Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

“Passing from the political phase of these productions (the ‘Latter Day Pamphlets’), which is not my vocation to discuss, I found for myself one very peculiar charm in the perusal of them—they seemed such perfect transcripts of the conversation of Thomas Carlyle. With something more of set continuity—of composition—but essentially the same thing, the Latter Day Pamphlets’ are in their own way a ‘Boswell’s Life’ of Carlyle. As I read and read, I was gradually transported from my club-room, with its newspaper-clad tables, and my dozing fellow-loungers, only kept half awake by periodical titillations of snuff, and carried in spirit to the grave and quiet sanctum in Chelsea, where Carlyle dispenses wisdom and hospitality with equally unstinted hand. The long, tall, spare figure is before me—wiry, though, and elastic, and quite capable of taking a long, tough spell through the moors of Ecclefechan, or elsewhere—stretched at careless, homely ease in his elbow-chair, yet ever with strong natural motions and starts, as the inward spirit stirs. The face, too, is before me—long and thin, with a certain tinge of paleness, but no sickness or attenuation, form muscular and vigorously marked, and not wanting some glow of former rustic color—pensive, almost solemn, yet open, and cordial, and tender, very tender. The eye, as generally happens, is the chief outward index of the soul—an eye is not easy to describe, but _felt_ ever after one has looked thereon and therein. It is dark and full, shadowed over by a compact, prominent forehead. But the depth, the expression, the far inner play of it—who could transfer that even to the eloquent canvas, far less to this very _in_-eloquent paper? It is not brightness, it is not flash, it is not power even—something beyond all these. The expression is, so to speak, heavy laden—as if be-tokening untold burdens of thought, and long, long fiery struggles, resolutely endured—endured until they had been in some practical manner overcome; to adopt his own fond epithet, and it comes nearest to the thing, his is the heroic eye, but of a hero who has done hard battle against Paynim hosts. This is no dream of mine—I have often heard this peculiarity remarked. The whole form and expression of the face remind me of Dante—it wants the classic element, and the mature and matchless harmony which distinguish the countenance of the great Florentine; but something in the cast and in the look, especially the heavy laden, but dauntless eye, is very much alike. But he speaks to me. The tongue has the _sough_ of Annandale—an echo of the Solway, with its compliments to old Father Thames. A keen, sharp, ringing voice, in the genuine Border key, but tranquil and sedate withal—neighborly and frank, and always in unison with what is uttered. Thus does the presence of Thomas Carlyle rise before me—a ‘true man’ in all his bearings and in all his sayings. And in this same guise do I seem to hear from him all those ‘Latter Day Pamphlets.’ Even such in his conversation—he sees the very thing he speaks of; it breathes and moves palpable to him, and hence his words form a picture. When you come from him, the impression is like having seen a great brilliant panorama; every thing had been made visible and naked to your sight. But more and better far than that; you bear home with you an indelible feeling of love for the man—deep at the heart, long as life. No man has ever inspired more of this personal affection. Not to love Carlyle when you know him is something unnatural, as if one should say they did not love the breeze that fans their cheek, or the vine-tree which has refreshed them both with its leafy shade and its exuberant juices. He abounds, himself, in love and in good works. His life, not only as a ‘writer of books,’ but as a man among his fellows, has been a continued shower of benefits. The young men, more especially, to whom he has been the good Samaritan, pouring oil upon their wounds, and binding up their bruised limbs, and putting them on the way of recovery of health and useful energy—the number of such can scarcely be told, and will never be known till the great day of accounts. One of these, who in his orisons will ever remember him, has just read to me, with tears of grateful attachment in his eyes, portions of a letter of counsel and encouragement which he received from him in the hour of darkness, and which was but the prelude to a thousand acts of substantial kindness and of graceful attention. As the letter contains no secret, and may fall as a fructifying seed into some youthful bosom that may be entering upon its trials and struggles, a quotation from it will form an appropriate _finale_ at this time. He thus writes: ‘It will be good news, in all times coming, to learn that such a life as yours unfolds itself according to its promise, and _becomes_ in some tolerable degree what it is capable of being. The problem is your own, to make or to mar—a great problem for you, as the like is for every man born into this world. You have my entire sympathy in your denunciation of the “explosive” character. It is frequent in these times, and deplorable wherever met with. Explosions are ever wasteful, woeful; central fire should not explode itself, but lie silent, far down at the centre; and make all good fruits _grow_! We can not too often repeat to ourselves, “Strength is seen, not in spasms, but in stout bearing of burdens.” You can take comfort in the meanwhile, if you need it, by the experience of all wise men, that a right heavy burden is precisely the thing wanted for a young strong man. Grievous to be borne; but bear it well, you will find it one day to have been verily blessed. “I would not, for any money,” says the brave Jean Paul, in his quaint way. “I would not, for any money, have had money in my youth!” He speaks a truth there, singular as it may seem to many. These young obscure years ought to be incessantly employed in gaining knowledge of things worth knowing, especially of heroic human souls worth knowing. And you may believe me, the obscurer such years are, it is apt to be the better. Books are needful; but yet not many books; a few well read. An open, true, patient, and valiant soul is needed; that is the one thing needful.’ ”

THE GENTLEMAN BEGGAR. AN ATTORNEY’S STORY. (FROM DICKENS’S HOUSEHOLD WORDS.)

One morning, about five years ago, I called by appointment on Mr. John Balance, the fashionable pawnbroker, to accompany him to Liverpool, in pursuit for a Levanting customer—for Balance, in addition to pawning, does a little business in the sixty per cent. line. It rained in torrents when the cab stopped at the passage which leads past the pawning boxes to his private door. The cabman rang twice, and at length Balance appeared, looming through the mist and rain in the entry, illuminated by his perpetual cigar. As I eyed him rather impatiently, remembering that trains wait for no man, something like a hairy dog, or a bundle of rags, rose up at his feet, and barred his passage for a moment. Then Balance cried out with an exclamation, in answer apparently to a something I could not hear, “What, man alive!—slept in the passage!—there, take that, and get some breakfast, for Heaven’s sake!” So saying, he jumped into the “Hansom,” and we bowled away at ten miles an hour, just catching the Express as the doors of the station were closing. My curiosity was full set—for although Balance can be free with his money, it is not exactly to beggars that his generosity is usually displayed; so when comfortably ensconced in a _coupé_, I finished with—

“You are liberal with your money this morning: pray, how often do you give silver to street cadgers?—because I shall know now what walk to take when flats and sharps leave off buying law.”

Balance, who would have made an excellent parson if he had not been bred to a case-hardening trade, and has still a soft bit left in his heart that is always fighting with his hard head, did not smile at all, but looked as grim as if squeezing a lemon into his Saturday night’s punch. He answered slowly, “A cadger—yes; a beggar—a miserable wretch, he is now; but let me tell you, Master David, that that miserable bundle of rags was born and bred a gentleman; the son of a nobleman, the husband of an heiress, and has sat and dined at tables where you and I, Master David, are only allowed to view the plate by favor of the butler. I have lent him thousands, and been well paid. The last thing I had from him was his court suit; and I hold now his bill for one hundred pounds that will be paid, I expect, when he dies.”

“Why, what nonsense you are talking! you must be dreaming this morning. However, we are alone, I’ll light a weed, in defiance of Railway law, you shall spin that yarn; for, true or untrue, it will fill up the time to Liverpool.”

“As for yarn,” replied Balance, “the whole story is short enough; and as for truth, that you may easily find out if you like to take the trouble. I thought the poor wretch was dead, and I own it put me out meeting him this morning, for I had a curious dream last night.”

“Oh, hang your dreams! Tell us about this gentleman beggar that bleeds you of half-crowns—that melts the heart even of a pawnbroker!”

“Well, then, that beggar is the illegitimate son of the late Marquis of Hoopborough by a Spanish lady of rank. He received a first-rate education, and was brought up in his father’s house. At a very early age he obtained an appointment in a public office, was presented by the marquis at court, and received into the first society, where his handsome person and agreeable manners made him a great favorite. Soon after coming of age, he married the daughter of Sir E. Bumper, who brought him a very handsome fortune, which was strictly settled on herself. They lived in splendid style, kept several carriages, a house in town, and a place in the country. For some reason or other, idleness, or to please his lady’s pride, he resigned his appointment. His father died and left him nothing; indeed, he seemed at that time very handsomely provided for.

“Very soon Mr. and Mrs. Molinos Fitz-Roy began to disagree. She was cold, correct—he was hot and random. He was quite dependent on her, and she made him feel it. When he began to get into debt, he came to me. At length some shocking quarrel occurred; some case of jealousy on the wife’s side, not without reason, I believe; and the end of it was, Mr. Fitz-Roy was turned out of doors. The house was his wife’s, the furniture was his wife’s, and the fortune was his wife’s—he was, in fact, her pensioner. He left with a few hundred pounds ready money, and some personal jewelry, and went to an hotel. On these and credit he lived. Being illegitimate, he had no relations; being a fool, when he spent his money he lost his friends. The world took his wife’s part, when they found she had the fortune, and the only parties who interfered were her relatives, who did their best to make the quarrel incurable. To crown all, one night he was run over by a cab, was carried to a hospital, and lay there for months, and was during several weeks of the time unconscious. A message to the wife, by the hands of one of his debauched companions, sent by a humane surgeon, obtained an intimation that ‘if he died, Mr. Croak, the undertaker to the family, had orders to see to the funeral,’ and that Mrs. Molinos was on the point of starting for the Continent, not to return for some years. When Fitz-Roy was discharged, he came to me limping on two sticks, to pawn his court suit, and told me his story. I was really sorry for the fellow, such a handsome, thoroughbred-looking man. He was going then into the west somewhere, to try to hunt out a friend. ‘What to do, Balance,’ he said, ‘I don’t know. I can’t dig, and unless somebody will make me their gamekeeper, I must starve, or beg, as my Jezebel bade me when we parted!’

“I lost sight of Molinos for a long time, and when I next came upon him it was in the Rookery of Westminster, in a low lodging-house, where I was searching with an officer for stolen goods. He was pointed out to me as the ‘gentleman cadger,’ because he was so free with his money when ‘in luck.’ He recognized me, but turned away then. I have since seen him, and relieved him more than once, although he never asks for any thing. How he lives, Heaven knows. Without money, without friends, without useful education of any kind, he tramps the country, as you saw him, perhaps doing a little hop-picking or hay-making, in season, only happy when he obtains the means to get drunk. I have heard through the kitchen whispers, that you know come to me, that he is entitled to some property; and I expect if he were to die his wife would pay the hundred pound bill I hold; at any rate, what I have told you I know to be true, and the bundle of rags I relieved just now is known in every thieves’ lodging in England as the ‘gentleman cadger.’ ”

This story produced an impression on me—I am fond of speculation, and like the excitement of a legal hunt as much as some do a fox-chase: A gentleman a beggar, a wife rolling in wealth, rumors of unknown property due to the husband: it seemed as if there were pickings for me amidst this carrion of pauperism.

Before returning from Liverpool, I had purchased the gentleman beggar’s acceptance from Balance. I then inserted in the “Times” the following advertisement: “_Horatio Molinos Fitz-Roy_.—If this gentleman will apply to David Discount, Esq., Solicitor, St. James’s, he will hear of something to his advantage. Any person furnishing Mr. F.’s correct address, shall receive 1£. 1_s._ reward. He was last seen,” &c. Within twenty-four hours I had ample proof of the wide circulation of the “Times.” My office was besieged with beggars of every degree, men and women, lame and blind, Irish, Scotch, and English, some on crutches, some in bowls, some in go-carts. They all knew him as the “gentleman,” and I must do the regular fraternity of tramps the justice to say, that not one would answer a question until he made certain that I meant the “gentleman” no harm.

One evening, about three weeks after the appearance of the advertisement, my clerk announced “another beggar.” There came in an old man leaning upon a staff, clad in a soldier’s great coat all patched and torn, with a battered hat, from under which a mass of tangled hair fell over his shoulders and half concealed his face. The beggar, in a weak, wheezy, hesitating tone, said, “You have advertised for Molinos Fitz-Roy. I hope you don’t mean him any harm; he is sunk, I think, too low for enmity now; and surely no one would sport with such misery as his.” These last words were uttered in a sort of piteous whisper.

I answered quickly, “Heaven forbid I should sport with misery: I mean and hope to do him good, as well as myself.”

“Then, sir, I am Molinos Fitz-Roy!”

While we were conversing candles had been brought in. I have not very tender nerves—my head would not agree with them—but I own I started and shuddered when I saw and knew that the wretched creature before me was under thirty years of age and once a gentleman. Sharp, aquiline features, reduced to literal skin and bone, were begrimed and covered with dry fair hair; the white teeth of the half-open mouth shattered with eagerness, and made more hideous the foul pallor of the rest of the countenance. As he stood leaning on a staff half bent, his long, yellow bony fingers clasped over the crutch-head of his stick, he was indeed a picture of misery, famine, squalor, and premature age, too horrible to dwell upon. I made him sit down, and sent for some refreshment which he devoured like a ghoul, and set to work to unravel his story. It was difficult to keep him to the point; but with pains I learned what convinced me that he was entitled to some property, whether great or small there was no evidence. On parting, I said, “Now, Mr. F., you must stay in town while I make proper inquiries. What allowance will be enough to keep you comfortably?”

He answered humbly, after much pressing, “Would you think ten shillings too much?”

I don’t like, if I do those things at all, to do them shabbily, so I said, “Come every Saturday and you shall have a pound.” He was profuse in thanks, of course, as all such men are as long as distress lasts.

I had previously learned that my ragged client’s wife was in England, living in a splendid house in Hyde Park Gardens, under her maiden name. On the following day the Earl of Owing called upon me, wanting five thousand pounds by five o’clock the same evening. It was a case of life or death with him, so I made my terms, and took advantage of his pressure to execute a _coup de main_. I proposed that he should drive me home to receive the money, calling at Mrs. Molinos in Hyde Park Gardens, on our way. I knew that the coronet and liveries of his father, the marquis, would insure me an audience with Mrs. Molinos Fitz-Roy.

My scheme answered. I was introduced into the lady’s presence. She was, and probably is, a very stately, handsome woman, with a pale complexion, high solid forehead, regular features, thin, pinched, self-satisfied mouth. My interview was very short, I plunged into the middle of the affair, but had scarcely mentioned the word husband, when she interrupted me with, “I presume you have lent this profligate person money, and want me to pay you.” She paused, and then said, “He shall not have a farthing.” As she spoke, her white face became scarlet.

“But, madam, the man is starving. I have strong reasons for believing he is entitled to property, and if you refuse any assistance, I must take other measures.” She rang the bell, wrote something rapidly on a card; and, as the footman appeared, pushed it toward me across the table, with the air of touching a toad, saying, “There, sir, is the address of my solicitors; apply to them if you think you have any claim. Robert, show the person out, and take care he is not admitted again.”

So far I had effected nothing; and, to tell the truth, felt rather crest-fallen under the influence of that grand manner peculiar to certain great ladies and to all great actresses.

My next visit was to the attorneys, Messrs. Leasem and Fashun, of Lincoln’s Inn Square, and there I was at home. I had had dealings with the firm before. They are agents for half the aristocracy, who always run in crowds like sheep after the same wine-merchants, the same architects, the same horse-dealers, and the same law-agents. It may be doubted whether the quality of law and land management they get on this principle is quite equal to their wine and horses. At any rate, my friends of Lincoln’s Inn, like others of the same class, are distinguished by their courteous manners, deliberate proceedings, innocence of legal technicalities, long credit, and heavy charges. Leasem, the elder partner, wears powder and a huge bunch of seals, lives in Queen-square, drives a brougham, gives the dinners and does the cordial department. He is so strict in performing the latter duty, that he once addressed a poacher who had shot a duke’s keeper, as “my dear creature,” although he afterward hung him.

Fashun has chambers in St. James-street, drives a cab, wears a tip, and does the grand haha style.

My business lay with Leasem. The interviews and letters passing were numerous. However, it came at last to the following dialogue:

“Well, my dear Mr. Discount,” began Mr. Leasem, who hates me like poison. “I’m really very sorry for that poor dear Molinos—knew his father well; a great man, a perfect gentleman; but you know what women are, eh, Mr. Discount? My client won’t advance a shilling; she knows it would only be wasted in low dissipation. Now, don’t you think (this was said very insinuatingly)—don’t you think he had better be sent to the workhouse; very comfortable accommodations there, I can assure you—meat twice a week, and excellent soup; and then, Mr. D., we might consider about allowing you something for that bill.”

“Mr. Leasem, can you reconcile it to your conscience to make such an arrangement? Here’s a wife rolling in luxury, and a husband starving!”

“No, Mr. Discount, not starving; there is the workhouse, as I observed before; besides, allow me to suggest that these appeals to feeling are quite unprofessional—quite unprofessional.”

“But, Mr. Leasem, touching this property which the poor man is entitled to.”

“Why, there again, Mr. D., you must excuse me; you really must. I don’t say he is; I don’t say he is not. If you know he is entitled to property, I am sure you know how to proceed; the law is open to you, Mr. Discount—the law is open; and a man of your talent will know how to use it.”

“Then, Mr. Leasem, you mean that I must, in order to right this starving man, file a bill of discovery, to extract from you the particulars of his rights. You have the marriage settlement, and all the information, and you decline to allow a pension, or afford any information; the man is to starve, or go to the workhouse.”

“Why, Mr. D., you are so quick and violent, it really is not professional; but you see (here a subdued smile of triumph), it has been decided that a solicitor is not bound to afford such information as you ask, to the injury of his client.”

“Then you mean that this poor Molinos may rot and starve, while you keep secret from him, at his wife’s request, his title to an income, and that the Court of Chancery will back you in this iniquity?”

I kept repeating the word “starve,” because I saw it made my respectable opponent wince.

“Well, then, just listen to me. I know that in the happy state of your equity law, chancery can’t help my client; but I have another plan: I shall go hence to my office, issue a writ, and take your client’s husband in execution—as soon as he is lodged in jail, I shall file his schedule in the Insolvent Court, and when he comes up for his discharge, I shall put you in the witness-box, and examine you on oath, ‘touching any property of which you know the insolvent to be possessed,’ and where will be your privileged communications then?”

The respectable Leasem’s face lengthened in a twinkling, his comfortable confident air vanished, he ceased twiddling his gold chain, and, at length, he muttered,

“Suppose we pay the debt?”

“Why, then, I’ll arrest him the day after for another.”

“But, my dear Mr. Discount, surely such conduct would not be quite respectable.”

“That’s my business; my client has been wronged, I am determined to right him, and when the aristocratic firm, of Leasem and Fashun takes refuge according to the custom of respectable repudiators, in the cool arbors of the Court of Chancery, why, a mere bill-discounting attorney like David Discount need not hesitate about cutting a bludgeon out of the Insolvent Court.”

“Well, well, Mr. D., you are so warm—so fiery; we must deliberate—we must consult. You will give me until the day after to-morrow, and then we’ll write you our final determination; in the meantime, send us a copy of your authority to act for Mr. Molinos Fitz-Roy.”

Of course, I lost no time in getting the gentleman beggar to sign a proper letter.

On the appointed day came a communication with the L. and F. seal, which I opened, not without unprofessional eagerness. It was as follows:

“_In re Molinos Fitz-Roy and Another._

“Sir—In answer to your application on behalf of Mr. Molinos Fitz-Roy, we beg to inform you that under the administration of a paternal aunt who died intestate, your client is entitled to two thousand five hundred pounds eight shillings and sixpence, Three per Cents.; one thousand five hundred pounds nineteen shillings and fourpence, Three per Cents. Reduced; one thousand pounds, Long Annuities; five hundred pounds, Bank Stock; three thousand five hundred pounds, India Stock; besides other securities, making up about ten thousand pounds, which we are prepared to transfer over to Mr. Molinos Fitz-Roy’s direction forthwith.”

Here was a windfall! It quite took away my breath.

At dusk came my gentleman beggar, and what puzzled me was, how to break the news to him. Being very much overwhelmed with business that day, I had not much time for consideration. He came in rather better dressed than when I first saw him, with only a week’s beard on his chin; but, as usual, not quite sober. Six weeks had elapsed since our first interview. He was still the humble, trembling, low-voiced creature, I first knew him.

After a prelude, I said, “I find, Mr. F., you are entitled to something; pray, what do you mean to give me in addition to my bill, for obtaining it?” He answered rapidly, “Oh, take half; if there is one hundred pounds, take half; if there is five hundred pounds, take half.”

“No, no; Mr. F., I don’t do business in that way, I shall be satisfied with ten per cent.”

It was so settled. I then led him out into the street, impelled to tell him the news, yet dreading the effect; not daring to make the revelation in my office, for fear of a scene.

I began hesitatingly, “Mr. Fitz-Roy, I am happy to say, that I find you are entitled to .....ten thousand pounds!”

“Ten thousand pounds!” he echoed. “Ten thousand pounds!” he shrieked. “Ten thousand pounds!” he yelled, seizing my arm violently. “You are a brick. Here, cab! cab!” Several drove up—the shout might have been heard a mile off. He jumped in the first.

“Where to?” said the driver.

“To a tailor’s, you rascal!”

“Ten thousand pounds! ha, ha, ha!” he repeated hysterically, when in the cab; and every moment grasping my arm. Presently he subsided, looked me straight in the face, and muttered with agonizing fervor,

“What a jolly brick you are!”

The tailor, the hosier, the bootmaker, the hair-dresser, were in turn visited by this poor pagan of externals. As, by degrees, under their hands, he emerged from the beggar to the gentleman, his spirits rose; his eyes brightened; he walked erect, but always nervously grasping my arm; fearing, apparently, to lose sight of me for a moment, lest his fortune should vanish with me. The impatient pride with which he gave his orders to the astonished tradesmen for the finest and best of every thing, and the amazed air of the fashionable hairdresser when he presented his matted locks and stubble chin, to be “cut and shaved,” may be _acted_—it can not be described.

By the time the external transformation was complete, and I sat down in a _Café_ in the Haymarket, opposite a haggard but handsome, thoroughbred-looking man, whose air, with the exception of the wild eyes and deeply browned face, did not differ from the stereotyped men about town sitting around us, Mr. Molinos Fitz-Roy had already almost forgotten the past; he bullied the waiter, and criticised the wine, as if he had done nothing else but dine and drink and scold there all the days of his life.

Once he wished to drink my health, and would have proclaimed his whole story to the coffee-room assembly, in a raving style. When I left he almost wept in terror at the idea of losing sight of me. But, allowing for these ebullitions—the natural result of such a whirl of events—he was wonderfully calm and self-possessed.

The next day, his first care was to distribute fifty pounds among his friends the cadgers, at a house of call in Westminster, and formally to dissolve his connection with them; those present undertaking for the “fraternity,” that, for the future, he should never be noticed by them in public or private.

I can not follow his career much further. Adversity had taught him nothing. He was soon again surrounded by the well-bred vampires who had forgotten him when penniless; but they amused him, and that was enough. The ten thousand pounds were rapidly melting when he invited me to a grand dinner at Richmond, which included a dozen of the most agreeable, good-looking, well-dressed dandies of London, interspersed with a display of pretty butterfly bonnets. We dined deliciously, and drank as men do of iced wines in the dog-days—looking down from Richmond Hill.

One of the pink bonnets crowned Fitz-Roy with a wreath of flowers; he looked—less the intellect—as handsome as Alcibiades. Intensely excited and flushed, he rose with a champagne glass in his hand to propose my health.

The oratorical powers of his father had not descended on him. Jerking out sentences by spasms, at length he said, “I was a beggar—I am a gentleman—thanks to this—”

Here he leaned on my shoulder heavily a moment, and then fell back. We raised him, loosened his neckcloth—

“Fainted!” said the ladies.

“Drunk!” said the gentlemen.

He was _dead!_

SINGULAR PROCEEDINGS OF THE SAND WASP. (FROM HOWITT’S COUNTRY YEAR-BOOK.)

In all my observations of the habits of living things, I have never seen any thing more curious than the doings of one species of these ammophilæ—lovers of sand. I have watched them day after day, and hour after hour, in my garden, and also on the sandy banks on the wastes about Esher, in Surrey, and always with unabated wonder. They are about an inch long, with orange-colored bodies, and black heads and wings. They are slender and most active. You see them on the warm borders of your garden, or on warm, dry banks, in summer, when the sun shines hotly. They are incessantly and most actively hunting about. They are in pursuit of a particular gray spider with a large abdomen. For these they pursue their chase with a fiery quickness and avidity. The spiders are on the watch to seize flies; but here we have the tables turned, and these are flies on the watch to discover and kill the spiders. These singular insects seem all velocity and fire. They come flying at a most rapid rate, light down on the dry soil, and commence an active search. The spiders lie under the leaves of plants, and in little dens under the dry little clods. Into all these places the sand-wasp pops his head. He bustles along here and there, flirting his wings, and his whole body all life and fire. And now he moves off to a distance, hunts about there, then back to his first place, beats the old ground carefully over, as a pointer beats a field. He searches carefully round every little knob of earth, and pops his head into every crevice. Ever and anon, he crouches close among the little clods as a tiger would crouch for his prey. He seems to be listening, or smelling down into the earth, as if to discover his prey by every sense which he possesses, He goes round every stalk, and descends into every hollow about them. When he finds the spider, he dispatches him in a moment, and seizing him by the centre of his chest, commences dragging him off backward.

He conveys his prey to a place of safety. Frequently he carries it up some inches into a plant, and lodges it among the green leaves. Seeing him do this, I poked his spider down with a stick after he had left it; but he speedily returned, and finding it fallen down, he immediately carried it up again to the same place.

Having thus secured his spider, he selects a particular spot of earth, the most sunny and warm, and begins to dig a pit. He works with all his might, digging up the earth with his formidable mandibles, and throwing it out with his feet, as a dog throws out the earth when scratching after a rabbit. Every few seconds he ascends, tail first, out of his hole, clears away the earth about its mouth with his legs, and spreads it to a distance on the surface. When he has dug the hole, perhaps two inches deep, he comes forth eagerly, goes off for his spider, drags it down from its lodgment, and brings it to the mouth of his hole. He now lets himself down the hole, tail first, and then, putting forth his head, takes the spider, and turns it into the most suitable position for dragging it in.

It must be observed that this hole is made carefully of only about the width of his body, and therefore the spider can not be got into it except lengthwise, and then by stout pulling. Well, he turns it lengthwise, and seizing it, commences dragging it in. At first, you would imagine this impossible; but the sand-wasp is strong, and the body of the spider is pliable. You soon see it disappear. Down into the cylindrical hole it goes, and anon you perceive the sand-wasp pushing up its black head beside it; and having made his way out he again sets to work, and pushes the spider with all his force to the bottom of the den.

And what is all this for? Is the spider laid up in his larder for himself? No; it is food for his children? It is their birth-place, and their supply of provision while they are in the larva state.

We have been all along calling this creature he, for it has a most masculine look; but it is in reality a she; it is the female sand-wasp, and all this preparation is for the purpose of laying her eggs. For this she has sought and killed the spider, and buried it here. She has done it all wittingly. She has chosen one particular spider, and that only, for that is the one peculiarly adapted to nourish her young.

So here it is safely stored away in her den; and she now descends, tail first, and piercing the pulpy abdomen of the spider, she deposits her egg or eggs. That being done, she carefully begins filling in the hole with earth. She rakes it up with her legs and mandibles, and fills in the hole, every now and then turning round and going backward into the hole to stamp down the earth with her feet, and to ram it down with her body as a rammer. When the hole is filled, it is curious to observe with what care she levels the surface, and removes the surrounding lumps of earth, laying some first over the tomb of the spider, and others about, so as to make that place look as much as possible like the surface all round. And before she has done with it—and she works often for ten minutes at this leveling and disguising before she is perfectly satisfied—she makes the place so exactly like all the rest of the surface, that it will require good eyes and close observation to recognize it.

She has now done her part, and Nature must do the rest. She has deposited her eggs in the body of the spider, and laid that body in the earth in the most sunny spot she can find. She has laid it so near the surface that the sun will act on it powerfully, yet deep enough to conceal it from view. She has, with great art and anxiety, destroyed all traces of the hole, and the effect will soon commence. The heat of the sun will hatch the egg. The larva, or young grub of the sand-wasp, will become alive, and begin to feed on the pulpy body of the spider in which it is enveloped. This food will suffice it till it is ready to emerge to daylight, and pass through the different stages of its existence. Like the ostrich, the sand-wasp thus leaves her egg in the sand till the sun hatches it, and having once buried it, most probably never knows herself where it is deposited. It is left to Nature and Providence

WHAT HORSES THINK OF MEN. FROM THE RAVEN IN THE HAPPY FAMILY. (FROM DICKENS’S HOUSEHOLD WORDS.)

I suppose you thought I was dead? No such thing. Don’t flatter yourselves that I haven’t got my eye upon you. I am wide awake, and you give me plenty to look at.

I have begun my great work about you, I have been collecting materials from the Horse, to begin with. You are glad to hear it, ain’t you? Very likely. Oh, he gives you a nice character! He makes you out a charming set of fellows.

He informs me by-the-by, that he is a distant relation of the pony that was taken up in a balloon a few weeks ago; and that the pony’s account of your going to see him at Vauxhall Gardens, is an amazing thing. The pony says that when he looked round on the assembled crowd, come to see the realization of the wood-cut in the bill, he found it impossible to discover which was the real Mister Green—there were so many Mister Greens—and they were all so very green!

But that’s the way with you. You know it is. Don’t tell me! You’d go to see any thing that other people went to see. And don’t flatter yourselves that I am referring to “the vulgar curiosity,” as you choose to call it, when you mean some curiosity in which you don’t participate yourselves. The polite curiosity in this country is as vulgar as any curiosity in the world.

Of course you’ll tell me, no it isn’t; but I say, yes it is. What have you got to say for yourselves about the Nepaulese princes, I should like to know? Why, there has been more crowding, and pressing, and pushing, and jostling, and struggling, and striving, in genteel houses this last season, on account of those Nepaulese princes, than would have taken place in vulgar Cremorne Gardens and Greenwich Park, at Easter time and Whitsuntide! And what for? Do you know any thing about ’em? Have you any idea why they came here? Can you put your finger on their country in the map? Have you ever asked yourselves a dozen common questions about its climate, natural history, government, productions, customs, religion, manners? Not you! Here are a couple of swarthy princes very much out of their element, walking about in wide muslin trowsers, and sprinkled all over with gems (like the clockwork figure on the old round platform in the street, grown-up), and they’re fashionable outlandish monsters, and it’s a new excitement for you to get a stare at ’em. As to asking ’em to dinner, and seeing ’em sit at table without eating in your company (unclean animals as you are!), you fall into raptures at that. Quite delicious, isn’t it? Ugh, you dunder-headed boobies!

I wonder what there is, new and strange, that you _wouldn’t_ lionize, as you call it. Can you suggest any thing! It’s not a hippopotamus, I suppose. I hear from my brother-in-law in the Zoological Gardens, that you are always pelting away into the Regent’s Park, by thousands, to see the hippopotamus. Oh, you’re very fond of hippopotami, ain’t you? You study one attentively, when you _do_ see one, don’t you? You come away so much wiser than when you went, reflecting so profoundly on the wonders of the creation—eh?

Bah! You follow one another like wild geese; but you are not so good to eat!

These, however, are not the observations of my friend the Horse. _He_ takes you, in another point of view. Would you like to read his contribution to my Natural History of you? No? You shall then.

He is a cab-horse now. He wasn’t always, but he is now, and his usual stand is close to our proprietor’s usual stand. That’s the way we have come into communication, we “dumb animals.” Ha, ha! Dumb, too! Oh, the conceit of you men, because you can bother the community out of their five wits, by making speeches!

Well. I mentioned to this Horse that I should be glad to have his opinions and experiences of you. Here they are:

“At the request of my honorable friend the Raven, I proceed to offer a few remarks in reference to the animal called Man. I have had varied experience of this strange creature for fifteen years, and am now driven by a Man, in the hackney cabriolet, number twelve thousand four hundred and fifty-two.

“The sense Man entertains of his own inferiority to the nobler animals—and I am now more particularly referring to the Horse—has impressed me forcibly, in the course of my career. If a man knows a horse well, he is prouder of it than of any knowledge of himself, within the range of his limited capacity. He regards it as the sum of all human acquisition. If he is learned in a horse, he has nothing else to learn. And the same remark applies, with some little abatement, to his acquaintance with dogs. I have seen a good deal of man in my time, but I think I have never met a man who didn’t feel it necessary to his reputation to pretend, on occasion, that he knew something of horses and dogs, though he really knew nothing. As to making us a subject of conversation, my opinion is that we are more talked about than history, philosophy, literature, art, and science, all put together. I have encountered innumerable gentlemen in the country, who were totally incapable of interest in any thing but horses and dogs—except cattle. And I have always been given to understand that they were the flower of the civilized world.

“It is very doubtful to me, whether there is, upon the whole, any thing man is so ambitious to imitate as an ostler, jockey, a stage coachman, a horse-dealer, or dog-fancier. There may be some other character which I do not immediately remember, that fires him with emulation; but if there be, I am sure it is connected with horses or dogs, or both. This is an unconscious compliment, on the part of the tyrant, to the nobler animals, which I consider to be very remarkable. I have known lords and baronets, and members of parliament, out of number, who have deserted every other calling to become but indifferent stablemen or kennelmen, and be cheated on all hands, by the real aristocracy of those pursuits who were regularly born to the business.

“All this, I say, is a tribute to our superiority, which I consider to be very remarkable. Yet, still I can’t quite understand it. Man can hardly devote himself to us, in admiration of our virtues, because he never imitates them. We horses are as honest, though I say it, as animals can be. If, under the pressure of circumstances, we submit to act at a circus, for instance, we always show that we are acting. We never deceive any body. We would scorn to do it. If we are called upon to do any thing in earnest, we do our best. If we are required to run a race falsely, and to lose when we could win, we are not to be relied upon to commit a fraud; man must come in at that point, and force us to it. And the extraordinary circumstance to me is, that man (whom I take to be a powerful species of monkey) is always making us nobler animals the instruments of his meanness and cupidity. The very name of our kind has become a byword for all sorts of trickery and cheating. We are as innocent as counters at a game—and yet this creature WILL play falsely with us!

“Man’s opinion, good or bad, is not worth much, as any rational horse knows. But justice is justice; and what I complain of is, that mankind talks of us as if we had something to do with all this. They say that such a man was ‘ruined by horses.’ Ruined by horses! They can’t be open, even in that, and say he was ruined by men; but they lay it at _our_ stable-door! As if we ever ruined any body, or were ever doing any thing but being ruined ourselves, in our generous desire to fulfill the useful purposes of our existence!

“In the same way, we get a bad name, as if we were profligate company. ‘So and so got among horses, and it was all up with him.’ Why, _we_ would have reclaimed him—_we_ would have made him temperate, industrious, punctual, steady, sensible—what harm would he ever have got from _us_, I should wish to ask?

“Upon the whole, speaking of him as I have found him, I should describe man as an unmeaning and conceited creature, very seldom to be trusted, and not likely to make advances toward the honesty of the nobler animals. I should say that his power of warping the nobler animals to bad purposes, and damaging their reputation by his companionship, is, next to the art of growing oats, hay, carrots, and clover, one of his principal attributes. He is very unintelligible in his caprices; seldom expressing with distinctness what he wants of us; and relying greatly on our better judgment to find out. He is cruel, and fond of blood—particularly at a steeple-chase—and is very ungrateful.

“And yet, so far as I can understand, he worships us, too. He sets up images of us (not particularly like, but meant to be) in the streets and calls upon his fellows to admire them, and believe in them. As well as I can make out, it is not of the least importance what images of men are put astride upon these images of horses, for I don’t find any famous personage among them—except one, and _his_ image seems to have been contracted for by the gross. The jockeys who ride our statues are very queer jockeys, it appears to me, but it is something to find man even posthumously sensible of what he owes to us. I believe that when he has done any great wrong to any very distinguished horse, deceased, he gets up a subscription to have an awkward likeness of him made, and erects it in a public place, to be generally venerated. I can find no other reason for the statues of us that abound.

“It must be regarded as a part of the inconsistency of man, that he erects no statues to the donkeys—who, though far inferior animals to ourselves, have great claims upon him. I should think a donkey opposite the horse at Hyde Park, another in Trafalgar-square, and a group of donkeys, in brass, outside the Guild-hall of the city of London (for I believe the common-council chamber is inside that building) would be pleasant and appropriate memorials.

“I am not aware that I can suggest any thing more to my honorable friend the Raven, which will not already have occurred to his fine intellect. Like myself, he is the victim of brute force, and must bear it until the present state of things is changed—as it possibly may be in the good time which I understand is coming, if I wait a little longer.”

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There! How do you like that? That’s the Horse! You shall have another animal’s sentiments, soon. I have communicated with plenty of ’em, and they are all down upon you. It’s not I alone who have found you out. You are generally detected, I am happy to say, and shall be covered with confusion.

Talking about the horse, are you going to set up any more horses? Eh? Think a bit. Come! You haven’t got horses enough yet, surely? Couldn’t you put somebody else on horseback, and stick him up, at the cost of a few thousands? You have already statues to most of the “benefactors of mankind” (SEE ADVERTISEMENT) in your principal cities. You walk through groves of great inventors, instructors, discoverers, assuagers of pain, preventers of disease, suggesters of purifying thoughts, doers of noble deeds. Finish the list. Come!

Whom will you hoist into the saddle? Let’s have a cardinal virtue! Shall it be Faith? Hope? Charity? Ay, Charity’s the virtue to ride on horseback! Let’s have Charity!

How shall we represent it? Eh? What do you think? Royal? Certainly. Duke? Of course. Charity always was typified in that way, from the time of a certain widow downward. And there’s nothing less left to put up; all the commoners who were “benefactors of mankind” having had their statues in the public places, long ago.

How shall we dress it? Rags? Low. Drapery? Commonplace. Field-Marshal’s uniform? The very thing! Charity in a Field-Marshal’s uniform (none the worse for wear) with thirty thousand pounds a year, public money, in its pocket, and fifteen thousand more, public money, up behind, will be a piece of plain, uncompromising truth in the highways, and an honor to the country and the time.

Ha, ha, ha! You can’t leave the memory of an unassuming, honest, good-natured, amiable old duke alone, without bespattering it with your flunkeyism, can’t you? That’s right—and like you! Here are three brass buttons in my crop. I’ll subscribe ’em all. One, to the statue of Charity; one, to a statue of Hope; one, to a statue of Faith. For Faith, we’ll have the Nepaulese Embassador on horseback—being a prince. And for Hope, we’ll put the Hippopotamus on horseback, and so make a group.

Let’s have a meeting about it!

THE QUAKERS DURING THE AMERICAN WAR. (FROM HOWITT’S COUNTRY YEAR-BOOK.)

George Dilwyn was an American, a remarkable preacher among the Quakers. About fifty years ago he came over to this country, on what we have already said is termed a “Religious Visit,” and being in Cornwall, when I was there, and at George Fox’s, in Falmouth—our aged relative still narrates—soon became an object of great attraction, not only from his powerful preaching, but from his extraordinary gift in conversation, which he made singularly interesting from the introduction of curious passages in his own life and experience.

His company was so much sought after, that a general invitation was given, by his hospitable and wealthy entertainer, to all the Friends of the town and neighborhood to come, and hear, and see him; and evening by evening, their rooms were crowded by visitors, who sat on seats, side by side, as in a public lecture-room.

Among other things, he related, that during the time of the revolutionary war, one of the armies passing through a district in which a great number of Friends resided, food was demanded from the inhabitants, which was given to them. The following day the adverse army came up in pursuit, and stripped them of every kind of provision that remained; and so great was the strait to which they were reduced, that absolute famine was before them. Their sufferings were extreme, as day after day went on, and no prospect of relief was afforded them. Death seemed to stare them in the face, and many a one was ready to despair. The forests around them were in possession of the soldiers, and the game, which otherwise might have yielded them subsistence, was killed or driven away.

After several days of great distress, they retired at night, still without hope or prospect of succor. How great, then, was their surprise and cause of thankfulness when, on the following morning, immense herds of wild deer were seen standing around their inclosures, as if driven there for their benefit! From whence they came none could tell, nor the cause of their coming, but they suffered themselves to be taken without resistance; and thus the whole people were saved, and had great store of provisions laid up for many weeks.