Various
International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1
"My poor girl! Why should you have feared me? Have I ever been harsh?"
"Oh, no!—no—but you are so just—so strict in all these things—"
"I hope I am; and yet not the less do I understand how all this has come about. Now, Lucy,—now that you have ceased to fear me—tell me the amount."
She strove to speak, but could not.
"Three figures or four? tell me."
"I am afraid—yes, I am afraid four," murmured Lady Lucy, and hiding her face from his view; "yes, four figures, and my quarter received last week gone every penny."
"Lucy, every bill shall be paid this day; but you must reward me by being happy."
"Generous! dearest! But, Walter, if you had been a poor man, what then?"
"Ah, Lucy, that would have been a very different and an infinitely sadder story. Instead of the relinquishment of some indulgence hardly to be missed, there might have been ruin, and poverty, and disgrace. You have one excuse,—at least you knew that I could pay at last."
"Ah, but at what a price! The price of your love and confidence."
"No, Lucy—for your confession has been voluntary; and I will not ask myself what I should have felt had the knowledge come from another. After all, you have fallen to a temptation which besets the wives of the rich far more than those of poor or struggling gentlemen. Tradespeople are shrewd enough in one respect—they do not press their commodities and long credit in quarters where ultimate payment seems doubtful—though—"
"They care not what domestic misery they create among the rich."
"Stay: there are faults on both sides, not the least of them being that girls in your station are too rarely taught the value of money, or that integrity in money matters should be to them a point of honor second only to one other. Now listen, my darling, before we dismiss this painful subject forever. You have the greatest confidence in your maid, and entre nous she must be a good deal in the secret. We shall bribe her to discretion, however, by dismissing Madame Dalmas at once and forever. As soon as you can spare Harris, I will send her to change a check at Coutts', and then, for expedition and security, she shall take on the brougham and make a round to these tradespeople. Meanwhile, I will drive you in the phaeton to look at the bracelet."
"Oh, no-no, dear Walter, not the bracelet."
"Yes—yes—I say yes. Though not a quarrel, this is a sorrow which has come between us, and there must be a peace-offering. Besides I would not have you think that you had reached the limits of my will, and of my means to gratify you."
"To think that I could have doubted—that I could have feared you!" sobbed Lady Lucy, as tears of joy coursed down her cheeks. "But, Walter, it is not every husband who would have shown such generosity."
"I think there are few husbands, Lucy, who do not estimate truth and candor as among the chief of conjugal virtues:—ah, had you confided in me when first you felt the bondage of debt, how much anguish would have been spared you!"
* * * * *
JONES ON CHANTREY.22
The criticisms of Literature in the London Times are as clever in their way as the other articles of that famous journal. It keeps a critic of the Poe school for pretenders, and the following review of a recent life of Chantrey the sculptor is in his vein. It embodies a just estimate of the artist.
A good life of Chantrey would be a welcome and a serviceable contribution to the general store. Chantrey was a national sculptor in the sense that Burns was a national poet. His genius, of the highest order, indicated throughout his career the nature of the soil in which it had been cherished. As man and artist he was essentially British. By his own unassisted strength he rose from the ranks, and achieved the highest eminence by the simplest and most legitimate means. His triumph is at once a proof of his power, and an answer to all who, instead of putting shoulder to the wheel, console their mediocrity by railing against the cold exclusiveness of aristocratic institutions.
Chantrey began life in a workshop. A friend, toward the close of the artist's life, passing through his studio, was struck by a head of Milton's Satan lying in a corner. "That head," said Chantrey to his visitor, "was the very first thing that I did after I came to London. I worked at it in a garret, with a paper cap on my head, and, as I could then afford only one candle, I stuck that one in my cap that it might move along with me, and give me light whichever way I turned." A still severer school of discipline had, previously to his appearance in the London garret, given his mind the practical turn chiefly characteristic of his life and works. He was born in 1782, at Norton, in Derbyshire, and when eight years old lost his father. His mother married again, and in 1798 proposed to apprentice him to a solicitor in Sheffield. Whilst walking through that town the boy saw some wood carving in a shop window. His good angel was with him at the moment, and stood his friend. Chantrey begged to be made a carver, and he was accordingly apprenticed to a Mr. Ramsay, a wood carver in Sheffield.
At the house of his master the apprentice often met Mr. Raphael Smith, known for his admirable crayon drawings. The acquaintance led to a more refined appreciation of art, and excited in the youth so strong a desire to cultivate it in a higher sphere, that at the age of 21 he gave to his master the whole of his wealth, amounting to £50, to cancel his indentures. Had he waited patiently for six months longer, his liberty would have been his own, unbought. Leaving the carver's shop Chantrey began to study in earnest. He painted a few portraits, which brought him in a little money, and, with a little more borrowed from his friends, he started for London. Here, guided by common sense, he sought employment as an assistant carver. He might have starved had he started as a professional painter.
Whilst laboring for subsistence Chantrey still used his brush, and also laid the foundation of his coming success by making models in clay of the human figure. He would hang, says his present biographer, pieces of drapery on these models, "that he might get a perfect knowledge of the way, and the best way, that it should be represented. In this manner he was accustomed to work, and when he had completed one figure or mass of drapery he pulled it down and began to model another from drapery differently arranged; for at that time he never did anything without nature or the material being before him." In 1808 Chantrey's first imaginative work was exhibited. We have already mentioned it. It was the head of Satan produced in the garret.
For eight years, according to Chantrey himself, he did not gain £5 by his modeling. A fortunate commission, however—the bust of Horne Tooke—finally obtained for him other commissions, amounting altogether To £12,000. In 1811 "he married his cousin Miss Wale; with this lady he received £10,000; this money enabled him to pay off some debts he had contracted, to purchase a house and ground, on which he built two houses, a studio and offices, and also to buy marble to proceed in the career he had begun." In 1812 he executed for the city of London a statue in marble of George III., placed in the council-chamber of Guildhall, and in 1817 he produced the exquisite monument—not to be surpassed for tenderness of sentiment and poetic beauty—of the two children whose death this piece of sculpture now commemorates in Lichfield cathedral. With this achievement the race was won. In 1818 he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy, and as soon after as the practice of the Academy admitted he was elevated to the rank of Academican.
From this period until his death, in 1841, the career of the sculptor was a series of noble and well rewarded efforts. He amassed a fortune, which at his death he bequeathed to the Royal Academy for the promotion of British art. He was a favored subject of three successive Sovereigns, and the friend and companion of the most illustrious among his contemporaries. His death was somewhat singular. For two years he had been in a declining state of health, but his condition had given his friends no immediate alarm. On the 22d of November he wrote to Sir Charles Clarke, from Norwich, expressing his intention to go to town on the following day, and announcing an invitation to Audley-end, which he had accepted for the 8th of the following month. On Thursday, the 25th of November, a friend called at his house in London, between 5 and 6 o'clock, and was pressed to dine. As he could not do so, Chantrey accompanied his visitor on his way home as far as Buckingham Palace, complaining on the way of a slight pain in the stomach, but at the same time receiving his friend's condolences with jokes and laughter. The clock struck 7 when the friends shook hands and parted. At 9 Chantrey was dead.
Let us regard Chantrey from what point we may, the features that present themselves to the observer bear the same unmistakable stamp. As sculptor and as man, at home or abroad, in his serious recreations or pleasurable pursuits, in his temper and social bearing, Francis Chantrey was a thorough Englishman. Heaven endowed him with genius, and his sound sense enabled him to take the precious gift as a blessing. Sheffield, that reared him, had no cause to be uneasy on his account; the prudence and shrewdness of the North were admirably mingled with the aesthetic qualities of the South. In the pocketbook which accompanied the sculptor on his Italian tour, notes were found referring to the objects of art visited on the way, and in the same tablet were accurate accounts of expenditure and the current prices of marble. Avoiding as much as possible the treatment of purely poetical subjects, Chantrey by the force of simplicity idealized the most ordinary topics. He shrank from allegory by a natural instinct, yet his plain unadorned forms have the elevation and charm of a figurative discourse. "Chantrey," says Mr. Jones.
"Cast aside every extrinsic recommendation, and depended entirely on form and effect. He took the greatest care that his shadows should tell boldly and in masses. He was cautious in introducing them, and always reduced them as much as might be compatible with the complete development of the figure. He never introduced a fold that could be dispensed with, rarely deviated from long lines, and avoided abrupt foldings. His dislike to ornament in sculpture was extreme."
In architecture he liked it no better. Superfluous embellishment in this branch of art he held to be either concealment of inability or a development of puerile taste. Fine buildings, he asserted, must still be fine, if divested of every ornament and left altogether bare. Apparent artlessness is the consummation of art. The busts of Chantrey bear immortal testimony to the fact.
The manly and courageous view which Chantrey took of his duties as an artist sustained him in every attempt he made to impress that view upon his works. He is described as "shrinking from no difficulty," as being "deterred by no embarrassment that labor, assiduity, and good sense could surmount." His independence was as great as his energy, and both smacked of the Saxon blood in his veins. The manner of the sculptor was rough and unceremonious, but he exhibited as little coarseness in his demeanor as in the massive figures of his chisel, which might offend some by their heaviness, but which gratified all by their undoubted grandeur and dignity. The quiet yet splendid generosity of Chantrey was equally characteristic of his country. He assisted the needy largely and unobtrusively. Instances of his bounty are on record which would do honor to the wealthiest patron of art. How much more luster do they shed upon the indefatigable day-laborer? If we follow the sculptor from his studio to the open fields, he is still national to the backbone. He escapes from London to pass days with his rod at the river side, or to walk with his gun on his arm "from 10 o'clock until half-past 4 without feeling the least fatigue." Yesterday he killed two salmon in the Conway, at Llanrwst, and to-day he kills "28 hares, 8 pheasants, 4 partridges—total, 40 head, all from my own gun." Visit him at home and e is the prince of hospitality. His dinners are of the best, and he is never happier than when presiding at them. Like an Englishman, he was proud of the illustrious society his success enabled him to summon around him, and, like an Englishman too, he had greater pride still in dwelling upon the humbleness of his origin, and in recounting the history of his difficult journey from struggling obscurity to worldwide renown.
Now, what we contend for is—without presuming ourselves to attempt anything like a worthy portraiture of Francis Chantrey—that here, ready-made to the hand of any man competent to the task of illustrating a life full of instruction for the rising brotherhood of art, is a subject which it behooved the Royal institution that has so largely profited by Chantrey's liberality and fame, not to neglect, much less throw away. The book which we have taken for the foundation of this notice, written by a Royal Academician, is a disgrace to the Royal Academy. Is then, we ask, no single member of that gifted body competent to say a word or two in plain English for the departed sculptor, that such a melancholy exhibition of helplessness must needs be sent forth as a tribute from excellence to excellence? The life of Chantrey properly written could not but prove of the utmost value to Englishmen, and simply because it is the career of a man attaining the highest distinction by means thoroughly understood by his countrymen, and by the exercise of an intellect at all times under the salutary influence of a wholesale national bias. Jones on Chantrey is Jenkins on Milton; the poet of Moses and Son upon the Inferno of Dante—the ridiculous limping after the sublime.
The great aim of Mr. George Jones, R.A., in his present undertaking, seems to have been to exhibit his own vast erudition and his great command of the hard words of his native tongue. Indeed, he quotes so much Greek and Latin, and talks so finely, that it is only to be regretted that he does not now and then come down from his stilts in order to gratify himself with a little intelligible English and his readers with some homely grammar. It will be our painful duty to submit to the reader's notice a specimen or two of Mr. Jones' peculiar style, which, together with the profound simplicity of his original remarks, make up as curious a production as it has ever fallen to our lot to read and to criticise.
When our old friend, M. Soyer, declared his conviction that "to die is a religious duty which every human being owes to his Creator," and that when the parents of a family are suddenly cut off, the unfortunate event "not only affects the children personally, but their future generations, by destroying all the social comfort which generally exists in such families, and probably would cause misery to exist instead of happiness," it occurred to us that sterner truisms in more naked guise it would be difficult to produce. We had not then read Jones. His self-evident propositions are perfectly astounding. Here are a few of them.
"Chantrey believed that the mind and morals are improved by the contemplation of beautiful objects." Who could have supposed it? "Chantrey was convinced that variety in building, if under the guidance of good sense and propriety, tends much to the beauty of a country." Is it possible? "Chantrey believed that all which has been done may be exceeded when genius and ability are equal to the task, for as Raphael has surpassed the lay-figure art of most of his predecessors, so no reason exists why Raphael should not be surpassed." Had he never spoken again, this idea would have procured him a niche next to Francis Bacon. The sculptor actually believed that even the glories of the past may be outdone when there are genius and ability enough in the world to surpass them! Will Mr. Jones favor us with the day and precise moment at which this wonderful conception entered the great sculptor's mind? We should like to record it. "Chantrey felt that the blind adoration of right and wrong was likely to mislead the public." We really think we have heard the remark before. "Chantrey referred every object to the Creator of all, and admired without limit the works of the Great Artificer, from the smallest leaf to the noblest production, and in his mundane calling aimed at an imitation of that excellence of beauty which nature has displayed." There is nothing like getting at the idiosyncrasies of the famous. Since Chantrey, according to Jones, has set the example of referring creation to a creator, and of studying nature when be wished to imitate her, we can only trust that the practice may henceforward be universally adopted. Chantrey was of opinion—no, we mistake, this is Jones' own—Jones is of opinion that "although the literary education of artists ought to be as extensive as possible, yet they may sometimes require the assistance of those whose opportunities and abilities have enabled them to make a deeper research." Finely said. Jones is a case in point. We do not know the extent of his literary education, but whatever it be, the assistance of Lindley Murray would, we are certain, be of infinite service to him at this moment.
We forget how many thousands of pounds, poor Chantrey left to the Royal Academy. Jones never tires of lauding the Academy by referring to the munificent bequests; yet this, we repeat, is the return made by that favored institution, in the person of one of its chief members, to the no less distinguished and generous donor. The life of Chantrey would not have been difficult in the hands of a moderately informed artist. "Dear Jones, we wanted a man of taste (d—n taste), we mean judgment," and your professed regard for your friend should not have rested content until it had found one.
* * * * *
SONG
BY R. H. STODDARD
I've left my native home afar,
Beyond the dark blue main;
And many a mouth may come and go
Ere I return again:
But months and years must come and go
As rolling waves depart,
Ere I forget to give you all
A home within my heart!
I come to you as swallows come,
Across the stormy foam;
My chief delight in alien lands,
To sing my songs of home:
Nor will I once regret my home
And all the sea that parts,
If you will only give me now
A home within your hearts!
* * * * *
[From the Athenaeum.]
VIRGINIA TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO.23
This is a suggestive book, with its prophetic motto,—its dedication to Lord Bacon, the fit patron of discoverers,—and its curious map, "described by Captayn John Smith," adorned with ships, and huge whales, and all the land so closely dotted over with tall trees and molehill-sized mountains, and here and there the mark of an Indian settlement just visible. Worthy William Strachey, Gent., what would be his surprise to look over a map of Virginia Britannia,-that "ample tract of land" with "sufficient space and ground enough to satisfie the most covetous,"—in the year 1850; and to mark the teeming and busy population, the steamboats that navigate the "five faire and delightfull navigable rivers" within the Chesapeake Bay, the railroads that intersect the whole country and the vast human tide still pouring westward? "This shall be written for the generation to come," is his motto; and interesting it is to the reader to follow him in his narrative of the toils and privations of the good company to which he was secretary, and in his full and minute account of the produce of the country, and its strange inhabitants. Who William Strachey was, Mr. Major, notwithstanding all his diligence, has not been able to ascertain. In his dedication to Lord Bacon, he describes himself as having been "one of the Graies-Inne Societe," and his narrative affords ample proof of his being a man of learning and worth: but of his family, the date of his birth or of his death, we have no record.
The earlier attempts to colonize North America were numerous, but all unfavorable. "Divers voyages" were made thither from the year 1578 to the close of the reign of Elizabeth, but without success; nor were the first adventurers in the reign of her successor more fortunate.
"At the time of the death of Queen Elizabeth, one hundred and eleven years subsequent to the great discovery of the Western World by Columbus, the Spaniards, on whose behalf his discovery had been made, were the sole permanent settlers in this wide and wealthy continent. In 1606, the French began to make settlements in Canada and Acadie, now Nova Scotia, but it was not till 1607 that the enterprise, which was finally destined to lay the foundation of British occupancy of American soil, was undertaken. Twenty-three years had expired since the patent has been granted to Sir Walter Raleigh to discover and take possession, with little less than royal privileges, of remote heathen and barbarous lands, hitherto not actually possessed by any Christian prince; and yet not an acre of American soil had hitherto become the property of the English….. It was shortly after this period, viz., A° 1605-6, that Richard Hakluyt, the 'presidium et dulce decus' of our Society, to whom, as Robertson justly remarks, 'England is more indebted for its American possessions than to any man of that age,' used influential arguments with various gentlemen of condition, to induce them to present a petition to King James to grant them patents for the settlement of two plantations on the coast of North America. This petition issued in the concession of a charter, bearing date the 10th of April 1606, by which the tract of country lying between the thirty-forth and forty-fifth degrees of latitude was to be divided into nearly equal portions, between two companies; that occupying the southern portion to be called the first colony (subsequently named the London Company), and that occupying the northern, to be called the second colony (subsequently named the Plymouth Company). The patent also vested in each colony a right of property over fifty miles of the land, extending along the coast each side of the point of first occupation, and a hundred miles inland. The chief adventurers in the London or South Virginian Company, with which as the first settlement we now have principally to do, were Sir Thomas Gates, Sir George Somers, Richard Hakluyt, and Edward Maria Wingfield. The command of the expedition was committed to Captain Newport."
"By a strange caprice of the king, these instructions were sent carefully sealed up and inclosed in a box, not to be opened till their arrival in Virginia." Thus, destitute of a leader at the time when they most needed one, they chose the gallant Captain John Smith, so well known from "the romantic tale of his own life and Englishmen's lives, for his sake, being saved once and again, by the personal devotion of the generous but ill-requited Pocahontas." Under him the first permanent settlement of the English in America was effected, and James Town built. In 1609 the expedition under Lord Delaware set out; and "under his enlightened and beneficent auspices the colony soon assumed a wholesome and active appearance." Ill health, however, compelled him within two years to return to England: but Sir Thomas Dale arriving soon after, with a fresh supply of emigrants, the colony continued prosperous, its affairs subsequently retrograded; and Lord Delawarr again went out in the year 1618,—but unfortunately only to die, near the bay which still bears his name.
"Finally it was not till 1620, after so many abortive efforts had been made both by Government and powerful bodies to form an establishment in North Virginia, that at length it received, under unexpected circumstances, an influx of settlers which soon rendered it by far the most prosperous of all colonies in North America. This was the emigration of a large band of Puritans, who suffering under the intolerance of the English Government, on account of non-conformity, first passed into Holland, and afterward found an asylum in America."
The "Historie" very properly begins with a description of the land.-the fruitfulness of which is dwelt on; and a hint is given of the probability that even gold may be discovered,—and "sure it is that some mineralls have ben there found." "The temperature of the country" "doth well agree with the English constitutions;" and moreover, not only all "needful fruits and vegetables which we transport from hence and plant there thrive and prosper well," but vines and tobacco and oranges, and probably sugar-canes, will grow there,—for the soil is "aromaticall," and moreover abounds with medicinal plants and drugs. All this is the favorable side of the picture;—but then, "the savages and men of Ind" whose strange appearance and barbarous usages had excited so much fearful curiosity at home!—Why, says Master Strachey. "let me truly saie, how they never killed man of ours, but by our men's owne folly and indiscretion, suffering themselves to be beguiled and enticed up into their howses without their armes; for fierce and cunning as they are, still they stand in great awe of us." Among them the Sasquesahanougs "came to the discoverers with skynns, bowes, arrowes, and tobacco pipes"—doubtless the calumet of peace "for presents." But the chief object of interest is, "the great King Powhatan."—already well known by the name as the father of the interesting Indian girl, Pocahontas; "the greatnes and boundes of whose empire, by reason of his powerfulnes and ambition in his youth, hath larger lymitts than ever had any of his predicessors."
"The great King" was not deficient in that important mark of royalty-and which doubtless corroborated the opinion, then widely prevailing, that these Indians were of eastern origin—a goodly number of wives. Indeed, "he is supposed to have many more than one hundred, all of which he doth not keepe, yet as the Turk, in one seraglia or howse, but hath an appointed number, which reside still in every their severall places, amongst whome, when he lyeth on his bedd, one sittith at his head and another at his feet; but when he sitteth at meat, or in presenting himself to any straungers, one sittetn on his right hand, and another on his leaft." And here we have the picture of the great Powhatan, sitting pipe in hand, "the very moral," feather-head-dress and all, of the protecting genius of the tobacconist's shop, with a rather pretty-looking wife on each side and twenty more, laughingly huddled round a huge fire, at his feet. His family was rather patriarchal; consisting at this time of twenty sons and ten daughters, besides "a young one, a great darling," and Pocahontas, "now married to a private captain." Some of his "weroances," or under governors, took somewhat of kingly state on them, and so did their favorite wives. One, a very handsome "savadge woman," took on her "a shewe of greatnes" in this manner.—
"I was once early at her howse (yt being sommer tyme), when she was layed without dores, under the shadowe of a broad-leaved tree, upon a pallet of osiers, spred over with four or five fyne gray matts, herself covered with a fare white drest deare skynne or two; and when she rose, she had a mayd who fetcht her a frontall of white currall, and pendants of great but imperfect couloured and worse drilled pearles, which she put into her eares, and a chayne, with long lyncks of copper, which they call Tapoantaminais, and which came twice or thrice about her neck, and they accompt a jolly ornament; and sure thus attired, with some variety of feathers and flowers stuck in their haires, they seeme as debonaire quaynt, and well pleased as (I wis) a daughter of the howse of Austria behune [decked] with all her jewells; likewise her mayd fetcht her a mantell, which, they call puttawus, which is like a side cloak, made of blew feathers, so arteficyally and thick sewed togither, that it seemed like a deepe purple satten, and is very smooth and sleeke; and after she brought her water for her hands, and then a braunch or twoo of fresh greene asshen leaves, as for a towell to dry them. I offend in this digression the willinger, since these were ceremonyes which I did little looke for, carrying so much presentetnent of civility."
The description of the Indian dress does not differ from the modern accounts; the style of the "ear-rings," however, seems to have interested Strachey greatly,—especially the "wild beast's claws" stuck in, and, above all, "a small greene and yellow-colored live snake, neere half a yard in length, crawling and lapping himself about his neck." Truly, we can scarcely be surprised that the early settlers looked with suspicion on men who wore such unchristian-like ornaments, and that they more than suspected them to be in league with "the old serpent." A full description is given of their modes of hunting and fishing; and also of their amusements,—especially their dances, which resemble those of "frantique and disquieted bachanalls." The writer was not able to obtain much information as to their religion. From some scattered hints, it seems to have resembled the Mexican, both in the human sacrifices and in the secrecy attending them. They also used a sort of embalming for their kings, whose bodies were kept in one of their temples.
Their principal temple "is at Vtamussack, proper to Powhatan, upon the top of certaine red sandy hills; and it is accompanied by two others sixty feet in length, filled with images of their kings and deviles, and tombes of the predecessors. This place they count so holy as that none but the priests and kings dare come therein." They are not observed to keep any specific days of devotion; but from time to time the whole population assemble "to make a great fier in the house or fields, and all to sing and daunce about yt, in a ring like so many fayries, with rattles and showtes." This points to an eastern source: so does the following: