Various
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No.308
After breakfast, I took a walk around the town, and very much enjoyed the views almost everywhere presented, but particularly one from a noted place within a gentleman's pleasure-grounds. Frederickshald appears to me a more pleasing and interesting place than the guide-books allow. In the little park alluded to I found a private cemetery, containing the graves of eight adults and three infants. Each grave is a well-defined heap, with turf sides and ends, but a top of bare earth, on which is laid a single wreath; all the rest of the ground bare earth. Such is a prevalent style of sepulture in the north; it has a neat and pretty effect. One likes to see a grave well-defined. That smoothing of the ground, introduced in some of the improved modern cemeteries of England, is not, I think, an approvable step. We desire the 'mouldering heap,' so affectingly significant of what is below, and so associated with all our old literary ideas upon the subject.
After receiving a lesson in Norwegian money from my intelligent landlord, Mr Stein, and so many civilities of various kinds, that I felt ashamed of the small bill which I had to pay, I set out on the way to Christiania, returning for some miles along the way by which I had come from Westgaard. As we drove out of the town, I was, as a stranger, honoured with a sufficient quantity of observation by the people. To add to the fracas produced by the carriage, a foal came clattering along by our side, apparently under a filial mistake as to one of our horses. Presently a cart was heard making a furious rattle along the stones behind us, as if still further to make my poor equipage an object of public attention. It was the mamma of the foal, who, having missed her progeny in the market-place, was now anxious to recover the lost one: there she came, with mouth distended, and eyes glaring, the whole aspect expressing the utmost excitement, and saying as plainly as words could have spoken it, 'What's all this? – taking away my child!' The whole was so vividly like human affairs, that I felt inclined to stop and apologise for our unintentional concern in the elopement; but Quist settled the matter more summarily by a smart application of his whip to the haunches of our undesired attaché. It may be remarked that in Norway the foal is often allowed to accompany its parent, even in coach-travelling. I have seen it come the whole stage, never missing any opportunity afforded by a pause of our machine to come up and indulge in the mode of nutrition appropriate to its age. Horses are altogether less under strict rule in the north than with us, and it appears to me as if they consequently were more natural in their conduct. For one thing, they are eminently social with one another. In the course of a long stage over a thinly-peopled country, if we come at length to a park where a horse is feeding, even I could almost say though out of sight, our own pachyderms are sure to get up a great skirl of recognition, just as much as to say, 'How are you? – how are you?' My predecessor, Mr Laing, alleges that they have a rational way of eating not observed in the horses of less democratic countries – taking first a quantity of their hay or corn, and then a drink; but I cannot say I ever could observe them acting in this bite-and-sup manner. Of their amazing steadiness, sureness of foot, and hardiness, abundant evidence is presented to every traveller.
In the middle of the day we arrived at the brink of the river Glommen, a copious stream, which contains the drainage of a large district in the centre of Norway, and which is here remarkable for a cascade of great grandeur. The fall is at a place about an English mile above the ferry: the flood pours in one mass through a narrow channel, and makes a descent of about seventy feet. It would be an unexceptionably fine sight but for the details of an enormous timber-sawing and exporting establishment which press in upon its beauties, and usurp not a few of its most romantic points. The river runs fourteen English miles below the waterfall, but so gently, that ships come up for the timber; and the river is there accordingly an active commercial scene. I observed at the falls specimens of the smoothed and dressed rocks, over which the water streamed in an oblique direction – a fact than which nothing could be more convincing as to the incompetency of water to produce the effects attributed to the ice. The country is here low, and not marked by any features of grandeur. There is an alluvial plain of the most absolute flatness for fully a mile in every direction around the ferry; and from the measurements which I made (starting from the surface of the river at that point), I suspect this to be identical in elevation above the sea with the terrace at Elsinore. This is, however, a point which must be left for determination to the native inquirers.
We stopped for the night at Moss, a town on the Christiania Fiord, where my servant and I had each an evening and morning meal, with lodging, at a charge of about six shillings. Yet this was a good large house, very tolerably furnished. A small silver coin (value about 5d.) laid in the hardened palm of the blithesome lass who served as an attendant in all capacities made her the happiest of the happy. As a serving-girl in Denmark, Sweden, or Norway, only gets about 30s. a year of wages, it may readily be imagined that even so small a gratuity as this is a great prize to her. It is necessary, however, to be careful to give such a gratuity directly to the person for whom it is designed, as it will not otherwise reach its destination. At this place there are alluvial terraces at various elevations above the sea, and precisely resembling the ancient sea-margins of the British coasts. A circumstance worthy of note occurred in the business of measuring their elevations, which I did with a regular levelling apparatus. The sea is here presented in two detached bays, embracing a peninsula of several miles in extent, yet approaching within two hundred yards of each other, with only the division of a low isthmus. One of these bays appeared by my survey as 0.9 foot above the level of the other. The cause was in the wind, which blew up the one bay, and down the other.
There remained only a forenoon's journey to Christiania. As we approached this capital, there was no observable improvement in the appearance of the country; no better houses, no trimmer or larger fields, no smarter-looking people; the same rough and homely character over all things. The roads are made of the sand and gravel found everywhere near their borders; no cuttings anywhere for improved gradients. A rise of 1 in 5 is not uncommon when any of the rocky ridges between the plains has to be crossed. Two miles from Christiania we come to the brow of a hill, whence we see the bright white city with its blue and red-tiled roofs lying below at the head of its fiord, backed by green slopes ascending to the pine-clad hills. The descent of this hill is terrible, from the extreme steepness of the road, especially at its somewhat sharp turnings. Having a geologist's climometer in my pocket, I measured the slope in some places with all possible care, and found it actually on an angle of 16 degrees, implying a rise of 1 in 3½ feet. I deemed this a strange sight so near one of the capitals of Europe; but I must do the Norwegians the justice to say that a better road is in the course of being made.
On the two last days' journeys we met many parties of Norwegian infantry on their march or exercising. They are a good-looking soldiery, neatly dressed in white duck-trousers and green frock-coats, with burnished-leather hats rising to a metal peak, each bearing the arms of Norway – a ramping lion holding a battle-axe. As to this ensign, by the way, though gratifying to the national vanity, and poetically conveying the idea which its originators intended, it belongs to a class which cannot be scientifically contemplated without a shock. The philosophical zoologist reflects on the adaptations of the natural organs, and knowing the very peculiar formation of the anterior extremities of the feline family – so well contrived for clutching and tearing a prey, so useless for every other kind of prehension – he cannot endure the idea of one of these animals being supposed to hold a weapon only adapted to the hand of man. Heralds, if they could think of anything beside their own profession, should study these things!
R. C.
PLAN FOR MAINTAINING THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE LABOURING-CLASS
It has often occurred to us, and we have once or twice hinted at the idea in the Journal, that the working-classes might make a provision for themselves in times of want, whether occasioned by failure of employment or natural disability through disease or old age, if they could be induced to agree to a system of stoppages like that which has existed for ages in the mercantile navy for the support of Greenwich Hospital. We find that, in 1843, probably before the date of any reference of ours to the subject, though unknown to us, Mr David Milne, a patriotic country gentleman of Scotland, and member of the Scottish bar, made a suggestion to this effect to the commissioners who conducted the Poor-Law inquiry in Scotland. His idea was this: – Let some small sum, say sixpence a month, be deducted from the amount of wages under a law to that effect, and thrown into a fund upon which every contributor would have a claim. He conceived that, in five years, so much would be accumulated, that the managers might begin to give support to any number under a twentieth part of the original contributors. Some one had suggested to Mr Milne that it might be well if the law taxed the masters to an equal extent for the benefit of the fund; but he rejected this idea, on the ground of its injustice, and because it would induce employers to be less anxious to carry on their works in unfavourable times for the sake of giving bread to their people. 'It is also to be considered,' says Mr Milne, 'that the duty of sixpence a month for each workman would, in ordinary times, when trade is prosperous, and labourers in demand, actually fall upon the employers, because the natural competition of trade would make up for the deduction of duty by a corresponding rise of wages.' Mr Milne was, however, not unwilling that appeals to, and even a general assessment upon, the rich should be resorted to when the fund failed under the pressure of any unusual calamity.
There cannot, we think, be a doubt that if this plan were practicable, it would be a great improvement in our social economy. At present, the bulk of the working-people of this country have scarcely anything to save them from a state of dependence whenever they fail in getting work, or are no longer fit for it. In Scotland, the able-bodied man who cannot obtain work and wages, has no legal recourse to the poors' funds. In England he has, but accompanied by conditions calculated to lower the man in his own eyes; and therefore the privilege is no true advantage. Even though the poors' funds were more available than they are, the honest workman who wishes to maintain his self-respect can never complacently place his trust in them; for though it is not uncommon to hear individuals in humble life proclaiming that they have a right to them, the fact really is, that these funds are only a product of the humanity and economy of the country, designed to insure that there shall be no class left to misery and the barbarism attending it, but not to interpose between any one and his obligation to gain his own subsistence if possible. In plain truth, he who accepts parochial relief sells away some of his very best rights as a citizen, as well as his dignity as a man; and any one who wishes to exalt either the social or political position of the labouring-class, should desire nothing so much as to see them in the first place superior to all but a remote chance of coming to this wretched expedient. If any feasible and easy-working plan could be devised for enabling them, mainly by sacrifices on their own part, to defy the prospect of becoming paupers, or leaving their children to pauperism, they would certainly have received the greatest boon that any philanthropist could confer upon them.
We fear that no such plan is at present practicable. There is too much prejudice among the labouring-class against their employers to admit of its being received with general favour. While an honourable minority would be glad to see their independence secured, the great mass would undoubtedly prefer going on upon their present footing, careless how soon the failure of business or the occurrence of sickness should deprive them of an independent subsistence. Some such plan, however, may be expected to be realised when the labouring-class shall have acquired a just feeling for their own character, and a just sense of their relation to the rest of society. It would only be a fair and proper part of a social system in which the highest behests of a true civilisation were worked out. How soon it may come about will depend on the rapidity with which the education of the masses of the people shall proceed. If, from any narrow views of whatever kind, a member of the middle or upper classes in this country finds himself thwarting the movements towards universal and improved education, let him understand what he pays for the gratification he thus obtains. He pays for it in large poor-rates and prison-rates, and in the distress which his humanity must be continually receiving from the spectacle of a multitude of his fellow-creatures lost to the sense of self-respect, and consequently subjected to a vast load of misery.
THE LATE DR ZUMPT
At an early stage of our labours, many years ago, we took occasion to offer, for the consideration of the young, a memoir of Professor Heyne of Gottingen, one of the greatest scholars of the age, and who, by dint of perseverance, rose from a very humble to an exalted station in life. Heyne presented not an uncommon instance of German enthusiasm in scholarship. In our own country, erudition seems to be pursued chiefly for the sake of professional advancement, and consequently it seldom attains to any very lofty pitch. How few of our scholars, it may be asked, know anything critically of the ancient classics? How few write or speak Latin with elegance or purity? How few ever saw any more recondite exemplars of Roman literature than elementary school-books – the copy of a copy? In Germany, where no sort of painstaking seems to be grudged, scholarship has gone, and still goes on, immeasurably farther. As in the case of Heyne, Wolf, Hermann, Boeckh, Vater, Gesenius, and others, men are there found devoting themselves to a whole lifetime of earnest study in complete forgetfulness of self. Living perhaps on the merest trifle, they bury themselves in a library surrounded by old vellum-bound classics; and there, poring over dingy yellow pages, they compare words with words, examine into the merits of punctuation and orthography, and detect new meanings, till they transfuse into themselves, as it were, the very soul of their author. In this way, by collating old and priceless versions of the classics – some of them in manuscript, and unique – they are able to produce modern editions, which are greedily accepted throughout European universities, and which have usually formed the basis of elementary works for British compilers. We at least know of few works in Latin common in our schools which have not been copied in a reduced form from the painfully-constructed editions of German scholars. We have been led into these observations from a desire to do honour to the memory of one whose name has gone to swell the already long list of German philologists.
Carl Gottlob Zumpt, the individual to whom we refer, was born at Berlin in 1792. His parents were not wealthy: but in the circumstances in which Prussia was placed at the beginning of the present century, this was a matter of little importance. The oppressions of France pretty nearly brought down all ranks into one common mass of distress and poverty. To meet the cruel exactions of Napoleon, families gave up every article of value to the state. For their gold they received tokens in iron; and these acknowledgments are still treasured by families, as lasting memorials of an adversity which took away almost everything but life. Amidst these national sufferings and humiliations, Carl Gottlob Zumpt received such an education as could then be procured. Fortunately he required no incitement to learn: from childhood he had been a diligent porer over books; and the acquisition of languages cost him no trouble. Nature made him a scholar. After passing through a series of schools and gymnasia in Berlin, he was sent, by the advice of Buttman, the well-known grammarian, to the university of Heidelberg, which at that time enjoyed a high reputation. Kreuzer, Voss, Boeckh, belonged to it, all of them men of talent, and celebrated for their philological learning. During Zumpt's residence at Heidelberg, the university of Berlin was founded; and returning home, he finished his education in his native city.
Though still a young man, Zumpt was already noted for his remarkable attainments in the Greek and Roman languages. Thrown upon his own resources, he soon distinguished himself, and was appointed a teacher in one of the principal seminaries. From this position he subsequently rose to be Professor of History in the Royal Military Academy, and finally to be Professor of Roman Literature in the university of Berlin.
The life of a scholar is usually barren of incident. There is little to tell about Zumpt. Amidst the cares of public teaching, he found time to occupy himself in writing various works, critical and historical, all connected with his favourite branch of study. To improve his knowledge of antiquities, he made a tour through Italy and Greece, which, while of considerable service to him as a man of letters, unfortunately tended to injure his health. This tour was made in 1835, and after that year Zumpt laboured still more assiduously at his critical editions of the classics, unmindful of aught but that love of digging among ancient words and thoughts which seems a fanaticism in the German mind. His great aim was to be a Latinist worthy of the Augustine age itself. Nor was he unsuccessful; for he wrote Latin with great elegance. He was seldom required to speak the language; but when called on to do so, he delivered himself with correctness and fluency. In this respect he is supposed to have had no superior among his learned countrymen.
Holding this man in respect, not alone for his intellectual, but his moral and social qualities, we shall always consider it as something to say that we have enjoyed his personal acquaintance. In the course of a tour in Germany, and short residence in Berlin in 1847, we had the pleasure of visiting him at his house in the Burgher Strasse – a terrace-like street on a branch of the Spree. We found Zumpt entombed amidst his books. Tall in person, emaciated from study, and wrapped in a dressing-gown, he rose and affectionately welcomed us to Berlin in tolerable English – a language which, in compliment, he insisted all his family should speak on every occasion of our visit. At this time he was engaged on his edition of 'Quintus Curtius' – a work which will long be regarded as a monument of his industry and learning.
One of the objects of our visit to Zumpt was to consult with him on the subject of an enterprise in which he had recently engaged – the joint editorship, with Dr Schmitz of Edinburgh, of a series of Latin classics for use in schools. The projectors of this undertaking were the publishers of the present sheet. Having in our own early days experienced the dreary heaviness of ordinary school classics, unrelieved by the slightest explanations in English touching the subject or the authors, we were glad to be instrumental in putting into the hands of youth a series which they could peruse with some degree of pleasure, or at all events not with absolute weariness and disgust. As Dr Zumpt entered heartily into the design, the arrangement promised to have the advantage of naturalising in Britain a set of editions drawn freshly from comparatively original sources, in place of the bald reprints of antiquated copies. The task occupied the amiable scholar during the remainder of his too short life, at the close of which he had prepared the whole series excepting a portion of Horace, which has consequently fallen into the hands of his nephew and son-in-law, A. W. Zumpt. A victim to his study of ancient literature, his failing eyesight first, and afterwards disordered viscera, admonished him to take some species of relaxation. This counsel he took when too late. In the hope of relief from his sufferings, he repaired to Carlsbad, a watering-place in Bohemia; and there, to the great grief of his family and friends, he died on the 25th of June last, in the fifty-eighth year of his age. The decease of the illustrious Zumpt, together with the loss of Orelli, and the veteran Hellenist, Gottfried Hermann, both of whom died within the last eighteen months, leaves a blank among European scholars which will not soon be filled up.
W. C.