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From the Cornhill Magazine. SOME RECOLLECTIONS OF A READER.

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prised at the readiness with which I led her from room to room, along this or that passage, indicating uses to which each apartment had been put, and with like I HAVE been thinking much of late, at unerring accuracy through the gardens odd times, and most of all when lying and grounds, and out-houses. There was awake at night, of the various literary only one thing about which my memory phases through which my student-life has misled me, ranging back over an interval passed during a period of half a century. of forty-five years. I was surprised, as all As we grow older our memories cling with people are surprised, who visit in matuincreased power to the history of the Past, rity the scenes of their childhood, at the and lay hold even of the minutest details, comparatively small dimensions of all the which in earlier and more excitable stages places with which an idea of magnitude of our career have passed into indistinct- had been associated in my memory. The ness, if not into total oblivion. The cause halls, the passages, the rooms, the stairof this is manifest. In the heyday of life, cases- - all seemed to have shrivelled since when all activities, physical, emotional and I last saw them. There was my father's intellectual, are at their height, the Pres- library, which I had always pictured as a ent is everything to us, the Past nothing. spacious apartment, the walls of which The impressions of to-day efface the im- were covered by an incredible number of pressions of yesterday. It may be busi- volumes on every conceivable subject. It ness, or it may be pleasure that engrosses had dwindled down to a common-place us; but in either case it leaves us little time to think, little room to remember. But age, if it does not "bring the philosophic mind," brings an increased desire for rest. We cease to do for the mere sake of doing; we love composure more than excitement; both the eventful and the emotional are less and less to us every year; fresh impressions are not readily made upon our minds: so little by little old impressions cease to be crowded upon and effaced by their successors, and the Past comes out more distinctly, with a photographic minuteness of detail. Not whilst we are climbing up the hillside do we pause to survey the landscape below; and we could take in, if we did so pause, only a limited view of the expanse which is revealed to us when we approach the summit. It is upon the hill-top that we

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those distant breadths of country which are hidden from us on a lower level. All this, doubtless, has been said scores of times before. I speak of it as of something well known, and not likely to be contested, only as a prelude to this chapter of literary egotism. It was brought very vividly before me a little while ago when, happening to read in the newspapers that a certain old house standing in desolate majesty on the margin of Epping Forest, in which I had lived for some time as a boy-child, was about to be converted into a reformatory or refuge, I determined, one holiday, to visit it, ere all trace of the original building should be effaced. I had not been there since I was eight years old; but I felt, as soon as I had entered the outer gate, that I could find my way about the place blindfold. My companion was sur

room of very moderate dimensions, into which I could not have crowded one-half of my own literary stores. But there was one interest one charm in my eyes of which nothing could deprive it; for in that room I had made my first acquaintance with books.

I was no marvel of precocity. I did not, like Jeremy Bentham, read Constitutional History when I was four year old. My first acquaintance with books, like that of most other children, was for the sake of the pictures they contained. I remember that there was a copy of Daniell's Rural Sports in the library which was an especial favourite, of which I was never tired the engravings, especially those illustrative of Coursing, being, to my juvenile senses, wonders of artistic excellence. I think it was in this same work that there was a picture of "Hambletonian beating Diamond" (these were race-horses, not greyhounds) "in a match for 3,000 guineas," which raised within me an ardent desire to see a race. There was also a copy, in I know not how many volumes, of the British Theatre, the engravings in which were a continual source of delight to me, though, doubtless, in an artistic sense, exceedingly poor affairs. I have a lively recollection of the frontispiece of the Tempest, in which there was a representation of Ariel. was quite a child-Ariel, rather plump than otherwise, and it laid fast hold of my juvenile imagination, as what then appeared to me an embodiment of feminine beauty. I remembered the very shelf on which the volume used to rest, nearly half-a-century a-gone, and from which, by help of the library-steps, I used to extract it, wonder

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ing whether there was anything half so beautiful in real life.

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blue coat with brass buttons and a round black hat were sorry subjects for coloured illustration in comparison with the doublets and mantles and the wonderful feathered head-dresses of the Italian counts, to say nothing of the fatal drawback to English life, that the Englishmen of the time did not live in castles or wear tremendous swords by their sides.

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Of these "pamphlets" I was a great devourer in my childish days. I had, indeed, a precocious love of horrors. spent all the little pocket-money that came to me by prescription, or that I could beg or borrow, upon these startling romances. Many a sixpence did I wring, in my eighth year, from my kindest of mothers, pleadingly and importunately "to buy a pamphlet;" and, the money given, I was presently on the back of my pony - a wonderful little Shetlander named Donald - cantering down, full of eager

But I soon began to delight in books for the sake of something besides the pictures; though the pictures still were an attraction. There was, in those days, a description of cheap literature very popular among the boys of the period-most probably for want of something better to beguile them. We delighted in what were called "sixpenny pamphlets." About two octavo sheets - or perhaps a little more of closely printed matter upon thin paper, were enclosed in an equally thin wrapper of some bright colour blue and yellow prevailing; and these sheets contained some highly exciting romance. The illustration, however, was the most remarkable part of the brochure. A large folded picture faced the title-page, painted always in the gaudiest colours. It represented some of the most stirring scenes of the novelette a terrific single combat, or a midnight mur-ness der, or the appearance of a ghost by the bedside of a guilty man. There was sure to be death of some kind in it, with profuse shedding of blood, the persons represented, dead or alive, being commonly attired in garments supposed to represent the Italian costume of some period or other. Italian names were greatly in Vogue in this species of literature Alonzos and Lorenzos were conspicuous among the good heroes; and, if I remember rightly, Gasparo was the favourite name of the villain of the piece. I do not think there was much morality, or, indeed, poetical justice in these novelettes, for generally the whole of the personages of the story, good and bad, were killed off before the end of it, and their castles (for they always lived in castles) were left to be tenanted by the night-owl and the bat. There was generally, it should be stated, a This taste for the Literature of the Hormonk in the piece, who, we may be sure, rible was further stimulated, soon afterwas no better than he should be. Some- wards, by my accidentally stumbling upon times the scene was transferred from a volume of Shakspeare which contained Venice or Naples to one of the Scot- the doubtful drama of Titus Andronicus. tish Isles, the Tartan dresses of the chief I devoured it greedily. Those delightful actors, and the supposed free use of the little side references - or stage instrucsuch as 66 claymore, being considered favourable to tions they fight," kills him," pictorial display. Excepting that I can "stabs himself," "dies," &c. &c., constituremember that there was a very highly- ting its chief charm. Some other trage seasoned version of the story of George dies, with similar references to murder and Barnwell, I do not think that the experi- suicide, as Othello and Hamlet, afterwards ences of modern English life furnished attracted my attention, but none ever had subjects to the soul-harrowing sixpenny so much of my juvenile affection as Titus romancer. And he was right; for young Andronicus-by reason chiefly of the terpeople in those days did not much care to read about Georges and Nancys, when they could get Alonzos and Violettas for the same money. And a high-collared

and excitement, to the little bookseller's shop, where these treasures were on sale. I remember the anxiety with which I watched the taking down of the pile of blue, yellow, and red pamphlets; the joy which arose in my heart, when I was told that there were "a number of new ones; " and the disappointment which came upon me at other times when I saw that they were all "old shopkeepers." I have bought books of all kinds since; I have made in out-of-the-way places some rare discoveries and great bargains; but never have I rejoiced in my literary acquisitions more than when I carried home, on Donald's back, one of these sixpenny pamphlets, with a blazing frontispiece, showing how Gasparo and his murderous accomplices were run through the middle, one after another, by the handsome and heroic Alonzo.

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rible mutilation of Lavinia, and the extraordinary atrocities of Aaron the Moor. From that time, however, I became a steady and persistent reader of Shaks

peare, and in due time came to read the least exciting plays for their poetry, as I had before read others for their horrors.

Wars; but before I had completed my task, desolation swept over our household, and even the Plutarchs, which I had earned so bravely, passed under the hammer of the remorseless auctioneer.

own as soon as I reported that I had read every line of it. It was a very handsome large-paper copy, in two volumes, each It was some time, however, before the twice as big as my Latin dictionary at taste for the horrible passed away. My school; and I was not long ere I had father changed his residence, when I was transferred them to my own particular in my ninth year. I then came within the shelf, where they stood as twin Gullivers influence of a better class of circulating amidst my little regiment of Lilliputians. library, and soon felt equal to the mastery I found the book by no means unpleasant of books in boards-sometimes three or reading, and I think that my mastery of it four volumes in extent. They had no pic- was one of the turning-points of my young tures, but the subjects were much the literary career I achieved a taste for the same as those of the sixpenny pamphlets, biographical; and I purchased out of my but with less simplicity of diction and own pocket-money The Seven Champions directness of aim. The One-Handed Monk, of Christendom, The Knights of King the Romance of the Pyrenees, and other Arthur's Round Table, and some volumes fictions of that kind, whose names I have of the Percy Anecdotes. I then first tasted forgotten, solaced all my leisure hours. blood as a collector, and, encouraged by My favourite authors were Mr. Monk my first success, I offered to read through Lewis and Mrs. Radcliffe. I used to ride Rollin's Ancient History (it was, I think, an down to the little town of Bon edition in eight volumes) on the same the confines of Middlesex and Herts, and terms as I had read the Plutarch. But I ask the most kindly and accommodating did not find it half so interesting. I toiled of booksellers and librarians if he had laboriously through those dreadful Punic "anything in my way." Five-and-forty years have passed since that time, and still I can remember the smile on the good man's face - it was a pale face, slightly pock-marked, with a deal of intelligence in it as he sometimes made answer, "Nothing horrid enough for you today, Master John." I was then about ten years old; and I remember painfully the penalty which I paid for supping upon these horrors. I had an intense dread of nocturnal solitude; I was haunted with tremendous fears of murderous bandits whenever I was alone after nightfall. I had an elder brother, who slept in the same room with me, but who by virtue of seniority was sometimes allowed to "sit up" with his elders, after I had been dismissed to bed; and, oh! the agony of that weary watching until he came the awful stillness of the house; for our room was at a distance from all the apartments where waking people sat, and even from the nursery of the younger children. If my mother had only known why I begged so importunately to "sit up too," I am sure that I should never have been refused. But much as I suffered, it would have been greater suffering to me to have betrayed my infirmity; so I endured in silence, and was often glad when the holidays were at an end.

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I was then eleven years old. I had been sent to Eton, where I do not remember to have read anything but Homer and Virgil; but being removed thence to a large private school in the country, I again became a helluo librorum. My love for the horrible had passed away, and I grew intensely poctical. First of all I had the Byron fever very strongly upon me. I have a lively and loving recollection of a little volume known as the Beauties of Byron, which too often lay hidden beneath the larger dimensions of my Latin dictionary in school-hours, and in playtime travelled about with me in the breast-pocket of my round jacket. Talk of young love! There is nothing that in depth, in fervour, in purity can be compared with these first fresh communings with the Ideal - these worshippings of poetical beauty. There were some choice passages from the Giaour and the Bride of Abydos, which I committed to memory, and often "spouted" with such volubility, that I obtained the nickname of the "mad poet." I thought those lines beginning with

Yes; love, indeed, is light from heaven
A spark of that immortal fire

By angels shared, by Allah given,
To lift from earth each low desire-

I think that my fondness for this kind of "trash," as older people correctly called it, did not escape the notice of my father; for I remember that about this time he bribed me to read Plutarch's Lives, by the very finest that mortal pen had ever promising me that the book should be my written; and I was never tired of repeat

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the fortunes of others, and sympathizing with their troubles, for a little while to be oblivious of his own. But this is an antic

ing them. I can hardly repeat them now without emotion, so instinct are they with associations of the past. I had a sort of personal interest, too, in the Byronic indi-ipatory digression. I am writing of the viduality. I had seen Lord Byron's fu- Present, when I should adhere to the narneral file through Barnet, on its way to rative of the Past. Newstead; and in reply to my boyish in- It was very soon after this attack of Byquiries, I had learnt something of the his- ron fever that I got possession through a tory of the poet, which had both attracted circulating library, of a copy of Moore's and repulsed me an antagonism of senti- Lalla Rookh. It was a large edition in big ment, which naturally intensified my inter- type, and it was not easy to hide it beest in him. In my young mind, he was neath an Ainsworth or a Lempriere. I do not unlike some of the mysterious heroes not quite know why it should have been who figured in the romances which had contraband, out of school as well as in (for lately been my favourite reading. I had, so it was), unless it were, as I suspect, that too, a picture of the poet; and I turned there was a general prohibition against all down my shirt-collar, and sported what we intercourse with the Circulating Library. then called the "Byron tie." Some of my Our head master, an accomplished classical schoolfellows found out a likeness in my scholar, was by no means destitute of poeboyish face to the picture of the bard, and try. I remember now, as it were yesterthey dubbed me "Byron " in no unkindly day, his giving me a shilling for ending a spirit. I was rather proud of it than Latin hexameter, in a copy of verses on otherwise, especially when I thought of Hortus, with “lilia candent" as my dactyl some of the very uncomplimentary soubri- and spondee. "Candent!" he said— quets which clung to many of my compan-" candent! Good word." And he fumbled fons. It might, indeed, have been worse. in his capacious waistcoat-pocket. "Other At all events, it was soon lost, whereas boys write crescunt. Here's a shilling there are some nicknames which men for you. Always put colour into your never shake off to the last day of their verses on such subjects as this." But I lives, and are a calamity to them during all doubt whether his acquaintance with modthat time. As for myself, people are sur-ern poetry extended any lower than Pope's prised in these days to learn-I think that some are quite incredulous about it - that I ever cared to read poetry, and still more that I have ever written it. I don't think that we know very much of one another in this world. We shall know a little more in the next. "I suppose you never read a novel?" was said to me not long ago. "I am always reading novels," I made answer somewhat, perhaps, in hyperbolical phrase. It was thought to be a grim joke - an ironical sort of vaunting of the grave affairs to which outwardly my life is devoted. But it is simply a fact, that now, in my old age, and with much weighty business on my hands, I take an increased delight in the perusal of works of fiction. I read most of the best serial stories in the monthly magazines, and some also of the weeklies. I am seldom a number in arrears, and I am extremely grateful to the writers. My belief is, that the popular notion that novelreading is confined to women and to idle men is altogether a mistake. To the busiest man a novel is the greatest refreshment; to the careworn man it is the greatest diversion. It does not much signify that it should be a very good novel. It is enough that there should be a story sufficiently engrossing to take a man out of himself; to suffer him, whilst following

and Cowper's translations of Homer, with which he was wont in those days to illustrate our Homeric studies, often pointing out to us how much of the force of the original was lost in Pope's elegant version of the Iliad. He had an excellent classical library, various editions and commentaries, dictionaries and lexicons of all kinds; but it was deficient in English literature, the history being confined mainly to such dreary works as those of Hook and Mitford, illustrative (I use the word by courtesy) of the annals of Rome and Greece. He gave me, when I was between fifteen and sixteen, the run of this library; and I remember that he particularly recommended to my perusal three works on the art of composition, with which he desired me to make intimate acquaintance. The first was Blair's Rhetoric; the second Lord Kaimes's Elements of Criticism; and the third Coplestone's Latin work on the same subject. I studied them in this order of succession; and have been very grateful ever since for the recommendation.

And here I am minded to digress a little, for the purpose of observing that the large private schools which flourished half a century ago are now nearly extinct. I doubt whether we have substituted any

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thing better for them in our large proprie- | more than the culprit; which we never tary schools and other more pretentious believed in those days, though I am now so-called "collegiate" establishments, in far from incredulous about it. There was which there is far less of individual re- no cruelty in him. Tyranny was an sponsibility and supervision. Of course, abomination to him. I remember well much, nay everything, depends upon the how, whenever a little boy - a personal qualifications, or character rather, boy"-of tenderer years than most, or of the head-master. I have seen a large seemingly of feebler health, was placed unschool of high reputation, full to overflow- der his care, he would lead him up by the ing under one man, dwindle down little hand to one of the senior boys, when in by little under his son, though a better full school assembled, and would say to scholar than the father, until it perished him, "I place this little fellow under your from inanition. But although there was charge. See that no harm comes to him!" not the element of permanency in these And never was any trust more faithfully, establishments, I am disposed to think more chivalrously fulfilled than that which that under a successful régime, which was thus confided to the stalwart stripling might last for more than a quarter of a selected for the defence of one too weak century, there was nothing much better, to defend himself. No blows ever fell on the whole, in the way either of educa- upon him. If they had fallen they would tion or discipline, throughout the country. have been amply avenged. In this microI was, for five years, at a large private cosm, therefore, there was little tyranny. academy at Schoolsbury. There were And I may add that there was little strife. from 110 to 120 boys (I hung my hat upon I do not remember more than half-a-dozen peg No. 108) during the whole time of my great fights. Perhaps, the rareness of sojourn. I went there from Eton. I was, them made them all the more terrible therefore, supposed to be "fast," and was when they came off, for we did not fight regarded with fear and misgiving by the about trifles. Sometimes, we had humble master, and with something of admiration imitations of "Gown-and-Town" rows, for by the boys. But, excepting that I had we used to play at cricket on a public learnt to swear awfully, I was not much green; but one luckless day a number of worse than the other boys, and I was ac-town-boys having thrown stones at our counted, on more than one occasion, a wickets, we pursued them into a neighbourringleader when I had only fallen into ing churchyard, and swift-footed Hsome preconcerted frolic. I soon left off L, having outrun, stump in hand, swearing, and fell into the ways of the pri- the other disciples, dealt one of the enemy vate-school boys, which had plenty of fun such a blow that he died before the day in them, but no great harm. And now I was out. We never played again in pubcan look back along a vista of forty years, lic places, but had playing-fields of our and plainly see, by force of contrast with own; and no boy, either in play or in other institutions, that there was really as earnest, ever struck with a stump again. much good and as little evil as is ever to Perhaps the horror and alarm engendered be seen in any association of young people by the accident made us generally pacific. between the ages of eight and eighteen. We expected that retribution would some I cannot say that we all lived under the day overtake us; but we lived down the same roof, for the school had outgrown misfortune, a happy and healthy race of the capacity of the original roof-tree to boys. During a period of five years not cover it; and we had the House (proper) one died-not one was carried home to the "new buildings and the "other die; and the worst epidemic that I can rehouse," which fronted another street, but member amongst us was the mumps. in the rear was open to the play-ground; I am sorry, I say, that scholastic estabbut were all embraced by the same domes-lishments of this kind have become so rare, tic management, and under the same if they have not altogether disappeared; parental eyes. I am convinced that the for they had many of the advantages and Doctor knew well not only the intellectual capacity but the moral character also of his hundred and odd boys; for he dealt with them very differently in respect both of tuition and of discipline. One of his favourite sayings was," Boys will be boys; but I hate and detest a sneak." He had no mercy for meanness. He flogged hard; always declaring that it hurt him

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none of the disadvantages of public schools, and they were infinitely less expensive. I do not think that we were much below Eton and Harrow in respect of our general social status. We had the sons of all the Cathedral dons, boy-members of some of the best county families in the West of England, a good sprinkling of the titled aristocracy, with the usual num

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