The Caxtons: A Family Picture — Complete

And the fierce issues of the furious god.’”

Mr. Squills, after a long pause,—employed in some of the more handy means for the reanimation of submerged bodies, supporting himself close to the fire in a semi-erect posture, with gentle friction, self-applied, to each several limb, and copious recourse to certain steaming stimulants which my compassionate hands prepared for him,—stretches himself and says feebly, “In short, then, not to provoke further discussion, you would go to war in defence of your country. Stop, sir, stop, for Heaven’s sake! I agree with you, I agree with you! But, fortunately, there is little chance now that any new Boney will build boats at Boulogne to invade us.”

Mr. Caxton.—“I am not so sure of that, Mr. Squills. [Squills falls back with a glassy stare of deprecating horror.] I don’t read the newspapers very often, but the past helps me to judge of the present.”

Therewith my father earnestly recommended to Mr. Squills the careful perusal of certain passages in Thucydides, just previous to the outbreak of the Peloponnesian war (Squills hastily nodded the most servile acquiescence), and drew an ingenious parallel between the signs and symptoms foreboding that outbreak and the very apprehension of coming war which was evinced by the recent Io paeans to peace.[28 - When this work was first published, Mr. Caxton was generally deemed a very false prophet in these anticipations, and sundry critics were pleased to consider his apology for war neither seasonable nor philosophical. That Mr. Caxton was right, and the politicians opposed to him have been somewhat ludicrously wrong, may be briefly accounted for,—Mr. Caxton had read history.] And after sundry notable and shrewd remarks, tending to show where elements for war were already ripening, amidst clashing opinions and disorganized states, he wound up with saying: “So that, all things considered, I think we had better just keep up enough of the bellicose spirit not to think it a sin if we are called upon to fight for our pestles and mortars, our three-percents, goods, chattels, and liberties. Such a time must come, sooner or later, even though the whole world were spinning cotton and printing sprigged calicoes. We may not see it, Squills, but that young gentleman in the cradle whom you have lately brought into light, may.”

“And if so,” said my uncle, abruptly, speaking for the first time,—“if indeed it be for altar and hearth!” My father suddenly drew in and pished a little, for he saw that he was caught in the web of his own eloquence.

Then Roland took down from the wall his son’s sword. Stealing to the cradle, he laid it in its sheath by the infant’s side, and glanced from my father to us with a beseeching eye. Instinctively Blanche bent over the cradle, as if to protect the Neogilos; but the child, waking, turned from her, and attracted by the glitter of the hilt, laid one hand lustily thereon, and pointed with the other, laughingly, to Roland.

“Only on my uncle’s proviso,” said I, hesitatingly. “For hearth and altar,—nothing less!”

“And even in that case,” said my father, “add the shield to the sword!” and on the other side of the infant he placed Roland’s well-worn Bible, blistered in many a page with secret tears.

There we all stood, grouping round the young centre of so many hopes and fears, in peace or in war, born alike for the Battle of Life. And he, unconscious of all that made our lips silent and our eyes dim, had already left that bright bauble of the sword and thrown both arms round Roland’s bended neck.

“Herbert!” murmured Roland; and Blanche gently drew away the sword—and left the Bible.

notes

1

“We talked sad rubbish when we first began,” says Mr. Cobden, in one of his speeches.

2

“Some were so barbarous as to eat their own species.” The sentence refers to the Scythians, and is in Strabo. I mention the authority, for Strabo is not an author that any man engaged on a less work than the “History of Human Error” is expected to have by heart.

3

The anaglyph was peculiar to the Egyptian priests; the hieroglyph generally known to the well educated.

4

Lucian, The Dream of Micyllus.

5

Cicero’s joke on a senator who was the son of a tailor: “Thou hast touched the thing sharply” (or with a needle, acu).

6

Rubruquis, sect. xii.

7

This certainly cannot be said of Cumberland generally, one of the most beautiful counties in Great Britain. But the immediate district to which Mr. Caxton’s exclamation refers, if not ugly, is at least savage, bare, and rude.

8

Tibullus, iii. 4,55.

9

Hohler’s translation.

10

Words coined by Mr. Caxton from (Greek word), “disposed to roaming,” and (Greek word), “to export, to alienate.”

11

In primitive villages in the West of England the belief that the absent may be seen in a piece of crystal is, or was not many years ago, by no means an uncommon superstition. I have seen more than one of these magic mirrors, which Spenser, by the way, has beautifully described. They are about the size and shape of a swan’s egg. It is not every one, however, who can be a crystal-seer; like second-sight, it is a special gift. N. B.—Since the above note (appended to the first edition of this work) was written, crystals and crystal-seers have become very familiar to those who interest themselves in speculations upon the disputed phenomena ascribed to Mesmerical Clairvoyance.

12

Dante here evidently associates Fortune with the planetary influences of judicial astrology. It is doubtful whether Schiller ever read Dante; but in one of his most thoughtful poems he undertakes the same defence of Fortune, making the Fortunate a part of the Beautiful.

13

A Spaniard very rarely indeed marries a Gitana, or female gypsy. But occasionally (observes Mr. Borrow) a wealthy Gitano marries a Spanish female.

14

A damper is a cake of flour baked without yeast, in the ashes

15

“I have frequently,” says Mr. Wilkinson, in his invaluable work upon South Australia, at once so graphic and so practical, “been out on a journey in such a night, and whilst allowing the horse his own time to walk along the road, have solaced myself by reading in the still moonlight.”

16

Cowley: Ode to Light.

17

Cowley on Town and Country. (Discourse on Agriculture.)

18

How true are the following remarks:—

Action is the first great requisite of a colonist (that is, a pastoral or agricultural settler). With a young man, the tone of his mind is more important than his previous pursuits. I have known men of an active, energetic, contented disposition, with a good flow of animal spirits, who had been bred in luxury and refinement, succeed better than men bred as farmers who were always hankering after bread and beer, and market ordinaries of Old England... To be dreaming when you should be looking after your cattle is a terrible drawback... There are certain persons who, too lazy and too extravagant to succeed in Europe, sail for Australia under the idea that fortunes are to be made there by a sort of legerdemain, spend or lose their capital in a very short space of time, and return to England to abuse the place, the people, and everything connected with colonization.—Sydney. Australian Handbook (admirable for its wisdom and compactness).

19

Lest this seem an exaggeration, I venture to annex an extract from a manuscript letter to the author from Mr. George Blakeston Wilkinson, author of “South Australia”—