The Unknown

by the Author of "Stories of Waterloo" [William Hamilton Maxwell].

Originally published in Dublin University Magazine (William Curry Jun. and Company) vol.2 #9 (Sep 1833).

                "Is there no remedy."—SHAKSPEARE.

        I know no greater luxury on earth, than a temporary retreat from the noise and hurry of the town. The mind, harrassed by the cares of trade, or the difficulties of an arduous profession—the eye wearied by the eternal sameness of a crowded street—the ear dulled with ceaseless turmoil—all predispose the man who "steals from the world" to enjoy with exquisite sensations, his brief season of relaxation.
        To me, the denizen of an Inn of Court—the occupant of gloomy chambers—the "doomed one" to a profession for which I have no fancy, this occasional retirement is delicious. To refresh the eye with field and forest—to rest the ear with rustic quietude—to lose care and thought for a season, however short, has proved the sunniest period of a life, fevered as mine has been, by the difficulties attendant on a profession so embarrassing and exhausting as the law.
        Among the scenes I have loved to visit, the little inn at Everton has been my favourite retreat. The picturesque appearance of this secluded hamlet—its antique church and modest cemetry—its green hedge-rows and sparkling rivulet, seemed to invite a wearied spirit like "mine own" to seek and find there the repose it panted for.
        But there were charms other than those of rural solitude which attracted me to "The Woodman." Annette's smile welcomed me when I left the city—Annette's voice fell upon my ear like soft music—her hand, I fancied, smoothed my pillow—her form flitted round me as I dreamed—and I, cold and reckless of adventitious charms as I am, thrilled with sensations hitherto unfelt, when gazing on the unconscious beauty of this gentle and unsophisticated girl.
        It was late in spring, when, after a long absence, I revisited "The Woodman." The delighted smile and gentle reproach that welcomed me, proved that Annette was gratified at my return. I regretted that my sojourn was limited, to a night, and when evening came, and I set out for my favourite haunt, I entered the village church-yard with feelings that required its soothing influence to compose. But what was the beauty of the inn to me? I had no time to waste on woman; years of anxious and sustained exertion must elapse before I should be enabled to retire from the drudgery of a profession. 'Twere worse than madness to encourage dreams which could never be realized, and I determined to conquer my latent love, and fly from Annette and "The Woodman."
        The sun touched the verge of the horizon, and the yew trees flung their shadows over the graves, whose simple memorials told of the humblest of the villagers. At some distance from the rest I observed one little mound, and no stone recorded who the being was whose ashes rested underneath. It was the grave of a stranger, and I fell into a train of thought, which the approach of an old man and an interesting child disturbed.
        "And why did they bury her there?" said the youthful querist.
        The old man's reply was inaudible.
        "And are people who die for love placed thus apart from others?"
        The old man smiled. "The disease, my child is unfrequent, and few have been so unfortunate as the lovely being who sleeps under yon green turf."
        My curiosity was excited, and while the child turned aside to pull the wild flowers with which the graves were thickly sprinkled, I learned the melancholy story of her who occupied this solitary resting place.
        She was young, beautiful, and gifted; born to fortune, accident robbed her of wealth, to which from infancy she had believed herself the heiress, She bore the visitation patiently, and sought the humble occupation of a governess, and talents and accomplishments which had been once cultivated for amusement, were now exercised to obtain an honorable independence.
        Unfortunately, a young officer was the relative of the family where Emily resided, and a constant visitor at the house. He saw the beautiful girl—he loved her, and in turn he was beloved. Favoured by the circumstances of his intimacy, he pressed his suit with ardour, and when the regiment was unexpectedly ordered to the continent, the incident produced a full disclosure of Emily's attachment. Their vows were solemnly interchanged, and on the last agonizing evening before he sailed, Emily yielded to his passionate request, and granted him a midnight interview—alas! that meeting proved a fatal one for her.
        He went—four months passed rapidly away—Waterloo was fought and won—and among those that fell was Emily's lover.
        Many a heart was agonized when the fatal death list reached England; but she, the lost one, had a double grief to mourn. The consequences of her hour of indiscretion would become apparent. Shame and sorrow were too much to bear together, and maddened by blighted love, and an inevitable exposure, in her frenzy the means of self-destruction were procured, and Emily, the young—the beautiful—the gifted being, perished miserably by her own hand.
        They placed her here—and while yonder costly mantle is raised above the mass of age and deformity, the green turf conceals the mortal remains of that lovely and ill-starred girl.
        The old man wiped away a tear, took the child's hand, and bade me a courteous adieu. I staid for a short time beside the grave, and left the scene of death full of pity for the beautiful victim of imprudent love.
        Months passed, Summer succeeded Spring, and 1 began to feel my resolution waver, and wished to see Annette once more; Annette was not to be easily forgotton; her's was not the florid comeliness that distinguishes a vulgar beauty—every look and movement were feminine and elegant, and nature had moulded her a gentlewoman, although the sphere she occupied was humble; the witching smile that played about her mouth, the soft expression of eyes of darkest hazle, the silver voice, that excellent thing in woman, all haunted my imagination; and while prudence whispered me to avoid her, resolution failed, and on a fine June evening I drove once more to "The Woodman" at Everton.
        When Annette heard my voice, she came forward to welcome me. "Ah! Mr. Mowbray, how did I offend you? You stole away without bidding me good bye." I held her hand in mine—I saw her eye sparkle, and the colour flash upon her cheek, and muttered a confused apology. "Well, I am so happy to see you," she continued, "and it was but this morning, that I spoke of you to the captain." I started—a thrill of jealousy shot through my breast. "The captain!—who is he, Annette?" "Oh! you will so like him," said the blushing girl; "that is, when you know him, for he appears cold and haughty at first, but he will not be so to you."
        "To me, Annette! I have no ambition to obtain the acquaintance of a stranger; and believe me, I shall not unnecessarily expose myself to the hauteur of any man."
        "Well, well, invalids are always irritable, and he is very very ill. You must know him; there is something about him so noble and so interesting when he chooses to be so, that none can be near him without liking him." The animated expression of her face while she spoke of the Unknown, made me miserable. I cursed the Captain in my heart, and determined, that in coldness and repulsion I should be at least his equal.
        The day passed over; my rival did not appear, and when I left "The Woodman" for my evening walk, he had not left his chamber. The churchyard, of course, was visited. I stood beside the grave of the unhappy lady, and her melancholy story afforded me a theme for sad reflection.
        It was evening when I reached "mine inn," and as I passed the parlour window a sight met my eye that brought the colour to my cheek: upon a sofa, a tall and noble looking man was extended; Annette leaned over him, and with marked assiduity placed cushions for his head, and arranged his military cloak. I could not see his features as his face was turned from me, but he held her hand in his, and she seemed in no hurry to withdraw it.
        I was tortured with rage and jealousy. Should I fly at once and leave Annette to my rival? No. She was but a woman, and why should she have power to make me wretched? I must—I would subdue my feelings, and resolution should teach me to forget her. I waited till she left the room, and entered it.
        The opening of the door caused the stranger to look up; he scarcely however noticed my entrance, and his eyes fell quickly on the paper he was perusing. I sate down at the window—a quarter of an hour elapsed, and we did not exchange a word.
        While this unsocial state of things continued, a third personage joined us; he was a forward, self-sufficient, overdressed young man, who seemed to stand on excellent terms with himself; he stopped beside the stranger, and asked, in a drawling and affected voice, after the lust night's debate; the invalid slowly raised his eyes, bestowed a look of supercilious indifference on the enquirer, and, without deigning to reply, quickly resumed his investigation of the newspaper.
        Again, we were left together, when Annette came in to ask what the Captain would have for supper. "This is the gentleman I spoke of," she said in a whisper, directing her expressive eye towards me. Instantly the stranger threw aside the paper—"Mr. Mowbray," he said, "must pardon my inattention, I was not aware my pretty Annette's friend was in the room. That forward puppy chafed me. We, invalids, are somewhat testy, and to be pestered by a popinjay' would vex a philosopher. Will you permit me to share your supper?"
        I was astonished; the cold and withering look with which he repelled the advances of the citizen, had given place to an expression of singular urbanity. His voice was soft as woman's; his manner bland and winning. I felt impelled irresistibly to meet his advances, and encourage an intimacy with the man, whom but five minutes since I looked upon with aversion.
        Our tête-à-tête confirmed the feelings his first overtures had given rise to. The stranger's conversation was brilliant and intellectual. He had been much about the world, and in his wanderings he had found no barrenness. I looked upon his countenance—once he must have been strikingly handsome, but the face was faded and care-worn, and its varied lines betrayed the workings of a bosom, where pride and grief, and many a strong passion, had for years careered. At times, however, the brow unbent, the eye flashed with intelligence, a smile of exquisite sweetness played around the mouth, while the perfect intonation of the sweetest voice I ever listened to, rendered his conversation fascinating.
        One thing struck me as being unaccountable. The unknown was professedly an invalid, and yet he drank freely as if his health was unimpaired. As night advanced, a hectic overspread his cheeks, hitherto so wan and colourless; and when I took his hand at parting, I found it burning in my grasp.
        I staid two days longer at "The Woodman." The stranger expressed his pleasure at my sojourn—and although he never rose till evening, we passed many hours together. With me he seemed to throw aside his coldness, as supported on my arm we walked slowly in some of the rustic avenues which issued from the village. These excursions were necessarily short. Notwithstanding his erect and easy carriage, probably the result of military habitude, his limbs could scarcely bear him through; and it was too evident that an unbroken spirit vainly contended with an exhausted constitution.
        I had scarcely been a week in town before a note, with the Everton postmark, reached me. It was from the stranger, and contained a pressing request that I should dine with him on an early day. The billet bore no name, and was merely subscribed with an initial. I required little inducement to visit "The Woodman," and accordingly the invitation was accepted.
        Annette received me with her customary kindness; but when I named the stranger, her eyes filled. "Ah! Mr. Mowbray, he is dying. Since you left Everton he has declined rapidly. I have often pressed him to call in a physician, but in vain; I hear his step upon the stairs, and you will no doubt perceive an alteration for the worse." While she was still speaking the door unclosed, and the stranger entered. Oh God! how changed. The ravages of disease in one short week were frightful.
        Dinner was served, but the stranger scarcely tasted it. The bottle passed rapidly, the dessert was placed upon the table, and we were left to ourselves. Filling a claret glass to the brim, "Come, Mowbray," he said, "know'st thou this day?" I replied "that I had no particular recollection of it."
        "Dull slave of law!" he exclaimed with a smile, "has Waterloo faded from the calendar already?" It was the anniversary of that battle, and we drank to the memory of the brave. Warmed with the wine, the stranger's spirits became excited. He had been there—had been wounded—left upon the field—and returned in the list of the slain. He spoke with enthusiasm of that glorious fight. His descriptions became more vivid, his anecdotes racy and interesting. The pale cheek flushed—the dim eye brightened—but the exertion was too great to be sustained; he soon became exhausted, and at last was obliged to own his feebleness, and accept my assistance to reach his chamber.
        Business imperatively required my presence in London, and early next morning I left "the Woodman." Four days passed, and from Annette I learned that hourly he grew worse, and that the fatal crisis was fast approaching.
        I had already determined to visit "the Woodman" on the following day, when a note from the stranger caused me to set off immediately. Like the other, this note was without subscription, and the few lines it contained were almost illegible. I compared the notes, and the altered hand-writing sufficiently attested the awful change a few days had brought about.
        I found him sitting in the parlour, where, as Annette told me, he had been occupied in burning papers. I stood beside him, and one look told me he had not many days to live.
        My arrival, however, seemed to give him unfeigned pleasure, and pressing within his feverish grasp, he thanked me for attending so promptly to his letter. "Is the evening warm, Mowbray?" I replied in the affirmative. "Then," said the stranger, with perfect calmness, "you and I will take our last walk together. I have been destroying papers of some moment, and I shall finish my task while dinner is reparing." He took a small packet om his writing-desk, unbound the blue ribbon which encased a number of letters, whose beautiful and delicate penmanship at once discovered them to be a female's. One by one his eye passed over their contents, and with an effort which seemed to require much determination, he flung them into the fire. "'Tis the last relic but one," he murmured, "and that lies here," and he laid his hand upon his bosom. Just then dinner was served: he ate little, drank a glass or two of wine, and then rising from the table, requested me to accompany him.
        There was one shaded avenue that had been his favourite walk—we passed it, and turned our steps towards the church-yard. Entering through the wicket, we stopped beneath the huge yew tree which overspreads the gate. "I have been fortunate, my dear Mowbray," said the invalid, "in meeting with one so kind as you, to cheer the parting hours of my earthly pilgrimage. I am grateful—and as hitherto you have never asked a question touching my name or history, I would entreat it, as my last, my dying request, that you will never demand an explanation of my evening visit to this place. I will briefly state my wishes, and I feel confident that you will see them effected, when I am at rest." He led me along the walk until we reached the extremity of the burying-ground, and to my surprise stopped beside the grave of the beautiful suicide, whose fate had so often excited my sympathy. "Mowbray," he said, in a voice which betrayed the workings of an agonized spirit—"you will recollect this spot: lay me here—here—close to that solitary grave: mark the place well, and promise that my last request shall be attended to." I gave him a solemn assurance that his wishes should be obeyed. He was fearfully agitated: his strength failed—and with considerable difficulty he was enabled to leave the church-yard, and reach "the Woodman."
        He threw himself upon a sofa,—and whether fatigue, or the place we had visited, affected him, I know not,—but his once fine face was clouded with an expression of the deepest sadness. Once I observed a tear glisten on his cheek. "I must give in, Mowbray," he murmured feebly,—"the machinery of this poor frame is nearly worn out: assist me to my chamber." I did so—partially undressed him—laid him on the bed—and at his earnest request, then left him alone.
        The evening wore heavily on—midnight past, and the occupants of the inn retired to their respective chambers. I felt a feverish anxiety for the sick man that banished sleep. I rose and unclosed the latice—the air was chill, the night dark and moonless—a torturing presentiment of coming evil oppressed me, and [ stole quietly to the stranger's apartment. A stream of light issued from beneath the door, but all within was hushed. I feared to enter, lest I should disturb him, and was about to retire, when a faint sigh startled me. An impulse beyond controul urged me to enter. The door yielded to my touch—I stood beside the bed—a fixed and glassy stare met my inquiring look—I snatched a candle from the table, and one glance told me that the stranger was a corpse, and the sigh I overheard was the parting struggle of a disembodied spirit!
        I leaned over the departed soldier, and the marked expression of the countenance told that he had not passed quietly away. One arm was extended above the coverlet, and a prayer-book that had dropped from its hold, was open at the beautiful petition "for persons troubled in mind, or in conscieuce." The breast was uncovered, and two remarkable objects met my eye—the cicatrix of a gun-shot wound, and the miniature of a beautiful girl. Other tokens of the "foughten field" were visible—and the wasted arm, seared by many a sword cut, bore silent testimony that the unknown had been engaged "where death was busy." We laid him in the grave he wished for—and the haughty soldier sleeps beside the fair unfortunate.
        Who was he? Some posthumous document might tell me, and on the evening of his funeral, we opened his writing desk in presence of the village pastor. Within, letters and trinkets, perfumed billets, ringlets of hair and other "mementos of his lady-love," were discovered, but they bore no superscription. One sealed packet was addressed to me—it conveyed a large sum in bank notes to Annette, with an earnest request that I would marry her; and like the rest, it was without a signature. We found a Waterloo medal—the name and rank of the possessor would of course be engraven on the exergue; I snatched it from the clergyman; every letter was carefully filed out, and the word "Dragoons" alone was traceable.
        Who was he? Reader, I cannot tell—his secret perished with The Unknown.

A Causerie

From a Castle in Ireland
by Arthur Symons.

Originally published in The Savoy (Leonard Smithers) vol.1 #6 (Oct 1896).

In the mysterious castle, lost among trees that start up suddenly around it, out of a land of green meadows and gray stones, where I have been so delightfully living through the difficult month of August, London, and the currencies of literature, and the duties of an editor, seem scarcely appreciable; too far away on the other side of this mountainous land inclosing one within the circle of its own magic. It is a castle of dreams, where, in the morning, I climb the winding staircase in the tower, creep through the secret passage, and find myself in the vast deserted room above the chapel, which is my retiring-room for meditation; or, following the winding staircase, come out on the battlements, where I can look widely across Galway, to the hills. In the evening my host plays Vittoria and Palestrina on the organ, in the half darkness of the hall, and I wander between the pillars of black marble, hearing the many voices rising into the dome: Vittoria, the many lamentable human voices, crying on the sins of the world, the vanity of pleasant sins; Palestrina, an exultation and a triumph, in which the many voices of white souls go up ardently into heaven. In the afternoon we drive through a strange land, which has the desolation of ancient and dwindling things; a gray land, into which human life comes rarely, and with a certain primitive savagery. As we drive seawards, the stone walls closing in the woods dwindle into low, roughly heaped hedges of unmortared stones, over which only an occasional cluster of trees lifts itself; and the trees strain wildly in the air, writhing away from the side of the sea, where the winds from the Atlantic have blown upon them and transfixed them in an eternity of flight from an eternal flagellation. As far as one can see, as far as the blue, barren mountains which rise up against the horizon, there are these endless tracts of harsh meadow-land, marked into squares by the stone hedges, and themselves heaped with rocks and stones, lying about like some gray fungous growth. Not a sign of human life is to be seen; at long intervals we pass a cabin, white-washed, thatched roughly, with stopped-up windows, and a half-closed door, from behind which a gray-haired old woman will gaze at you with her steady, melancholy eyes. A few peasants pass on the road, moving sombrely, without speaking; the men, for the most part, touch their hats, without change of expression; the women, drawing their shawls about their faces, merely look at you, with a slow, scrutinizing air, more indifferent than curious. The women walk bare-footed, and with the admirable grace and straightness of all who go with bare feet. I remember, in the curve of a rocky field, some little way in from the road, seeing a young woman, wearing a blue bodice, a red petticoat, and a gray shawl, carrying a tin pail on her head, with that straight, flexible movement of the body, that slow and formal grace, of Eastern women who have carried pitchers from the well. Occasionally a fierce old man on a horse, wearing the old costume, that odd, precise, kind of dress-coat, passes you with a surly scowl; or a company of tinkers (the Irish gipsies, one might call them) trail past, huddled like crouching beasts on their little, rough, open carts, driving a herd of donkeys before them. As we get nearer the village by the sea, the cabins become larger, and more frequent; and just before reaching it, we pass a ruined castle, impregnably built on a green mound, looking over the water to the quay, where the thin black masts of a few vessels rise motionless against the little white-washed houses. The road goes down a steep hill, and turns sharply, in the midst of the gray village, with its thatched and ragged roofs. The doors all stand open, the upper windows are drawn half down, and from some of them I see a dishevelled dark head, the hair and eyes of a gipsy (one could well have fancied), looking down on the road and the passers by. As the road rises again, we see the blue mountains, coming nearer to us, and the place where, one knows, is Galway Bay, lying too low for any flash of the waters. Now we are quite near the sea, and in front of the house we are to visit (you will hear all about it in M. Bourget's next nouvelle) a brown mass of colour comes suddenly into the dull green and gray of the fields, and one smells the seaweed lying there in the pools.
        I find all this bareness, grayness, monotony, solitude, at once primitive and fantastical, curiously attractive; giving just the same kind of relief from the fat, luxurious English landscape that these gaunt, nervous, long-chinned peasants give from the red and rolling sleepiness of the English villager. And there is a quite national vivacity and variety of mood in the skies here, in the restless atmosphere, the humorous exaggerations of the sun and rain. To-day is a typical Irish day, soft, warm, gray, with intervals of rain and fine weather; I can see a sort of soft mist of rain, blown loosely about between the trees of the park, the clouds an almost luminous gray, the sun shining through them; at their darkest, scarcely darker than the Irish stone of which the castle is built. Driving, the other day, we passed a large pool among the rocks, in the midst of those meadows flowering with stones; the sky was black with the rain that was falling upon the hills, and the afternoon sun shone against the deep blackness of the sky and the shadowed blackness of the water. I have never seen such coloured darkness as this water; green passing into slate, slate into purple, purple into dead black. And it was all luminous, floating there in the harbour of the grass like a tideless sea. Then there is the infinite variety of the mountains, sloping in uneven lines around almost the whole horizon. They are as variable as the clouds, and, while you look at them, have changed from a purple darkness to a luminous and tender green, and then into a lifeless gray; and seem to float towards you and drift away from you, like the clouds.
        Among these solid and shifting things, in this castle which is at once so ancient a reality and so essential a dream, I feel myself to be in some danger of loosening the tightness of my hold upon external things, of foregoing many delectable pleasures, of forgetting many things that I have passionately learnt in cities. If I lived here too long I should forget that I am a Londoner and remember that I am a Cornishman. And that would so sadly embarrass my good friends of the Celtic Renaissance! No, decidedly I have no part among those remote idealists :I must come back to London; for I have perceived the insidious danger of idealism ever since I came into these ascetic regions.

A Horse With a Broken Heart

Originally published in Pearson's Weekly (C. Arthur Pearson Ltd.) vol.1 #35 (21 Mar 1891).

        There are cases on record where the death of the horse has been traced directly to grief. One instance is called to my mind which occurred more than twenty years ago. A circus had been performing in a little country town, when one of the trained horses sprained one of his legs, so that he could not travel. He was taken to a hotel and put in a box stall. The leg was bandaged, and he was made as comfortable as possible.
        He ate his food, and was apparently contented until about midnight, when the circus began moving out of town. Then he became restless, and trampled and whinied. As the caravan moved past the hotel he seemed to realize that he was being deserted, and his anxiety and distress became pitiful. He stood with his ears pricked up, in an attitude of intense listening; and then, as his ears caught the sound of the retiring waggons, he rushed, as best he could with his injured leg, from one side of the stall to the other, pushing at the door with his nose, and making every effort to escape.
        The stableman, who was a stranger to him, tried to soothe him. But he would not be comforted. Long after all the sounds of the circus had ceased his agitation continued. The sweat poured from him in streams and he quivered in every part of his body. Finally the stableman went to the house, woke up the prorietor, and told him that he believed the horse would die if some of the circus horses were not brought back to keep him company.
        At about daylight the proprietor mounted a horse and rode overtook it ten or twelve miles away, and the groom who had charge of the injured horse returned with him. When they reached the stable the horse was dead. The stableman said that he remained for nearly an hour perfectly still, and with every sense apparently strained to the utmost tension, and then, without making a sign, fell, and died with scarcely a struggle.

The Theatres of Paris

by Henry Morley (uncredited).

Originally published in Household Words (Bradbury & Evans) vol.6 #132 (02 Oct 1852).

        If the world were some day to become too proud to be amused, what device would it hit upon for causing circulation of the coins that carry life with them in all directions? A very large class of people in all ranks depends for bread and meat on the world's willingness to take some wholesome recreation in the intervals of toil. It is our present purpose to show how money paid for an Opera-box, or deposited at the pit-door of a theatre, if it can be spared fairly by him who spends it, is not spent in waste. There cannot be too many honest occupations in the world, for every one tends to prevent wealth from remaining idle, and helps to cause those very necessary bits of silver or of copper, which are taken in exchange for meat and bread, to find their way into the many pockets of the hungry.
        There has been published in Paris, during the present year, the result of an elaborate inquiry into the statistics of the theatres. They have facilities in France for finding out the details of such matters, which are not likely, for a long time, to be afforded to inquirers in this country. The general details of a theatre are, however, in all countries alike, and what is true of theatres in Paris may be regarded as, in the main, true also of theatres in London. In London the prices of admission are generally higher, and the payments made behind the scenes are larger. The London Operas find work for many more people than the single Opera of Paris; but, in Paris, on the other hand, the actual number of theatres is greater than in London, and the proportion of theatre space to population is, of course, very much greater. In Paris, for a population of one million and fifty or sixty thousand, the number of theatres provided is twenty-six, including some that are small and some that are habitually unsuccessful. In London there are provided, for a population of two millions, not more than twenty-three theatres, and to make up so large a number as twenty-three, we must include such temples of the drama as that which is attached to the Eagle Tavern, and must count, of course, as a theatrical establishment, the vacancy in Drury Lane.
        The Parisians, therefore, are evidently a more theatre-going people than the Londoners. The aggregate of space provided in the theatres of Paris is calculated to accommodate thirty-four thousand play-goers, one in thirty-one of the whole population, from the great grandfather—if towns contain such things—down to the babies. The largest of these places of amusement, the Circus of the Champs-Elysées, affords space for three thousand five hundred visitors. Next in size are the National Theatre (the old Olympic Circus), which will hold two thousand two hundred and fifty-nine, and the Theatre of Porte Saint Martin holding about two hundred less. The Opéra Comique has space for an audience of two thousand, but the Grand Opéra of Paris will not accommodate more than eighteen hundred and eleven. The Comédie Française and the Odéon are within two seats of equal size; one able to accommodate fifteen hundred and sixty, the other fifteen hundred and fifty-eight. Two of the theatres, which hold more than a thousand (Beaumarchais and Saint Marcel), were closed in 1851. Six of the theatres hold numbers varying between a thousand and six hundred; and one (the Spectacle d'Arcole) is calculated to admit not more than two hundred and fifty visitors to each of its entertainments.
        To the theatres of Paris there must be added a hundred and fifty-six places of public amusement; namely, twenty cafés offering the charms of song, six offering dramatic entertainments, concert and dramatic halls, public ball-rooms and guinguettes. These are frequented daily by an average of about twenty-four thousand visitors. If we add these, therefore, to our former calculation, it will appear that there exist means in Paris for affording nightly public entertainment, in the way of drama, dance, or song, to no less than one in every eighteen of the inhabitants of Paris, which number of course includes the aged, the sick, the infants, and the destitute.
        Amusement on a scale like this is by no means provided to the Londoners, and, as it is, managers lack support in England. How is it in France? We have supposed in the above calculation that all the Paris theatres are open at one time; that, however, never is the case. The supply, in Paris, of theatrical amusement is kept too frequently ahead of the demand; disasters among managers are quite as common with the French as with the English, and the cost of producing the amusement treads so closely on the heels of the remuneration offered for it by the public, that Paris would not, by any means, appear to be the Paradise of managers. This cost, however, is not waste; it drops in the shape of bread, as we have said, into a great many mouths. In precise terms it may be stated, as will be shown in detail presently, that the theatres of Paris—without counting the work given by them to upholsterers in the town, washerwomen, bill-stickers, and others— provide an actual subsistence for four thousand seven hundred individuals, upon most of whom, it is of course to be understood, that families or relations are depending for support. The toll levied in the box-office or at the pit-door, therefore, if it can be spared, is justly paid. The economic housekeeper, who finds that the mind's vigour is not best supported by a course of labour from which hours of recreation are excluded, may satisfy his heart by feeling that, in more than a mere selfish sense, the money spent upon a reasonable participation in the amusements of his fellow-townsmen is not thrown away.
        The French Government has, however, for a long time been of opinion, that as entertainment is a luxury, so the people who spend labour in providing entertainment for the public, are the very people whose abundance must be taxed. Wherein the abundance of a player or scene-shifter consists, we have not yet discovered; nor do we know why the receipts derived from poetry and music should especially be mulcted on the score of luxury. Corsets are unnecessary luxuries—why not tax milliners? Bon-bons are unnecessary gratifications—why does not the Government of France take for the poor a tenth out of the tills of the confectioners? We do not understand these things. We can only say that the theatres of Paris and all places of public entertainment are required to pay a very oppressive tax, under the title of the Right of the Indigent. It was paid in old times as a voluntary alms, and was made by Louis the Fourteenth in 1699—who fixed it at the modest amount of a sixth of the receipts—payable to the credit of the general Hospital. In 1716, a distinct and extra payment of a ninth was claimed in favour of the Hôtel-Dieu. This Right of the Indigent has, since that date, been variously modified; even, at one time, abandoned for a few years at the beginning of what used to be called the Revolution. The abandonment of the claim, however, was but of brief duration, and since 1817, its produce has been annually comprehended in the budget. It amounts now to about an eleventh part of the gross receipts, and yielded, in 1851, nine hundred and ninety-three thousand francs. This tax, of course, scrapes a great deal of butter from the bread of all who work behind the scenes of the theatres in Paris. Revolutions also, which may at least be expected to occur in France as frequently as we have in England dissolutions of our Parliament, play sad work with the cash-box of the Paris manager and with the cupboards of those who depend upon him for employment. In the last ten years of the reign of Louis Philippe, the yearly receipts taken at places of public amusement in the capital, rose from seven to eleven millions of francs. From eleven millions taken in 1847, the receipts fell suddenly in 1848 to less than seven millions, and from that point they have been gradually rising, so that last year they had again risen to ten millions and a half. We shall be curious to see the figures for the current year when it is closed. Although the temporary manager of France deals largely himself in fireworks and pageants offered gratuitously to the public; yet his spectacles have, for the most part, failed through so much adversity of wind and weather, that the traditional doom of Vauxhall seems to be upon him; and, after all, the legitimate drama may not have suffered greatly through his competition.
        But it may be said, that if the French Government picks the purse of the theatres, it is accustomed also to make compensatory presents to them, and to help them out of difficulty by subventions. It takes indeed money from all, while there are only five to whom a portion of their money is returned. The live theatres rejoicing in the privilege of such artificial support rendered by the State are, in the order of their official precedence, the Grand Opéra, the Comédie Française, the Opéra Comique, the Théâtre Italien, and the Odéon. This compound system, therefore, of help and hindrance offered by the Government interfering with the theatres of Paris, cramps their energies and meddles seriously with their profits.
        A king of France has even thought it worth his while to undertake the active management of the Grand Opéra, to order yards of satin for costumes, to let boxes, to monopolise the right of giving free admissions, and to keep, as his own private affair, debtor and creditor accounts of the concern. The laws regulating theatres were, by statute made and provided, framed with the same legislative pomp and exactitude as the whole code of civil law. One of the articles propounds "That the theatrical year shall commence with the calendar year." The code defines every duty, and awards every degree of fine and imprisonment. It took years to complete, and it did not receive the imperial assent until 1812; when Napoleon signed it amidst the smouldering ruins of Moscow. In London, now that patent rights have been abolished, theatres suffer no further special interference from the State than the censorship of the Chamberlain; which, being a ridiculous thing itself, is, we are happy to say, ridiculously exercised; and will, in time, go the way of all nonsense. With this exception, English theatres are suffered to stand or fall by their own merits, and have free liberty to make exertions and enjoy whatever profit they can get. This difference having been duly taken into account, we will now proceed to details upon matters which belong to the routine of every theatre. We should not omit to state, however, that the twenty-five theatres of Paris upon which the succeeding calculations have been founded, are the theatres of Paris strictly, and do not include eight that are established in the liberties, or the three theatres of Saint-Denis, Sceaux, and Choisy-le-Roi.
        There are in the provinces of France eighty-five dramatic companies, covering a body of one thousand eight hundred and sixty-five actors: eleven hundred and five men, and seven hundred and sixty women. In the theatres of the department of the Seine, omitting those of Paris, there are eighty actors and sixty actresses. In Algeria, there are thirty-six French companies of actors, having, on an average, fourteen actors and eleven actresses in each. Finally, four hundred and thirty-eight actors, and three hundred and fifty-five actresses, are attached to the theatres of Paris.
        There appear also upon the stage of Paris, in addition to these more isolated artists, five hundred and fifty-two of a gregarious kind: members of choruses and corps de ballet, or pupils, and six hundred and ninety-eight supernumeraries. The total number, therefore, in Paris, whose bread is earned behind the curtain but before the scenes, is two thousand and forty-three, of which number one thousand one hundred and forty-two are men, and nine hundred and one are women. The payments made to all these people make on the whole a sum, expressed in English money, of one hundred and forty-seven thousand two hundred and ninety-one pounds. This money is distributed, of course, in payments varying extremely in amount; from about forty pounds a week to a star at the Opéra, down to four shillings a week to a supernumerary at the Théâtre Rollin.
        The payments made to singers in Paris, although very high, and very much higher than they used to be, are small in comparison with the price paid to the same artists in London. The whole rate of admission to the theatres of Paris is lower than in London, and the scale of salaries is lower in the same proportion. The dearest place in any Paris theatre, whether in the Opéra or the Théâtre Italien, costs at the box-office not more than eight-and-fourpence. The cheapest place, in the second gallery of the Théâtre du Petit-Lazari, costs three-halfpence. A seat in the pit at the French or Italian Opéra costs three-and-fourpence, instead of from seven to ten shillings, as it is with us; at the Comédie Française, or the Opéra Comique, it costs two shillings and a penny. A pit seat at the Vaudeville, Variétés, or the Gymnase, costs one-and-eightpence, and at the Odéon, one of the theatres supported by subvention, only a shilling and a halfpenny, or one franc twenty-five centimes. French managers, who have, moreover, the Right of the Indigent to pay in the shape of an eleventh of their gross receipts, cannot afford London salaries. In the case of the Grand Opéra it is also to be taken into account, that it not only charges lower prices, but accommodates a smaller audience than either of the Operas in London.
        In 1713, a chief singer at the Opéra in Paris received a salary of sixty-two pounds ten shillings a year. Between 1782 and 1786 the payment was from two to six hundred guineas yearly; under the Empire, from seven to eight hundred. The salaries now range between two thousand and three thousand pounds a year, passing sometimes to a few hundreds beyond. Madame Saint Huberty, a prima donna much applauded seventy years ago, received a salary of one hundred and sixty guineas yearly. Madame Castellan, in 1849, received the same sum monthly. La Guimard, a fascinating dancer who delighted Paris seventy years ago, when she was in the full height of her success and her beauty, received a yearly salary of a hundred and eighty guineas. In 1849 Carlotta Grisi was paid more than twice that sum for her exertions during a quarter of a year. The permanent principal tenor at the Paris Opéra, who is engaged for four years, dating from April, 1851, receives three thousand a year as his fixed salary.
        Salaries have also risen at the Comédie Française, of which M. Regnier is known in England as a worthy representative. The members of the Comédie Française, however, are content to receive salaries below the market value of their talents, considering the loss of income more than compensated by the honour that belongs to their position, and the prospect of a retiring pension. Of such pensioners the Comédie Française has twenty-five, the Opéra sixteen, making in all forty-one people whose bread is taken at the theatre door, in addition to those that have been already mentioned.
        The pay of a supernumerary varies from about three pounds seven shillings to three pounds fifteen shillings a month for men, and to women it is about half the former sum, or one pound thirteen and sixpence. Casual service is also done by labourers, water-carriers, artists' models, and others, who are paid by the evening according to their fitness, at rates varying from twopence-halfpenny to one shilling and eightpence. Sometimes leave is obtained to employ soldiers as supernumeraries in military pieces in the Théâtre National. At the Opéra, under Louis the Sixteenth, supernumeraries were systematically chosen from among the soldiers of the French Guards.
        It has been said, that there were in Paris seven hundred and ninety-three of the more individual performers—artists, as our neighbours call them. That was the number in the beginning of the year 1850. On the first of January in the present year, although two considerable theatres were closed, the number of performers in Paris had increased by twenty; we reckon their number now, therefore, at eight hundred and thirteen, and they may be grouped in the manner following:—
        Eighty-four (namely, forty-four men and forty women) devote themselves to tragedy and comedy. Two hundred and eighty-four (one hundred and forty-four men and one hundred and forty women) act in vaudevilles. The contrast in the numbers is instructive. The irregular drama is supported by eighty-six sons and fifty-one daughters, being one hundred and thirty-seven in all. There are one hundred and forty-six children of song, ninety-two being singers and fifty-four songstresses. Fourteen gentlemen and forty-three ladies are artists in dancing. Forty men and twenty-four women act in pantomime, vaudeville, or any miscellaneous way. Twenty-one men and twenty women are performers on the backs of horses. These make up the whole number of eight hundred and thirteen.
        Chorus singers, and members of the corps de ballet have also increased in number during the last two years. According to the account taken in January 1852, excluding a hundred who are stage pupils, their number is five-hundred and seventy-five, among whom the men are in a minority of twenty-five. Of the whole number, men and women, one hundred and twenty are attached to corps de ballet, and four hundred and fifty-five are chorus singers.
        We now quit the people who are living by their toil upon the space between the curtain and the scenes; for very many others have to be considered. Before the curtain is the orchestra. To the musicians there is paid yearly in Paris, a sum which a little exceeds twenty-five thousand pounds. Including the conductors, the whole number of musicians living on this fund is six hundred and thirty-nine.
        We have next to take into account the persons employed in the service of the theatre, at the box-office, money and check-takers, small officials, keepers, and superintendents of various kinds, sweepers and scourers, lamplighters, and others. Offices like these find occupation for about five hundred and twenty men and fifty-five women, for whose livelihood provision is made by payments which amount to an aggregate of about fourteen thousand five hundred and eighty pounds.
        In the preceding calculation account is not taken of the box openers. These, in the French theatres, are generally women. In the twenty-five theatres of Paris, four hundred and sixty-seven women, and six men, serve as box-keepers. Except in the Comédie Française and the Lazari, they receive no other pay than the gratuities of the public. At the Comédie Française they buy the appointment, paying for it eighty-three pounds, six and eightpence. The salary they receive is at least equal to the interest of their money, at most twelve pounds ten shillings a year. The average income derived by each boxkeeper from the gratuities of the public in one of the largest theatres of Paris does not amount to more than twenty-five pounds a year, though in busy years some lucky women have obtained as much as eighty or ninety pounds.
        Still before the curtain we have higher officials—stage-managers, secretaries, cashiers, and others—one hundred and twenty-five in number. To these we may add prompters, and copyists of music and manuscript, to the number of fifty-five. These draw from the theatres for their livelihood a sum of sixteen thousand two hundred and fifty pounds.
        Now we will go behind the scenes. Our figures deal with twenty-one theatres only; for we drop two as insignificant, and two also whose work is supplied wholly through the agency of contractors. The rest have workpeople of their own exclusively employed on their account, and in this way the theatres give occupation to one hundred and forty costumiers, tailors, &c., one hundred and sixty machinists, eighty joiner-machinists, twenty-five locksmith-machinists, thirty upholsterers, thirty-five painters and decorators, one hundred and fifty milliners and seamstresses, and ten women engaged upon upholsterers' work. That is to say, one hundred and sixty working women, and four hundred and seventy working men. Some of these are paid by the year—most of them by the month; and the annual amount distributed among them for their maintenance, out of the receipts taken from the playgoers, is twenty-four thousand five hundred and forty-two pounds. They earn simple livings. The chief machinists get from forty-two to seventy-five pounds a year, workmen from twenty-five pounds a year to forty. Carpenters, joiners, &c., have about the same salaries as the machinists. Seamstresses are paid yearly between twenty-three and twenty-seven pounds; but they commonly work by the day, receiving for the day's work a sum varying between a shilling and one and eightpence, after which many remain during the evening to serve as tiring-women, and they who do so earn an extra tenpence. All these people, at work for salaries varying between seventy-five and twenty-three pounds a year, know how to read and write; are active and industrious; toil with a good will on behalf of the theatre by which they are supported; and, when a new piece is in preparation, often spend nights in labour without thinking of complaint. If the new piece be a spectacle, of course many fresh hands are employed: those of which we have here spoken are the ordinary staff of labourers who hold a permanent position in dependence on the stage.
        Then there are the keepers of coats and bonnets, sellers of play-bills, letters of opera-glasses, holders of refreshment stalls, &c., whom it will suffice to mention. We have still to add to the list of people whose industry is set in action by the theatres of Paris. There are painters at work for them outside their walls, who add to the previous calculation about fifty men. There are the hair-dressers and wig-makers, of whom it is only known concerning seventeen theatres that they employ, in those capacities, forty-seven men and two women, who divide among themselves two thousand pounds.
        These are the people who receive direct employment. Indirect employment, by the hiring of occasional labourers, and by the purchase of silks, velvets, and other bravery, it would, of course, be impossible to calculate. It will be curious, however, to observe the comparative cost of various articles of garniture, used in the way of costume. Costume is cheaper than it was seventy years ago. Though there are more bodies to dress, there is less to be paid now for the dressing. In 1849, the cost of dress material at the Paris Opéra for a company of two hundred bodies was four thousand pounds. Out of this sum, the cost of silks, velvets, and ribbons, represents eighteen per cent.; dress for the feet fifteen per cent., and for the head eleven per cent.; woollen and cotton fabrics nine per cent.; lace, embroidery, and mercers' ware nine per cent.; armour and arms seven per cent.; gloves, &c. four per cent.; and two per cent. on the cost was incurred for flowers and feathers.
        Passing from the persons of the actors to the garniture upon the stage, we find that, in eight theatres, including the Opéra, the expense on account of paint and material used in stage decoration, exclusive of the workmens' salaries and wages, amounted to nine thousand, one hundred and sixty-six pounds. Other accounts are also fragmentary. The cost of gas, oil, and other light is known only for seven of the theatres, the Opéra included; in these it amounts to thirteen thousand, three hundred and seventy-five pounds. The cost of warming is known only for six theatres, Opéra included, and amounts in these to seventeen hundred and fifty pounds. Some managers have also to pay rent for the theatres they occupy; it is known only of four such rents that they amount to ten thousand four hundred pounds.
        It will be evident from the above sketch that theatres are not, as they are sometimes called, temples of idleness, but mines of industry, in which the miners work hard at extremely modest wages to produce their glittering results.
        When we sum up the annual expenditure of the theatres—two hundred and thirty thousand pounds in salaries and wages, one hundred and twenty-five thousand in cost of materials and accessaries; adding to these the forty-one thousand, three hundred and seventy-five pounds taken from them in the name of the poor—we arrive at a total expense not very much under four hundred thousand pounds, and only about sixteen thousand pounds under the whole receipts. The receipts are, however, artificial. The amount of subvention granted to the five privileged theatres is greater than the tax taken from the whole twenty-five in the name of the poor. The theatrical till in Paris is robbed by the State with one hand, and replenished with the other, only the robbery is endured by all, and the replenishment enjoyed by five. The subvention to these amounts to a trifle more than fifty-two thousand pounds. The poor, therefore, would be benefited were this money paid to them; and the stage would be the better if it were not, after this clumsy fashion of protection, knocked down by the State with one fist, and then dragged up with the other.
        Many directors of the Paris theatres swell their receipts by balls or concerts. Of these no account has been taken in the preceding estimates; but it will presently be seen that, without some devices of this kind, it would not be easy for an average manager in Paris to obtain for himself a decent living. We left the theatres just now with a gross balance in their favour of about sixteen thousand pounds. We have not, however, yet finished the account of their expenditure. They, of course, have to pay authors for the pieces they perform.
        There are in Paris eight or nine hundred authors or composers who have had one or more of their works presented on the stage; but the number of authors or composers of the new pieces represented in Paris in a single year is about two hundred and fifty. Paris is much more prolific of new pieces than London, and the payments made by the stage of Paris on account of authorship form a considerable item in the year's expenses. The year 1851 may be taken as a fair sample of the rest. In that year the two hundred and fifty authors owned two hundred and seventy-three new pieces, of which number one hundred and eighty-six were vaudevilles, and thirty-two were pieces produced by the theatres enjoying part in the subvention. The method in which French authors are to receive payment for dramatic works has been practically subject to much fluctuation, and great discussion has been held upon its theory. The rights of authors, in the case of the Opéra, the Comédie Française, and the Opéra Comique, are now established upon a system fixed by authority. For other theatres, a scale has been fixed by the Association of Dramatic Authors, and generally accepted by the managers. The following are now the author's dues upon each night's performance of his piece. We express the larger sums of money in round numbers, by addition or subtraction in each case of a few odd shillings.
        At the Opéra. For an opera in five acts: for each of the first forty representations, twenty guineas; for every subsequent representation, eight guineas. For an opera in three acts, the two rates of payment are fourteen pounds and seven pounds. A ballet in three acts, seven pounds, and then two pounds. A ballet in one act, four guineas, and then one pound five:
        At the Comédie Française. A twelfth of the gross receipts (after deducting the Right of the Indigent) for pieces in five and four acts; an eighteenth for pieces in three acts. A twenty-fourth for pieces in two acts or one act:
        At the Opéra Comique. After deducting the tax for the poor, an eighth-and-a-half, that is to say, two-seventeenths of the receipts, for pieces in three acts:
        At the Odéon, Vaudeville, Variétés, Gymnase, and Palais Royal, twelve per cent. on the gross receipts. At the Gaîté, Ambigu, and Porte Saint Martin, ten per cent.:
        At the Théâtre National, one pound thirteen shillings and fourpence nightly for a long piece, and one pound ten shillings for pieces in three acts, during the first twenty-five representations, and one pound for each subsequent performance. Fifteen shillings a night for pieces in two acts; ten shillings and tenpence for pieces in one act.
        At the instigation of Beaumarchais, the dramatic authors had combined before 1791 to exact their dues of the players. A society was formed in 1794, afterwards reconstituted, and, finally, in 1829, there was formed the existing Association of Dramatic Authors and Composers. The Association protects its members, collects through special agents—charging moderate commission—authors' dues, and sets aside a charitable fund, for aid of decayed members, or of widows and orphans of those who are deceased. The whole amount received by authors from the stage of Paris is about twenty-eight thousand pounds a year. The whole stage in the provinces yields to them about seven thousand more. In addition to this they have, of course, the copyright of their manuscripts, certain fees called primes de lecture, and the right of signing—every night when their plays are acted—a fixed number of free admissions, which are sold at a price lower than that of the tickets issued by the theatre, and produce an additional fund of profit to the authors, which is not by any means to be despised. It adds to their aggregate of payments no less a sum than sixteen or seventeen thousand pounds a year.
        To the credit of the actors we should not omit to say, that they have established among themselves a most prosperous benefit society, in the shape of an Association of Dramatic Artists, to which even the poorest actor of the provinces endeavours to contribute. By means of this Association, the French actors snatch their poorer brethren out of debt and difficulty, extricate their clothes and property from pawn, assist the weak, pension the aged, and do all that can be done by the most earnest exertion to alleviate the burdens incident to a profession that is in few cases well paid, and liable in all cases to much uncertainty. Of this Association there were, in May 1851, two thousand five hundred members. It has now an income of five thousand a year, derived partly from subscriptions, partly from gifts, a ball, participation in a lottery, a small Government allocation, and such other ideas as an active committee can suggest. The members of the committee—who are at the head of their profession—do not grudge time or labour, but meet as often as seventy or eighty times in the year.
        There is no idleness in all this. There is abundance of good feeling, abundance of hard work; there is a minute division of the proceeds of the public patronage among industrious people in all ranks, giving to each a living, and to very few more than enough. Truly, then, we may pay our money for amusement at the theatre with a sincere good will, if we will only think of the results that are obtained out of a little figuring upon the stage.

Mormonia

Originally published in The Satirist, or Monthly Meteor (George Manners) vol.1 #5 (01 Feb 1808).

Letter IV.

        The inhabitants of Mormonia, my dear brother, are very partial to certain public assemblies, called coffee-houses, where the natives meet to take snuff, swallow a liquid like our punch; advise the minister, whether to make peace or war, and speculate upon the weather. Curiosity led me a few days ago into one of these temples of reason, where I beheld a grave elderly gentleman, with a very large sheet of paper opened before him, upon which several cabalistical characters were imprinted. He seemed to peruse these cyphers with a melancholy earnestness, and ever and anon muttered to himself, in a style of great apparent devotion. I at first supposed that he was petitioning his Gods for some favour, and was about to leave him to himself, when he put his prayer into my hands, assuring me with a bow, that "he had done with it." Upon my answering, as well as my confined knowledge of the language would permit, that I knew nothing of the matter; "Indeed Sir!" replied he, "then I will tell you all about it." He then placed me on the same seat with himself, but prudently contrived to station himself on the outside of the bench so as to prevent my escape, after which he thus began:
        "This invaluable sheet, Sir, which I hold in my hand, is called a newspaper: it contains a chronicle of all the remarkable events which take place in Mormonia, such as marriages, births, deaths, opposition coaches, and opposition dinners, new plays, and old jokes; nothing is too great or too little for its columns, and though it is sure to give me the bile, I read it every morning with the greatest eagerness. When I first took to that paper, Sir, I was as florid and healthy looking a man, as ever stuck elbow into stomach. I am a glover, Sir, and shall be delighted with your custom. Well, Sir, the writer proved to me twelve years ago, that Mormonia could not exist another week; and by these comfortable prognostics has gradually tinged my cheeks with the bilious hue they now possess." Here he looked into the mirror which hung over the chimney-piece, and shook his head. "But notwithstaading all that, Sir," continued he, "gloom is so congenial to the temper of a Mormonian, that I cannot look into any other paper. My wife, Sir, a fine fat woman—I'll introduce you—my wife tells me, that my studies will bring me to the grave at last, and that she means to bury me in a shroud of stitched chronicles in terrorem: but I put little faith in her prophecies. It is natural for people to foretel, what they hope will prove true."
        At this moment, a smart looking little man, with a cast in his eye, a mulberry nose, and a scarlet waistcoat, edged with sable fur, entered the room, and shaking the vender of kid leather by the gouty left hand, "A ha! old croaker!" cried he, "are you alive yet? Why you take as much killing as an old fox!" The shopkeeper did not seem much to admire this salutation, and calling for the waiter, paid his bill and abruptly retreated. The red-breasted gentleman, whose business it seemed to be to make himself agreeable, soon gained my confidence; and, at my request, gave me a specimen of the contents of that paper.
        It seems, that the government of Mormonia is somewhat embroiled with the natives of a large uncultivated continent, called Columbia; men of common morals and common understandings would, in such a case, certainly aid the efforts of their own country—but great genius is eccentric. This journal has thought fit to take up the cudgels for the aforesaid Columbia, and draws up three close columns per diem, to shew that those foreigners are possessed of every virtue under the sun, though from all that I can learn, it seems that the Columbians are remarkable for nothing but hearts without valour, heads without honesty, and legs without calves. My new friend having read to me the disquisition of the day—Well, said he, what do you think of that, eh? It seems to me, answered I, that the writer is a humane good sort of man, who may be mistaken as to the character of that people, but whose motive is a desire to spare the effusion of blood--Effusion of a fiddlestick, replied he; why, he would not spare sixpence to save every smoke-dried man John of them from the maw of their cannibal neighbours. Now, Sir, I will let you into a secret; then lowering his voice, the fellow, Sir, has two reasons for what he does: In the first place, he thinks the Columbians in the-sight, because the king's ministers think them in the wrong; that may be called his every day reason. His holiday reason is, that some of his best friends, as he calls them (I should rather denominate them his worst enemies) whom he must not disoblige, have withdrawn their money from Mormonia, and invested it in the funds of Columbia; and, should a war take place, will deservedly have outwitted themselves by their short-sighted cunning. "Hac fonte derivata clades!" this is the key to that gentleman's Cabinet of Philanthropic Effusions!
        The waiter now spread half a dozen more newspapers upon the table at which we sat, the chief contents of which my fur-clad associate, whose breath and good breeding seemed inexhaustible, read over to me: and truly, my dear brother, if variety in morals, politics, taste, and talent, be a pleasure in life, these journals are most admirably calculated to afford it. Figure to yourself a large mirror hung up for sale at a shop door in a public street, which reflecting every passing object, exhibits almost at the same moment, a motley mixture of jews and gentiles, saints and street-walkers, carts, coaches, quakers and quack-doctors, and you will have a faint idea of the contents of our coffee-room table. One journal comforted me with a certain cure for every disease incident to human nature; another made me beware of medical impostors: one roused my indignation at the bombardment of a foreign city; another proved to me that the bombardment was justified upon every principle of political morality. This made me plume myself on my critical sagacity, in my admiration of a new play; that called upon me to hiss the object of my short-lived applause from the stage, assuring me, upon the honor of an editor, that the piece was not worth the expence of lamp-oil. One writer harrows up my soul with murders committed in a sister island; another assures me that it is all false, the natives of that isle being as remarkable for humanity as they are for modesty. I was in the very act of admiring a song in a new comedy, when one paper told me, that it was a theft from Theocritus: a second, that it was pilfered from the wine cellar of old Anacreon: a third, that the author never meant to conceal that he had it from Anacreon: a fourth, that he did mean to conceal that circumstance; and a fifth, that all his co-journalists were ignorant blockheads, the ditty in question being parodied from a Grub-street madrigal, penned by a rhyming parson, who flourished a century ago.
        Such, my dear brother, are the waters of instruction which the natives of Mormonia are in the daily habit of pouring down their throats. Nor are the names of these journals less appropriate than their contents. We have Monitors, whose advice is not worth the blotting of a sheet of foolscap: Auroras, who, while they open the gates of the East, shut the eyes of their readers; Chronicles, fit only to "chronicle small beer;" Oracles, whose ingenious ambiguity rivals that of Delphos; and Weekly Messengers, so weakly as to be inferior in value to those messengers, which schoolboys are in the habit of detaching along the string of a flying kite. Adieu.
                                                                                                M. Brownrigg.

Pseudo-Gentlemen

by O.

Originally published in The New Monthly Magazine (S.&R. Bentley) vol.2 #9 (Sep 1821).

                                                "The streets were fill'd;
                The croaking nuisance lurk'd in every nook;
                Nor palaces, nor even chambers, 'scaped;
                And the land stank, so numerous was the fry."—Cowper.

        Imagine not, patient reader, I am about to declare war upon that part of the present generation which is growing up in real gentleship around me; my intention is only to expose the vain claims of certain scape-graces belonging to it, who would take the world by violence, and, under false pretences, make proselytes among our youth. The "Tall bully that lifts his head and lies,"—the Greek of St. James's-street and Pall-mall,—the tight-laced spark of fashion, with his hat on one side, and his elbows projected behind him like the thigh-joints of a grasshopper;—the being who struts the pavé of this huge metropolis, wearing stays and an eye-glass, having no defect of vision, but being, in other respects, as "herein-aftermentioned;" and all those who drive a tilbury, habited in superfine broad cloth, upon which Stultz or Weston have exhausted the utmost efforts of their supereminent skill in tailorifics—being at the same time unprincipled, unmannered, uncredited, unwitted, but not undunned—all and every of such beings come within the scope of my argument. I may, perhaps, arouse their anger by a new nomenclature; but that anger I need not fear, for it is innoxious—"hissing, but stingless;" and I shall render a service to the philosophy of manners, in despite of it, by vindicating an abused word, and substituting a correct term for a species of animal,

                                "To ascertain whose sex,
                Twelve sage impannell'd matrons 'twould perplex:
                Nor male, nor female; neither, and yet both.
                Of neuter-gender, and of Irish growth;
                A six-foot suckling, mincing in its gait.
                Affected, peevish, prim, and delicate."—Churchill.

Mais revenons à nos moutons.—Eminent scholars, like Porson or Parr, have frequently been unable to determine the precise signification of certain words in the dead languages; they have pored and pored, "shook their ambrosial curls," and, at last, left the matter in doubt. The truth is, that language, as well as fashion, having its fluctuations, the best philologists find it impracticable to trace its multiform changes: words, for example, that, in the days of our boyhood, expressed a particular idea, we find, when wre have arrived at man's estate and mingled with the world, express one just the very reverse. It has happened thus with the word gentleman, for all mankind is aware that the term is now commonly used to designate one who may be an arrant knave. This abuse of an appellative, held in great esteem by our grandfathers and grandmothers, as the pink of every thing excellent in man, would have made "our ancestors startle with indignation"—to use a phrase of Lord Colchester's, unprovable according to Judge Best.
        "Sir, I am a gentleman," is at present the reply of every pick-pocket or bully, who robs or insults a worthier member of society, and gets out of the scrape by giving himself a false appellation.—"Do you doubt my being a gentleman, Sir?" is the refuge of a fashionable liar, who is caught in an untruth. "Upon my honour, as a gentleman," is an asseveration that must not be disputed; it gravitates like lead to the very centre, carrying with it all intervening doubts; for, who dares dispute the honour of a gentleman! "I am a gentleman, and expect satisfaction,"—is often the language of a ruffian, who has not the smallest pretension to the title: nay, highwaymen have been known, of late years, to pique themselves upon committing a robbery in a gentlemanlike way, and have expressed an earnest wish to prevent the ladies they are pillaging from being alarmed. It may be contended, that gallantry to the fair has been inherent with all gentlemen-highwaymen, since the days of Macheath: however this may be, it is not indispensable in the composition of what is now understood by the epithet of which we are treating. Scenes in our law courts and places of amusement have lately proved this: that honourable feeling which, in spite of individual antipathies, never loses sight of the chivalric and magnanimous homage due to the sex—nay, the very pleadings of that sex itself, gentlemen, in the modern sense of the term, even among the better born, have not capacity to comprehend, nor high-bred sensibility enough to honor.
        I would therefore propose, that having adopted the word Ψευδος into our language—for we have pseudodipteral, pseudology, pseudodox, pseudophilosophy, and many similar words—we should restore the term gentleman to its old signification, of a man of unimpeachable honour and gallantry, of dignified carriage, spotless reputation, a high mind, liberal views, and a goodly education; and that we use the term Pseudo-Gentleman^[1], to signify gentleman in its modern and abused sense, that the ancient appellative may be no longer scandalized.
        Pseudo-gentlemen support various characters in life, and it is often easier to define what they are not, than what they are. The pseudo-gentleman has all the vice of the Chesterfield gentleman, without his dignity of carriage, elegance of manners, or affability: he is distinguishable in the street at first view, by an unmeaning stare, often from a "round unthinking face;" and an occasional lifting-up of the shoulders, like the last dying convulsion of a suspended malefactor, and this he mistakes for a gentlemanly carriage. The manners of the Chesterfield gentleman cannot be practised by an impostor; they being so linked with him as to appear a part of his nature. The pseudo-gentleman may be successfully rivalled by the city apprentice, the attorney's clerk, or an upper journeyman tailor:—the last, possessing facilities for imitation, by having a ready access to tape and broad-cloth, beyond the power of the other two, can scarcely ever be distinguished from the original he copies. The Chesterfield gentleman was always well-dressed; the pseudo-gentleman is, in appearance and manner, the caricature of a fop, the ultima Thule of extravagant frippery. The real gentleman generally gave his coat a character; the pseudo-gentleman gets his character from his coat. The first was distinguished by a manner and an address visible under every garb, even if it were thread-bare; were he clothed in rags, he would still be "every inch a gentleman;" the address and spirit of the character were inherent in him. Such men are yet to be found in society, though but sparingly scattered, like diamonds in a mine, surrounded with opaque spars and gravelly concretions innumerable. They are the Grandisons of the age—the best pictures of man in his majesty, and the extremes of social and visible attraction.
        The pseudo-gentleman must never be taken per se. He must always be seen with clothes of the newest cut, in company with his dogs, or in the stable with his horses, if he has the means of keeping them. He imagines that the respect paid to him is in the ratio of his conjectured expenditure, and, in consequence, he always talks of money in great sums, and in whole numbers; though he draws largely on his invention for this sort of conversation, and what he says on the subject is often purely imaginary. He bullies every man who only implies a doubt of his word, and demands satisfaction; yet he talks of his intrigues with women whom he never saw, and boasts of crimes that common charity tells us he could never be monster enough to commit. His mind is a chaos of confused vices and vanities; an uncultivated waste, nourishing only weeds and pernicious plants. He has not talent enough to fill an office in common society; though his family's borough interest may sometimes cover his deficiencies sufficiently to qualify him for a sleeping Lord of the Admiralty; a ministerial underling in Parliament, to count one on a question; or, he may be drilled by an expert Court master of the ceremonies, into a decent Lord of the Bedchamber.
        The old genuine English gentleman joined to the highest polish of manners, the integrity of a man of principle, and the kindest heart; courage was, with him, only a secondary qualification. The pseudogentleman is directly the reverse; he is heartless, and entirely destitute of integrity. In courage or bravado he is not always deficient; but it is of the wolfish species, that never borders on heroism: it is the instinctive bravery of the common soldier, constitutional to Englishmen; but it is not that of the gentleman, or general. The bravery of Lord Hay at the battle of Fontenoy, when he exclaimed, "Gentlemen of the French Guards, give us your fire!" is beyond the compass of his understanding, as much as the conduct of Sir Philip Sidney (the most finished gentleman of his age) when dying before the walls of Zutphen; or the noble act of the French officer to Colonel Ponsonby, at the battle of Waterloo. If in the Army, and there are many pseudo-gentlemen of that cloth, he prefers the corps that see no climate but their own, and that are "cankers of a calm world, and a long peace." Pseudo-gentlemen of the army may always be distinguished from then brother officers; they

                --"shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,
                And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman."

They call for a clean silk handkerchief to dust their boots after a campaign in the Park; and relieve their fatigues in a warm-bath, covered with a fine linen sheet, in which a couple of bottles of Eau de Cologne have been emptied. They are ill fit to hear the toils of a campaign: the foe who cried out in combat, faciem feri miles! would, of all others, the soonest panic-strike them. Numbers of these pseudo-gentlemen went to the Peninsular war, expecting, at the worst times, "a decent beef-steak, a silver fork, and a plate rubbed with a shallot;" but found themselves sadly mistaken in their ideas of hard service. Leave of absence, for a perpetuity, from the Duke of Wellington, purged his gallant army of most who did not appear to reform radically. The Navy produces few or none of the breed: the intractable nature of the initiation into that service, operates as an effectual bar to their introduction.
        There are pseudo-gentlemen who have an invincible attachment to grooms, coachmen, and stable-assistants. It is not so much from a regard to the generous horse, that this predilection arises, as from the sympathy of a congenial nature with his keepers. The driving four horses, or tits, in a mail-carriage, is the ne plus ultra of ambition with many, whose pride soars no higher than to imitate the Jehus of the road in dress, manners, and language. They will go out of town a hundred miles, to meet and drive a stage-coach up, feeing the coachmen for their practice: disguised in a frieze coat with pearl buttons, they take their glass of "gin and bitters" at the pot-houses on the road, open the doors for the passengers to get in, with "Now, gentlemen, if you please;" and seem perfectly at home. Some of our hereditaiy legislators may be found among the number of these. Instances are on record of the fore-tooth of a pseudo-gentleman having been punched out, in order to spit like a coachman, and project the saliva clear of the "cattle and traces," into the hedge, on the left-hand side of the road. These coachmen-like practices, which give rise to a boundless expenditure of revenue, generally introduce the pseudo-gentleman to the society of Jews and money-lenders, in whose hands he pledges all his property, present and prospective; so that when he has arrived three or four years beyond the age of discretion, he becomes in want of the necessary supplies of cash for his support. Then, if the accident of birth have placed him in the patrician ranks, he is often made, all at once, to shew

                --"a most intense and flagrant zeal
                To serve his country. Ministerial grace
                Deals him out money from the public chest;"

and he, who could not govern himself, lives by mis-governing others. If he be of plebeian order, he finishes his career in Banco Regis. His shifts and expedients to keep up his credit are numerous. He sometimes tries to patch his fortune by matrimony, and makes love with that nonchalance of manner, and drawl of language, which it is beyond the power of the pen to describe, but which may be best conceived by looking at the principal figure in Hogarth's Marriage à la Mode, and guessing how it would articulate. With the weaker part of the sex, the negligence of his manner is lost in the superior cut of his coat, and the tight lacing of his stays; women being naturally fond of coxcombs: but the impression the "dear creature" makes at first sight is seldom lasting. He is neither constant nor romantic enough for a ward in chancery, and he cannot make verses—an indispensable requisite in that species of love, unless, indeed, he happen to be a collegian upon the town, and can throw something of mind into his address, and discuss the merits of a novel, or relate well a moving love-story. As to rich widows, they are generally placed beyond his reach by "tall Irishmen," who are observed to take off almost all the modern dames of Ephesus. His principal trust, however, when his family happens to be respectable, centres in the efforts of his parents to negotiate for him; balancing family, or some other contingent, against money; and thus he secures his daily bread by a church-hallowed prostitution.
        Some pseudo-gentlemen, among the fortunate ones of the species, commence life in the dragoons, and finish their probationship in the church. It may be called a redeeming period in their lives, when the Christian sword of war is laid by for that of the Christian divine, and justice of the peace. They become gards de chasse to the county, flog vagrants, descant upon loyalty, browbeat the country gentlemen, shoot and hunt right apostolically, feed at public dinners, and perform other feats truly orthodox; while their numerous engagements, and the vis inertice of "bellies with good capon lined," prevent the performance of more than a weekly sermon of ten minutes, generally furnished them from Paternoster-row. They spare themselves the trouble of ever being seen "beside the bed where parting life is laid;" and lay their ponderous frames in their churchyards at a good age, leaving a record of "deeds immortal" at the whist table, the parish vestry, or at the 'squire's, by swallowing the third bottle, like "Atlas unremoved." But there is not a tithe of a tithe among the brood of pseudo-gentlemen, who close life so reputably or so gloriously as the pseudo-gentleman priest.
        Much more might be written on the present subject; but I have said enough to shew the necessity of avoiding any further clashing of appellations, and of establishing a useful distinction in language. I hope, finally, that every misnamed gentleman, who reads this proposal for re-baptizing him, may be duly grateful to the writer, nor feel, during the perusal, comme un petit (liable au fond d'un benitier!

---

        1. The public mind is sometimes highly sensible of philological propriety, and, in the present case, has endeavoured to designate the Pseudo-Gentleman by some other title than Gentleman; which latter it saw was an abuse of terms—hence the words Dandy, Corinthian, Swell, Exquisite, &c. &c. But some high literary authority was wanted to record the change in lasting print; and for that reason, neither of these words has been universally adopted—they had no poet to perpetuate them—Nocte, carent quia vate sacro!

A Voice from the Factory

by John Critchley Prince (uncredited).

Originally published in Household Words (Bradbury & Evans) vol.3 #54 (05 Apr 1851).

                I hear men laud the coming Exhibition,
                        I read its promise in the printed page,
                And thence I learn that its pacific mission
                        Is to inform and dignify the age;
                It comes to congregate the alien nations;
                        In new, but friendly bonds, old foes to bind;
                It comes to rouse to nobler emulations
                        Man's skill of hand, man's energy of mind.

                A thousand vessels breasting wind and ocean,
                        A thousand fire-cars, snorting on their way,
                Shall startle London with a strange commotion,
                        Beneath the genial loveliness of May;
                And we shall hail the peaceable invasion
                        With voice of welcome, cordial grasp of hand,
                And, in the grandeur of the great occasion,
                        See signs of brotherhood 'tween every land.

                Would I might walk beneath that dome transcendent,
                        Than old Alhambra s halls more proudly fair;
                Nay, than Aladdin s palace more resplendent,
                        Bright as if quarried from the fields of air;
                Would I might wander in its wondrous mazes,
                        Filled with embodied thought in every guise;
                See Art and Science in their countless phases,
                        And bless the power that gave them to my eyes.

                Men are about me with pale, vacant faces,
                        Human in shape, in spirit dark and low;
                They do not care for Genius and its graces,
                        Nor understand, nor do they seek to know.
                But I had read and pondered; feeling ever
                        Deep reverence for the lofty, good, and true,
                And, therefore, yearn to see this high endeavour
                        Stand grandly realised before my view.

                But what to me are these inspiring changes,
                        That gorgeous show, that spectacle sublime?
                My labour, leagued with poverty, estranges
                        Me from this mental marvel of our time.
                I cannot share the triumph and the pageant,
                        I, a poor toiler at the whirling wheel,
                The slave, not servant, of a ponderous agent,
                        With bounding steam-pulse, and with arms of steel.

                My ears are soothed by no melodious measures,
                        No work of sculptor charms my longing gaze;
                No painter thrills me with exalted pleasures,
                        But books and thought have cheered my darkest days.
                Thank God for Sundays! then impartial nature
                        Folds me within the shadow of her wings,
                And drinking in her every voice and feature,
                        I feel more reconciled to men and things.

                I shall not see our Babel's summer wonder,
                        Save in the proseman's page, the poet's song,
                But I shall hear it in the far-off thunder
                        Of distant lands, applauding loud and long;
                Why should I murmur? I shall share with others
                        The glorious fruits of that triumphant day:
                Hail to the time that makes all nations brothers!
                        Hail to the advent of the coining May!