Chapter II: Part 2

He slept quietly the night preceding the time fixed for his execution, and was early ready to take his place in the sad procession. Did no thought cross Hyppolito's clear mind, that he was throwing away, in weak passion, a life given to him by God for noble ends? We know not; but there he was--calm, firm, and serious. His only request was, that the procession might pass through the street of the Bardi, which some thought was a sign of penitence, an act of humiliation. The sad train moves on. An old man sitting at a door rises, strains his eyes to catch a last glimpse of Hyppolito, and then covers them in anguish, and sinks down again. This is an old man he had saved from misery and death. Two youths, hand in hand, are gazing with sad faces, and tears run down their cheeks. They are orphans: he had clothed and fed them. Hyppolito sees them, and even in that moment remembers it is he who deprives them of a protector: but it is too late to think now; for he is approaching the scene of his fault and the place of his punishment, and other feelings swell in his heart. His brows are contracted; his eyes bent on the house of the Bardi, as if they would pierce the stones of its walls; and now they are cast down, as though he would raise them no more on earth. But he starts, for he hears a loud shriek, a rushing, and an opening of the crowd: they seem to be awed by something that approaches. It is a woman, whoso violent gestures defy opposition; she looks like a maniac just escaped from her keepers; she has reached Hyppolito; his fettered arms move as if they would receive her, but in vain. She turns to the crowd, and some among them recognise the modest and beautiful daughter of Bardi. She calls out: 'He is innocent of every crime but having loved me. To save me from shame, he has borne all this disgrace. And he is going to death; but you cannot kill him now. I tell you he is guiltless; and if he dies, I die with him.'

The people stand amazed. At last there is a shout: 'It must be true! he is innocent!' The execution is stopped till the truth is ascertained, and Dianora's statement is fully confirmed. And who shall paint the return from death to life of poor Hyppolito? and to such a life! for blazoned as the story of her love had been, Dianora's parents, considering also her firm character, subjected even the spirit of party to the voice of affection and reason; and Hyppolito's family, softened by sorrow, gladly embraced their Ghibeline daughter. Whether in after-life Hyppolito and Dianora were distinguished by the qualities they had shewn in youth, and whether the promise of affection was realised by time and intimate acquaintance, no chronicle remains to tell. This short glimpse of both is all that is snatched from oblivion--this alone stands out in bright relief, to shew us they once were; the rest is lost in the darkness of time.

The moment chosen by the artist is when Dianora rushes from her house into the midst of the crowd, and reaches Hyppolito, surrounded by priests and soldiers. It is easy to see to what a varied expression of passion and action this point of the story gives rise.

A CURIOSITY IN NATURAL HISTORY.

The crustacean class of animals, of which the lobster, crab, and shrimp are familiar examples, have this peculiarity of structure--that their soft bodies are enclosed within a coat-of-mail formed of carbonate and phosphate of lime. In fact, they carry their skeleton outside their bodies, both for defence of the vital parts within, and for the attachment of the muscles which move their limbs, and every part of their frame. No warrior of old was ever more completely enveloped in his hard coat-of-mail, with its jointed greaves and overlapping scales, than is the lobster in its crustaceous covering; with this exception, that the warrior could at pleasure unbuckle himself from his armour, whereas the body and limbs of the crustacea are completely incased in hollow cylinders, firmly and accurately jointed, from which there is no such ready release. Now, as this shelly integument envelops them from their earliest youth, and as it does not expand and grow, the natural growth of the soft body beneath would be entirely prevented did not nature supply a remedy of a very curious kind--the exuviation, or periodical throwing off of the external crust, and the formation of a larger shell-covering fitted for the increasing growth of the animal. This is a circumstance which has long been familiar to naturalists, and indeed the most ordinary observer must have often remarked in the crabs and lobsters brought to table, appearances indicative of their change of external coverings. In the back of the edible crab, may often be noticed a red membrane lining the inner side of the shell, but so loose as to be readily detached. Along the greater part of its course this membrane has already assumed a half-crustaceous consistence, and is just the preparatory process to the old shell being thrown off by the animal. There is another curious circumstance which has also been long known--that crabs and lobsters can renew lost limbs. Some misconception, however, had existed regarding the manner in which this was effected, until the observations of the late Sir John Dalyell have thrown more accurate light on the subject.

This most amiable and eminent zoologist, who was lost to science last year, afforded a pleasing illustration of the solace and delight which the pursuit of the study of nature yields to the diligent inquirer into her mysteries. With a feeble constitution and frame of body, which precluded his mingling in the more active pursuits of everyday life, this sedentary philosopher collected around him examples of minute and curious being from the depths of the ocean, from lake and river, and for many long years found the delight of his leisure hours in watching the habits of the animals, and in discovering and describing many singular circumstances in the constitution of their bodies, and the peculiar adaptations of their structure and instincts to their modes of existence. One of his last communications to the public, imparted with all the modesty and simplicity of true genius, at the last meeting of the British Association in Edinburgh, was on this subject of the exuviation of the crustacea.[2]

It appears from Sir John's observations that crustaceans begin to throw off their shells at a very early period of their life, even in that embryo state in which they first appear after having left the egg, and before they have yet assumed the real form of their mature state. During every successive exuviation in this embryo state, they assume more and more of their perfect and established form. While the crab is young and rapidly growing, frequent exuviations take place at short intervals, from three to five times in the course of one year. Previous to the change, the animal almost ceases to feed, and becomes rather inactive; the proper time having at length arrived, exuviation is effected in the course of a few hours, body and limbs being alike relieved from their hard covering. Until the new shell acquires firmness and strength, the creature is very shy, and in the state of nature, retires into cavities below rocks or heaps of protecting sea-weed. Sir John had kept for some time one of our smaller species of shore-crabs (_Carcinus monas_), of medium size, of a brown colour, with one white limb. One summer evening it was put outside the window in a capacious glass-vessel of sea-water. In the morning a form exactly resembling its own, only somewhat larger, lay in the vessel. This was the same animal, which had performed exuviation, and extricated itself from the old shell during the night. The resemblance between both forms was complete--everything was the same, even the white limb was seen in both. Another specimen kept was of smaller size, the opposite extremities of the limbs being only thirteen lines asunder; its colour was green, with three white patches on the back. In the course of little more than a year five exuviations took place at irregular intervals, the new shell and animal becoming larger each time. The third shell came on uniformly green, the white spots being entirely obliterated. On the fourth exuviation, the limbs expanded two inches and a half. From the long slender form of the limbs of crustacea, they are very liable to mutilation. Crabs are also a very pugnacious family, and in their battles limbs are often snapped off. These mutilations, however, are readily repaired; although, contrary to what was the common belief, the restoration takes place only at the next regular period of exuviation.

The full-grown common crab (_Cancer pagurus_) is of a reddish-brown colour, the claws tipped black; but some of the young are naturally of the purest white, which remains long unsullied. This does not arise from confinement, which, according to Sir John, has no influence on colour. 'A young white specimen of the common crab was subjected to observation on 29th September. The body might have been circumscribed in a circle three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and the extended limbs by one-and-a-half inch in diameter. Its first exuviation ensued on 8th November, the second on the 30th of April following, and the shell then produced subsisted till 12th September, when another exuviation took place, introducing a new shell of such transparent white that the interior almost shone through it. All the shells were white, and increased somewhat in size successively. This last shell of 12th September subsisted until 29th March, being 197 days, when it was thrown off during another exuviation.'

But what was remarkable, the animal now had only the two large claws, the other eight limbs were deficient. 'Resting on its breast as it was, I did not at first discover the fact, that the creature presented a strange and very uncouth aspect. However, it fed readily, and proved very tame, though helpless; often falling on its back, and not being able to recover itself from the deficiency of its limbs. I preserved this mutilated object with uncommon care, watching it almost incessantly day and night: expecting another exuviation which might be attended with interesting consequences, I felt much anxiety for its survivance. My solicitude was not vain. After the defective shell had subsisted eighty-six days, its tenant meantime feeding readily, the desired event took place in a new exuviation on 23d June. On this occasion a new animal came forth, and in the highest perfection, quite entire and symmetrical, with all the ten limbs peculiar to its race, and of the purest and most beautiful white. I could not contemplate such a specimen of nature's energies restoring perfection, and through a process so extraordinary, without admiration. Something yet remained to be established: was this perfection permanent, or was it only temporary? Like its precursor, this specimen was quite tame, healthy, and vigorous. In 102 days it underwent exuviation, when it appeared again, perfect as before, with a shell of snowy white, and a little red speckling on the limbs. Finally, its shell having subsisted 189 days, was succeeded by another of equal beauty and perfection, the speckling on the legs somewhat increased. As all the shells had gradually augmented, so was this larger than the others. The extended limbs would have occupied a circle of four inches diameter. About a month after this exuviation the animal perished accidentally, having been two years and eight months under examination. It was an interesting specimen, extremely tame and tranquil, always coming to the side of the vessel as I approached, and holding up its little claws as if supplicating food.'

The shrimp when in confinement becomes very tame, and readily exuviates. The process is frequent, the integument separates entire, and is almost colourless. In female crustaceans the roe is placed outside the shell to which it adheres. During the period of such adherence, the female crab, so far as observation goes, does not change its shell--a marked provision of nature to preserve the spawn.

We may remark that other classes of animals exuviate in a similar manner to the crustaceans. Thus serpents throw off in entire masses their scaly coverings, even a slough from the eyes; and various insects in their larva state are continually throwing off and renewing their skins.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] Report of British Association, 1851. Pp. 120-122.

THE AYAH.

Owing to our constant intercourse with India, there are few among us who are unacquainted with the word ayah. Some who live in London or its neighbourhood may perhaps have occasionally met with one of these sable guardian spirits, conducting one or more pale, precocious-looking little children to their British friends; or they may even have fallen in with a group of the tribe in Kensington Gardens, or other public promenades, escorting their little _bâbâs_, and herding together, like birds of a feather, attracted by the bonds and recollections of colour, climate, caste, and language.

Ayah, in the mouth of a lisping baby, is one of the prettiest words of the East, and is learned as soon as papa and mamma, being equally easy of articulation. The origin of the word is probably either Portuguese or Spanish (_aya_), although it has now become common to all classes, Christians, Mohammedans, and Hindoos alike. The Hindostanee word for nurse is _m[=a]m[)a]-jee_, or _daee_; the Bengalee, _doodoo_, or _dye_.

[Transcriber's Note: Two diacritical marks are found above
the letter "a" in the word "mama-jee" in the previous
sentence. They are a macron diacritic, a dash-shaped symbol
and a breve diacritic, a u-shaped symbol. These letters are
indicated here by the coding [=a] for a macron and [)a] for
a breve above the letter "a".]

The ayah is frequently a fixture of long standing in a family, descending from mother to daughter; and when this is the case, she is no doubt a valuable possession, and is consulted in all the momentous matters connected with the nursery. However, at the birth of the first baby, she is of course spick-and-span new; and in comes the dusky stranger, all pride and expectation, all hope and joy. It is fortunate that there is no difference in young babies--that the one is as ugly a little thing as the other--and so she is not disappointed: on the contrary, she sees with one glance of her dark glittering eyes, which have their source of sensation in her woman's heart, a thousand charms that distinguish _her_ bâbâ from all the other babies in the universe. With something akin to a mother's feelings, she takes the infant in her arms, which seems incontinent to become a part of herself, lying all day on her knees, and sleeping all night in her bosom; and from that moment the nurse, the child, and the paun-box are always together.

As the ayah is exclusively attached to the nursery, and has nothing to do with household affairs or the laying out of money, she is generally a favourite with the other servants, who seem to look upon her as holding an intermediate station between them and the mistress. Should any of them require leave of absence, for the purpose of attending a funeral or a wedding, he applies first to the ayah; or if a little tea is wanted for a sick wife or mother, through her also he obtains the simple, though to him expensive, restorative. If a pedler comes to the door with his box and bundles, he looks up, and spying the ayah in the veranda or at the window, he calls out: 'Is anything wanted for Mem-Sahib or the bâbâs? Tell the lady I have beautiful things to shew.' Away trips the ayah to her mistress, and good-naturedly, or perhaps--no, it _shall_ be good-naturedly--lays the discovery before her that some trifle is wanted. The man is called in, and succeeds in disposing of some of his wares, ribbons, laces, or silks; and the ayah, besides having obliged the lady and the pedler, enjoys a small modicum of satisfaction herself--who would grudge it?--in pocketing the _dustôôree_--a discount of two pice, or half an anna on each rupee.

There are ayahs of various castes. The Portuguese ayahs (Roman Catholic Christians, born in the country) are no doubt the most intelligent and useful; but they are more expensive than the Mussulman and Lall Beggies, and are therefore not so frequently employed: indeed, it is only in the neighbourhood of Calcutta that they are procurable at all. As the Hindostanee women neither knit nor sew, they seem to devote their energies exclusively to their infant charge. The bâbâ is their work and their play, the exercise of their thoughts, the substance of their dreams. He is the only book they read; and the only expansion their minds know is from the unfolding of the pages of his character. They are proud of that bâbâ, and proud of themselves for being his. What a sight it is, the ayah coming in at the dessert, in her rustling silks and transparent muslins--so stately in her humility, so smilingly self-satisfied--surrounded by the children, and holding in her dark, smooth, jewelled arms the son and heir of the family, whom she presents to papa to get a bit of cake or sweetmeat!

This is a grand moment for the ayah. Are not the children _hers_? Have they not lain upon her bosom all their little lives? And have not the charms which she detected with the first glance of her glittering eye, been developed under her care into the marvels now before the company? But the more tranquil and permanent happiness of the ayah is enjoyed while she is watching alone the opening of her buds of beauty, and steeping their slumbering senses in the sweet wild music of her country. I still sometimes hear in fancy her cradle-song humming in my own Old Indian ear as I am falling asleep--although many a long year has passed since I heard it in reality, and many a long league is now between me and the land of the dear, good, black, comical, kindly ayah. Let me try whether I cannot render it, even loosely, in our own strong Anglo-Saxon tongue, from the musical, melting Hindostanee:--

Sleep on, sleep on, my bâbâ dear!
Thy faithful slave is watching near.
The cradle wherein my babe I fondle,
Is made of the rare and bright-red sandal;[3]
And the string with which I am rocking my lord,
Is a gay and glittering silken cord.

Sleep on, sleep on, my bâbâ dear!
Thy faithful slave is watching near.
Thy father, my dear, is the jemadar
Of a province which stretches wide and far;
And his brother, my child, is a moonsif great,
Who ruleth o'er many a ryot's fate.

Sleep on, sleep on, my bâbâ dear!
Thy faithful slave is watching near.
Thy mother of hearts is the powerful queen,
The loveliest lady that ever was seen;
And there ne'er was slave more faithful, I trow,
Than she who is rocking thy cradle now.

I have said that our ayah sometimes comes home with her charges--comes to our home from her own. It is a bad exchange. She awakes slowly from her dream, as she sees the rosy cheeks, full pouting lips, and round wondering eyes, that are turned upon the dark stranger and her pale, thin, little ones. The comparison is painful; these cherub children have no sympathy with the lonely Hindoo; and the servants of the house, although awed at first by her foreign aspect, and calm, stately air, have no permanent respect for one who ranks neither with their superiors nor with themselves. The climate, too, is as chilling as the manners around her; her heretofore bâbâs are lords to nobody but herself; and so, with one thing and another, she grows home-sick, her heart yearns for her own sunny land, and she is glad--sorrowfully glad--when at last the announcement is made, that an ayah wants to go back to India with a family.

And in India once more, what then? Why then, the great ocean is between her and her fledged nurslings, and she looks round for some new objects of love and devotion. These she probably finds in another home, another mistress, another bâbâ; her heart begins its course anew; and the ayah lives a second life in the young lives of her children. No joyless existence is hers, no cares without ample compensations; but yet when I see in my own country one of these solitary, strangely-attired, dark-skinned women, I feel attracted towards her by an almost tearful sympathy, and have ever a kind look and a warm, gentle word for the poor ayah.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] The red sandal-wood is more rare and valuable than the yellow.

SMALL INVESTMENTS.

The investment of small savings in land with a view to spade-husbandry, was a few years ago brought prominently before the working-classes. We took occasion, at the time, to warn the humbler classes generally against projects of this kind, but without any beneficial effect. Land-schemes, as they were called, were puffed into popularity, and all our advices and remonstrances on the subject were rejected with disdain. Universal ruin has followed these schemes, and the unfortunate dupes are left to mourn their loss. Nothing is more specious than a plan of earning an independent livelihood by cultivating a few acres of land; but, practically, it is open to some serious drawbacks. First, the cultivator requires to be skilled in husbandry, and of a bodily frame to endure the fatigue of constant out-door labour. Second, his land must be tolerably good, and situated under a good climate. Third, the land must be close to a market, otherwise the produce cannot be disposed of. The cultivation of a small bit of land is in reality a kind of gardening. No horse-labour can be employed; all is to be done by the spade. It may be possible, therefore, to make a livelihood near a large town, where anything that is produced--milk and butter included--will find a ready market at no cost of transport; but in other circumstances the thing is almost hopeless. It is a notorious fact, that the most wretched of the rural population of this country are small cultivators, even if the land costs next to nothing. We are aware that the small-farm system is more successful in Belgium and Lombardy. On the reasons for this, it is here needless to enter. We take the examples offered in Great Britain, where it has never come up to the expectations of philanthropists.

The purchase of forty-shilling freeholds has lately been put forward as a method of investing money by the working-classes. It is beyond our province to speak of the political aims of this form of investment. We can recognise a certain good in giving to a working-man the feeling, that he is the proprietor of a house or small portion of land yielding (along with the franchise in England) a rent of forty shillings per annum; but, at the same time, we recognise a corresponding evil, and we should be shrinking from our duty if we did not mention it in distinct terms. In those localities where operatives and others can reckon on constant remunerative employment, it may prove a real service in many ways for them to buy a house instead of renting one; indeed, we should highly recommend them to become the proprietors of the dwellings which they occupy. But in places where workmen possess no such assurance or reasonable prospect of employment, we would as earnestly dissuade them from taking a step of this kind. The capital of a working-man--that on which he must place his dependence--is his labour; and this labour he ought to be in a position to dispose of to the best advantage. On this account, he requires, as a general rule, to hold himself in readiness to go wherever his labour is in demand. Of all men, he has the most cause to be a citizen of the world. He may find it his interest to remove to localities hundreds of miles off; and therefore the fewer obstructions to his movements, the better. Heritable property is a fixture. A man cannot take it with him, and the sale of it, even when time is permitted to seek out a purchaser, is attended with expense and difficulty. No doubt the transfer of such property might and ought to be vastly lowered in cost; but not until this is done, will it be time for the more movable part of the working-classes to consider the propriety of saddling themselves with the ownership of lands and houses. Such, at least, is our opinion, after much consideration of the subject. So many melancholy instances have we seen of working-men being ruined by the want of power or will to leave small heritable possessions in country towns, where employment deserted them, that we entertain a strong feeling against this class of persons investing their earnings in fixed property.

Upon the whole, the best thing the humbler classes can do with small savings, is to let them accumulate as movable capital. They should perceive that, generally speaking, a little money has few advantageous outlets. It is only after its increase to a tolerable sum, that it can command a good investment. A short time ago, we adverted to the vast benefits that would accrue to the working-classes, by legalising partnerships in commandite; for this would allow the clubbing of means for trading purposes without chance of total loss. Another thing for improving the resources of such classes, would be the issue of small debentures on land, railways, and other kinds of property; these debentures to be registered in such a manner as would admit of legal recourse without the tedious and expensive forms now required to enforce their liquidation. These, then, are things to be struggled for by the humbler orders, indeed by many who ostensibly belong to classes higher in social standing.

PLEASURES OF LITERATURE.

It may be remembered, that somewhat more than two years ago, Mr Willmott's _Journal of Summer-time in the Country_ was noticed in these pages. Those who, through that or any other introduction, have since become acquainted with that exquisite little volume, will be glad to meet the author again, in the not less charming work which he has recently put forth, on the _Pleasures, Objects, and Advantages of Literature_.[4] The theme itself must be naturally attractive to all book-loving people; and we are prepared to say, that it is treated with felicity and discrimination. We do not aver that we always concur in the writer's judgments, or hold precisely his views of criticism; but we are, upon the whole, very decidedly impressed with the general force and truth of his Discourse, with the gracefulness of his allusions and illustrations, his elegant and pointed style, and the bland and genial temper in which he writes. The work consists of a series of short chapters on books, authors, the circumstances in which they wrote, the moods in which they should be read to be appreciated, the nature and specific qualities of taste, poetry, fiction, the drama, history, and philosophy. The author's turn of mind is chiefly retrospective: he writes more in the spirit of the last age than of the present. Indeed, he seems too much inclined to ignore the value of our later literature; almost the only modern authors whom he quotes are Hallam, Charles Lamb, and Southey; and it is evident, both from the style and matter of the work, that the range of his reading has been most extensive in what he terms the 'classical criticism and biography of the eighteenth century.' This, however, we note only in passing, and not at all in the way of condemnation; further than as it may indicate the limitations to be expected in his tone of thought and sentiment.

Mr Willmott, indeed, speaks disparagingly of some of the severer studies--especially of logic and mathematics; declaring that they 'can only be useful to a full mind,' and that, 'if they find it empty, they leave it in the same state.' Of course, he may be allowed to have his opinion on such a matter; but we presume it will not be very generally adopted. We agree with him that, 'in moral impression they are powerless;' yet we are bound to bear in mind that their _aim_ is not a moral one; and we, furthermore, believe that, within their own scope and province, they _may_ at least be serviceable in training and developing the understanding. Not to dwell longer on this little eccentricity of opinion, which is simply one of idiosyncrasy, let us follow the author into some of the more congenial sections of his dissertation. The following passage, on 'The three essential qualities of an author,' seems not unsuitable for quotation:--

'Sir Philip Sidney said, that the most flying wits must have three wings--art, meditation, exercise. Genius is in the instinct of flight. A boy came to Mozart, wishing to compose something, and inquiring the way to begin. Mozart told him to wait. "You composed much earlier?" "But asked nothing about it," replied the musician. Cowper expressed the same sentiment to a friend: "Nature gives men a bias to their respective pursuits, and that strong propensity, I suppose, is what we mean by genius." M. Angelo is hindered in his childish studies of art; Raffaelle grows up with pencil and colours for playthings: one neglects school to copy drawings, which he dared not bring home; the father of the other takes a journey to find his son a worthier teacher. M. Angelo forces his way; Raffaelle is guided into it. But each looks for it with longing eyes. In some way or other, the man is tracked in the little footsteps of the child. Dryden marks the three steps of progress:--

"What the child admired,
The youth _endeavoured_, and the man ACQUIRED."

'Dryden was an example of his own theory. He read Polybius, with a notion of his historic exactness, before he was ten years old. Witnesses rise over the whole field of learning. Pope, at twelve, feasted his eyes in the picture-galleries of Spenser. Murillo filled the margin of his school-books with drawings. Le Brun, in the beginning of childhood, drew with a piece of charcoal on the walls of the house. The young Ariosto quietly watched the fierce gestures of his father, forgetting his displeasure in the joy of copying from life, into a comedy he was writing, the manner and speech of an old man enraged with his son.

'Cowley, in the history of his own mind, shews the influence of boyish fancies upon later life. He compares them to letters cut in the bark of a young tree, which grow and widen with it. We are not surprised to hear from a school-fellow of the Chancellor Somers, that he was a weakly boy, who always had a book in his hand, and never looked up at the play of his companions; to learn from his affectionate biographer, that Hammond at Eton sought opportunities of stealing away to say his prayers; to read that Tournefort forsook his college class, that he might search for plants in the neighbouring fields; or that Smeaton, in petticoats, was discovered on the top of his father's barn, in the act of fixing the model of a windmill which he had constructed. These early traits of character are such as we expect to find in the cultivated lawyer, who turned the eyes of his age upon Milton; in the Christian, whose life was one varied strain of devout praise; in the naturalist, who enriched science by his discoveries; and in the engineer, who built the Eddystone Lighthouse.'

This accords very well with a notion of our own. We hold that men have a tendency to follow what they are by nature best qualified to succeed in; and that the fact ought to be regarded in the education of the individual. Education should include the study and trial of aptitudes, so that each may be directed to his appropriate vocation. It is true, there are sometimes such things as 'false tendencies' to be encountered; but these, as Goethe has shewn, may be readily detected, inasmuch as they are plainly 'unproductive;' that is to say, the thing aimed after does not come out as a recognisable success. False tendencies are more easily perceived in others than in ourselves--especially when ambition, interest, or vanity is involved in the consideration; and on this account the difficulty, perhaps, might not be insurmountable, if the charge of it could be committed to a really judicious educator. But to say anything further on the subject would be out of place at present; and, accordingly, we return to what is more immediately before us.

'The instinct of flight,' continues our author, 'is combined with the instinct of labour. Genius lights its own fire; but it is constantly collecting materials to keep alive the flame. When a new publication was suggested to Addison, after the completion of the _Guardian_, he answered: "I must now take some time, _pour me délasser_, and lay in fuel for a future work." The strongest blaze soon goes out when a man always blows and never feeds it. Johnson declined an introduction to a popular author with the remark, that he did not desire to converse with a person who had written more than he had read.

'It is interesting to follow great authors or painters in their careful training and accomplishing of the mind. The long morning of life is spent in making the weapons and the armour which manhood and age are to polish and prove. Usher, when nearly twenty years old, formed the daring resolution of reading all the Greek and Latin fathers, and with the dawn of his thirty-ninth year he completed the task. Hammond, at Oxford, gave thirteen hours of the day to philosophy and classical literature, wrote commentaries on all, and compiled indexes for his own use.

'With these calls to industry in our ears, we are not to be deaf to the deep saying of Lord Brooke, the friend of Sidney, that some men overbuild their nature with books. The motion of our thoughts is impeded by too heavy a burden; and the mind, like the body, is strengthened more by the warmth of exercise than of clothes. When Buffon and Hogarth pronounced genius to be nothing but labour and patience, they forgot history and themselves. The instinct must be in the mind, and the fire be ready to fall. Toil alone would not have produced the _Paradise Lost_ or the _Principia_. The born dwarf never grows to the middle size. Rousseau tells a story of a painter's servant, who resolved to be the rival or the conqueror of his master. He abandoned his livery to live by his pencil; but instead of the Louvre, he stopped at a sign-post. Mere learning is only a compiler, and does with the pen what the compositor does with the type: each sets up a book with the hand. Stone-masons collected the dome of St Paul's, but Wren hung it in air.'

There is, perhaps, nothing very profound or original in this, but it is all very sensible and pleasant. Something of novelty, however, will be observed in the extract which follows next, on 'The Influence of Air and Situation on the Thoughts.' The consideration, at anyrate, is curious, both under its physiological and metaphysical aspect.

'It has been a subject of ingenious speculation if country or weather may be said to cherish or check intellectual growth. Jeremy Collier considered that the understanding needs a kind climate for its health, and that a reader of nice observation might ascertain from the book in what latitude, season, or circumstances, it had been written. The opponents are powerful. Reynolds ridiculed the notion of thoughts shooting forth with greater vigour at the summer solstice or the equinox; Johnson called it a fantastic foppery.

'The atmospheric theory is as old as Homer. Its laureate is Montesquieu. The more northerly you go, he said, the sterner the man grows. You must scorch a Muscovite to make him feel. Gray was a convert. One of the prose hints for his noble fragment of a didactic poem runs thus: "It is the proper work of education and government united, to redress the faults that arise from the soil and air." Berkeley entertained the same feeling. Writing to Pope from Leghorn, and alluding to some half-formed design he had heard him mention of visiting Italy, he continues: "What might we not expect from a muse that sings so well in the bleak climate of England, if she felt the same warm sun, and breathed the same air with Virgil and Horace?"

'When Dyer attributes the faults of his _Fleece_ to the Lincolnshire fens, he only awakes a smile. Keats wrote his Ode to a Nightingale--a poem full of the sweet south--at the foot of Highgate Hill. But we have the remark of Dryden--probably the result of his own experience--that a cloudy day is able to alter the thoughts of a man; and, generally, the air we breathe, and the objects we see, have a secret influence upon our imagination. Burke was certain that Milton composed _Il Penseroso_ in the long, resounding aisle of a mouldering cloister, or ivied abbey. He beheld its solemn gloom in the verse. The fine nerves of the mind are braced, and the strings of the harp are tuned, by different kinds of temperature. "I think," Warburton remarked to Hurd, "you have often heard me say, that my delicious season is the autumn--the season which gives most life and vigour to my intellectual faculties. The light mists, or, as Milton calls them, the steams that rise from the fields in one of these mornings, give the same relief to the views that the blue of the plum gives to the appetite."

'Mozart composed, whenever he had the opportunity, in the soft air of fine weather. His _Don Giovanni_ and the _Requiem_ were written in a bowling-green and a garden. Chatterton found a full moon favourable to poetic invention, and he often sat up all night to enjoy its solemn shining. Winter-time was most agreeable to Crabbe. He delighted in a heavy fall of snow; and it was during a severe storm which blocked him within doors, that he portrayed the strange miseries of Sir Eustace Grey.'

There may be something in this supposed influence of temperature and seasons; but there certainly is no general law observable in the matter. Shakspeare asks--

'Oh who can take a fire in his hand
By thinking of the frosty Caucasus?
Or wallow naked in December's snows
By bare remembrance of the summer's heat?'

He might have been answered by Moore, who shut himself up in the wintry wilds of Derbyshire to write _Lalla Rookh_--a poem breathing of the perfumes, and glowing in the sunlight of the golden East; and by Scott, who, in Jermyn Street, St James's, with miles of brick houses round him, produced his famous introductions to _Marmion_, some of which may rank with the finest descriptions of natural scenery in the language. But the way in which people are influenced seems utterly capricious. We know a writer who is always unfavourably affected by a dull, still atmosphere, and whose faculties are as invariably exhilarated by a high wind. Cloudy weather does not influence him disagreeably if it be stormy, but calm, leaden November glooms oppress him with a feeling bordering upon stupor. These are altogether unproductive days with him. If authors, however, are subject in their moods to atmospheric and other circumstantial influences, it may be expected that readers also are to some extent possessed of a like tendency. Mr Willmott has, accordingly, a suitable suggestive word or two to guide them in their reading. He says:--

'A classification of authors to suit all hours and weathers might be amusing. Ariosto spans a wet afternoon like a rainbow. North winds and sleet agree with Junius. The visionary tombs of Dante glimmer into awfuller perspective by moonlight. Crabbe is never so pleasing as on the hot shingle, when we look up from his verses at the sleepy sea, and count the

"Crimson weeds, which spreading slow,
Or lie like pictures on the sand below:
With all those bright red pebbles, that the sun
Through the small waves so softly shines upon."

'Some books come in with lamps and curtains, and fresh logs. An evening in late autumn, when there is no moon, and the boughs toss like foam raking its way back down a pebbly shore, is just the time for _Undine_. A voyage is read with deepest interest in winter, while the hail dashes against the window. Southey speaks of this delight--

"'Tis pleasant by the cheerful hearth to hear
Of tempests and the dangers of the deep,
And pause at times and feel that we are safe;
And with an eager and suspended soul,
Woo terror to delight us."

'The sobs of the storm are musical chimes for a ghost-story, or one of those fearful tales with which the blind fiddler in _Redgauntlet_ made "the auld carlines shake on the settle, and the bits of bairns skirl on their minnies out frae their beds."

'Shakspeare is always most welcome at the chimney-corner; so is Goldsmith: who does not wish Dr Primrose to call in the evening, and Olivia to preside at the urn? Elia affirms, that there is no such thing as reading or writing, but by a candle; he is confident that Milton composed the morning hymn of Eden with a clear fire burning in the room; and in Taylor's gorgeous description of sunrise, he found the smell of the lamp quite overpowering.... But Elia,' he says further on, 'carried his fireside theory too far. Some people have tried "the affectation of a book at noonday in gardens and sultry arbours," without finding their task of love to be unlearnt. Indeed, many books belong to sunshine, and should be read out of doors. Clover, violets, and hedge-roses, breathe from their leaves; they are most lovable in cool lanes, along field-paths, or upon stiles overhung by hawthorn; while the black-bird pipes, and the nightingale bathes its brown feathers in the twilight copse.

'The sensation is heightened when an author is read amid the scenery or the manners which he describes--as Barrow studied the sermons of Chrysostom in his own see of Constantinople. What daisies sprinkle the walks of Cowper, if we take his _Task_ for a companion through the lanes of Weston! Under the thick hedges of Horton, darkening either bank of the field in the September moonlight, _Il Penseroso_ is still more pensive. And whoever would feel at his heart the deep pathos of Collins's lamentation for Thomson, must murmur it to himself, as he glides upon the stealing wave, by the breezy lawns and elms of Richmond.'

Our author has some judicious remarks on 'Criticism, its Curiosities and Researches,' and is himself a critic of refined and delicate appreciation. We certainly do not agree with him in thinking that the literature of the last century is superior to that of the present; but we can nevertheless admit that many of his favourite writers are deserving of a higher and more reverent regard than is now generally awarded them. We would quarrel with no man about his preferences; still, we cannot hold Mr Willmott justified in such sweeping condemnation of our current literature as he appears disposed to pass upon it. It would seem, indeed, that in his disgust at 'the corrupted streams of popular entertainment,' he has not cared to make himself acquainted with the best of our modern writers. Of these he seems--if we may judge from his total oversight of them--to have hardly a knowledge of the names. 'He lives,' as he admits, 'among the society of an elder age.' Here, however, he numbers 'tasteful learning with the chiefest blessings of his home.' If he had lived in the last century, he would probably have gone back for his idols to an earlier one; and yet his remarks on taste and criticism are of a catholic nature, although his just application of their canons have this chronological boundary. We have no room, however, for his disquisition on these elegant subjects; neither can we follow our accomplished clergyman into his disquisitions on fiction, history, biography, philosophy, and its pleasures, nor the 'domestic interiors' of taste and learning. We had intended to quote some fine sentences on the consolations of poetry, but find we have not room for them. The reader will do well to get the book, and read them there. It is a work altogether well worth reading. Nay, it will bear reading many times, and even become pleasanter as one's acquaintance with it increases. Indeed, it is not at all the kind of book to be run through rapidly, and so disposed of; the thought and observation in it are closely packed and methodised; and if you wish to derive any benefit, or even pleasure from the perusal, you will need to read deliberately. We should say the author thoroughly _enjoyed_ his work while he was engaged in it; but the workmanship exhibits everywhere the greatest care and patience. The same habit of mind employed in writing it will be required in the reading. We may describe the book as being a graceful, suggestive review of literature, considered with regard to its enjoyments. Refined, scholarly, tolerant, and judicious in all his tastes and sympathies, the author's influence upon other minds cannot be otherwise than wholesome, elevating, and benignant.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] _Pleasures, Objects, and Advantages of Literature._ A Discourse, by the Rev. Robert Aris Willmott, Incumbent of Bear Wood, Berks. Bosworth: London.

THE MISSING SHIP.

Alexis Himkof had just taken an affectionate leave of his wife, and stood looking after her, on the deck of the vessel to which he had been appointed mate, and which had been fitted up for the whale-fishery near Spitzbergen, by a merchant of the name of Jeremiah Oxladmkof, of Mesen, a town in the province of Jesovia, in the government of Archangel. She sailed in 1743 on her first voyage. We can conceive how lonely the home of Alexis must have been without him. We may be sure that his wife's last prayer at night was offered up for his safety. We constantly hear it said, in stormy weather: 'God help those who are at sea!' 'God help those who have friends at sea!' might be added to the petition; for there are hearts which quail at every gust of wind--there are thick-coming fancies, which can conjure up tempest-tossed vessels, sweeping gales, and raging billows; and yet the ship may at that very moment be in calm waters, or sailing with a prosperous breeze.

The time came that there might be some account of Himkof--then, that the vessel might be back; but no news or vessel came. Month after month passed on, and still it came not; and then years went by, and still there was no ship: whenever a sail was seen in the distance, the poor wife would hasten to the shore; but still the ship she looked for never came. With a sinking heart, she would retrace her steps homewards; but still she came again and again, so true it is that affection and hope are the last earthly companions that part company. The neighbours would look at her as she passed along, and shake their heads in pity.

The vessel, which had fourteen hands on board, had sailed on with a fair wind for eight days. On the ninth it veered, and instead of reaching the west of Spitzbergen, the place of rendezvous for the vessels employed annually in the whale-fishery, it was driven eastward of those islands. A few days brought her near one of them, known as East Spitzbergen. When within about two English miles, she was hemmed in by ice, and in extreme danger. In this dreadful emergency, the crew consulted on what was best to be done. Himkof mentioned that he had been told, some time before, that some men from Mesen, having decided on wintering on the island, had provided themselves with timber for building a hut, which they accordingly erected at some distance from the shore. Being quite aware, that if they remained in their present situation, they must inevitably perish, they determined to search for the hut, and to winter there, if so fortunate as to find it. Himkof, with three others, were selected to make the search. They were provided with a musket, twelve charges of powder, a dozen balls, an axe, a small kettle, a knife, a tinder-box and tinder, a wooden pipe for each, some tobacco, and a bag with twenty pounds of flour. This was as much as they could carry with safety, as they had to make their way for two miles over loose ridges of ice, which would be still more difficult and dangerous if they were overloaded, and it required the utmost caution to avoid falling between these ridges, which had been raised by the waves and driven together by the winds. The footing once lost, inevitable destruction must follow. They had not proceeded above an English mile, when, to their great delight, they descried the hut, at a distance of about a mile and a half from the shore. Its length was thirty-six feet, and its breadth and height eighteen. It consisted of two rooms. The antechamber was about twelve feet broad, and had two doors--one to exclude the outer air, the other by which it communicated with the inner room, in which there was an earthen stove, such as is commonly used in Russia. A very slight inspection sufficed to shew that the hut had sustained great injury from the weather; but to have found it in any condition was a subject of great joy, and they availed themselves of its shelter for the night.

Eager to communicate the good news to their companions, they set out early the next morning; and as they went on, they chatted cheerfully about the stores of ammunition and provisions, and various requisites which could be conveyed from the ship, to be stored in the hut for winter use. They pursued their way in the highest spirits, picturing to themselves the delight which they were about to give to their companions. When they arrived on the shore, not a vestige of the ship was to be seen; no track through the waters marked her path; all was still and silent, desolate and bleak: no familiar face was seen; not one of their comrades was left to tell the hapless tale! They stood aghast, looking in mute despair upon the sea. The ice by which the vessel had been hemmed in had totally disappeared. The violent storm of the night before, they concluded, might have been the cause of this fatal disaster; the ice might have been disturbed by the agitation of the waves, and beaten violently against the ship, till she was shattered to pieces; or she might, perhaps, have been carried on by the current into the ocean, and there lost. However it might have been, they were never to see her again. What a difference a few short moments had made in their feelings and in their fate! They thought to have re-entered the hut with glad companions; they returned to it the sole inhabitants of that desolate region, disconsolate, and utterly hopeless of ever leaving it. When they could collect their thoughts, they were anxiously turned to the preservation of their lives, for which it was necessary to provide some kind of sustenance. The island abounded with reindeer, and they brought down one with every charge of their powder. They set about devising means to repair the hut, which, from the cracks and crevices produced by the weather, let in the piercingly cold air in various directions. No wood, or even shrub, grew on that sterile ground. Nothing could be more dreary than the prospect--a bleak waste without vegetation; the high mountains with their rock and crags; the everlasting ice and the vast masses of snow. The very sublimity of the scene was awfully impressed with all the marks of stern desolation and solitude. As in that cold climate wood is not liable to decay, they joined the boards of which the hut was constructed, with the help of their axe, very tolerably, filling up the crevices with moss, which grows in abundance all over the island. The poor men, like all of their country, were expert carpenters, for it is customary with them to build their own houses. No want could have been more dreadful than that of wood, for without firing, they could never bear up against the intense cold.