shall be glad of it," said the young engraver, "but I can't fail him." "You are wrong, altogether wrong," cries Hase. "You are engaging yourself to an old imbecile who has no notion of affairs." seat with sudden irascibility. "Take care, or I will give you in charge on the spot; " and he called angrily to the coachman to drive on. The coachman whipped his horses, and one of the wheels just grazed the beggar's foot. "D them!" said the man to the woman, as the two heaps of rags stood side by side on the pavement looking after the carriage. Max came back early next day to the toy-shop, and for an hour or two the master and his pupil sat together with the first few chapters and elaborate notes of the book of books spread on the table "I could drive in a carriage too, if I before them, while Caron stood explain had one," said the woman with another ing, dilating, planning this illustration oath; then she looked up, for Caron was and that symbols, compositions that leaning far out of his window, and calling were to take the working man's fancy, to to the beggar to attract his attention. remain imprinted on his mind, and lead "Here," he cried, "get your tools out of him insensibly to the truth. One picture pledge, my friend; do your own work; do most especially of his own composition not demean yourself to beg of others," did good old Caron insist upon. There and he threw down a couple of half was to be a rising sun; the rays of light crowns, which rolled in different direc were to be shining upon a great globe scattered with the wrecks of past ages, fetters lying broken on the ground, spears and cannon overturned, and the symbols of war rent asunder, the rainbow of peace and universal tranquillity shining in the sky. "Of course I can draw anything you like, but what do you think all this will do?" Du Parc said, laughing at last almost against his will. "Men will note this. Those who have not patience to read my words will see your pictures, and will ask what the meaning of the riddle may be. The voice of truth is not to be silenced, the very stones cry out," said Caron gravely. "All life is a symbol, a secret to be discovered." As he spoke, an open carriage, drawn by two livery horses, stopped at the door of the shop below, shaking the low room with its sudden vibration. In the carriage was seated a beautiful young woman dressed in the fashion, and an older man -grey, military, upright by her side. At the lady's desire the servant jumped down from the box and went into the shop, apparently to make some purchase, and, while the carriage waited, it so chanced that a beggar in many rags came up, followed by a shabby woman with a sleeping child wrapped in a tattered shawl. The window was open, and the two men in the little room which was close over the toy-shop could not help assisting at the scene. The man shuffled up, and in a whining voice began to ask for money to get his tools out of pawn, and some what rudely touched the lady on the shoulder, to attract her attention. "How dare you! Be off, you fellow!" cried the gentleman, starting from his tions across the pavement. While the beggars leapt to catch them, the occupants of the carriage returning on its wheels saw the scene. The young lady looked up in amazement at the eager grey head and outstretched hand, the gentleman pulled angrily at his moustache, the servant came out from the shop with some parcel, the whole equipage rolled away. Du Parc had drawn back into the shade of the curtain. "I know that girl," he said; "she has just married that old fellow for his money. She is a friend of my mother's." highly. But he does think highly of himself. Looking back, now, in later life, and in the light of this "Autobiography," one seems to discern in "Philip Van Artevelde" a simulated maturity: the reaction in a mind which has risen in wrath against an idolatrous admiration of Byron. 66 His restrained good sense, combined with the bright gleam of something very near to the highest poetic genius. One thought the author must be sixty at least: we find he was only thirty-four; though in the days of the first enthusiastic study of the drama that would have appeared as advanced middle age. Good sense, in combination with brilliancy, overawes readers" enthusiastic admiration of Byron," Sir of twenty-two; impresses them with the Henry Taylor tells us, was morally stupesense of an infinite elevation above their fying;" and he burst his bonds asunder, own standpoint. For even in those flighty as lesser readers have done. One thinks, days the youth knew well how he ought to reading the great play, of a clever student think, and would think if he were wise. at the university writing his prize-essay Even when extravagantly admiring Byron, for the reading of his professors: not in we knew in ourselves that his theory of the style which is really congenial to himlife and of moral character was at its root self, but in that which he knows will suit idiotic. But in those days we suspended them. One sees the young Henry Taylor our moral sense, and enjoyed the hectic was thinking of his great friend, the judiand unwise beauty; as at an opera, for the cious Southey; and pruning extravagances song's sake, we are content that a man in in that thought. And though Henry Taymortal extremity should stop and sing. lor was never so young as many men have For many years, till our generation been, one is pleased to find occasional has grown old, - our reverence and ad- little outbreaks of what is distinctly not so miration for the author of that magnifi- very wise, in this awe-striking personifica. cent poem have hardly lessened. Yet tion of precocious maturity and wisdom. somehow one did not want to know more The preface to " Philip Van Artevelde "is of the author. Familiarity did not appear unquestionably arrogant in its tone. And becoming, here. The poem held one off when we find it was a man of thirty-four firmly. We have read “Philip Van Arte- who took upon himself so to lecture manvelde" perhaps ten times; and parts of it kind, we are amused. But it is thoroughly have been repeated to one's self times like the lad of twenty-two in the Colonial innumerable. We mark with pleasure, Office writing to his superior that ever reading this "Autobiography," that our since he entered the office he had been favorite passages are the author's favorite doing the work of a statesman. And it is passages too; and we are deeply inter- completely consistent with the man's calm ested in what he tells us of their origin. declaration that "in point of intellectual Yet there was always a hardness felt: a range he regarded Sir James Stephen and sternness. It was always too sagely and Mr. Gladstone as belonging to the same composedly wise, that exquisite passage order of minds as his own." It is a most which tells how we get over things: which symptomatic touch that the young Henry we have quoted in this magazine (we in- Taylor does not rather put it that he "beclude its predecessor) too often already. longed to the same order of minds" as And now we find that it was in fact written Mr. Gladstone. We do not need the before the first grief was over. 66 These Autobiography" to tell us that Sir Henry Taylor was never at a university; never at a public school. We may beautiful lines were not written after experience had shown that sorrow would be tamed by time and health; but at the very But we have the "Autobiography," first, when weaker souls would have while Sir Henry Taylor is still with us, at thought to sit down and die. It was not the age of eighty-four years and six even as when a dear young friend, crushed months. It had been intended to come under the bitterest of all bereavements, later; but there is no reason why it should said feverishly to the present writer, "I'm not be given to the world now. not going to break down: I must peg say at once that it is most interesting. away." It would not have been nearly so We may say too, that it makes no change in sad to hear him say that he never could our estimate of the man formed from the lift up his head again. But Artevelde's study of his works. Here is unquestionawords, perpetually quoted, are most typi- bly the author of " Philip Van Artevelde," cal of their author. We do not venture of "The Statesman," of "Notes from to call him self-sufficient. But he is self- Life," and "Notes from Books; " as he is sufficing, and has always been so. Nor and must be. The provokingly wise do we say he thinks of himself a bit too "Statesman," which ought to have come from the pen of Solomon, or at the least of one who had been prime minister and from that elevation taken the measure of his fellow-creatures for twenty years, was written at thirty-five by a clerk in the Colonial Office. No wonder that its tone of calm superiority gave offence. When Archbishop Whateley wrote (as Sir H. Taylor tells us he did) an analogous book called "The Bishop," at least he did not put his name to it. Through all this frank picture of Sir H. Taylor, from his own hand, we have the same temperate, reserved, as sured strength and wisdom. There is no fluster nor flutter: even when his dearest friend died, even when the friend's sister decidedly said no. From early youth, Henry Taylor was always par negotiis. The entire character and career strike a certain awe, and bid the ordinary mortal keep his distance. In the case of any one else, we should have been aggrieved at finding the pros and cons about his marriage treated with a grave solemnity as of Gibbon showing us how Christianity made its way. Here it seems quite natural. The grand manner becomes Sir H. Taylor, and everything about him. And though the story is told quite without reserve, those who have hitherto reverenced Sir H. Taylor most, will not be disappointed. The stately figure stands secure on its pedestal, still. Henry Taylor was born at Bishop Middleham, in the county of Durham, on October 18, 1800. Sir Henry surprises us by stating that this was "the first year of the new century." Does a century mean a hundred years, or only ninety-nine? Was the year 100 the first year of the second century, or the last year of the first? He conveys that he would have been pleased had his birth been noble, and had his name sounded heroically. We can say truly that we never thought of the meaning of his name till he made this suggestion. His father was of gentle descent, but took to farming. His mother was the daughter of an ironmonger at Durham. She died while her famous son, the youngest of three, was an infant. But her short life had been happy. The farm, she wrote, was "the sweetest place under the sun, or above it either." Ah, "the earth hath He given to the children of men." The father was a man of good ability; he wrote many articles in the Quarterly Review. But he was habitually grave and reserved; and it was a melancholy home in which the boys grew up till their father married again when near forty-seven. At the age of thirteen Henry entered the navy as a midshipman. He was a lazy boy: and in his nine months at sea he never once went up the rigging. After some years of irregular home education, Henry got a clerkship in a government office. The three brothers lived together in a London lodging: and there within a fortnight the two elder died. For a few months Henry was sent to Barbadoes; then he returned home. His stepmother was angelic: "I suppose she had faults like other people, but I never found out what they were." It is curious to find in a letter written by his father in 1814, all the scholarship about eternal punishment which in these last months has come new to many from the eloquent Dean Plumptre of Wells. There it is: all about the Eon. Yet Henry's days passed heavily in his secluded home, with all its kind affection; and he began to write poetry, "built on Byron." In 1822 he first saw himself in print; it was a short essay in the Quarterly on Moore's "Irish Melodies." Within a year he went to London, hoping to support himself by his pen. He arrived in London on October 23; and next day called on Gifford. His second paper in the Quarterly was a review of Lord John Russell, whom it helped to turn from poetry to politics. But the turning-point in Henry's life was near. In January he was appointed to a place of of 300l. a year in the Colonial Office, through the influence of Dr. Holland; and in that office he did his life-work. There was great delight at home at his deliverance from hack-authorship; and he had found his proper place. He plunged into his work eagerly; and soon wrote to his father that a paper he had composed formed the substance of a speech by Canning. His faults in those days, he says, were "arrogance and impertinence." For years he drafted despatches in a style and temper of which in after days he was heartily ashamed. Doubtless with good reason. His manner, he says, was against him; shyness leading him, as it had led others, to affectation and unpleasant bluntness. His great friend was Hyde Villiers, brother of the late Earl of Clarendon, and of Montagu, Bishop of Durham. He had other friends, appointed to eminence: Austin the Parliamentary lawyer, John Stuart Mill, and John Romilly, who became master of the rolls. Charming above all others was Miss Villiers. He did a little work for the Quarterly; and at twenty-six published "Isaac Comne nius." Though the Quarterly puffed it, the public would have none of it. It was Southey who suggested to him the subject of his great poem; and he began to write “Philip Van Artevelde" for the pleasure of writing; he wrote only in inspired moods; and he took six years to it. There were tours abroad; two with Southey; and Sir Henry records, at this time, that Mr. Gladstone declared of him that he wanted nothing but ambition to have been a great man;" politically, Mr. Gladstone meant. But the occasional taking-down came. At twenty-eight, he proposed to Miss Villiers, and met decided rejection. Mr. Taylor was led by his place in the Colonial Office to take deep interest in the anti-slavery movement. We wish he had not habitually used the phrase "the saints," to signify those who were moved on that question by the old distinction between right and wrong. We have awful glimpses of the cruelties of slavery, and of the fashion in which those who inflicted these were applauded by the ruling caste : as in many other instances. And now it began to be said that there was a man Taylor in the office who ruled the secretary of state. Apparently he did, for a while. But he found it impossible to rule Lord Stanley: the brilliant Lord Stanley of that day. And through Lord Stanley's opposition, Taylor failed of getting some merited advancement. Hyde Villiers died when thirty-two. He and Taylor had taken up house together in Suffolk Street. Not long after, the great passage in "Artevelde" was written. And it was in passing the dwelling of the Villiers family that the lines came: There is a gate in Ghent; I passed beside it; Taylor came to know Scott; and a great friendship grew up with Wordsworth. He visited Sydney Smith at Combe Florey, in a rich tract of Somersetshire. Sydney was in great spirits: "An extensive prospect there to the east; Galatia, Mesopotamia, lie in that direction." ter Byron. His father and mother (always so called) were made very happy, and himself too. Holland House opened its doors to him. But he did not like Lady Holland, and drew off. At thirtysix he published "The Statesman; which he rightly calls pragmatic. But things in it, written in grave irony, were taken seriously. The first edition, published in 1836, was sold off by 1873, and it was not a large one. It was a great event in Taylor's life when Mr. Spring Rice became secretary of state, and soon asked the poetic clerk to visit him at Petersham. The family was charming. The eldest daughter had Wordsworth at her fingers' ends. But Theodosia Alice, the youngest, was the one maid in the world. At thirty-seven, Taylor proposed; but was rejected for his theological unsoundness. With a solemnity which indicates some lack of humor, the story is told of the wanderer's return to orthodoxy; under the powerful counsel of Mr. Gladstone, Sir J. Stephen (whose influence in the Colonial Office is matter of history), and Southey. The engagement was several times off and on; but all came right at the last. Proposals were repeatedly made to give Taylor a place of more dignified sound than a mere clerkship; it was by his own choice that he remained content in that position for forty years. Mr. Spedding held a like place; and, strange to tell, Cardinal Manning was for a while a junior clerk. Whoever desires to read the painful story of the way in which West Indian slaveholders fought and bullied to keep their slaves, and to neutralize their liberation after the British Parliament granted it, may find it vividly told in these vol umes. The Jamaica Assembly became mutinous, as all oppressors tend to become when they are no longer suffered to oppress. That body accused the Houseof Lords of "either cowardice and imbecility, or fraud and malice;" and the House of Commons of "perjury and corruption." Analogous circumstances in recent years have reproduced exactly the same language. There are regions of England in which it may be read in the Now fame was to come. "Philip Van county newspaper once a week. When Artevelde" was published, the writer be the privileged are stripped of their privi ing thirty-four. The prudence of the pref- leges, they use awful phraseology. And ace was doubted; we do not wonder. But very naturally so. Nor can the "AutobiTaylor says it was said of him that heography," as it deals with such matters, awoke one morning and found himselt be read without the strong conviction that famous; adding that he does not know of Sir H. Taylor was indeed a most sagawhom that was first said. Many school- cious and far-seeing statesman. But while boys could tell him it was of his old mas- his marriage seemed hopeless, and the VOL. L. 2564 LIVING AGE. own. Many lively pictures are given of distinguished friends, political and literary. These must be sought in the volumes. But it is worth noting that when Words worth died, Sir G. C. Lewis proposed that Taylor should be appointed laureate: on the ground that Mr. Tennyson was "lit tle known"! We find recorded, too, the old story of "The Ass and the Archbish op," in a pleasant sketch of Archbishop Whately of Dublin. It is told as of undoubted authority. But the archbishop told the present writer, in 1863, that the story is wholly without foundation. From circumstances, too, we doubt much whether the archbishop was author of the book called "The Bishop," which, as Taylor says, was "modelled upon 'The Statesman' and quoted from it largely." office was full of worry, he sought retreat | honor; but with the changes they are in imaginative writing. In 1838 he wrote sure to bring. In 1852 Sir H. Taylor built "Edwin the Fair." And in those days a house at Sheen; designed by that inSouthey's brain softened and he was lost comparable wife who from the first week to his friends. But on October 17, 1839, had taken care of all the money. The Taylor and Alice Spring Rice were mar- health of the children caused continual ried. And peace and brightness came anxiety. And at fifty-nine there came into his father's home as well as into his severe illness, spasmodic asthma; which after months of great suffering yielded to simple means, coming of a lucky chance. “The spasmodic form of disease has never returned. The cigarette which brought it to such a sudden end was made of mild tobacco in paper slightly impregnated with saltpetre; not so manufactured with any medicinal view, but merely to make it burn better. It happened to be at hand when I was advised to try smoking tobacco; and it was this particular combination which saved me; for neither saltpetre nor tobacco, pure and simple, or in other proportions, was of much use." Sir H. Taylor had early ceased to belong to any club save THE CLUB which meets only to dine. The intimation that a member is elected is still sent to him in the form in which it was drawn up by Gibbon. He enjoyed social life, though (strange to say) he made no figure in it; and he "liked any woman better than any man." Sir Henry acknowledges that this assertion, made of him by a friend, is substantially true. "St. Clement's Eve" was written at sixty: the last poetical work. In 1861, he and his household found their way to Bournemouth. Here they bought a house for summer; Sheen was for winter. Tennyson's imagery, in conversation, wes less refined than one's expectation; three times in a few lines we find him likening the publication of a great man's intimate concerns to being "ripped open like a pig; " adding, with feeling, "that he knew he himself should be ripped open like a pig." About this time came the serious event of growing a beard; which for a while was so bristly that Sir H. Taylor could but be "a good and happy hog." In 1862, at Oxford, he received the degree of D.C.L. And about that period he expresses views as to bribery at elections which the kindest of editors once struck out of an essay in this magazine by a contributor in whose productions he never blotted another line. In 1869 Sir H. Taylor was made a knight-commander of St. Michael and St. George. He was to have been made a life peer; but the Tory lords cast out a measure for the creation of a limited number of such, after having approved of its introduction. Few men have entered the House of Lords who did that chamber more honor than Sir H. About 1840-1, Miss Fenwick, a specially charming relation of his mother, grew into the closest intimacy with Wordsworth and his family; and for some time lived at Rydal Mount. The devotion of Miss Fenwick to Wordsworth was extreme. But she gives a new view of the great poet's temper. It was tempestuous, and dark moods were frequent: "His is a strong but not a happy old age." He died in April, 1850. And Sir H. Taylor, writing to Miss Fenwick on April 26, says what is possibly true, but is startling: "He was the greatest (greater?) of the two great men that remained to us, and I believe the old duke is the same age." One would have said that the greatness of Wellington and the greatness of Wordsworth were hardly commensurable. And it is interesting to remember, now, that even after Waterloo the nobility regarded Wellington as a soldier of fortune, a military adventurer, who would soon find his level in society; and even combined to keep him in his proper place. So Mr. Mozley assures us in one of his recent interesting volumes.* Sir H. Taylor's father died in January, 1851, and his step-mother in April, 1853. They had seen him do his best work. In any case, he never did better. The years went on, in usefulness and Reminiscences of Towns, Villages, and Schools. Vol. ii., p. 324 |