Miscellaneous Essays Part 2

Toad-in-the-hole was no more seen in any public resort. We missed him from his wonted haunts--nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he. By the side of the main conduit his listless length at noontide he would stretch, and pore upon the filth that muddled by. "Even dogs are not what they were, sir--not what they should be. I remember in my grandfather's time that some dogs had an idea of murder. I have known a mastiff lie in ambush for a rival, sir, and murder him with pleasing circ.u.mstances of good taste. Yes, sir, I knew a tom-cat that was an a.s.sa.s.sin. But now"--and then, the subject growing too painful, he dashed his hand to his forehead, and went off abruptly in a homeward direction towards his favorite conduit, where he was seen by an amateur in such a state that he thought it dangerous to address him. Soon after he shut himself entirely up; it was understood that he had resigned himself to melancholy; and at length the prevailing notion was, that Toad-in-the-hole had hanged himself.

The world was wrong _there_, as it has been on some other questions.

Toad-in-the-hole might be sleeping, but dead he was not; and of that we soon had ocular proof. One morning in 1812, an amateur surprised us with the news that he had seen Toad-in-the-hole brus.h.i.+ng with hasty steps the dews away to meet the postman by the conduit side. Even that was something: how much more, to hear that he had shaved his beard--had laid aside his sad-colored clothes, and was adorned like a bridegroom of ancient days.

What could be the meaning of all this? Was Toad-in-the-hole mad? or how?

Soon after the secret was explained--in more than a figurative sense "the murder was out." For in came the London morning papers, by which it appeared that but three days before a murder, the most superb of the century by many degrees had occurred in the heart of London. I need hardly say, that this was the great exterminating _chef-d'oeuvre_ of Williams at Mr. Marr's, No. 29, Ratcliffe Highway. That was the _debut_ of the artist; at least for anything the public knew. What occurred at Mr. Williamson's twelve nights afterwards--the second work turned out from the same chisel--some people p.r.o.nounced even superior. But Toad-in-the-hole always "reclaimed"--he was even angry at comparisons. "This vulgar _gout de comparaison_, as La Bruyere calls it," he would often remark, "will be our ruin; each work has its own separate characteristics--each in and for itself is incomparable. One, perhaps, might suggest the _Iliad_--the other the _Odyssey_: what do you get by such comparisons? Neither ever was, or will be surpa.s.sed; and when you've talked for hours, you must still come back to that." Vain, however, as all criticism might be, he often said that volumes might be written on each case for itself; and he even proposed to publish in quarto on the subject.

Meantime, how had Toad-in-the-hole happened to hear of this great work of art so early in the morning? He had received an account by express, dispatched by a correspondent in London, who watched the progress of art On _Toady's_ behalf, with a general commission to send off a special express, at whatever cost, in the event of any estimable works appearing--how much more upon occasion of a _ne plus ultra_ in art! The express arrived in the night-time; Toad-in-the-hole was then gone to bed; he had been muttering and grumbling for hours, but of course he was called up. On reading the account, he threw his arms round the express, called him his brother and his preserver; settled a pension upon him for three lives, and expressed his regret at not having it in his power to knight him. We, on our part--we amateurs, I mean--having heard that he was abroad, and therefore had _not_ hanged himself, made sure of soon seeing him amongst us. Accordingly he soon arrived, knocked over the porter on his road to the reading-room; he seized every man's hand as he pa.s.sed him--wrung it almost frantically, and kept ejaculating, "Why, now here's something like a murder!--this is the real thing--this is genuine--this is what you can approve, can recommend to a friend: this--says every man, on reflection--this is the thing that ought to be!" Then, looking at particular friends, he said--"Why, Jack, how are you? Why, Tom, how are you? Bless me, you look ten years younger than when I last saw you." "No, sir," I replied, "It is you who look ten years younger." "Do I? well, I should'nt wonder if I did; such works are enough to make us all young." And in fact the general opinion is, that Toad-in-the-hole would have died but for this regeneration of art, which he called a second age of Leo the Tenth; and it was our duty, he said solemnly, to commemorate it. At present, and _en attendant_--rather as an occasion for a public partic.i.p.ation in public sympathy, than as in itself any commensurate testimony of our interest--he proposed that the club should meet and dine together. A splendid public dinner, therefore, was given by the club; to which all amateurs were invited from a distance of one hundred miles.

Of this dinner there are ample short-hand notes amongst the archives of the club. But they are not "extended," to speak diplomatically; and the reporter is missing--I believe, murdered. Meantime, in years long after that day, and on an occasion perhaps equally interesting, viz., the turning up of Thugs and Thuggism, another dinner was given. Of this I myself kept notes, for fear of another accident to the short-hand reporter. And I here subjoin them. Toad-in-the-hole, I must mention, was present at this dinner.

In fact, it was one of its sentimental incidents. Being as old as the valleys at the dinner of 1812, naturally he was as old as the hills at the Thug dinner of 1838. He had taken to wearing his beard again; why, or with what view, it pa.s.ses my persimmon to tell you. But so it was. And his appearance was most benign and venerable. Nothing could equal the angelic radiance of his smile as he inquired after the unfortunate reporter, (whom, as a piece of private scandal, I should tell you that he was himself supposed to have murdered, in a rapture of creative art:) the answer was, with roars of laughter, from the under-sheriff of our county--"Non est inventus." Toad-in-the-hole laughed outrageously at this: in fact, we all thought he was choking; and, at the earnest request of the company, a musical composer furnished a most beautiful glee upon the occasion, which was sung five times after dinner, with universal applause and inextinguishable laughter, the words being these, (and the chorus so contrived, as most beautifully to mimic the peculiar laughter of Toad-in-the-hole:)--

"Et interrogatum est a Toad-in-the hole--Ubi est ille reporter?

Et responsum est c.u.m cachinno--Non est inventus."

CHORUS.

"Deinde iteratum est ab omnibus, c.u.m cachinnatione undulante-- Non est inventus."

Toad-in-the-hole, I ought to mention, about nine years before, when an express from Edinburgh brought him the earliest intelligence of the Burke-and-Hare revolution in the art, went mad upon the spot; and, instead of a pension to the express for even one life, or a knighthood, endeavored to burke him; in consequence of which he was put into a strait waistcoat.

And that was the reason we had no dinner then. But now all of us were alive and kicking, strait-waistcoaters and others; in fact, not one absentee was reported upon the entire roll. There were also many foreign amateurs present.

Dinner being over, and the cloth drawn, there was a general call made for the new glee of _Non est inventus_; but, as this would have interfered with the requisite gravity of the company during the earlier toasts, I overruled the call. After the national toasts had been given, the first official toast of the day was, _The Old Man of the Mountains_--drunk in solemn silence.

Toad-in-the-hole returned thanks in a neat speech. He likened himself to the Old Man of the Mountains, in a few brief allusions, that made the company absolutely yell with laughter; and he concluded with giving the health of

_Mr. Von Hammer_, with many thanks to him for his learned History of the Old Man and his subjects the a.s.sa.s.sins.

Upon this I rose and said, that doubtless most of the company were aware of the distinguished place a.s.signed by orientalists to the very learned Turkish scholar Von Hammer the Austrian; that he had made the profoundest researches into our art as connected with those early and eminent artists the Syrian a.s.sa.s.sins in the period of the Crusaders; that his work had been for several years deposited, as a rare treasure of art, in the library of the club. Even the author's name, gentlemen, pointed him out as the historian of our art--Von Hammer--

"Yes, yes," interrupted Toad-in-the-hole, who never can sit still--"Yes, yes, Von Hammer--he's the man for a _malleus haereticorum_: think rightly of our art, or he's the man to tickle your catastrophes. You all know what consideration Williams bestowed on the hammer, or the s.h.i.+p carpenter's mallet, which is the same thing. Gentlemen, I give you another great hammer--Charles the Hammer, the Marteau, or, in old French, the Martel--he hammered the Saracens till they were all as dead as door-nails--he did, believe me."

"_Charles Martel_, with all the honors."

But the explosion of Toad-in-the-hole, together with the uproarious cheers for the grandpapa of Charlemagne, had now made the company unmanageable.

The orchestra was again challenged with shouts the stormiest for the new glee. I made again a powerful effort to overrule the challenge. I might as well have talked to the winds. I foresaw a tempestuous evening; and I ordered myself to be strengthened with three waiters on each side; the vice-president with as many. Symptoms of unruly enthusiasm were beginning to show out; and I own that I myself was considerably excited as the orchestra opened with its storm of music, and the impa.s.sioned glee began--"_Et interrogatum est a Toad-in-the-hole--Ubi est ille Reporter_?"

And the frenzy of the pa.s.sion became absolutely convulsing, as the full chorus fell in--"_Et iteratum est ab omnibus--Non est inventus_"

By this time I saw how things were going: wine and music were making most of the amateurs wild. Particularly Toad-in-the-hole, though considerably above a hundred years old, was getting as vicious as a young leopard. It was a fixed impression with the company that he had murdered the reporter in the year 1812; since which time (viz. twenty-six years) "ille reporter"

had been constantly reported "Non est inventus." Consequently, the glee about himself, which of itself was most tumultuous and jubilant, carried him off his feet. Like the famous choral songs amongst the citizens of Abdera, n.o.body could hear it without a contagious desire for falling back into the agitating music of "Et interrogatum est a Toad-in-the-hole," &c.

I enjoined vigilance upon my a.s.sessors, and the business of the evening proceeded.

The next toast was--_The Jewish Sicarii_.

Upon which I made the following explanation to the company:--"Gentlemen, I am sure it will interest you all to hear that the a.s.sa.s.sins, ancient as they were, had a race of predecessors in the very same country. All over Syria, but particularly in Palestine, during the early years of the Emperor Nero, there was a band of murderers, who prosecuted their studies in a very novel manner. They did not practise in the night-time, or in lonely places; but justly considering that great crowds are in themselves a sort of darkness by means of the dense pressure and the impossibility of finding out who it was that gave the blow, they mingled with mobs everywhere; particularly at the great paschal feast in Jerusalem; where they actually had the audacity, as Josephus a.s.sures us, to press into the temple,--and whom should they choose for operating upon but Jonathan himself, the Pontifex Maximus? They murdered him, gentlemen, as beautifully as if they had had him alone on a moonless night in a dark lane. And when it was asked, who was the murderer, and where he was"--

"Why, then, it was answered," interrupted Toad-in-the-hole, "_Non est inventus_." And then, in spite of all I could do or say, the orchestra opened, and the whole company began--"Et interrogatum est a Toad-in-the-hole--Ubi est ille Sicarius? Et responsum est ab omnibus--_Non est inventus_."

When the tempestuous chorus had subsided, I began again:--"Gentlemen, you will find a very circ.u.mstantial account of the Sicarii in at least three different parts of Josephus; once in Book XX. sect. v. c. 8, of his _Antiquities_; once in Book I. of his _Wars_: but in sect. 10 of the chapter first cited you will find a particular description of their tooling. This is what he says--'They tooled with small scymetars not much different from the Persian _acinacae_, but more curved, and for all the world most like the Roman sickles or _sicae_.' It is perfectly magnificent, gentlemen, to hear the sequel of their history. Perhaps the only case on record where a regular army of murderers was a.s.sembled, a _justus exercitus_, was in the case of these _Sicarii_. They mustered in such strength in the wilderness, that Festus himself was obliged to march against them with the Roman legionary force."

Upon which Toad-in-the-hole, that cursed interrupter, broke out a-singing--"Et interrogatum est a Toad-in-the-hole--Ubi est ille exercitus?

Et responsum est ab omnibus--Non est inventus."

"No, no, Toad--you are wrong for once: that army _was_ found, and was all cut to pieces in the desert. Heavens, gentlemen, what a sublime picture!

The Roman legions--the wilderness--Jerusalem in the distance--an army of murderers in the foreground!"

Mr. R., a member, now gave the next toast--"To the further improvement of Tooling, and thanks to the Committee for their services."

Mr. L., on behalf of the committee who had reported on that subject, returned thanks. He made an interesting extract from the report, by which it appeared how very much stress had been laid formerly on the mode of tooling, by the fathers, both Greek and Latin. In confirmation of this pleasing fact, he made a very striking statement in reference to the earliest work of antediluvian art. Father Mersenne, that learned Roman Catholic, in page one thousand four hundred and thirty-one[1] of his operose Commentary on Genesis, mentions, on the authority of several rabbis, that the quarrel of Cain with Abel was about a young woman; that, by various accounts, Cain had tooled with his teeth, [Abelem fuisse _morsibus_ dilaceratum a Cain;] by many others, with the jaw-bone of an a.s.s; which is the tooling adopted by most painters. But it is pleasing to the mind of sensibility to know that, as science expanded, sounder views were adopted. One author contends for a pitchfork, St. Chrysostom for a sword, Irenaeus for a scythe, and Prudentius for a hedging-bill. This last writer delivers his opinion thus:--

"Frater, probatae sanct.i.tatis aemulus, Germana curvo colla frangit sarculo:"

_i.e_. his brother, jealous of his attested sanct.i.ty, fractures his brotherly throat with a curved hedging-bill. "All which is respectfully submitted by your committee, not so much as decisive of the question, (for it is not,) but in order to impress upon the youthful mind the importance which has ever been attached to the quality of the tooling by such men as Chrysostom and Irenaeus."

[Footnote 1: "Page one thousand four hundred and thirty-one"--_literally_, good reader, and no joke at all.]

"Dang Irenaeus!" said Toad-in-the-hole, who now rose impatiently to give the next toast:--"Our Irish friends; and a speedy revolution in their mode of tooling, as well as everything else connected with the art!"

"Gentlemen, I'll tell you the plain truth. Every day of the year we take up a paper, we read the opening of a murder. We say, this is good, this is charming, this is excellent! But, behold you! scarcely have we read a little farther, before the word Tipperary or Ballina-something betrays the Irish manufacture. Instantly we loath it; we call to the waiter; we say, Waiter, take away this paper; send it out of the house; it is absolutely offensive to all just taste.' I appeal to every man whether, on finding a murder (otherwise perhaps promising enough) to be Irish, he does not feel himself as much insulted as when Madeira being ordered, he finds it to be Cape; or when, taking up what he takes to be a mushroom, it turns out what children call a toad-stool. t.i.thes, politics, or something wrong in principle, vitiate every Irish murder. Gentlemen, this must be reformed, or Ireland will not be a land to live in; at least, if we do live there, we must import all our murders, that's clear." Toad-in-the-hole sat down growling with suppressed wrath, and the universal "Hear, hear!"

sufficiently showed that he spoke the general feeling.

The next toast was--"The sublime epoch of Burkism and Harism!"

This was drunk with enthusiasm; and one of the members, who spoke to the question, made a very curious communication to the company:--"Gentlemen, we fancy Burkism to be a pure invention of our own times: and in fact no Pancirollus has ever enumerated this branch of art when writing _de rebus deperditis_. Still I have ascertained that the essential principle of the art _was_ known to the ancients, although like the art of painting upon gla.s.s, of making the myrrhine cups, &c., it was lost in the dark ages for want of encouragement. In the famous collection of Greek epigrams made by Planudes is one upon a very charming little case of Burkism: it is a perfect little gem of art. The epigram itself I cannot lay my hand upon at this moment, but the following is an abstract of it by Salmasius, as I find it in his notes on Vopiscus: 'Est et elegans epigramma Lucilii, (well he might call it "elegans!") ubi medicus et pollinctor de compacto sic egerunt, ut medicus aegros omnes curae suae commissos occideret:' this was the basis of the contract, you see, that on the one part the doctor, for himself and his a.s.signs, doth undertake and contract duly and truly to murder all the patients committed to his charge: but why? There lies the beauty of the case--'Et ut pollinctori amico suo traderet pollingendos.'

The _pollinctor_, you are aware, was a person whose business it was to dress and prepare dead bodies for burial. The original ground of the transaction appears to have been sentimental: 'He was my friend,' says the murderous doctor; 'he was dear to me,' in speaking of the pollinctor. But the law, gentlemen, is stern and harsh: the law will not hear of these tender motives: to sustain a contract of this nature in law, it is essential that a 'consideration' should be given. Now what _was_ the consideration? For thus far all is on the side of the pollinctor: he will be well paid for his services; but, meantime, the generous, the n.o.ble-minded doctor gets nothing. What _was_ the little consideration again, I ask, which the law would insist on the doctor's taking? You shall hear: 'Et ut pollinctor vicissim [Greek: telamonas] quos furabatur de pollinctione mortuorum medico mitteret doni ad alliganda vulnera eorurn quos curabat.' Now, the case is clear: the whole went on a principle of reciprocity which would have kept up the trade for ever. The doctor was also a surgeon: he could not murder _all_ his patients: some of the surgical patients must be retained intact; _re infecta_. For these he wanted linen bandages. But, unhappily, the Romans wore woollen, on which account they bathed so often. Meantime, there _was_ linen to be had in Rome; but it was monstrously dear; and the [Greek: telamones] or linen swathing bandages, in which superst.i.tion obliged them to bind up corpses, would answer capitally for the surgeon. The doctor, therefore, contracts to furnish his friend with a constant succession of corpses, provided, and be it understood always, that his said friend in return should supply him with one half of the articles he would receive from the friends of the parties murdered or to be murdered. The doctor invariably recommended his invaluable friend the pollinctor, (whom let us call the undertaker;) the undertaker, with equal regard to the sacred rights of friends.h.i.+p, uniformly recommended the doctor. Like Pylades and Orestes, they were models of a perfect friends.h.i.+p: in their lives they were lovely, and on the gallows, it is to be hoped, they were not divided.

"Gentlemen, it makes me laugh horribly, when I think of those two friends drawing and redrawing on each other: 'Pollinctor in account with Doctor, debtor by sixteen corpses; creditor by forty-five bandages, two of which damaged.' Their names unfortunately are lost; but I conceive they must have been Quintus Burkius and Publius Harius. By the way, gentlemen, has anybody heard lately of Hare? I understand he is comfortably settled in Ireland, considerably to the west, and does a little business now and then; but, as he observes with a sigh, only as a retailer--nothing like the fine thriving wholesale concern so carelessly blown up at Edinburgh. 'You see what comes of neglecting business,'--is the chief moral, the [Greek: epimutheon], as aesop would say, which he draws from his past experience."

At length came the toast of the day--_Thugdom in all its branches_.

The speeches _attempted_ at this crisis of the dinner were past all counting. But the applause was so furious, the music so stormy, and the cras.h.i.+ng of gla.s.ses so incessant, from the general resolution never again to drink an inferior toast from the same gla.s.s, that my power is not equal to the task of reporting. Besides which, Toad-in-the-hole now became quite ungovernable. He kept firing pistols in every direction; sent his servant for a blunderbuss, and talked of loading with ball-cartridge. We conceived that his former madness had returned at the mention of Burke and Hare; or that, being again weary of life, he had resolved to go off in a general ma.s.sacre. This we could not think of allowing: it became indispensable, therefore, to kick him out, which we did with universal consent, the whole company lending their toes _uno pede_, as I may say, though pitying his gray hairs and his angelic smile. During the operation the orchestra poured in their old chorus. The universal company sang, and (what surprised us most of all) Toad-in-the-hole joined us furiously in singing--

"Et interrogatum est ab omnibus--Ubi est ille Toad-in-the-hole Et responsum est ab omnibus--Non est inventus."

JOAN OF ARC[1]

IN REFERENCE TO M. MICHELET'S HISTORY OF FRANCE.

What is to be thought of _her_? What is to be thought of the poor shepherd girl from the hills and forests of Lorraine, that--like the Hebrew shepherd boy from the hills and forests of Judaea--rose suddenly out of the quiet, out of the safety, out of the religious inspiration, rooted in deep pastoral solitudes, to a station in the van of armies, and to the more perilous station at the right hand of kings? The Hebrew boy inaugurated his patriotic mission by an _act_, by a victorious _act_, such as no man could deny. But so did the girl of Lorraine, if we read her story as it was read by those who saw her nearest. Adverse armies bore witness to the boy as no pretender: but so they did to the gentle girl. Judged by the voices of all who saw them _from a station of good will_, both were found true and loyal to any promises involved in their first acts. Enemies it was that made the difference between their subsequent fortunes. The boy rose--to a splendor and a noon-day prosperity, both personal and public, that rang through the records of his people, and became a byeword amongst his posterity for a thousand years, until the sceptre was departing from Judah. The poor, forsaken girl, on the contrary, drank not herself from that cup of rest which she had secured for France. She never sang together with the songs that rose in her native Domremy, as echoes to the departing steps of invaders. She mingled not in the festal dances at Vaucouleurs which celebrated in rapture the redemption of France. No! for her voice was then silent: No! for her feet were dust. Pure, innocent, n.o.ble-hearted girl!

whom, from earliest youth, ever I believed in as full of truth and self-sacrifice, this was amongst the strongest pledges for _thy_ side, that never once--no, not for a moment of weakness--didst thou revel in the vision of coronets and honor from man. Coronets for thee! O no! Honors, if they come when all is over, are for those that share thy blood.[2] Daughter of Domremy, when the grat.i.tude of thy king shall awaken, thou wilt be sleeping the sleep of the dead. Call her, King of France, but she will not hear thee! Cite her by thy apparitors to come and receive a robe of honor, but she will be found _en contumace_. When the thunders of universal France, as even yet may happen, shall proclaim the grandeur of the poor shepherd girl that gave up all for her country--thy ear, young shepherd girl, will have been deaf for five centuries. To suffer and to do, that was thy portion in this life; to _do_--never for thyself, always for others; to _suffer_--never in the persons of generous champions, always in thy own--that was thy destiny; and not for a moment was it hidden from thyself.

Life, thou saidst, is short: and the sleep which is in the grave, is long!

Let me use that life, so transitory, for the glory of those heavenly dreams destined to comfort the sleep which is so long. This pure creature--pure from every suspicion of even a visionary self-interest, even as she was pure in senses more obvious--never once did this holy child, as regarded herself, relax from her belief in the darkness that was travelling to meet her. She might not prefigure the very manner of her death; she saw not in vision, perhaps, the aerial alt.i.tude of the fiery scaffold, the spectators without end on every road pouring into Rouen as to a coronation, the surging smoke, the volleying flames, the hostile faces all around, the pitying eye that lurked but here and there until nature and imperishable truth broke loose from artificial restraints; these might not be apparent through the mists of the hurrying future. But the voice that called her to death, _that_ she heard for ever.

Great was the throne of France even in those days, and great was he that sate upon it: but well Joanna knew that not the throne, nor he that sate upon it, was for _her_; but, on the contrary, that she was for _them_; not she by them, but they by her, should rise from the dust. Gorgeous were the lilies of France, and for centuries had the privilege to spread their beauty over land and sea, until, in another century, the wrath of G.o.d and man combined to wither them; but well Joanna knew, early at Domremy she had read that bitter truth, that the lilies of France would decorate no garland for _her_. Flower nor bud, bell nor blossom, would ever bloom for _her_.