He is now on the Atlantic. Not that I broke the seal, for it told me at once when and where I found two friends — the best — the kindest — the truest — I ever found or shall ever find — on this side of the grave! May God eternally bless you! But who knows what depth of feeling may have been masked by that cadaverous coun- tenance? A Greek profile is not an indispensable index to a tender heart.
The visit paid by Rogers to Glen Finart, re- ferred to by Charles Murray in his notes, was paid in I will now own to you I began one, and as you expressed some curiosity on the subject, I will punish it as it deserves, not after the fashion of Barbe Bleu, but in a way per- haps little less severe. My diary ends providen- tially with the first day, and here it is. Neighbours at Glen Finart were few and dis- tant.
Some of them must have afforded. His manners were very primitively rough, and his stock of English was very scant. He paid a morning visit, and the drawing-room door was thrown open just as my mother was in the middle of a piece that she was playing on the harp. Of course she got off the stool on which she was playing to come and meet him, but, in a very uncouth way, he led her back towards the harp, intimating that she should go on with what she was doing. We had no hothouse fruit at the glen, but a supply was sent every fortnight 1 In a duplicate memorandum he is mentioned as the Laird of Auchnashalloch.
After he had despatched the solids, he pointed to a dish on which there were three or four very fine peaches, and he said, ' What kind of an apple is yon? The juice ran out of the sides of his mouth, and he said, ' Oh, it's a gran' apple ; but siccan a pip as it's got! Sir Michael had three daughters — little girls — to whom the three brothers promptly betrothed themselves. Sir Michael's second son, Houston, made a great impression on Charles.
Lord Fincastle succeeded his father as fifth Earl of Dunmore in the spring of , but as there was no house in the fine demesne of Dun- more Park, they continued to live at Glen Finart till it was time to send the boys to Eton. Stirring times they were, though the echoes of Waterloo sounded faintly in lonely Loch Long. The fol- lowing letter to Lady Dunmore from her inde- fatigable correspondent, Rogers, is one of many that must have been eagerly perused in that eventful year: At breakfast, with grapes and peaches and strawberries almost as delicious as yours.
I spent the 14th at sea between Dover and Calais, and I wish you could have seen Frederick North in his banyan, and attended by his Athenian, distributing lavender-water among some Irish ladies who were expiring very loquaci- ously in the cabin. My journey lay through Arcadia. At Breteuil I asked the price of pigeons in the market, and they were 2d.
Here are soldiers every- where, and strange it is to see English uniforms at the corner of every street. A poor fellow in a jacket accosted me the other day in a Babylonish dialect. At last I said in despair, 'Are you an Englishman? The Bois de Boulogne is full of English tents. As you drive through it, it looks like a fair, and sorry am I to say that the axe is very busy in their hands.
Full text of "The Honourable Sir Charles Murray, K.C.B.: A Memoir"
I have been called off to the window by a shout —it was the good King bowing from the balcony, as he came from mass, to his loving subjects. Some say he will stay— Lord Kinnaird thinks he will go with the first wind after the Allies. The Comte de Mosebourg gave the most splendid balls and dinners at Naples. He was Secretary of State under Murat. Going into Vary's, I found him dining at a table there in the crowd, and he lives in a troisieme in one of the darkest streets in Paris.
Such are the changes in this world. I sat down in the cafe near him, and who should tap me on the shoulder but Lady Caroline Lamb. She had come in alone, and her freaks here are as wonderful as in London. I am myself just now enrhume, but my windows console me a little for my confinement. I hope, however, to be released to-morrow, and to see Talma and Mile. Gbselin's dancing in 'Psyche' to- night, and the 'Pia Valeuse,' which last has now run 85 nights, drawing francs and tears innumer- able. The theatres seem not to have been painted since the Peace of Amiens — all are dingy, but the acting admirable.
The cuisine is certainly en decadence. So at least say the judges. The Gallery is now, alas! A scene of still greater confusion is the Austrian Barrack, where the Venus, the Apollo, the Transfiguration, and a thousand preci- ous things, are huddled together. They say the French show no feeling, but the melancholy groups assembled in the Place de Carrousel to gaze at the Venetian horses for some days before they were taken down by our engineers, and those now as- sembled round the Column with the same sad pre- sentiment, would affect even F.
Blucher, and I fear we are growing very unpopular. He came with a King's messenger from Turin to see the Gallery, but it has vanished like the Palace of Aladdin, and he came only to empty walls. He returns next week to Florence. He was at Genoa when Lady Jane Montague died, and at Naples he saw the last of poor Eustace, events that have thrown a shade over our Italian town.
As I came out of Rochester, who should be driving into it but poor Lady Shaftesbury ; but we were both driving so fast that I had only a glimpse of her, though I made what noise I could. I dined with Lady Barbara just before her confinement. I have said so much about nothing, I have no room for real things. I am not sure I should like to see the parting between you and Charles 1 — strange it is, as you observe, that a mother's nerves should be strung to quiver for people so passionately fond of enterprise and danger, and that all her business should be to prepare them for leaving her.
Ever and ever yours, S. Madame de Stael has also written three vols, for you. The two first are on France, the last on England. The journey to Eton from Dunmore was a for- midable affair for young Charles, who never, to the end of his life, succeeded in going to sleep in a carriage. The fastest travelling from Dun- more to London occupied three days and two nights, and, on account of his inveterate sleep- lessness in a coach, the boy was generally sent by the Leith smack to the Thames.
In Edin- burgh he was taken in charge by his father's estate agent, Mr Tait, and formed a close friend- ship with his two sons, of whom the second afterwards became Archbishop of Canterbury. Eton boys of to-day perhaps do not realise the ease of transit they enjoy — eight hours from London to Edinburgh in a saloon furnished like a boudoir — though they may regard somewhat en- ETON. On one occasion the smack in which Charles, bound for school, embarked at Leith, was blown over to the coast of Norway, and it was a fortnight before she landed him again, not in London, but in Leith!
Notwithstanding such impediments as this to consecutive study, Charles Murray acquired a pretty turn for Latin verses, the making of which was really nearly all a boy could learn at Eton in Keate's day. Sometimes the exer- cises were varied by practice in English verse; and once a-week an afternoon was devoted to what was called an extempore, though the sub- ject was set at 2 p. On one occasion the sub- ject set was Horace's Insanire ornnes.
On this a very shy, quiet boy, whom nobody suspected of capacity for a joke, sent in the following stanza: Surely the man must be a fool Who sends his son to Eton school. Charles, who never suffered from that complaint, has left on record his device for curing him. The two lads were at a party in the house of Sir Michael Shaw Stewart in Edin- burgh, a town which was famous for gaiety in the early part of the century.
Accordingly, before performing that ceremony, I said to my brother, 'Miss is very pleasant in conversation, but she is very deaf ; ' and a few minutes afterwards I went across to her and asked her if she would let me introduce my brother. Upon her saying that it would give her very great pleasure, I said, ' I should warn you that he is very deaf.
As I expected, I saw him approach his mouth to her ear and shout out something, probably an insignificant remark. She was startled, but in making her reply also put her mouth very near to his ear, and shouted a few words in answer. Both seemed very much surprised, but before long one had occasion to say, ' You needn't talk so loud, I'm not deaf.
Reward Yourself
Charles Murray pre- served notes of some of the incidents which amused him at the time. Some of the stories invite repetition, though this may possibly not be the first time they have appeared in print: For a considerable time he canvassed all the persons whom he thought likely to have it in their power to assist him in attaining his object. He was very ' sanguine of success ; but while the Law Court was sitting at Edinburgh, of which Harry Erskine was a member, intelligence came in to the effect that Lord S.
The two lines proved to be in reference to Lord S. These worthies had been informed that, after the reading of their loyal address and receiving his Majesty's gracious reply, they were to retire, kissing hands as they with- drew. Accordingly they defiled, as they went out, kissing their own hands to their astonished Sovereign. A case on which Erskine was engaged was being tried by Lord Cringletie, who, in mitigation of the offence of which the defendant was accused, referred to the force of circumstances under which he had acted, and more than once quoted the proverb, "Necessity has no law.
Queen Anne had bestowed on the first Earl of Dunmore a suite of apartments in Holyrood Palace, which had remained in the family as a possession by what Scottish lawyers call " tacit relocation " ever since. On this occasion the king, probably with an eye to future sojourns in the Scottish capital, caused the apartments of the Duke of Hamilton, Hereditary Keeper of the Palace, to be added to the royal suite, and bestowed on the Duke the rooms previously occupied by the Dunmores. The new house at Dunmore had just been com- pleted from the designs of Wilkins of Cambridge, who was also the architect of Lord Rosebery's new house at Dalmeny.
At the last-named place con- stant sociable gatherings took place, at which many Edinburgh and other notables assembled from time to time. Among these appears the name of Lord Chancellor Eldon, then a very old man, whose pleasantries seem to have been rather of the bludgeoning, Johnsonian type. It happened that one of the guests at Lord Rose- bery's table mentioned his intention of visiting the Continent for the purpose of making some addition to his own collection of paintings, and he asked Lord Eldon if he could give him any suggestions as to where he had better begin his search.
Lord Eldon replied, ' I think he had better go to Dus- seldorf. It was said that whenever his wife engaged a new housemaid or kitchenmaid, Dundas used to offer her a sovereign to be allowed to draw one of her teeth. One favourite song — a Russian air with Russian words — she played and sang so frequently that I can remember the words to this day. On one occasion when she was singing it a Russian attachS, who happened to be sitting next to me, whispered to me, ' Does Lady Rosebery understand Russian? Somebody ought to tell her.
The Duke of Hamilton 1 impressed him as a fine specimen of the old grand school, retaining not only the manners of a bygone court but some of the peculiarities in dress. He con- tinued to wear a wig, tied with a ribbon behind,. She had a magnificent voice of three perfect octaves, and her scientific know- ledge of music was as remarkable as was her intuitive feeling.
I may add that many of her gifts above alluded to were inherited from her father, William Beckford of Fonthill Abbey, one of the most extraordinary men in some respects that it has been my chance to meet in life. Some literary pirate having published — of course without authority — a translation of it, Beckford published his English version of it. In respect of music I do 1 Ninth duke, died in Beckford, taking the bass and sitting beside his daughter at the piano, said in French which he always spoke to her , ' Now, Susan, we'll suppose that the Grand Lama is just dead, and that his spirit has passed into the body of a little child.
Now we'll have the scene. There they sat at the piano together, the father and the still beautiful daughter, whose face, like her soul, was all music, he making the most grotesque faces in the world, as he suggested in a single word the successive changes of his piece — she playing the tenor and he the accompaniment on the bass notes of the instrument.
First was a solemn dirge for the death of the old lama — then a march intended to describe the procession of grave senators and sages to the assembly where the successor to the deceased prince was to be proclaimed — then a solemn strain describing the discussions and divinations of the assembly — then a grand chorus announcing the result and the proclamation of the infant successor. Presently Beckford, breaking off, remarked to his daughter, ' A present, k toi! There were several peacocks and peahens that used to pro- menade about the lawns and terraces adjoining the house, and her father took it into his head to learn and practise in a back-room of the house the shrill cry of a peacock.
He knew that when the peacock on one side screamed loud, another peacock on the opposite side of the house gener- ally screamed in defiance. One morning, when he felt pretty sure that he had learnt his lesson correctly, he went out, and hiding behind a cedar- tree, he gave his peacock cry: Immediately after this, which occurred just before breakfast, he came into the breakfast-room, saying with triumph to his daughter — " ' And, Susan, the other peacock answered me!
Rather provoked at this, he said — " ' Well, I think you might have congratulated ' me! Phrenology was a fashionable craze for some years, and among those most bitten with it was a neigh- bouring laird, Mr Hamilton of Dalzell, 1 a very old gentleman. Sitting opposite to Lord Eldon one night at dinner, and fixing his eyes on the great lawyer, Hamilton suddenly asked him — " Have you ever read Dr Spurzheim's two great volumes on phrenology?
Before that, there was no spoon known between the table- spoon and the teaspoon. Bearing this in mind, we proceed to the following incident.
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A rough country squire, dining for the first time at Hamil- ton, had been served in the second course with a sweet dish containing cream or jelly, and with it the servant handed him a dessert-spoon. The laird turned it round and round in his great fist and said to the servant — " ' What do you gie me this for, ye d d fule? Do ye think ma mooth has got any smaller since a lappit up my soup?
At the close of the first course a servant brought round a plate on which were a dozen little square pieces of toast with a delicate morsel, apparently of meat, upon each, which he elicited from the Duchess to con- sist of the inside of a woodcock, and considered a great delicacy. The Duke lit a candle, opened his door, and went up to his guest, and inquired whether he was suffering any pain? He left the poem Cadzow Castle as a memento of his visit, little dreaming, perhaps, how famous the whole neighbourhood was to become by his pen. I allude to the Educational Institution of the well-known Mr Owen.
He was one of those visionary individuals who held that the human mind and human char- acter in childhood were perfectly free from vice of any kind, and that a careful education could mould the youth of both sexes into a state of perpetual innocence. The establishment was upon a large 1 Cambusnethan, in the immediate neighbourhood of Hamilton, is the original of Tillietudlem Castle in 'Old Mortality.
Owen was a plausible fellow, and de- scribed his system and his course with great volubility to the two distinguished lawyers ale mentioned. I watched them during the interview, and I could see that Brougham listened to his ex- planations with considerable interest, while Den- man d d Mr Owen from the first as a complete humbug.
I regret to be obliged to add that a few years later the fact of half-a-dozen of the girl pupils proving enceinte caused Mr Owen to be driven out of the place by the indignant popula- tion. I may add that, curiously enough, I found the same charlatan, Owen, in the United States, conducting a school near Philadelphia, but I never heard any more of his success or failure.
Nowhere had he a finer field for its exercise than in the Isle of Arran, that princely possession of the Dukes of Hamilton, and space must be found for his eulogy on a game- keeper of the old school: The greater part of his system of dog-breaking was done in the kennels themselves, which were admirably clean and roomy. The whip seemed to me to be almost unknown in his system, and when he opened the door and entered, the dogs all flocked round him, wagging their tails with joy and affection.
But the moment he raised his arm pointing upwards, every dog lay down immediately in the spot where he was, and when he let them out for a run, whether they ran near or far, as soon as he whistled and beckoned, every dog immediately lay down where he was. There was one dog whose remarkable sagacity has remained imprinted indelibly on my memory. It was a small smooth pointer, called 'Peter'; of course it had been exercised with the other dogs along the roads or the sea-shore, but it had never smelt a grouse or been taken out on the hills till the day that George Croll took him out with me to see what he would do.
I may mention that rain had been falling and the ground was wet, and consequently most of the birds were on foot. We had scarcely been on the moor five minutes before we saw Peter going very slowly forward and trembling with excitement. This was a very hard trial. We continued our walk over the moor, and then Peter, after a few turns to the right and left in search of a fresh scent, came again to a point ; the same thing recurred, the birds were restless, and got up out of shot.
Thus, if there were any birds, Peter had got them between him and us, and, sure enough, he had out-manoeuvred the grouse, for he had got them between. They rose and came over my head, and I killed a brace — the first grouse that ever had been shot to Peter. Men with breechloaders cannot be got to give a dog time to exercise his wits: But it is pleasant to get a glimpse of moorland sport as it was before the days of flurry and big bags. After leaving Eton in Charles Murray spent two years at a private tutor's preparing for Ox- ford.
It was to this tutor, the Rev. Mr Hichings, vicar of Sunninghill, that he gratefully ascribed the strong love for the classics which he main- tained through life. But the reminiscences which he began to put together in had been carried little further than his school-days when he died in A few notes of his life at Sunninghill, a few stories of his college companions, and still fewer of his own doings at Oriel College, Ox- ford, form the only semblance of a consecutive narrative of the time after he ceased to be an alumnus of the redoubtable Dr Keate at Eton.
I ducked my head, and the poor book went into the fireplace behind my chair. This did not improve his temper ; but the incident had no further consequences, except that I never called him by the great Italian's name again. His pedestrian powers must have been somewhat remarkable. On being invited to Deepdene, the home of his friend Henry Hope, he walked over there in time for luncheon, a matter of some five- and-twenty miles. He was after- wards one of Murray's opponents on the hustings of Marylebone.
Both of them were beaten. Tytler was fifteen years his senior, yet he wrote to him as a man does to his intellectual equal. Fraser Tytler to the Hon. This is to him the more sad since nothing could have given him more real pleasure, Dunmore being delightful always, and not the least so when it is illuminated by your sallies, whether classical or diplomatic, in your character of Charles Murray the scholar, Charles Murray the chargS d'affaires, or, to sum up all, Charles Murray the madcap.
But to be serious and to come to my reasons. I have the misfortune to have a sister who is just going to be married, and till that solemn event has taken place I can- not leave this cottage of ours. Lord Dunmore may recollect perhaps that I once sent him some views in the Himalaya range of mountains in India: He has been a great traveller, and is an uncommon fine fellow, and having returned with a sufficient, though not large, fortune, is about to marry my youngest sister, to whom he has been attached since his youth up for ten years.
There's patriarchal and primitive constancy for you. Mercutio, whose heart, I take it, is a riddle in all senses, both physically and morally — at jam satis et plusquam satis de matrimonio. I like to leave the subject, for I am an abandoned literary bachelor, fond of my own fireside, my old books, my own private com- forts, and what I believe is the most fatal symp- tom of all, I have thoughts of taking into keeping no impropriety a teapot, and making my own tea at a little table in the library — this is what may be called innocent profligacy.
Per- haps you would like to know what I am about; but first, before I give way to egotism, let me say that I saw some letters and read some verses of a certain young scholar when I was last at Dunmore which gave me the greatest pleasure, and that with the talents which are possessed by this anonymous individual, and the ardour for class- ical literature which he seems to enjoy, it will be entirely his own fault if he does not, one day, distinguish himself in no common way.
Indeed, seriously, Charles, I look to see you very high, and the more that I am at Dunmore, the more keenly do I anticipate the delight which your success will give to those who love you best. There is a fine chapter in the last volume of Gibbon upon the subject, and something in Roscoe's Life of Lorenzo de Medici and Shepherd's Life of Poggio, but for full information you must go to the original authors themselves, whose names are too long and too hard to come in here.
This I am now attempting, and it has opened a scene of literary genius and exertion of which before I had formed no conception. It is delightful and wonder- ful to see old Homer, and Euripides, and iEschylus wakening from their long sleep of seven hundred years and resuming the lyre, and re-civilising the barbarians of these dark ages. His tutor for several terms was Newman, and it is strange how completely that gentle, thoughtful mind failed to secure the affection of these terrible youngsters. He walked with his head bent, abstracted, but every now and then looking out of the cor- ners of his eyes quickly, as though suspicious.
He had no influence then: I was up to him for Greek. At lecture he was quiet, and what I should call sheepish ; stuck to the text, and never diverged into contemporary history or made the lecture interesting. He always struck me as the most pusillanimous of men-wanting in the knowledge of human nature ; and I am always surprised, and indeed never can understand, how it was he became such a great man.
I never heard him preach. The 6ongs were not classical, but, I am ashamed to say, generally very noisy. They disturbed New- man, who liked quiet ; but instead of coming him- self and asking us to be earlier and quieter, he sent a porter, whom we sent to the devil. It showed either his cowardice or his want of human- ity. If we were noisy, we were all of us gentlemen, and not one of us would have rebelled if he had spoken to us himself. As it was, he stuck up a big bell outside his room, about twelve feet from the ground. At nine o'clock or so, if we began to shout, he pealed this bell to summon the porter to tell us to be quiet.
This was too much. Newman, from the beginning to the end, was a recluse — at Oriel, Littlemore, and Edgbaston ; but I, from the beginning, was pitched head over heels [sic] into public life, and I have lived ever since in the full glare of day " vol i. It was impossible to do it alone, but not one of them would join me.
Next night we brought a ladder and a pickaxe. The fellow had had the bell fixed in with nails some five inches long, and we took it in turn to hold the ladder and to pick at the nails. Of course Newman must have heard us, and if he had been anything of a man, he would have come out of his room and caught us red-handed; but he was too pusillan- imous for that, and we were allowed to finish our work in peace, so far as he was concerned. Unluckily for me, though, as I was coming down with the great bell and its fixtures in my arms my foot slipped, and I fell, spraining my ankle.
Of course next day there was the devil of a row, but no one was sent down. No one was put on his honour to say who was the culprit, and Harris left for his ship. But Newman never put up his bell again. He and Murray, having been "gated" for some minor offence, determined to eclipse it by a more heroic one, and bet that they would ride to London, sixty miles, and back in one day. Having arranged for relays at Henley and Maidenhead, they started from Oxford about 8.
Then they dined quietly at a club, saw the first act of a play at some theatre, and, allowing themselves three hours to cover the sixty miles in returning, galloped off at nine o'clock. I regret to say one of the horses ridden by Thynne — a much heavier fellow than I — died from the effects of the pace. Sidney Herbert l had been a com- panion of Murray's at Eton, and to him Murray, on leaving Oxford, left a large collection of these objects, among them — Newman's bell!
But dur- ing his undergraduate days he excelled also in athletics of a less spasmodic order. He was an ardent tennis-player ; he won the chief prize in the University— a silver racquet— and retaining it against all competitors for three years, became the possessor of it for ever. The ink has wellnigh faded away in Murray's earliest commonplace book, but it is still possible to decipher verses in Greek, Latin, and English, of which the following alcaics — a rendering of Milton's ode to Echo in " Comus " — written at the age of nineteen, may stand as a single example of many, though the author has scribbled a note to the effect that none of these 1 Afterwards Lord Herbert of Lea, and father of the present Earl of Pembroke; died in He got on better with him, and formed the ambition to be elected a Fellow of All Souls.
A vacancy occurring there before he was twenty-one, he spoke to Tyler about it, who said it was out of the question, because Murray had not even looked at Theology or Logic. The schools came off, and I went up merely to pass. This I did, and the examiners were kind enough to offer me a 4th class honour, which I refused, as I said people would only say, c He went in for honours and only managed a fourth.
In those days the reading colleges said of us at All Souls — Bene nati, bene vestiti, moderate docti. This is changed nowadays so far as the learning goes, but I doubt if, socially, All Souls has gained much by it. Bead Eustace Forsyth, and all the travellers on the subject, not forgetting Kotze- bue, who has published his travels and is very poetical in his prose when he visits those cities of old.
With every five grains of Pompeii mingle three of Vesuvius, and with so much of the com- a poet's prescription. In Dr Clarke's Memoirs there is also a very lively account of the mountain. There is a poem written six years ago, which I have rather run through than read, but which has some strong tempesta-kind of painting in it. If you read it, throw it aside before you begin. Lord Brougham to the Countess of Dunmore. First, that the founda- tion of all excellence is to be laid in early applica- tion to general knowledge is clear; this he already is aware of: Even a year in an attorney's office, as the law is now practised, I should hold not too severe a task, or too high a price to pay, for the benefits it must surely lead to.
But at all events the life of a special pleader I am quite convinced is the thing before being called to the Bar. A young man whose mind has once been imbued well with general learning and acquired classical propensities, will scarce sink into a mere drudge — he will always save himself harmless from the dull a lawyer's prescription. I speak on this subject with the authority both of experience and observa- tion. The first point is this, the beginning of the art is to acquire a habit of easy speaking ; and in whatever way this can be had which individual inclination or accident will generally direct, and may safely be allowed to do so , it must be had.
Now I differ from all other doctors of rhetoric in this: It is the requisite founda- tion, and on it you must build ; moreover, it can only be acquired young, and therefore let it by all means, and at any sacrifice, be gotten hold of forthwith. But in acquiring it every sort of slovenly error will also be acquired.
It must be got by a habit, of easy writing, which, as Wynd- ham said, proved hard reading; by a custom of talking too much in company; by debating in speaking societies with little attention to rule, and more love of saying something at any rate than of saying anything well. I can even suppose that more attention will be paid to the matter in such discussions than to the manner of saying it ; yet still to say easily ad libitum, to be able to say what you choose, and what you have to say, this is the first requisite, to acquire which everything else must for the present be sacrificed.
But he must by no means stop here if he would be a great orator; he must at once go to the fountainhead, and be familiar with every one of the great orations of Demosthenes — I take for granted he knows those of Cicero by heart. His taste will improve every time he reads and repeats to himself for he should have the fine passages by heart , and he will learn how much may be done by a skilful use of a few words, and a vigorous rejection of all superfluities.
In this view I hold a familiar knowledge of Dante next to Demos- thenes. First, I don't counsel any imitation, but only an imbibing of the same spirits. Secondly, I know from experi- ence that nothing is half so successful in these times bad though they be as what has been formed on the Greek models.
I com- posed the peroration of my speech for the Queen in the Lords after reading and repeating Demos- thenes for three or four weeks, and I composed it twenty times over at the very least, and it certainly succeeded in a very extraordinary de- gree, and far above any merits of its own.
This leads me to remark that though speaking without writing beforehand is very well until the habits of easy and fluent speech are acquired, after that he can never write too much: It is laborious, no doubt, and it is more difficult, beyond comparison, than speaking off-hand, but it is necessary to perfect oratory, and at any rate it is necessary to acquire the habits of correct and chaste diction ; but I go fiirther and say, even to the end of a man's life he must prepare, word for word, most of his fine passages. In other words, would he have almost absolute power of doing good to mankind in a free country or would he not?
If he wills this, he must follow these rules. Charles Murray's younger brother, Henry, was a sailor, and on the occasion of his return to sea, Charles, still an undergraduate, writes somewhat HON. Charles Murray to his Brother. I have been trying to think what sort of animal you will be when I see you again! Living- stone, and you will find me a blear-eyed, pale- faced, threadbare-coated pedant, or else a snivel- ling, sneaking, smirking lawyer, with papers and deeds in the home view, fees in the background, and a full-bottomed wig in the distance.
The broken records which enable us to trace the boyhood and youth of Charles Murray down to the time when he took his degree in , cease altogether for some years after that. The few who still remember him at that time speak of the extraordinary charm of manner which he possessed, his magnificent physique and handsome countenance.
With the capacity for enjoyment afforded by perfect health and a sociable dis- position, with the means of indulging it without any necessity for labour of hand or head, this young Fellow of All Souls might have drifted down the easy tide with other light - hearted voyagers, tennis-playing, shooting, dancing — only conspicuous among his comrades for the ease, sometimes the elegance, of his society verses. There is evidence in some of his note-books that Murray sometimes looked back with regret to the years so pleasantly squandered: Luckily Murray's nature was too strenuous, his habits too active, to allow the enervating round of fashionable life to become a habit with him.
He was no doubt inspired to exert his natural faculties by frequent intercourse with leaders in letters and politics, not only at his father's house, but at that of Samuel Rogers, at whose celebrated breakfasts there was always a place reserved for Charles Murray. And so it came to pass that in , when travelling in Germany to acquire the language, although unfurnished with any written introduction, he was able to secure the attention of Goethe, then Prime Minister of the Grand Duchy of Weimar.
A meeting which made so deep an impression on the young traveller's mind had best be given in his own words, which have been preserved in the follow- ing memorandum: He told me that a similar wish was frequently expressed by travellers from every country passing through Weimar, but that the Minister never acceded to it, excepting in the case of persons bringing him letters of introduc- tion from great personages or intimate friends.
Nevertheless, I would not give up my object without making an attempt to attain it, so I sat down and wrote a note to the great man, the contents of which I need not record here, even if I could remember them. Suffice it to say that they were as persuasive as I could make them, and with my note in my hand I drove to Goethe's house. Having gained admittance, I requested the servant who opened the door to take my note to his Excellency. While he was executing this commission, I looked around the entrance hall, where a bust of Byron occupied a prominent place opposite the door, and awaited anxiously the result of my audacious attempt.
To my great surprise and joy he returned saying that he was instructed to conduct me to his Excellency's study. When I entered it he was sitting at his writing- table. I will not attempt to retrace here a portrait of the great poet's features. They are too well known from existing pictures, busts, and prints to require it. Rising from his seat, he gave me his hand, and with a good-natured smile, which put me at my ease at once, and satisfied me that he had not taken offence at my unauthorised note, he motioned to me to be seated, and asked me what was my object in visiting Germany.
After a few minutes' general conversation he pointed to a large volume lying before him on the table, and said — "'It is curious that when your visit was an- nounced to me, I was engaged in making a few notes on your Old English literature. Is that a subject that has ever engaged your attention? This circumstance evidently gave him pleasure, and he asked me whether I could not defer my departure for a day or two, adding that his daughter-in-law, Madame de Goethe, had a few Mends coming to her in the evening, and that he should like to introduce me to her and to them.
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It is needless to say that I gladly acquiesced ; and I spent two days agreeably in Weimar, passing half an hour of each morning with Goethe, and the evenings in the salon of Madame de Goethe, where I met all the best of Weimar society. After a minute's reflection he wrote for me the following quatrain: In , nearly forty years after my visit to Goethe, never having met with the above quatrain among his pub- lished works, I sent the stanza with a note to Carlyle, asking him whether it was to be found among Goethe's printed works, "This note elicited the following reply: Deae Sir Charles, — Your agreeable letter from Lisbon found me yesternight, and I was happy to be able to throw some little light on your Inquiry.
The Goethe quatrain, given you in those interesting circumstances, and afterwards lost, has hung here in facsimile of Autograph, attached to a lithograph portrait of Goethe, for about forty - five years now, and always regarded as one of the Penates of the House. Where this lithograph Portrait was got I cannot now recollect, but I think it must have been from Ham- burg in — as the readiest attainable Portrait of Goethe —and in German Printshops most probably it is still on sale as such.
Length of the Print, epigraph and all, is about 14 inches ; epigraph itself about 3 inches.
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It was from this portrait that I took your quatrain, translated it, printed it some- where, not as the barbarous timber-headed Editor gives it, but accurately, thus: Work'st thou well to-day for worthy things? Calmly wait to-morrow's hidden season, Need'st not fear what hap soe'er it brings. Not having the Index to my Goethe's ' Werke,' the final Cotta one, I cannot at once as- certain whether these lines are in Goethe's printed works or not, though I rather think they are.
If you return to London while I continue here, pray call and see the picture and me. Glad of this pleasant, unex- pected passage between us, and begging always a place in your remembrance, I remain, yours sincerely, T. Kannst auch auf ein Morgen hoffen, Das nicht minder gliicklich sey," is in Goethe's 'Werke,' , Ausgabe letzter Hand, vol.
I have had it by heart for some forty years past, as also the one opposite to it on p. It was natural that the scion of an old Whig house, not being under the necessity of working for a livelihood, should allow himself to be drawn 1 The disputed line is quoted by Julius Hare in Memorials of a Quiet Life' vol. Murray attained manhood in the years when the Reform agitation was approaching its height.
When the last un- reformed Parliament was dissolved in , he offered himself for election for the Falkirk Burghs, but without success, standing second on the poll, between a Tory and a Radical. The following year, , on a vacancy occurring in the repre- sentation of Marylebone, he accepted an invitation to stand in the Whig interest for that borough.
But his sentiments on Free Trade in general, and the Corn Laws in particular, were too far advanced for the Tories, who deserted him and nominated a candidate of their own party, Mr Henry Beresford Hope, Murray's old companion at Sunninghill. The result of this manoeuvre was the return of an out-and-out Radical.
After this double reverse, Murray sought con- solation in travel. Europe was not wide enough to satisfy his craving for adventure and extended 1 In his notes Sir Charles states that it was in , on the eleva- tion of Mr Portman, the member for Marylebone, to the peerage, that he first contested that seat ; but I have before me his printed address to the electors of that borough dated A question had arisen about his father's title to some pro- perty in Virginia, the deeds of which, in the fourth earl's name, 1 had been found in the Capitol at Washington.
Charles Murray was therefore commissioned to visit and report on the lands.
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Accordingly on 18th April he embarked at Liverpool on the American ship Waverley, of tons, bound for New York. There occurs a reference to his departure in a letter from Rogers to Lady Dunmore. To them he is a creature of romance, though to their mothers the most dangerous of all detrimentals. In this respect the passengers on board the Waverley were unlucky beyond the average.
The ship fared weU for the first seven days, making her eight knots under press of canvas before a fresh easterly breeze; but on the 27th the wind shifted north-west, blowing hard, and the vessel was hove to. On the evening of May 1, the gale having passed away, Murray was playing draughts in the saloon, when a fellow-passenger, the only one who had crossed the Atlantic before, rushed up and, grasping his arm, exclaimed, " Sir, the ship has sprung a leak!
The Waverley was well commanded: Captain Phillips allowed no confusion ; the pumps were set steadily to work ; all the able-bodied men on board, both crew and passengers, were divided into gangs of eight, to relieve each other at the task. But as the wind was westerly, the ship was put about and all sail was made for the nearest European port.
The pumps proved wholly inadequate to cope with the leak: The cargo was chiefly pig-iron, the pressure of which had started one of the timbers, so it was determined to ease the ship by heaving it over- board. Twenty tons of crockery and seventy of iron had been disposed of by nightfall. The ship's course had been altered once more for the Azores, owing to the wind having veered to the north; but in the evening a heavy south-west gale arose, with fierce hail -squalls; the sea ran mountains high. Captain Phillips declared that in twenty- two years' experience of the Atlantic he had never encountered such weather.
The condition of the Waverley was almost past hope ; nevertheless she weathered that night, and during the afternoon of the 4th the wind moderated, though a terrible sea was still running. On the afternoon of May 5th, having been seventeen days at sea, they made a sail on the weather-bow, which proved to be an East India- man bound for London. She was short of water and provisions, and having still twelve hundred miles to run, could only offer to take off a dozen or so of the Waverley's complement.
Then arose some hubbub among the. Some of them consulted Murray in their anxiety: A number of Irish emigrants on board — about of them — crowded aft towards the quarter-deck to see how many were going to leave the ship. They were within very little of becoming un- manageable, when one of them called out, " We'll just see what the young Scotch lord does: There was an anxious half-hour later, however, when the steerage passengers, aching from their hard work, began clamouring for spirits, which the captain resolutely refused.
A gang of Irishmen declared they would not go to the pumps without whisky. Firearms were loaded in the cabin to pro- tect the spirit-room.
The captain of the gang, a young Welshman, floored with his fist the first of the mutineers, and the second also. He told the next that there was no hope of whisky, but that a few more minutes' delay might send them all to the bottom. They went sulkily to the pumps, but when Murray jumped down among them and set to work, they all joined in, and there waa no more trouble.
On the morning of the 9th they were safely off Fayal, their cargo lost, their ship disabled, but every life preserved. It took more than a month to refit the Waver- ley — leisure which Murray made use of in ex- ploring the various islands in the Azores group. The Portu- guese islanders, indeed, appear to have become rather bored by their British visitors. The Irish emigrants especially, having quarrelled with the boatmen in the harbour, were engaged in more than one serious affray, and Murray himself in- curred the vengeance of a Portuguese shopkeeper by felling a dog which flew at a lady with whom he was walking.
The dog died, and his owner vowed that Murray should die also. A friendly townsman warned him not to go out after dark, upon which Murray marched straight into his foeman's shop and taxed him, through an inter- preter, with having threatened to take his life. Once more afloat, towards the middle of June, the unlucky Waverley encountered further delay, this time from persistent calms. Of such were the vicissitudes of a tourist when our fourth William was king.
Murray has left a minutely detailed account of his first impressions of New York, 1 which is not without the interest of contrast to readers who know the place as it is now. Sir Charles Vaughan, British Minister in the United States at the time, received the traveller with amazement, for it was confidently believed the Waverley had gone to the bottom.
Among the nugcs preserved in Murray's various note-books, there are many traces of his American experience which find no place in his published Travels. Of these the following may serve as a sample. During his stay in New York he made great friends with a fair one of very tender years, on whom, by reason of the length of her hair, he bestowed the name of Absolomina.
Being invited to tea in the young lady's 1 Travels, vol. As she had told him that she did not believe he could put two rhymes together, he left the following jingle for her on the next morning, in which it must be admitted some technical difficulties have been overcome: Then came your father to declare He'd begged in vain you would but spare One hour from sleep. You thought I could not rhyme! Of this you're now perhaps aware: Fare- you-well, and, in your gentlest prayer To Heaven, remember old Grand-pere.
In an expedition up the Hudson river Murray was delighted to find a fellow-passenger in Feni- more Cooper, whose acquaintance he had made at one of Rogers's breakfasts, and whose romances of Indian life were then greatly in vogue. Later in the autumn he went on a shooting expedition into the west of Virginia, encountering some original characters, in what was then a semi-civilised dis- trict. One of these was a certain Colonel M.
The colonel having quarrelled with his cousin, a general, and equally a fire-eater, knocked him down. A challenge was the inevitable result, the choice of weapons being left to the colonel, who proposed that he and his adversary should sit on the same barrel of gunpowder, and each apply a match to it. This was declined by the general, as also a suggestion that the cousins should leap hand in hand from the top of the Capitol ; but the third proposal, that they should fight with musket and ball at ten paces, was ac- cepted.
They met ; the general was shot through the heart, while the colonel got off with a shat- tered wrist. British visitors to America used to be prone, perhaps a few are so still, to look with prejudice Washington's tomb. Sixty years ago the remembrance of mutual resentment was still green between the two nations ; but Murray's eager, fresh intelligence was captivated by a great deal that he observed in the vigorous young community.
He was shocked, indeed, at the neglect with which the tomb of George Washington at Mount Vernon was treated at that time, but this only inspired him to a panegyric on the national hero. To no one who has ever lived is the glorious Periclean elegy of iraaa yfj rctyo? The fame and glory of the illustrious dead can neither be diminished nor tarnished by the neglect of their countrymen; but does that palliate or excuse such neglect? The satisfaction you have re- ceived from our short acquaintance has, I assure you, been more than reciprocated on my part.
Casual visitors from your country to this are un- fortunately so seldom desirous of seeing things here as they really are, or at least give themselves so little trouble to do so, and the right disposition in this regard having been so marked in you, I have, I confess to you, been not a little anxious about the result of your observations. No one could reciprocate more cordi- ally than I do your wishes for a long continuance of the friendly relations at present so happily existing between our respective countries, and you may rest assured that nothing that I can do to promote that object shall be neglected.
It is greatly to be regretted that the English trav- ellers who have written books about the United States have been for the most part of a class who could not obtain admittance as they did not deserve it into the better circles either in the United States or in their own country, and their books are not imfaithftd pictures of what they saw. Mrs Trollope's book, for example, is a most accurate description of that portion of our society into which alone could a vulgar woman as she is obtain an admittance. From gentlemen like your- self and Lord Morpeth we have nothing to fear but just criticism, and that is really a thing not to be deprecated, more especially when administered as you have done it, in that spirit in which 'a father chasteneth his children.
It was for the institution of slavery that Murray reserved his sternest displeasure, although he ad- mitted that " from what I had seen of the social qualities of the gentlemen at whose houses I was a visitor [in Virginia], I was rather gratified than surprised to witness the comparative comfort and good usage enjoyed by their slaves. He was sure more revenue might be obtained if his employer's estate were let under lease.
But it was not because of the physical hard- ships of the slaves, nor on account of the waste- fulness of slave labour, nor yet by reason of the horrors of the ocean traffic in human cattle, that Murray declaimed most vehemently against the system. He was a staunch Whig, and the worst feature in his eyes was the necessity for keeping these creatures in the grossest ignorance, for excluding them even from the knowledge of the sentiment lying at the root of all self-improve- ment and self-respect — the love of liberty.
Murray spent most of the winter in Washing- ton, and an unpublished reminiscence of his sojourn there remains among his private notes. It is, per- haps, not particularly edifying, but it serves to show the kind of frame in which his gentle, culti- vated nature was lodged. There was amongst the guests a little Dutchman, who pooh-poohed the idea of its being possible to put a fist through the panel of a door, upon which my friend, who had more loyalty than tact, grew very angry, and made a bet that I would not only do it, but would do it then and there. When I was told this, I flatly refused ; but they urged that my friend would lose his money, and so forth ; so with much reluctance I went up to the lady of the house and told her the facts of the case, and added, 'If, madam, you are kind enough to allow me to make this experiment, I will nat- urally hold myself responsible for any harm that may be done to your door, and will send an up- holsterer to remedy it in the morning.
I waited till nearly every one had gone in to supper and the room was almost empty ; then carefully shut- ting the door, I planted myself firmly, brought my fist against the panel, and, as usual, through it went, amidst great applause. Unluckily, at that moment a footman happened to be bringing up a great pile of plates to the supper -room, when just as he passed the door, through came my fist and forearm, caught him right in the chest, and felled him and his pile of plates with a mighty crash to the ground.
You can imagine the hideous noise. Every one came rushing out to see what the deuce was going on, and found me, very shamefacedly, the culprit. Meantime the Dutch- man, seeing I had so easily done what my friend had claimed I should do, turned round and declared that after all it was perfectly easy — he could do it himself.
I said nothing, as his bumptiousness annoyed me. Of course it is a great deal a knack, as well as strength; but the knack must be known, as the Dutchman found to his cost. He bared his arm and hit out at the door, but the door remained uninjured, while his wrist broke instead; so he lost his money, and got a nasty arm into the bargain. He spoke gratefully, and even enthusiastically, of the simple hospitality which he encountered every- where.
Returning in April to Washington, he started again in May for Baltimore, crossed the Alleghanies in the rope-railroad — a great marvel in those. Once more re-established in health, Murray, re- suming his travels, sailed up the Ohio to Louis- ville, and, as an instance of the discriminating nature of his criticism, there may be quoted his remarks on that town: It is necessary to mark these two words, as in this most wonderful portion of this most wonderful continent, observations of a condemnatory nature are not likely to be true for more than twelve months.
I differ from many of her opinions, but nobody can deny her possession of great talent, or refuse her the merit of writing in a clear, concise, and elegant style ; moreover, her conversation is agreeable, lively, and varied, displaying a mind both strong and original, a judgment very decisive, though not without prejudice, and a quickness of observation and comparison that render her an entertaining as well as an instructive talker. Murray had already heard this famous orator during a debate in the Senate, and was greatly impressed with his voice and manner, which produced on him " that most powerful of all effects — a convic- tion that, if provoked, the lion could roar yet more terribly.
How seldom does one hear a speech delivered without the impression that the orator is launching all the thunder of which he is capable! In Mr Clay's house Murray made the acquain- tance of a young German called Vernunft, also on his travels. They struck up a friendship, and re- mained fellow-travellers for many months. Re- turning to Louisville, they passed down the Ohio to St Louis, where Murray was anxious to see some society, with the help of General Clarke, a well-known writer, traveller, and authority on Indian affairs. But finding that a steamer was on the point of starting for the upper 'Missouri, Vernunft and Murray agreed not to lose this chance of penetrating the wilderness, hurriedly purchased an outfit for camping, and in a few hours were on their way to Fort Leavenworth, then the westernmost military post of the United States.
If she went before others I have seen, as that diamond of yours outlustres many I have beheld. I could not but believe she excelled many: You may wear her in title yours: Your ring may be stolen too: Your Italy contains none so accomplished a courtier to convince the honour of my mistress, if, in the holding or loss of that, you term her frail. I do nothing doubt you have store of thieves; notwithstanding, I fear not my ring. Sir, with all my heart. This worthy signior, I thank him, makes no stranger of me; we are familiar at first. With five times so much conversation, I should get ground of your fair mistress, make her go back, even to the yielding, had I admittance and opportunity to friend.
Gentlemen, enough of this: Yours; whom in constancy you think stands so safe. I will lay you ten thousand ducats to your ring, that, commend me to the court where your lady is, with no more advantage than the opportunity of a second conference, and I will bring from thence that honour of hers which you imagine so reserved. You are afraid, and therein the wiser. I shall but lend my diamond till your return: I dare you to this match: By the gods, it is one.
If I bring you no sufficient testimony that I have enjoyed the dearest bodily part of your mistress, my ten thousand ducats are yours; so is your diamond too: I embrace these conditions; let us have articles betwixt us. Only, thus far you shall answer: Your hand; a covenant: I will fetch my gold and have our two wagers recorded. Reflect upon him accordingly, as you value your trust — Leonatus. Enter Cloten and two Lords. Was there ever man had such luck!
When a gentleman is disposed to swear, it is not for any standers-by to curtail his oaths, ha? I am not vexed more at any thing in the earth: I had rather not be so noble as I am; they dare not fight with me, because of the queen my mother: Who told you of this stranger? Imogen in bed, reading; a Lady attending. Enter Cloten and Lords. Your lordship is the most patient man in loss, the most coldest that ever turned up ace.