Part 19

What suits one people does not suit all others. Leo III. established plenary indulgence and the release of souls from purgatory through the virtue of a mass. This does not suit many of the English or Scotch; indeed, should any Leo III. set up a profitable business here on the same grounds, he would be prosecuted for obtaining money under false pretences. But it suited the Italians at the time, and is held in favour by many of them still.

The religion of the Irish appears to require some re-adjustment; it does not in its present form give the Divine sanction to murder.

The most truly religious ought to be a middle class, who have a sufficiency of good things to supply their wants in moderation. One does not quite understand how the poor can work themselves up into gratitude to Heaven in the midst of want, or how the rich can work themselves down to it in the midst of superabundance.

There is one bit of advice, too, that one might give to the clergy, which is, not to waste too much time in trying to evangelize their betters, but rather to improve their own health by taking a course of moral mud baths in what is understood by the East End of London.

It would cost them less in dress.

Alas! for the West and the East—the gorgeous East changed from the sunny land into the home of the homeless, the paradise of ancient Adam yielding them only a rotten apple off the old tree of knowledge, while the West feeds on golden pippins! The clergy are endowed; they can afford Eastern travel; but less than O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! they love the slums of Shoreditch.

There is something tickling in the phrase, “the fashionable clergy.” One meets them at the receptions of a minister of State; but they do not seem wanted there, and they stand with their hands before them as if they had done preaching. The same congregation will listen to them at a distance in their box at the holy opera. But why do these good men trouble themselves with those gilt-edged Bible-bearers, who are gathered together in unconscious advertisement of the newest fashions from trans-Eastern looms, and the newest feathers from the accommodating bird of paradise, that shed them for their use?

Certainly the clergy waste their time on these delicacies of a perfected race; they are only courtiers, clergy of the bed-chamber, clergy-in-waiting. It is not a nice calling for one who is manly and cultured.

But they are not all alike. Many begin by being honest, and remain so for life.

Among the more recent events which have been of interest to me, I would mention that, in 1885, on the eve of a general election, my son Egmont engaged to deliver a lecture on Gordon in the chief cities; and very efficiently he performed his task. He concluded the work at St. James’s Hall, where I was present. I dined with the Walter Pollocks and we went together to the lecture, at which Lord Cranborne took the chair.

The audience was much moved during the recital of those circumstances which, easy to have been avoided, led to Gordon’s death.

After the lecture, Mrs. Pollock introduced me to Lady Wentworth and then to Lord Wentworth, the grandson of Byron; also to the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, the worthy daughter of our noblest patriot, Sir Francis Burdett. This lady feelingly expressed to me her regard for Gordon, and invited me to a pleasant luncheon at her house the next day, with Mrs. Pollock and my son and daughter.

But I must not go on talking for ever; my only excuse is, as I have already hinted, I am in my fourteenth year over death-time, and so far belong, in a way, to posterity, in the name of which I have occasionally ventured to opine. With this advantage over many contemporaries, some of whom were once of my own age, and some who were younger, I have a right to consider myself as my own posterity too; indeed, being fourteen years old, as such, I may regard myself as one of the Youths of the Future.

Yet there is something wanting to me in this peculiar situation. Things do not pass for the same as they did in one’s first youth: then I looked forward, now I look back.

But even this living backwards is more curious than may appear at a first glance. It is like taking up, let us say, some seven photos of one’s self with a ten-years’ interval between each. The last is wrinkled and bald; one looks at it and wonders how a countenance could have reached so dilapidated a stage.

One takes up the one before; gazing at it, one tries to hope backwards, but is not much encouraged; it is still wrinkled and bald in its sixtieth year.

The third manifests a slight gain—the wrinkles are in part removed, as if they had been under the beneficial influence of cosmetics.

Then comes the fourth in the order of precedence, and it is not so bad; it has all the promise of youth.

We go back a little further; the previous likeness has kept its word—it restores us to what we have been missing so long—our early prime.

But here sets in a most strange mental confusion. Up to this time we have been hoping backwards; we have looked over a past life with ever-increasing hope of the yet better days; our hair has been restored to its pristine beauty, our wrinkles are as if they had never been, our eyes are lustrous, our first youth returns; we shall soon be fourteen years of age once more. Of a sudden, after hoping backwards all this way and becoming our former selves more and more, we encounter our old hopes; so we are hoping both ways—backward, to our beautiful first childhood, forward to our second, in the midst of a mental hurricane, whirling us in an instant into old age again. So ends the pleasing retrospect—our second youth as far off as ever from our first.

LXVIII.

Photographs in my early days were not in use: so philographs must be produced in their stead. Daubs were as common as they are now, so we have a national portrait gallery. Some sort of likeness should be preserved, too, of men who have figured in physic, not so much for their own sake as for the dramatic addition they make to the age; so engaging is it to know how noted people have acted in the private play.

Among medical men, _Sir Charles Clark_ was the best actor: he was every man’s equal. Gay, upright in figure, graceful, of middle stature, he seemed always ready. He acted the least joke, and so made it a good one. He told of how one day in his garden he had a fit and fell on the gravel walk, but jumped up directly and ran away for fear of his being caught by it again.

_Sir Astley Cooper_, when I knew him, was somewhat aged; he had returned from the fatigues of rest to practice again, much blamed by those who had succeeded him in his position. He had a grand figure; his face was flabby, his manner quiet, commanding, kindly. Every word he said to those who consulted him was treasured up as worth the guinea they put down. He had a laugh that removed any ill-founded fancy at one stroke.

_Sir Benjamin Brodie_ was a little man, thin of feature, with a diffused acuteness of look that rather glowed because earnest. It demanded a good forehead, like his, and a clear eye to carry off this bright expression.

_Dr. Chambers_ was a large, heavy man, with thick lips, full face, prompt though bulky, seeming to carry his advice in his whole body, and taking his fees as if he were relieving his patient.

_John Nussey_, the court apothecary, was a man who had the confidence of dukes. He was of large figure, doughy complexion, attentive manner: listening all over. He spoke good sense, and slowly, conveying the feeling that he had much more to say if it so pleased him. Not being wastefully communicative, he was sought after for what he yet had to say.

_Sir Richard Quain_ was of a large countenance; his head heavy, but only because it was full. He had a quiet, not uncheerful, but almost complaining way, at times, as if the sick world expected more of his time than he had to give. He almost appeared injured towards evening, in being too much in demand. Without being deaf, his manner was a little like that of one who was: it was so gentle.

_Dr. William Gairdner_, a good man within himself, had a select practice among such high people as would allow a free-spoken physician to say what he liked to them. He was of the Scotch blood, with not well-shaped features, and with nose not well finished; but a face altogether good-natured, and a smile that drew your chair close up to his. To use an expression that dropped from my clever nurse, he seemed to listen with his eyes. He once said to a man who proposed to settle in London, as physician, “It will not suit you; it is not in you to do as I did the other day, to put your hand on the Lord Chancellor’s shoulder and tell him he was incapable of speaking truth.”

_Dr. J. W. B. Williams_, great lung-diagnoser as he was, had a busy, moving manner, which was more like that of a manager than of the head of a firm.

_Mr. Robert Liston_, the surgeon, was as playful in private as a gigantic kitten, and liked to hear his pretty daughter call him silly. He gave one the impression that he could do everything, and knew nothing. It was not very incorrect; his operating powers were due to a wrist with which he could have screwed off a man’s head in the days of decapitation.

_Dr. Mark Latham_ had the knowing head and look peculiar to those of his name. His face was aquiline in its totality, and, like a bird, he thought on both sides of his head, turning it first on one side, then on another, instead of on the simultaneous mean. He received one very heartily; if it were about a consultation the tone was maintained, but if not, he suddenly appeared busy.

_Mr. Stone_ was a delightful family practitioner, with no end of good recipes for the nursery or lady’s chamber. He was a very friendly, considerate man, well up to every mark; and, being already confided in by all, he was without pretension.

_Sir Thomas Watson_ was what may be called a learned physician. He had a nice, clever, collegiate face, quite gentlemanly and good looking, with a show of languor over his town practice, but very bright when summoned to the country, as if the air did him good. He was quite the head of his profession.

_Dr. Richard Bright_ bore a name that covered his entire nature. His countenance and his mind seemed one: the acuteness, humour, brightness of his inner character lost nothing in flowing to his face, and even hands. His words were so exactly like his thoughts, that on our hearing them they became thoughts again, losing nothing in their passage; their self-conservation of force being unfailing.

_Dr. J. A. Wilson_ (he sometimes latinized his initials to Maxilla) was a man to know, to esteem, to honour. He must have improved many a man’s memory to this day, for he was one who could never be forgotten.

_Benjamin Travers_ was a great thinker, and a perfect surgeon. It is difficult to describe him personally, because he was so gentlemanly, so handsome, of such noble bearing.

One may say the same of _Sir William Lawrence_, his aspect and his work were so classic. Besides, to describe very great men, like him, is an affront to all the rest.

_Sir Henry Acland_, an Oxford professor, I knew in my time. He had all the graces peculiar to his family. How delightful it must be for a physician, like him, to pass through life in learned elegance and successful ease!

Then there was _Dr. Baly_, with his round head, and a face that would cheer any man who had still an hour to live. He was a true man, and had all the medical science of the day at his command. But, even more than this, he knew how to manage the sick, how to give them every advantage that tact could devise; in a word, how to save a life if that life was to be saved.

One more, the one whose name among anatomists is the most enduring of all: _Dr. Robert Lee_. He discovered a new nervous system when anatomy was held to be complete. Some men are a disgrace to society, some societies are a disgrace to men. So was it with the Royal Society in not recognizing Lee’s merit when the Continent was ringing with his name.

These are a few of those whom I knew and esteemed in my day.

Among medical men, I think Stone was the best at anecdote. He might have written another “Gold-headed Cane.” He was fond of his friends, and was hospitable. He enjoyed his profession, his consultations, and he told a story well. As a sample, Dr. ⸺ was called at night to an old lady’s bedside, but was so inebriated as to do little towards ascertaining the state of the case. He retired to the table to prescribe, but he could not; he was too far gone to commit any remedial measures to paper. He tried over and over again, when, in despair, he described his own condition—“D—drunk, by G⸺!” and left. Early on the following day he received a summons to the lady. “Doctor,” said she, “how did you know what was the matter with me? and why were you so imprudent as to commit it to paper?”

Amongst scientific men of the century we have had Faraday, _facile princeps_—a man who, when he was doing nothing at all, always looked to me as if he was putting something in its place.

Stokes is the only man who has vied with Faraday, and touched Newton in revealing to us the invisible spectrum.

Then there is Tyndall still, an industrious peeper behind the scenes. It was kind of Faraday to leave him his old coat; but no man could wear it—no tailor could ever make it fit another.

And there is Huxley, who is so great in science, not satisfied with the comfort of believing in nothing himself, but he must strive to share the blessing with all—the blessing of believing in nothing but himself.

Then Darwin, who has been able to climb the hill safely, and reach the summit, with Goethe, Oken, Lamarc, and Geoffrey St. Hilaire on his back.

Then there are scientific men almost too great to be mentioned by name. These tell us the sun will wear out within the period they assign. If I saw them, I should suggest that the sun could not lose energy, because its elements are indestructible. If they asked me what I meant, I should reply that when oxygen and carbon produced heat, and lost it to the earth, they could produce just as much heat again, and that for ever.

“Matter and force,” I should say, “are one, and that one cannot lose or gain.”

If they made no answer, I should add, and then walk away—

“The materials of the sun cannot be diminished, as they can reach no other centre of gravity. But I admit that the sun is open to collision; not, however, within any calculable period of time.”

We should then both speak to some one else.

I now conclude.

In these my reminiscences I have made very free with my reader, and now I heartily wish him “Good day.”

POSTSCRIPT.

My respected publishers, now that my “Memoirs” are in print, have asked me if I wish to precede them by any prefatory remarks; this I have no need of doing, since the first paragraph in the work is a sufficient explanation of why the book was written. But an event having happened which has put half the nation in mourning, and perhaps most of all our august sovereign herself, I feel impelled to utter a few words of sympathy on that sad occasion to her, the loss of a deserving Poet Laureate.

The time has come when the nation’s trust is no longer reposed in any party, but it is to be hoped that its confidence in the throne is unabated. It has taken centuries to produce a sovereign Power whose unbiased will has become moulded to the English idea of rule, and which is in perfect accord with the desires of our now vast numbers; and it is ardently to be wished that a great people may realize, under every change, that they possess one true friend who occupies the first of the three estates of the realm.

As an individual, part owner of these three estates for yet a little while, I desire to leave behind me, not the words of a laureate, but of a loving subject of the best of sovereigns and the best of women. If I, as a poet, have a wish that I would see gratified, it is to hear my “Ode,” written and published during the year of the Jubilee, sung by loyal voices to the sound of trumpets and to the beating of the drum! It may come in appropriately, as by an amateur, during the present little _interregnum_. For the perusal of those who partake of my love for, my faith in, the throne, I give it here entire, and once more to my readers say, “Farewell!”

QUEEN VICTORIA’S DAY.

AN ODE OF TRIUMPH ON THE FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF HER REIGN.

_Statecraft and kingly power for ages schooled_ _The nations will; the rod of genius ruled;_ _At last, glad day, a maiden’s gentle hand_ _Sufficed to guide the reins of state by sea and land._ _Then said a voice from heaven, “Her lengthened reign_ _Is to eclipse the pride of kings;_ _A virgin queen has come again,_ _And to all loving homes her blessing brings._ _Soon this queen shall be a bride,_ _And with her faithful prince her state divide,_ _His virtues matched by hers alone,_ _A fitting glory to her throne._ _So shall their perfect lives be blest_ _Till Heaven, who knows our welfare best,_ _Calls him the earliest to his rest.”_

Since hath the gracious sun Fifty times his year begun, And she remains, our hope and hourly care, Her children round her, many a happy pair! England, be this a day of mirth From dawn to utmost even! It is a day to keep on earth; This day is kept in heaven. Partake the wine and break the bread; This day shall all her poor be fed.

There is joy o’er the blessings her reign has showered down, Yet lone is the star that shines in her crown. Though sickness and sorrow are common to all, In our joy let our hearts the departed recall; Let us think of the friend In her youth so beloved; May our blessing attend On his home far removed! His name, held so dear, to our children be told! He loved her, revered her, in days that are old. He blesses her still, her children among; For the days that are old are the days that were young. O the days of our youth, what memories they fill! We looked on her then, and we look on her still. Who now blind once beheld her, to her are not blind, They treasure their queen in their innermost mind; Who deaf once gave ear to the tones of her voice, Remember them still, in her accents rejoice.

CHORUS.

Since hath the gracious sun Fifty times his year begun, And she remains, our hope and hourly care, Her children round her, many a happy pair! England, be this a day of mirth From dawn to utmost even! It is a day to keep on earth; This day is kept in heaven.

Rejoice, the heart from labour free; It is a holy Jubilee! Where grief does not sadden Let mirth the heart gladden; Where our wanderings have been, Where our footsteps may stray, Remember the Queen On her Jubilee day. Rejoice, O brave legions In the sun-gilded regions! There reigns she afar. Rejoice, O brave souls At the furthermost poles! Her children ye are.

May no grief her heart sadden, May this day her heart gladden; Victoria sits on her earth-rounded throne! From the waters that freeze into mountains of stone To the fire-flashing shores of the tropical zone, When a soldier has fallen a tear can she shed, With the widow she knows how to mourn for the dead; She makes all the cares of her kingdom her own. Though the touch of the monarch no longer heals, As balm to the heart her sympathy steals. ’Tis her own Jubilee! Where her ships plough the deep Let no memories sleep; Where the thunder hangs mute Let her cannon salute Every wave of the sea.

Musicians, whose glory it is to control Our hearts, and to sunder our cares from the soul, Strike deep where hope’s solace we seek for in vain; Strike deep, though of ills hard to bear we complain; Strike deep to the hearts of the soldiers who guard The precincts of freedom, our love their reward; Strike chords that in battle their sufferings appease, Till their banners seem floating in victory’s breeze.

It is summer, the June of the Jubilee year, The month when the first-fruits of spring-time appear, The month when the lark thrills the sky with a song Where the blue-bells hang silent the moorlands along. It is June, glorious June, the month of the Queen! The cornfields are paling, the pastures are green, The ferns are uncurling, the hedgerows are gay With wild roses as welcome as blossom of May. The trees are swelled out In the foliage of spring, The cuckoo’s about With its voice on the wing.

The morning has come, the churches pour forth The battling of bells from the south to the north; The peals from the belfries are merrily rung, All hearts are rejoicing, all nature is young.

The joys of the earth while they last are our own; Let us give them to her, to her hearth, to her throne. Victoria, loved Queen! We proclaim thee again; May the trust we repose ever sweeten thy reign!

Loud and deep are the cheers ’neath the old village oak; The health, the long life of the Queen they invoke. A fife at the lips and a drum all their band, The villagers gladden the length of the land: The bunting from gable to gable is swung, The casements with flags and fond mottoes are hung. In the love-threaded dance their steps are not tired As they weave them to tunes by affection inspired. The children are shouting and romping in throngs, Like anthems seem holy their merriest songs; The wayfarer pauses in crossing the stile, And lists in a dream to their voices awhile: The voices of children a stranger may win, Through them are our hearts with the angels akin. ’Twas so on the day she ascended the throne; We live o’er again the days that are gone. The days of our youth—what memories they fill! We looked on her then, and we look on her still.

GRAND CHORUS.

Victoria sits on her earth-rounded throne! From the waters that freeze into mountains of stone To the fire-flashing shores of the tropical zone, Her kingdoms are free. Where her ships plough the deep Let no memories sleep; Where the thunder hangs mute Let her cannon salute Every wave of the sea. Rejoice, O brave legions In the sun-gilded regions! There reigns she afar. Rejoice, hardy souls At the furthermost poles! Her children ye are.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.

_D. & Co._