fixed. I do know that Scriblerius abruptly informed me one morning that the particular scheme I'd heard something of—"heard something of!" why, I'd made a mental feast of it for weeks—had fallen through; but that if a few of us joined together, we could still make up a successful party on a steamer which was advertised to take the public from London Bridge to the review and back, at a fare of thirty shillings a-day, provisions and wine included. This was put so jauntily, and the evidence in favour of the company advertising seemed so favourable, that I took tickets for three with a stout heart, never doubting but that the friends I had asked would agree to the change of plan. One had been suddenly summoned into Wales; the other, curiously enough, "promised his partner not to leave town that day," and only vouchsafed to tell me so on my calling at his office in despair the night before. Both gentlemen were wise in their generation. Friend No. 2 gave his ticket away; his victim joined us unsuspiciously, and has been ill ever since. We were cramped, we were bullied, we were starved. Misery made us acquainted with strange bedfellows; and, except coffins, nothing was ever made for sleeping in so small as the wretched slabs the steamboat people called berths. The most rebellious convicts were never treated with greater harshness by the most callous warders than were we by the men whose supposed duty it was to minister to our wants; and it needs the bitter experience a famine only gives to realise our sufferings from want of suitable food. Yet the trip had its compensations too.
        When Scriblerius hallooed at my window in Guelph-square, at seven A.M. on the morning of Tuesday the 16th July; when I shouted "In a minute," and deliberately read another of Tennyson's poems, and watched the rain-drops from behind the curtains; when I, putting on an assumption of feverish haste, at last joined him in the street, and asked why he was thus laden and on foot; when I heard he had tramped bag in hand in the rain all the way from his own fashionable district to me—for the very sufficient reason that all the night-cabmen had gone home and to bed; when he dilated petulantly on the difficulty of rousing his establishment and procuring a cup of coffee before six in the morning,—I laughed quietly to myself and my soul was glad.
        "Not go at all unless he could go comfortably"! Ha, ha! my tempter had himself fallen, arid the rejected tickets for the Admiralty ships were avenged. In this pleasant spirit we started on our holiday. It was a weary walk, though, along Oxford-street, for I was laden too, and the rain continued to pour steadily down. I suppose it is part of the great law of compensations, that cabmen, not wanting a fare, should derive gratification from looking defiantly above and below and through the hapless people hailing them. The few night-cabmen still to be seen are on their way home; those on day duty have not yet come out; and after stumbling and sweltering under his unaccustomed load, and gazing wildly up and down every thoroughfare to the right and left, our student sees through the rain a crazy vehicle cross his street at perambulator speed. To rush and shout and mow the air wildly with his umbrella are with him simultaneous acts. To run at a pace which, with his encumbrances, is equal to the severest training given to the strongest athletes; to arrive panting and breathless abreast with the object of his wild chase, and to be received with an icy stare of contempt or a derisive smile by its driver, is his certain fate. It is like a revelation of cabman-nature when, aching with your portmanteau's bumps, and faint from unwonted exertion, you read the depth of gratified misanthropy and morose joy there is in this silent ignoring of your being. He becomes intensely interested in the shutters of the shop you stand before or the lamp-post above your head; but you? Accommodate you by keeping up another half-hour when he's resolved on bed? Gratify you by letting it appear that he knows what your hailing and bellowing mean? You might as well ask him to approve a legal fare.
        To add to our comfort, we felt, as the time rolled on and Holborn was painfully reached, that it would be impossible to gain the starting-place by eight, at which hour the steamer was punctually to leave. The wharf was gained at last. We had bribed a cabman out of a public-house, after melting his dignity with early purl, and being obsequious to him as to a rich relation, and were in due course chaffed down the river-stairs, and appropriated bodily by the boatmen. The Mrs. POORHOUSE was our floating prison-house; and there she lay, wedged in between two other steamers as calmly as if leaving her present resting-place that week were a sportive hypothesis not to be reckoned on with certainty. Once on board, I was introduced by Scriblerius to his friend Dapple, upon whose recommendation we had selected our vessel, who had taken our berths, and personally vouched for our proper treatment. "Man of the world, Dapple!" said the novelist; "old traveller, knows the ropes, and has taken good care of us, you'll see." "The arrangements seem very good," said the hero of this eulogy nervously; "but I think I'd just ascertain that your berths—I didn't see them, you know, but engaged them at the office—are the same numbers as your tickets; you'll find the cabin aft." It seemed odd that our guide, philosopher, and friend did not offer to accompany us; but we found the cause of his absence, alas, too soon. There had been tall talk as to the airiness and comfort of our sleeping-places; Dapple had launched into positive eloquence on the subject of the beds and bedding of this liberal company; and a dark cupboard like an unusually small oven, fitted up with narrow trays, apparently for cooking sausage-rolls separately, scarcely realised his glowing picture. "Second-class cabin, where the soldiers and the deck passengers, hop-pickers, Irish labourers, and such-like sleep," was the comment of Victim, as he disconsolately wedged in his valise between two of the little shelves. "You'll find it a tight fit when you turn in, I can tell you," said a smothered voice from out of the darkness; and after a time we saw a head and beard and spectacles apparently occupying a berth by themselves. As, however, we had never heard of Colonel Stodare's Sphinx going to sea alone, we were driven to conclude, in spite of the evidence of our senses, and in defiance of the laws of space, that limbs and a body were packed away somewhere on the sausage tray, and we argued sanguinely from this for our own repose. What man has done man may do; and though the sheets were simply two bits of broad white tape, and the counterpane an obvious patch taken bodily from some bagman's pattern-card, we hoped against hope, and joked in ghastly fashion with each other about night.
        When nine o'clock came, and the Mrs. Poorhouse showed no more symptoms of getting up her steam or of moving down the river than the Tower of London, opposite which she lay, we sat down to a fairly-served and ample meal. It was the last time we tasted decent food until we left the accursed ship, forty-eight hours later, at Southampton. Whether the stewards grew reckless at the impossibility of properly attending to three times the ordinary number of saloon passengers; whether the company had determined, as naval reviews are of rare occurrence, to revenge themselves upon the passenger-world for past exactions by one grand burst of ill-doing which was not likely to come to light; or whether, through some inadvertence, the staff had been selected from the most stupid and incompetent men in their service,—it is, of course, impossible to say. But, as a sufferer who has not yet recovered from the severity of his punishment, I wish to make it known that, through believing in an advertisement in the Times, and on the good faith of a well-known company, I paid three pounds for more contumely, discomfort, thirst, hunger, and degradation than it has been my lot to compress into two days and nights before.
        The one thing the company could not destroy was our enjoyment of the bright, crisp, dashing sea, which was rough and brisk and turbulent enough to prostrate our weaker brethren, and to delight all good sailors. So far as the steamer and her nautical officers were concerned, neither was there any reason for complaint. The Mrs. Poorhouse is a finely-built vessel, well appointed, and with all proper accommodation. Her captain is a swarthy, burly convivialist, who looks more like a prosperous Loamshire grazier than a sailor, but who gave us a taste of his seamanship when the Queen passed up the fleet which won our hearts, and which I am delighted to acknowledge now. The crew were as unlike what artists and the melodrama have taught me are tars as could well be conceived; but, by bringing the good ship safely into Southampton, they enabled me to leave her, and are so entitled to my gratitude. What the purser and his helpers resembled will be best seen in the progress of this narrative. Everyone connected with the vessel talked the broadest Irish, save and except an "odd man" and his wife, hired for the occasion, who "waited" in the saloon, and eventually took the part of the passengers against his employers, and yielded to their cries for food. It must be understood that there were ample supplies on board, but that they were denied us. Sometimes the cook "could not be kept at work all day;" sometimes they were "out" of whatever was asked for; sometimes the refusal came point-blank, and without excuse.
        The passengers, about ninety in number, were decidedly mixed. A proportion of them were, I suspect, friends of the management, among whom were pilots', directors', or managers' sons, and their little sets. But the main body was a curious medley. A bearded curate, who intoned his ordinary conversation, and asked you to pass the salt as if he were making a confession of faith; half-a-dozen roistering young fellows, who played at romps on the second deck, and dealt blows and pinched ears with much hilarity; a pleasant old half-pay warrior and his wife, who spent most of their time in the saloon contemplating the dirty plates and dishes, and reading extracts from old newspapers aloud for the delectation of the company; a bearded man, approaching middle age, who soon told us he'd been twice round Cape Horn; a yachtsman, the owner of the head previously mentioned, and our stanch ally; a handful of inoffensive uninteresting people, who bored each other equably with what they thought was conversation; and a residuum of Whitechapel Jews, petty tradesmen, and tavern-keepers, made up our party.
        Dapple kept in high spirits all the way to Sheerness; for there was plenty of incident and character, and we all made the most of it in our little way. He was, moreover, yet in happy ignorance of the blow to come.
        "Pilot's a fat man, ain't he?—I think pilots mostly are, though," said one of the residuum to his neighbour.
        "Fat!" replied his friend sarcastically; "1 should think he wor. Do you know how much money he make? Why, a matter o' six and eight pound a week. I reckon I'd (blank) soon be fat if I made as much as that!"
        While speculating upon the size of Baron Rothschild or the Marquis of Westminster if they ate in proportion to their income, as the last speaker seemed to intimate was the rule of life, we were told that our own meal would be served in half an hour. I really shrink from describing the ghastly mockery that followed. The places carefully taken for us by Dapple were seized by half-a-dozen of the residuum while we were looking another way, and their present occupants grinned exultantly at their successful joke. This was of little consequence. But when, an hour later, the food rejected by these and other gentlemen was placed before us, when remonstrance proved unavailing, and civility and attention ridiculous myths, the situation became unpleasant. There was a dark steward with black moustaches, civil in speech and uncourteous in act; an Irish steward who either would not or could not understand English; and "George," the tavern waiter, who, when sober, was rather an agreeable companion than otherwise. "Lord bless yer, sir," said he, "I know 'ow things oughter be, I do. Why, I served at the London Tavern, I 'ave, for years. They don't know, they don't" (profound contempt here); "and they seems in a regular mess, don't they? Get you some bread and cold meat if I can't get you any thin' else. Wy, of course I will, sir, in arf a minute."
        This promise always wound up the conversation, for the fascinating George invariably heard a voice we could not hear which summoned him away the instant he was asked to perform work; received all complaints with "Bread and meat will you have, sir?" in a tone of pleased surprise, and again going on his way, to be no more seen. I never saw tomtits cooked as ducklings, and served with sage and onions, nor ate house-sparrows with white sauce, under the impression they were chickens. These, however, seemed to be the only dishes set before the second thirty diners, except what their predecessors had left; and on one passenger asking indignantly, "Didn't you say there'd be fresh joints for each dinner—where are they?" the Irish steward, giving a delicious wink at his colleague, replied in a brogue so rich as to be a meal in itself, "Shure, and wasn't there iligant ducks and chickens for yez?" "But joints?" "And wasn't there ducks, then?" "Joints?" "There was chickens!" and so on for a considerable time. Indeed, I stumbled over this steward on the companion-stairs late at night; and as he was then muttering, "Ducks and chickens for yez," I am inclined to believe that he had kept on saying it all day, though I could not swear to this portion of my story. To tell of one meal is to tell the history of all. When everybody grumbled, and threatened vengeance, the black steward said like a calm goblin: "Well, we can't please everybody; it isn't likely. Better food! Well then, the company would have had to charge a better price. What's three pounds for two days, indeed? why, it would have to be six pounds if you want real good living! But I don't approve of these trips myself; they puts everything out, and make it impossible to be comfortable. If you'd come over to Ireland with me" (I never will, and hereby warn my friends to beware the Mrs. Poorhouse), "it's plenty you should have, and of what you'd like too, and be waited on like princes." It was not the time or place to argue the point, or to insist that if we could not be fed remuneratively for thirty shillings a day, it would have been honester to say so before we embarked; but the speech and exculpation were a significant commentary on the blandness of the agent who took my check. Dapple's remorse became a pitiable thing to see, and even Scriblerius admitted the possibility of an Admiralty ticket having resulted in less flagrant ill-treatment than this.
        After dark, when the heavy rain had subsided and the sea was at its freshest, a "free-and-easy club" was formed on deck by the roisterers and the residuum, who made night hideous with loud choruses and drunken bonhomie. O, the dreary conviviality, which culminates in "So say all of us!" O, the pot-house cheeriness when men are spirituously wise and musical and witty during the small hours! O, the unutterable weariness of humour at which you cannot laugh, of sentiment you know to be maudlin, of pipe-and-glass arguments which prove everything with vinous fervour, and yet leave all the questions they touch unsolved!—How flat, stale, and unprofitable you seem when the appetite for enjoying you has fled for ever, and when, toil-worn and _brain-weary, the only way of hearing the chimes at midnight seems to be in solitude, or with some well-tried familiar friend! The roisterers thought differently, as roisterers always will, and were happy after their kind.
        A sleepless night of misery in the oven, with the steamer's screw saying, "You sha'n't go to sleep! you sha'n't go to sleep!" with malignant regularity, in our very ear—thanks to Dapple's choice of berths; a feeble and ineffectual struggle for breakfast, with stewards genially grumbling, "We can't go on serving things all day;" and after skirting the Hampshire coast, and tossing and rolling merrily past the Nab, we come upon the fleet. We are bound for Southampton, to take in as many passengers for the day as could be induced to come, and wild rumours are abroad that five hundred were expected. Scriblerius, Victim, Dapple, Sike, and the rest of us, promptly determined to give up the review, and once on the blessed shore, to bid the Mrs. Poorhouse a withering farewell; but this was made impossible when we met a sister steamer, and heard, "No use a-going on; there's nobody there!" shouted across the water. From this time, to do our captain justice, we shared the honours of royalty, and put all the Admiralty vessels in the shade, from a sightseers point of view. The newspapers called this our "stupidity," but we did not think it stupid at the time. Steaming steadily by the side of the Victoria and Albert, we saw the Sultan invested with the Garter, who, as one of our publican fellow-voyagers remarked delightedly, "blowed his nose like any christian." The grand sight presented by the gallant ships; the vast power and strength of the gunboats, which looked like so many iron factories towed out to sea and left there; the deafening sounds of cannonading; the cat-like activity of the tars, swarming like flies upon the fairy shrouds and spars,—were not all these recorded in the chronicles of the day?
        When the cannonading was over we took up a snug position about half a mile from the fleet, and were kept in absolute ignorance of our fate. The illuminations in the rain and mist looked simply like a large Regent-circus of capacious warehouses, with every alternate warehouse unlit. We lay here some twenty hours, during which no one could or would give us the faintest intimation of the captain's intentions, and then steamed into Southampton docks, after undergoing the same squalid misery and ignominious privations as before. These were relieved, however, by the hearty chaff of one of the residuum—a publican we thought, a Jew we knew. Where modest remonstrances failed, brutal plain speaking was successful. In one of Mr. Shirley Brooks's admirable novels we are reminded that Hannibal used no fine-tempered instrument to subdue the Alps, but the coarsest and strongest vinegar; and the moral was enforced on board the Mrs. Poorhouse. "Put on the 'am, G'orge; a little more sherry, G'orge—don't drink it myself, it ain't good enough, but I likes to see my friends made 'appy. Found the soder-water and the lemonade, 'ave yer, G'orge, now the Southampton people ain't a comin'? Wosn't fine enough, we wosn't, though we wos a-willin' to pay for it—wos we, G'orge? Howsomever, I'm orf the blessed instant we touches shore. I'd give three pound not to 'ave come, I would, for I don't like bein' starved myself; and I wish those as is a-goin' back in 'er joy of the maggits they'll 'ave to eat"—and so forth only elicited the monotonous "We can't please everybody," from the ship's stewards. But persistent dropping moved "George" into rebellion, and before we left efforts were made to appease the vulgar wrath. Scriblerius, Dapple, Victim, and myself agreed solemnly to tell everyone we thoroughly enjoyed the review. But though we had an immense deal of Mark-Tapley jollity and fun, which no adverse circumstances could repress, I have never ceased admiring the instinctive prescience both of the friend who had business in Wales, and the other friend who sent Victim as a whipping boy to sea in his stead.

The Great Invasion

The Great Invasion

by George Augustus Sala (uncredited).

Originally published in Household Words (Bradbury & Evans) vol.5 #107 (10 Apr 1852).

        The English Nation have always been distinguished by a strong predilection for a "bogey"—a dreadful bugbear, hated, feared, talked about by everybody. For a bogey of bogeys—a bugbear about whom there can be no mistake—a thorough, right-down, sanguinary, man-eating, woman-murdering, child-roasting, raw-head-and-cross-bones bogey, give me Bonaparte.
        In the time of the original "Boney" the cry was very strong. The French were continually landing (in imagination) somewhere or other. Not a smuggler attempted a peaceable run of brandy on a moonlight night, but the hated Corsican—jack-boots, cocked hat and all—was presumed to be in full march on the Metropolis; not a little boy sent up his harmless rocket, or discharged his innocuous squib, but fearful reports were circulated of a French-kindled conflagration, or at best of the simultaneous illumining of the beacon fires. Boney, his marshals, and his much redoubted invasion were here, there, and everywhere.
        We had a slight invasion panic in the year '40 (when Commodore Napier beat the Egyptians with their famous instrument of torture—a stick). Our "Boney" then was an astute old gentleman, with a pear-shaped head, who, assuming the patronymic of Smith, abdicated sovereignty in a hack-cab. He was to invade us in the twinkling of a bed-post—he, Monsieur Thiers, Marshal Bugeaud, and the Chasseurs d'Afrique; all about some Eastern question, the merits of which, if anybody understood or understands, I am sure I don't. The year '43 came, and that terrible pamphlet by the good-natured Prince Admiral, who so kindly stood godfather to our Joinville cravats. He was to blow us to pieces with steam-frigates; to bombard Brighton; to demolish Dover; to lay Lowestoff low; to turn Great Grimsby into a Golgotha, and Harwich into a howling desert. '45 came; Pritchard, Tahiti, Queen Pomare, and the grim Guizot. War! war! war! cried the bogey-fearers. Lamoricière, Pélissier, Changarnier were to land the day after to-morrow. '48 came, and a few thousand National Guards, who, despite the fears of the alarmists, were provided with railway return tickets in lieu of mortars and howitzers. '51 came, and another foreign invasion, the results of which, it appears to us, we have already described in this journal.
        And now the trumpet-cry sounds louder than ever. Now that the shores of England and France are united by the electric wire, by the iron hand-shaking of railroads, by a hundred thousand bonds of friendship and interest besides, we are to have a real invasion—a dreadful invasion—an invasion in earnest. It is all up with London, England, Great Britain, and the Colonies! Our soldiers can't fight, and our ships can't sail; our guns won't fire, nor will our bayonets pierce. Tilbury Fort is of no use, and the Guards must march out of London at one end as the French enter it by the other. We haven't got a decent fortification, or a serviceable gun, or an efficient soldier. As for "Veritas," "Civilian," "Q in the corner," the "Constant Readers," and the "Occasional Correspondents," they give up all hope. It is all over with us. Let us put sackcloth and ashes on our heads.
        But what is the use, my friends, of crying "Wolf!" when the foe has already entered our sheepfolds—when he has already carried away the most succulent of our young lambs from their bleating mothers, and thirsts now, with his ravening jaws all dripping with gore, for our lives?
        Shall we be invaded?
        We are invaded; root and branch, body and bones, horse and foot, neck and heel, outfang and infang. The invasion has been going on for years, and we recked nothing of it. The insidious enemy, burrowing like a mole underground, has sapped our foundations; has undermined our institutions. An unscrupulous army of mercenaries (principally Irish) have carried out his iniquitous behests. We are compassed round about, hemmed in, surrounded by his fortalices—not masked batteries or stockaded forts—but defiant, brazen-faced strongholds. Great, and getting greater day by day, is the invasion of London. We are beleaguered by Brigadier Bricks and Field-Marshal Mortar. Their weapons of offence have been scaffold-poles and bricklayers' hods; their munitions of defence, hoarding and wheelbarrows. This is what I call the "real invasion."
        Take up this map of the Metropolis, published last year, and glance at that little kernel, coloured scarlet, called the City, and then at the prodigious extent of Nutshell surrounding it, all loudly demanding, (and meriting) to be included in the general title "London." Yet this little scarlet kernel, with some scattered streets about Westmonasterian marshes, was the whole of London once. It was big enough to give laws to all England, and to great part of France, for hundreds of years. It was big enough to hold a Lombard Street; which, even then, stood in no unfavourable degree of comparison with a China orange. It was big enough to have Lord Mayors who bearded Kings; to be a constant source of anxiety and uneasiness to the Sovereign; to be the philosopher's stone of Jack Cade's ambition; to be, as it always has been, a monarch among cities. But the nutshell? How small the kernel looks, with his rubicund boundary! Throw in Westminster and Southwark, as the three appear in Hollar's print: how diminutive they are with the big nutshell around! Take a map of London, hydrographed even within the memory of man—within thirty years let us say—the nutshell has still the best of it, and the kernel shrinks woefully, even amidst its layers upon layers of cuticle.
        The prodigious enlargement of London seems more to me in the act of the country closing round the town, than of the town advancing on the country—more as a giant hand gradually closes up its Titanic fingers on a shrivelled dwarf, than as the dwarf growing into the giant, and throwing up earthheaps in its struggle for emancipation from the parent monster. The fat has grown round the heart, and the heart has grown torpid and sluggish in the midst. Do you think it is that scarlet kernel—once the whole City of London—that has pushed out mandibles, crab-like feelers, on every side, and, cancer-like, has spread over the green fields and shady lanes? Do you think the kernel is the spider, and Westminster and Southwark the web? It may be so; but I rather incline to the theory that the advancement is towards, and not from, the kernel. That is why I call it an invasion: and the invasion seems to me gradually but surely driving, into a constantly diminishing circle, all sorts of old abuses, old nuisances, old vested interests, old "time-honoured institutions," towards the shrivelled old kernel, which, though she knows (excuse the gender) she might be rid of them by the aërial locomotive of progress, seeks rather (happily impotently) to cause them to permeate through sewers into healthier streams, poisoning them meanwhile; or she would strenuously seek (always impotently) to cast them, as so much guano, on to the invader's fields around her, where they would produce a nice rich crop of gingerbread coaches, men in brass, prejudice, dirt, water-bailiffs, over-driven bullocks, choked sewers, reeking slaughter-houses, and coal and corn committees. What will the nut-shell do? Will its invasion, hugging, in boa-constrictor fashion, the old, musty, shrivelled, yet wealthy kernel, hug it into better shape? or will it crush it and cause it to collapse entirely; forcing it, by some hidden phœnix process of its own, to reproduction in another guise to entire rejuvenescence?
        It is natural for large cities to grow larger. Pine-apples grow; so do little boys, and lawyers' bills of costs—why not capitals? The little island of St. Louis once held all there was of Paris. Vienna has outgrown its glacis; Madrid, Naples, Venice, have all grown; and Constantinople—no; for Constantinople will be to me always a mystery, even as Smyrna is. They are always being burnt down, yet never seem to get smaller or larger. But London has not grown in any natural, reasonable, understandable way. It hasn't grown bigger consistently. It hasn't increased by degrees, like the pine-apple or the little boy. The lawyer's bill may be a little more like it; for, like that dreadful document, it has swollen with frightful, alarming, supernatural rapidity. It has taken you unawares; it has dropped upon you without warning; it has started up without notice; it has grown with stealthy rapidity, from a mouse into a mastodon.
        Thirty years ago!—Boney the first, had just finished eating his heart on a rock. Thistlewood and others had been decapitated. A grave judicial discussion had not long before been closed as to whether a murderer and ravisher had a right to the "appeal by battle." The Old Bailey Monday morning performances yet took place before crowded and unfashionable audiences. Samuel Hayward had just been hanged for burglary, and Fauntleroy was yet to suffer for forgery; women were yet whipped for larceny; and George, the gentleman of gentlemen, was king. There were no railroads, and no police, save the red-coated Bow Street runners and the purblind old watchmen. There were no coffee-shops, no reading-rooms; and the coffee-houses were taverns resorted to (in the paucity of clubs) by the nobility and gentry. It was considered aristocratic to beat the watch; it was esteemed "Corinthian" to get drunk in the purlieus of Drury Lane; it was very "tip-top" to patronise a prize-fighter. We have been invaded by manners and customs somewhat different since the gentleman of gentlemen was king.
        Concerning the brick-and-mortar invasion: There was no Regent's Park, no Victoria Park, no Belgravia, and no Tyburnia. Tyburn Gate, indeed, yet stood where Tyburn Gallows not so many years before had stood, and beneath which mouldered the bones of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw. Paddington was, but it was countryfied; and the Edgeware Road was simply a rural road leading to Edgeware, as formerly Oxford Street was but the high-road to Oxford. Portland, Somers, Camden, and Kentish Towns were no more integral portions of London, as they now are, than is Footscray in Kent, or Patcham in Sussex. The New Road was dangerous to walk in at night, and the open fields about St. Pancras Church (catch any open fields about there now) a favourite rendezvous for body-snatchers and burkers to hide their "shots" (so the bodies they had rifled from graves, were called). Clerkenwell, it is true, was thickly populated; but Pentonville, about where the Model Prison is now (and there was no Model Prison then), was quite rural. Islington, as far as concerns the High Street and the neighbourhood of the "Angel," was suburbanly Londonified, but Holloway was still a journey. As to Highgate and Hornsey, they were nowhere—terrae incognitae, almost, or at best as difficult of access as Windsor or Reading. Touching the irregular cube, bounded at the base by the Whitechapel and Mile End Roads, on the east and west by Hackney and by the Dalston and Kingsland Roads, and on the north by the London and North-Western branch line (from Camden Town to Blackwall)—which irregular cube comprises within its limits, Hackney, Globe Town, Bethnal Green, Dalston, Kingsland, and the crowded districts known as the Tower Hamlets—I have no hesitation in saying, that, swarming with houses and inhabitants as it is now, it was in 1822 very little better than a waste. Goodman's Fields and the entourage of the London Docks had even then their tens of thousands; but where the Commercial Road stretches now, through Stepney, Bow, and down towards Limehouse, it stretches through strongholds of the real invaders of London—the brick-and-mortar warriors, who are compassing the city round about.
        In '22, where was Chelsea? Rurally aquatic. Chiswick, Hammersmith, Kew? All plainly and distinguishably separated from London; but where are they now? Millbank was far off; Pimlico was in the country; no man had yet heard of Belgrave Square. Crossing Vauxhall Bridge, what were Newington, Kennington, Vauxhall, Lambeth, Walworth, Camberwell, Brixton, in the year 1822? What sort of road was the Old Kent Road in those days? And were not Deptford and Greenwich separated from London by miles of green fields? Bermondsey and the Borough were always, within my recollection, integral London; but how about Rotherhithe? How about Blue Anchor Road, Spa Road, the neighbourhood of the Commercial Docks, Millpond Fields, the Saltpetre Works, the Halfpenny Hatch, the—
        I am out of breath! Here is the real invasion! Don't tell me that the old London, the grim old kernel, far away over the water yonder, has done all this—has simply outgrown herself? It is an invasion, I tell you—stalwart provincials marching upon a devoted metropolis. Brighton, I know, will be bursting into the station at London Bridge very shortly; Greenwich is London already; so is Brentford; so are Clapham, Wandsworth, and Brixton; so are Kilburn, Cricklewood, and Crouch End. I am looking out for the arrival of Liverpool daily; and I should not be in the least surprised to meet, at no very distant period, Manchester, all clad in cotton, smoking an enormous chimney, arm-in-arm with Salford, marching gravely along the Great North Road, to make a juncture with London at Highgate.
        To have a complete and comprehensive view of the progress of the invaders and the plight of the invaded; to form anything like a just view of the astonishing growth of London since the year '22; to see it as it is, monstrous, magnificent, the largest city in the world, and its capital, you should, properly, be a bird: say an eagle, or at least the gentle lark. Soaring on high, you should pause a moment on the wing, and drink in at a glance the wonders that lie beneath you. You can't be a bird, you say. Professors of metempsychosis are not so plentiful as those of mesmerism, clairvoyance, or the discernment of character from handwriting. Besides, you don't believe in the transmigration of souls. Very well! You believe in balloons? Here is one, just ready to ascend from the Royal Gardens, no matter where. The "aërostat" is inflated; the last bottle of champagne imbibed; the amateur aëronauts try to look easy and unembarrassed, and fail dismally in the attempt; the signal gun is fired; the aëronaut vociferates "Let go!" A cheer! Two cheers! Some ridiculously inappropriate music is played by a brass band. More cheers! fainter and fainter, as the earth, in a most, uncalled-for and inconsistent manner, appears to sink from beneath you. You do rise; for anon is silence, stillness, in the calm air, through which the occasional remarks of your companions ring sharp and clear like rifle cracks. There: never mind the neck of the balloon; that is the aëronaut's business, not yours. Take a firm grip of the side of the car, and look down. Look down with wonder, admiration, gratitude.
        The City is all burnished gold; for the setting sun of a September day has put it into a warm bath—a "bath of beauty," as pantomime poets say. The river is all silver; save what are spangles and diamonds. It winds, and twists, and writhes, like a beautiful serpent, as it is magnificently beautiful without, and foully poisonous (bless the scarlet kernel!) within. Those black lines crossing the river are the bridges. That fleeting, evanescent darkness, tarnishing the gold on the houses and the silver on the river, is the shadow of a cloud. That transparent blue haze hanging quite over the City, like a gauze drapery to the golden houses, cut exactly to the shape of the City, thinner, and almost ragged where parks, or squares, or open places are, is the smoke—the smoke of London, hanging over it, shrouding it, blackening its edifices, poisoning its inhabitants.
        Keep looking down, and look towards where my finger points. That thing, like a golden pine-apple much foreshortened (the sun is strong upon it), is St. Paul's. Those crowds of small black ants toiling through that narrow lane, are men, women, and children, in carriages, on horses, on foot; driving, riding, or walking, eastward or westward. The Monument is a Christmas Candlestick; the Tower is a Doll's House. There is not a man in London as large as Shem, Ham, or Japhet, in the toy Noah's Ark. Where is the roar of London, and the rattle of wheels; the speechifying, the bargain-driving, the laughing and the weeping? Faster and faster we rise into space. And the silence is more intense, and the City below us is no bigger than a man's hand.
        Now, if you had ascended with M.M. Garnerin, Blanchard, or Pilatre de Rosier; had you taken a flight with old Mr. Sadler, the aëronaut in 1822, when George the Gentleman was King, you would be sore astonished now, gazing at London, under the auspices of a "gallant and intrepid aëronaut" in 1852. Where all was green before, you would find long lines of compact masses of houses. The crowds of black ants would have increased an hundred-fold; the blue, gauzy, ragged smoke blanket would have stretched marvellously; you would have appreciated and acknowledged the effects of the Bricklayers' Invasion.
        On ascending at night (which, by-the-bye, cautious old Mr. Sadler never did), you would be struck with pleasurable astonishment at the aspect of London by night, as compared with London as it was thirty years ago. In the place of a Cimmerian darkness, through which vainly endeavoured to pierce a few blinking, sputtering, feeble-minded lamps—you would have an elaborate and exquisitely beautiful network of gas spangles—a delicate tracery of glow-worm lights, of brilliant pin-holes, sparkling dots, clearly defining the outline of every street, square, and alley of the world City; stretching out less thickly towards where the brick invasion had relaxed its vigour, dotting long lines of suburban roads, where the metropolitan constabulary drops off, and the horse patrol begin to be visible, getting small by degrees and beautifully less till they end in the blue blackness of the far-off country, twenty or thirty miles away on either side of you.
        In no part of London is the invasion of bricks and mortar so perceptible as on the line of railway which, commencing at Camden Town (they are about to extend it to Kilburn, I think), runs through Islington, Hackney, Bow, Stratford, Old Ford. Stepney, and Limehouse to Blackwall. It extends nearly half round the Middlesex side of London. It is an eccentric railway, for I have measured the distance (on the map) from Camden Town to Blackwall, and my friend the railway goes miles out of its road to take you to the last-named locality; though, curiously enough, it rattles you thither in quicker time than the omnibus would do. I have seen irascible old gentlemen clench their umbrellas, muttering fiercely that they didn't understand being taken to Hackney on their way to Fenchurch Street; and middle-aged females reduced to a piteous state of mental imbecility by Islington being near Limehouse; afterwards piteously demanding which was Bow (which they were given to understand was in Cheapside), and inextricably confounding Stratford with the birth-place of the Swan of Avon. The last time I patronised this cheerful line, there was no glass to the window of the carriage in which I sat. Complaining mildly to four separate porters at four separate stations, and pleading rheumatism, I received consecutive answers of "Dear me!" "Oh, ah!" "So it is!" and "Can't help it;" which (taking them to be somewhat evasive and unsatisfactory in their construction) prompted me to give vent to vague threats of memorialising the public journals. I should like to become better acquainted with that philosopher (he must have been a philosopher) who, seeing me irate, administered cold comfort to me by telling me that the last time he travelled by the line in question, his carriage had no door. "And it was night, sir!"
        As this iron and not immaculate railroad (it has its good points, notwithstanding) pursues its circuitous route, you may—if you don't mind looking out of the window, and running all the adverse chances of easterly winds, and ashes from the engine—see many curious and edifying things. Anon, the train rushes through mangy, brown-turfed fields, where the invasion has just begun; where rubbish may be shot; where poles, with placards affixed to them, denote the various "lots" which are "To be Sold or Let, on Building Leases." Melancholy-looking cows, misanthropic donkeys, pigs convinced of the hollowness of the world, wander pensively about these fields, gazing at the building-lots, grubbing about the lines of foundation for rows of houses which are to be erected; lamenting, perhaps, in their vaccine, asinine, or porcine hearts, the ruthless march of bricks and mortar. These semi-suburban animals feed strangely. Feeling themselves to be in a state of transition, perhaps, like their pasture-grounds, they accommodate themselves to all kinds of food. I think the cows eat quite as much broken crockery-ware as grass; the donkeys eat anything, from saucepan-lids to pieces of fractured bottles; and there is a pig of my acquaintance—residing in an impromptu pigstye in the neighbourhood of Hoxton—which, before my eyes, ate a straw-hat of considerable dimensions; and which, being subsequently (by the juvenile and indignant proprietor of the hat) lapidated with a decayed flower-pot, ate that too!
        Bricks and mortar invade market-gardens; they elbow green-houses; they jostle conservatories; they thrust summer-houses away. Still looking from the carriage-window, do we see streets upon streets growing up in commons, and what were once shady lanes; filling up ditches; tumbling down hedges everywhere; crushing up the country in its concrete grasp. Here and there a solitary pollard-willow stands among scaffold-poles and wheelbarrows, seeming to wonder very much how it got there, and feeling itself, doubtless, an anachronism. Again, the train rushes over houses—or rather on a viaduct parallel with the tops of the houses. The impertinent locomotive gives "knowing looks " into little, queer, poky attics, where gentlemen are giving the last turn to their whiskers, and ladies the last tug at the laces of their corsets. Curious Asmodeus-like peeps do we get of the internal life of these houses. The knowing locomotives wink at the windows, and the washing hung out in the back garden; and, with an impertinent whistle and a puff of smoke, rushes on.
        Diverge at Bow, and you can go through Old London to Fenchurch Street. Keep on towards Blackwall, and the traces of New London, in its invading form, meet you at every step. Factories, dye-houses, bone-boiling establishments, are surrounded by houses, where they were (and ought to be) removed from the contiguity of a metropolis. Chapels, devoted to the service of all imaginable creeds, start up in these invading streets. New Jerusalemites, Mormonites, Johanna Southcotonians, Howlers, Jumpers, and Shakers, join the army of invaders, and are fiercely pious in Meeting-houses, the roofs of which occasionally tumble in, not with age, but for pure want of seasoning—so new they are.
        Try to get out of town any way, and the bricks drive you back, the mortar hangs on your skirts, and harasses you fiercely. I remember the time when London finished at Padlock House, and when Kensington was almost in the country. Kensington, Hammersmith, Turnham Green (the "Pack Horse"), is a mere omnibus "public" now!—Brentford—Isleworth almost—what are they now? A line of houses—that is all.
        Where is it all to end? When will the invasion cease? Will the whole island be covered with houses? Or even as the great wheel keeps turning round and round; even as the winter gives place to spring, and so round to winter again and again; even as the new grows old, and then new again; so, perhaps, will the great City grow and grow, and its growth yet resolve itself into insignificance—till the great becomes small, as small as when the boatman ferried St. Peter over the pond to Westminster, or the Danes fought at Holborn Bars, or Eleanor's corse rested at the village of Charing.

The Breadfinder

by Edward Youl.

Originally published in Howitt's Journal (William & Mary Howitt) vol.2 #52 (25 Dec 1847).

Chapter XII.

        It was in an obscure cottage at Deptford, that Grinling Gibbons was engaged upon his celebrated work The Stoning of Stephen, when he was discovered by Evelyn, and introduced to the notice of Charles II. It was in the Fleet Prison, that William Harding essayed his skill in bas-relief. He chose for his subject The Raising of Lazarus. Gibbons followed Tintoretto. Harding studied the narrative in the New Testament, and sketched his own design. He was on wondrous ground now. It seemed extraordinary that he had never done this before; that he had been so slow to discover his own ready access to the Beautiful. It was as natural to carve fruit or flowers, as to gather them from the living branch or stem. It was as easy too. It was astonishing that he found no difficulty in his work,—that Art came to him like a ready friend, and, at the first handling of his tools, made him perfect in the use of them. The same marvel is recorded of Grinling Gibbons, whose earliest efforts were as successful as his latest. 1t must not be inferred that Harding was another Gibbons, or even a Dievot, a Selden, or a Laurens, Grinling's assistants. But he gave promise of much excellence. And here, let me express a hope, that this ancient and noble art of wood-carving, which, according to Pliny, was antecedent to statuary and painting, may be revived amongst us, and that our artists may be original, and not mere imitators of the Italian style, which is itself imitative, and dates from the discovery of the baths of Adrian. With the solitary exception of Grinling Gibbons, who is said to have been of Dutch extraction, the English have not been celebrated as wood-artists. The splendid and elaborate decorations in oak, lime, maple, and sometimes, but rarely, in box, that embellish our palaces, cathedrals, public and private buildings, were mostly executed by foreigners. With the one exception named, where are the equals of Albert Durer, of his pupil Taurigny of Rouen, of Demontreuil, of a hundred others?
        While Harding was engaged in sketching his design, Scheffer was imparting encouragement to Emma. On the issue of the next rehearsal, her success or failure would depend. M. Jean Massom announced on all sides, that Madame Cacasi would be the public favourite, and that she was his wife. The singularity of his previous conduct was now fully explained, and Emma was no longer unable to assign a cause for his ungracious behaviour to herself. Scheffer learned the whole secret, and communicated it to her. He had fallen in love with his landiady's blooming daughter. who, besides many personal attractions, (maugre, a certain insipidity of countenance, which Maberly. had commented on) had a voice that promised to repay cultivation. The poor Signor could not resist her blandishments. Emma might have gained him reputation, but she was a married woman. He had already extolled her as Madame Cacasi, and prepared the public for her future appearance. But her real name was unknown, and it was easy to bestow the appellation he had given her, on another. Besides, Emma's education must necessarily be suspended during his professional absence on the Continent, for he could not remain in London when the Grand Theatre was closed. On the other hand, a wife would accompany him wherever he went, and her education could proceed at all seasons. Thus argued the Signor, and sacrificed to passion the dictates of honour. But now he cast off the mask, and proclaimed Madame Cacasi, to be in public, the Signora Pepolini, and Madame Masson, in private, and to her friends.
        The morning of the rehearsal came. Out of the heavens God never sent a brighter day. The earth laughed beneath the sun. Cheeks, ordinarily pale, had a flush of life in them. Her husband's liberty, perhaps, their future bread, depended on her brave achievement, or unhappy short-coming. She would not fatigue herself by walking, but engaged a cab to convey her to the theatre. Her first annoyance was extreme. The manager was not present,—would not be present, but had deputed M. Jean Masson, to represent him.
        She had many annoyances to bear. The musicians were late at their post, and there was much tiresome waiting to be endured before the rehearsal began. Then, the actors were frigid and impatient, and the opera was commenced in a slovenly mamner, In vain Scheffer strove to rally them, He drew Emma aside, and encouraged her, but he felt dismay, and looked thunderbolts at Masson. Nevertheless, Emma succeeded, for she was lifted into a higher life at the thought of her husband's striving, since their marriage for their joint bread. And had he not said that the Beautiful was the true Bread? and was not she ministering, imperfectly, it might be, but still ministering, to the Beautiful? Was she not, indeed, its Priestess?
        Her success was indisputable. M: Jean Masson acknowledged it, and joined with all present, in laudation of the cantatrice. Scheffer was so overpowered with joy, that he accepted a pinch of snuff from Masson's box, and promised to smoke a cigar with him on some future, but indefinite occasion.
        She hurried to the prison; and fell upon her husband's neck. He was sketching his conception of the narrative he had undertaken to illustrate in wood. He gently put her aside.
        "See," he said. "Jesus stands in this attitude."
        "I have succeeded;" she cried, embracing him.
        "And Lazarus comes forth thus. Thus the disciples stand!"
        "Still, my success of to-day is nothing, if I should fail when the public fill the theatre."
        "But Martha and Mary are wanting to the group; confiding in Jesus, yet hoping against hope. Now, he comes forth, he casts aside the grave clothes, they see,—they believe. How should I represent the sisters of Lazarus?"
        "William, do you hear me? I have succeeded. M. Jean Masson could not deny it. Are you not glad? Do you not understand me?"
        "Yes,—yes, of course you have succeeded. I never doubted of your success. God is good."
        M. Jean Masson, on leaving the theatre, went direct to the house of the manager.
        'She was not so bad, really not so bad,—quite creditable," he said. "But she must not lead, at least, in your theatre;—positively must not."
        "She has avoided a failure, then?" said the manager.
        "Yes, that is it; avoided a failure. The Signora will be very excellent."
        "I have made up my mind to delay the the production of the opera. We will rehearse it again, and the Signora shall sustain the leading role. Between ourselves, Masson, I do not want this Mrs. Harding. It was only yesterday that Lord Filmy Gossamer told me of the report that she was the wife of a low fellow, a cheesemonger's shopman, who is now in a prison. The connection would not be respectable. I shall break with her."
        "But the Signora is my wife."
        "Ah, quite a different matter. You are respectable, the Signora is respectable."
        Masson had scarcely departed, when Scheffer arrived. The manager received him coldly, but he was too elated to notice it.
        "Splendid success," he cried. "This will be a memorable season in the annals of your theatre. Your treasury will be filled. The public will be in raptures. You will of course, suspend all privileges, but those of the press."
        "Humph."
        "What do you mean?"
        "That I shall do as you say,—fill my treasury."
        "Undoubtedly. Such a voice! such execution!"
        "So sly of him, to call her Madam Cacasi, when she was his wife all the time."
        "His wife—whose wife?"
        "Masson's."
        "Diable. I am talking of Mrs. Harding."
        "And I, of Madame Masson."
        "Yes, but it is Mrs. Harding, who will fill your treasury."
        "I think it will be the Signora Pepolini."
        "Let us understand each other. You intend, of course, after the unequivocal success of this morning, to introduce Mrs. Harding: to the stage?"
        "Really, I must decline the honour. Try the provinces."
        "Are you then not a man of your word? You are committed with Mrs. Harding. She has attended six rehearsals. Masson's wife has never been on your boards. You have never heard her sing. You will be open to an action, let me tell you."
        "Scheffer," said the manager, laying a hand familiarly on the tenor's shoulder. "You are a man of sense. Mrs. Harding is a good singer. I know it very well. She was weak, the other day—perhaps, through indisposition; but I am quite satisfied with your report of her success this morning. Do you not know, however, that she has low connections,—that her husband is a cheesemonger's shopman? All the world knows it."
        "All the world is mistaken, then," returned the irate Scheffer, "He is a man of talent and education. I see the Times on your table. Allow me. There," he continued; pointing to an advertisement. "What do you say to that? 'A translation of the Comedies of Aristophanes. By William Harding.' That is the man, sir—that is her husband. A first-rate Greek scholar, sir."
        "Are you sure that there is no error, Herr Scheffer? I wish I had known this yesterday, when Lord Filmy Gossamer said to me, 'He ts so low.' Dear me, a Greek scholar, Eh? A gentleman, Eh?"
        "Certainly; a gentleman; under a cloud, at present, but quite in a gentlemanly way."
        "Explain."
        "He borrowed money on a Post Obit Bond, and is now residing in the Fleet. Nothing more gentlemanly."
        "Nothing. Dear me, borrowed money, did he? Then he had expectations?"
        "His father died worth twelve thousand pounds, the other day."
        "You astonish me. Why, he is quite a gentleman."
        "Quite. And, between ourselves, there are strange reports about Masson."
        "Ha!"
        "He pays nobody. There was a writ issued against him this morning. It will be served to-day."
        "That is his affair. He is still a gentleman."
        "¥es; but his wife is no singer."
        "Have you heard her?"
        "Frequently: I have had every opportunity of judging. She might do for another House, but not for your's. Your theatre has so high a reputation."
        "It has. I have worked hard for it. I have done it myself, Scheffer."
        "Everybody knows that. Your skill in catering for the public taste is excellent. And you manage so well to repress the jealousies of your actors. Your word—what do I say?—your nod is Law in your Establishment."
        "It is kind of you to say so. But you only do me justice."
        "And you have an excellent discernment of rising talent."
        "I pique myself upon it."
        "With every disposition to foster merit."
        "Yes. The stage owes some of its brightest ornaments to me."
        "I am confident that Mrs. Harding's debut will create a sensation. When shall it come off?"
        "Her husband is quite a gentleman. We will say Monday for the debut."
        "Shall I write the advertisement for the papers?"
        "I shall be obliged to you if you will. My hands are full."
        There is little need that I should lengthen this history. Emma succeeded and opened the prison gates for her husband. On the day that he was restored to liberty, M. Jean Masson passed through the same gates as a prisoner. Indeed, Harding, with his delighted wife hanging on his arm, encountered him in the porter's lodge.
        "Helas!" he said, addressing his old acquaintances, in explanation of their meeting. "They say that I have run over the policeman."
        "No, no, Moseer," interposed the tipstaff who accompanied him. "Them's not my words. I said that gents came here for overrunning the constable. That's what he means, ma'am."
        Harding and Emma passed into the street without speaking to him.                *                *                *                *
        Had Harding found his work—that work which he was specially sent to do? I know not. If he had brought his entire moral being into harmony with nature; if he had subdued all discord in his soul, he had. For us, he exists no longer; but let him represent a thousand young men, who are thrown into society without a fitting profession, or with no profession. I have not intended to depict the life-long struggle for daily corn-bread, which characterises the existence of the oppressed and neglected, the "hewers of wood and drawers of water." But, inasmuch as Bread is the Beautiful, and the Beautiful is Virtue, it may also be found by them. I acknowledge the difficulty. I anticipate the objection. What can they know of the Spiritual and the Eternal, whose toil for the material and the temporal, for the need of the perishing hour is unceasing from childhood to the grave? Alas, but little; but something they can and do know. The soul will burst its bonds, and Virtue enters the tenant's hut as freely as the hall of the landlord. What I insist upon, is that, in our vicious society, we hear too much of the bread that the baker has kneaded. "O most excellent person," said Socrates, before his judges. "Art thou not ashamed that thou studiest to possess as much money as possible, and reputation and honour—but concernest not thyself about intellect and truth, and the well-being of thy mental nature? These, as you well know, are the commands of the God. And it appears to me that no good can happen to the state greater than my service of the God; for I pass my whole time inciting both the young and the old, to care neither for body nor estate, in preference to, nor in comparison with, the excellence of the soul, telling them that wealth does not produce virtue, but virtue, wealth, and all other good things to mankind, both collectively and individually."

The Recluse of the Iron Tower

by Shirley Brooks.

Originally published in Tinsley's Magazine (Tinsley Bros.) vol.1 #1 (Aug 1867).

H.M.S, R— S—, Spithead, July 17, 1867.

                From a stern iron turret, which kind Blacksmith Burritt
                        Would laud for its work, though he hates its design,
                (Scribing here because mensis velociter currit,)
                        Receive, my dear Y—, contribution of mine.
                I promised some verses, and know that your c-rs-s
                        Descend somewhat freely on "copy" that's late;
                So be thankful for small as for magnified mercies—
                        The lines shall be few, and the printer sha'n't wait.

                This is not quite a station for calm meditation;
                        I've crawled through a hole like the Pyramid door,
                And have climbed by a rope to a high elevation,
                        And write on a gun with a horrible roar.
                Her powder is in her; but hard at their dinner
                        Are gunners, who've left her to darkness and me;
                So I'm safe till her captain, whose name it is Skinner,
                        Shall spring to my place at his Captain's decree.

                Thirty-five pounds of powder (no cannon talks louder)
                        Repose in grim silence just under the lock,
                And I feel that my verse should be stronger and prouder
                        For resting on strength that could shatter a rock.
                My heart is inditing; but one thought, alighting,
                        Impedes the bold metre's poetical flow,—
                If the blessed old gun should go off while I'm writing,
                        You'll treat my executors handsome, I know!

                I suspect we are neighbours, and Editor's labours
                        Desert Magazine for the sake of Review;
                You're sailing out yonder, no doubt; and, by jabers!
                        My friend Dr. Brady is one of the crew.
                Certain hints (and folks pen 'em with some little venom)
                        Warn the Upper Ten (us) against drinking too free;
                So health to you two in pure water and Wenham
                        (Just shaded to amber by one goutte d'esprit)!

                I'll spare the infliction—the old benediction,
                        "Prosperity's breezes" and "filling your sail;"
                Sails are read of alone in unsaleable fiction—
                        May your fires be all hot, and your steam never fail!
                "Happy thought" brought to aid ye that same Docthor Brady,—
                        Praps you've heard the quotation, nil tetigit quod;
                And you're Some, my old friend, and your book, by our Lady!
                Will do, if half equal to Kissing the Rod.

                At the doorstep of T—y whatever bad sins lie,—
                        We never yet heard that there ever was one
                (I'm short of a rhyme, which annoys me imminsly),—
                        You can't say he don't know how things should be done.
                May white loaves and fat fishes fill his and your dishes!
                        May your new Magazine be as fresh as your books!
                Good fellows all give you their hearty good wishes,—
                        None more, my dear Y—, than
                                                                Your friend,
                                                                                SHIRLEY BROOKS.