Chapter IV: A Black Sheep (2)

I went into the garden. “Come into the garden, Maud.” I sate by a large lilac bush. I waited. Perhaps, she would come. The morning-room windows were wide open on to the lawn. Will she never come? Ah! what is that tall form advancing? gliding—gliding into the chamber like a beauteous ghost? Who most does like an angel show, you may be sure ’tis she. She comes up to the glass. She lays her spectacles down on the mantel-piece. She puts a slim white hand over her auburn hair and looks into the mirror. Elizabeth, Elizabeth! I come!

As I came up, I saw a horrid little grinning, debauched face surge over the back of a great arm-chair and look towards Elizabeth. It was Captain Blacksheep, of course. He laid his elbows over the chair. He looked keenly and with a diabolical smile at the unconscious girl; and just as I reached the window, he cried out, “_Betsy Bellenden, by Jove!_”

Elizabeth turned round, gave a little cry, and——but what happened I shall tell in the ensuing chapter.

FOOTNOTES

[1] To another celebrated critic. Dear Sir—You think I mean you, but upon my honour I don’t.

Colour Blindness.

If there is one infirmity or defect of those five senses with which we are most of us blest, which more than any other attracts sympathy and claims compassionate consideration, it is blindness—an inability to know what is beautiful in form or in colour, to appreciate light, or to recognize and comprehend the varying features of our fellow-men—a perpetual darkness in the midst of a world of light—a total exclusion from the readiest, pleasantest, and most available means of acquiring ideas.

And yet who would suppose that there exists, and is tolerably common, a partial blindness, which has hardly been described as a defect for more than half a century, and of which it may be said even now that most of those who suffer from it are not only themselves ignorant of the fact, but that those about them can hardly be induced to believe it. The unhappy victims of this partial blindness (which is real and physical, not moral) are at great pains in learning what to them are minute distinctions of tint, although to the rest of the world they are differences of colour of the most marked kind, and, after all, they only obtain the credit of unusual stupidity or careless inattention in reward for their exertions and in sympathy for their visual defect. We allude to a peculiarity of vision which first attracted notice in the case of the celebrated propounder of the atomic theory in chemistry, the late Dr. Dalton, of Manchester, who on endeavouring to find some object to compare in colour with his scarlet robe of doctor of laws, when at Cambridge, could hit on nothing which better agreed with it than the foliage of the adjacent trees, and who to match his drab coat—for our learned doctor was of the Society of Friends—might possibly have selected crimson continuations as the quietest and nearest match the pattern-book of his tailor exhibited.

An explanation of this curious defect will be worth listening to, the more so as one of our most eminent philosophers, Sir John Herschel, has recently made a few remarks on the subject, directing attention at the same time to other little known but not unimportant phenomena of colour, which bear upon and help to explain it.

It is known that white light consists of the admixture of coloured rays in certain proportions, and that the beautiful prismatic colours seen in the rainbow are produced by the different degree in which the various rays of colour are bent when passing from one transparent substance into another of different density. Thus, when a small group of colour-rays, forming a single pencil or beam of white sunlight, passes into and through the atmosphere during a partial shower, and falls on a drop of rain, it is first bent aside on entering the drop, then reflected from the inside surface at the back of the drop, and ultimately emerges in an opposite direction to its original one. During these changes, however, although all the colour-rays forming the white pencil have been bent, each has been bent at a different angle—the red most, and the blue least. When therefore they come out of the drop, the red rays are quite separated from the blue, and when the beam reaches its destination, the various colours enter the eye separately, forming a line of variously coloured light, the upper part red and the lower part blue, instead of a mere point of white light, as the ray would have appeared if seen before it entered the drop. The eye naturally refers each part of the ray to the place from whence it appears to come, and thus, with a number of drops falling and the sun not obscured, a rainbow is seen, which represents part of a number of concentric circular lines of colour, the outermost of which is red, the innermost violet, and the intermediate ones we respectively name orange, yellow, green, blue, and indigo.

It has also been found by careful experiment, that these are not all pure colours, most of them being mixtures of some few that are really primitive and pure, and necessarily belong to solar light. It is these mixed in due proportion which make up ordinary white light, which is the only kind seen when the sun’s rays have not undergone this sort of decomposition or separation into elements. The actual primitive colours are generally supposed to be red, yellow, and blue, and much theoretical as well as practical discussion has arisen as to how these require to be mixed, what proportion they bear to each other in their power of impressing the human eye, and many other matters for which we must refer to Mr. Field, Mr. Owen Jones, and others, who have studied the subject and applied it.

In a general way it is found convenient to remember, or rather to assume, that three parts of red, five parts of yellow, and eight parts of blue form together white, and, therefore, that the pencil of white light contains three rays of red, five of yellow, and eight of blue. To produce the other prismatic colours, we must mix red with a little yellow to form orange; yellow with some blue to form green; much blue with a little red to form indigo, and a little blue with some red to form violet. In performing experiments on colour it is convenient, instead of a drop of water, to substitute a prism of glass in decomposing the rays of light. We may thus produce at will a convenient image, called a _prismatic spectrum_, which, when thrown on a wall, is a broad band of coloured lights, having all the tints of the rainbow in the same order. Looking at this image, the red is at the top and the violet at the bottom, and it may be asked, How does the red get amongst the blue to form violet, if the red rays are bent up to the top of the spectrum? The answer is, that a quantity of white light not decomposed, and a part of all the colour rays, reach all parts of the spectrum, however carefully it is sheltered, but that so many more red rays get to the top, so many more of the yellow to the middle, and so many more blue to where that colour appears most brilliant, that these are seen nearly pure, whilst where the red and yellow or yellow and blue mix they produce distinct kinds of colour, and where the blue at the bottom is faint, and some of those red rays fall that do not reach the red part of the spectrum, the violet is produced. In point of fact, therefore, all the colours of the spectrum, as seen, are mixtures of pure colour with white light, while all but red are mixtures of other pure colours with some red and some yellow as well as white. Primitive and pure colours, therefore, are not obtained in the spectrum, and a question has arisen as to which really deserve to be called pure, Dr. Young upholding green against yellow, and even regarding violet as primitive, and blue a mixed colour. A consideration of the results of this theory would lead us farther than is necessary for the purpose we have now in view.

We also find philosophers now-a-days calmly discussing a question which most people considered settled very long ago, namely, whether blue and yellow together really make green.

It is of no use for the artist to lift up his eyes with astonishment at any one being so insane as to question so generally admitted a statement. In vain does he point to his pictures, in which his greens have been actually so produced. The strict photologist at once puts him down, by informing him that he knows little or nothing of the real state of the case: his (the artist’s) colours are _negative_, or hues of more or less complete darkness; whereas in nature, the colour question is to be decided by _positive_ colours, or hues in which all the light used is of one kind. The meaning of this will be best understood by an example: When a ray of white light falls on a green leaf, part of the ray is absorbed and part reflected, and the object is therefore only seen with the part that is reflected. That which is absorbed consists of some of each of the colour rays, and the resulting reflected light is nothing more than a mixture of what remains after this partial absorption. The green we see consists of the original white light deprived of a portion of its rays. It is not a pure and absolute green, but only a residual group of coloured rays, and thus in so far the green colour is _negative_, or consists of rays not absorbed. It is therefore _partial darkness_, and not absolute light. If, however, on the other hand, a ray of white light is passed through a transparent medium (_e. g._ some chemical salt) which has the property of entirely absorbing all but one or more of the colour rays, and no part of the remainder, then all the light that passes through this medium is of the one colour, or a mixture of the several colours that pass: and if such light is thrown on a _white_ ground, the reflected colour will be _positive_, and not negative, and is far purer as well as brighter than the colour obtained in the other way. It has been found by actual experiment, that when positive blue, thus obtained, is thrown on positive yellow, the resulting reflected colour bears no resemblance to green. Sir John Herschel considers, that whether green is a primitive colour—in other words, whether we really have three or four primitive colours—remains yet an open question.

It was necessary to explain these matters about colour before directly referring to the subject of this paper, namely, blindness to certain colour rays. It should also be clearly understood that the persons subject to this peculiar condition of vision have not necessarily any mechanical or optical defect in the eye as an optical instrument, which may be strong or weak, long-sighted or short-sighted, quite independently of it. Colour blindness does not in any way interfere with the ordinary requirements of vision, nor is there the smallest reason to imagine that it can get worse by neglect, or admit of any improvement by education or treatment.

Assuming that persons of ordinary vision see three simple colours, red, yellow, and blue, and that all the rest of the colours are mixtures of these with each other and with white light, let us try to picture to ourselves what must be the visual condition of a person who is unable to recognize certain rays; and as it appears that there is but one kind of colour-blindness known, we will assume that the person is unable to recognize those rays of white light which consist of pure red and nothing else. In other words, let us investigate the sensations of a person blind so far only as pure red is concerned.

All visible objects either reflect the same kind of light as that which falls on them, absorbing part and reflecting the rest, or else they absorb more of some colour rays than others, and reflect only a negative tint, made up of a mixture of all the colour-rays not absorbed. To a colour-blind person, the mixed light, as it proceeds from the sun, is probably white, as seen by those having perfect vision; for, as we have explained already, positive blue and yellow (the colour rays when red is excluded) do not make green, and the absence of the red ray is likely to produce only a slight darkening effect. So far, then, there is no difference. But how must it be with regard to colour.

Bearing in mind what has been said above, it is evident that in withdrawing the red rays from the spectrum, we affect all the colours. The orange is no longer red and yellow, but darkened yellow; the yellow is purer, the green is quite distinct, the blue purer, and the indigo and violet no longer red and blue, but blue mingled with more or less of darkness, the violet being the darkest, as containing least blue in proportion to red, while the red part itself, though not seen as a colour, is not absolutely black, inasmuch as its part of the spectrum is faintly coloured with the few mixed rays of blue and yellow and white that escape from their proper place. The red then ought to be seen as a gray neutral tint, the orange a dingy yellow, the indigo a dirty indigo, and the violet a sickly, disagreeable tint of pale blue, darkened considerably with black and gray.

Next let us take the case of an intelligent person affected with colour blindness, but who is not yet aware of the fact. He has been taught from childhood that certain shades, some darker and some brighter, but all of neutral tint, and not really presenting to him colour at all, are to be called by various names—scarlet, crimson, pale red, dark red, bright red, dark green, dark purple, brown, and others. With all these he can only associate an idea of gray; nor can he possibly know that any one else sees more than he does. Having been taught the names they are called by, he remembers the names, with more or less accuracy, and thus passes muster. There is a real difference of tint, because each of these colours consists of more or less blue, yellow, and white, mixed with the red; and our friend is enabled to recognize and name them, more or less correctly, according to his acuteness of perception and accuracy of memory.

If we desire to experiment on such a person, we must ask no names whatever, but simply place before him a number of similar objects differently coloured. Taking, for example, skeins of coloured wools, let us select a complete series of shades of tint, from red, through yellow, green, and blue, to violet, and request him to arrange them as well as he is able, placing the darkest shades first, and putting those tints together that are most like each other. It is curious then to watch the progress of the arrangement. In a case lately tried by the writer of this article, the colour-blind person first threw aside at once a particular shade of pale green as undoubted white, and then several dark blues, dark reds, dark greens, and browns, were put together as black. The yellows and pure blues were placed correctly, as far as name was concerned, by arranging several shades in order of brightness—but the order was very different from that which another person would have selected. The greens were grouped, some with yellows, and some with blues.

The colours in this experiment were all negative and impure, but we may also obtain something like the same result with positive colour, transmitted by the aid of polarized light through plates of mica. In a case of this kind described by Sir J. Herschel, the only colours seen were blue and yellow, while pale pinks and greens were regarded as cloudy white, fine pink as very pale blue, and crimson as blue; white red, ruddy pink, and brick red were all yellows, and fine pink blue, with much yellow. Dark shades of red, blue, or brown, were considered as merely dark, no colour being recognized.

The account of Dr. Dalton’s own peculiarity of vision by himself, offers considerable interest. He says, speaking of flowers: “With respect to colours that were white, yellow, or green, I readily assented to the appropriate term; blue, purple, pink, and crimson appeared rather less distinguishable, being, according to my idea, all referable to blue. I have often seriously asked a person whether a flower was blue or pink, but was generally considered to be in jest.” He goes on further to say, as the result of his experience: “1st. In the solar spectrum three colours appear, yellow, blue, and purple. The two former make a contrast; the two latter seem to differ more in degree than in kind. 2nd. Pink appears by daylight to be sky-blue a little faded; by candlelight it assumes an orange or yellowish appearance, which forms a strong contrast to blue. 3rd. Crimson appears muddy blue by day, and crimson woollen yarn is much the same as dark blue. 4th. Red and scarlet have a more vivid and flaming appearance by candlelight than by daylight” (owing probably to the quantity of yellow light thrown upon them).

As anecdotes concerning this curious defect of colour vision, we may quote also the following: “All crimsons appeared to me (Dr. Dalton) to be chiefly of dark blue, but many of them have a strong tinge of dark brown. I have seen specimens of _crimson claret_ and _mud_ which were very nearly alike. Crimson has a grave appearance, being the reverse of every showy or splendid colour.” Again: “The colour of a florid complexion appears to me that of a dull, opaque, blackish blue upon a white ground. Dilute black ink upon white paper gives a colour much resembling that of a florid complexion. It has no resemblance to the colour of blood.” We have a detailed account of the case of a young Swiss, who did not perceive any great difference between the colour of the leaf and that of the ripe fruit of the cherry, and who confounded the colour of a sea-green paper with the scarlet of a riband placed close to it. The flower of the rose seemed to him greenish blue, and the ash gray colour of quick-lime light green. On a very careful comparison of polarized light by the same individual, the blue, white, and yellow were seen correctly, but the purple, lilac, and brown were confounded with red and blue. There was in this case a remarkable difference noticed according to the nature and quantity of light employed; and as the lad seemed a remarkably favourable example of the defect, the following curious experiment was tried. A human head was painted, and shown to the colour-blind person, the hair and eyebrows being white, the flesh brownish, the lips and cheeks green. When asked what he thought of this head? the reply was, that it appeared natural, but that the hair was covered with a nearly white cap, and the carnation of the cheeks was that of a person heated by a long walk.

There is an interesting account in the _Philosophical Transactions for 1859_ (p. 325), which well illustrates the ideas entertained by persons in this condition with regard to their own state. The author, Mr. W. Pole, a well-known civil engineer, thus describes his case:—“I was about eight years old when the mistaking of a piece of red cloth for a green leaf betrayed the existence of some peculiarity in my ideas of colour; and as I grew older, continued errors of a similar kind led my friends to suspect that my eyesight was defective; but I myself could not comprehend this, insisting that I saw colours clearly enough, and only mistook their names.

“I was articled to a civil engineer, and had to go through many years’ practice in making drawings of the kind connected with this profession. These are frequently coloured, and I recollect often being obliged to ask in copying a drawing what colours I ought to use; but these difficulties left no permanent impression, and up to a mature age I had no suspicion that my vision was different from that of other people. I frequently made mistakes, and noticed many circumstances in regard to colours, which temporarily perplexed me. I recollect, in particular, having wondered why the beautiful rose light of sunset on the Alps, which threw my friends into raptures, seemed all a delusion to me. I still, however, adhered to my first opinion, that I was only at fault in regard to the names of colours, and not as to the ideas of them; and this opinion was strengthened by observing that the persons who were attempting to point out my mistakes, often disputed among themselves as to what certain hues of colour ought to be called.” Mr. Pole adds that he was nearly thirty years of age when a glaring blunder obliged him to investigate his case closely, and led to the conclusion that he was really colour-blind.

All colour-blind persons do not seem to make exactly the same mistakes, or see colours in the same way; and there are, no doubt, many minor defects in appreciating, remembering, or comparing colours which are sufficiently common, and which may be superadded to the true defect—that of the optic nerve being insensible to the stimulus of pure red light. It has been asserted by Dr. Wilson, the author of an elaborate work on the subject, that as large a proportion as one person in every eighteen is colour-blind in some marked degree, and that one in every fifty-five confounds red with green. Certainly the number is large, for every inquiry brings out several cases; but, as Sir John Herschel remarks, were the average anything like this, it seems inconceivable that the existence of the defect should not be one of vulgar notoriety, or that it should strike almost all uneducated persons, when told of it, as something approaching to absurdity. He also remarks, that if one soldier out of every fifty-five was unable to distinguish a scarlet coat from green grass, the result would involve grave inconveniences that must have attracted notice. Perhaps the fact that a difference of tint is recognized, although the eye of the colour-blind person does not appreciate any difference of colour, when red, green, and other colours are compared together, and that every one is educated to call certain things by certain names, whether he understands the true meaning of the name or not, may help to explain both the slowness of the defective sight to discover its own peculiarity, and the unwillingness of the person of ordinary vision to admit that his neighbour really does not see as red what he agrees to call red.

There is, however, another consideration that this curious subject leads to. It is known that out of every 10,000 rays issuing from the sun, and penetrating space at the calculated rate of 200,000 miles in each second of time, about one-fifth part is altogether lost and absorbed in passing through the atmosphere, and never reaches the outer envelope of the human eye. It is also known that of the rays that proceed from the sun, some produce light, some heat, and some a peculiar kind of chemical action to which the marvels of photography are due. Of these only the light rays are appreciated specially by the eye, although the others are certainly quite as important in preserving life and carrying on the business of the world. Who can tell whether, in addition to the rays of coloured light that together form a beam of white light, four-fifths of which only pass through the atmosphere, there may not have emanated from the sun other rays altogether absorbed and lost? or whether in entering the human eye, or being received on the retina at the back of the eye, or made sensitive by the optic nerve, there may not have been losses and absorptions sufficient to shut out from us, who enjoy what we call perfect vision, some other sources of information. How, in a word, do we who see clearly only three or four colours, and their various combinations, together with their combined white light—how do we know that to beings otherwise organized, the heat, or chemical rays, or others we are not aware of, may not give distinct optical impressions? We may meet one person whose sense of hearing is sufficiently acute to enable him to hear plainly the shrill night-cry of the bat, often totally inaudible, while his friend and daily companion cannot perhaps distinguish the noise of the grasshopper, or the croaking of frogs, and yet neither of these differs sufficiently from the generality of mankind to attract attention, and both may pass through life without finding out their differences in organization, or knowing that the sense of hearing of either is peculiar. So undoubtedly it is with light. There may be some endowed with visual powers extraordinarily acute, seeing clearly what is generally altogether invisible; and this may have reference to light generally, or to any of the various parts of which a complete sunbeam is composed. Such persons may habitually see what few others ever see, and yet be altogether unaware of their powers, as the rest of the world would be of their own deficiency.

The case of the colour-blind person is the converse. He sees, it is true, no green in the fields, or on the trees, no shade of pink mantling in the countenance, no brilliant scarlet in the geranium flower, but still he talks of these things as if he saw them, _and he believes he does see them_, until by a long process of investigation he finds out that the idea he receives from them is very different from that received by his fellows. He often, however, lives on for years, and many have certainly lived out their lives without guessing at their deficiency.

These results of physical defects of certain kinds remaining totally unknown, either to the subject of them or his friends, even when all are educated and intelligent, are certainly very curious; but it will readily be seen that they are inevitable in the present development of our faculties. In almost everything, whether moral or intellectual, we measure our fellows by our own standard. He whose faculties are powerful, and whose intellect is clear, looks over the cloud that hovers over lower natures, and wonders why they, too, will not see truth and right as he sees them. Those, on the other hand, who dwell below among the mists of error and the trammels of prejudice, will not believe that their neighbour, intellectually loftier, sees clearly over the fog and malaria of their daily atmosphere.

In taking leave of the question of colour blindness, it should be mentioned that hitherto no case has been recorded in which this defect extends to any other ray than the red.

There seems no reason for this, and possibly, if they were looked for, cases might be found in which the insensibility of the optic nerve had reference to the blue instead of the red ray—the least instead of the most refrangible part of the beam of light. It would also be well worth the trial if those who have any reason to suppose that they enjoy a superiority of vision would determine by actual experiment the extent of their unusual powers, and learn whether they refer to an optical appreciation of the chemical or heat rays, or show any modification of the solar spectrum by enlargement or otherwise.

Lastly, it would be well, when children show an unusual difficulty in describing colours, to try by some such experiments as those here related whether any defect of colour blindness exists or not. It would clearly be undesirable that such children as have this defect should waste time in learning accomplishments or professions which they must always be unable to practise. They, their parents and teachers, may thus be saved some of that disappointment which is always experienced when presumed tastes and talents are cultivated or forced contrary to the natural powers of the individual. It must clearly be hopeless to endeavour to obtain good taste in colours, when most of the colours themselves are not seen at all, or are so recognized as to present appearances altogether different from those seen by the rest of the world.

Spring.

Here, where the tall plantation firs
Slope to the river, down the hill,
Strange impulses—like vernal stirs—
Have made me wander at their will.

I see, with half-attentive eyes,
The buds and flowers that mark the Spring,
And Nature’s myriad prophecies
Of what the Summer suns will bring.

For every sense I find delight—
The new-wed cushat’s murmurous tones,
Young blossoms bursting into light,
And the rich odour of the cones.

The larch, with tassels purple-pink,
Whispers like distant falling brooks;
And sun-forgotten dewdrops wink
Amid the grass, in shady nooks.

The breeze, that hangs round every bush,
Steals sweetness from the tender shoots,
With, here and there, a perfumed gush
From violets among the roots.

See—where behind the ivied rock
Grow drifts of white anemonies,
As if the Spring—in Winter’s mock—
Were mimicking his snows with these.

The single bloom yon furzes bear
Gleams like the fiery planet Mars:—
The creamy primroses appear
In galaxies of vernal stars;—

And, grouped in Pleiad clusters round,
Lent-lilies blow—some six or seven;—
With blossom-constellations crown’d,
This quiet nook resembles Heaven.

THOMAS HOOD.

Inside Canton.

The mere notion that I was in possession of a room _inside Canton_—with freedom to wander through every quarter of that hitherto mysterious city, of which former travellers had only conveyed a notion from glances taken from the White Cloud Mountain, revealing nothing but an expanse of tiles and trees, with a pagoda-top or two, and a few mandarin flag-poles—was sufficient to banish anything like sleep. And apart from this constant wondering at perpetually finding myself where I was—the sharp “_tung_” of the mosquitoes before settling down for their gory banquet, the calls of the French and English bugles answering each other from the five-storied pagoda to the joss-house barracks, the terribly breathless atmosphere, and the grim, gigantic Chinese gods, who sat in the moonlight like pantomime ogres round my chamber, were quite enough to have kept one awake, and would have done so even if a genius had descended to read a paper on Art, which they might have discussed with him afterwards.

At last the quickly-rising tropical sun fired a ray like a shell into my eyes through a broken pane in the mother-of-pearl window of my joss-haunted room. This drove me out of bed, or, rather, off my matting, as quickly as though a real shrapnell had hissed its intention of immediately exploding beneath me. For this fearful sun of a Canton summer falls in red-hot death upon the European whose brain it can reach. Our soldiers were struck down before it in the White Cloud expedition as though a crane had dropped a woolsack on their heads.

We have all of us, at some time or another, said, “I never felt so hot in my life!” This has been less with relation to actual caloric than to a sudden flush of awkwardness attendant upon having asked people after their dead relations, or uncomfortable family affairs; or in expectation of some accidental and unintentional revelation of a circumstance in our own lives, of which we were not remarkably proud. Or, more especially, on being introduced by a gushing man to an enemy you had long since cut, with the assurance that you ought both to know each other. But I find this morning that I feel hotter still. The wind blows against me as from the door of a glasshouse; and the sun comes straight down like a red-hot nail, even through my double umbrella (which I am careful to put up before I venture out on the terrace), and my light but thick pith hat. At such times your claret is self-mulled, and butter becomes thick oil. You cannot find a cool place on your hard-stuffed pillow. The sun apparently _twists_ its rays—sends them round corners, and through venetians, and under porticos; the light being so vivid that its mere reflection banishes shade. The swinging punkah—which A-wa, whose picture you have seen on cheap grocers’ tea-papers, pulls night and day, awake and asleep, as though he were a slightly vitalized lever-escapement—this flounced and flirting terror of all bilious people gets up a delusive breeze, and when it stops the heat comes rushing back with double force. Everything you wear clings to you; or, if flannel, fetches out the “prickly heat” until you are beside yourself. In every draught, one side is chilled whilst the other is burned, as happens at the fireplace of an old country house, where one side is roasted, whilst on the other you are nearly blown up the chimney. And when you are actually out and about, you appear to live and move in the focus of one large burning-glass. It is a dead thick heat, that you fancy might be cut into blocks, and stored in Arctic ships for gradual distribution.

The kindness of General Straubenzee had consigned me to a Buddhist temple for my residence. It was the last costly work of Yeh, on Magazine Hill, and was barely finished when we took the city. An elaborate bell, yet unhung, stood sentinel at my door. I afterwards watched its departure to be taken to England, by Captain Maguire, in the _Sanspareil_, and it may now be seen in the Crystal Palace. Magazine Hill is to Canton what Montmartre is to Paris, and is covered with joss-houses, now all used as barracks for our men. It is to the extreme north of the city, which it commands, as well as the country outside, and is the only high ground within the walls, which here come close to it. Gazing from this on the open country, one is reminded of the view from the walls of our own Chester, near the jail, looking over the Roodee towards the Welsh mountains. To continue the comparison with places which may be familiar to my readers, the look-out towards the south, comprising the entire city, is marvellously like the eye-stretch over Lyons from the Fourvières, when the air is too hazy to see the Alps. There is, however, one localized object—a tall pagoda, rising high above the expanse of red roofs. One involuntary thought of Kew Gardens brings one back, for the moment, to home; and as this pagoda is not considered safe to ascend—on the authority of Major Luard, who gallantly tried it—and as it promises at some future time, if not taken down, to form a gigantic accident (as all columns and pagodas must do one of these days) the likeness is more perfect.

I found a sturdy little unshod pony waiting for me at the foot of the hill, with a tidy little pigtailed boy to guide him. The pony was for sale for seven dollars—it sounded cheap, but the expense of keep was the great question. My little friend made a speech:—“Chin-chin! my talkee A No. 1 Inglis, all a plopper (proper).” But I found his vocabulary of even the scanty “Canton English” very limited. I made out, however, that he was going to London to learn “all sort pigeon;” and he was very much delighted at pointing out to me some signboards over a few little shops, edging a pond, and reading:—“Best Wash from Hong Kong,” “A No. 1, Washsoap,” &c. And when we passed two culprits, tied together by their pigtails, and lying full-length upon the ground, guarded by an Irishman in front of a _baraque_, inscribed “Paddy-goose” (a favourite _sobriquet_ at the dram-shops), he roared with laughter, and said:—“Soger hab catchee two piecey pilat, too muchee drunkee—wanchee chokee-pigeon: no loast duck.” This interpreted expressing, with the Chinese substitution of the _l_ for the _r_, that two pirates had been captured by the police in an extreme state of intoxication, and that they would go to prison, where roast duck would be a novelty.

After passing over a desert of brick rubbish—the remains of houses destroyed because they formed ambuscades from which the lurking braves captured or shot at stragglers on the walls, I was fairly inside Canton. Here the streets are all so exactly alike, that in endeavouring to give a notion of one, I may describe all. The majority appeared to vary from seven to ten feet in breadth—the crowded Cranbourn Passage, which runs from St. Martin’s Lane to Castle Street could be soon transformed into one, by a handful of theatrical mechanics. The houses are two or three stories high, and their signboards, in gaudy paint or gilding, either hang in front of them, or are set up in stone sockets, and all at right angles to the houses, so that, as the China character is written perpendicularly, they can be read going up or down the street. The manner in which they intrude on the thoroughfare braves all notices of Commissioners and Boards. The streets are all paved with granite in large flags, and this has acquired a peculiarly polished appearance from the absence of all wheel and quadrupedal traffic, and the constant shuffling along of the soft soles or naked feet of the natives. For the Cantonese do not appear to understand the use of wheels, or beasts of burden; everything is carried on bamboo poles by the intensely hard-working coolie population. Where they can do it, the streets are shaded with matting.

And now it was that all my childish associations connected with China were on the point of realization. For in the “pigeon” of Lord Elgin and Sir Michael Seymour—who must shake hands, and understand how much and how honestly both are respected by all of us—in the _China Mail_ information that Patna opium is at 770 dollars, Malwa dull, and for Turkey no demand; and that Bank bills are 4_s._ 9_d._; Sycee silver, 5½ per cent. premium, and Shanghai green-tea quotations are unchanged—in a whirl of treaties, and Peiho forts, and conferences totally misunderstood on either side, from the dismal ignorance of the practical Chinese language amongst our professed Chinese students (who could translate the great metaphysical work of Fo, but would be sadly bothered to decide a simple police “row”);—in all this, there is nothing in common with _our_ old China. But here these associations crowded on us. Men ran along with slung tea-packages, as they did on the gaily-varnished canisters of the “Canton T Company,” in the High Street of my boyhood. Women with their bismuthed faces peered from windows, as they did on the fans and plates from which I formed my earliest notions of what was then called “the Celestial Empire.” And then came another memory, clinging to that delightful time when a belief in the reality of everything was our principal mental characteristic, extending even to “Bogey” in the cellar, and the dustman who threw sand in the eyes of sleepy little boys on the staircase, and the black dog in the passage; nay, even to that celebrated silver spade with which the doctor dug up our little baby brother or sister from out of the parsley-bed—when story-books had that astonishing hold on me that, out of our town, I perfectly established the field along which Christian ran with his fingers in his ears when his neighbours tried to call him back. (And if ever there was a case for the parochial authorities of a man deserting his wife and children, Christian’s was one.) In this happy time I had associations with China, and they now come back from one of the most charming of the attractive stories in the _Arabian Nights Entertainments_. I was now looking—practically, with my own eyes—on a Chinese town, and a group of idle boys playing. A grave stranger of a foreign and travelled aspect was watching them. I should not have been at all surprised if he had recognized, in one of the urchins, the son of his dead brother—had clothed him at a ready-made tailor’s, and then introduced him, by lifting up a stone with a ring in it, to those wonderful nursery grounds of Hunt and Roskill, and Phillips, and Garrard, where the dew was all diamonds, and the wall-fruit all stones. And was it not likely that, in this very street, the stranger might have subsequently passed when anxious to exchange his new moderator lamps for any old argands, or solars, or camphines that might be dust-collecting about the house? Here again was an open space of ground, on which that palace might have stood, which went away one night in such a hurry. And strange to say, there _was_ a palace here, and it did disappear one early January morning. It belonged to that old miscreant Yeh, and its sudden absence was owing rather to the sponging of practical guns than the rubbing of wonderful lamps. And although I heard nothing, both here and at Hong Kong, but of Hall of the _Calcutta_, and Mr. Oliphant; Telesio’s pale ale “_chop_” (or boat store); John Dent’s French cook’s chow-chow; the arrival of the Fei-man steamer; Colonel Stevenson’s bamboo balcony on the hill: the 59th; Sir John Bowring and Mr. Chisholm Anstey: and innumerable “shaves:” yet _my_ thoughts ran upon Confucius and pagodas, nodding mandarins, chop-sticks, and the feast of lanterns, and above all, on Aladdin.

I was to join Mr. Parkes at the yamun of the Allied Commissioners, and go with him to pay a visit to Peh-kwei, the Governor of Canton. This yamun had been the palace of the Tartar general, but was now filled with English and French officials, soldiers, marines, compradors, coolies, and Chinese rabble, attending the police cases. We here formed a small procession, and our revolvers came into show; for Mr. Parkes was the most unpopular man in the city with the Cantonese. They called him “the red-bristled barbarian,” and had let fly various jingals at him, at different times, in the streets. But he had the courage of the——anybody you please; and the more they annoyed him, the more he would ride them down, and bang them back into their ambuscades. We were all on ponies or in chairs, with the exception of our guards; and we rode so fast along the narrow streets, and through the bustling crowds of passengers, and almost over the wares displayed out of doors, that a fire-engine going through the Lowther Arcade in a hurry could not have created greater confusion. On entering the first court of Peh-kwei’s yamun, we were saluted with guns, and standards were hoisted on the mandarin poles. These courts are large paved areas, with a very broad flag-path up the middle, and fine trees at the sides; they are divided from each other by vast wooden buildings, like barns, with Chinese roofs, and stone lions guarding them. The patient ingenuity of the makers is shown in these animals; they have a large ball in their mouths, which you can turn round behind the teeth, but cannot take out; it has evidently been cut from the solid. We rode through the centre of these barns, up the stairs, to a higher court beyond, but our attendants filed off round the sides; and then we dismounted, and were introduced to Peh-kwei. I had often seen him wagging his head, and tongue, and hands, in old china-shops; but now he stood upright, in a long, white silk _peignoir_: and then he and Mr. Parkes began bowing to one another in such continuity, that they looked wound up, and minutes elapsed before either of them would take a seat. Then tea was brought in, and for a little time the talk was exactly like the twaddle that passes at a morning call in England between people who don’t care a straw about each other, never have, and are never likely to. But Mr. Parkes began to pull some Chinese documents from his pocket; and as I had been introduced as “a mandarin on his travels,” Peh-kwei made a very lucky suggestion that I should see his grounds.

This was just what I wanted—liberty to invade what would have been deemed a privacy even by the Cantonese; but the acres of unkept, overgrown wilderness, with its rotting pavilions, tumble-down temples, dried-up lakes, crumbling rockwork, and broken seats and tables, formed the spring of all the impressions I afterwards received in and about Canton. Nothing so dreary—not even Vauxhall on a wet Christmas Day—ever could be imagined. It was not the breakdown of acute organic lesion, but the decay of long, long-continued atrophy: and I formed a theory at the moment, which the appearance of every other yamun, or temple, strengthened, that the Chinese had for ages so jealously shut up their vaunted city, not from any terror of the barbarians becoming acquainted with their secrets of trade, government, or manufacture, but from a positive idea of shame that any one should see the mouldering neglected “lions” of their southern capital. True to the estimated value of their _curios_, everything was in a state of “crackle.” Combine all you can call to mind of dreary places—Miss Linwood’s old room in Leicester Square, and the present aspect of the Square itself; the gaunt, cheerless show-rooms of palaces generally: the “Moated Grange” and “Haunted House;” the old pavilion on Monkey Island, and indeed “pavilions” generally, from that in Hans Place to any damp ceiling-stained summer-house, dedicated to friendship or nature, that you know of—mix them together, and extract their essence, and then you will not have the least idea of the general rot and ruin that is spreading, like an ulcer, throughout Canton.

William Hogarth:

PAINTER, ENGRAVER, AND PHILOSOPHER.

_Essays on the Man, the Work, and the Time._

III.—A LONG LADDER, AND HARD TO CLIMB.

When a cathedral chapter have received their _congé d’élire_—so runs the popular and perfectly erroneous tradition—and have made choice of a Bishop, the pastor elect simpers, blushes, and says that really he is much obliged, but that he would rather not accept the proffered dignity. “_Nolo episcopari_,” he urges in graceful deprecation. Nobody in or out of the chapter believes in his reluctance, and nobody now-a-days believes in the harmless legend. Thus, too, when the Commons elect a Speaker, a tradition with little more foundation assumes that the right honourable gentleman approaches the foot of the Throne, hints in the most delicate manner that he, the chosen of the Commons, is a blockhead and an impostor, declares that he shall make but an indifferent Speaker, and seeks to be relieved from his onerous charge. At that same moment, perhaps, Messrs. Adams and Ede are embroidering Mr. Speaker’s gold robe; and experienced tonsors near Lincoln’s Inn are finishing the last row of curls on the ambrosial horse-hair which to-morrow will be a wig. When you ask a young lady to take a little more _Mayonnaise de homard_, or entreat her to oblige the company with “_Entends tu les gondoles?_”—that charming Venetian barcarole—does she not ordinarily, and up to a certain degree of pressure, refuse—say that she would rather not, or that she has a cold? Whose health is proposed and drunk amid repeated cheers, but he rises, and assures the assembled guests that he is about the last person in the world who should have been toasted; that he never felt so embarrassed in his life—he leads at the common law bar, and on breaches of promise is immense—and that he wants words to, &c. &c.? At the bar mess he is known as “Talking Smith,” and at school his comrades used to call him “Captain Jaw.” My friends, we do not place any faith in these denials; and forthwith clap the mitre on the Prelate’s head, bow to the Speaker, help the young lady to arrange the music stool, and intone nine times nine with one cheer more.

It is strange—it is vexatious; but I cannot persuade the ladies and gentlemen who peruse these papers to believe that I am not writing the Life of William Hogarth, and that these are merely discursive Essays on the Man, the Work, and the Time. People persist in thinking that it is with him who is now writing a case of _nolo episcopari_. Indeed it is no such thing. I should dearly wish to write myself Biographer. “Fain would I climb, but that I fear to fall.” I told you in the outset that this Endeavour was no Life. I disclaimed any possession of exclusive information. I claimed a liberal benefit-of-clergy as to names and dates. I have had no access to muniment rooms. I have explored the contents of no charter chests. I have disentombed no dusty records, and rescued no parish registers from the degrading fate of serving to singe a goose. I am timorous, and seek not to be heard as one speaking with authority. I am anonymous, and risk no fame. But the north country won’t believe me, and the south and the midland shake their heads incredulously when I say this is not Hogarth’s Life, but only so much gossip about him and his pictures and times. I say so again; and if the public won’t be enlightened—_si vult decipi_—all I can add is, _Decipiatur_.

Now as to the exact date of the expiration of Hogarth’s apprenticeship—when was it? I have but an impression. I cannot speak from any certain knowledge, and assume, therefore, that the expiry was _circa_ 1720. Ireland opines that it was in 1718, William having then attained his twenty-first year. The registers of the Goldsmiths’ Company might be more explicit, or, better still, Mr. Scott, the chamberlain of London, might enlighten us all, to a month, and to a day. For of old the chamberlain was the official Nemesis to the ofttimes unruly ’prentices of London. The idle, or rebellious, or truant novice, was arraigned before this dread functionary. He had power to relegate the offender to the _carcere duro_ of Bridewell, there to suffer the penance of stripes and a bread-and-water diet. For aught I know, the ministrations of the chamberlain may to this day be occasionally invoked; but it is in his capacity of a recording official, and as having formerly drawn some fees from the attestation and registration of indentures, that his assistance would be useful to me. William Hogarth’s art-and-mystery-parchment may be in the city archives. What other strange and curiously quaint things those archives contain we had an inkling the other day, when the _Liber Albus_ was published. But I have not the pleasure of Mr. Scott’s acquaintance, and he might say me nay.

Hogarth, I presume, was released from silver servitude in 1718-20. April 29th, 1720, is, as I have elsewhere noted, the date affixed to the shop-card he executed for himself, setting up in business, I hope in friendly rivalry to Ellis Gamble in Little Cranbourn Alley, hard by the “Golden Angel.” I stood and mused in Little Cranbourn Alley lately, and tried to conjure up Hogarthian recollections from that well-nigh blind passage. But no ghosts rose from a coffee-shop and a French barber’s, and a murky little den full of tobacco-pipes and penny valentines; so, taking nothing by my motion, I sped my slowest to the Sablonière in Leicester Square. Here even my senses became troubled with the odours of French soups, and I could make nothing Hogarthian out of the hostelry, a wing of which was once Hogarth’s house.