ay

" THE STORY OF OUR LIVES FROM YEAR TO YEAR,»-SHAKESPEARB. ALL THE YEAR ROUND. A WEEKLY JOURNAL. CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED HOUSEHOLD WORDS,

N°- 9.] SATURDAY, JUNE 25, 1859, [PKICE 2d.

Monseigneur had one truly noble idea of ge­ A TALE OF TWO CITIES. neral public busmess, which was, to let every­ Sn Wiyctt ^ools. thing go on in its own way; of particular public BY CHARLES DICKENS. business, Menseigneur had the other truly noble idea that it must aU go his way—tend to his own power and pocket. Of his pleasures, gene­ BOOK THE SECOND. THE GOLDEN THREAD, ral and particular, Monseigneur had the ether CHAPTEB VII. MONSIETRB THE MABQUIS IN TOWN. truly noble idea, that the world was made for MoNSEiGNETJB, ouc of the great lords in power them. The text of his order (altered from the at the Court, held his fortnightly reception in original by only a pronoun, which is net much) his grand hotel in Paris. Menseigneur was in ran: "The earth and the fulness therof are his inner room, his sanctuary of sauctuaries, the mine, saith Monseigneur." Holiest of HeUests to the crowd of worshippers in Yet, Monseigneur had slowly found that vulgar the suite of rooms without. Monseigneur was embarrassments crept into his affairs, both about te take his chocolate. Monseigneur could private and pubUc; and he had, as to both classes swaUew a great many things with ease, and was of affairs, aUied himself per force with a Parmer- by sorae few suUen minds supposed te be rather General. As to finances pubUc, because Mon­ rapidly swaUowing Prance; but, his morning's seigneur could net make anything at all of them, chocolate could not so mnch as get into the and must consequently let them out to seme- throat of Monseigneur, without the aid of four body whe could; as to finances private, because strong men besides the Cook. Parmer-Generals were rich, and Monseigneur, Yes, It took four men, aU four a-blaze with after generations of great luxury and expense, gorgeous decoration, and the Chief of them was growing poor. Hence, Monseigneur had unable te exist with fewer than two gold watches taken his sister from a convent, while there was in his pocket, emulative of the noble and chaste yet time to ward off the impending veU, the fashion set by Monseigneur, to conduct the cheapest garment she could wear, and had happy chocolate to Monseigneur's lij)s. One bestowed her as a prize upon a very rich lacquey carried the chocolate - pot inte the Farmer-General, poor in famUy. Which Parmer- sacred presence; a second, miUed and frothed General, carrying an appropriate cane with a the chocolate with the Uttle instrument he bore golden apple on the top ef^it, was now among the for that function; a third, presented the favoured company in the outer rooms, much prostrated napkin; a fourth (he of the two gold watches) before by mankind—alwavs excepting superior poured the chocolate out. It was impossible mankind of the blood of Menseigneur, whe, his for Monseigneur to dispense with one of these own wife included, looked down upon him with attendants en the chocolate and hold his high the loftiest contempt. place under the admiring Heavens. Deep would A sumptuous man was the Farmer-General. have been the blot upon his escutcheon if his Thirty horses stood in his stables, twenty-four chocolate had been ignobly waited on by only male domestics sat in his haUs, six body-women three men; he must have (fied of two. waited on his wife. As one who pretended to Monseigneur had been out at a Uttle supper de nothing but plunder and forage where he last night, where the Comedy and the Grand could, the Farmer-General—^howsoever his ma­ Opera were charmingly represented, Mon­ trimonial relations conduced to social morality seigneur was out at a little supper most nights, —was at least the greatest reality among the with fascinating company, ^ polite and so personages whe attended at the hotel of Mon­ impressible was Monseigneur, that the Comedy seigneur that day. and the Grand Opera had far mere influence with Per, the rooms, though a beautiful scene to him in the tiresome articles of state affairs look a*, and adorned with every device of deco­ and state secrets, than the needs of aU Prance. ration that the taste and skiU of the time could A happy circumstance for Prance, as the like achieve, were, in truth, not a sound business; always is for aU countries similarly favoured! considered with any reference te the scarecrows ^-always was for England (by way of example), in the rags and nightcaps elsewhere (and not so in the regretted days of the merry Stuart who far off, either, but that the watching towers of sold it. Netre-Dame, almost equidistant from the two

VOL. I. >9

CCcndMMI 194, [Jon. ii, 18W,3 ALL THE YEAR ROUND. extremes, could see them both), they would have up a highly inteUigible finger-pest to the Future, been an exceedmgly uncomfortable business—if for Monseigneur's guidance. Beside these Der­ that could have bean anvbpdj's bmingss, at the vishes, were o^her tkree who.- had rushed into house of Monseignenn iJUilaty ofl5c«ra destitute another sect, whioh mended maiters with a jargon of military knowledge^, naval ofBcers with ne about " the Centre of truth:" holding that Mau idea of a ship; civU officers without a notion of had got out of the Centre of truth—which did affairs; brazen ecclesiastics, of the worst world not need much demonstration—but had not got worldly, with sensual eyes, loose tongues, and. out of the CUrcumference, and that he was looser Uves; all totaUy unfit for their several te be kept from flying out of the Circumference, caUings, all lying horribly in pretending to belong and was even to be shoved back into the Centre, to them, but aU nearly or remotely of the order by fastmg and seeing of spuits, Amoi^ these, of Menseigneur, and therefore foisted en aU accordingly, much dScoursmg with spirits went pubUc employments from which anything was te on—and it did a world of good which never be got; tDMe were to be told off by the score became manifest. and the score. People not immediately cen,- But, the.comfort was,,1i^ftt aU^e company nected with Monseigneur or the State, yet at the grand hotel of Monseigneur were equaUvunconneoted with anything that was real, perfectly dressed. If- the Day of Judgment or with Uves ,pa»ed in traveUing-by any straight nad only been asoertained to be a dress day, road to any true earthly, end, were ne lees everybody there would have been eternally abundant. Doctors.who made great fortunes correct. Such frizzling and powdering and out of dainty remedies for Unaginary disorders sticking up of hair, such deUcate com- that never existed, smUed upon their courtly plerions artifioiaUy preserved and mended, patients in the ante-chwjibers of Monseigneur. such gallant swords to look, at, andisuchdeli- Projectors who had discoveared every kmd of icaite honour to the sense of smeUj would i surely remedy for the little evUs with which the State keep anything going, for eivec and ever. The was touched, except the remedy of setting to exquisite gentlemen of the finest breeding wore work in earnest to root out a angle sin, poured little pendent trinkets that chinked as they their distacacting babble into any ears they could languidly, moved; tbrae golden fetters rang like 1^ hold of, at the reception of Monseigneur. precious Uttle bells; and whajt with that ringing, UnbeUeving PhUosophers who were remodelUng and with the rustle of' sUk and brocade and fine the world with words, and making card-towers linen, there was a flutter, in the air that fanned of Rabel to scale the skies witi^ talkiedwith Saint: Antoine and his devonrin^ hunger far Unbelieving Chemists who had an eye on the awayi transmutation of i»etals, at this wonderful Dress was the one, un&dling talisman and gathering accumulated by Monseignenri Ex­ charm used for keeping all things in their plaoes. quisite gentlemen of the nnest breeding, which Everybody was dressed for a PiSwy BaU that was was at thflit. remarkable time—and has been never to leave off. From the Palace of iks since—to be known by its fruits of indiffer­ TuUeries, through Monseigneur and the whole ence to every natural subject of human interest, Court, through the Chambers, the Tribmials were in the most exempwy state of exhaustion, of Justice, and, aU society (except' the scare­ at the hotel of Monseigneur, Such homes had crows), the Paoey BaU descended to the Common these various notabilities left behind them in the Executioner -. who, in pnrsuance of the charm, fine world of Paris^ that the Spies among the was required to officiate " frizzled, powdered, in assembled devotees of Moiaeigneur—forming a gold-laced coat, pumpsy and white sUk stock- a. goodly half of the poUte comjKny—would ings/"^ Ati thegallows' and the wheel—^the axe have found it hard to discover ainong the aagels a rarity^—Monsieur Paris, as it was the of that spherCi, one solitary wife, who, in her waejHSCopas l mode amoi^ his brother Professors of manners and appearance, owned to beings a tne provineeB, Monsk^ Orleans; and the rest, to Mother. Indeedf except for the mere aet of: «aU liim, presided in this dainty dress J And who bringing a troublesome creature into this world among the oonipany at Monseigneur^s reception —which does not go far towards the realisation in that seventeen hundred and eightieth year of of the name of mother—there was no such thing our Lord, could possibly doubt, that a system known to the fashion. Peasant women kept rooted in a frizaled hangman, powdered, gold- the unfashionable babies close, aad brought laced, pumped, and white-Mttistocfcii^d, would them up; and chaxmng grandnummas of sixty seethe very stars out! dressedTand supped as at twenty. Menseigneur having, eased his four men of The leprosy of unreality disfigured evra-y human their burdens and taken his chocolate, caused

utly about it. They were as sUent, however, as BaU—when the one woman who had stood con­ the men, spicuous, knitting, stUl knitted on with the " I know aU, I know all," said the last comer. steadfastness of Fate. The water of the foun­ " Be a brave man, my Gaspard! It is better tain ran, the swift river ran, the day ran into for the poor Uttle plaything to die so, than to evening, so much life in the city ran into death live. It has died in a moment without pain. according to rule, time and tide waited for no Could it have Uved an hour as happily P" man, the rats were sleeping close together in " You are a philosopher, you there," said the their dark holes agam, the Pancy BaU was Marquis, smiling. " How do they caU you ?" lighted up at supper, all things ran their " They caU me Defarge." course. "Of what trade?" " Monsieur the Marquis, vendor of wine." CHAPTEB Tin. MONSIEUB THE MARQUIS IN THE " Pick up that, phUosopher and vendor of COtJNTBY. wine," said the Marquis, thre^ving him another A BEAUTIFUL landscape, with the com bright iu gold coin, "and spend it as you wiU. The it but not abundant. Patches of poor rye where horses there ; are they right P" corn should have been, patches ot poor peas and Without deifflimg to look at the assemblage beans, patches of most coarse vegetable substi­ a second time, Monsieur the Marquis leaned back tutes for wheat. On inanimate nature, as on in his seat, and was just being driven away with the men and women who cultivated it, a preva­ :M: the air of a gentleman who had accidentally lent tendency towards an appearance of vege­ broken some common thing, and had paid for it, tating unwiUingly—a dejected disposition to and could afford to pay for it; when his ease give up, and witner away. was suddenly disturbed by a coin flying into Monsieur the Marquis in his travelling carriage his carriage and ringing en its floor, (which might have been Ughter), conducted l!y " Hold !" said Monsieur the Marquis, " Held four post-horses and two postilions, fagged up a the horses! Who threw that ?" steep hill. A blush en the countenance of Mon­ He looked to the spot where Defarge the sieur the Marquis was ne impeachment of his vendor of wine had stood, a moment before; but high breeding; it was not from within; it was the wretched father was grovelUng on his face occasioned by an external circumstance beyond on the pavement in that spot, and the figure that his control—the setting sun. stood beside him was the figure of a dark stout The sunset struck so brUUantly inte the tra­ woman, knitting. velling carriage when it gained the hUl-top, that " You dogs! said the Marquis, but smoothly, its occupant was steeped in crimson. " It will and with an unchanged front, except as to die out," said Monsieur the Marquis, glancing at the spots on his nose : " I would ride over his hands, " directly," any ot you very wiUingly, and exterminate you la effect, the sun was so low that it dipped at from the earth. If I knew which rascal threw at the moment. When the heavy drag had bei the caiTiage, and if that brigand were suf- adjusted to the wheel, and the carriage slid down ciently near it, he should be crushed under the hiU, with a cinderous smell, in a cloud of dust, the wheeb " red glow departed quickly; the sun and the So cowed was their condition, and so long and Marquis going down together, there was no glow so hard their experience of what such a mau left when the drag was taken off. could de to them, within the law and beyond it, But, there remained a broken country, bold and that not a voice, or a hand, or even an eye, was open, a little village at the bottom of the hiU, a raised. Among the men, not one. But, the bread sweep and rise beyond it, a church-tower, woman who stood knitting looked up steadUy, a windmUl, a forest for the chase, and a craff and looked the Marquis in the face. It was not with a fortress on it used as a prison, Roum for his dignity to notice it; his contemptuous upon aU these darkening objects as the niglit eyes passed ever her, and ever all the ether drew en, the Marquis looKcd, with the air of one rats; and he leaned back in his seat again, and whe was coming near home. gave the word " Go on!" The viUage had its one peer street, with its He was driven en, and other carriages came peer brewery, poor tannery, poor tavem, poor whirling by in quick succession; the Mimster, the stable-yard for relays of post-horses, poor foui- State-Projector, the Farmer-General, the Doctor, tain, all usual peer appointments. It had its the Lawyer, the Ecclesiastic, the Grand Opera, peer people too. AU its people were poor, and the Comedy, the whole Fancy BaU in a bright many of them were sitting at their doors, continuous flew, came whirling by. The rats shredding spare onions and the like for supper, had crept out of their holes te leek en, and they whUe many were at the fountain, washing leaves, remained looking en for hours; soldiers and and grasses, and any such smaU yieldings of the poUce often passing between them and the earth that could be eaten. Expressive signs of spectacle, and making a barrier beliind which what made them poor, were net wanting; the tney slunk, and through which they peeped. tax for the state, the tax for the church, the tai The father had long ago taken up his bundle and for the lord, tax local and tax general, were to hidden himself away with it, wnen the women be paid here and to be paid there, according to who had tended the bundle whUe it lay on the solemn inscription in the Uttle village, untU the base of the fountain, sat there watching the wonder was, that there was any viUage left un- rumiing of the water and the rolUng of the Fancy swaUewed. Chailu Ulckeaa.] A TALE OF TWO CITIES, [June 25,1859.] 197 Pew chUdren were to be seen, and no dogs. The picture produced an immense sensation As to the men and women, their choice on earth in the little crowd; but aU eyes, without com­ was stated in the prospect—^Life on the lowest paring notes with other eyes, looked at Mon­ terms that could sustain it, down in the Uttle sieur the Marquis. Perhaps, to observe whether vUlage under the mUl; or captivity and Death he had any spectre on his conscience. in the dominant prison on the crag. " Truly, you did well," said the Marquis, Heralded by a courier in advance, and by the feUcitously sensible that such vermin were not to cracking of his pestUions' whips, which twined ruffle him, "to see a thief accompanying my sMke-like about their heads in the evening air, carriage, and not open that great mouth of as if he came attended by the Furies, Monsieur yours. Bah! Put him aside. Monsieur GabeUe!" the Marquis drew up m his travelling car­ Monsieur GabeUe was the Postmaster, and riage at the posting-house gate. It was hard some other taxing functionary, united; he had by the fountain, and the peasants suspended come out with great obsequiousness te assist their operations te look at him. He looked at at this examination, and had held the examined them, and saw in them, without knowing it, the by the drapery of his arm in an official manner. slow sure filing down of misery-worn face and " Bah ! Go aside!" said Monsieur GabeUe, figure, that was te make the meagreness of " Lay hands on this stranger if he seeks to Frenchmen an English superstition which should lodge in your vUlage to-night, and be sure that survive the truth through the best part of a his busmess is honest, GabeUe." hundred years. " Monseigneur, I am flattered to devote my­ Monsieur the Marquis cast his eyes over the self to your orders," submissive faces that drooped before him, as the " Did he run away, fellow ?—where is that Uke of himself had drooped before Monseigneur Accursed ?" of the Court—only the difference was, that these The accursed was already under the carriage faces drooped merely to suffer and not te pro- with some half-dozen particular friends, pointing ^^tiate—^wnen a grizzled mender of the reads out the chain with his blue cap. Some half-dozen joined the group. ether particular friends promptly haled him out, " Bring me hither that fellow!" said the Mar­ and presented him breathless te Monsieur the quis to the courier. Marquis, The fellow was brought, cap in hand, and the " Did the man mn away. Dolt, when we other feUows closed round to look and Usten, stopped for the drag ?" in the manner of the people at the Paris foun­ "Monseigneur, he precipitated himself ever tain, the hiU-side, head first, as a person plunges into " I passed you on the road ?" the river," " Monseigneur, it is true, I had the honour " See te it, GabeUe, Go on!" of being passed on the road," The half-dozen whe were peering at the chain " Coming up the hiU, and at the top of the were stUl among the wheels, Uke sheep; the luU,both?" wheels tumed so suddenly that they were lucky • " Monseigneur, it is true," to save their skins and bones; they had very "; " What did you look at, so fixedly ?" Uttle else te save, or they might not have been :- " Monseigneur, I looked at the man," so fortunate. -He stooped a Uttle, and with his tattered blue The burst with which the carriage started out cap pointed under the carriage. All his fellows of the viUage and up the rise beyond, was seen stooped to loek under the caniage, checked by the steepness of the hiU. GraduaUy, it "What man, pig ? And why look there ?" subsided to a feet pace, swinging and lumbering "Pardon, Monseigneur; he swung by the upward among the many sweet scents of a chain of the shoe—the drag." summer night. The postUions, with a thousand " Who ?" demanded the traveUer, gossamer gnats circUng about them in Ueu of the " Menseigneur, the man." Furies, quietly mended the points te the lashes " May the Devil carry away these idiots! of their whips; the valet walked by the horses; How do you caU the man ? You knew all the the courier was audible, trotting on ahead into men of this part of the country. Who was he ?" the dim distance. " Your clemency, Menseigneur ! He was net At the steepest point of the hUl there was a of this part of the country. Of aU the days of little burial-ground, with a Cross and a new large my Ufe, I never saw him." figure of Our Saviour on it; it was a poor figure " Swinging by the cham ? To be suffocated ?" in wood, done by some inexperienced rustic " With your gracious permission, that was carver, but he had studied the %ure from the the wonder of it, Menseigneur. His head hang­ Ufe—his own life, maybe—for it was dreadfuUy ing over—Uke this!" spare and thin, He tumed himself sideways te the carriage, Te this distressfid emblem of a great distress and leaned back, with his face thrown up te the that had long been growing worse, and was net sky, and his head hanging down; then recovered at its worst, a woman was kneeUng, She himself, fumbled with his cap, and made a bow. tumed her head as the carriage came up to her, " What was he Uke ?" rose quickly, and presented herseU at the carriage- " Monseigneur, he was whiter than the miUer. deer, AU covered with dust, white as a spectre, taU "It is you, Monseigneur! Monseigneur, a as a spectre I" petition!"

y 108 [J«M»,iiia] M/L THE YEAR ROUND. tCondDotod br With an exclamation of impatienee, but with "Monsieur Charles, ^hom I expect'; is he "4X his onchangeable face, ihs Marquis looked arrived from England P" oat, t "MonfleigHcur, not yet." "How, then! What is itf Always peti-' ,^, Y tions!" ' TOO MUCH FREEDOM ON THE SEAS. "Monseigneur. For the love of the great THE time should be gone by •when wc look .itoioiii^' Qod! My nusband, the forester," !for ari'otrtlaw in the bold sea captain; but there ;-Sllt(fB "What of your husband, the forester? is stUl a restricted sense, and that a very painful Always the same with you people. He cannot one, in which the master of a trading vessel en the pay something ?" ihi^ seas is ^n outlaw. He may be an outlaw, "He has paid aU, Monseigneur. He is dead." just, honest, andmerciful, whose right mind is his "Well! He is quiet. Can I restore him to ;sufficient lawgiverand jddge, Happy are they yoaP" . ^ = iwkorowintne same boat with him! He may " Alas ne, Monseigneur! But he Ues yonder,; ibe unjust, dishonest, and merciless: one who '•• SiStt) under a Uttte Jieap of poor grass." loan be terrified only by the horsehair of the law, "WeUP" land punished enly'^by suffering and loss. When "Monseigneur, there are se many Uttle heaps such a raan has others beneath his control, and of poor grass." is himself sutgect to no control, woe to his "Agam, weUP" ' victims! Men rougher than the seas they She looked an old woman, but was young. Her 'traverse, and more pitUess, are among those manner was one of passionate grief; by tums who command, in merchant vessels trading she clasped her vdnous aad knotted hands to­ between England and America, as masters; or, gether with wUd energy, and laid one of them more commonly have power as mates. These 10ffllCOBi on the carriage-door—tenderly, caressingly, as if men are not types of the true American it had been a human breast, and could 'be ex­ or English saUor, Honest Saxon seafarers lit MWii' pected to feel the appealing touch, bom on either side of the Atlantic must Diejpossul Bitoit " Monseigneur, hear rae! Monsei«neur, hear and do contemn them; must desire thflt they lare, more my petition! My husband died of want; so •shall not disgrace by their atrocities ia, great many die of want; so many mere wiU die of national calling, and escape swift retribution. want," There is no difficult and narrow quesftion be­ " Again, weU ? Can I feed them P" tween EngUsh and American of mutual rights in "Monseigneur, the good God -knows; "but I this matter. What question there is, can readUy don't ask it. My petition is, that a morsel of be settled to the full content of aU people'who stone or wood, with my husband's name, may be speak the English language. placedover him to show where he Ues, Otherwise, the place wUl be quickly forgotten, it will never A Liverpool Merchant, in a pubUshed lettei*, be found when I am dead of the same malady, calls attention to " tJnpuni^ed' Craelties on the. I shaU be laid under some ether heap of poor' High Seas." At Liverpool they excite pSffi grass, Monsei^eur, they are so many, they ticular attention, because there is -visible and increase so fast, there is so much want. Men­ constant evidence of their result. One or two seigneur ! Monseigneur!" hundred hospital patients who have been struck The valet had put her away from the door, down by cruelties endured on board Araericta the carriage had broken into a brisk trot, the ships, are every year under medical or surgical postUions had quickened the pace, she was left care, as " consul's cases." Into the den of far behind, and the Marquis, again escorted by London there comes much of the same kind of the Puries, was rapidly diminishing the league Buffering; but its cry cannot so weU be heard. or two of distance that remained between him It does, we believe, happen that cmelty is 'WJlii and his chiteau. more common in the mercantUe marine of the The sweet scents of the summer niglit rose United States than in that of England, But, on aU around him, and rose, as the rain falls, im­ board the merchant ships of the United States, partially, on the dusty, ragged, and teU-worn hardly one man in five is a native American, Of group at the fountain not far away; to whom the last ten cases of craelty sent back to the the mender of reads, wdth the aid of the United States for trial, not one had anAmerican ,<^tl blue cap without which he was nothing, stUl fof defendant, and, in five of them, the criminals enlarged upon his man like a spectre, as long were natives of Great Britain, This is no dis­ as they could bear it. By degrees, as they could cussion, therefore, about purging others of bear no more, they dropped GS one by one, and offence. The Bogota, in •viddeh a demoniacal Ughts twinkled in Uttle casements; which lights, craelty was inflicted, was an EngUsh vessel as the casements darkened, and more stars came But it happens that the part of the case wMch out, seemed to have shot up into the sky presents itself in the form most avaUable for instead of having been extinguished. purposes df explanation concerns merchant ships The shadow of a large high-roofed house, and of the United States tradii^ -with Liverpool, of many overhanging trees, was upon Monsieur If an 'offence be committed in a foreign ship the Marquis by that time; and the shadow was whUe actuaUy lying in an English tiver, it is exchanged for the Ught of a fiambeau, as his punishable by the English law; but, if it be com­ carriage stopped, and the great door of his mitted in'an American ship some four miles from chateau was opened to him. the shore, aU that can be dene is 'this; "Ac t Chariei OMMU.] A NEW SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY. [JOB* 25,1859.] 199

American consul requires that the accused be tected some -poor victim frMu a brutal mate. deUvered up to him, in order that he may be Again, for mjured men sent te the hospital as sent to the United States for trial. This is the consul's cases from a ship newly come into port, operation of the Extradition Treaty of the year the consul pays twelve shillings a week, which forty-two, but practicaUy it occurs only with ha recovers from the captain. This arrange­ respect to the crimes of murder, or assault with ment, of course, overlooks aU minor cases, and intent to murder, robbery, piracy, arson, forgery, leaves many wretched sufferers to find their way, and the utterance of forged papers. Ordinary not to the hospital, but te the workhouse. In assault cases, even when they issue in man­ Liverpool, there is a Society of Friends of Po- slaughter, «»nnot be tri^ in England, Neither Tcigners in Distress, which is in the habit of are they despatched for trial te the other attending to some cases of ill-usage that do not side of the Atlantic, and may therefore be reach the hospital. committed with impunity. Three years ago, Many of these victims of craelty were no the body of a man, killed by the third mate doubt oisap^inted.emigrants, or othst wretched of an American ship, •was brought ashore at men ignorant of seamanship, who had engaged Liverpool. A coroner's jury sat upon it, and rashly te work their passage home, and suffered brought in a verdict off manslaughter. The heavUy for their incompetence, Gtiers are men, American consul appUed for the prisoner, in not seamen, Mdio were trepanned on board l^ order that he might be sent back to America for vessels pressed for time and short of hands. The trial. But our Home-office decided that the Society of Friends of Foreigners in Distress met offence was not referred to in the tredty. The "with.a broken-down Grerman who bad been sent offender, therefore, was set -free. lasaderk on business to a vessel and detained Even when the eonsol has his prisoner, •so, in it; another Gra'man was engaged as a steward; that he may enforce his return h(MBe for trial, ethers were engaged as surgeons. AU were he cannot compel aU the witnesses to recross crushed with sailors' woric. the Atlantic for the sake of .giving evidence. What cruelty ontii^ipboaid is, we have all heard They possibly may .have, or fancy that they lagain and again. Our present purpose is, to assist have, more profitable business to be looked after in m^ing that it shaU not be committed with elsewhere; or they may saU back, and yet be impunity. Let there be no right of outlawry lost for purposes of justice. In the middle of pertaining to the open sea. last December, the Etiwan, an American ship, was in the Mersey, not abreast

• " Yes, dear and admirable lady, the chamber CHAWBE THB NINTH, is, as you remark, a pleasant one, but then you WE were talking of economy. Of economy, say it wiU not be vacant for four days, and I and the legs of fowls. The two things go well want te come in at once." together. " Well, but here is another room—would I Economy and Paris do not go well together. mind occupying that tUl the pleasant one is It was economy that led me, as described in the Mi empty P It is not quite such a nice chamber, last chapter but one, te cross the threshold of certainly, but " the Cafe CartUagineux, which is as nasty a No, it certainly is not. The bed is short. tavern as you wiU find anywhere. How should M The room is small and fusty, and half filled up it be otherwise when you get soup, fish, an with a gigantic china stove. But then four entree, a roast, a sweet, a bottle of wine, and a nights—tis not long, " Very well, I wUl take dessert, for two francs and a quarter, and with a it, and there's an end, I come in to-night," choice of two dishes in every one of the de­ Fatal, fatal decision. Why did I not vaciUate, partments which I have mentioned. It was this as aU sensible people should P Why did I make possibility of choice, by-the-by, which led to a up my mind in that absurd manner P Oh Inde­ piece of politeness en the part of an old French cision !—dear, wise, prudent, loeking-before-you- officer, for which I shall ever be grateful, leap, much-abused, invaluable quaUty—why did BewUdered by a most mysterious name which I not listen to you theu P was appended to one of the dishes on the carte, Oh Indecision! why this dead set against I was questioning the waiter very closely about thee on every hand? How often hast thou it, but Doing able to get nothing out of him, stood me in good stead, I wiU surely one except that it was " exceUent," I determined to day write an essay on thee, in thy defence, and iudge for myself, and was just ordering it to be prove how many things (besides that marriage brought, when an eld officer, decorated with the with Amelia Long) theu hast rescued me from, Legion of Honour, who sat behind me, and had which would have been pernicious in the ex­ evidently overheard my conversation with the treme. waiter, this old gentleman, touching me on the And thou wouldst—dear one—have rescued shoulder, said, with a polite bow and a smUe, me from that chamber of horrors if I had but " Eccuse me, sare, you veel not laike it. It is Ustened to thee—for thou wert tugging at my bluid of peeg," heart and saying " don't" aU the time I was I shall be ever thankful to the man who saved committing myself. rae from eating " blood of pig," especially at If the man in the lounging-cap and the dress- the Cafe CartUagineux, and I hope, if he meets mg-gown, with the smile and the evU coun­ with the present number of this periodical, that tenance, whe received me on my arrival at my he wUl accept this public testimony of my lodgings with my luggage—if he had shown me gratitude in a kindly spirit, . f ^ over the house in the first instance instead of " The uses of adversity" may be sweet; na^-*^" employing his wife for the purpose, I should they are se, we knew it on good authority, but •a never have taken the apartment. However, it woe to the man whose adversity compels mm to was toe late now to recede, so I could only de­ have a cheap dinner at Paris, termine to make the best of it and to keep out In London a man may have a chop, potatoes, of the house as much as possible. and a pint of bitter ale, aU admirable of their Out of it at once, just depositing my baggage kind, at a very economical rate—a dinner that and looking round with horror. Out of the anybody might sit down to. In Paris, if you fusty room, and away to dinner and the play. seek a corresponding meal, which would be a "Hi Hang it, though, I forgot : economy is to be " bifteck" surrounded with potatoes, you must the ordier of the day. I must have a cheap go to a wretched hole to eat it, because at any dinner, and as to the play, weU suppose, just for place where this dish would be served in an a night or two, I was to give that luxury up ? eatable condition, you would be treated with What's this? a dinner for two francs and a contempt if you ordered so sm^ a dinner. It quarter. That's my affair. " Why give mere ?" is a vile aiTangement, You have the same as the advertisements say, when they want us to dinner for two francs at the Cafe Cagmag that purchase South African port, or anything else you get for twelve at Vefour's, Only m one case equaUy cheap and (if there is anything of which aU the dishes are disgustingly bad, and in the it may be said) equaUy nasty. other inconceivably good. Hew many legs has a fowl, my child ?—Two. Except at Byron's Tavem, an English house —And how many wings P—Two.—Then if I go at the back of the Opera Cemique, where there into a tavem and ask for some chicken, the is a table d'hote at three francs a head, you cannot chance of my getting a wmg is equal te that of get a cheap dinner m Paris, That is to say, a my being served with a leg ?—Yes, sir ; the dinner which a man with a palate can eat with­ chances are equal,—Are they P out loathing. Let this be distinctly understood. "Where is the individual who ever went into a It is very important. tavern, and caUing for seme chicken, was pro­ There are m this world persons without vided with a wing ? He dees net exist, or if he palates, I write net for them. Let them fiU does, is about as common as a man who would their stomachs with garbage at the Cafe' Car- fall to look inte the mirror twelve times per tUagmeux, and come out triumphant with a hour when he is growing a moos Stop! toothpick in their mouths, or let them go to a ChailM DIck«ns.] A NEW SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY. [June 86,1859,] 201

wine-shop and masticate a "bifteck" swimming trae, there are besides the " fauteuils d'or- in oily butter, washed down with draughts of chestre," a range of places between them and wine wliich resembles red ink in consistency and the pit, caUed "stalles d'erchestre," in which flavour. Por such men I write not. Per those you can sit with some degree of ease, at a mode­ who mind what they eat it is, I think, impossible rate expenditure. An admirable arrangement to dine at Paris (except at the tavern I have by-the-by, which may be seen, together with aU mentioned above) for less than six or seven other admirable arrangements, at our own new francs, including everything. Adelphi. I am going to teU tne reader a thing for which The staUes d'erchestre, however, are not to be he may laugh at me if he will. met with in aU the Parisian theatres, and woe to Although I never went to the Cafd Car­ the man who buries himself in delusive " poof- tUagineux without execrating its fare, I yet tours" or " baignoires." Wee still more to him found in that place of entertamment one source who ascends. The heat, the absence of ventUation of attraction which caused me te take my meal (rendered se much mere unendurable by the clos­ of horseflesh there more frequently than suited ing of aU the box doors), these things prevent a my organs of digestion or my sense of taste. man from taking any pleasure in what is going on. At the buffet which stanas in the middle of The tyranny of officials in Paris is seen every­ the large room in which the bad dinners are where, and is perfectly unbearable. Routine is served there sits a middle-aged matron of com­ adhered to ana enforced, as in this matter of the fortable appearance, whose function it is te make hermetical sealing of box doors, in a manner very out the bilfe, to distribute the bits of sugar for difficult to submit to. The Prench mob are coffee, and otherwise to superintend the general strangely and inconsistently submissive in aU cartilaginous arrangements of the Caf6. these matters, and allow themselves to be Seated beside tlus personage, and enclosed treated like chUdren. behind the buffet as within the outworks of a The cheap dinner and the cheap theatrical fortification, there would be found occasionaUy experience, then, being alike unsatisfactory, let —but not always—a young girl, her daughter— us now go home to our apartment and see how a pearl of loveliness, we like the cheap lodgings. Perhaps the room I have never seen a more refined or exalted may loek mcer with tlie bed made. UnhappUy beauty, I have never seen a human being se there is one defect about that bed though, which misplaced, I know neither modesty nor good­ all the making in the world wUl never remedy. ness when I see them, if this girl (to whom I It is se desperately and insanely short. I know never spoke a word in my life) was not possessed by measurement that I can never be comfortable of a pure and loving soul. in that bed. By measureraent, I say, I tested What a combination was here. What an in­ the length of that couch with my urabreUawhUe stance of that irony of which one sees examples there was nobody looking, I am two umbreUas in every hour of Ufe, Consider it weU. In this long, and that bed measures an umbrella and scene of Prench tavem existence, of cemraon three-quarters. How can I hope for rest ? How feeding, of vUe raeat and vUer cookery, in this can a man sleep peacefuUy in a bed which is a sickly atmosphere of stews and gravies, of quarter of an umbreUa too short for him ? I weaky soups and leggy fowls, in this din of must make up my mind to it, however. There squalor, in this sordid environment, there is is no remedy, let there be no regret. Let found a jewel, for which the gUding of a palace me Wliat's this ?—I am grasping the sheet would be a raean and unworthy sitting. in my hand to test its drjrness—^Darap P Ne, Strange and terrible anomaly! Sudden and not damp—wet—wringing wet. Ha! ha!—a bewUdering transition. Straight, and at one short bed and a damp, eh r We wiU Ue down step, from the ridiculous to the sublime, frora in our clothes. grossest garbage te most glorious beauty, from Lying down in your clothes is a pleasant and rough and vulgar discord to a strain of harmony refreshing process. But why does it make you that holds the senses rapt. feel the next moming as if you had been beaten Must I ovm that I often went to this wretched with clubs from head to foot—as if you had tavem, simply that I might have the pleasure of been intoxicated ovemightP Why does no sitting near this charming creature, that I found amount of washing make you feel clean ? Why a sense of companionship in the mere fact of do your limbs ache, and why are your eyes fuU being in the room with her—and that I never of sand? Lying down in your clothes is just left that miserable cafe but in a gentler mood better than rheumatic fever—and that's all. than when I entered it. Must I own this, and Yet I had two nights of it, Por I had taken hear the reader say, " This is either a boy of such an aversion to the room and to the house I eighteen, or an idiot," Yet I am neither—or at was lodging in, that the day after my first ex­ any rate I ara not eighteen, I have alinost for­ perience of the damp sheets I fled from the gotten that I ever was. It must be, then, that I shelter of the odious walls and kept out aU day. ara idiotic—te go and eat bad dinners that I may It was the day of that walk iu the suburbs, of be in the room with the guardian of a side-beard. which more is said elsewhere. I deluded myself with vain hopes that the sheets would get dry of If it is net easy to dine cheap at Paris, it is themselves. But they did nothing of the kmd, ec^ually difficult to go to the play in an econo­ and I was compelled to seek a trousered repose mical manner. At some of tne theatres, it is I once more. ^

203 [Joac tS, 18ML} ALL THB TEAR. RGUND. COMdMWbr

0HA7TBB 'OaiSBSVSL «ip upon itai edge, andt yon.eantlay.the other THERE is a bolt upon the door. Let it do articles which require airmg over it; and. rane; itaoffioe. Pm at home to nobody—nor must them in a semicircle round the fire. Yes, this anybody read this ohaptec but those who axe is much easier, and- vDw- I hara succeeded in pepared to go into a aomestio matter of great surrounding the chinai stove with a.'perfeotam­ mtereit* but of an essentially private nature, phitheatre of bedding, " Oapitali'*'I gay to I cannot.and wiU not stand another night of myselfj" I shall get between the sheets to-night, sleeping in my clothes. It is not to be enaured. at any rate—I shaU, What's that P WeU, What muat I do then P The. sheets are not a it's; a tap at the door. bit less damp than they were the flrst night, "Who's thereP" I howl. There remains but one course open to me: I "A gentleman," says the voiee of, my laud- must air my bedding. Won't remonstrate, the lord; " wiflhe«;to see theroom. As I am going to thing must be done. leave it in two days, wdU I aUew hinr to enter." First of aU a roaring fire in the china stove. What can; I do but unbolt the door and admit What a fim! What a stove! Hbw it roars; themt and cracks with metaUic snapping^ in the The man with-the ;lonnging-oi^) and the dress­ clmnneT! I wish it may not burst suddenly, ing-gown, and the evU smile, comes in, accom­ and. fall into the midst of the room amass of panied by a grave and short gentleman, who will heated china, of fiery fuel, and red^hot iron fit the bed nicely—that man is net more than an chimneyi That china stove: is-so: large and gets umbreUa and a haU' long, I know. "Pouf!" so hot, that very soon I feel as if the marrow in. says the short gentleman; on entering the apart­ niy bones was. dried' up and turned to powder. ment, and I dare say it does strike hot, coming My tongue rattles against the roof of my mouth. out of the air. " Pouf!" says the man with the Asphyxia wUl ensue unless something is done to lounging-cap and the evU eye. After one glance air the room. The window must he opened. at the condition of tiie room, be never takes that Impossible, it won't stir: it is a Prtnch window, eye off me; and never ceases to smile ; but it is opeiung—or rather not evening—down the; the tight smUe with closed lips that indicates middle. A plague upon the French window! malice. The man who smiles like that.wiU never I don't believe it's ever beem opened m its life., forgive the impUed dampness of, his linen. I am getting angry: tug, puil,, rattle, shake— The conduct of the short gentleman is deli­ no use. Knee against lower, part of window- cate in the extreme. He boks at the clock on frame c now tug, puU,. rattle^, snake, again—no :the chimney-piece, at the floor, out of window, result whatever. Hold top of window with left makes remarM on-the pre3pectr--does everything, hand and repeat tiie shaking, process with right in short, but look at the bedding before the —worse and worse ! And all this exertion in a stove. Bless hira: for it. As he leaves the room room with no air: in it, only stove smoke and he waves his hand towards the table which is mephitic vapoujf! I shaU suffocate—I shaU go covered with manuscript, and says that he fears mad—I shaU' have to break a p^ie of glass! he has " deranged me." Blessings upon the Oae more mighty puU, with all ray force and all head of that short Frenchman. "It is such deli­ ray weight thrown inte alast despaiidng effort: cacy as this," I said to myself, one hour after­ wmdow opens suddenly without the slightest wards—it took, me an hour to recover—"it is show erf resistance, and I am flnng upon my such deUcacy as this which has won for the back contused and. stunned. Never mmd, the Prench nation that reputation for a refined window is opened. New tot the? grand event of politeness which they deserve so well. Wliat the day—now for an assault upon the bedding. shaU we say of such poUteness. It warms the Yes, a mattress is a difficult thing to manage heart, of him towards whom it is exercised with aU alone when you've got it office bed, and admiration, and fiUs him with a glow of grati­ when thei room is small, and when there is a tude. Nay, at this moment, whUe I think and greai; deal of large furniture about, and when a write of it, it has I made my heart feel lighter and stovei, which su^es everything that touches it, more loving te aU the world. fiUs up two-thirds ofr the apartment. It is at Alas, th^ this courtesy (Lam obUged % truth such atune, I repeat, that a gentleman unaceus- to own it) is often of Uttle value as showing a tomed to mattresses wiU End that they are good hearti Alas, that one of the best and most afflicted with a weakness which renders them generous men I laiowi (it is! my friend Growler erer ready to droop upon his head as he carries of whom I am speakuig) is at the same time so them in his arms, leaving more flue upon his disagreeable and offensive iu his manners that it hairtthan he is usuaUy in the habit of w^rmg. is a pain, to be m; the room, with hun. He will also findtha t they are apt, when placed I did not: make ail these reflections, as I liave before the fire, to double up in unexpected said, till long after the short gentleman and the places, and to lean ever hcavdy when propped man with the lounging-cap had left the apart­ agakst chairs, whUe th© chairs th^nselves, on a ment. After bolting the door upon them, I feU h^hly polished oak floor, will net uncommonly down upon the mattress (which had taken the sUde back, from the pressure of the mattress, and opportunity of its ownci^s entrance te smk upon aUowittb siii with ag^asvating languor to the the floor and do obeisance before hiin)—I fell, I ground. say, upon the mattress, and remained speechless, It is mnch- eaaier' to deall with the blankets with my mind a blank ferthdrty-five minutes by and sheets; for, once get the mattress toy^and my wnt Jonea'a repeatw?.- Chkrlei Dickens,] OUR BYB-SVITNESS, [JnMS5,18».] 203 At the expiration of ^ich time I arose, .and! iknown amonghis associates in labour aa " the set myself to work to replace the bedding, which, eye-witness," Because he either has, or says he I had now aired to my satisfaction, and whicli, has, seen everything he describes. Aa our eyer in case of any more visitors arrivii^, it would be- witness, he underteek to report to us what he ob­ as weU t0( have in its place, served when he went to see the "Talkin^Fish," and anythingthat miglitstrikehimatthe^'Derby." THE; CI^OWISPS^ SONG. This is the report that he sends in-: " HERK I am {"—and the Honse rqoices; [ Your eyewitness begs to report, himself as Forth I tumble firemoa t the slips; .hftving. returned safe from the Derby. " Here I am!"—and a hundred voices He has, also been to see the " Talking Fish." Welcome me on with laughing lips. Concerning the first of these Institutions he The Master, with easy pride, Treads the sawdust down; is not going te say, anything except that he Or quickens the horse's stride) started smart and ipyons, and returned :dirty «nd And calls iosc his jesting down. penitent; that, having, lost his raraiey on " What, ho, Mr, Merriman!—Did^ ^'brother to Somehodjf, he, objects henceforth Heie^s a lady thatwants^yooi; place." to all raceThorses who are, relatives of distin­ I throw them a somerset, quick, guished characters, and prefers those that go And grin in some beauty's face, ^upon their own merits; that afacetious stranger, I tumble, and jump, and chaff, one. of alaige party en the top of an oranibus, And fill tbem with wild deUghts; invited-him to ascend: and witness the race with Whatever my sorrow, I laugh, the assurance that there was " plenty of room Thro' the summer'and-winterni^rts, on tlve top of the whip," and that he finallv did I joke with the men^ if-1 dare; witneap the racewhUe executing a remarxable Do they strike, why I cringe a«d stoop; " acf,' of. balancing with one foot on the edge of A^d I ride like a l]^Td in- air, the hood'of a phaeton, the other en a basket of Aaid I jump through the blazing hoop. provisions three feet distant, and with nothing Whatever they say or do, to hold on by but the hat. of a gentleman who I sm ready with joke and jibe; was much intoxicated, and who wa3_ standing An<^ whenever the jeats are new, I follow, like all my tribe. upon the spoke of, a wheel, and: a walking-stick. Bat life is not all a jest, So much for what your eye-witness^ observed Whatever the wise ones say; at.the, Derby, Now for what he. remarked when For when I steal home to rest he assisted at the Exhibition of the Talking (And I'seek it at dawn of day), Pishj on Tuesday, the thirty-first of May—a If winter, there is no fire; thunderous- aud overcast day. If snromw, there is no air: He remarked that this animal would be de­ My welcome's a hungry choir scribed with propriety as the Talking Pish, but Of clHldrHi, and scanty faret for. two circumstances'—it is not a fish, and it My wife is as lean a scold does not talk. In the nine days appropriated te As faniine can make man's wtfe^ ;this wonder, no one appears to have noticed this Wcarebothof ns sour and dd: little error in description. Under these circum­ Witli.drBiking the dregs^of life: stances your eye-witness is mistrustful of him­ Yet, why do,Isigh? 1 wonder Would the " Pit" or the "Boxes" sigh,. self. Is he labouring under some delusion? Should I wash off my paint, and, under, Is a seal a fish ? Is barking like a dog talking P Show how a Fool must die,? Perhaps it is. Perhaps tne animal is not ex­ hibited in PiccadUly; perhaps PiccadiUy is not (WJR EYE-WITNESS, iPiccadUly but PaU-maU; perhaps there is ne equestrimi statue of the Duke ot WdUngton on WE are about te introduce a new personage: Censtitution-hiU; perhaps it is easy to dance tothe reader; or rather we are about to reveal with ladies who wear hoops; perhaps they dou't in his true character a. person vrith whom the wear them at aU; parhapsyour eye-witness is reader is alreadv slightly acquainted. Let the perfectly happy; perhaps he has a lai^e fortune; introduction take, place with aU the proper perhapahe didn't lose en the; Derby; perhaps ceremony, and witn due formaUty : Reader, there is not a tree outside his bedroom window Mr, David Pudge—Mr. David Fudge, Reader, and a sparrow watching him from its branches "Very.happy,"says reader, "to make the ac­ as he writes; perhaps there is no war in Sar­ quaintance of a gentleman with whose works I am dinia ;. perhaps the Prench alliance is a sound 80 famUiar-^remember your charming descrip­ one; perhaps the Emperor of the Prench is un­ tion of^-hum, ha, charming indeed—ha, hum," affectedly fond of -England; pearhaps it was an And then tlie reader turns aside to us, the in­ 'unselfishthing to get up a wssolution of Par­ troducer, and asks in an under tone, " W?io is: liament at the particnJar moment when it was he ?" We reply that he is simply an observant got up; perhaps there was no dissolution ataJli; gentleman who goes about with his eyes and ears perhaps it is easy to cross, ever at the Regent- open, who notes evCTything that comes in his. cirous, Oxford-stre^; perhaps the New Ade^ijki way, and who has furnished to this periodical is not a comfortable tneatre; perhaps there is certain results of his faculty of observation. no humbug in advertisements;. perhaps—perhaps We further state that Mr, Pudge is familiarlyi a barking seal is a Talking Eish. 204 CJiuM ti, I8M.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. fCoudncted b^ When your eye-witness entered the exhibition wow—in hia work on the function of—bow-wow room, and when he saw it lying at the bottom of its —^has been understood to say—bow-wow, bow­ tub, he was struck first of all by the creature's eyes, wow, bow-wow, bow-wow, bow-wow by their inteUigence, their soft beauty, and by the This was aU that was audible of the lecture, glance of helpless appeal which it curected from the rest was lost in an nnintermpted yolley of one to the other of the faces by which it was barking of the loudest and most overpowering surrounded. This was what stmck hira first. description. The Royal Duke descended from his Then it stmck him that, if convenient, he should bad eminence in evident disgust, and saying to like to have a large ship ready in the Pool of the faint-hearted man, " See what you can do London, to convey the TaUdng Pish back to the with her," proceeded to look nioooily on as if coast of Africa from which it had been brought; he were a spectator from outside, and to lash then it strack hun that as this was perhaps not with raany taunts the faint-hearted man, who for convenient, he should like te have a rifle leaded his part had evidently no hope of the seal from with ball, with full Uberty to discharge the same the oeginning. The Talking Fish, it must be ••.sassis! at the head of the poor seal, and so put her out raentioned, was a female talking fish, and her of her misery at once and for aU. These different narae it seemed was Jenny, inclinations having passed through the headof your " WiU um's Jenny come and kiss um's hand P" eye-witness, and there appearing to be obstacles said the famt-hearted man, leaning over the tub to the gratiflcation of every one of them, it oc­ to address the seal, " No, of course she won't," curred to him next te resign himself te cU-cura- he added, when the seal decUned the invitation stances, to look about hun, and see what was with a Dark of disgust; " I knew she wouldn't," going on. "You've got no perseverance," said the Royal Nothing was gomg on, A large seal was lying Duke; "why don't you go en at her till she does?" at the bottora of an immense tub, round which " Much better leave her alone," said the fat about twenty persons were standing with their man. "Poor Jenny," he continued, stooping mouths open, wondering when the performance over the bath. The seal rose up out of'the was to begin. The seal appeared to be almost water, and Ufting up her face, kissed him as he in a torpid state, except when, as has been uttered the words, " Peer Jenny," said the fat described above, it tumed from time to tirae its man, "have they been beatiog you, Jenny P" » languid eyes te the faces round the bath, looking Had they p Why did Jenny vrince when the from one te the other with vexed perplexity. It Royal Duke happened te wave his hand; why uttered, too, at intervals a sharp and painfid cry, did she wince, and, shrinking away to the other which was accompaiued by a snapping sound, end of the bath, look again from face to face occasioned probably by the meeting of its teeth. in mute but strong appeal. Poor Jenny! A fat man, whera your witness lUted, whe spoke " Tiy her again," said the Royal Duke to the kindly to the seal; another man Uke a foreign faint-hearted man, ambassador, or Royal Duke, whom your witness " What's the good ?" answered that despond­ disliked, who spoke savagely to the seal; and a ent gentleman. faint-hearted man, whom your witness regarded "Never mmd askmg,' What's the good P'" re­ in a negative Uffht, who s'poke chUdishly to the torted the Regal Potentate, " but try her again," seal, seemed aU to have a share in exhibitmg The gentleman who, according te the preverb, the animal, and all tried, in their different ways, was disqualified for the winning of fair ladies, to make the poor beast exert itself. did try her again, It has been said that the seal uttered new and '' lira's Jenny's naughty licklegu-1 not to kiss then a cry like a bark. This was only at um's hand—come zen, kiss um's hand," said the mtervals at first; but when the Royal Duke, faint-hearted man. There," he continued, when moimting en a "coign of vantage," commenced this appeal proved no more successful than the a scientific lecture on the animal, which was, he last—" there, what did I teU you P Are you sa- said, te be " the subject of a few remarks," the tisfiednowp" ^ seal took to barkmg violently and frequently, " No," said the Royal Duke, " Pm not. Try and at last never left off at aU, taking it evidently showing her some fish," as an msult that it should be lectured upon, and T "^^e UDfi's Jenny pretty Uckle fish, if um's determining that net a word that was said about Jenny U kiss um's hand," said the faint-hearted its nature and habits should reach the public man, showing a hiehly flavoured floundert o the The TaUdng Fish not only decUned te talk itself j unfortunate animal. but was an enemy to talkativeness in others, The Talkmg Pish, knowing it would not get "The extraordinary animal," the lecturer the flounder,o r perhaps not liking the smell of began—" the extraordinary animal—bow-wow- it, remained stationary at the ether end of the subject of the present exhibition—bow-wow, bath, and sure enough the flounder was taken bow-wow—on the' coast of Africa—bow-wow- away agam and put mto a basket whose per- mouth of the — bow-wow—river—bow-wow, fume was not agreeable, bow-wow — disputed point — bow-wow na­ turalists —bow-wow—indeed Professor—bow­ " Oh, hang it!" the fat man interposed, wow—expresses himself to this effect—bow­ don t break faith with a feUow—with a fish, wow, bow-wow, bow-wow, bow-wow—whUe that I mean—Uke that. Give it to her. What's the enunent comparative anatomist. Dr.—bow-wow good of tantaUsing her like that ?" —in treating on this subject—bow-wow, bow­ "What's the good of anythink ?" said the de­ spondent man. This was one of those propo- ^

<- Chkrin Diok«nt.j THE SECOND SITTING. CJan«2S,18M,] 205 sitions of a general nature which nobody present prison P Why am I hereP Where is the sea seemed capable of grappUng with; so the faint­ that used te stretch around me further than my hearted man went on: "When she says she eyes could feUow P Where the mighty river at won't do a thing, she won't," whose mouth I lived P Where the sun, in which "You've no perseverance," said the Royal I loved to bask P Where is my mate P They Duke, "Try her again." have taken him from me, and kUled him. Oh that "Try her yourself," retorted the faint-hearted they would kUl me too, and deliver me from this man. dreadful place! " Corae here, Jenny," said the Royal Duke, in a fierce tone. The seal came across the bath THE SECOND SITTING, to where he stood, looked timidly up at him, and slunk away to the other end of the tank. WE left (at page 189) Monsieur Werdet suc­ Such was the exhibition at which your eye­ cessful, after some preliminary disappointment witness assisted with a heavy heart. Sometimes and humiUation, in his first Uterary treaty with the regal-looking personage, dra^uig the seal Balzac, We left him, the happy proprietor and about by the skin of its back, and, pushing it hopeful publisher of the second edition of Le riolently across the bath, would force it almost Medecin de Campagne, into the mouth of the faint-hearted man, whe Once started. Monsieur Werdet was too wise was the chief exhibitor. On these occasions a man not to avaU himself of the only certain she would, in desperation, raise her head and means of success in modem times. He puffed breast out of the water and put her Ups te his magnificently. Every newspaper in Pans was mouth. Sometimes she would half present hira inundated with a deluge of advertisements, an­ with a fin. But where was the talking P Was nouncing the forthcoming work in terms of this the animal for whose feats of dialogue the eulogy such as the wonderstruck reader had pubUc had been prepared by a placard stuck en never met with before, Tlie result, aided by every dead waU in London, representing a Bri­ Balzac's celebrity, was a phenomenon in the tish saUor in earnest conversation, not to say commercial history of Prench Uterature, at that argument, with an enormous codfish standing time. Every copy of the second edition of Le upright upon the tip of its taU P Was this aU ? Medecin de Campagne was sold in eight days. No, this was net all. To the eye of your wit­ This success established Monsieur Werdet's ness there was exhibited the heart of that poor reputation. Young authors crowded to him with seal. He read it through her eyes ; and, in it, their manuscripts, all declaring piteously that read a tale of sorrow that made his own heart they wrote in tne style of Balzac. But Monsieur sad, and caused him for a moment reverently te Werdet flew at higher game. He received the hope that even for the sufferings of the brute imitators poUtely, and even published for one or creation there may be some compensating good two of them; but the high Dusiness aspirations in store. He hoped this as far as might consist which new glowed within him were aU concen­ with romance, and it comforted him; for the eyes trated on the great original. He had conceived of that seal, their expression, and the capability the subUme idea of becoming Balzac's sole pub­ of feeling which they seemed to indicate, haunted Usher ; of buying up all his copyrights held by him as he left the place, and are before him now other houses, and of issuing all his new works while he writes. that were yet te be written, Balzac himself There is, in the Exhibition of the Royal welcomed this proposal with superb indulgence. Academy this year, a picture by Sir Edwin " Walter Scott," ne said, in his grandest way, Landseer, which has been received somewhat " had only one publisher—Archibald Constable. nnmercifuUy, and which yet—besides possessing Work out your idea, I authorise it; I sup- many pictorial beauties of a high grade—is, in pert it, I wiU be Scott, and you shall be Con­ its dim suggestion of a hope that even the lower stable!" animals are not wholly excluded from a share in Fired by the prodigious future thus disclosed the scheme of Heaven's mercy, very beau­ to him. Monsieur Werdet assumed forthwith the tiful. It is the work of one who, as has been character of a French Constable; and opened said, suggests this rather than asserts it. The negotiations with no less than six publishers Diinds of those who feel deeply wUl at times who held among them the much-desired copy­ stretch forward thus in a strong sympathy with rights. His own enthusiasm did something for the sufferings of creation, and wiU strain to get hira; his exceUent previous character in the a gUmpse beyond that glass through which we trade, and his remarkable success at starting, see so darkly. did much more. The houses he dealt with took The Talking Pish decUned to talk. And his bUls in aU directions, without troubling him yet to your eye-witness she did talk, and oh, hew for security. After innumerable interviews and plainly! How plainly, as she worked herself immense exercise of diplomacy, he raised himself round and round, and looked from face to face, at last to the pinnacle of his ambition—he be­ how plainly she spoke, not with her mouth, came sole proprietor and publisher of the works indeed, but with her wistful eyes. of Balzac, "What have I done ?" she said—"what have The next question—a sordid, but, unhappily, I done, that this misery should have come upon a necessary question also—was how to tum this me ? What is this close and stifling room P precious acquisition to the best pecuniary ac­ What are these faces that gaze at me in my count. Some of the works, such as La Physio- S06 [Juo^ii^o Alfli.THE YEARi ROUND. [COBduottd br logi» du Matiage, aad La Peau de Ohagtin, came, intb a ja{>aii vaae, and not opened, no had. produced, aud were still producing, large niatter how important th^ might be, till his .. jaiiiH sums. Others, en the contrary, suoh as the work was aU over. He raae to be^in writing at Contes PbUosophiques (which wea-e a. Uttle too two in the moming; continued, with, extraordi­ prdbund for the pubUc) and Louis Lambert nary rapidity, tUl six; then toek- his bath, and (which'was intended to popularise the mysticism stopped in it, thinking; for an hour or more. At of Swedlittborg), had not yet succeeded in pay» eignt o'clock Ida servant, bronigbt him up a cup ing their expenses. Estimating his speculation of coffee. Before nine his publisher was ad- by-what he had m hand. Monsieur Werdet had mitted to carry away what he had done. Prom not much^chance of seeing his way speedUy te nine tiU noon he wrote on again, always at the quick returns. Estimating it, however, by what top of his speed. At noon ho breakfasted on was coming in the future, that is to say, by eggs, with a glass of water and a. second cup of ti»^ promised privUege of issuing aU the writer's cofifee. From one o'clock to six he returnca to c«ntemplated works, he had every reason to work. At six he dined Ughtly, only allowing look- happily and hopefuUy at his commercial himself one glass of wine. Prom seven to eight piospeets. At this crisis of the narrative, when he received his publisher again: and at eight the publisher's credit and fortune depended o'clock he wentlto bed. This life he led, while who%' on the pen of one man, the history of he was writing, his books, for two months toge­ ihat man's habits of Uterary composition assumes ther, without intermission. Its effect on his &) special interest and importance. Monsieur health was such that, when he appeared once Wendet's description of Balzac at his writing- more among his fViends, he looked, in the desk ^ presents oy no means the least extra- popular phrase; like his own ghost. Chance ordinaiy?of the many singular revelations: which acquaintances would hardly have known him CdBvpose the story of the author's; life. again. When ho had once made up his mind to pro- It must not be supposed that this Ufe of reso­ dnce a new book, Balzac's first proceeding was lute seclusion and fierce hard toil ended with to I tbink it out thoroughly before he put; the completion of the first draught, of Ids manu­ pen to paper. He was not satisfied with pos­ script. At,the point where, in t^ie instances of sessing himself of the main idea only; he fol­ most men, the serious part of the work would lowed it mentaUy into its minutest ramifications, liave oome to an end, it had only begun for devoting to the process just that amount of Balzac, In spite of all: the preliminary studying paitient hard labour and self-sacrifice which no and thinking, when: bis- pen had scrambled iti mferior writer ever has the common sense or the way straight through to the end of the book, oourage te bestow en his work. With his note­ the leaves were all turned back again, and the book ready in Ms liand, Bakac studied his scenes first manuscript was altered, into.a second wiiA and cluuracters straight from Ufe. Greneralknow- inconceivable patience and care. Innumerable ledge of what he wanted to describe was not corrections and interlinings, to begin with, led enough for this determined reaUst, If he found in the end to transpositions and expansions himself iu the least at fault, he woidd net hesi­ which metamorphosed the entire work, Happy tate to take a long journey- merdy to ensure: thoughts were picked out of the beginning of troth to nature in, describing the street of a the manuscript, and inserted where,they might country town, or in painting some minor pecu­ have a better effect at the end. Others at the liarity of mstic character. In Paris he was per­ end would be moved to, the: beginning, or the petually about the streets, perpetuaUy penetrat­ middle. In one place, chapters; would be ex­ ing into aU classes of society,, to study the; panded to three or four times: their original kum^i natiurc: about him in its minutest varieties. length; in another, abridged to a few paragraphs; Day by day, and week by week, his note-book in a third, taken out altogether,: or shifted to and his brains were hard at work together,, be- new positions. With aU this mass of altera­ fore'he thought of sitting down to his desk to. tions in every page, the manuscript was at last begin. When he had finaUy amassed his mate- ready for the printer. Even to the sharp es- risus in this laborious manner, he at last retired perienced eyes in-the printing-of&ce, it was now ta his study; and.from that time, tUlhb bode, aU but. iUegible. The dedphering it, and settiag had gone to press, society saw him no more. it up in a moderately correct form,, cost an His: house-door was now closed to leverybody,, amount of patience and pains which wearied out ewjept the pubUsher and the printer; and liisi all the best men in the- office, one after another, OQstume was changed to a loose white robe, of! before the first series of- proofs could be sub­ the: sort which is vrom by the Deminicanmonks. mitted to the author's eye. When these were Tiiis:singular writing-dress was fastened round- at last complete, they were sent in on large tke viaist by a chain of Venetian gold, to which, slips, andthe indefatigable Balzac immediately hung little pliers and scissors of the aime pre­ settowo^to rewrite thewhole book for tlK cious metal. WMte Turkish trousers^ and red- third-time! morocco eUppers, embroidered with gold, covered, He now-covered with fresh ceirections, freiA his legs and feet. On the day when he sat down, alterations, fresh expansions of this passa^, to his desk, the light of heaven was shut out, and fresh abridgments of that, not only the and he worked Iw- the light of candles in superb marg^ of the proofs aU< round, but even tlie sdver sconces. Even liters were not aUowedl :Uttle interv^ of. white space between the para­ te. reach him. They were all thrown, as they graphs. Liues oroasing eatdi other in rndt- Charlei Dlck«na.] THE SECOND SITTING. CJonaUiiSM,] 207 scribable confusion were supposed to show the Before it was finished, however, Balzac and his bewUdered printer the various places at which editor quarrelled, and the long-suffering publisher the multitude of new insertions were to be was obUged to step in and pay the author's sUpped in, IUegible as Balzac's original manur forfeit.money, obtaining the incomplete^novel in scripts were, his corrected proofs were more retui'n, and with it Balzac's promise to finish hopelessk puzzling stUl. The picked men in the work off-hand, Mentha passed, however, the office, to whom alone they could be en­ and noi a page of manuscript was produced, Oiie trusted, shuddered at the very name of Bakac, morning, at eight o'clock, to Monsieur Werdeifs and reUeved each oth^ at intervals of an hour, horror and astonishment, Balzac burst in on him beyond.which time no one printer could be get in a condition of subUme despair, to announce to continue at work on the universaUy execrated that he. and his genius; had to all appearance and universaUy unintelUgible proofs. The "re­ parted company for ever, vises"—that is to say, the proofs embodying " My brain is empty!" cried the great man. the new alterations—.were next pulled to pieces "Jdy imagination, is dried up! Hundreds of in their tum. Two, three, and sometimes four,, cups of coffee and two baths a day have done separate sets of them were required before the nothing for me. Werdet, I ant a lost man!" suithor's leave could be got to send the perpe­ The publisher thought of hia empty cash-box, tuaUy rewritten book to press at last, and so and was petrifidd. The author proceeded: have done with it. Hie was, UteraUy the terror " I must travel!" he exclaimed, wildly, " My of aU printers and editors:; and he himseK genius has mn away from.me—-I must pursue it described.his process of Averk as a misfortune, to ever mountains and vaUeys^—Werdet f I must be the more deplored, because it was, in his: catch my genius up!" case, an inteUectual,necessity. "I toil sixteen! , Poor Monsieur Werdet faintly suggested a hours out of the twenty-four," he said, "oven Uttle tum in the immediate neighbourhood of the elaboration of my uxmappy style; and I am; Paris—something eqiuvalent to a nice-airy ride never satisfied, myself, when aU is done." to Hampstead en the top of an omnibus. But Looking back to the school-days of Balzac, Balzac's runaway genius had, in the estimation when his mind suffered under tne sudden and! of its bereaved proprietor, got as far as Vienna mysterious shock which has been described in its already; and he cooUy announced his intention place ; remembering that his father's character: of traveUing after it te the Austrian capital. was notorious for its eccentricity; observing thei " And who is to finish Seraphita P" inquired prodigious toil, the torture almost, of mind which the uidiappy pubUsher. " My lUustrioua friend, the act of Uterary production seems te have cost; yon are ruining me !"' him aU through Ufe, it is impossible net to; "On the contrary," remarked Balzac, per­ arrive at the conclusion, that, in his case, there suasively, "I am making your fortune. At must have been a fatal incompleteness some­ Vienna, I shaU find my genius—at Vienna I where in the mysterious intellectual machine. shall finish Seraphita, and a new book besides— Magnificently as it was endowed, the balance of at Vienna, I shsul raeet with an angelic woraan faculties in his mind seems to have been even; who admires me—I caU her 'Canssima'—she more than ordinarily imperfect. On this theory, has written te invite me to Vienna—I ought, I his unparaUeled difficulties in expressing him­ must, I wUl, accept the invitation," self, as a writer, and his errors, inconsistencies, Here an ordinary acquaintance would have and meannesses of character, as a man, become, had an exceUent opportunity of saying somethii^ at least, not whoUy uninteUigible. On any other smart. But poor Monsieur Werdet was net in theory, aU explanation both of his personal life and a position te be witty; and, moreover, he laiew his Uterary life appears to be simply impossible. but toe weU what was coming next. All he Such was the perilous pen en which Monsieur ventured te say was: Werdet's prospects in life aU depended. If "But I am afraid you have no money." Balzac failed to perform his engagements punc­ " You can raise some/' repUed his illustrious tuaUy, or if his health broke down under his friend, ." Borrow—deposit stock in trade—get severe literary exertions, the commercial decease me two thousand francs. Everything else I can of his unfortunate pubUsher foUowed either do for myself, Werdet! I wUl hire a post- disaster, purely as a matter of course. chaise—^I wiU dine with my dear sister—^I wiU At the outset, however, the posture of affairs, set" off after dinner—^I wiU not be later than looked encouragingly enough. On its comple­ eight o'clock—cUck-clack !" And the great man tion in the Revue de Paris, Le Lys dans la executed an admirable imitation of the cracking VaUeewas republished by Monsieur Werdet, who of a postiUon's whip,. had secured his interest in the woric by a timely There was no resource for Monsieur Werdet advance of six thousand francs. Of this novel but to throw the good money after the bad. He (the most highly valued in Prance of all the raised the two thousand francs; and away went writer's fictions), but two hundred copies of the Balzac to catch his runaway genius, to bask in first edition were left undisposed of within two the society of a female angel, and te coin money hours after its publication. This unparalleled in the form of manuscripts. success kept Monsieur Werdet's head above Eighteen days afterwards a perfumed letter water, and encouraged him to hope great things from the author reached the publisher. He had from the next novel (Seraphita), which was also caught his genius at Vienna; he had been mug begun, periodicaUy, in the Revue de Paris. nificently received by the aristocracy; he had CC«*aaei«d bjr 208 [JIIMSM«MO ALL THB YEAR ROUND. finished Seraphita, and nearly completed the showing them how fast he could write; and the other book; his angeUc friend, Carissima, two sheets were completed magnificently on the already loved Werdet from Balzac's description spot. By way of fit and proper cUmax to this ridi­ of him; Balzac himself was Werdet's friend tUl culous exhibitionof Uterary quackery, it isonlyne- death; Werdet waa hia Archibald Constable; cessary te add, that, on Balzac's own confession, Werdet should see him again in fifteen d^s; the two concluding sheets of " Seraphita" had Werdet should ride in his carriage in the Beis been mentaUy composed, and carefully committed de Boulogne, and raeet Bahsac riding in his car­ to memory, two years before he affected to write riage, and see the enemies of both parties look­ them impromptu in the printer's office. It seems ing on at the magnificent spectacle and bursting impossible te deny that the man who could act wfth spite. FinaUy, Werdet would have the in this outrageously puerile manner must have goodness te remark (ia a postscript) that Balzac been simply mad; but what becomes of the im­ had provided himself with another Uttle advance putation when we remember that this very mad­ of fifteen hundred francs, received from Reth- man produced books which, for depth of tnought schUd in Vienna, and had given in exchange a biU and marvellous knowledge of human nature, are at ten days' sight on his exceUent pubUsher, en counted deservedly among the glories of French his admirable and devoted Archibald Constable. literature, and which were never more Uving and mere lasting works than they are at this moment P While Monsieur Werdet was stiU prostrate " Seraphita" was published three days after under the effect of this audacious postscript, a the author's absurd exhibition of himself at the clerk entered his office with the identical bUl. printer's office. In this novel, as in its prede­ It was dravra at one day's sight instead of ten; cessor, Louis Lambert., Balzac left his own firm and the money was wanted immediately. The ground of reality, and soared, on the wings of pubUsher was the most long-suffering of men; S wedenberg, inte an atmosphere of transcendental out there were limits even to his patient endur­ obscurity impervious to all ordinary eyes. What ance. He took Balzac's letter vrith hun, and the book meant, the editor of the periodical in lit went at once to the office of the Parisian Roth- which part of it originaUy appeared never could schUd. The great financier received him kindly ; explain. Monsieur Werdet, who pubUshed it, admitted that there must have been some mis­ confessed that he was in the same mystified con­ take ; granted the ten days' grace; and dismissed dition ; and the present writer, whe has vainly his visitor with this exceUent and sententious attempted to read it through, desires to add, in piece of advice: this place, his own modest acknowledgment of "I recomraend you to mind what you are inabiUty te enlighten EngUsh readers in the about, sir, with Monsieur de Balzac. He is a smallest degree on the subject of " Seraphitl'* highly inconsequent raan." LuckUy for Monsieur Werdet, the author's rfr It was too late for Monsieur Werdet to mind putation stood so high with the public, that the what he was about. He had ne choice but to Dook sold prodigiously, merely oecause it was lose his credit, or pay at the end of the ten days. a book by Balzac, The proceeds of the sale, and He paid; and ten days later, Balzac returned, the profits derived from new editions of the old considerately bringing with him some charming novels, kept the sinking publisher from absolute Uttle Viennese curiosities for his esteemed pub­ submersion; and might even have brought him Usher, Monsieur Werdet expressed his acknow­ safely to land, but for the ever-increasing dead ledgments; and then politely inquired for the weigiit of the author's perpetual borrowings, on conclusion of " Seraphita," and the manuscript the security of forthcoming works which "•* of the new novel. never produced. Not a single Une of either had been committed to paper. No comraercial success, no generous self- The farce (undoubtedly a most disgraceful sacrifice, could keep pace with the demands ot performance, so far as Balzac was concerned) Balzac's insatiate vanity and love of show, at was net played out even yet. The pubUsher's re­ this period of his life. He had two establish­ proaches seem at last to have awakened the ments, to begin with; both splendidly furnished, author to something remotely resembUng a sense and one adorned wi*h a valuable gaUery of of shame. He promised that "Seraphita," pictures. He had bis box at the Prench Opera, which had been waiting at press a whole year, and his box at the ItaUan Opera, He had a should be finished in one night. There were chariot and horses, and an establishment of men just two sheets of sixteen pages each to vmte. servants. The panels of the carriage were deco­ They might have been completed either at the rated with the arms, and the bodies of the foot­ author's nouse or at the puDlisher's, which was men were adorned with the Uveries, of the noble close to the printer's. But, no—it was not in family of D'Entragues, to which Balzac per­ Balzac's character to raiss the sraaUest chance of sisted in declaring that he was aUied, although producing a sensation anywhere. His last he never could produce the smaUest V^°°^ V^ caprice was a determination to astonish the support of the statement. When he could ad_tt pnnters. Twenty-five compositors were caUed no mere to the sumptuous magnificence of his together at eleven at night, a tmckle-bed and houses, his dinners, his carriage, and his ser­ tf^le were set up for the author—or, to speak vants ; when he had fiUed his rooms with eveij more correctly, for the literary mountebank—in species of expensive knick-knack; when he had the workshop; Balzac arrived, in a high state of lavished money on aU the known extravagance inspiration, to stagger the sleepy joumeymenby which extravagant Paris can supply to the spend- CktrlMDickuu.] THE SECOND SITTING. [June 25, 18J9.] 209 thrift's inventory, he hit on the entirely new he had no apparent means of meeting. Monsieur idea of providing himself with such a walking- Werdet answered the next appUcation for an stick as the world had never yet beheld. A advance by a flat refusal, and loUowed up that splendid cane was first procured, was sent te the unexampled act of self-defence by speaking his jeweUer's, and was grandly topped by a huge mind at last, in no measured terms, to his ulus­ Mid knob. The inside of the knob was occupied trious friend. Balzac tumed crimson with sup­ by a lock of hair presented to the author by an pressed anger, and left the room, A series of unknown lady admirer. The outside was studded Dusiness formaUties foUowed, initiated by Balzac, with aU the jewels he had bought, and with all vrith the view of breaking off the connexion be­ the jewels he had received as presents. With tween bis publisher and himself, now that he this cane, nearly as big as a drum-major's staff, found there was ne mere money to be had. and aU a-blaze at the top with rubies, diamonds, Monsieur Werdet, on his side, was perfectly emeralds, and sapphires, Balzac exhibited him­ ready te " sign, seal, and deUver," and was most self, in a rapture of satisfied vanity, at the iroperly resolute in pressing his claims in due theatres and in the pubUc promenades. The form of law, Balzac had but one means of meet­ cane became as celebrated in Paris as the author, ing his UabiUties, His personal reputation was Madame de Girardin vrrote a sparkling Uttle gene; but his literary reputation remamed as book aU about the wonderful walking-stick, high as ever; and he seen found a publisher, Balzac was in the seventh heaven of happiness ; vrith large capital at ceraraand, who was ready Balzac's friends were either disgusted or diverted, to treat for his copyrights. Monsieur Werdet according to their tempers. One unfortunate had no resource but to seU, or be bankmpt. He fiian alone suffered the inevitable penalty of this parted with aU the valuable copyrights for a sum insane extravagance : need it be added that his of sixty thousand and odd francs, which sufficed te name was Werdet P meet his most pressing engagements. Some of The end of the connexion between the author the less popular and less valuable books he and the pubUsher was now fast approaching. kept, to help him, if possible, thi-ough his daUy AU entreaties or reproaches addressed to Balzac and personal UabiUties, As for gaimng any ab­ failed in producing the slightest result. Even solute profit, or even holding his position as a confinement in a spenging-house, when creditors publisher, the bare idea of securing either ad­ discovered, in course of time, that they could vantage was dismissed as an idle dreara. The wait no longer, passed unheeded as a warning, purpose for which he had toUed so hard and suf­ Balzac only borrowed more money the moment fered se patiently was sacrificed for ever, and the key was tumed on him, gave a magnificent he was reduced to beginning Ufe again as a dinner in prison, and left the poor pubUsher, as country traveUer for a prosperous publishing ;sual, te pay the bUl. He was extricated frora house. Se far as his main object in existence the spenging-house before he had been there was concemed, Balzac had plainly and UteraUy quite three days; and, at that time, he had spent rained him. It is impossible te part with over twenty guineas on luxuries which he had Monsieur Werdet, imprudent and credulous as not a farthing of his own te purchase. It is he appears to have been, without a strong feel­ useless, it is even exasperating, to go en accu­ ing of sympathy, which becomes strengthened to mulating instances of this sort of mad and cmel something Uke positive admiration when we dis­ prodigaUty : let us advance rapidly te the end. cover that he cherished, in after life, no un­ One morning. Monsieur Werdet balanced accounts friendly sentiments towards the man whe had with his author, from the beginning, and found, treated him so shamefuUy; and when we find ia spite of the large profits produced by the him, in the Memoir now under notice, stiU trying majority of the works, that fifty-eight thousand hard te make the best of Balzac's conduct, and francs were (to use bis ovra expression) paralysed stiU writing of him in terms of affection and in his hands by the Ufe Balzac persisted in lead­ esteem to the very end of the book. ing ; and that fifty-eight thousand more might The remainder of Balzac's Ufe was, in sub­ ^oon be in the same condition, if he had pos­ stance, merely the lamentable repetition of the sessed them to advance, A rich pubUsher might personal faults and foUies, and the literary have contrived te keep his footing in such a merits and triumphs, which have already found crisis as this, and te deal, for the time te come, their record in these pages. The extremes of on purely commercial grounds. But Monsieur idle vanity and unprincipled extravagance stUl Werdet was a poor man; he had relied on alternated, to the last, with the extremes of hard Balzac's verbal promises when he ought to have mental labour and amazing mental productive­ exacted his written engagements; and he had ness. Though he found new victims among new no means of appealing to the author's love of men, he never again met vrith se generous and money by dazzling prospects of bank-notes forbearing a friend as the poor pubUsher whose awaiting him ia the future, if he chose honestly fortunes he had destroyed. The women, whose to eam his right te them—^m short, there was strange impulses in his favour were kept alive but one alternative left, the alternative of giving by their admiration of his books, clung to their up the whole purpose and ambition of the book- spoUt darUng to the last—one of their number .seUer's life, and resolutely breaking off his ruin­ even stepping forward to save him from a ous connexion vrith Balzac. debtors' prison, at the heavy sacrifice of paying Reduced to this situation, driven to bay by the whole demand against him out of her own the prospect of engagements falling due whicn purse. In aU cases of this sort, even where glO [Jan* Ii, 19».] ALL THE YOEAR ROUND, [CoDdaettil bf

men were concerned as well as wramatic Authors, the 'Schools of laar riilhtlm two hours' interview, enclakning piteously, and Medicine, sent their representatives to walk "The man's imagination is in a state of deU- in the funeral procession, English readers, .M lOOffl rium—his talk has set my brain in a whirl—he American readers, German readers, and Russim ife audit would have driven me mad if I had spent the readers, swelled the immense assembly of French­ ais where tl day vrith him!" If men were influenced in this men that followed the coffin. 'Victor Hugo aad lere were tie vray, it is not wonderful that women (whose Alexandre Dumas were among the moumew ',1k i self-esteem was deUcately flattered by the pro­ whe supported thepaU. The first of these tiro minent and fascinating position which they hold celebrated men pronounced the funeral oratioBf in aU his books) should have worshipped a man over Balzac's grave, and eloquently charac­ who publicly and privately worshipped them. terised the whole series of the dead writer's ifed idles His personal appearance would have recalled works as forming, in tmth, but one grand book, to English minds the popular idea of Friar the text-book of contemporary civilisation. Witifc Tuck—he was the very model of the conven­ that just and generous tribute to the genius'tf ^ tional fat, sturdy, red-faced, ieUy monk. But Balzac, offered by the most Ulustrious of W he had the eye of a man of genius, and the literary rivals, thJese 'few pages may fitly «A tongue of a certain infernal personage, who may gracefuUy come to an end. Of the miserabte itm be broadly hinted at, but who .must on no ac­ frailties of the mfan, 'enough has been recorded to count be plably named. The Balzac candle­ serve the first of •all interests, the interest tit stick might be clumsy enough; but when once tmth. The better aisd nobler part oif him calls the Balzac candle was lit, the moths flew into it, '•fo r ne further comment at any writer's hands. \ only toe readUy, from aU points of the compass, It remains to us in his works, and it s "Hie last important act of his life was, in a with deathless eloquence for itself. worldly point of view, one of the wisest thing* he ever did. The lady who had invited him to A OAR-PULL OP PAIRIB8, Vienna, and whom he caUed Carissima, was the m,\ wife of a wealthy Russian nobleman. On the _ T WAS, knapsack on my back, vrith occasicm^ death of her husband, she practically asserted lifts on jaunting-cars, making a tour Of Ireland, heradmiration of her favourite author by offering hearing shiUelagbs rattle, seeing whisky drunk, him her hand and fortune. Balzac accepted both ; and Ustening to rebellious songs aU about pikes and retumed to Paris (from which respect for and the Shan van vocht, or W&Kdd prophetess his creditors had latterly kept him absent) a mar­ who, in'98, predicted the arrival of the French. ried man, and an enviable member of thewealthy I was a tourist on my way throt^h Conne­ cl^ of society. A splendid future now opened mara, determined to hear as muchof the bro^ie, before him—but it opened too late. Arrived at see as much of "the big blue mountains called the end of his old coarse, he just saw the new "the Twelve Pins," antTpick up as many stories career beyond him, and dropped en the threshold of banshees and Ribbonmen as 1 could in a few of it. The strong constitution which he had re- weeks, 'I hadcottie from Eilkmey, where the nwrselessly wasted for more than twenty years spectre iiag, O'Donohue, maUed in sunshine, past, gave way at length, at the very time when ndes over the lake every May moming, and 1 his social chances looked most brightly. Three was going to Donegal, the countn^ of rock dwarfs, months after his marriage, Honore de Balzac smugglers, and mine spirits. I knew if there died, after .unspeakable suffering, of disease of was a fairy to be found in Ireland I should the heart. He was then but fifty yeats of age. hear of it from Dennis O'Flanagan, vriie was to His fond, proud, heart-broken old mother held drive me in the jaunting-car between BaUyrobin hun im her arms. On that loring besom he liad and Bedtymtbrig, and so it proved. Cli«rle« Dtokeiu.] A CAR-PULL OP FAIRIES. [Jane S5,1849.] 2]1

The day had tumed out wet, the rainfeU m the inn before the Joyces was bom or'thought long slanting cords, and beginning first by ce- of. He was of the O'Flanagans—the flaming, vermg the wmdow-panes of the inn at BaUyrobin combustible, mad, burning-hot O'Flanagans—the (where I was detained) vrith sUver scratches ould Irish chiefs that the monks used to mehtioa like se many feeble attempts at autographs in their Utanies, and pray speciaUy against, chant­ by some traveller possessed of a diamond ring, ing, as the candles twinkled, the incense smoked, liad at last come to a wide, washing strejon and the beU tinkled, "From the wrath of the that flooded the glass, and kept it dripping, O'Flanagans^—tlie 'flaming O'Flan^ans—good like a thatched roof on a wet day, the Lord defiver-ns'." 'WeU, but about the initials: bright drops matching each other in races to Hiere was M. P., that was Murphy O'Flanagan the bottom, as if they had determined to be (rest' his sowl!), that bet the big grazier at BalKn- merry, and to get up smdl i)erbys on their asloe, and was kiUed at last by a foul blowon own account. The car vwdted tUl the cushions the baek of the head of him from a thundering got wet, and Dennis drove it bade again underr istone inan eld woman's stocking, 'Therewas D. cover. * •P.-—that was'Dennis O'Flanagan, who, at Donny- In my room there was liot mnch to 'amuse 'a- Ibreok, wepped SUppery Sam, the English drover, MTeather-bound travelter. Tte only books on ^ the' iand was transported for so getting'the better of shelf over the Uluminated tea-tray were a Ihira. P. P.—tbatwas Paddy O'Flanagan (Dennis's CathoUc Testament in the Irish language, a dis­ father, resthis sowl!), who ended his life on the membered volume of Tom Moore's Irish Melodies, idrop at Derry, for cutting the ears off of a " dirty and a History of the Irish RebeUion, blaok-' ibiackgaird" 6f a DubUn land agent, ^easy with thumbing. The mantelpiece vras Wmle Dentni?, reaUytmsting it vrill hold up, stuck with bagsmen's cards. There was nothing :goes to get out the car,'I turn oyer allmy Irish in the room peculiarly national except the stories, whether of banshees or ribbonmen, of peat fire and the peat basket, wldch, in Irekod, ileprecban, erock of gold, changeling, demon stands where the coal-scuttle does in Engknd, ' horse, eroppy, fairy, or ^ v^^hat not. 1 'bethink me There were the lumps of dried black turt", look­ .of hew a Deolan tamed the demon horse, and of ing Uke sraaU oblong cakes of chocolate, burn­ ihow the famous O'Ronrkfewent up tothe raoon, ing, or to be bumt. There is no blaze about a peat 'andwas left there bythe "bigthafe" of an eagle. fire, but ft'quick, earnest, white fiame, that slowly 'Tired at last of ray rumination, andfinding no one bums the sods (where once the snipe and vrild coming, I rouse myself and go dut into'tlie kitehen duck fed and nestled; where the moping, bank- 'to see what delays Dennis and the car, I find rapt heron brooded over his irremediable misfor­ Dennis, totaUy forgetful- df me and-the joumey, tune ; where the hooded crow watched the kanb,, ; intent on teazUig MiitressJoyee-VeldeSt daughtei;, and the endless magpies strutted and flut­ !a Uttle wicked, blaek-eyed coUeen, who has her tered) to a blinding pure crimson, so pure and back to me, and is arrangingier long hair, vrinch intense, that it gradually ^chemises into -ableom looks something like a horse's mane, by means

sit down on, then kneels down and puffs but I manned to keep my seat, which is mon at the smouldering peat fire, which she had than some M,P,s can say, and away we went in nearly let out while Dennis had been whisper­ that headlong, reckless, generous, peltuig way ing soft nonsense in her Uttle pink ear. I that Irish carmen, reckless of wear and tear, observe on the mud floor, which is scooped out always do go in the south of Ireland, BaUy­ in hoUows, and is anything but level or clean, robin faded behind us. Now, you whe have the shavings of an alpeen (slimelagh) which Dennis laughed at the incomparable traveUer who told has been long seasoning iu the dungliiU, and which you of coals being brought up on a china plate, he has just new been shaping into a terrific mace, guess what luggage we nad in our car. Rats intended to thin the rsuiks of the base anti- m a bottle P An elephant in a iam-pot P But Planagan faction; a rope of onions, in their you would never guess, A turkey m a band- smiling, bronzed, red-yellow skins, dangle over­ Dox—yes, positively, a turkey sent in an old head, and a salmon rod, with its spear at the butt- bonnet-box to Ballynabrog market by Mrs. end, rests in a corner of the room, Kathleen, Joyce the prudent, I have seen a few droll her mermaid dressing ever, is now sittmg down things, but never anything odder than that, A alt the back door, en a chair without any par­ swan in a basket at Basingstoke, with his neck ticular seat, with one eye en Dennis, whe is out and a parchment direction round it, is droll; putting-tethe car, and flapping the blue cushions, but the turkey in Mrs, Joyce's bonnet-box ww and with the other on a she-goat, that feeds, frresistible, tethered, near the stable, and is waiting for Mrs, Dennis is a Cennaught man, pale wid Joyce to milk her. At Kathleen's feet, roUs, not whiskerless, but with straight black hair and over-dressed, young Teddy Joyce, playing with good features, vrith a serious, earnest manner, his mother's beads (the rosy darlint!), the very changing rapidly to rollicking fun and drollery, beads she counted as she went last week en and with a fine swelUng lew-toned voice, her pUgrimage up that holy mountam near capable of much rise and f^l, much in and ou^ Westport, Creagh Patrick, which is as conical and endless subtle gradations of feeling. and nearly as steep as an extinguisher, It is rather startling to a sober, cynical, Dennis gives a howl of deUght—one of these sceptical EngUshman, who believes what he howls that you may stUl hear even in a sees and can nandle, and Uttle else, te hear, for DubUn concert-room—as the last buckle of the the first time, an Irishman telUng a fairy stoiy harness is sUpped into place. He reappears in with a quiet, almost sad, air of intense convic* a large blue great-coat that reaches down te his tion and feeling; it is startUng to one accus­ heels, and with a rusty hat vrith a flappmg Ud tomed te see sham ghosts brought up it that gees up and down, twined round with poUce-courts and sentenced to the treadmUl, a^ white shmy Imes of gut, and studded, net vrith accustomed to hear aerial voices and winking brooches, but with gaudy " maccaws" and statues accounted for by spectacled men on " golden pheasants," as the best salmon-flies scientific principle, te find a man soberly and are caUed. Amongst these, Uke a gun from calmly relating, vrith a voice thrilUng vrith emo­ an embrasure, obtrades the eld Irish Adam, in tion, some narrative of a durably prophesying -f''of these' the shape of a black dhudeen pipe, oUy and banshee, or a child stolen by the fairies. At odorous, once a great mist roUs away, and you see the jiiEiniis,' A truly Irish hubbub announces our de­ centuries that roU between the Protestant and parture, Mike Joyce emerges frora sorae Catholic, the Saxon and the Celt, You fed ceUar, or secret distiUery, red and rejeicmg; that you are in a twiUght country, where f men corae out and shake hands with Dennis; faith is stiU unreasoning and supreme; w here Mrs. Joyce, with her white frilled cap and miracles, andreUcs, and ghosts, are stiU believed pleasant staring face insists en mixing rae a in; where ghost stories are matters of hfe "stkrap cup," m the shape of a glass of and death to men; and where the beautiful mon­ ••^^UVei whisky-toddy: the sight of the sugar dis- tilUng dovra m a sUveiy shower m which, gives sters of our nurseries stiU walk, even in the me quite a new unpressien of the charms of che­ daylight, Dennis has heard the banshee in the mistry, blue cloak, vrith the grey dishevelled hair, wailing under the peat heap; he has seen the phooka, or I shake hands with everybody, as if I was one demon horse, tear past at night, with fiery ;.0 a I of the AUied Powers in a popular prmt, I mane and phosphorescent eyes; ne has seen the balance myself sideways en the shelf of the fairies in green, garlanding the mushroom; he jauntmg-car, feeUng as an Englishman at first has beheld O'Donohue on his white horse rise always does m that wUd, erratic vehicle, as if I from the tranquU raoming lake; he has stolen up '^'iu was on a side-saddle, or rather on a chair which and heard the cluricaun, or Uttle dwarf in the was being drawn from under me, cocked-hat and scarlet Hogarth coat, tapping at I felt slightly quabnish, and clutched at the a shoe on the sunny side of a haystack; and here back rail as we started with a spurt and jerk am I, -who love everything Irish, quite an outer ^kl that nearly unseated me, barbarian who has never been granted any of these „,'^^''^^'" '^^^^ o*^* tl»e Joyce faraUy, privUeges! The banshee 1 saw near Cork, "More power to ye!" said Mrs, J, "Good tumed out to be old Mary Burke, drunk under a luck to the worst of ye!" said Kathleen, looking hedge, creenmg a croppy song te herself; my up with a smUe at Dennis from her steckingr^ phooka near BaUycastle was a tinker's Kernr Off we were—that is to say, off I nearly was pony; my leprechaun an itinerant cobbler, mend- IK Charlei Dickens.] A CAR-PULL OP FAIRIES. [Janeas, 1859.] 213 ing a shoe under a bramble hedge outside Blarney purgatory (rest their sowls !) for aU the world, Castle, your honour. The noise is just as if it was sorae I was intermpted in these mythological reve­ old woma,n was sitting down under the wall yonder, ries, and was prevented from coming te my finalan d beating her thighs at mtervals with the flat conclusion that more of the old Paganism re­ of her two hands, then flinging them up ever mained in Ireland than in any other European her head and clappmg them together, as the countij, by a tremendous spUt and crack of some country keeners do when you hire them at a part of the car, funeral to chant out the Ologaun." "Be asy," said Dennis, "You get en the " She dresses, I have heard," I said, humour­ 'crow's-nest'" (the Uttle nook for the driver m ing his belief, " in an eld blue cloak, with her front of the car and between the two seats, long grey hair falling over her white staring face,, where ne Irish driver, if he can help it, ever sits), which is generaUy wan and famished. At Dunluce "I'U stand up by you, and it'U be aU right. The Castle they shewed me a round room at the base car's not so young as it was, but it's " of a tower overlooking the sea. It was once Here we gave a tremendous bunlp against a the prison of the Earls of Antrim, and some roadside pest. foul deed must have been done there in the " Bedad! net many a car 'ud stand that, and be black old times. The earthen fleer of this ban­ the better for it!" shee's tower is always kept clean and free from Just then the rain began again—such rain! dust, and people say it is swept daUy by the grape-shot and razor-blades—as we tore on— banshee." "slipping through it" Dennis caUedit—between "Te think of that, now, your honour!" said waUs of mountains capped vrith cloud. Por Dennis, with intense interest, feeling his faith more than an hour, head down, we butted through confirmed. "WeU, a banshee was heard the this, our shining yeUew waterproofs gUstening night my mother died, and it was in an old like gold. Danish fort at the end of our praty ground;, At last it cleared up, out came the laugh­ when my poor mother, and she in her death- ing blue. The bedrenched horse stmck out struggles, heard that terrible waU that she knew sprightUer than ever, Dennis began to sing, was not human, and she down in the fever, she and then te talk, and our talk fell on a certain says te my father, says she, 'Dennis, I must go,' mountain we were passing, caUed The Giant and sure enough she died that day week, at Mountain, the very hour—and the same thing had happened Now, Dennis was great in giants, bein^ one of to aU her family, for she was of a good ould an old family whe had numbered many giants in stock, your honour. A year or two after, what its ancestral roU. did she do but appear to Teddy, one of my little " Did you ever hear of the giant whe could brothers. He come in one summer evening, and hear the grass grevring ?" said I. told us that as he was playing about vrith the " No," said Dennis, " he couldn't have been yellow flowers that grow in the bog-holes,, a native of these parts, (WeU, that's a good one, making them into necklaces and belts and too.) But I have seen a giant's grave there what not, he feels a sort of warning, looks away in Ennis, your honour. They say that he up and sees mother sitting on the stUe just as had the biggest bones of any man in those parts, she used to de, but very sad and pale. He hut that ms vrife, faUing in love with an ould ran te her, but just as he got near her, she haythen King of Clare, with the big gold crovra melted away and disappeared. Then he got on him, se that he looked like a walking jeweUer's frightened, which he wasn't before, and run shop, snigged off his head with his ovni sword, screaming home and tould us; and I remember for no other had any power ever him. Many's it more, by token it was St, Dennis's day, and he the time I've sat making salmon-flies on that is my patron saint, rest his sowl!"—crossing giant's gravestone. It wasn't twenty years himself five times, ago that a party of the Green Horse came by " Did you oversee a cluricaun, Dennis?" said that way, and stopped there, at the very stone, I—" one of these little vrizen fellows in red-heeled to water their horses, ' What's this ?' says the shoes, scarlet coats, and laced cocked-hats, who is corporal to a countryman, who was digging seenhammeriDg at a tiny brogue inside the ruins raties foment it, ' It was the work of a big of a chapel, and who, if you gripe him, teUs you Srish ^ant in the ould times,' says the country- where the crock of geld is ?" iMan, civUly, 'Well,' says the other, 'then it vrill be " Ne, your honour," said Dennis; " but I met the work of a young Scotch giant, in these times, a fairy man once when I was a boy. It was up to remove it,' So he tries, and tugs, and tugs, a mountain, where I went to cut a stick, for it and gives it a terrible hewge, but he couldn't was aU shaking with hazel-nut bushes, and I »iake anything of it. (Laughs,) Och! the didn't care then for the story of the eld folks giant was too much for them—it's there now," that it was slap fuU of fairies, and what net, "I suppose," said I, "the banshee is seen being a devU-me-care gossoon. I get up the sometimes heretkbouts," hiU, scrambUng through the stones and dry '_' 'Deed they are, your honour," said Dennis, fern, frightenmg rabbits, and startling thrushes, seriously; "we generaUy hear them in the treading the swate breath out of the dnr purple evening, or at tvriUght-fall, and we knew that it thyme, thinking of my girleen, as I always 18 no human voice keening, because it is so did when I saw anything speciaUy bright, sWeet, sweet and mournful, Uke a sorrovring angel in or in any vrise purty; up I went and up, now 214 [June », l«U.] ALL THE YEAR ROUND. [OandBfaM tr pushing through the thorn, bushes, and now side to it, when he heard, ashe was driring the ettbg out ot the green dark into the broad cows heme, some sounds he thought was some flue brightness and sunshine^ tUl I got nearly to neighbours staUn§ Id* hay, which was-making at the top, tuid looking out clear over bog and river, the time, and lying about in dry heaps, your thanked God for having made such a country honour; so he goes home quietly, and "cls an as ould Ireland. Then, looking above, what do I old rusty bagenet, and what does he do but see but, twenty yards off, as nate a stick as I ever Ues dovra to wait for thera behind a large hay­ saw in my life, and, by my sowl, I didn't forget to cock outside the fort. Presently, what should cut it, and just as I was stripping off the broad he hear vrith his two ears but a blessed sort of wooUy leaves, singing, "Ould Ireland's native music oozing out of the fort, just like a thousand shamrock," I looks up and sees a comraon-lookiog, birds singing, together on A May moming. Och! queer sort of ould uiau coming straight towards your honour, it was nothmg but the good people me along the patli, ' What do you do, you spal- dancing and figuringinsid e the hiU. Well, be­ )een,' says h^ angrilv,' cutting my trees ?' And fore my father could make out where it came le spoke as if they all belonged to him. WeU, from he fell in a sort of swound, and when he Jiough it give me a Uttle tremble, I wasn't to awoke he was outside the fort, two fields away; )e put down, and thinks I, I'U walk nearer to it was quite dark, and as for the bagonet, you, and see what sort of a man you are—for I where was it but stuck in seme hay just behind was ready then vrith my hands, your honour, and I him! WeU, never a word did he brathe of it walked straight en—straight on. But when I got tUl his dying day, when I leant over to catch lus to the place, tare an' ouns, where he had stood, he last gasp. But I'm tiring ye, your honour." was gone—gone. I looked everywhere, under the "Not a bit, Dennis," said I, "It prevents trees, behind the bushes, ever the big stones, but me counting the mUestenes." no man. So, thinks I, it's a fairy, sure enough, "Well, then, I'U be teUing you how there and with that, as if I had been shot down, I ran was a young Scotchman who took the farm after like a feUow from a mad dog. Och! it was divU we went, and who used te be always laughing at a time I run faster in my life but once. Sod, the humbug about the fairy piper, ' Pipe away,' waU, stone heap, bramble-bush, water gap, no­ says he, ' md be plagued to you! _ So long as I thing stopped me,, tUl I get home, torn, wet, don't have te pay, its chape music is that same.' dirty, red-hot, and frightened." Thim's the words, or very near, he made use of " Butdid youkeep the enchanter's stick ?"saidl, at the markets and patrons, tUl one eveniug he " Och, faix did I," said Dennis, " for a year was coming through the smpe meadow, and or two, and the eld man,never claimed it; stiU, what doejs he hear wit a piping just as if it w I always felt rather quare vrith it in my hand, underground, and underground was heaven, aid and thought it would get rae a bating raaybeat ; these were the sowls of baptised chUdren making a fair, or bring me in some bad luck; so I never merry and dancing for joy. As it was, as soonas took it to a faction fight, but one night, getting he got home, 'Ma lanna vicht,' says his mother, drank, I lost it at Westport," whe was half Irish, 'saints inparadise, whafs " Didn't you teU me," said I, ','your father died turned your blood, jewel?' Then they seized for grief at a batmg he get at a faction fight ?" hira, especiaUy the girleens his sisters, till he re­ "True to you, your honeur,"said Dennis, kicking covered a bit, and up and tould them he had his whip, "or may I niver spake again. He was. heard the Macarthy'S fairy pipers." the champion of Knockmagee, your honour, and; "Those Protestants are very slow of beM, kept aU the Joyces and the rest of them at bay, Dennis P" said I. till one day twelve menof thera get round hira and " Och, and you're ri^t, yonr honour," said beat him down when he was tired- I saw his Dennis, "Penance, pUgrimage, cress, mass, it's all shUlelagh the other day ever the chinmey of a one vrith them, Faix ! it puzzles me to say how •!;ra(i cousin of miae; it was twice as big as any other the Ukes of 'em wiU ever find a back way to get I T. shiUelagh, Och! he was a powerful strong big into heaven without paying St. Peter's turnpike. man, your honour (rest his sowl!), but they put But has your honour ev,er heard of how the hira in gaol, for the fight, where he was hurt, and fairies change the chUdren ui ould Ireland ?" it broke the heart of him not te be able to pay, " Of course I have, Denius," said I. " Dont them out. That was a dreadful day to see the we aU knew how they pine and pine and get women with the stones in the stockings, and as for wizen, and knovripg and s^y things.any old men the loaded sticks clattering, you could hear them could say; and then the mother, alter much two hundred yards off, Oeh! but I ewe it those praying, rushes at them suddenly in the cradle Jb^es, though Mike is ray master. He had an with a red-hot poker, which.she has been getting extraordinary way of holding his stick, your ready for the hour past, and'then, with a scream, honour, in the middle, and letting the end.cover the change comes, and she finds, instead of the Ids arm and elbow, that has never been aquaUed Uttle knowing dwarf, her ovra fine rosy child since. He had seen some ghost rights, toe, had again, crying for the breast.** my feythfflr," "Bedad! Your honour," said Dennis, "has " Whati more banshees ?" said I, anxiously. ot it aU by heart, Uke a schoolmaster gets the "Oh no, yom: honour, but fairy pipers—fairy f latui! WeU, I beard a case of this kind the pipers, your honour, fie was one day near the night of a birth only last Paschal. A friend of fort, as we caUedit, at BaUyrobin, which is now mine whe drives a car was coming along the little better than a grass hiU vrith a hoUow in­ road, and see somethmg wbite at the window of CbtrkK Dioktni,] A, €lAit-PULL OP FAIRIES, [June 2S, 1869.] 2d5 his brother's house yonder,, so what does he know what brought aU thia mischief on him— do but get out and creep up. closer did Patsy, whether it was missing mass,, or notgping'to and what should it be: but an, ould woman, St Bridgetfs WeU,, on up^ Creagh Patrick and wrapped up in grey, handing a chUd out of. the doing the stations, as his dacent father had lattice to another ould creatur in grey, who held done, or what-—a fairy appears to himone uigjit up her arms for it down belew; ' Have you got ia a.dream, and says she,to him, 'Mr. Planagwa, it ?' says abe. ' I have,' says the other. Well, that cow you killed- was vayi grandfather, aad he thought it was all a witchery, and that, perr that's my grandfather's skin, you spalpeen, you baps, it was a Uttle owing to the whisky he nad have got soaking in your duBghUl, lou blacdc- drunk at the fair; but, sure enough, next day^ ^aird, if you have any manners, take and lay, it he found his brother's chUd had died at the m the fort to-night, and when the cow comes to birth. So he knew what had become of it, life and runs round the enclosure, tum your that what they buried was aimere trick of flesh, back, you vUlain, and take care net to cress and that the real chUd was snug and safe ia yourself, Mr. Flanagan,' This he did, and glad fairyland—^which was a oomfort to him, though enough, and out come.the cow; he heard a voice he kept it te himself. So niver mention it, your thanking, him for returuiiig the skin, and aUwent honour, or it'U hurt the fanuly." right with bam ever afterwards." "Why, Dennis," said I,, "you are as full of After this, Dennis grew silent, and I feU old stones as an egg is fuU of meat." mnsing, "The old snperstitigias of* Ireland," "And fuUertoo,beggingyeurhonour's pardon," thought I," are dying out like the old langvtage," said Dennis. "I,remember hearing a neighbour stiU Munster- has its cluvieaun artisan, its of ours at KUnnyre teU me that.the night of. Mferrow and DuhaUaae, its O'Donohue and its the great storm she and seme otha: woaien Mh^UUcuddy; The islanders of Shark and were sitting round >a-fire in a cottage, listening Bafim have, their Terence O'FMierty, as the to the pelt and drive of.the rain, and the fluster Cennaught man haa his Daniel O'Rouxke, who and worry of the wind outside the cabin—crossing rode on the eagle aU the way from the moon to themsdives, I'U be bad, aad tbinkii^ of the Munster,, and May-day bwfces stiU redden the forrier ganagh (hitter sadness) of those who had sky in remembranoe of Baal. gone to Ameriky> and;might, be then on the The Irish phUosophy of fairies; is that they are broad say (rest tnear sowls!). AU. of a sudden fallen angels, who, Wmg neutral beings not al- there came a bigger roar than ever, as if awUd t(^thier/lo8t, are sent tos«fffer a further pre- baste and the divU on it was. waiting hungry at ibation en earth befwe they axe raised again,to the thrasbal, and bang the door flew open! heaven or sealed up for ever te perdition. Some of them saw nothing mere but some The Ulster men tlunk the" wee folk" Uve wher­ windle. straws (larsar lena) olovring round the ever they at first fell. The Irish, fairies; are floor, but she I spoke to saw distinctly troops geiaerajly dd, ugly, lam©,. and vrizen, but have a of fairies riding round: on; hcMrses no bigger than power of assuming shapes,, as a, vritch can sraaU birds. Then the door slammed again, and change te a hare or a cat. They use these shapes they heard ada^h.of swords outside, and a hurry only to reveal thenKelves to men; in. They as if there was.a scrnnmage going;on in the air, haunt eld rains wheare they dance and revel, which passed down the road, and gradually aad, if possible, injure or allure men. Sudden died away in the distance. The next moraingj deaths are generaUy attributed to their agency, sure enough—and the woman whfi told me saw; merely from sueh deaths being unaccountable, it with her own eyes—-there come news of the and so, petitio ppMJqai,, supernatural. The battle of SalaBfianky, and there was drops, of Derry and Antrim mountaineers^ have their blood for a quarter of a mUedovrn the causeway; brevraie, whe vrith Seotdi industry labours for so no doubt but that was a fairy battle. his "cream bowl" drdy set; in other words, the "Which clearly accounted, Dennis, for the brewBie is a sly servant, vrorkang overtime. StiU big wiad and the ships that went dovra," said.I. if on a summer's day, when the sky is buming " Not a doubt dse, and hearme now. The only bine and hot, the Irish labourer; gmng to the way iu such perplexities is to go to the fairy bog for turf, sees a whirl of dnst tvristing play­ doctor, who knows aU aA)0ut the blast and the fully Ui the air, he ceases te sing and laugh, changes andi the? meat' oaret Try a drop of holds his breath, looks dovra^ repeats a prayer, Parlemint (legal wMsky); your honour; it keeps and crosses himself, for he knows that thatwwl the cold out of the stomach and, the heat in it. of dust contains a flock of the " good" people; Good luck to) than;who invented it (rest their Tlkese days of! simple faith are, however, going sowls!) Well, as your honour, sames so fond of for everj even in Irelaind, Fairies disappear these old pishogues (God between you and barm!), befeare the red-whiskeredbagsman, with his tin I must tell you about the fairy cow that used to boxes and bundles of pattern cards ; before the fM every third night inside the ruins of snort and tramp • of the steam-engine; before Ga&ile BaUynock, tUl the naygur who kept itfaahiMiabl, e todiristsand fashionable guide books, who was a relation of ours (third cousin) en my O'Donohue no longea* rises en Ms white horse mother's side, klU It. and laid the skin to soak from the lake en May-day moming. No longetthe la his dunghiU. From thai time everythmg Antrim brevraie, hairy and rade, sweats at his went wrong vrith him: the cattle died, his kindly task, more grateful than man; no longer sheep had the ret, and he get inte a lawsmt (rest fairies circle the mushroom, or minuet in and out his sowl!), While he was puzzUng his head to between the rows of daisies. 916 ALL THE YEAR ROUND. tJuBtSS.Igsi.] The great granite mountains, scathed vrith vriden and her commerce increase; when her thunder and furrowed by the lightning's stroke, fisheries shaU become aa numerous as her mana- no lon,^er see the giant striding from peak to factories, the north be white with bleaching- peak tnrongh the violet-coloured mist. Ne fields, and the south be yeUow with flocks! longer the banshee wails under the leafless thorn- Dennis here became uneasy about a seat- buan; no longer the tap of the cluricaun'a cushiton he had lost. "We are sure," he said, hammer is heard by the gold-seeker. The black " to meet the masthur. He'll want to get up bog pits have yielded almost their last gold just because it's dropped somewhere on the roacl. chain and brooch of the old Danish king, slain Now, if I had had them aU right I shouldn't long since, and buried amid gigantic elk bones have seen the sole of his foot," blackened pine trunks, and stone axes, down "What shaU you do? The agent wiU be m far below the quaking surface, over which the stopping your wages," said I. snipe zigzags or the bittern booms. The tum­ " If I Qon't flnd it to-morrow, I'll just stalo bling wa^on jolts by with its cargo of laugh­ another," said Dennis in a low, quiet, voice. ing revellers, where the croppy piper was buried " Who is that thin man in front, Dennis P* under the sign-post during the troubles; or by said I. the heap of stones, once a happy home tUl the " Oh, that's a schoolmaster," said Dennis, "I red night that the Shanavests, or Carders, or know, by his cut, but I won't see him, or he'll BT Hearts of Steel, heramed round its buming roof. be wanting rae to take him to Clifden, and pay No bleeding nun or ghost of the blaspheming fox- me with a writing lesson. Sorra a one that we hunter, whe chased the vermin to the very altar, meet but I knew, yet they don't knew me, thafs appears now to scare the English pedestrian; the best of it. Here's the two Mr. Bradys. HPIEBl even the ghosts have emigrated out of Ireland The top of the moming to you, Mr. Brady! fas a to since the Union, CathoUc ghosts, abhorring They're brothers; you wouldn't think, yonr.—juimj^^u Repeal, vrill net take the trouble te scare honour, there was a drop of blood between thein,mtmTil Vic Protestant land agents sneaking about in dis­ ne mere than there is between you and m^BLlp "^ guise, for fear of the flint-piece and the sight (abruptly, vrith trae Irish discursiveness). " T behind the waU, The good eld days of female you see their eUed coats? It's better than ai hangmen, and processions of corpses in crim­ mackintosh; it's soaked three months in oil; ii bayjs son carts are gene by; the ribbonmenn e longer better than ail your mackintosh, with the sol flaunt their riobons at night upon the Curragh soap and ingy-raober." or in the bavra; the gully, where the foxes We were now entering Ballynabrig, are, ne longer has its black peat water stained whose suburb road was pouring a train with the blood of MoUy Maguire's chUdren; the country people retuming from the fair. Ni tuUagh's slope is untrodden by the insolent hoof it was a primitive tunibUng car, vrith its of the butcher yeoman's chargers; the tubber shelf and outrigger crowded with grey-sti (spring) is left by the barefooted pilgrim te the inged farmers and laughing ceUeeiis; now, it WremoD smpe and the moor-hen; the sUebn is bluer than a cage-cart full of pigs, whe looked out betw( ifttewat ever, because a brighter sun shines on its moun­ the bars, vrith that calm, observing, friendly „lib. l tains of pUed sappMre; the eld stars shine dependence pecuUar to the Irish pig; now, moirfl cheerier over the scorched headland where amusing of aU, it was a rough, conical-hatted, the gull screams and the great droves of silver sal­ eld, raw-boned schoolmaster riding a donk^, mon stiU leap and swim; the Dane's rath grows with his splay feet stuck in hay stirrups; now, we greener, and the Druid's ghost Ues on the grassy met rough graziers vnrapped in frieze; countrr- knoll by the sea, Ustening to the old ocean hymn. raen of all ages in the constitutional tail-coat, gut ^iafcitss* Tide of Lough Eme, let thy floods rise buttons, and knee-breeches, and the slip of a stick and hide the ruins of dead men's graves, so stuck under the arm. Every eye was bright with that eld wrongs be hidden away and for- good-huraeured whisky, seme sang, aU greeted us otten; let the Croagh's peak pomt to a new with a shout, a flourish of sticks, and a joke. f eaven and a new earth, so that the crimes of the old blood-boltered Don and Donagh ... ., . , Now ready, price Is,, Uniform with PICKWICK, DAVID GoppESPiEtn, BtjU ,T spears, be forgotten! Round towers, where ^e HOOSE, &C., squaU-crew and starUng only buUd, echo once The Pirst Monthly Part of more vrith the voice of the prophecy of a happier future! Shall we never see the day A TALE OF TWO CITIES. 'Motor I ^. ^ BY CHARLES DICKENS. when the coast of Ireland shaU be starry at dusk With Two Illustrations on Steel by HABLOT K. with the answermg lustres of the wammg Ught- BaowKB. houses; when her mountams shaU be circled— To be completed in Eight Monthly Parts, Sj'fortl npt vrith black Phlegethons of bog, but vrith CHAPMAN and HAIX, 193, Piccadilly. W„ AHD ^ stfiding fieldsan d belts of cottages; when fleets AIL THE YEAR ROUKD" Office, 11, Wellington-street North, Loudon, W,C. ™ fif hpg-boats shaU fiU her bays, and her roads BACK iriniBEBSof " HotJSBHOi,D'WoED8"«flay always shall be crowded with raerchandiseP May the be had of Messrs. CHAPMAN and HAIJI. 193, Piccadilly, blessed day soon come when her cities shaU W., and at the Office of " Aii. TOE yBAE ROUND," U. •Wellington-street North. I^oudon, W,0, The right of Translatina Articles from AI.L THE TEAK ROTOD is reserved by the Authors.

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