Part 4

Fire and shipwreck have at various periods caused considerable havoc among manuscripts. Many of our oldest Anglo-Saxon manuscripts were consumed some years ago by a fire in the Cottonian Library; and those which remain present a baked and shrivelled appearance, rendering them almost unrecognisable. Ben Jonson on one occasion sustained the loss of the labours of twenty-one years within one short hour, by fire; and Meninsky’s famous Persian Dictionary met with a like fate from the effects of a bomb falling upon the roof of his house during the siege of Vienna by the Turks.

National libraries have occasionally been lost at sea. In the beginning of last century, a wealthy burgomaster of Middelburg, in the Netherlands, named Hudde, actuated solely by literary curiosity, made a journey to China; and after travelling through the whole of the provinces, he set sail for Europe, laden with a manuscript collection of his observations, the labour of thirty years, the whole of which was sunk in the ocean. Again, Guarino Verenese, one of those learned Italians who volunteered to travel through Greece for the recovery of ancient manuscripts, had his perseverance repaid by the acquisition of many priceless treasures. Returning to Italy, however, he was shipwrecked; and such was his grief at the loss of this collection, that his hair became suddenly white.

Differing from those authors who have destroyed their manuscripts before death, are those who have delivered them into the hands of relatives and friends, together with the fullest instructions as to their disposal. It is well known that Lord Byron handed the manuscript of his autobiography to Tom Moore, with the strictest injunctions not to publish it till after his death. Immediately after he expired, Moore sold the manuscript to John Murray the publisher for two thousand pounds; but subsequently knowing something of the nature of the autobiography, and the effect which its publication would exert upon the memory of the deceased author, his own better feelings, united to the persuasions of Byron’s friends, prompted him to regain possession of the document, which he did, at the same time refunding the money to Mr Murray. The manuscript was then burned.

In the matter of the manuscripts of musical works, it may be related that shortly after Handel had settled at Hamburg in the capacity of conductor of the opera in that city, he cultivated the acquaintance of a well-known musician named Mattheson, and the two became great friends. But presently a quarrel arose between them, the result of which was that they drew their swords; and Mattheson’s weapon might in all probability have dealt fatally with the other’s life, had it not chanced to strike and break upon the score of _Almira_, Handel’s first opera, which he had hurriedly stowed beneath his coat, and over which, it is said, the quarrel had really arisen. After this, the combatants became reconciled, and Mattheson eventually bore the principal character in the opera when it was produced.

Returning to literature, it is perhaps not generally known that Swift’s _Tale of a Tub_ was introduced to the world with such cunning secrecy, that the manuscript was actually thrown from a passing coach into the doorway of the bookseller who afterwards published it. _Gulliver’s Travels_ was given to the public in the same mysterious manner. From one of Swift’s letters to Pope, as well as from another epistle to Dr T. Sheridan, we learn that during the time occupied in finishing, revising, and transcribing his manuscript, prior to thinking about a fitting bookseller to publish it, Tickell, then Secretary of State, expressed a strong curiosity to see the work concerning which there was so much secrecy. But the Dean frankly replied that it would be quite impossible for Mr Tickell to find his ‘treasury of _waste-papers_ without searching through nine different houses,’ inasmuch as he had his manuscripts conveyed from place to place through nine or ten different hands; and then it would be necessary to send to him for a key to the work, else he could not understand a chapter of it. In the end, _Gulliver_ came forth from its hiding-place through the medium of Mr Charles Ford, who offered to carry the manuscript to Mr Motte the bookseller, on behalf of his friend, and to whom he afterwards complained that the man’s timidity was such as to compel him to make some important abridgments throughout the work. The book was, however, no sooner published, than it was received with unlimited acclamation by all classes.

Of Defoe’s world-famous _Robinson Crusoe_, published in 1719, we are told that it was only taken up by Taylor—who purchased the manuscript, and netted one thousand pounds by the publication—after every other bookseller in town had refused it. In a similar manner, one bookseller refused to give twenty-five pounds for the manuscript of Fielding’s _Tom Jones_; while another bought it, and cleared not less than eighteen thousand pounds by the venture during his lifetime!

With a few particulars touching upon the value of manuscripts which have at various periods been put up for public sale after the death of their authors, we will bring our paper to a conclusion.

When, some years ago, the manuscript of Scott’s _Guy Mannering_ came into the market, the United States gladly secured the precious treasure at a cost of three hundred and eighty guineas; and in 1867, at a sale of the manuscripts which had belonged to Mr Cadell the well-known publisher, the _Lady of the Lake_ was sold for two hundred and seventy-seven guineas, and _Rokeby_ realised one hundred and thirty-six guineas, both becoming the property of Mr Hope-Scott. At the same sale, Sir William Fraser paid two hundred guineas for the manuscript of _Marmion_; whilst the same appreciative collector of literary antiquities paid, in 1875, so high a price as two hundred and fifty guineas for Gray’s _Elegy in a Country Churchyard_, a composition occupying no more than four quarto sheets of manuscript.

Of Charles Dickens’s manuscripts, _The Christmas Carol_ was purchased by Mr Harvey of St James’s Street for the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds, and resold by him for two hundred and fifty pounds; _The Battle of Life_ is still held on sale by that gentleman; and _Our Mutual Friend_ was purchased, on behalf of Mr George Washington Childs of Philadelphia, by Mr Hotten, for two hundred pounds. As is well known, the manuscript of _The Pickwick Papers_ was bequeathed by Mr Forster to the South Kensington Museum, and will become the property of the British nation on the death of his widow, who has meanwhile, and in the most generous manner, permitted it and other manuscripts from the pen of Charles Dickens to be publicly exhibited where they will become permanently enshrined.

Not very long ago, the manuscript of a short poem by Burns brought seventy guineas; yet this sum must be regarded as but a small proportion of that value which might be realised for only one line—not to speak of one play—written by Shakspeare’s own hand. In his _Memorials of Westminster Abbey_, the late Dean Stanley has told us how Spenser the poet died in King Street, Westminster, and was solemnly interred in Poets’ Corner, hard by. ‘His hearse,’ he says, ‘was attended by poets; and mournful elegies, together with the pens that wrote them, were thrown into his tomb. What a funeral was that at which Beaumont, Fletcher, Jonson, and, in all probability, Shakspeare attended! what a grave in which the pen of Shakspeare may be mouldering away!’ Certainly, if but one line of that ‘mournful elegy’ written by the Immortal Bard could be recovered and offered for sale, we should then have a pleasing and memorable opportunity of marking the estimation in which the poet is held by mankind.

ANIMAL MEMORIALS AND MEMENTOES.

Commenting on the honour paid by the Athenians to a dog that followed his master across the sea to Salamis, Pope says: ‘This respect to a dog in the most polite people of the world is very observable. A modern instance of gratitude to a dog, though we have but few such, is, that the chief Order of Denmark—now called the Order of the Elephant—was instituted in memory of the fidelity of a dog named Wild-brat to one of their kings, who had been deserted by his subjects. He gave his Order this motto, or to this effect (which still remains): “Wild-brat was faithful.”’

Had Pope been writing half-a-dozen years later, he need not have gone to Denmark for a modern instance of gratitude to a dog. Mr Robert—afterwards Viscount—Molesworth being prevented entering an outhouse by his favourite greyhound pulling him away by his coat lappet, ordered a footman to examine the place. On opening the door, the man was shot dead by a hidden robber. The faithful hound afterwards died in London, and his master sent his body to Yorkshire, to be inurned in Edglington Wood, near Doncaster; the receptacle of his remains bearing an inscription in Latin, which has been thus translated: ‘Stay, traveller! Nor wonder that a lamented Dog is thus interred with funeral honour. But, ah! what a Dog! His beautiful form and snow-white colour; pleasing manners and sportive playfulness; his affection, obedience, and fidelity, made him the delight of his master, to whom he closely adhered with his eager companions of the chase, delighted in attending him. Whenever the mind of his lord was depressed, he would assume fresh spirit and animation. A master, not ungrateful for his merits, has here, in tears, deposited his remains in this marble urn.—M. F. C. 1714.’

An Italian greyhound, buried in Earl Temple’s garden at Stowe, had never saved his master’s life, but was nevertheless held worthy of a memorial stone, bearing the eulogistic epitaph from the pen of Arbuthnot:

‘To the Memory of SIGNOR FIDO—An Italian of good extraction, who came to England not to bite us, like most of his countrymen, but to gain an honest livelihood. He hunted not for fame, yet acquired it; regardless of the praises of his friends, but most sensible of their love. Though he lived among the Great, he neither learned nor flattered any vice. He was no bigot, though he doubted of none of the Thirty-nine Articles. And if to follow Nature and to respect the laws of Society be philosophical, he was a perfect philosopher, a faithful friend, an agreeable companion, a loving husband, distinguished by a numerous offspring, all which he lived to see take good courses. In his old age, he retired to the home of a clergyman in the country, where he finished his earthly race, and died an honour and an example to his species. Reader—This stone is guiltless of flattery, for he to whom it is inscribed was not a Man, but a Greyhound.’

That eulogy is more than could honestly be said of the animal whose monument proclaims:

Here lies the body of my dear retriever; Of his master alone he was ne’er a deceiver; But the Game-laws he hated, and poached out of bounds— His spirit now ranges the glad hunting-grounds.

Not in company, we should say, with that of the blameless creature commemorated by the couplet:

Beneath this stone, there lies at rest BANDY, of all good dogs the best.

Among the sojourners at the _Grand Hôtel Victoria_, Mentone, in the year 1872, was the Archduchess Marie Régnier, who, during her three months’ stay there, took such a liking to mine host’s handsome dog Pietrino, that she begged him of M. Milandi, and carried her prize with her to Vienna. In less than a fortnight after reaching that capital, Pietrino was back in his old quarters again, having travelled eight hundred miles across strange countries, over mountains, through towns and villages, only to die at his master’s feet five days after his coming home. He was buried among the rose-bushes in the grounds so familiar to him, his resting place marked by a marble column, inscribed, ‘Ci-gît PIETRINO, Ami Fidèle. 1872.’

Exactly a hundred years before that, a dog died at Minorca out of sheer grief for the loss of his master, who, ordered home to England, did not care to encumber himself with his canine friend. Honouring the deserted animal’s unworthily placed affection, his owner’s brother-officers saw him decently interred, and erected a stone to his memory, bearing an epitaph written by Lieutenant Erskine, ending:

His life was shortened by no slothful ease, Vice-begot care, or folly-bred disease. Forsook by him he valued more than life, His generous nature sank beneath the strife. Left by his master on a foreign shore, New masters offered—but he owned no more; The ocean oft with seeming sorrow eyed, And pierced by man’s ingratitude, he died.

Of tougher constitution was a small Scotch terrier that, in 1868, followed his master’s coffin to the churchyard of Old Greyfriars, Edinburgh, heedless of the notice forbidding entrance to dogs. The morning after the funeral, Bobby was found lying on the newly-made mound. He was turned out of the churchyard; but the next morning saw him upon the grave, and the next and the next. Taking pity upon the forlorn little creature, the custodian of the burial-ground gave him some food. From that time, Bobby considered himself privileged, and was constantly in and about the churchyard, only leaving it at mid-day to obtain a meal at the expense of a kind-hearted restaurant keeper; but every night was passed upon the spot holding all he had once held dear. Many were the attempts to get him to transfer his allegiance from the dead to the living; but none availed. As long as his life lasted, and it lasted four years, Bobby stayed by, or in the immediate neighbourhood of, his master’s grave. Such fidelity, unexampled even in his faithful race, deserved to be kept in remembrance; and thanks to the most munificent of Lady Bountifuls, his memory is kept green by his counterfeit presentment on a drinking-fountain of Peterhead granite erected on George the Fourth Bridge, as a ‘tribute to the affectionate fidelity of GREYFRIARS BOBBY. In 1868, the faithful dog followed the remains of his master to Greyfriars Churchyard, and lingered near the spot until his death in 1872.’

London is not without its memorials to dogs. On the wall leading to the Irongate Stairs, near the Tower, may be read: ‘In Memory of EGYPT, a favourite dog belonging to the Irongate Watermen, killed on the 4th August 1841, aged 16.

Here lies interred, beneath this spot, A faithful dog, who should not be forgot. Full fifteen years he watched here with care, Contented with hard bed and harder fare. Around the Tower he daily used to roam In search of bits so savoury, or a bone. A military pet he was, and in the Dock, His rounds he always went at twelve o’clock; Supplied with cash, which held between his jaws— The reason’s plain—he had no hands but paws— He’d trot o’er Tower Hill to a favourite shop, There eat his meal and down his money drop. To club he went on each successive night, Where, dressed in jacket gay, he took his pipe; With spectacles on nose he played his tricks, And pawed the paper, not the politics. Going his usual round, near Traitors’ Gate, Infirm and almost blind, he met his fate; By ruthless kick hurled from the wharf, below The stones on which the gentle Thames does flow, Mortally injured, soon resigned his breath, Thus left his friends, who here record his death.’

A tablet placed near the north-east end of the platform of the Edgware Road Railway Station, is inscribed:

In Memory of Poor FAN, Died May 8, 1876. For ten years at the Drivers’ call. Fed by many, Regretted by all.

Poor Fan lies under an evergreen hard by. She was notable for travelling continually on a railway engine between the Edgware Road and Hammersmith; occasionally getting off at an intermediate station, crossing the line, and returning by the next train; never taking any train but a Hammersmith train when outward bound, or going farther east than her own particular station when journeying homewards.

An Englishman travelling in France in 1698, was disgusted at seeing, in a ducal garden, a superb memorial in the shape of a black marble cat couching on a gilded white marble cushion, on the top of a black marble pedestal bearing the one word ‘MENINE.’ Such posthumous honour is rarely paid to puss; but two other instances of it may be cited. In making excavations near the Place de la Bastille, in the ground formerly occupied by the gardens of the Hôtel de Lesdiguières, the workmen brought to light the handsome tomb of a cat which had belonged to Françoise-Marguerite de Gondy, widow of Emmanuel de Crequi, Duke of Lesdiguières. It bore no laudatory epitaph, but the odd quatrain:

Cy-gist une chatte jolie. Sa maitresse, qui n’aima rien, L’aima jusqu’à la folie. Pourquoi le dire? On le voit bien.

Or to put it into English: ‘Here lies a handsome cat. Her mistress, who loved nothing, loved her out of caprice. Why say so? All the world knew it well.’

‘Grandfather,’ a feline Nestor, belonging to a lady in Scotland, was something more than handsome. When he had passed his twenty-first year, he could climb a tree, catch a bird, hunt a mouse, or kill a rat, as cleverly as in his younger days; and when he died, at the age of twenty-two, had well earned himself a memorial stone and an epitaph. Both were accorded him, the last-named running thus:

‘Life to the last enjoyed,’ here Pussy lies, Renowned for mousing and for catching flies; Loving o’er grass and pliant branch to roam, Yet ever constant to the smiles of home.

. . . . .

The Preux Chevalier of the race of Cats, He has outlived their customary span, As Jenkins and Old Parr had that of Man; And might on tiles have murmured in moonshine Nestorian tales of youth and Troy divine; Of rivals fought; of kitten-martyrdoms; While, meekly listening, round sat Tabs and Toms. But with the modesty of genuine worth, He vaunted not his deeds of ancient birth; His whiskers twitched not, at the world’s applause, He only yawned, and licked his reverend paws; Curled round his head his tail, and fell asleep, Lapped in sweet dreams, and left us here to weep. Yet pleased to know, that ere he sank to rest, As far as mortal cats are, he was blest.

The horse, even though he may have won a fortune for his master, as a rule goes literally to the dogs at last. Some few of the wonders of the turf have escaped that indignity. A plain stone inscribed simply ‘SIR PETER,’ tells visitors to Knowsley, Sir Peter Teazle lies beneath it. A sculptured stone, rifled from a cardinal’s monument, overlooks the grave of Emilius at Easby Abbey. A cedar, planted by a once famous jockey, rises hard by the resting-place of Bay-Middleton and Crucifix; Kingston reposes under the shade of a grand oak at Eltham; Blair-Athol, the pride of Malton, lies embowered at Cobham; and green is the grave of Amato, well within hail of the course he traversed triumphantly. The skeleton of Eclipse is still, we believe, on view at Cannons, but it must be minus at least one hoof, since King William IV. gave a piece of plate, with a hoof of Eclipse set in gold, to be run for at Ascot in 1832; the trophy being carried off by Lord Chesterfield’s Priam. Equine mementoes usually take this form, and many a sideboard can show the polished hoof of a famous racehorse. The Prince of Wales is said to possess a hoof of the charger that bore Nolan to his death at Balaklava; it is surmounted with a small silver figure of the Captain, carrying the fatal order for the advance of the Light Brigade. An interesting military souvenir enough; but not so interesting as a polished and shod hoof, mounted so as to serve as a snuff-box, the property of the Guards’ Club; for this bears the inscription: ‘Hoof of MARENGO, rare charger of Napoleon, ridden by him at Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Wagram, in the campaign of Russia, and lastly at Waterloo;’ while on the margin of the silver shoe is to be read: ‘Marengo was wounded in the near hip at Waterloo, when his great master was on him, in the hollow road in advance of the French position. He had been frequently wounded before in other battles.’

SOME FOOD-NOTES.

We have received the following notes from a gentleman—an occasional contributor—who devotes much of his attention to such matters, making them indeed an especial and constant study.

_The Antipodean Rabbit Nuisance._—That which for several years past has been the bane of agriculturists at the antipodes, is not unlikely to prove in the end something akin to a blessing. Rabbits in many places, notwithstanding what has been done to exterminate them, are nearly as numerous as ever; but instead of killing them by means of poison and burying them in the ground, they are now systematically ‘trapped,’ and, being cooked and tinned, command a large sale. At the Western Meat-preserving Company’s Works, Colac, Victoria, as many as seventeen thousand pairs of rabbits are dealt with in the course of the early weeks of the season, which, it may be explained, lasts for a period of seven months; and although the supply diminishes as the season progresses, over three hundred thousand pairs are annually prepared for sale, finding a ready market. A large number of persons are employed during the continuance of this industry; no fewer than three hundred and fifty people obtaining remunerative work in connection with this one establishment. On an average, over five thousand two-pound tins are turned out every day within the period indicated. These are made up for sale in three different ways—as plain rabbits, as rabbits cooked with onions, and rabbits done up with bacon; and for each description there is now setting in a large European demand. Many of the men engaged in the rabbit-work at Colac are exceedingly dexterous, and work with great rapidity, some individual hands among them being able to skin with ease one hundred pairs of rabbits in an hour. In order to gain a wager, one very expert person skinned four hundred and twenty-eight of these animals in sixty minutes! It should be mentioned, that before being skinned, the heads and feet of the conies are chopped off. Work of every kind is performed by the most cleanly methods, and only the best animals are selected to be tinned, while none are sent out without being carefully examined. The trappers are paid by results, and are, as a rule, welcome to visit those farms which are overrun with the pest. In the earlier weeks of the season, a gang of expert trappers will each earn over five pounds a week. The rabbits as they are caught are slung across poles in convenient places, and then lifted and conveyed in carts to ‘the works.’ There are several establishments of the kind in Victoria, and hopes are now being entertained by farmers of a speedy deliverance from the rabbit nuisance, as the large numbers which are being killed must in time tell on the breeding supplies. Similar establishments are also about to be started in New Zealand.