Chapter 67
HONOURS--INVENTIONS.
Authorship reaps honour in these latter days quite as much as it did in the classic times of Augustus with Virgil and Horace for his intimates, and of Petrarch crowned at the Capitol laureate of all Italy during the vacancy of a popedom in the Vatican. Not but that, with or without any titular distinction, authorship is practically the most noticeable rank amongst us. Many will pass by a duke who would have stopped and waited to have looked at a Darwin when he was in this lower sphere; and I am quite sure that the grand presence of Alfred Tennyson would attract more affectionate homage than that of any other ennobled magnate in the land. As to his title, I was glad that his good taste and wisdom elected to be called by his own honourable patronymic rather than haply Farringford or Hazlemere: how can great names consent to be eclipsed in such obscure signatures as Wantage or Esher, Hindlip or Glossop, Dalling or Grimsthorpe? One gets quite at a loss to know who's who.
My letter to the _Times_ of December 19, 1883, headed "Literary Honours," in praise of Tennyson's elevation to the House of Lords, and showing how in every age all nations except our own have given honours to authors, literally "from China to Peru," elicited plenty both of approval and of censure from journals of many denominations. As a matter inevitable when Baron Tennyson was gazetted, the less euphonious Tupper was stigmatised in the papers as desiring to be a Baron too,--at all events, the _Echo_ said so, and the _Globe_ good-humouredly observed that "he deserved the coronet." They little knew that in the summer of 1863 (as paragraphs in my tenth volume of "Archives" are now before me to show) the same derided scribe was seriously announced as "about to be raised to the peerage" all over England and America: see two available and respectable proofs in the _British Controversialist_ (Houlston & Wright) for July 1863, p. 79,--and Bryant's _Evening Post_ for September 17, 1863. I name these, as the reverse of comic papers,--and publishing what they supposed true, as in fact was told me by the editors when inquired of. At the time I repudiated the false rumour openly;--with all the greater readiness, inasmuch as I dispute both the justice of hereditary honour and the wisdom of hereditary legislation; to say less of the "_res angusta domi_" which, in our Mammonite time and clime, obliges money to support rank, even if, as in sundry late cases of raising to the peerage, it does not purchase it.
It is fair also to state as a fact, that when my father for the second time refused his baronetcy, I, as eldest son, gave the casting vote against myself, not to impoverish my four younger brothers,--all now gone before me to the better world,--and that, for reasons mentioned above, I certainly could not take it now. Let this suffice as my reply to some recent sneers and strictures.
As for letters of the alphabet attached to one's name, almost any one nowadays may have any amount of them by paying fees or subscriptions; in particular, America has given me many honorary diplomas. And for the matter of gold medals, who can covet them, when even the creators of baking-powder and sewing-machines are surfeited therewith. My poor Prussian medal looks small in comparison. And then, as for knighthood, that ancient honour has been lately so abused that vanity itself could scarcely desire it, and even modesty now might hesitate in its acceptance.
Albeit I have thus spoken only incidentally and with seeming carelessness about my Prussian medal, I am reminded that it will interest readers if I here extract the Chevalier Bünsen's letter to me on the occasion. It runs thus in its integrity:--
"4 Carlton Terrace, _26th September 1844_.
"My Dear Sir,--I owe you many apologies for not having answered earlier your letter of the 2d of August. The fact is that since that time I have been travelling all over England with the Prince of Prussia. As to your work, I laid it myself before the King, who perused it with great pleasure, when I was at Berlin. I am now charged by His Majesty not only to express to you his thanks for having thought of him in sending him a book replete with so much Christian wisdom and experience, but also to present to you, in his Royal name, the _gold medal_ for science and literature, as a particular sign of regard. The medal will be delivered to you, or a person authorised by you, at the office of the Prussian Legation, any morning from 11 to 1 o'clock, Sunday of course excepted.
"Allow me to avail myself of this opportunity to renew to you my own thanks and the expression of my high regard, and believe me, yours sincerely,
"Bünsen.
"M.F. Tupper, Esq."
Accordingly, I called myself and received the medal from the Chevalier, with whom afterwards I had half-an-hour's talk, chiefly about German history, in which by good fortune I was fairly posted, perhaps with a prescience that the ambassador might allude to it.
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An author, if he be a good man and a clever, worthy of his high vocation, already walks self-ennobled, circled by an aureola of spiritual glory such as no king can give, nor even all-devouring time, "_edax rerum_," can take away. He really gains nothing by a title--no, not even Tennyson; as in the next world, so in this, "his works do follow him," and the "Well done, good and faithful" from this lower world which he has served is but the prelude of his welcome to that higher world wherein he hears the same "good and faithful" from the mouth of his Redeemer.
Inventions.
It may be worth a page if I record here sundry inventions of mine, surely bits of authorship, which I found out for myself but did not patent, though others did. As thus:--
1. A simple and cheap safety horse-shoe,--secured by steel studs inserted into the ordinary soft iron shoes.
2. Glass screw-tops to bottles.
3. Steam-vessels with the wheels inside; in fact, a double boat or catamaran, with the machinery amid-ships.
4. The introduction of coca-leaf to allay hunger, and to be as useful here as in Chili.
5. A pen to carry its own ink.
6. The colouring of photographs on the back.
7. Combined vulcanite and steel sheathing.
There were also some other small matters wherein authorial energy busied itself. But although I had models made of some, and wrote about others, no good results accrued to me. 1. As for the horse-shoes, blacksmiths did _not_ want to lose custom by steel saving the iron. 2. For the glass-stoppers, I had against me all the cork trade, and the wine-merchants too, who recork old wines. 3. The steamers were never tried on a large scale, and models are pronounced deceptive. 4. The coca loses most of its virtues when in a dried state. 5. The pen (I had it made in silver, a long hollow handle ending with a conical point) either grew clogged if the ink was too thick, or emitted blots when too thin. 6. An establishment in Leicester Square has since worked on this idea. 7. I also troubled the Ordnance Office, and had an interview with Sidney Herbert about two more futile inventions! one a composite cannon missile of quoits tied together: another of a thick vulcanite sheathing for ships, over either wood or iron. I have letters on these to and from the office. Briefly, I did not gain fortune as an inventor: though I urged my horse-shoe at least as a valuable thought, and one worth a trial, to save our poor horses on asphalte pavements and in hard frosts. It is a losing game to attempt to force an invention: so many vested interests oppose, and so many are the competitors: moreover, some one always rushes into the pool of Bethesda before you.
I thought also that there might as well be "essence of tea," as well as of coffee; but nothing came of it. Also amongst other of my addled eggs of invention, I may mention that in my chemistry days as a youth I suggested to a scientific neighbour, Dr. Kerrison, that glass might be rendered less fragile by being mixed in the casting with some chemical compound of lead,--much as now has come out in the patent toughened glass. Also we initiated mild experiments about an imitation of volcanic forces in melting pounded stone into moulds,--as recently done by Mr. Lindsay Bucknall with slag:--but unluckily we found that the manufacture of basalt was beyond our small furnace power: I fancied that apparently carved pinnacles and gurgoyles might be cast in stone; and though beyond Dr. Kerrison and myself, perhaps it may still be done by the hot-blast melting up crushed granite.
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Among these small matters of an author's natural inventiveness, I will preserve here a few of the literary class: _e.g._, (1.) I claim to have discovered the etymology of Punch, which Mark Antony Lower in his Patronymica says is "a name the origin of which is in total obscurity." Now, I found it out thus,--when at Haverfordwest in 1858 I saw over the mantel of the hostelry, perhaps there still, a map of the Roman earthwork called locally Punch Castle; and considering how that the neighbouring hills are named Precelly (Procella, storm) as often drawing down the rain-clouds,--that Caer Leon is Castrum Legionis, and that there is a Roman bridge over the little river there still styled Ultra Pontem--I decided at once that Pontii Castellum was the true name for Punch Castle. Of course, Pontius Pilate and Judas appear in the mediæval puppet-plays as Punch and Judy,--while Toby refers to Tobit's dog, in a happy confusion of names and dates. The Pontius of the Castle was Prater of the Second Legion. (2.) Similarly, I found out the origin of "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall," &c., to refer to the death of William the Conqueror (_L'homme qui dompte_), who was ruptured in leaping a burnt wall at Rouen; being very stout,--"he had a great fall," and burst asunder like Iscariot, while "all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't set Humpty Dumpty up again." We must remember that the wise Fools of those days dared not call magnates by their real names,--nor utter facts openly: so accordingly (3) they turned Edward Longshanks into "Daddy Longlegs,"--and (4) sang about King John's raid upon the monks, and the consequent famine to the poor, in "Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie," &c.,--the key to this interpretation being "a dainty dish to set before the king," John being a notorious glutton. My friends at Ledbury Manor, where there is a gallery full of my uncle Arthur's Indian pictures, will remember how I expounded all this to them some years ago. In this connection of literary discovery, let me here give my exposition of the mystic number in Revelations, 666,--which, "_more meo_" I printed thus on a very scarce fly-leaf, as one of my Protestant Ballads not in any book:--
"Here is wisdom--Let him that hath understanding count the number of the Beast--for it is the number of a Man--and his number is six hundred threescore and six."--Rev. xiii. 18.
"Count up the sum of Greek numeral letters 'Kakoi Episkopoi'--bishops all ill; Strangely I note that those mystical fetters Bind in their number this mystery still-- Six hundred threescore and six is the total, Spelling the number and name of a man, Chief of bad bishops and lies sacerdotal, That of all wickedness stands in the van.
"Antichrist! what? can a feeble old creature, Pope though they style him, be rank'd in his place As the Goliath in fashion and feature Warring gigantic with God and His grace? Is he so great--to be dreaded, abhorrèd, Single antagonist, braving God's wrath, Bearing foul Babylon's seal on his forehead, Chosen Triumvir with Sin and with Death?
"Yea; the presumption of priestly succession Make the _all one_ a whole Popedom of Time, So that each head for his hour of possession Wears the tiara of ages of crime: Rome is infallible, Rome is eternal, Rome is unchangeable, cruel, and strong, Leagued with the legions of darkness infernal, Crushing all right and upholding all wrong."
Note.--The value of the Greek letters, as numerals, in the two words above, is as follows:--The three kappas = 60, the three omicrons = 210, the three iotas = 30, the two pis = 160, the one sigma = 200, the one epsilon = 5, and the one alpha = 1; in all exactly making 666. This is "a private interpretation" of the writer's own discovery, not to be found elsewhere, and quite as convincing as Lateinos and the inscription on St. Peter's.
My friend Evelyn contributed to the perfection of the discovery. It was he who suggested Kakoi to Episcopoi, to make up the number. There are also some who say that our eccentric Premier's name sums up ominously to the same three sixes.