Part 5

We fear that no such plan is at present practicable. There is too much prejudice among the labouring-class against their employers to admit of its being received with general favour. While an honourable minority would be glad to see their independence secured, the great mass would undoubtedly prefer going on upon their present footing, careless how soon the failure of business or the occurrence of sickness should deprive them of an independent subsistence. Some such plan, however, may be expected to be realised when the labouring-class shall have acquired a just feeling for their own character, and a just sense of their relation to the rest of society. It would only be a fair and proper part of a social system in which the highest behests of a true civilisation were worked out. How soon it may come about will depend on the rapidity with which the education of the masses of the people shall proceed. If, from any narrow views of whatever kind, a member of the middle or upper classes in this country finds himself thwarting the movements towards universal and improved education, let him understand what he pays for the gratification he thus obtains. He pays for it in large poor-rates and prison-rates, and in the distress which his humanity must be continually receiving from the spectacle of a multitude of his fellow-creatures lost to the sense of self-respect, and consequently subjected to a vast load of misery.

THE LATE DR ZUMPT.

At an early stage of our labours, many years ago, we took occasion to offer, for the consideration of the young, a memoir of Professor Heyne of Gottingen, one of the greatest scholars of the age, and who, by dint of perseverance, rose from a very humble to an exalted station in life. Heyne presented not an uncommon instance of German enthusiasm in scholarship. In our own country, erudition seems to be pursued chiefly for the sake of professional advancement, and consequently it seldom attains to any very lofty pitch. How few of our scholars, it may be asked, know anything critically of the ancient classics? How few write or speak Latin with elegance or purity? How few ever saw any more recondite exemplars of Roman literature than elementary school-books--the copy of a copy? In Germany, where no sort of painstaking seems to be grudged, scholarship has gone, and still goes on, immeasurably farther. As in the case of Heyne, Wolf, Hermann, Boeckh, Vater, Gesenius, and others, men are there found devoting themselves to a whole lifetime of earnest study in complete forgetfulness of self. Living perhaps on the merest trifle, they bury themselves in a library surrounded by old vellum-bound classics; and there, poring over dingy yellow pages, they compare words with words, examine into the merits of punctuation and orthography, and detect new meanings, till they transfuse into themselves, as it were, the very soul of their author. In this way, by collating old and priceless versions of the classics--some of them in manuscript, and unique--they are able to produce modern editions, which are greedily accepted throughout European universities, and which have usually formed the basis of elementary works for British compilers. We at least know of few works in Latin common in our schools which have not been copied in a reduced form from the painfully-constructed editions of German scholars. We have been led into these observations from a desire to do honour to the memory of one whose name has gone to swell the already long list of German philologists.

Carl Gottlob Zumpt, the individual to whom we refer, was born at Berlin in 1792. His parents were not wealthy: but in the circumstances in which Prussia was placed at the beginning of the present century, this was a matter of little importance. The oppressions of France pretty nearly brought down all ranks into one common mass of distress and poverty. To meet the cruel exactions of Napoleon, families gave up every article of value to the state. For their gold they received tokens in iron; and these acknowledgments are still treasured by families, as lasting memorials of an adversity which took away almost everything but life. Amidst these national sufferings and humiliations, Carl Gottlob Zumpt received such an education as could then be procured. Fortunately he required no incitement to learn: from childhood he had been a diligent porer over books; and the acquisition of languages cost him no trouble. Nature made him a scholar. After passing through a series of schools and gymnasia in Berlin, he was sent, by the advice of Buttman, the well-known grammarian, to the university of Heidelberg, which at that time enjoyed a high reputation. Kreuzer, Voss, Boeckh, belonged to it, all of them men of talent, and celebrated for their philological learning. During Zumpt's residence at Heidelberg, the university of Berlin was founded; and returning home, he finished his education in his native city.

Though still a young man, Zumpt was already noted for his remarkable attainments in the Greek and Roman languages. Thrown upon his own resources, he soon distinguished himself, and was appointed a teacher in one of the principal seminaries. From this position he subsequently rose to be Professor of History in the Royal Military Academy, and finally to be Professor of Roman Literature in the university of Berlin.

The life of a scholar is usually barren of incident. There is little to tell about Zumpt. Amidst the cares of public teaching, he found time to occupy himself in writing various works, critical and historical, all connected with his favourite branch of study. To improve his knowledge of antiquities, he made a tour through Italy and Greece, which, while of considerable service to him as a man of letters, unfortunately tended to injure his health. This tour was made in 1835, and after that year Zumpt laboured still more assiduously at his critical editions of the classics, unmindful of aught but that love of digging among ancient words and thoughts which seems a fanaticism in the German mind. His great aim was to be a Latinist worthy of the Augustine age itself. Nor was he unsuccessful; for he wrote Latin with great elegance. He was seldom required to speak the language; but when called on to do so, he delivered himself with correctness and fluency. In this respect he is supposed to have had no superior among his learned countrymen.

Holding this man in respect, not alone for his intellectual, but his moral and social qualities, we shall always consider it as something to say that we have enjoyed his personal acquaintance. In the course of a tour in Germany, and short residence in Berlin in 1847, we had the pleasure of visiting him at his house in the Burgher Strasse--a terrace-like street on a branch of the Spree. We found Zumpt entombed amidst his books. Tall in person, emaciated from study, and wrapped in a dressing-gown, he rose and affectionately welcomed us to Berlin in tolerable English--a language which, in compliment, he insisted all his family should speak on every occasion of our visit. At this time he was engaged on his edition of 'Quintus Curtius'--a work which will long be regarded as a monument of his industry and learning.

One of the objects of our visit to Zumpt was to consult with him on the subject of an enterprise in which he had recently engaged--the joint editorship, with Dr Schmitz of Edinburgh, of a series of Latin classics for use in schools. The projectors of this undertaking were the publishers of the present sheet. Having in our own early days experienced the dreary heaviness of ordinary school classics, unrelieved by the slightest explanations in English touching the subject or the authors, we were glad to be instrumental in putting into the hands of youth a series which they could peruse with some degree of pleasure, or at all events not with absolute weariness and disgust. As Dr Zumpt entered heartily into the design, the arrangement promised to have the advantage of naturalising in Britain a set of editions drawn freshly from comparatively original sources, in place of the bald reprints of antiquated copies. The task occupied the amiable scholar during the remainder of his too short life, at the close of which he had prepared the whole series excepting a portion of Horace, which has consequently fallen into the hands of his nephew and son-in-law, A. W. Zumpt. A victim to his study of ancient literature, his failing eyesight first, and afterwards disordered viscera, admonished him to take some species of relaxation. This counsel he took when too late. In the hope of relief from his sufferings, he repaired to Carlsbad, a watering-place in Bohemia; and there, to the great grief of his family and friends, he died on the 25th of June last, in the fifty-eighth year of his age. The decease of the illustrious Zumpt, together with the loss of Orelli, and the veteran Hellenist, Gottfried Hermann, both of whom died within the last eighteen months, leaves a blank among European scholars which will not soon be filled up.

W. C.

COLA MONTI.

The conceptions of female beauty which men form for themselves are frequently, if not always, overturned by some plain face, in which they find the mystic influence they had supposed to belong only to features of a particular and more perfect mould. In like manner our theories touching certain departments of literature are liable to be damaged now and then by the appearance of a work which fulfils not one of the conditions we had laid down as absolute necessities. Now here, for instance, is a volume of fiction without even an attempt at a plot, and yet with a perfect enchainment of interest--a hero without adventures and without a heroine, yet whose fortunes we follow with a true excitement! How does this come about? Why do we love plain women, and admire ill-constructed books? Because there is an innate power in the irregular features to excite our sympathies, and a quality in authors, called Genius, to command them. No man, we will venture to say, possessing common sensibility, can read 'Cola Monti,'[14] although it is of the class of books for young people, without a thoughtful brow and a glistening eye; and we have heard a family circle declare that 'they had found it impossible to lay down the volume till they had finished it.'

Cola Monti is an Italian boy educated economically at a boarding-school in England. His talent for drawing exhibited itself first in caricatures of his companions, and he then ventured to try his hand upon the master himself. 'This was irresistible; and when the Doctor stood out in relief from the slate in all his peculiarities--his stiff collar, his upright hair, and his spectacles--the likeness was such, that the boys gave a general hurra. So much noise did they make, and so intent were they, that no one heard the door open, until the original of the portrait looked over Cola's shoulder and beheld--himself! It was a terrible moment in schoolboy annals. The Doctor looked, frowned, glanced round at the young rebels, then again at the slate. Whether it was that natural vanity made him feel rather pleased to see the only likeness of himself which had ever been taken, or whether Cola's sketch had less of caricature than nature, it is impossible to say; but Doctor Birch smiled--absolutely smiled! He was a good-tempered man, and the boys knew it: they took advantage of it sometimes, the naughty fellows! So the smile gradually went round, until it became a laugh, and the schoolmaster could not help laughing too.' The boy-artist then, at the instigation of his companions, resolved to try his chivalrous friend and patron Archibald M'Kaye:--'Archibald looked surprised, and rather vexed; for one of his weaknesses was, that he could not bear being laughed at; however, he took his station. Cola finished the sketch, but it was no caricature: it was a capital likeness of Archibald's thoughtful head, with the soft curling hair, and the calm, serious eyes. "Why, Cola, you ought to be an artist," cried the boys when they saw it. Cola smiled, and his eyes kindled. "I will try!" he said in his own heart, and from that day he drew no more caricatures.'

Cola Monti's national and personal sympathies were now strongly excited in favour of a poor little Italian organ-boy, who was found dying of starvation by the roadside. He had no other means of permanently assisting him than by supplying him with drawings to sell, in the hope of thus enabling him to collect a fund sufficient for the purchase of a new organ, his own having been destroyed. This fund at length amounted, by slow accumulations, to L.10 in silver; but the organ-boy, who had become devotedly attached to his patron, could not consent to be thus paid off. Poor Cola was now in destitution himself. His mother had died; his stepfather refused to contribute longer to his support; and in fact he was thrown adrift upon the world. The generous debate between him and his protégé was terminated by both proceeding to London upon the fortune of L.10--Cola to pursue his career of an artist, and Seppi in the quality of his servant.

Arrived in London, 'Cola woke the next morning, dreaming that he was at school again, and that, somehow or other, his class was all composed of great stout farmers, who would persist in repeating their Italian verbs with a strong Staffordshire accent. The dream vanished under the influence of a bright sunbeam that crept through the small uncurtained window, and just reached his nose. In London, the good-natured sun is more partial to attic windows than to any other, and it made Cola's tiny room quite cheerful. From thence he looked, not at the street, which lay many feet below, but skywards, where, above the tops of the houses, he could see the great dome of St Paul's lifting itself up, grand and giant-like, with its ball and cross glistening in the clear light of early morning. This was the first sight that struck Cola in London. His artist-mind felt it to the uttermost. The numberless streets below seemed so solemn and quiet, lying in the shadow of the scarcely-risen sun; and though even now the sounds of life were beginning to stir, they were but faint as yet, while over the dark and half-awakened city watched its great temple, already illumined with the sunbeams. It was a scene that Cola never forgot, and never will while he lives.' He finds his way as soon as possible to the National Gallery. 'I shall not enlarge upon the feelings of the boy-artist when he beheld for the first time this grand collection of paintings. He had seen many in his childhood; but the memory of them was grown dim. He looked on these with the sensations of one blind, who re-enters a long-forgotten world with his eyes opened. He began to understand and to feel what Art really was. This new sense dazzled and overwhelmed him; his heart beat wildly; he trembled; and fairly subdued with emotion, he sat down in the darkest corner he could find, turned his face away into the shadow, while the tears rose, large and silently, to the long lashes, and dropped on the arm which he raised to hide them.'

Cola worked, played, and starved by turns, like other friendless adventurers in London; and then came the grand event of his life--his first Academy picture--which was very near being too late. 'Night and day Cola worked, allowing himself only an hour or two for sleep, and scarcely taking any food. His wild and desperate energy sustained him to a degree almost miraculous. Under the influence of this terrible excitement his powers seemed redoubled: he painted as he had never painted before. Archibald, evening after evening, walked up from Islington, not to talk or reason--he dared not do that in Cola's present state--but to sit quietly in the painting-room, watching his labours, and at times encouraging them with a few subdued words of praise, which Cola sometimes scarcely heard. Even M'Kaye was astounded by the almost miraculous way in which, day after day, the picture advanced to completion beneath the young artist's hand; and as he looked, he could not but acknowledge that there is nothing in this world so strong, so daring, so all-powerful as genius.

'The first Monday in April came--there were but four-and-twenty hours left; Tuesday--there were but twelve! Seppi stood by with the untasted dinner, his bright black eyes continually filling with tears. He dared not even speak to his young master, who, with wild and haggard looks, was painting still.

'The clock struck six as Cola's now trembling hand put the last stroke to his picture, and sank on a chair.

"It will do now, I think; it will not disgrace me at least."

"No, indeed it will not, dear Cola! It is a beautiful picture," whispered the gentle, encouraging voice of Archy, who had come direct from Bread Street hither. "And now, do have some dinner, or, what will be better for you, some tea."

"No, no; I can't eat: we shall lose the time: the Academy will be shut. Seppi, I must have a cab, and go there at once."

'Archibald saw resistance would have been vain and cruel, so he quietly suffered his friend to step into the cab, and followed him. All the long ride to Trafalgar Square Cola did not utter a single word, but sat motionless, with his picture in his arms. M'Kaye offered to hold it; but the other rejected his aid with a slight motion of the head. At last Cola relinquished this darling first-fruits of his genius with a look something like that of a mother parting from a beloved child, and then sank fainting into his friend's arms. That night Cola Monti was in a brain fever.' The picture was successful, and the boy-caricaturist grew at the same time to be an artist and a man.

Although Cola Monti, artistically speaking, is an imperfect story, it possesses both power and promise of no ordinary kind. The power is evident in the book itself: the promise rests upon the fact, that the author is a young lady now struggling, by her own unaided genius, through the stony and thorny paths of the literary profession. But we would not have her rely upon genius alone, or consider 'Cola Monti' as anything more than a promise or a pledge. It is like a gleam of light disclosing partially, and for a moment, a scene which in some measure owes its beauty and value to the mind of the beholder. It is suggestive of high thoughts, fine aspirations, sad memories. It throws the intellectual man back into his experiences, and impels the daring and generous youth forward in the path of his hopes and resolves. But in all this it relies upon those it addresses, pointing mysteriously before and behind, and accomplishing nothing of itself. But this is obviously owing to want of effort, not want of power. The author must follow the example of her hero, and give her days and her nights to the labour of her calling. She must look upon her heretofore attempts as so many separate studies, and construct with toil and determination a work of art not only harmonious in colouring, not only accurate in drawing, but skilful in Design.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] Cola Monti; or the Story of a Genius. By the Author of 'How to Win Love,' 'Michael the Miner,' &c. London: Arthur Hall and Co. 1849.

LADY SETTLERS IN AUSTRALIA.

Dr Lang, in his description of the Port-Philip district, alludes to the success which may there attend female settlers who carry on the business of sheep-farming on their own account; and mentions the following facts on the subject:--

'On the morning after our arrival at Geelong, Dr Thomson accompanied me on a visit to Miss Drysdale, an elderly maiden lady from Scotland, whose acquaintance and friendship I had had the honour of making on my first visit to Geelong in the year 1843, when I had the pleasure of spending a day or two under her hospitable roof. Miss Drysdale is a lady of a highly-respectable family, and of superior intelligence, her brother having been the late Sir William Drysdale, treasurer of the city of Edinburgh. Having a considerable patrimony of her own, and being of an active disposition, and fond of rural pursuits, she had rented a large farm in Scotland, of which she superintended the management in person; but being a martyr, as she told me, to the coughs and colds, and other ills that flesh is heir to in our hyperborean Scottish climate, she resolved to emigrate to a milder region, where she might hope to enjoy better health, while she continued to indulge in her favourite pursuits, and endeavour to exert a salutary influence on some at least of her fellow-creatures, wherever Divine Providence might fix her lot. And, I am happy to add, Miss Drysdale sees no reason to regret the step she took, in pursuance of this resolution, in emigrating to Philipsland. She has uniformly enjoyed excellent health; she is in the midst of such scenes, and scenery, and occupations as she delighted in at home; the property she invested in stock on her arrival in the colony must have increased greatly during the interval that has since elapsed; and she has not only exhibited the goodly and influential example of a highly-respectable family living in the fear of God, and in the zealous observance of all the ordinances of religion, in a country in which, I am sorry to say, such examples are rare, but she has had it in her power to render the most valuable services to some who really required what she has proved to them--a friend indeed. At the period of my first visit to Geelong Miss Drysdale had two of the younger daughters of the late Mr Batman residing with her, to whom she was benevolently discharging the duty of a parent; and her character as a doer of good was generally known, and gratefully acknowledged, in the vicinity.

'On her arrival in the colony, Miss Drysdale determined to "squat," as it is styled in the phraseology of the country; that is, to settle on a tract of unoccupied crown land, of sufficient extent for the pasturage of considerable flocks and herds, with their increase for several years--a tract, in all likelihood, from twenty-five to fifty square miles in extent. For this land the occupant pays a yearly license-fee to the government of L.10, which insures to him for the time being the full possession of the entire tract; and it is universally understood that while this fee is paid, and no offence committed against the laws and the customs of squatting, the occupant shall not be disturbed, unless the land is sold in the meantime to a _bona-fide_ purchaser, at not less than L.1 an acre, or required for government purposes--neither of which events is, in ordinary circumstances, at all likely to happen. It has not been allowed, for a good many years past, to give a squatting license of this kind to any person within a considerable distance of a township or village; but Miss Drysdale was allowed, as a special exception from this general rule, to occupy a station within four miles of the town of Geelong. On that station she accordingly erected a neat thatched cottage, with glazed rustic lattice-windows, which she had carried out with her from home, formed a garden, and fenced in a sufficient extent of superior land for cultivation. The cottage had been greatly improved, both externally and internally, at the period of my visit in 1846, and three years had made a wonderful change for the better upon the garden, which had gravelled walks dividing the different parterres--the only instance of the kind I had seen in the country, and strongly reminding me of home.