Page images
PDF
EPUB

me,

[ocr errors]

time was shivering and turning her eyes | now? I can see it in your little face. away from it, and seeking for me to help Such a pretty dear you are! And all good her, I got rid of the two men who held children always do as they are told, you nor hearkened I the Coroner, but know. We want you to tell us a little gave Hezekiah such a grip as he felt for thing about pretty little brother. I have three months afterwards, and with Bardie got a little girl at home not so old as you on my left arm, kept my right fist ready. are, and she is so clever, you can't think. Nobody cared to encounter this; for I had | Everything she does and says; everyhappened to tell the neighbourhood how thing we tell her the Frenchman's head came off at the time when he tried to injure me; and so I bore off the little one, till her chest began to pant and her tears ran down my beard. And then as I spoke softly to her and began to raise her fingers, and to tickle her frizzy hair, all of a sudden she flung both arms around my neck, and loved me.

“Old Davy, poor ickle Bardie not go to 'e back pithole yet?"

"No, my dear, not for ever so long. Not for eighty years at least. And then go straight to heaven!"

"Ickle bother go to 'e back pithole? Does 'a think, old Davy?"

This was more than I could tell, though inclined to think it very likely. However, before I could answer, some of the jury followed us, and behind them the Coroner himself; they insisted on putting a question to her, and so long as they did not force her again to look at that which terrified her, I had no right to prevent them. They all desired to speak at once; but the clerk of the Coroner took the lead, having as yet performed no work toward the earning of his salt or rum. An innocent old man he was, but very free from cleanliness; and the child being most particular of all ever born in that matter, turned away with her mite of a nose, in a manner indescribable.

He was much too dull to notice this; but putting back his spectacles, and stooping over her hair and ears (which was all she left outside my beard), he wanted to show his skill in babies, of which he boasted himself a grandfather. And so he began to whisper,

"My little dear, you will be a good child -a very good child; won't you,

[ocr errors]

Take ayay 'e nasty old man. Take ayay 'e bad old man; or I never tiss 'a again, old Davy."

She flashed up at me with such wrath, that I was forced to obey her; while the old man put down his goggles to stare, and all the jury laughed at him. And I was running away with her, for her little breath was hot and short; when the Coroner called out, "Stop, man; I know how to manage her." At this I was bound to pull up, and set her to look at him as he ordered me. She sate well up in my arms, and looked, and seemed not to think very highly of him.

"Look at his Honour, my dear," said I, stroking her hair as I knew she liked; "look at his lordship, you pretty duck.”

"Little child," began his Honour, "you have a duty to perform, even at this early period of your very beginning life. We are most desirous to spare your feelings, having strong reasons to believe that you are sprung from a noble family. But in our duty towards your lineage, we must require you, my little dear quest you, my little lady our endeavour to identify "I can say 'dentify,' oid Davy; tell 'e silly old man to say'dentify' same as I does."

-we must reto assist us in

She spread her little open hand with such contempt at the Coroner, that even his own clerk could not keep his countenance from laughing. And his Honour, having good reason to think her a baby of high position before, was now so certain that he said, "God bless her! What a child she is! Take her away, old mariner. She is used to high society."

WHY are things not improved? Why are follies not swiftly removed? You convince an individual any number of individuals of the foolishness of a folly; but you cannot bring these convinced people to act in concert. Combination is very difficult; and social improvements must always be very hard to make in large communities. It is not difficult to imagine a

community, every individual of which shall be thoroughly convinced of the foolishness of some folly which he, or she, commits daily. Nay, more; each member of this community, shall know that every other member of the commanity thinks as he does about the whole matter. And yet the folly shall continue to be rampant for two or three generations. Arthur Helps.

[ocr errors][merged small]

WE all of us know well, and to our cost, that we can make no improvement in the management of our affairs, no change for the better in the arrangements, economical and ethical, of our modes of life and action without some attendant trial, trouble, or loss coming ever like a shadow in its train. It is, therefore, not a cause for wonder that some spirit of evil has cast its shadow in the wake of the introduction of the penny post, and the still later changes in the direction of cheapness in the newspaper press. A feeling of regret arises in our minds that with their introduction the good old-fashioned long and newsy letter of bygone days has been almost crushed out of existence. Letter-writing is becoming a lost art, and no correspondence is now carried on as in the olden time; for no one now lives "a life of letter-writing," as Walpole said he did. The reason of this is not far to seek, for the hurry and bustle of life has become too great to allow of anything but the passing thought being committed to paper, and each writer finds it to be useless to tell news to a correspondent who has already learnt what has happened from the same sources as himself. It is now frequently a shorter operation to call upon your friend and talk with him than to write him a long letter; but it is a happy thing for us of this day that this was not always the case, for the letters of the past which we possess form one of the most charming branches of our lighter literature.

66

Herodotus tells us of a cruel practice resorted to, in order to convey secret intelligence with safety. The head of a trusty messenger was shaved, and certain writings were impressed upon his skull. After his hair had grown sufficiently long for the purposes of concealment he was sent on his mission, and on arriving at his destination was again shaved, in order that the writing might be revealed. When the Spaniards visited America they found the postal communication in Mexico and Peru to be carried out on a most perfect system; and we learn that the couriers of the Aztecs wore a differently coloured dress, according as they brought good or bad tidings.

The establishment of a postal system in England is chiefly due to the sagacity of Richard III., who commanded the expedition against the Scots, in his brother Edward's reign. During this time, as it was necessary for the king and his government to know how the war was carried on, stages of about twenty miles each were established upon the North road. When Richard came to the throne he did not allow this system to fall into abeyance. Henry VIII. instituted the office of "Master of the Postes," and from his time to the present the Post Office has increased in importance year by year. Henry Bishop was appointed Postmaster-General at the Restoration, on his entering into a contract to pay to Government the annual sum of £21,500. In Queen Anne's reign the revenue of the Post Office had risen to £60,000; in 1761, it reached £142,000; in 1800, £745,000; in 1813, £1,414,224, and is now between four and five millions sterling.

The value of communication between persons in distant places was appreciated in very early times; and we find Job exMuch of this great increase in the revclaming, Now my days are swifter than enue is owing to the various improvements a post." In the days of Hezekiah "the that have been introduced; and most of posts went with the letters from the king these have come from without, and have and his princes throughout all Israel and been opposed by the officials. John Judah," and Ahasuerus sent letters into Palmer had great difficulty in obtaining every province of his empire by "the the adoption of his scheme of mail coaches, posts that rode upon mules and camels," and Sir Rowland Hill battled for many and were "hastened and pressed on by the years for his penny postage. Thomas king's commandment," to inform his sub- Waghorn, the hero of the Overland Route, jects that it was his imperial will that was originally a pilot in the service of the every man should bear rule in his own Hon. East India Company, and came to house. Various modes of communication England with a letter of introduction from other than writing have at different times the Governor-General to the chairman of been in use, such as numerically marked the Company. The chairman cared nothor notched pieces of wood, and the many-ing for his scheme, and told him to return coloured cords, regularly knotted, which to his duties in India saying that the East were called quipus by the Peruvians. India Company were quite satisfied with the postal communication, as conducted

Gossip about Letters and Letter Writers. By viâ. the Cape of Good Hope. Waghorn GEORGE SETON, Advocate. Edinburgh. 1870. left the room, disgusted with his reception,

and wrote the following laconic note in the while Secretary of State, and that was the hall:

"To John Harvey Astell, Esq., M.P., Chairman of the Hon. East India Company.

"SIR,

-I this day resign my employment as

a pilot in the Hon. East India Company's

liberty of opening letters upon suspicion that they might contain matter of dangerous consequence, which he thought such a violation of the law of nature that no

Ben-qualification of office could justify him in gal Marine Service, and have the honour to re- Graham incurred much public odium, for the trespass." In late years Sir James main, your obedient servant,

THOMAS WAGHORN. "

With the ink scarcely dry he rushed into the august presence, and delivering his letter said, "There, sir, is my resignation of my position in the Company's service, and I tell you, John Harvey Astell, Esq., member of Parliament, and chairman of the Hon. East India Company, that I will stuff the Overland Route down your throat before you are two years older."*

allowing the letters of Mazzini to be opened as they passed through the English post.

The history of literature presents us with many specimens of beautiful letters, and of continued correspondence of a high order. The French, more especially, excel in this charming department of the belles lettres, and can claim a De Sevigné and a Du Deffand; while we too can boast of the possession of Walpole, Gray, and Cowper among the men, and of Lady Russell and Lady Mary Montagu among the ladies. Good letters should be like good conversation, easy and unrestrained, for fine writing is as out of place in the one as fine talk is in the other. Pope did not understand this, and his early letters are showy and unnatural, full of rhetorical flourishes on trivialities. He was in the habit of keeping rough copies of his own letters, and sometimes repeated the same letter to different persons, as in the case of the two lovers killed by lightning, an account of which he sent to the two sisters Martha and Theresa Blount. His letters, therefore, are of little more interest than those of Katherine Phillips, the matchless Orinda to her grave Poliarchus (Sir Charles Cottrel). Dr. Sprat, in his life of Cowley, makes some judicious remarks upon this subject, but draws the conclusion that familiar letters should not be published to the world.

It was very long before the present enlightened views of cheap postage took root in the official mind, and in a tract, entitled " England's Wants," reprinted in "Somer's Tracts” (vol. ix. p. 219), letters are among the objects proposed for taxation. When the cost of postage was high the receiver expected to get his money's worth in a long letter, but various tricks were often resorted to, in order to save this cost, and blank letters, with a cipher on the outside, were sometimes sent, and refused by the persons to whom they were directed, because they had learnt from the exterior all that they wanted to know. Another trick discovers an ingenious mode of getting letters free. A shrewd countryman, learning that there was a letter for him at the post office, called for it, but confessing that he could not read, requested the postmaster to open it, and let him know the contents. When he had obtained all the information he required, he politely thanked the official for his kindness, and drily observed, "When I have "There was (he says), one kind of prose some change I will call and take it." The wherein Mr. Cowley was excellent; and that is doctrines of the inviolability of letters is his letters to his private friends. In those he held by all persons of honour, and Cicero always expressed the native tenderness and inasks "who at all influenced by good hab-nocent gaiety of his mind. I think, sir, you and its and feelings has ever allowed himself I have the greatest collection of this sort. But I to resent an affront or injury by exposing to others any letters received from the offending person during the intercourse of friendship." Nevertheless, all Governments have reserved to themselves the right of opening, in time of emergency, the letters that pass through their hands. The great Falkland would not countenance any such dishonourable doctrine, and Lord Clarendon says of him, "One thing Lord Falkland could never bring himself to,

"Mark Boyd's Reminiscences of Fifty Years."

know you agree with me that nothing of this sort should be published; and herein you have always consented to approve of the modest judgment of our countrymen above the practice of some of our neighbours, and chiefly of the French. I make no manner of question but the English at this time are infinitely improved in this way above the skill of former ages. Yet they have been always judiciously spring in printing such composures, while some other witty nations have tried all their presses and readers with them. The truth is, the letters that pass between particular friends, if they are written as they ought to be, can scarce ever be

fit to see the light. They should not consist of and is full of energy and vivacity, bearing upon fulsome compliments, or tedious politics, or elab-it the mark of those keen feelings and strong orate elegancies, or general fancies, but they passions from which it springs. It is the emshould have a native clearness and shortness, a ployment of such phrases which produces what domestical plainness, and a peculiar kind of fa- may be called colloquial eloquence. Conversamiliarity which can only affect the humour of tion and letters may be thus raised to any dethose for whom they were intended. The very gree of animation without departing from their same passages which make writings of this na- character. Anything may be said, if it be ture delightful among friends will lose all man- spoken in the tone of society; the highest guests ner of taste when they come to be read by those are welcome, if they come in the easy undress that are indifferent. In such letters the souls of the club; the strongest metaphor appears of men should appear undressed; and in that without violence, if it is familiarly expressed; negligent habit they may be fit to be seen by and we the more easily catch the warmest feelone or two in a chamber, but not to go abroad ing, if we perceive that it is intentionally lowin the street.' ered in expression out of condescension to our declamations, the last proof of bad taste and calmer temper. It is thus that harangues and bad manners in conversation, are avoided, while the fancy and the heart find the means of pouring forth all their stores. To meet this despised part of language in a polished ducing all the effects of wit and eloquence, is a

The letters of Scott, Byron, Southey, and Burns-all thoroughly different in style -keep up the character of the moderns, and show that they understood the secret of art.

Letter writing has a special charm for

shy, retiring men, because they are able to exhibit upon paper the feelings and emotions about which they could not speak. Some men seem able to think only when a pen is in their hands; though others, in the same situation, seem to lose all their ideas. Johnson said of the industrious Dr. Birch, "Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation, but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand than it becomes a torpedo to him and benumbs all his faculties." Dr. French Lawrence was an instance of the exact reverse, for Fox made him put on paper what he wanted to relate, saying, "I love to read your writing, but I hate to hear you talk."

Sir James Mackintosh was a great admirer of Madame de Sevigné, and we find in his works the following admirable remarks on the proper tone for polite conversation and familiar letters. We doubt whether it would be possible to find juster or finer thoughts on this subject, expressed in more elegant language: — "When a woman of feeling, fancy, and accomplishment has learned to converse with ease and grace, from long intercourse with the most polished society, and when she writes as she speaks, she must write letters as they ought to be written, if she has acquired just as much habitual correctness as is reconcilable with the air of negligence. A moment of enthusiasm, a burst of feeling, a flash of eloquence may be allowed, but the intercourse of society, either in conversation or in letters, allows no Though interdicted from the long-continued use of elevated language, they are not without a resource. There is a part of language which is disdained by the pedant or the declaimer, and which both if they knew its difficulty would dread; it is formed of the most familiar phrases and turns in daily use by the generality of men,

more.

I once

I must some

constant source of agreeable surprise. This is
increased when a few bolder and higher words
are happily wrought into the texture of this fa-
miliar eloquence. To find what seems so unlike
author-craft in a book, raises the pleasing as-
tonishment to the highest degree.
thought of Illustrating my notions by numerous
examples from La Sevigné.'
day or other do so, though I think it the re-
source of a bungler, who is not enough master
of language to convey his conceptions into the
minds of others. The style of Madame de
Sevigné is evidently copied, not only by her
worshipper, Walpole, but even by Gray, who,
notwithstanding the extraordinary merits of his
matter, has the double stiffness of an imitator
and of a college recluse. Letters must not be on
a subject. Lady Mary Wortley's letters on her
journey to Constantinople are an admirable book
of travels, but they are not letters. A meeting
tion; nor are papers written to another, to in-
to discuss a question of science is not conversa-
ation, not business, and must never appear to
form or discuss, letters. Conversation is relax-
be occupation, nor must letters. Judging from

my own mind, I am satisfied of the falsehood of
the common notion that these letters owe their
principal interest to the anecdotes of the court
of Louis XIV. A very small part of the letters
consist of such anecdotes. Those who read
them with this idea must complain of too much
Grignan. I may now own that I was a little
tired during the two first volumes. I was not
quite charmed and bewitched till the middle of
the collection, where there are fewer anecdotes
of the great and famous. I felt that the fascin-
ation grew as I became a member of the Sevignè
family; it arose from the history of the immor-
tal mother and the adored daughter, and it in-
creased as I knew them in more detail; just as
my tears in the dying chamber of Clarissa de-
pend on my having so often drank tea with her
in those early volumes, which are so audacious.
ly called dull by the profane vulgar. I do not

pretend to say that they do not owe some sec-| No sportsman ever hits a partridge without ondary interest to the illustrious age in which they were written; but this depends merely on its tendency to heighten the dignity of the heroine, and to make us take a warmer concern in persons who were the friends of those celebrated men and women, who are familiar to us from our childhood."

A French writer has said, "les marins écrivent mal;" but the gallant admiral, Lord Collingwood, whose correspondence was published in 1828, was a brilliant exception to this rash assertion. The following letter, addressed to the Honourable Miss Collingwood, is dated July 1809, and shows that its writer, in the midst of his manifold duties as a sailor, found time to direct the education of his children.

"I received your letter, my dearest child, and it made me very happy to find that you and dear Mary were well, and taking pains with your education. The greatest pleasure I have amidst my toils and troubles is in the expectation which I entertain of finding you improved in knowledge, and that the understanding which it has pleased God to give you both has been cultivated with care and assiduity. Your future happiness and respectability in the world depend on the diligence with which you apply to the attainment of knowledge at this period of your life, and I hope that no negligence of your own will be a bar to your progress. When I write to you, my beloved child, so much interested am I that you should be amiable and worthy the esteem of good and wise people, that I cannot forbear to second and enforce the instruction which you receive by admonition of my own, pointing out to you the great advantages that will result from a temperate conduct and sweetness of manner to all people, on all occasions. It does not follow that you are to coincide and agree in opinion with every ill-judging person; but after showing them your reason for dissenting from their opinion, your argument and opposition to it should not be tinctured by anything offensive. Never forget for one moment that you are a gentlewoman, and all your

-

words and all your actions should mark you gentle. I never knew your mother your dear, your good mother say a harsh or hasty thing to any person in my life. Endeavour to imitate her. I am quick and hasty in my temper, my sensibility is touched sometimes with a trifle, and my expression of it sudden as gunpowder; but, my darling, it is a misfortune which, not having been sufficiently restrained in my youth, has caused me much pain. It has, indeed, given me more trouble to subdue this natural impetuosity than anything I ever undertook. I believe that you are both mild; but if you ever feel in your little breasts that you inherit a particle of your father's infirmity, restrain it, and quit the subject that has caused it until your serenity be recovered. So much for mind and manners; next for accomplishments.

aiming at it, and skill is acquired by repeated attempts. It is the same thing in every art: unless you aim at perfection you will never attain it, but frequent attempts will make it easy. Never, therefore, do anything with indifference. Whether it be to mend a rent in your garment, or finish the most delicate piece of art, endeav our to do it as perfectly as it is possible. When you write a letter give it your greatest care, that it may be as perfect in all its parts as you can make it. Let the subject be sense, expressed in the most plain, intelligible, and elegant manner that you are capable of. If in a familiar epistle you should be playful and jocular, guard carefully that your wit be not sharp, so as to give pain to any person; and before you write a sentence examine it, even the words of which it is composed, that there be nothing vulgar or inelegant in them. Remember, my dear, that your letter is the picture of your brains; and those whose brains are a compound of folly, nonsense, and impertinence are to blame to exhibit them to the contempt of the world, or the pity of their friends. To write a letter with negligence, without proper stops, with crooked lines and great flourishing dashes, is inelegant. It argues either great ignorance of what is proper, or great indifference towards the person to whom it is addressed, and is consequently disrespectful. It makes no amends to add an apology for having scrawled a sheet of paper, for bad pens, for you should mend them; or want of time, for nothing is more important to you, or to which your time can be more properly devoted. I think I can know the character of a lady pretty nearly by her handwriting. The dashers are all impudent, however they may conceal it from themselves or others; and the scribblers flatter themselves with the vain hope that. as their letter cannot be read, it may be mistaken for sense. I am very anxious to come to England; for I have lately been unwell. The greatest happiness which I expect there is to find that my dear girls have been assiduous in their learning. May God Almighty bless you, my beloved little Sarah, and sweet Mary, too."

the principles that should govern the comHaving seen from the foregoing extracts position of familiar letters, we shall be better able to judge of the merits or demerits of the specimens that follow; and we will take this opportunity of saying that we have preferred to choose our examples from little known sources, rather than from such well-known volumes as the correspondences of Walpole, Grey, or Carter was much troubled by one of her The celebrated Mrs. Elizabeth Cowper. most intimate and early friends always writing to her in terms of great respect. In order to show her correspondent the absurdity of her conduct, and to obtain an easier kind of intercommunication, she wrote the following letter: :

« EelmineJätka »