MY LIFE

MY LIFE

A RECORD OF EVENTS AND OPINIONS

BY

ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE

AUTHOR OF

“MAN’S PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE,” “THE MALAY ARCHIPELAGO,” “DARWINISM," “GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF ANIMALS,” “NATURAL SELECTION AND TROPICAL NATURE,” ETC.

WITH FACSIMILE LETTERS , ILLUSTRATIONS AND PORTRAITS

TWO VOLUMES

Volume I

LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, ld.

kz P [yi 4wl \

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historical

MEOICAL

PREFACE

The present volumes would not have been written had not the representatives of my English and American publishers assured me that they would probably interest a large number of readers.

I had indeed promised to write some account of my early life for the information of my son and daughter, but this would have been of very limited scope, and would probably not have been printed.

Having never kept a diary, except when abroad, nor preserved any of the earlier letters of my friends, I at first thought that I had no materials for any full record of my life and experiences. But when I set to work in earnest to get together whatever scattered memoranda I could find, the numerous letters I possessed from men of considerable emi¬ nence, dating from my return home in 1862, together with a few of my own returned to me by some of my correspondents, I began to see that I had a fair amount of material, though I was very doubtful how far it would interest any considerable number of readers.

As several of my friends have assured me that a true record of a life, especially if sufficiently full as to

VI

PREFACE

illustrate development of character so far as that is due to environment, would be extremely interesting, I have kept this in mind, perhaps unduly, though I am not at all sure that my own conclusions on this point are correct.

It is difficult to write such a record as mine (extending to the memories of nearly eighty years) without subjecting one’s self to the charge of diffuse¬ ness or egotism, and I cannot hope to escape this altogether. But as my experiences have been certainly varied, if not exciting, I trust that the frequent change of scene and of occupation, together with the diversity of my interests and of the persons with whom I have been associated, may render this story of my life less tedious than might have been anticipated.

My thanks are due to those friends who have assisted me with facts or illustrations, and especially to Mrs. Arthur Waugh, who has been so kind as to make the very full Index to my book.

Old Orchard, Broadstone, September , 1905.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

My Relatives and Ancestors ....

CHAPTER II

Usk: My Earliest Memories . . . .

CHAPTER III

Hertford : The Home of my Boyhood .

CHAPTER IV

Hertford : My School Life . . . .

CHAPTER V

Hertford : My Home Life .

CHAPTER VI

London Workers, Secularists and Owenites

CHAPTER VII

Bedfordshire : Surveying .

CHAPTER VIII

Bedfordshire : Turvey .

CHAPTER IX

PAGE

I

20

30

46

63

79

106

1 18

Bedfordshire : Silsoe and Leighton Buzzard

. 129

CONTENTS

• • • Vlll	CONTENTS
	CHAPTER X PAGE

Kington and Radnorshire . 140

1

Brecknockshire	CHAPTER XI
	CHAPTER XII

Shropshire and Jack Mytton . . 170

Glamorganshire :	CHAPTER XIII Neath . 178
	CHAPTER XIV

First Literary Efforts . 199

CHAPTER XV

Remarks on my Character at Twenty-one . . . .223

CHAPTER XVI

London and Leicester . 229

CHAPTER XVII

Residence at Neath . 241

CHAPTER XVIII

The Journey to the Amazon . 264

“ In Memoriam ”	CHAPTER XIX
	CHAPTER XX

In London, and Voyage to Singapore . 302

CHAPTER XXI

The Malay Archipelago— Singapore, Malacca, Borneo . 337

CONTENTS

IX

CHAPTER XXII

PAGE

Celebes, the Moluccas, New Guinea, Timor, Java, and

Sumatra . 356

CHAPTER XXIII

Life in London, 1862-1871 — Scientific and Literary

Work . 385

CHAPTER XXIV

Home Life — My Friends and Acquaintances — Sir Charles

Lyell . 409

ERRATA.

Vol. I., page 107, line n,for “ Earl Cowper ” read “ Earl de Grey.” Vol. I., page 320, line 18, for “ Juambari ” read “Inambari.”

“My Life.”

ILLUSTRATIONS

Alfred Russel Wallace. 1902 .	Frontispiece
My Father. Age 35 . ( From a miniature)	To face p.	16
My Mother. Age 18 . ( From a miniature)	>>	16
My Birth-place. Kensington Cottage, Usk	>>	20
The Grammar School, Hertford .... {From an engraving in Turner's “ History .” 1830)	>>	49
Lt.anbister, Radnorshire . {Pencil sketch by W. G. Wallace. 1840)	>>	150
“A Lonely Chapel” . (. Pencil sketch by W. G. Wallace. 1 840)	>>	150
The Beacons (Looking south) . {Fro7n a photograph by Mr. Symonds Neale )	5 >	165
Plan of Summit of Beacons (Looking north) .	j)	165
Section through Summits of Beacons .	»	165
Our Eccentric Neighbour at Devynock {From a sketch by W. G. Wallace )		166
“Maen Llia,” Upper Vale of Neath {From a photograph by Miss Neale )	)>	167
“ Whittern ” . {An outdoor sketch by W. G. Wallace. 1842)	})	170
Samuel Osgood . {From a sketch by W. G. Wallace. 1 843)	5)	188
In Derbyshire . {From pencil sketch by A. R. Wallace. 1844)	V	238
A Village near Leicester . {Pencil drawing by A. R. Wallace. 1844)	?>	238
Free Library, Neath . {Designed by A. R. Wallace. 1847)		246
Ysgwd Gladys, Vale of Neath .	V	251
Porth-yr-Ogof, Vale of Neath ....	V	250

ILLUSTRATIONS

• • Xll

“Maen Madoc,” Upper Vale of Neath . {From three photographs by Miss Neale')	To face p. 249
Latin Inscription on “Maen Madoc” .		251
Alfred R. Wallace. 1848 . {From a daguerrotype)	>>	264
Fishes of the Rio Negro : {From drawings by A. R. Wallace)
1. Cynodon Scombroides. Fam. CHARACINIDjE (One-fourth natural size)	5)	285
2. XlPHOSTOMA LATERISTRIGA. FAM. CHARA- CINID^E . (One-third natural size)	5)	u-i OO
3. PlMELODUS HOLOMELAS. FAM. SlLURIDiE (One-third natural size)	)>	286
4. Plecostomus Guacari. Fam. Loricariid^e . (One-third natural size)		286
5. Pterophyllum Scalara. Fam. Cichlid^e . (One-third natural size)	>)	286
6. Cichlosoma Severum. Fam. Cichlid./e . (One-third natural size)		286
H. E. Wallace. Age 8 . {From a pencil sketch by Miss Townsend )		289
Herbert Edward Wallace. Age 20 {From a silhouette)	>>	289
The Rio Negro . {From observations made in the years 1851 and 1852 by Alfred R. Wallace)		320
Enlarged Map of the River Uaupes .		320
Alfred R. Wallace. 1853 . {From a photograph by Mr. Sims )		324
Native House, Wokan, Aru Islands (Where I lived two weeks in March, 1859)	V	357
My Faithful Malay Boy— Ali. 1855-1862 .	>>	383
Map of the Malay Archipelago ....	5>	384
Alfred R. Wallace. 1869 .	5)	385

{From a photograph by Mr. Sims )

MY LIFE

A RECORD OF EVENTS AND OPINIONS

CHAPTER I

MY RELATIVES AND ANCESTORS

Our family had but few relations, and I myself never saw a grandfather or grandmother, nor a true uncle, and but one aunt — my mother’s only sister. The only cousins we ever had, so far as I know, were that sister’s family of eight or nine, all but two of whom emigrated to South Australia in 1838. Of the two who remained in England, the daughter had married Mr. Burningham, and had only one child, a daughter, who has never married. The son, the Rev. Percy Wilson, had a family, none of whom, however, I have ever met, though I have recently had a visit from a son of another cousin, Alger¬ non, with whom I had a considerable correspondence.

My father was practically an only son, an elder boy dying when three months old ; and as his father died when he was a boy of twelve, and his mother when he was an infant, he had not much opportunity of hearing about the family history. I myself left home before I was fourteen, and only rarely visited my parents for short holidays, except once during my recovery from a dangerous illness, so that I also had little opportunity of learning anything of our ancestors on the paternal side, more especially as my father seldom spoke of his youth, and I as a boy felt no interest in his genealogy. Neither did my eldest brother William — with whom I lived

VOL. 1. B

2

MY LIFE

[Chap.

till I was of age— ever speak on the subject. The little I have gleaned was from my sister Fanny and from a recent examination of tombstones and parish registers, and especially from an old Prayer-book (1723) which belonged to my grand¬ father Wallace, who had registered in it the dates of the births and baptisms of his two sons, while my father had continued the register to include his own family of nine children, of whom I am the only survivor.

My paternal grandfather was married at Hanworth, Middlesex, in 1765, and the parish register describes him as William Wallace, of Hanworth, bachelor, and his wife as Elizabeth Dilke, of Laleham, widow. Both are buried in Laleham churchyard, where I presume the former Mrs. Dilke had some family burial rights, as my grandfather’s brother, George Wallace, is also buried there. The register at Han¬ worth contains no record of my father’s birth, but the church itself shows that quite a small colony of Wallaces lived at Hanworth. On a long stone in the floor of the chancel is the name of James Wallace, Esq., who died February 7, 1 778, aged 87 years. He was therefore thirty-five years older than my grandfather, and may have been his uncle. Then follows Admiral Sir James Wallace, who died on March 6, 1803, aged 69 years; and FRANCES SLEIGH, daughter of the above James Wallace, Esq., who died December 12, 1820, aged 69 years.

Also, on a small stone in the floor of the nave, just outside the chancel, we find Mary Wallace, who died December 5, 1812, aged 39 years. She may, therefore, not improbably have been a daughter, or perhaps niece, of the admiral.

Here, then, we ha^e four Wallaces buried in the same church as that in which my grandfather was married, and of which place he was a resident at the time. As Hanworth is a very small place, the total population of the parish being only 750 in 1840, it is hardly probable that my grandfather and the others met there accidentally. I conclude, therefore, that James Wallace was probably an uncle or cousin, and that all were in some way related. As there is no record of

I]

MY RELATIVES AND ANCESTORS

3

my father’s birth at Han worth, it is probable that his parents had left the place and gone to live either at Laleham or in London.

How or why my grandfather came to live at Hanworth (probably with his brother George, who is also buried at Laleham), I can only conjecture from the following facts. Baron Vere of Hanworth is one of the titles of the Dukes of St. Albans since 1750, when Vere Beauclerc, third son of the first Duke, was created Baron, and his son became fifth Duke of St. Albans in 1787. It is to be presumed that the village and a good deal of the land was at that time the property of this family, though they appear to have parted with it not long afterwards, as a Mr. Perkins owned the park and re¬ built the church in 1812. The St. Albans family have a tomb in the church. Now, my father’s name was Thomas Vere Wallace, and it therefore seems probable that his father was a tenant of the first Baron Vere, and in his will he is styled “ Victualler.” He probably kept the inn on the estate.

The only further scrap of information as to my father’s family is derived from a remark he once made in my hearing, that his uncles at Stirling (I think he said) were very tall men. I myself was six feet when I was sixteen, and my eldest brother William was an inch taller, while my brother John and sister Fanny were both rather tall. My father and mother, however, were under rather than over middle height, and the remark about his tall uncles was to account for this abnormal height by showing that it was in the family. As all the Wallaces of Scotland are held to be various branches of the one family of the hero Sir William Wallace, we have always considered ourselves to be descended from that famous stock ; and this view is supported by the fact that our family crest was said to be an ostrich’s head with a horseshoe in its mouth, and this crest belongs, according to Burke’s “ Peerage,” to Craigie-Wallace, one of the branches of the patriot’s family.

Of my mother’s family I have somewhat fuller details, though not going any further back. Her father was John

4

MY LIFE

[Chap.

Greenell, of Hertford, who died there in 1824 at the age of 79. He had two daughters, Martha, who married Thomas Wilson, Esq., a solicitor, and agent for the Portman estate, and Mary Anne, my mother. Their mother died when the two girls were two and three years old. Mr. Greenell married a second time, and his widow lived till 1828, so that my elder brothers and sisters may have known her, but she was only their step-grandmother. Mr. Greenell had died four years earlier. Although he lived to such a comparatively recent period, I have not been able to ascertain what was his busi¬ ness. His father, however, my mother’s grandfather, who died in 1797, aged 80, was for many years an alderman, and twice Mayor of Hertford (in 1773 and 1779), as stated in the records of the borough. He was buried in St. Andrew’s churchyard.

There is also in the same churchyard a family tomb, in which my father and my sister Eliza are buried, but which belonged to a brother of my mother’s grandfather, William Greenell, as shown by the following inscription : —

“ Under this tomb with his beloved wife are deposited the remains of

William Greenell,

A native of this parish, who resided 56 years in St. Marylebone,

In the County of Middlesex,

Where he acquired an ample fortune,

With universal esteem and unblemished reputation.

He died the 17th day of January, 1791, aged 71.”

There is also an inscription to his wife Ann, who died a year earlier, and is described as the “ wife and faithful friend of William Greenell, of Great Portland Street, Marylebone.” As the tomb was not used for any other interment till my sister’s death in 1832, it seems likely that William Greenell had no family, or that if he had they had all removed to other parts of England.

My mother’s mother was a Miss Hudson, whose cousin I remember as owner of the Town-mill in Hertford, and his daughters were my sisters’ playfellows and friends, but this family is now extinct so far as the town is concerned. A sister of my grandfather Greenell married Mr. John

I]

MY RELATIVES AND ANCESTORS

5

Roberts, whose son lived many years at Epsom, and this family is also extinct by the death of an only son in early manhood, and of an only daughter at an advanced age in 1890.

Through the kindness of Mr. J. B. Wohlmann, late head¬ master of the Grammar School, I learn that in the parish registers of births, deaths, and marriages in Hertford, and also in Chauncey’s “ History and Antiquities of Hertford¬ shire ” and in Clutterbuck’s “History of Herts,” there are considerable numbers of Greenells (the name being variously spelt, as Grinell, Greenhill, etc.), going back continuously to 1579* I possess an old seal with a coat-of-arms which belonged to my grandfather, and was believed to be those of the Greenell family — a cross on a shield with seven balls on the cross, and a leopard’s head for a crest. The balls indicate the name, " Grenaille ” being French for shot ; and the family were not improbably French refugees after the massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572.

My mother had several large oil-paintings of the Greenell ancestors which came to her from her sister, Mrs. Wilson, when the Wilsons went to South Australia. Being incon¬ veniently large for our small houses and our frequent re¬ movals, they were given to the Miss Roberts above mentioned, who had a large house at Epsom, and on her death they passed with the house to some relatives of her mother, who had no kinship whatever with the Greenells. One of these portraits was that of the great-uncle William Greenell, of Marylebone, who was an architect, and is represented with the design of some public building which, we were told, he had had the honour of himself showing to the king, George the Second or Third. He is shown as a young man, and I was said to resemble him, not only in features, but in a slight peculiarity in one eyebrow, which was indicated on the portrait. I wished to obtain a photograph of this portrait a few years ago, but the present owner refused to allow it to be copied, having, I fancy, some exaggerated idea of its value as a work of art.

6

MY LIFE

[Chap.

Other friends or relatives of the Greenell family were named Russell and Pugh, and are buried at Hertford. A large gentleman’s mourning ring in memory of Richard Russell, Esq., was given me by Miss Roberts, as, I presume, the person after whom I was given my second name, though probably from an error in the register mine is always spelt with one /, and this peculiarity was impressed upon me in my childhood. Another ring is from Miss Pugh, a friend of my mother’s, and, I believe, one of the Russell family. We also possess a very beautiful pastel miniature of Mrs. Frances Hodges, who was a Miss Russell, and who died in 1809, and is buried at All Saints, Hertford ; but the precise relationship, if any, of the Russells to the Greenells I have not been able to ascertain.

One other point may be here mentioned. There seems to have been some connection by marriage between the Wallace and Greenell families before my father’s marriage, as shown by the fact that his elder brother, who died in infancy, was named William Greenell Wallace, and it seems not unlikely that his mother, Mrs. Dilke, had been a Miss Greenell before her first marriage.

I will now say a few words about my father’s early life, and the various family troubles which, though apparently very disadvantageous to his children, may yet have been on the whole, as is so often the case, benefits in disguise.

My father, Thomas Vere Wallace, was twelve years old when his father died, but his stepmother lived twenty-one years after her husband, and I think it not improbable that she may have resided in Marylebone near William Greenell the architect, and that my father went to school there. The only thing I remember his telling us about his school was that his master dressed in the old fashion, and that he had a best suit entirely of yellow velvet.

When my father left school he was articled to a firm of solicitors— Messrs. Ewington and Chilcot, Bond Court, Wal- brook, I think, as I find this name in an old note-book of my

i] MY RELATIVES AND ANCESTORS 7

father’s — and in 1792, when he had just come of age, he was duly sworn in as an Attorney-at-Law of the Court of King’s Bench. He is described in the deed of admittance as of Lamb’s Conduit Street, where he probably lodged while pur¬ suing his legal studies, it being near the Inns of Court and at the same time almost in the country. He seems, however, never to have practised law, since he came into property which gave him an income of about ^500 a year. This I heard from my sister Fanny.

From this time till he married, fifteen years later, he appears to have lived quite idly, so far as being without any systematic occupation, often going to Bath in the season, where he used to tell us he had met the celebrated Beau Brummell and other characters of the early years of the nineteenth century. An old note-book shows that he was fond of collecting epitaphs from the churchyards of the various places he visited ; among which are Brighton, Lowes¬ toft, Bognor, Ryegate, Godaiming, Sevenoaks, Chichester, etc. Most of these are commonplace reflections on the uncertainty of life or equally commonplace declarations of faith in the orthodox heaven, but here and there are more original efforts. This is one at Chichester on Henry Case, aged 28 —

“ Here lies a brave soldier whom all must applaud,

Much hardship he suffer’d at home and abroad,

But the hardest Engagement he ever was in Was the Battle of Self in the Conquest of Sin.”

In the following, at Woodford, Essex, the village poet has been severely practical : —

“On William Mears, Plumber.

“ Farewell, old friend, for thou art gone To realms above, an honest Man.

A plumber, painter, glazier, was your trade.

And in sodering pipes none could you exceed.

In Water-work you took great delight And had power to force it to any Height,

But in Water-closets great was your skill,

For each branch was subordinate to your will.

8

MY LIFE

[Chap.

But now your Glass is run — your work is done,

And we scarcely can find such another man.

Now mourn ye all, and your great loss deplore,

For this useful man is gone for evermore.”

The following seems to be a heartfelt and worthy tribute to a good man — Mr. Mark Sanderson, of Chepstow, aged 66 : —

“ Loving, belov’d, in all relations true,

Exposed to follies but subdued by few,

Reader, reflect, and copy if you can The social virtues of this honest man.”

One more I will give, as it is at least original, from a tombstone at Lowestoft, Suffolk —

“In memory of Charles Ward,

Who died May, 1770,

Aged 60.

A dutiful Son, a loving Brother, and an affectionate Husband.

This Stone is not erected by Susan his wife. She erected a Stone to John Salter her second Husband, forgetting the affection of Charles Ward her first Husband.”

In some other old MSS. and note-books are a number of quotations in prose and verse, mostly from well-known writers or not of any interest, but among them are a few that seem worth preserving.

The following epitaph by a Dominican friar on Pope Clement the Fourth is remarkable for the ingenuity of the verse, which is equally good when the words and sense are inverted : —

“ Laus tua, non tua fraus, virtus non copia rerum Scandere te fecit, hoc decus eximium,

Pauperibus tua das, nunquam stat janua clausa,

Fundere res quaeris, nec tua multiplicas,

Conditio tua sit stabilis ! non tempore parvo Vivere te faciat, hie Deus omnipotens.”

{The same reversed.')

“ Omnipotens Deus hie faciat te vivere parvo Tempore ! non stabilis sit tua conditio !

Multiplicas tua nec quaeris res fundere clausa

I]

MY RELATIVES AND ANCESTORS

9

Janua stat, nunquam das tua pauperibus,

Eximium decus hoc fecit te scandere rerum Copia, non virtus, fraus tua non tua Laus.”

My friend, Mr. Comerford Casey, has kindly given me the following elegant translation of the above : —

“ Not by intrigue but merit, not by wealth But worth you rose. This is your title, this,

That you bestowed your goods on those in need.

Your hospitable door was never closed :

More eager ever to alleviate

The wants of others than to gather gain.

May your prosperity be lasting, Pope !

May God all-powerful grant you length of days ! ”

{The same read backwards .)

“ May God omnipotent remove you soon From earth ! May your prosperity be short !

You grasp at gain and shun expense : your door, Inhospitable Pope, stands ever shut.

Naught to the poor you give : your power is due To wealth not worth : by intrigue you have risen.”

In faded ink and very old handwriting, probably my grandfather’s, is the following charade, the answer to which is not given, but it is worth preserving for its style : —

“ My first’s the proud but hapless Child of danger,

Parent of highest honours and of woe ;

Too long my second to the brave a stranger Heaps useless laurels on the soldier’s brow.

My whole by dext’rous artifice contrives To gain the prize by which he stands accurst,

And plung’d in infamy when most he thrives,

He gains my second whilst he gives my first.”

I myself believe the answer to be “ cut-purse ” — a Shake¬ spearean word in common use in the eighteenth century, and applying to all the terms of the charade with great accuracy. But few of my friends think this solution good enough.

The following is in my father’s writing, and as it is com¬ paratively easy, I leave the answer to my young reader’s ingenuity : —

10

MY LIFE

[Chap.

“A Riddle.

“ 0 Doctor, Doctor, tell me can you cure Or say what ’tis I ail? I’m feverish sure !

Sometimes I’m very hot, and sometimes warm,

Sometimes again I’m cool, yet feel no harm.

Part bird, part beast, and vegetable part,

Cut, slash’d, and wounded yet I feel no smart.

I have a skin, which though but thin and slender,

Yet proves to me a powerful defender.

When stript of that, so desperate is my case,

I’m oft devoured in half an hour’s space.”

One more enigma in my father’s writing is interesting because founded on a custom common in my youth, but which has now wholly passed away.

“ Kitty, a fair but frozen maid,

Kindled a flame I still deplore,

The hood-wink’d Boy was called in aid So fatal to my suit before.

Tell me, ye fair, this urchin’s name Who still mankind annoys ;

Cupid and he are not the same,

Though each can raise or quench a flame,

And both are hood-wink’d boys.”

My sister told me (and from what followed it was pretty certainly the case) that while he remained a bachelor my father lived up to his income or very nearly so ; and from what we know of his after life this did not imply any extrava¬ gance or luxurious habits, but simply that he enjoyed himself in London and the country, living at the best inns or board¬ ing-houses, and taking part in the amusements of the period, as a fairly well-to-do, middle-class gentleman.

After his marriage in 1807 he lived in Marylebone, and his ordinary household expenses, of course, increased ; and as by 1810 he had two children and the prospect of a large family, he appears to have felt the necessity of increasing his income. Having neglected the law so long, and probably having a distaste for it, he apparently thought it quite hope¬ less to begin to practise as a solicitor, and being entirely devoid of business habits, allowed himself to be persuaded into

i] MY RELATIVES AND ANCESTORS n

undertaking one of the most risky of literary speculations, the starting a new illustrated magazine, devoted apparently to art, antiquities, and general literature. A few numbers were issued, and I remember, as a boy, seeing an elaborate engraving of the Portland Vase, which was one of the illustra¬ tions ; and in those days before photography, when all had to be done by skilled artists and engravers, such illustrations were ruinously expensive for a periodical brought out by a totally unknown man. Another of these illustrations is now before me, and well shows the costly nature of the work. It is on large paper, nj by 8J inches to the outer line of the engraving, the margins having been cut off. It is headed “ Gallery of Antiquities, British Museum, PI. I.,” and contains forty distinct copper-plate engravings of parts of friezes, vases, busts, and full-length figures, of Greek or Roman art, all drawn to scale, and exquisitely engraved in the best style of the period. The plate is stated at the foot to be “ Pub¬ lished for the Proprietor, May 1st, 1811,” four years after my father’s marriage. It shows that the work must have been of large quarto size, in no way of a popular character, and too costly to have any chance of commercial success. After a very few numbers were issued the whole thing came to grief, partly, it was said, by the defalcations of a manager or book¬ keeper, who appropriated the money advanced by my father to pay for work and materials, and partly, no doubt, from the affair being in the hands of persons without the necessary business experience and literary capacity to make it a success.

A few old letters are in my possession, from a Mr. E. A. Rendall to my father, written in 1812 and 1813, relating to the affair. They are dated from Bloomsbury Square, and are exceedingly long and verbose, so that it is hardly possible to extract anything definite from them. They refer chiefly to the mode of winding up the business, and urging that the engraved plates, etc., may be useful in a new undertaking. He proposes, in fact, to commence another magazine with a different name, which he says will cost only sixty guineas a number, and can be published at half a crown. He refers

12

MY LIFE

[Chap.

to the General Chronicle as if that were the title of the recently defunct magazine, and he admits that my father may rightly consider himself an ill-used man, though wholly denying that he, Mr. Rendall, had any part in bringing about his misfortunes.

The result was that my father had to bear almost the whole loss, and this considerably reduced his already too scanty income. Whether he made any other or what efforts to earn money I do not know, but he continued to live in Marylebone till 1 8 1 6, a daughter Emma having been born there in that year ; but soon after he appears to have re¬ moved to St. George’s, Southwark, in which parish my brother John was born in 1 8 1 8. Shortly afterwards his affairs must have been getting worse, and he determined to move with his family of six children to some place where living was as cheap as possible ; and, probably from having introduc¬ tions to some residents there, fixed upon Usk, in Monmouth¬ shire, where a sufficiently roomy cottage with a large garden was obtained, and where I was born on January 8, 1823. In such a remote district rents were no doubt very low and provisions of all kinds very cheap — probably not much more than half London prices. Here, so far as I remember, only one servant was kept, and my father did most of the garden work himself, and provided the family with all the vegetables and most of the fruit which was consumed. Poultry, meat, fish, and all kinds of dairy produce were especially cheap ; my father taught the children himself ; the country around was picturesque and the situation healthy ; and, notwithstand¬ ing his reverse of fortune, I am inclined to think that this was, perhaps, the happiest portion of my father’s life.

In the year 1828 my mother’s mother-in-law, Mrs. Rebecca Greenell, died at Hertford, and I presume it was in conse¬ quence of this event that the family left Usk in that year, and lived at Hertford for the next nine or ten years, re¬ moving to Hoddesdon in 1837 or 1838, where my father died in 1843. These last fifteen years of his life were a period of great trouble and anxiety, his affairs becoming more and

i] MY RELATIVES AND ANCESTORS 13

more involved, till at last the family became almost wholly dependent on my mother’s small marriage settlement of less than a hundred a year, supplemented by his taking a few pupils and by a small salary which he received as librarian to a subscription library. While at Hoddesdon my sister Fanny got up a small boarding-school for young ladies in a roomy, old-fashioned house with a large garden, where my father passed the last few years of his life in comparative freedom from worry about money matters, because these had reached such a pitch that nothing worse was to be expected.

During the latter part of the time we lived at Hertford his troubles were great. He appears to have allowed a solicitor and friend whom he trusted to realize what remained of his property and invest it in ground-rents which would bring in a larger income, and at the same time be perfectly secure. For a few years the income from this property was duly paid him, then it was partially and afterwards wholly stopped. It appeared that the solicitor was himself engaged in a large building speculation in London, which was certain to be ultimately of great value, but which he had not capital enough to complete. He therefore had to raise money, and did so by using funds entrusted to him for other purposes, among them my father’s small capital, in the absolute belief that it was quite as safe an investment as the ground-rents in which it was supposed to be invested. But, unfortunately, other creditors pressed upon him, and he was obliged to sacrifice the whole of the building estate at almost a nominal price. Out of the wreck of the solicitor’s fortune my father obtained a small portion of the money due, with promises to pay all at some future time ; and I recollect his having frequently to go to London by coach to interview the solicitor, and try to get some security for future payment. Among the property thus lost were some legacies from my mother’s relations to her children, and the whole affair got into the hands of the lawyers, from whom small amounts were periodically received which helped to provide us with bare necessaries.

As a result of this series of misfortunes the children who

MY LIFE

[Chaf.

14

reached their majority had little or nothing to start with in earning their own living, except a very ordinary education, and a more or less efficient training. The oldest son, William, was first articled to a firm of surveyors at Kington, Hereford¬ shire, probably during the time we resided at Usk. He then spent a year or two in the office of an architect at Hertford, and finally a year in London with a large builder named Martin then engaged in the erection of King’s College, in order to become familiar with the practical details of building. He may be said, therefore, to have had a really good pro¬ fessional education. At first he got into general land- surveying work, which was at that time rather abundant, owing to the surveys and valuations required for carrying out the Commutation of Tithes Act of 1836, and also for the enclosures of commons which were then very frequent. During the time I was with him we were largely engaged in this kind of work in various parts of England and Wales, as will be seen later on ; but the payment for such work was by no means liberal, and owing to the frequent periods of idle¬ ness between one job and another, it was about as much as my brother could do to earn our living and travelling expenses.

About the time I went to live with my brother my sister Fanny entered a French school at Lille to learn the language and to teach English, and I think she was a year there. On her return she started the school at Hoddesdon, but after my father’s death in 1843, she obtained a position as a teacher in Columbia College, Georgia, U.S.A., then just established under the Bishop of Georgia; and she only returned after my brother William’s death in 1846, when the surviving members of the family in England were reunited, and lived together for two years in a cottage near Neath, in Glamorganshire.

My brother John, at the age of fourteen or fifteen, was apprenticed, first to Mr. Martin and then to Mr. Webster, a London builder living in Albany Street, Regent’s Park, where he became a thorough joiner and carpenter. He afterwards worked for a time for Cubitt and other large builders ; then, when he came to live with me at Neath, he learnt surveying

I]

MY RELATIVES AND ANCESTORS

15

and a little architecture. When I went to the Amazon, he took a small dairy-farm at too high a rent, and not making this pay, in 1849 he emigrated to California at the height of the first rush for gold, joined several mining camps, and was moderately successful. About five years later he came home, married Miss Webster, and returning to California, settled for some years at Columbia, a small mining town in Tuolumne County. He afterwards removed to Stockton, where he practised as surveyor and water engineer till his death in 1895.

My younger brother, Herbert, was first placed with a trunk maker in Regent Street, but not liking this business, after¬ wards came to Neath and entered the pattern-shops of the Neath Ironworks. After his brother John went to California he came out to me at Para, and after a year spent on the Amazon as far as Barra on the Rio Negro, he returned to Para on his way home, where he caught yellow fever, and died in a few days at the early age of twenty-two. He was the only member of our family who had a considerable gift of poesy, and was probably more fitted for a literary career than for any mechanical or professional occupation.

It will thus be seen that we were all of us very much thrown on our own resources to make our way in life ; and as we all, I think, inherited from my father a certain amount of constitutional inactivity or laziness, the necessity for work that our circumstances entailed was certainly beneficial in developing whatever powers were latent in us ; and this is what I implied when I remarked that our father’s loss of his property was perhaps a blessing in disguise.

Of the five daughters, the first-born died when five months old; the next, Eliza, died of consumption at Hertford, aged twenty-two. Two others, Mary Anne and Emma, died at Usk at the ages of eight and six respectively ; while Frances married Mr. Thomas Sims, a photographer, and died in London, aged eighty-one.

On the whole, both the Wallaces and the Greenells seem to have been rather long-lived families when they reached manhood or womanhood. The five ancestral Wallaces of

1 6

MY LIFE

[Chap.

whom I have records had an average age of seventy years, while the five Greenells had an average of seventy-six. Of our own family, my brother John reached seventy-seven, and my sister Fanny eighty-one. My brother William owed his death to a railway journey by night in winter, from London to South Wales in the miserable accommodation then afforded to third-class passengers, which, increased by a damp bed at Bristol, brought on severe congestion of the lungs, from which he never recovered.

I will now give a short account of my father’s appearance and character. In a miniature of himself, painted just before his marriage, when he was thirty-five years old, he is repre¬ sented in a blue coat with gilt buttons, a white waistcoat, a thick white neck-cloth coming up to the chin and showing no collar, and a frilled shirt-front. This was probably his wed- ding-coat, and his usual costume, indicating the transition from the richly coloured semi-court dress of the earlier Georgian period to the plain black of our own day. He is shown as having a ruddy complexion, blue eyes, and care¬ fully dressed and curled hair, which I think must have been powdered, or else in the transition from light brown to pure white. As I remember him from the age of fifty-five onwards, his hair was rather thin and quite white, and he was always clean-shaved as in the miniature. He continued to wear the frilled shirt and thick white neckties, but never wore any outer clothing but black, of the cut we now term a dress- suit, but the coat double-breasted, and the whole rather loose fitting. He also wore large shoes and black cloth gaiters out-of-doors. This dress he never altered, having at first one new suit a year, but latterly I think only one every second or third year ; but he always had one for Sundays and visiting, which was kept in perfect order. The second was for everyday wear ; and when gardening or doing any other work likely to be injurious to his clothes, I think I remember him wearing a thin home-made holland jacket and a gardener’s apron.

In figure he was somewhat below the middle height. He

my FATHER. age 35. (From a miniature .)

[F 0 face p. 16, Vol. I

k

I]

MY RELATIVES AND ANCESTORS

17

was fairly active and fond of gardening and other country occupations, such as brewing beer and making grape or elder wine whenever he had the opportunity ; and during some years at Hertford he rented a garden about half a mile away, in order to grow vegetables and have some wholesome exer¬ cise. He had had some injury to one of his ankles which often continued to trouble him, and gave him a slight lame¬ ness, and in consequence of this he never took very long walks. He was rather precise and regular in his habits, quiet and rather dignified in manners, and somewhat of what is termed a gentleman of the old school. Of course, he always wore a top-hat — a beaver hat as it was then called, before silk hats were invented — the only other headgear being sometimes a straw hat for use in the garden in summer.

In character he was quiet and even-tempered, very religious in the orthodox Church-of-England way, and with such a reliance on Providence as almost to amount to fatalism. He was fond of reading, and through reading clubs or lending libraries we usually had some of the best books of travel or biography in the house. Some of these my father would read to us in the evening, and when Bowdler’s edition of Shakespeare came out he obtained it, and often read a play to the assembled family. In this way I made my first acquaintance with Lear and Cordelia, with Malvolio and Sir Andrew Aguecheek, with the thrilling drama of the Mer¬ chant of Venice , with Hamlet, with Lady Macbeth, and other masterpieces. At one time my father wrote a good deal, and we were told it was a history of Hertford, or at other times some religious work ; but they never got finished, and I do not think they would ever have been worth publishing, his character not leading him to do any such work with suffi¬ cient thoroughness. He dabbled a little in antiquities and in heraldry, but did nothing systematic, and though he had fair mental ability he possessed no special talent, either literary, artistic, or scientific. He sketched a little, but with a very weak and uncertain touch, and among his few scrap- and note-books that have been preserved, there is hardly vol. 1. c

iS

MY LIFE

[Chaf.

anything original except one or two short poems in the usual didactic style of the period, but of no special merit. I will, however, give here the only two of these that my mother had preserved, and which are, no doubt, the best products of his pen. They were evidently both written at Usk.

“ Usk Bridge— A Simile.

“ As on this arched pile I lately strolled And viewed the tide that deep beneath it roll’d,

Eastward impetuous rushed the foamy wave,

Each quick ingulph’d — as mortals in the grave ;

All noisy, harsh, impetuous, was the roar,

Like the world’s bustle — and as quickly o’er.

For when a few short steps I westward made The river here a different scene displayed,

Its noisy roar seemed now a distant hum,

Calm was the surface — and the stream was dumb,

Silent though swift its course — and such I cried The life of man ! In youth swoll’n high with pride,

The passions raging, noisy, foaming, bold,

Like the rough stream a constant tumult hold.

But when his steps turn towards the setting sun And more than half his wayward course is run,

By age, and haply by religion’s aid,

His pride subdued, his passions too allay’d,

With quiet pace — yet swiftly gliding, he Rolls to the ocean of Eternity ! ”

On the Custom observed in Wales of dressing the Graves with Flowers on Palm Sunday.

“ The sounding bell from yon white turret calls The villagers within those sacred walls,

And o’er the solemn precincts of the dead,

Where lifts the church its grey time-honoured head,

That place of rest where parents, children, sleep,

Where heaves the turf in many a mould’ring heap Affection’s hand hath gaily decked the ground And spring’s sweet gifts profusely scatter’d round.

Pleas’d memory still delights to linger here And many a cheek is moistened with a tear.

The wife, the child, the parent, and the friend In soft regret by these sweet trophies bend.

Nor let the selfish sneer, the proud upbraid,

The tribute thus by love, by duty paid,

IJ

MY RELATIVES AND ANCESTORS

19

In nature’s purest sentiments its source,

Here nature speaks with a resistless forc.e.

What though these flow’rets speedily decay Yet they our love, our tenderest thoughts display,

Of friends departed a memorial sweet With which their relics thus we fondly greet,

‘ Our minds revisit those we loved when here,

Tho’ lost to sight, to memory still they’re dear.’ ”

In consequence of this custom the Sunday before Easter was called in Wales “Flowering Sunday,” and was looked forward to by most families as an event of special interest, and by children as quite a festival. It is always a pretty sight when even a grave here and there is nicely adorned with fresh flowers, but when a whole churchyard is so deco¬ rated, at least as regards all but the oldest tombs, it becomes really beautiful. The long procession during the morning of women and children carrying baskets of flowers, and coming in from various directions, often from many miles distant, adds greatly to the interest of the scene. This custom seems to be one of the expressions of the idealism and poetry characteristic of most Celtic peoples.

CHAPTER II

USK : MY EARLIEST MEMORIES

My earliest recollections are of myself as a little boy in short frocks and with bare arms and legs, playing with my brother and sisters, or sitting in my mother’s lap or on a footstool listening to stories, of which some fairy-tales, especially “Jack the Giant-Killer,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” and “Jack and the Beanstalk,” seem to live in my memory ; and of a more realistic kind, “ Sandford and Merton,” which perhaps impressed me even more deeply than any. I clearly remem¬ ber the little house and the room we chiefly occupied, with a French window opening to the garden, a steep wooded bank on the right, the road, river, and distant low hills to the left. The house itself was built close under this bank, which was quite rocky in places, and a little back yard between the kitchen and a steep bit of rock has always been clearly

pictured before me as being the scene of my earliest attempt

/

to try an experiment, and its complete failure. “TLsops Fables ” were often read to me, and that of the fox which was thirsty and found a pitcher with a little water in the bottom but with the opening too small for its mouth to reach it, and of the way in which it made the water rise to the top by dropping pebbles into it, puzzled me greatly. It seemed quite like magic. So one day, finding a jar or bucket standing in the yard, I determined to try and see this wonderful thing. I first with a mug poured some water in till it was about an inch or two deep, and then collected all the small stones I could find and put into the water, but I could not see that the water rose up as I thought it ought to have done. Then

20

[Chap, iij USK : MY EARLIEST MEMORIES

21

I got my little spade and scraped up stones off the gravel path, and with it, of course, some of the soft gravel, but instead of the water rising, it merely turned to mud ; and the more I put in the muddier it became, while there seemed to be even less water than before. At last I became tired and gave it up, and concluded that the story could not be true ; and I am afraid this rather made me disbelieve in experi¬ ments out of story-books.

The river in front of our house was the Usk, a fine stream on which we often saw men fishing in coracles, the ancient form of boat made of strong wicker-work, somewhat the shape of the deeper half of a cockle-shell, and covered with bullock’s hide. Each coracle held one man, and it could be easily carried to and from the river on the owner’s back. In those days of scanty population and abundant fish the river was not preserved, and a number of men got their living, or part of it, by supplying the towns with salmon and trout in their season. It is very interesting that this extremely ancient boat, which has been in use from pre-Roman times, and perhaps even from the Neolithic Age, should continue to be used on several of the Welsh rivers down to the present day. There is probably no other type of vessel now in existence which has remained unchanged for so long a period.

But the chief attraction of the river to us children was the opportunity it afforded us for catching small fish, especially lampreys. A short distance from our house, towards the little village of Llanbadock, the rocky bank came close to the road, and a stone quarry had been opened to obtain stone, both for building and road-mending purposes. Here, occasionally, the rock was blasted, and sometimes we had the fearful delight of watching the explosion from a safe distance, and seeing a cloud of the smaller stones shoot up into the air. At some earlier period very large charges of powder must have been used, hurling great slabs of rock across the road into the river, where they lay, forming convenient piers and standing- places on its margin. Some of these slabs were eight or ten feet long and nearly as wide ; and it was these that formed our favourite fishing-stations, where we sometimes found

22

MY LIFE

[Chap.

shoals of small lampreys, which could be scooped up in basins or old saucepans, and were then fried for our dinner or supper, to our great enjoyment. I think what we caught must have been the young fish, as my recollection of them is that they were like little eels, and not more than six or eight inches long, whereas the full-grown lampreys are from a foot and a half to nearly three feet long.

The lamprey was a favourite dish with our ancestors, and is still considered a luxury in some districts, while in others it is rejected as disagreeable, and the living fish is thought to be even poisonous. This is, no doubt, partly owing to its wriggling, snake-like motions, and its curious sucking mouth, by which it sticks on the hand and frightens people so much that they throw it away instantly. But the Rev. J. G. Wood, in his very interesting “Natural History,” tells us that he has caught thousands of them with his bare hands, and has often had six or seven at once sticking to his hand without causing the slightest pain or leaving the least mark. The quantity of these fish is so great in some rivers that they would supply a large amount of wholesome food were there not such a prejudice against them. Since this period of my early child¬ hood I do not think I have ever eaten or even seen a lamprey.

At this time I must have been about four years old, as we left Usk when I was about five, or less. My brother John was four and a half years older, and I expect was the leader in most of our games and explorations. My two sisters were five and seven years older than John, so that they would have been about thirteen and fifteen, which would appear to me quite grown up ; and this makes me think that my recollec¬ tions must go back to the time when I was just over three, as I quite distinctly remember two, if not three, besides myself standing on the fiat stones and catching lampreys.

There is also another incident in which I remember that my brother and at least one, if not two, of my sisters took part. Among the books read to us was “ Sandford and Merton,” the only part of which that I distinctly remember is when the two boys got lost in a wood after dark, and while Merton could do nothing but cry at the idea of having to

II]

USK : MY EARLIEST MEMORIES

23

pass the night without supper or bed, the resourceful Sand- ford comforted him by promising that he should have both, and set him to gather sticks for a fire, which he lit with a tinder-box and match from his pocket. Then, when a large fire had been made, he produced some potatoes which he had picked up in a field on the way, and which he then roasted beautifully in the embers, and even produced from another pocket a pinch of salt in a screw of paper, so that the two boys had a very good supper. Then, collecting fern and dead leaves for a bed, and I think making a coverlet by taking off their two jackets, which made them quite comfort¬ able while lying as close together as possible, they enjoyed a good night’s sleep till daybreak, when they easily found their way home.

This seemed so delightful that one day John provided himself with the matchbox, salt, and potatoes, and having climbed up the steep bank behind our house, as we often did, and passed over a field or two to the woods beyond, to my great delight a fire was made, and we also feasted on potatoes with salt, as Sandford and Merton had done. Of course we did not complete the imitation of the story by sleeping in the wood, which would have been too bold and dangerous an undertaking for our sisters to join in, even if my brother and I had wished to do so.

Another vivid memory of these early years consists of occasional visits to Usk Castle. Some friends of our family lived in the house to which the ruins of the castle were attached, and we children were occasionally invited to tea, when a chief part of our entertainment was to ascend the old keep by the spiral stair, and walk round the top, which had a low parapet on the outer side, while on the inner we looked down to the bottom of the tower, which descended below the ground-level into an excavation said to have been the dungeon. The top of the walls was about three feet thick, and it was thus quite safe to walk round close to the parapet, though there was no protection on the inner edge but the few herbs and bushes that grew upon it. For many years this

MY LIFE

[Chap.

24

small fragment of a mediaeval castle served to illustrate for me the stories of knights and giants and prisoners immured in dark and dismal dungeons. In our friend’s pretty grounds, where we often had tea, there was a summer-house with a table formed of a brick-built drum, with a circular slate slab on the top, and this peculiar construction seemed to us so appropriate that we named it the little castle, and it still remains a vivid memory.

Our house was less than a quarter of a mile from the old bridge of three arches over the river Usk, by which we reached the town, which was and is entirely confined to the east side of the river, while we lived on the west. The walk there was a very pleasant one, with the clear, swift-flowing river on one side and the narrow fields and wooded steep bank on the other ; while from the bridge itself there was a very beautiful view up the river-valley, of the mountains near Abergavenny, ten miles off, the conical sugar-loaf in the centre, the flat-topped mass of the Blorenge on the left, and the rocky ridge of the Skirrid to the right. These names were so constantly mentioned that they became quite familiar to me, as the beginning of the unknown land of Wales, which I also heard mentioned occasionally.

My eldest brother William was about eighteen when I was four, and was articled to Messrs. Sayce, a firm of land surveyors and estate agents at Kington, in Herefordshire. I have an indistinct recollection of his visiting us occasionally, and of his being looked up to as very clever, and as actually bringing out a little monthly magazine of literature, science, and local events, of which he brought copies to show us. I particularly remember one day his pointing out to the family that the reflection of some hills in the river opposite us was sometimes visible and sometimes not, though on both occa¬ sions in equally calm and clear weather. He explained the cause of this in the magazine, illustrated by diagrams, as being due to changes of a few inches in the height of the water, but this, of course, I did not understand at the time.

I may here mention a psychological peculiarity, no doubt

II]

USK: MY EARLIEST MEMORIES

25

common to a considerable proportion of children of the same age, that, during the whole period of my residence at Usk, I have no clear recollection, and can form no distinct mental image, of either my father or mother, brothers or sisters. I simply recollect that they existed, but my recollection is only a blurred image, and does not extend to any peculiarities of feature, form, or even of dress or habits. It is only at a considerably later period that I begin to recollect them as distinct and well-marked individuals whose form and features could not be mistaken — as, in fact, being my father and mother, my brothers and sisters ; and the house and surround¬ ings in which I can thus first recollect, and in some degree visualize them, enable me to say that I must have been then at least eight years old.

What makes this deficiency the more curious is that, during the very same period at which I cannot recall the personal appearance of the individuals with whom my life was most closely associated, I can recall all the main features and many of the details of my outdoor, and, to a less degree, of my indoor, surroundings. The form and colour of the house, the road, the river close below it, the bridge with the cottage near its foot, the narrow fields between us and the bridge, the steep wooded bank at the back, the stone quarry and the very shape and position of the flat slabs on which we stood fishing, the cottages a little further on the road, the little church of Llanbadock and the stone stile into the churchyard, the fishermen and their coracles, the ruined castle, its winding stair and the delightful walk round its top — all come before me as I recall these earlier days with a dis¬ tinctness strangely contrasted with the vague shadowy figures of the human beings who were my constant associates in all these scenes. In the house I recollect the arrangement of the rooms, the French window to the garden, and the blue- papered room in which I slept, but of the people always with me in those rooms, and even of the daily routine of our life, I remember nothing at all.

I cannot find any clear explanation of these facts in modern psychology, whereas they all become intelligible

2 6

MY LIFE

[Chap.

from the phrenological point of view. The shape of my head shows that I have form and individuality but moder¬ ately developed, while locality , ideality , colour , and comparison are decidedly stronger. Deficiency in the first two caused me to take little notice of the characteristic form and features of the separate individualities which were most familiar to me, and from that very cause attracted less close attention ; while the greater activity of the latter group gave interest and attractiveness to the ever-changing combinations in out¬ door scenery, while the varied opportunities for the exercise of the physical activities, and the delight in the endless variety of nature which are so strong in early childhood, impressed these outdoor scenes and interests upon my memory. And throughout life the same limitations of obser¬ vation and memory have been manifest. In a new locality it takes me a considerable time before I learn to recognize my various new acquaintances individually ; and looking back on the varied scenes amid which I have lived at home and abroad, while numerous objects, localities, and events are recalled with some distinctness, the people I met, or, with few exceptions, those with whom I became fairly well acquainted, seem but blurred and indistinct images.

In the year 1883, when for the first time since my child¬ hood I revisited, with my wife and two children, the scenes of my infancy, I obtained a striking proof of the accuracy of my memory of those scenes and objects. Although the town of Usk had grown considerably on the north side towards the railway, yet, to my surprise and delight, I found that no change whatever had occurred on our side of the river, where, between the bridge and Llanbadock, not a new house had been built, and our cottage and garden, the path up to the front door, and the steep woody bank behind it, remained exactly as pictured in my memory. Even the quarry appeared to have been very little enlarged, and the great flat stones were still in the river exactly as when I had stood upon them with my brother and sisters sixty years before. The one change I noted here was that the well-remembered stone stile into the village churchyard had been replaced by a

II]

USK : MY EARLIEST MEMORIES

27

wooden one. We also visited the ruined castle, ascended the winding stair, and walked round the top wall, and every¬ thing seemed to me exactly as I knew it of old, and neither smaller nor larger than my memory had so long pictured it. The view of the Abergavenny mountains pleased and interested me as in childhood, and the clear-flowing Usk seemed just as broad and as pleasant to the eye as my memory had always pictured it.

There is one other fact connected with my mental nature which may be worth noticing here. This is an often-repeated dream, which occurred at this period of my life, and, so far as I can recall, then only. I seemed first to hear a distant beating or flapping sound, as of some creature with huge wings ; the sound came nearer and nearer, till at last a deep thud was heard and the flapping ceased. I then seemed to feel that the creature was clinging with its wings outspread against the wall of the house just outside my window, and I waited in a kind of fearful expectation that it would come inside. I usually awoke then, and all being still, went to sleep again.

I think I can trace the origin of this dream. At a very early period of these recollections I was shown on the outside of a house, at or near Usk, a hatchment or funeral escutcheon — the coat-of-arms on a black lozenge-shaped ground often put up on the house of a deceased person of rank or of ancient lineage. At the time I only saw an unmeaning jumble of strange dragon-like forms surrounded with black, and I was told that it was there because somebody was dead ; and when this curious dream came I at once associated it with the hatchment, and directly I heard the distant flapping of wings, I used to say to myself (in my dream), “The hatch¬ ment is coming ; I hope it will not get in.” So far as I can remember, this was the only dream — at all events, the only vivid and impressive one — I had while living at Usk, and it came so often, and so exactly in the same form, as to become quite familiar to me. It was, in fact, the form my childish nightmare took at that period, and though I was always afraid of it, it was not nearly so distressing as many of the nightmares I have had since.

28

MY LIFE

[Chap.

I may here add another illustration of how vividly these scenes of my childhood remain in my memory. My father was very fond of Cowper’s poems, and often used to read them aloud to us children. Two of these especially im¬ pressed themselves on my memory. That about the three kittens and the viper, ending with the lines —

il With outstretched hoe I slew him at the door,

And taught him never to come there no more ! ”

was perhaps the favourite, and whenever I heard it or read it in after years, the picture always in my mind was of the door¬ step of the Usk cottage with the kittens and the viper in the attitudes so picturesquely described. The other one was the fable of the sheep, who, on hearing some unaccustomed noise, rushed away to the edge of a pit, and debated whether it would be wise to jump into it to escape the unknown danger, but were persuaded by a wise old bell-wether that this would be foolish, he being represented as saying —

“ What ! jump into the pit your lives to save,

To save your lives leap into the grave ! ”

And as almost the only sheep I had seen close at hand were in the little narrow field between our house and the bridge, I always associated the scene with that field, although there was no pit of any kind in it. So, in after years, when I became fascinated by the poems of Hood, the beautiful and pathetic verses beginning —

“ I remember, I remember,

The house where I was born,

The little window where the sun Came peeping in each morn ;

He never came a wink too soon,

Nor brought too long a day,

But now I often wish the night Had borne my breath away,”

always brought to my mind the memory of the little blue- papered room at Usk, which faced somewhat east of south, and into which, therefore, the sun did "come peeping in each morn at least, during a large portion of the year.

iij USK: MY EARLIEST MEMORIES 29

So far as I can remember or have heard, I had no illness of any kind at Usk, which was no doubt due to the free out¬ door life we lived there, spending a great part of the day in the large garden or by the riverside, or in the fields and woods around us. As will be seen later on, this immunity ceased as soon as we went to live in a town. I remember only one childish accident. The cook was taking away a frying-pan with a good deal of boiling fat in it, which for some reason I wanted to see, and, stretching out my arm over it, I suppose to show that I wanted it lowered down, my fore arm went into the fat and was badly scalded. I mention this only for the purpose of calling attention to the fact that, although I vividly remember the incident, I cannot recall that I suffered the least pain, though I was told afterwards that it was really a severe burn. This, and other facts of a similar kind, make me think that young children suffer far less pain than adults from the same injuries. And this is quite in accordance with the purpose for which pain exists, which is to guard the body against injuries dangerous to life, and giving us the impulse to escape rapidly from any danger. But as infants cannot escape from fatal dangers, and do not even know what things are dangerous and what not, only very slight sensations of pain are at first required, and such only are therefore developed, and these increase in intensity just in proportion as command over the muscles giving the power of rapid automatic movements become possible. The sensa¬ tion of pain does not, probably, reach its maximum till the whole organism is fully developed in the adult individual. This is rather a comforting conclusion in view of the suffer¬ ings of so many infants needlessly massacred through the terrible defects of our vicious social system.

I may add here a note as to my personal appearance at this age. I was exceedingly fair, and my long hair was of a very light flaxen tint, so that I was generally spoken of among the Welsh-speaking country people as the “ little Saxon.”

CHAPTER III

HERTFORD : THE HOME OF MY BOYHOOD

My recollections of our leaving Usk and of the journey to London are very faint, only one incident of it being clearly visualized — the crossing the Severn at the Old Passage in an open ferry-boat. This is so very clear to me, possibly because it was the first time I had ever been in a boat. I remember sitting with my mother and sisters on a seat at one side of the boat, which seemed to me about as wide as a small room, of its leaning over so that we were close to the water, and especially of the great boom of the mainsail, when our course was changed, requiring us all to stoop our heads for it to swing over us. It was a little awful to me, and I think we were all glad when it was over and we were safe on land again. We must have travelled all day by coach from Usk to the Severn, then on to Bristol, then from Bristol to London. I think we must have started very early in the morning and have reached London late in the evening, as I do not remember staying a night on the way, and the stage then travelled at an average speed of ten miles an hour over good roads and in the summer time. The monotony of the journey probably tired me so that it left no impression ; but besides the ferry-boat the only other incident I can clearly recall is our sleeping at an old inn in London, and our breakfast there the next morning. I rather think the inn was the Green Man, or some such name, in Holborn, and the one thing that lives in my memory is that in the morning my mother ordered coffee for breakfast, and said to the waiter, “ Mind and make it good.” The result of which injunction was that it was nearly

30

[CHAP. Ill] HERTFORD: HOME OF MY BOYHOOD 31

black, and so strong that none of the party could drink it, till boiling water was brought for us to dilute it with. I, of course, had only milk and water, with perhaps a few drops of coffee as a special luxury.

Of the next few months of my life I have also but slight recollections, confined to a few isolated facts or incidents. On leaving the inn we went to my aunt’s at Dulwich. Mrs. Wilson was my mother’s only sister, who had married a solicitor, who, besides having a good practice, was agent for Lord Portman’s London property. I remember being much impressed with the large house, and especially with the beautiful grounds, with lawns, trees, and shrubs such as I had never seen before. There were here also a family of cousins, some about my own age, and the few days we stayed were very bright and enjoyable.

I rather think that my father, and perhaps my brother also, had left Usk a few days before us to make arrangements for the family at Hertford, and I think that I was taken to a children’s school at Ongar, in Essex, kept by two ladies — the Misses Marsh. I think it was at this place, because my father had an old friend there, a Mr. Dyer, a clergyman. There were a number of little boys and girls here about my own age or younger, and what I chiefly remember is playing with them in the playground, garden, and house. The play¬ ground was a gravel yard on one side of the house, and there we occasionally found what I here first heard called “ thunder¬ bolts” — worn specimens of belemnites — fossils of the chalk formation. We all believed that they fell down during thunderstorms. One rather exciting incident alone stands out clear in my memories of this place. There was a garden sloping down to a small pond in the centre, with rather steep banks and surrounded by shrubs and flower-beds. This was cut off from the house and yard by a low iron fence with a gate which was usually kept locked, and we were not allowed to play in it. But one day the gardener had left it open, and we all went in, and began pulling and pushing an old- fashioned stone roller. After a little while, as we were pushing it along a path which went down to the pond, it suddenly

MY LIFE

[Chap.

32

began to go quickly down hill, and as we could not stop it, and were afraid of being pulled into the water, we had to let go, and the roller rushed on, splashed into the pond, and dis¬ appeared. We were rather frightened, and were, of course, lectured on the narrow escape we had had from drowning our¬ selves. This is really all I recollect of my first experience of a boarding-school.

My next recollections are of the town of Hertford, where we lived for eight or nine years, and where I had the whole of my school education. We had a small house, the first of a row of four at the beginning of St. Andrew’s Street, and I must have been a little more than six years old when I first remember myself in this house, which had a very narrow yard at the back, and a dwarf wall, perhaps five feet high, between us and the adjoining house. The very first incident I remember, which happened, I think, on the morning after my arrival, was of a boy about my own age looking over this wall, who at once inquired, “ Hullo ! who are you ? ” I told him that I had just come, and what my name was, and we at once made friends. The stand of a water-butt enabled me to get up and sit upon the wall, and by means of some similar convenience he could do the same, and we were thus able to sit side by side and talk, or get over the wall and play together when we liked. Thus began the friendship of George Silk and Alfred Wallace, which, with long intervals of absence at various periods, has continued to this day.

The way in which we were brought together throughout our boyhood is very curious. While at Hertford I lived altogether in five different houses, and in three of these the Silk family lived next door to us, which involved not only each family having to move about the same time, but also that two houses adjoining each other should on each occasion have been vacant together, and that they should have been of the size required by each, which after the first was not the same, the Silk family being much the largest. When we moved to our second house, George’s grandmother had an old house opposite to us, and we were thus again brought

Hi] HERTFORD : HOME OF MY BOYHOOD 33

together. Besides this, for the greater part of the time we were schoolfellows at the Hertford Grammar School ; and it is certainly a curious coincidence that this the earliest acquaint¬ ance of my childhood, my playmate and schoolfellow, should be the only one of all my schoolfellows who were also friends, that I have ever seen again or that, so far as I know, are now alive.

The old town of Hertford, in which I passed the most impressionable years of my life, and where I first obtained a rudimentary acquaintance with my fellow-creatures and with nature, is, perhaps, on the whole, one of the most pleasantly situated county towns in England, although as a boy I did not know this, and did not appreciate the many advantages I enjoyed. Among its most delightful features are numerous rivers and streams in the immediately surrounding country, affording pleasant walks through flowery meads, many pic¬ turesque old mills, and a great variety of landscape. The river Lea, coming from the south-west, passes through the middle of the town, where the old town mill was situated in an open space called the Wash, which was no doubt liable to be flooded in early times. The miller was reputed to be one of the richest men in the town, yet we often saw him stand¬ ing at the mill doors in his dusty miller’s clothes as we passed on our way from school. He was a cousin of my mother’s by marriage, and we children sometimes went to tea at his house, and then, as a great treat, were shown all over the mill with all its strange wheels and whirling millstones, its queer little pockets, on moving leather belts, carrying the wheat up to the stones in a continual stream, the ever-rattling sieves and cloths which sifted out the bran and pollard, and the weird peep into the dark cavern where the great dripping water-wheel went on its perpetual round. Where the river passed under the bridge close by, we could clamber up and look over the parapet into the deep, clear water rushing over a dam, and also see where the stream that turned the wheel passed swiftly under a low arch, and this was a sight that never palled upon us, so that almost every fine day, as we

VOL. I. D

MY LIFE

[Chap.

34

passed this way home from school, we gave a few moments to gazing into this dark, deep water, almost always in shadow owing to high buildings on both sides of it, but affording a pleasant peep to fields and gardens beyond.

After passing under the bridge, the river flowed on among houses and workshops, and was again dammed up to supply another mill about half a mile away, and to form the river Lea navigation. There was also, in my time, a small lateral stream carried off to pump water to the top of a wooden water-tower to supply part of the town, so that about half a mile from the middle of the town there were four distinct streams side by side, though not parallel, which I remember used to puzzle me very much as to their origin. In addition to these there was another quite distinct river, the Beane, which came from the north-west till it was only a furlong from the Lea at the town bridge, when it turned back to the north-east, and entered that river half a mile lower down, enclosing between the two streams the fine open space of about thirty acres called Hartham, which was sufficiently elevated to be always dry, and which was at once a common grazing field and general cricket and playground, the turf being very smooth and good, and seldom requiring to be rolled. The county cricket matches were played here, and it was considered to be a first-rate ground.

Here, too, in the river Beane, which had a gentle stream with alternate deep holes and sandy shallows, suitable for boys of all ages, was our favourite bathing-place, where, not long after our coming to Hertford, I was very nearly being drowned. It was at a place called Willowhole, where those who could swim a little would jump in, and in a few strokes in any direction reach shallower water. I and my brother John and several schoolfellows were going to bathe, and I, who had undressed first, was standing on the brink, when one of my companions gave me a sudden push from behind, and I tumbled in and went under water immediately. Coming to the surface half dazed, I splashed about and went under again, when my brother, who was four and a half years older, jumped in and pulled me out. I do not think I had

Hi] HERTFORD: HOME OF MY BOYHOOD 35

actually lost consciousness, but I had swallowed a good deal of water, and I lay on the grass for some time before I got strength to dress, and by the time I got home I was quite well. It was, I think, the first year, if not the first time, I had ever bathed, and if my brother had not been there it is quite possible that I might have been drowned. This gave me such a fright that though I often bathed here afterwards, I always went in where the water was shallow, and did not learn to swim, however little, till several years later.

Few small towns (it had then less than six thousand in¬ habitants) have a more agreeable public playground than Hartham, with the level valley of the Lea stretching away to Ware on the east, the town itself just over the river on the south, while on the north, just across the river Beane, was a steep slope covered with scattered fir trees, and called the Warren, at the foot of which was a footpath leading to the picturesque little village and old church of Bengeo. This path along the Warren was a favourite walk of mine either alone or with a playmate, where we could scramble up the bank, climb up some of the old trees, or sit comfortably upon one or two old stumpy yews, which had such twisted branches and stiff spreading foliage as to form delightful seats. This place was very little frequented, and our wanderings in it were never interfered with.

In the other direction the river Beane, as already stated, flows down a picturesque valley from the north, but I do not remember walking much beyond Bengeo. A little way beyond Hartham, toward Ware, another small stream, the Rib, came from the north, with a mill-stream along the west side of Ware Park, but this also was quite unexplored by us. Just out of the town, to the south-west, the river Mimram joined the Lea. This came through the village of Herting- fordbury, about a mile off, and then through the fine park of Panshanger, about two miles long and containing about a thousand acres. This park was open to the public, and we occasionally went there to visit the great oak tree which was, I believe, one of the finest grown large oaks in the kingdom. It was one of the sights of the district.

36

MY LIFE

[Chap.

About three-quarters of a mile from the centre of the town, going along West Street, was a mill called Horn’s Mill, which was a great attraction to me. It was an old-fashioned mill for grinding linseed, expressing the oil, and making oil-cake. The mill stood close by the roadside, and there were small low windows always open, through which we could look in at the fascinating processes as long as we liked. First, there were two great vertical millstones of very smooth red granite, which shone beautifully from the oil of the ground seeds. These were fixed on each side of a massive vertical wooden axis on a central iron axle, revolving slowly and silently, and crushing the linseed into a fine oily meal. A curved fender or scoop continually swept the meal back under the rollers with an excentric motion, which was itself altogether new to us, and very fascinating ; and, combined with the two-fold motion of the huge revolving stones, and their beautiful glossy surfaces, had an irresistible attraction for us which never palled.

But this was only one part of this delightful kind of peep- show. A little way off an equally novel and still more com¬ plex operation was always going on, accompanied by strange noises always dear to the young. Looking in at other windows we saw numbers of workmen engaged in strange operations amid strange machinery, with its hum and whirl and re¬ verberating noises. Close before us were long erections like shop counters, but not quite so high. Immediately above these, at a height of perhaps ten or twelve feet, a long cylindrical beam was continually revolving with fixed beams on each side of it, both higher up and lower down. At regular intervals along the counter were great upright wooden stampers shod with iron at the bottom. When not in action these were supported so that they were about two feet above the counter, and just below them was a square hole. As we looked on a man would take a small canvas sack about two feet long, fill it quite full of linseed meal from a large box by his side, place this bag in a strong cover of a kind of floorcloth with flaps going over the top and down each side. The sack of meal thus prepared would be then dropped into the hole, which it entered easily. Then a thin board of hard wood, tapered to

ill] HERTFORD: HOME OF MY BOYHOOD 3 7

the lower edge, was pushed down on one side of it, and out¬ side this again another wedge-shaped piece was inserted. The top of this was now just under the iron cap of the heavy- pile or rammer, and on pulling a rope, this was freed and dropped on the top of the wedge, which it forced halfway down. In a few seconds it was raised up again, and fell upon the wedge, driving it in a good deal further, and the third blow would send it down level with the top of the counter. Then when the rammer rose up, another rope was pulled, and it remained suspended ; a turn of a handle enabled the first wedge to be drawn out and a much thicker one inserted, when, after two or three blows, this became so hard to drive that the rammer falling upon it made a dull sound and rebounded a little ; and as the process went on the blows became sharper, and the pile would rebound two or three times like a billiard ball rebounding again and again from a stone floor, but in more rapid succession. This went on for hours, and when the process was finished, the meal in the sack had become so highly compressed that when taken out it was found to be converted into a compact oilcake. In this mill there were, I think, three or four counters parallel to each other, and on each, perhaps, six or eight stamps, and when all these were at work together, but rebounding at different rates and with different intensities of sound, the whole effect was very strange, and the din and reverberation almost deafening, but still at times somewhat musical. During this squeezing process the oil ran off below through suitable apertures, but was never seen by us, I believe these old stamping-mills are now all replaced by hydraulic presses, which get more oil out and leave the cake harder, but the process would be almost silent and far less picturesque.

A very interesting and beautiful object connected with the water-supply of the neighbourhood was the New River Head or Chadwell Spring, the source of the original New River brought to London by Sir Hugh Myddleton. It is about two-thirds of the distance from Hertford to Ware, and is situated in a level meadow not far from the high-road, and

MY LIFE

[Chap.

38

about a quarter of a mile from the main river. As I knew it, it was a circular pond nearly a hundred feet in diameter, filled with the most crystal clear water, and very deep in the centre, where the springs were continually bubbling upward, keeping up a good stream which supplied a considerable part of the water in the New River. But its chief beauty was, that the centre was filled with great flocculent masses of green con- fervae, while the water in the centre appeared to have a blue tint, producing exquisite shades of blue and green in ever- varying gradations, which were exceedingly beautiful. In fact only once have I seen another spring which equalled it in beauty, in the little island of Semau, near Timor, and that was by no means equal in colour-effects, but only in the depth and purity of the water and the fine rock-basins that contained it. I am informed that now this beautiful Chadwell Spring has been entirely destroyed by the boring of deep wells in the neighbourhood, which have drawn off the springs that supplied it, and that it is now little more than a mud- hole, the whole New River supply being drawn from the river Lea or pumped up from deep wells near Ware. Thus does our morbid civilization destroy the most beautiful works of nature. This spring was, I believe, unequalled in the whole kingdom for simple beauty.

While the country to the north and west of the town was characterized by its numerous streams, mills, and rich meadows, that to the east and south was much higher and drier, rising gradually in low undulations to about four hundred feet and upwards at from four to five miles away. This district was all gravelly with a chalk subsoil, the chalk in many places coming up to the surface, while in others it was only reached at a depth of ten or twenty feet. In the total absence of any instruction in nature-knowledge at that period, my impression, and that of most other boys, no doubt, was, that in some way chalk was the natural and universal substance of which the earth consisted, the only question being how deep you must go to reach it. All this country was thickly dotted with woods and coppices, with numbers of parks and old manor

Hi] HERTFORD: HOME OF MY BOYHOOD 39

houses ; and as there were abundance of lanes and footpaths, it offered greater attractions to us boys than the more culti¬ vated districts to the north and west. Walking along the London Road, in about a mile and a half we reached Hertford Heath at a height of three hundred feet above the sea, and half a mile further was Haileybury College, then a training college for the East India Company, now a public school. All round here the country was woody and picturesque ; but our favourite walk, and that of the Grammar School boys, on fine half-holidays in summer, was to what we called the racing- field, a spot about two miles and a half south of the town. As this walk is typical of many of the best features of this part of the town’s surroundings, it may be briefly described.

From the south-west corner of All Saints’ Churchyard was a broad pathway bounded by hedges, called Queen’s-bench Walk, near the top of which was a seat, whence there was a nice view over the town, and the story was that the seat had been put there for Queen Elizabeth, who admired the view. This led into a lane, and further on to an open footpath across a field to Dunkirk’s Farm. In this field, about fifty yards to the left, was a spring of pure water carefully bricked round, and as springs were not by any means common, we seldom went this way without running down to it to take a drink of water and admire its purity and upward bubbling out of the earth. At Dunkirk’s Farm we crossed the end of Morgan’s Walk, a fine straight avenue of lofty elms (I think) about three-quarters of a mile long, terminating in a rather large house — Brickenden Bury. In after years, when I became acquainted with Hood as a serious writer, the scene of that wonderful poem which begins with the verse —

“’Twas in a shady Avenue,

Where lofty Elms abound —

And from a tree There came to me A sad and solemn sound,

That sometimes murmur’d overhead And sometimes underground ” —

was always associated with this Morgan’s Walk of my boyhood, an association partly due to the fact that sometimes

MY LIFE

40

[Chap.

a woodman was at work felling trees not far off, and this recalled another verse —

“ The Woodman’s heart is in his work,

His axe is sharp and good :

With sturdy arm and steady aim He smites the gaping wood ;

From distant rocks His lusty knocks Re-echo many a rood.”

Leaving the avenue we crossed a large field, descending into a lane in a hollow, whence a little further on a path led us along the outside of Bayfordbury Park, the old oak palings of which were well covered with lichen and ivy. Following this path about a mile further by hedges and little brooks and small woods, we came out into a sloping grass field of irregular shape and almost entirely surrounded by woods, while little streamlets, usually with high banks on one side and low banks or gravel heaps on the other, offered the most enticing places for jumping and for playing the exciting game of follow-my-leader. This we called the racing-field ; why I never heard, as it was certainly not suited for horse-racing, though admirably adapted for boyish games and sports. When the boarders of the Grammar School came here, usually accompanied by some of the day-scholars and in charge of one of the masters, or ushers as we then called them, this was the end of our walk, and we were all free to amuse ourselves as we liked till the hour fixed for our return. We then broke up into parties. Some lay down on the grass to rest or to read, some wandered into the woods bird-nesting, some played leap-frog or other games. Here again in after years when I read “ The Dream of Eugene Aram,” I always associated it with our games in the racing-field, although the place described was totally unlike it —

“ Like sportive deer they coursed about,

And shouted as they ran —

Turning to mirth all things of earth,

As only boyhood can ;

But the Usher sat remote from all,

A melancholy man.”

Hi] HERTFORD: HOME OF MY BOYHOOD 41

Our ushers were not melancholy men, but sometimes one of them would bring a book to read while we played, and this was sufficient to carry out the resemblance to the poem, and summon up to my imagination this charming spot whenever I read it.

In one corner of this field there was a rather deep circular hole, from which chalk was brought up as a top-dressing for some of the poor gravel soil, and this was one of the instances which led me to the belief that chalk was always somewhere underground. In this field I was once told that a wonderful plant, the bee-orchis, was sometimes found, and my father used to talk of it as a great rarity. Once, during the time we lived at Hertford, some one showed us the flower, and I remember looking at it as something so strange as to be almost uncanny, but as I never found one myself I did not think more of it.

Just over the boundary wall of our school playground, and continuing along the side of the churchyard, and then across the fields for a long distance southward, was a dry, irregular ditch or channel cut in the gravel by flood-water after heavy rains. In places this would be very deep — six or eight feet or more, in others shallow, and in some places there were vertical drops where regular little waterfalls occurred after storms. The whole appearance of this channel was very strange and mysterious, as there was nothing like it anywhere else. We called it the Gulps or Gulphs, but it is now marked on the ordnance maps as Hag’s Dell, showing that it was looked upon as a mysterious phenomenon by those who gave it the name. This also was a kind of play¬ ground, and we sometimes spent a whole afternoon wandering about it. In the neighbourhood of Morgan’s Walk, however, there were many interesting spots, among others, some old hedgerows which had been so undermined in a chalky slope as to form complete overhanging caves, one of which I and two of my companions made our own, and stored it with a few necessaries, such as bits of candle, a tinder-box with flint- steel and matches, and a few provisions, such as potatoes, which we could roast in our fire, and play at being brigands.

42

MY LIFE

[Chap.

It was in a rather out-of-the-way spot, and quite concealed from ordinary passers-by, and during all the time that we frequented it, we were never disturbed by visitors.

Among the interesting places in the town itself were the castle and the Bluecoat School. The castle was a modern building in the castellated style, but it stood in spacious grounds of about four acres near the middle of the town, with the river flowing through a part of it, and with about two hundred yards of the old defensive wall still remaining in a very complete state. During a short period the family of some of our schoolfellows lived in the castle, and we occasionally went there to play with them, and en¬ joyed scrambling along the top of the old wall, which, having a parapet still left, was quite practicable and safe. The moat which formerly surrounded it, and was connected with the river, had been long filled up and formed into gardens, which sloped down from the outside of the wall. The original castle was built by Edward the Elder to protect the town against the Danes.

The Bluecoat School was a branch of the celebrated school of the same name, or more properly, Christ’s Hospital, in London. It stood at the upper end of Fore Street, opposite where the London Road branched off. Enclosed by lofty iron railings and gates was an oblong playground, about four hundred feet long by a hundred feet wide, bounded on each side by low buildings, forming offices, schoolrooms, and dormitories, while at the end were the large dining-hall and schoolrooms, and in front, near the great gates, the master’s residence. On the gate pillars stood two nearly life-size figures of boys in the costume of the school — long blue coat and yellow petticoat, with breeches and yellow stockings, a dress which was quite familiar to us. Occasionally we went to see the boys dine in the grand dining-hall, where the old-world style of everything was of great interest. At the ringing of an outside bell the boys, 250 in all, came in, and seated them¬ selves at the long rows of tables. Then one of the older boys mounted a sort of pulpit and read a long grace, followed by a hymn, in which the boys joined. Then the serving began,

Hi] HERTFORD: HOME OF MY BOYHOOD 43

a number of the boys taking this duty by turns. Hot meat and vegetables were served on flat wooden platters instead of plates, and I used to pity the boys for not having any place for gravy, which to me was (and still is) the chief luxury of hot meat. What was still more amusing to us was that in place of mugs there were little wooden flagons with wooden hoops and handles, in which they had, I think, beer. If I remember rightly, during the meal the boy in the pulpit read a chapter from the Bible, and at the end there was another grace and hymn. All was carried out with great regularity and very little noise, and the crowds of brightly clad boys, who had red leather belts over their blue coats, and whose yellow stockings were well visible, together with the fine, lofty hall, had a very pleasing effect.

Among the other features of interest in the town were All Saints’ Church, adjoining the Grammar School. I used to wonder at what seemed to me a curious and rather dangerous plan of groups of four very slender pillars instead of one large one to support the arches on each side of the nave. I did not know then that these were characteristic of the Early English Gothic, but are not common in our churches. Another feature of this church was its peal of ten bells, which were not only uncommonly numerous, but were of very fine tones, so that when they were well rung, as they frequently were, they produced an exceedingly musical effect, which I have never heard equalled since. The church has since been burnt down and rebuilt, but whether the bells were saved I do not know.

Very conspicuous was the square, ugly brick Town Hall and Market Place at the bottom of Fore Street. This had, however, a large clock-face projecting outwards and sup¬ ported by three or four pieces of wood which seemed to hold it quite detached from the building, and I used to wonder whether it was a huge watch with all the works inside it. What made this more curious (to me) was that it struck the hours and quarters on very loud and sweet-toned bells, which again I have never since heard surpassed. In this hall were the law-courts, where the Assizes were held, and to which I

MY LIFE

[Chap.

44

sometimes gained admittance, and heard a trial of some poor sheep-stealers, who in those days were liable to transportation for life, in order to protect the landed interest, which then ruled the country.

The elections for members of Parliament were at that time scenes of considerable show and excitement, and the members elected had to undergo the ceremony of being chaired, which consisted in being carried round the town on their supporters’ shoulders seated in a chair highly decorated with rosettes and coloured ribbons. I well remember the election which took place after the Reform Bill of 1832 was passed, when Thomas Slingsby Duncombe was the Radical member, and was returned at the head of the poll. I saw him being chaired, and when he had been brought back to the door of his hotel, the chair was overturned, as was then the custom, and he had to jump out into his friends’ arms to avoid an awkward fall. There was then a scramble for the ribbons and chair-coverings, which were carried away as trophies.

To celebrate the great national event — the passing of the Reform Bill — a banquet was given in the main street to all who chose to attend. It was summer time, and fine weather, and we went to see the feast, which was enjoyed by almost all the poorer people of the town on rows of tables which filled the street for a long distance.

In connection with the game of cricket, I may mention that in those days the players, whether professional or amateur, had none of the paraphernalia of padded leggings and gaunt¬ lets now worn ; while a suit of white duck, with an ordinary white or black top-hat, was the orthodox costume. This was the time when the practice of overhand bowling was just beginning, and there was much controversy as to whether or no it should be allowed. I once saw tried a curious bowling machine which it was thought might advantageously take the place of the human bowler. It was called a catapult, and was on the principle of the old instrument used for throwing stones into besieged cities. It consisted of a strong wooden frame about three feet high. On a cross-bar at top was a place for

ill] HERTFORD: HOME OF MY BOYHOOD 45

the ball, and this was struck by a knob on an upright arm, which was driven on to it by a powerful spring, something in the manner of a spring-trap. The upright arm was pulled back and held by a catch, which was released by pulling a cord. By slight alterations in the position of the ball and the force of the spring, the ball could be made to pitch on any spot desired, and could thus be slightly changed each time, as is the case with a good bowler. It seemed to answer very well, and it was thought that it might be used for practice where good bowlers were not available, but it never came into general use, and is now, perhaps, wholly forgotten.

CHAPTER IV

HERTFORD : MY SCHOOL LIFE

My recollections of life at our first house in St. Andrew’s Street are very scanty. My father had about half a dozen small boys to teach, and we used to play together ; but I think that when we had been there about a year or two, I went to the Grammar School with my brother John, and was at once set upon that most wearisome of tasks, the Latin grammar. It was soon after this that I had the first of the three serious illnesses which at different periods brought me within a few hours of death in the opinion of those around me. I know that it must have been after I went to the school by the way the illness began. We had school before breakfast, from half-past six to eight in summer, and as we had nearly half a mile to walk, it was necessary to be out of bed at six. One morning I got up and dressed as usual, went down the two flights of stairs, but when I got to the bottom, I suddenly felt so weak and faint and curiously ill all over that I could go no further, so I had to lie down on the bottom step, and was found there shortly afterwards by the servant coming down to light the fire. That was the beginning of a severe attack of scarlet fever, and I remember little more but heat and horrid dreams till one evening when all the family came to look at me, and I had something given me to drink all night. I was told afterwards that the doctor said this was the crisis, that I was to have port wine in tea-spoonfuls at short intervals, and that if I was not dead before morning I might recover.

46

[Chap. IV] HERTFORD: MY SCHOOL LIFE 47

For some weeks after this I lived a very enjoyable life in bed, having tea and toast, puddings, grapes, and other luxuries till I was well again. Then, before going back to Latin grammar and other studies of the period, a little incident or interlude occurred which I am unable to place at any other period. How it came about I do not at all remember, but a gentleman farmer from Norfolk must have come to see us about some business, possibly connected with my sister and her desired occupation as a governess, and seeing me, and perhaps hearing of my recent illness, offered to take me home with him for a visit to play with his boy of about my age, and to go to Cromer, where his wife, with her sister and son, were going for change of air. As it was thought that the change would do me good, and I was delighted at the idea of going to such a nice seaside place as Cromer, his offer was kindly accepted. As it happened we did not go to Cromer, but my visit was, so far as I remember, an enjoyable one. We went by coach to Ely, where we stayed the night at a large inn almost joining the cathedral. No doubt we had had dinner on the way, and I had tea on our arrival, but my host, whose name I cannot remember, dined with a large party of gentlemen — probably a farmers’ dinner — about six o’clock, and he told me to walk about and see the shops or wait in the hall, and I should come in for dessert. So for more than an hour I wandered up and down the street near the hotel and past the great entrance to the cathedral. At last a servant came and called me in, and my friend bade me sit beside him, and introduced me to the company as a real Wallace — “ Scots wae hae wi’ Wallace bled,” he added, I suppose to show what he meant. Then I had fruit of many kinds, including fine grapes, and a glass of wine, and after an hour more went to bed.

In the morning, after breakfast, we started in a chaise which had been sent from my friend’s home overnight to meet him, and we had a long drive to the farm, where we arrived early in the afternoon, and found dinner ready for us. There were, I think, two ladies, my friend’s wife and her sister, a boy about my own age, and I think the lady’s

MY LIFE

[Chap.

brother, who had come some miles on a pony to meet us, and rode back alongside of the carriage.

Of this visit I remember very little except one or two incidents. On the very day of our arrival, I think about tea-

time, soon after I and my boy-friend had come in, Mrs. -

became very excited, and then went off into violent hysterics, and was obliged to be taken upstairs to bed. Whether this had anything to do with putting off the visit to Cromer, or some other domestic affairs, I never heard. However, next day all was right again, and I was treated very kindly, as if to show that I had nothing to do with it. I recall the house as a rather long white building with green outside shutters, with a lawn and flower-beds in front, and a kitchen garden and large orchard on one side. In the fields around were some fine trees, and I think there was a pond or a stream near the house and a small village not far off. I and my companion played and roamed about where we liked, but what most struck me was the fruit-gathering in the large orchard, which began the very day after our arrival. I had never seen so many apples before. They were piled in great heaps on the ground, while men and boys went up the trees with ladders and gathered those from the higher branches into baskets. Of course, my little friend knew the best trees, and we ate as many as we liked. Sometimes we went out for drives, or were taken to visit at houses near, or visitors came to tea; but how long I stayed there, or how I returned, I have no recollection, but the main features of the visit as here related have always remained clearly impressed upon my memory.

It may be well here to give a brief outline of my school life at Hertford and of the schoolmaster who taught me. The school itself was built in the year 1617, when the school was founded. It consisted of one large room, with a large square window at each end and two on each side. In the centre of one side was a roomy porch, and opposite to it a projecting portion, with a staircase leading to two rooms above the schoolroom and partly in the roof. The school¬ room was fairly lofty. Along the sides were what were termed

IHH 1 1 p|

IV]

HERTFORD: MY SCHOOL LIFE

49

porches — desks and seats against the wall with very solid, roughly carved ends of black oak, much cut with the initials or names of many generations of schoolboys. In the central space were two rows of desks with forms on each side. There was a master’s desk at each end, and two others on the sides, and two open fireplaces equidistant from the ends. Every boy had a desk the sloping lid of which opened, to keep his school-books and anything else he liked, and between each pair of desks at the top was a leaden ink-pot, sunk in a hole in the middle rail of the desks. As we went to school even in winter at seven in the morning, and three days a week remained till five in the afternoon, some artificial light¬ ing was necessary, and this was effected by the primitive method of every boy bringing his own candles or candle-ends with any kind of candlestick he liked. An empty ink-bottle was often used, or the candle was even stuck on to the desk with a little of its own grease. So that it enabled us to learn our lessons or do our sums, no one seemed to trouble about how we provided the light.

The school was reached by a path along the bottom of All Saints’ Churchyard, and entered by a door in the wall which entirely surrounded the school playground and master’s garden. Over this door was a Latin motto —

“ Inter umbras Academi studere delectat.”

This was appropriate, as the grounds were surrounded by trees, and at the north end of the main playground there were two very fine old elms, shown in the old engraving of the school here reproduced.

The headmaster in my time was a rather irascible little man named Clement Henry Crutwell. He limped very much owing to one leg being shorter than the other, and the foot I think permanently drawn up at the instep, but he was very active, used no stick, and could walk along as quickly and apparently as easily as most people. He was usually called by the boys Old Cruttle or Old Clemmy, and when he over¬ heard these names used, which was not often, he would give us a short lecture on the impropriety and impoliteness of vol. i. ' • E

^ ■

50

MY LIFE

[Chap.

miscalling those in authority over us. He was a good master, inasmuch as he kept order in the school, and carried on the work of teaching about eighty boys by four masters, all in one room, with great regularity and with no marked incon¬ venience. Whatever might be the noise and games going on when he was absent, the moment his step was heard in the porch silence and order at once reigned.

Flogging with a cane was not uncommon for more serious offences, while for slighter ones he would box the ears pretty severely. If a boy did not obey his orders instantly, or repeated his offence soon afterwards, however trifling it might be, such as speaking to another boy or pinching him sur¬ reptitiously, he often, without another word, came down from his desk and gave the offender a resounding box on the ear. On one occasion I well remember his coming down to a rather small boy, giving him a slap on one side of his head which knocked him down flat on the seat, and when he slowly rose up, giving him another, which knocked him down on the other side. Caning was performed in the usual old-fashioned way by laying the boy across the desk, his hands being held on one side and his feet on the other, while the master, pulling the boy’s trousers tight with one hand, laid on the cane with great vigour with the other. Mr. Crutwell always caned the boys himself, but the other masters administered minor punish¬ ments, such as slight ear-boxes, slapping the palm with a flat ruler, or rapping the knuckles with a round one. These punishments were usually deserved, though not always. A stupid boy, or one who had a bad verbal memory, was often punished for what was called invincible idleness when it was really congenital incapacity to learn what he took no interest in, or what often had no meaning for him. When the usual extra tasks or impositions failed with such a boy he was flogged, but I cannot remember whether in such cases his conduct was improved or whether he was given up as “ a thoroughly lazy, bad boy, who was a disgrace to the school,” and thereafter left to go his own way. Such boys were often very good playfellows, and the magisterial denunciations had little effect upon us.

IV]

HERTFORD: MY SCHOOL LIFE

5i

Mr. Crutwell was, I suppose, a fairly good classical scholar, as he took the higher classes in Latin and Greek. I left school too young even to begin Greek, but the last year or two I was in the Latin class which was going through Virgil’s “ yFneid ” with him. The system was very bad. The eight or ten boys in the class had an hour to prepare the translation, and they all sat together in a group opposite each other and close to Mr. Crutwell’s desk, but under pretence of work there were always two or three of the boys who were full of talk and gossip and school stories, which kept us all employed and amused till within about a quarter of an hour of the time for being called up, when some one would remark, “ I say, let’s do our translation ; I don’t know a word of it.” Then the cleverest boy, or one who had already been through the book, would begin to translate, two or three others would have their dictionaries ready when he did not know the meaning of a word, and so we blundered through our forty or fifty lines. When we were called up, it was all a matter of chance whether we got through well or otherwise. If the master was in a good humour and the part we had to translate was specially interesting, he would help us on wherever we hesitated or blundered, and when we had got through the lesson, he would make a few remarks on the subject, and say, “ Now I will read you the whole incident.” He would then take out a trans¬ lation of the “ ^Eneid ” in verse by a relative of his own — an uncle, I think — and, beginning perhaps a page or two back, read us several pages, so that we could better appreciate what we had been trying to translate. I, for one, always enjoyed these readings, as the verse was clear and melo¬ dious, and gave an excellent idea of the poetry of the Latin writer. Sometimes our laziness and ignorance were found out, and we either had to stay in an hour and go over it again, or copy it out a dozen times, or some other stupid imposition. But as this only occurred now and then, of course it did not in the least affect our general mode of procedure when supposed to be learning our lesson. Mr. Crutwell read well, with a good emphasis and intonation, and I obtained a better idea of what Virgil really was from

MY LIFE

52

[Chap.

his readings than from the fragmentary translations we scrambled through.

The three assistant masters, then called ushers, were very distinct characters. The English and writing master, who also taught French, was a handsome, fair young man named Fitzjohn. He was something of a dandy, wearing white duck trousers in the summer, and always having a bright-coloured stiff stock, which was the fashionable necktie of the day. Those being ^/^-steel-pen days he had to make and mend our quill pens, and always had a sharp penknife. He was consequently the authority among the boys on the different knife-makers and the best kind of hones for keeping them sharp ; and when he declared, as I once heard him, that some knives required oil and others water on the stone to bring them to a proper edge, we marvelled at his knowledge. What raised him still higher in our estimation was that he was a fairly good cricketer, and, even more exciting, he was one of the County Yeomanry, and upon the days appointed for drill or inspection, when from his bedroom over the schoolroom he came down in his uniform with sword and spurs, and marched across the room, our admiration reached its height. Though rather contemptuous to the younger boys, he was, I think, a pretty fair teacher. I learnt French from him for about two or three years, and though he taught us nothing colloquially, and could not, I think, speak the language himself, yet I learnt enough to read any easy French book, whereas my six years’ grinding at Latin only resulted in a scanty knowledge of the vocabulary and grammar, leaving me quite unable to construe a page from a Latin author with any approach to accuracy. Of course this was partly due to the fact that one language is much more difficult than the other, but more to the method of instruction. Had half the time been devoted to teaching us simple colloquial Latin thoroughly, I feel sure it would have been far more useful to those who left school early, and who had no special talent for languages. The only use Latin has been to me has been the enabling me to understand the specific descriptions of birds and insects in that tongue, and also to appreciate the derivation from Latin

IV]

HERTFORD: MY SCHOOL LIFE

53

of many of our common English words. If the remaining time had been spent in learning German, the result would have been far more useful, but I do not think this language was taught in the school.

The second master, or head usher, was named Hill. He had the end desk opposite to Mr. Crutwell’s, and was a rather hard man, who knocked the boys’ knuckles with his ruler very severely. On one occasion I remember seeing a boy whose hand was not only black and swollen from blows, but had the skin cut, and was covered with blood. In this case I think a complaint was made by the boy’s parents, and Mr. H. was informed privately that he must be more moderate in the future. I do not think I ever had any lessons with this master.

The youngest of the ushers was named Godwin, and was a nephew of Mr. Crutwell. He was rather a large-limbed, dark young man of eighteen or twenty. Fie was very good natured, and was much liked by the boys, in whose games he often took part. He was, I believe, studying the higher classics with his uncle with the idea of going to the University, but I never heard what became of him afterwards. He taught generally in the school, but the only recollection I have of him as a teacher was in one special case. Shortly before I left the school, I and a few others were put to translate one of the works of Cicero, and we were to be heard the lesson by Godwin. We had none of us any experience of this author before, having translated only Ovid and Virgil. We sat down and worked away with our dictionaries till we knew the meanings, or some of the meanings, of most of the words, but, somehow, could not fit them together to make sense. However, at last we thought we had got something of the meaning. We were called up, and the boy at the head of the class began his translation. When he got stuck Godwin asked the others if they could help him, and when we could not, he would tell us the meaning of some difficult word, and then tell the translator to go on. He went on bit by bit till we got to the end of a long sentence. Then Godwin asked us if we thought we had got it right. We said we didn’t know.

54

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[Chap.

Then he said, “Let’s see; I will read it just as you have translated it.” This he did, and then we could see that we had not made the least approach to anything that was in¬ telligible. So we had to confess that we could only make nonsense of it. Then he began, and translated the whole passage correctly for us, using very nearly the same words as we had used, but arranging them in a very different order, and showing us that the very ideas involved and the whole construction of the sentence was totally different from any¬ thing we had imagined. He did all this in a good-humoured way, as if pitying our being put upon a task so much beyond us, and, so far as I now recollect, that was our last as well as our first attempt at translating Cicero. I felt, however, that if we had had Godwin for our Latin teacher from the beginning we should have had a much better chance of really learning the language, and, perhaps, getting to understand Cicero, and appreciate the beauty and force of his style.

Next to Latin grammar the most painful subject I learnt was geography, which ought to have been the most interesting. It consisted almost entirely in learning by heart the names of the chief towns, rivers, and mountains of the various countries from, I think, Pinnock’s “ School Geography,” which gave the minimum of useful or interesting information. It was some¬ thing like learning the multiplication table both in the pain¬ fulness of the process and the permanence of the results. The incessant grinding in both, week after week and year after year, resulted in my knowing both the product of any two numbers up to twelve, and the chief towns of any English county so thoroughly, that the result was automatic, and the name of Staffordshire brought into my memory Stafford, Litchfield, Leek, as surely and rapidly as eight times seven brought fifty-six. The labour and mental effort to one who like myself had little verbal memory was very painful, and though the result has been a somewhat useful acquisition during life, I cannot but think that the same amount of mental exertion wisely directed might have produced far greater and more generally useful results. When I had to learn the chief towns of the provinces of Poland, Russia,

IV]

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55

Asia Minor, and other parts of Western Asia, with their almost unpronounceable names, I dreaded the approaching hour, as I was sure to be kept in for inability to repeat them, and it was sometimes only by several repetitions that I could attain even an approximate knowledge of them. No interest¬ ing facts were ever given in connection with these names, no accounts of the country by travellers were ever read, no good maps ever given us, nothing but the horrid stream of unin¬ telligible place-names, to be learnt in their due order as belonging to a certain country.

History was very little better, being largely a matter of learning by heart names and dates, and reading the very baldest account of the doings of kings and queens, of wars, rebellions, and conquests. Whatever little knowledge of history I have ever acquired has been derived more from Shakespeare’s plays and from good historical novels than from anything I learnt at school.

At one period when the family was temporarily broken up, for some reason I do not remember, I was for about half a year a boarder in Mr. Crutwell’s house, in company with twenty or thirty other boys ; and I will here give the routine of a pretty good boarding-school at that period.

Our breakfast at eight consisted of a mug of milk-and- water and a large and very thick slice of bread-and-butter. For the average boy this was as much as they could eat, a few could not eat so much, a few wanted more, and the former often gave their surplus to the latter. Any boy could have an egg or a slice of bacon cooked if he bought it himself or had it sent from home, but comparatively very few had such luxuries. Three times a week half the boys had a hot buttered roll instead of the bread-and-butter. These penny rolls were much larger than any I have seen in recent years, although this was in the corn-law days, and one of them was as much as any boy wanted. They were cut in two longitudinally and well buttered, and were served quite hot from the kitchen oven. Any boy who preferred it could have bread-and-butter instead, as a few did, and any bread-and-butter boy who had

MY LIFE

[Chap.

not much appetite could have a thin slice instead of a thick one by asking for it.

For dinner at one o’clock we had hot joints of meat and vegetables for five days, hot meat-pies on Saturdays made of remnants, with some fresh mutton or beef to make gravy, well seasoned, but always with a peculiar flavour, which I think must have been caused by the meat having been slightly salted or pickled to keep it good. Of course the boys used to turn up their noses at this dinner, but the pie was really very good, with a good substantial crust and abundance of gravy. On Sundays we had a cold joint of meat, with hot fruit-pies in the summer and plum-pudding in the winter, with usually some extra delicacy as custard or a salad. Every boy had half a pint of fairly good beer to drink, and any one who wished could have a second helping of meat, and there were always some who did so, though the first helping was very liberal.

At half-past five, I think, we had milk-and-water and bread-and-butter as at breakfast, from seven to eight we pre¬ pared lessons for the next day, and at eight we had supper, consisting of bread-and-cheese and, I think, another mug of beer. The house where the masters lived and where we had our meals and slept was in Fore Street, and was about two hundred feet away from the school ; and the large school¬ room was the only place we had to go to in wet weather, when not at meals, but as we were comparatively few in number, it answered our purpose very well.

Occasionally Mr. Crutwell gave us a special treat on some public occasion or holiday. Once I remember he gave us all syllabub in his private garden, two cows being brought up for the occasion, and milked into a pail containing two or three bottles of wine and some sugar. Having been all regaled with this delicacy and plum cake, and having taken a walk round the garden, we retired to our playground rejoicing.

Our regular games were cricket, baseball, leapfrog, high and long jumps, and, in the winter, turnpikes with hoops. This latter was a means of enabling those who had no hoops to get the use of them. They kept turnpikes, formed by two

IV]

HERTFORD: MY SCHOOL LIFE

57

bricks or stones placed the width of the foot apart, and the hoop-driver had to pass through without touching. If the hoop touched he gave it up, and kept the turnpike in his place. When there were turnpikes every five or ten yards all round the playground and a dozen or more hoops following each other pretty closely, the game was not devoid of its little excitements. We never played football (so far as I remember), which at that time was by no means such a common game as it is now. Among the smaller amusements which were always much liked were marbles and pegtops. Marbles were either a game of skill or a form of gambling. In the latter game a small hole was made against a wall, and each player in turn asked for a hand of two or four or even a higher number from some other boy ; then with an equal number of his own he tried to pitch them into the hole, and if all or any even number remained in he won the whole, while if the number was odd he lost them. When a boy had lost all his stock of marbles he bought a halfpenny worth and went on playing, and in the end some would lose all the marbles they began with and several pence besides, while others would retire with their trouser-pockets almost bursting with marbles, and in addition several pence resulting from sales in their pockets. I well remember the excitement and fascination even of this very humble form of gambling play ; how we would keep on to the very last moment in hopes of retrieving our losses or adding to our gains, then rush home to dinner, and return as quickly as possible to play again before school began. It was really gambling, and though perhaps it could not have been wholly forbidden, it might have been discouraged and made the text for some important teaching on the immorality of gaining only by another’s loss. But at that time such ideas had hardly arisen in the minds of teachers.

Pegtops, whipping-tops, and humming-tops were all more or less appreciated, but pegtops were decidedly the most popular, and at certain times a large number of the boys would have them. We used to pride ourselves on being able to make our tops keep up as long as possible, and often

MY LIFE

[Chap.

58

painted them in rings of bright colours, which showed beauti¬ fully while they were spinning. Those made of box-wood and of rather large size were preferred, as their weight, and the longer string that could be used, caused them to spin longer. The individuality of tops was rather curious, as some could only be made to spin by holding them with the peg upwards, others with it downwards, while others would spin when held in either position, and thrown almost anyhow. When tops were in fashion they might have been made the vehicle for very interesting teaching of mechanics, but that again was quite beyond the range of the ordinary school¬ master of the early part of the nineteenth century.

During my last year’s residence at Hertford an arrange¬ ment was made by which, I suppose, the fees paid for my schooling were remitted on condition that I assisted in the school. I was a good writer and reader, and while continuing my regular classes in Latin and algebra, I took the younger boys in reading and dictation, arithmetic and writing. Although I had no objection whatever to the work itself, the anomalous position it gave me in the school — there being a score of boys older than myself who were scholars only — was exceedingly distasteful. It led to many disagreeables, and subjected me to painful insinuations and annoying remarks. I was especially sensitive to what all boys dislike — the being placed in any exceptional position, or having to do anything different from other boys, and not of my own choice. Every time I entered the schoolroom I felt ashamed, and whether I was engaged at my own lessons or occupied as a teacher, I was equally uncomfortable* I cannot now remember all the details of what was to me a constant humiliation, but I am sure it must have been a time of very real mental anguish from one result that persisted almost into middle life. For at least twenty years after I left school, and I think even longer, I was subject to frequently recurring dreams of still having to go to school in the hybrid position of pupil and teacher, aggravated by feeling myself taller, and at last a man, and yet suffering over again with increased intensity

IV]

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59

the shyness and sense of disgrace of my boyhood. In my dreams I hated to go ; when I reached the schoolhouse I dreaded to open the door, especially if a few minutes late, for then all eyes would be upon me. The trouble of not always knowing what to do came upon me with exaggerated force, and I used to open my desk and fumble about among its contents so as to hide my face as long as possible.

After some years the dream became still more painful by the thought occurring to me sometimes that I need not go, that I had really left school ; and yet the next time the dream came I could not resist the impulse to go, however much I dreaded it. At last a phase came in which I seemed to have nothing to do at the school, and my whole time there was spent in pretending to do something, such as mending pens or reading a school-book, all the while feeling that the boys were looking at me and wondering what I was there for. Then would come a struggle not to go. I would say to myself that I was sure I had left school, that I had nothing to do there, that if I never went again nothing would happen ; yet for a long time I always did go again. Then for a time I would dream that it was close to the holidays, or that the next day was breaking-up, and that I had better not go at all. Then I would remember that my books and slate and other things were in my desk, and that I must take them away. And after this for some years I would still occasion¬ ally dream that I had to go on this last day to carry away my books and take formal leave of Mr. Crutwell. After having got to this point even, the dream reappeared, and I went over the last school-day again and again ; and then the final stage came, in which I seemed to have the old impulse to go to school, even started on the way, and then remembered that I had really left, that I need never go any more, and with an infinite sense of relief turned back, and found myself in some quite different life.

Now, the very long persistence of such a dream as this shows, I think, how deeply impressionable is the mind at this period of boyhood, and how very difficult it is to get rid of painful impressions which have been almost daily repeated.

6o

MY LIFE

[Chap.

Whether or not this particular form of experience in my boy¬ hood produced any permanent effect on my character I cannot say, but the mere continuance of a painful dream for so many years is in itself an evil, and must almost certainly have had an injurious effect upon the bodily health. Even in my home- life I was subject to impressions of the same general nature, though far less severe. Many slight faults of conduct which had been long overlooked were often suddenly noticed, and I was ordered at once to change them. One such that I remember was that I had been accustomed to use my spoon at table with my left hand, when I was one day told to use my right. No doubt I could have done this without much trouble, but I seemed to feel that to make such a change would be singular, would draw the attention of my brothers and sisters to me, and would be a kind of confession of ignorance or clumsiness which I could not make. I felt too much ashamed to do it. I put down my spoon and waited, and when I thought no one was looking, took it up again in the way forbidden. This was said to be obstinacy, but to me it seemed something else which I could hardly describe. However, the result was that I was sent away from table up to my bedroom, and was ordered to have my meals there till I would “ do as I was bid.” I forget exactly how it ended, but I think I remained under this punishment several days, and that it was only under the kind persuasions and advice of my mother and sisters that I was at length allowed to come down ; and this was the most terrible ordeal of all, and when I actually took the spoon in my right hand, I felt more hurt and ashamed than when I was sent away from table. This is only an example of numbers of little things of a similar character, which were treated in the same rough and dogmatic manner, which was then almost universal, and was thought to be the only way of training children. How , exactly, to treat each case must depend upon circumstances, but I think that a little mild ridicule would have a better effect than compulsion. I might have been told that, although we did not much care about it, other people would think it very strange, and that we should then be ashamed because people would say that we did not know

IV]

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good manners. Or I might have been asked to practise it by myself, and try the experiment, using sometimes one hand and sometimes the other, till at last, when the holidays or my next birthday came, or I first had new clothes on, I was to complete the victory over myself by discarding the left-hand spoon altogether.

One other case of this kind hurt me dreadfully at the time, because it exposed me to what I thought was the ridicule or contempt of the whole school. Like most other boys I was reckless about my clothes, leaning my elbows on the desk till a hole was worn in my jacket, and, worse still, when cleaning my slate using my cuff to rub it dry. Slate sponges attached by a string were unknown to our school in those days. As new clothes were too costly to be had very often, my mother determined to save a jacket just taken for school wear by making covers for the sleeves, which I was to wear in school. These were made of black calico, reaching from the cuff to the elbow, and though I protested that I could not wear them, that I should be looked upon as a guy, and other equally valid reasons, they were one day put in my pocket, and I was told to put them on just before I entered the school. Of course I could not do it ; so I brought them back and told my mother. Then, after another day or two of trial, one morning the dreaded thunderbolt fell upon me. On entering school I was called up to the master’s desk, he produced the dreaded calico sleeves, and told me that my mother wished me to wear them to save my jacket, and told me to put them on. Of course I had to do so. They fitted very well, and felt quite comfortable, and I dare say did not look so very strange. I have no doubt also that most of the boys had a fellow-feeling for me, and thought it a shame to thus make me an exception to all the school. But to me it seemed a cruel disgrace, and I was miserable so long as I wore them. How long that was I cannot remember, but I do not think it was very long, perhaps a month or two, or till the beginning of the next holidays. But while it lasted it was, perhaps, the severest punishment I ever endured.

In an article on the civilizations of China and Japan in

62

MY LIFE

[Chap. IV]

The Independent Review (April, 1904), it is pointed out that the universal practice of “ saving the face ” of any kind of opponent rests upon the fundamental idea of the right of every individual to be treated with personal respect. With them this principle is taught from childhood, and pervades every class of society, while with us it is only recognized by the higher classes, and by them is rarely extended to inferiors or to children. The feeling that demands this recognition is certainly strong in many children, and those who have suffered under the failure of their elders to respect it, can well appreciate the agony of shame endured by the more civilized Eastern peoples, whose feelings are so often out¬ raged by the total absence of all respect shown them by their European masters or conquerors. In thus recognizing the sanctity of this deepest of human feelings these people manifest a truer phase of civilization than we have attained to. Even savages often surpass us in this respect. They will often refuse to enter an empty house during the absence of the owner, even though something belonging to themselves may have been left in it ; and when asked to call one of their sleeping companions to start on a journey, they will be careful not to touch him, and will positively refuse to shake him rudely, as an Englishman would have no scruple in doing.

CHAPTER V

HERTFORD : MY HOME-LIFE

As the period from the age of six to fourteen which I spent at Hertford was that of my whole home-life till I had a home of my own twenty-eight years later, and because it was in many ways more educational than the time I spent at school, I think it well to devote a separate chapter to a short account of it.

During the year or two spent at the first house we occu¬ pied in St. Andrew’s Street very little occurred to impress itself upon my memory, partly, I think, because I was too young and had several playfellows of my own age, and partly, perhaps, because the very small house and yard at the back offered few facilities for home amusements. There was also at that time too much inequality between myself and my brother John for us to become such constant companions as we were a little later.

When we moved to the house beyond the Old Cross, nearly opposite to the lane leading to Hartham, the con¬ ditions were altogether more favourable. The house itself was a more commodious one, and besides a yard at one side, it had a small garden at the back with a flower border at each side, where I first became acquainted with some of our common garden flowers. The gable end of the house in the yard, facing nearly south, had few windows, and was covered over with* an old vine which not only produced abundance of grapes, but enabled my father to make some gallons of wine from the thinnings. But the most interesting feature of the premises to us two boys was a small stable with a loft over

63

MY LIFE

[Chap.

64

it, which, not being used except to store garden-tools and odd lumber, we had practically to ourselves. The loft especially was most delightful to us. It was reached by steps formed by nailing battens across the upright framing of the stable, with a square opening in the floor above. It thus required a little practice to climb up and down easily and to get a safe landing at top, and doing this became so easy to us that we ran up and down it as easily as sailors run up the shrouds of a vessel. Then the loft itself, under the sloping roof, gloomy and nearly dark in the remote corners, was almost like a robbers’ cave, while a door opening to the out¬ side by which hay could be pitched up out of a cart, afforded us plenty of light when we required it, together with the novel sensation and spice of danger afforded by an opening down to the floor, yet eight or nine feet above the ground.

This place was our greatest delight, and almost all the hours of daylight we could spare from school and meals were spent in it. Here we accumulated all kinds of odds and ends that might be useful for our various games or occupations, and here we were able to hide many forbidden treasures such as gunpowder, with which we used to make wild-fires as well as more elaborate fireworks. John was of a more mechanical turn than myself, and he used to excel in making all the little toys and playthings in which boys then used to delight. I, of course, looked on admiringly, and helped him in any way I could. I also tried to imitate him, but only succeeded in some of the simpler operations. Our most valuable guide was the “Boy’s Own Book,” which told us how to make num¬ bers of things boys never think of making now, partly because everything is made for them, and also because children get so many presents of elaborate or highly ornamented toys when very young, that by the time they are old enough to make anything for themselves they are quite blase \ and can only be satisfied by still more elaborate and expensive playthings. I think it may be interesting to give a short enumeration of the things which at this time John and 1 used to make for ourselves.

I may mention first that, owing to the very straightened

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65

circumstances of the family during the whole of our life at Hertford, we were allowed au exceedingly scanty amount of pocket-money. Till I was ten years old or more I had only a penny a week regularly, while John may perhaps have had twopence, and it was very rarely that we got tips to the amount of the smaller silver coins. We were, therefore, obliged to save up for any little purchase required for our various occupations, as, for example, to procure the saltpetre and sulphur required for making fireworks ; the charcoal we could make ourselves, and obtain the iron filings from some friendly whitesmith. The simplest fireworks to make were squibs, and in these we were quite successful, following the recipe in the “ Boy’s Own Book.” The cases we made before¬ hand with a little copy-book paper and paste. Crackers were much more difficult, and the home-made ones were apt to go off all at once instead of making the regular succession of bangs which the shop article seemed never to fail in doing. But by perseverance some fairly good ones were made, though they could never be thoroughly trusted. Roman candles we were also tolerably successful with, though only the smallest size were within our means ; and we even tried to construct the beautiful revolving Catherine-wheels, but these again would often stop in the middle, and refuse either to revolve properly or to burn more than half way.

In connection with fireworks, we were fond of making miniature cannon out of keys. For this purpose we begged of our friends any discarded box or other keys with rather large barrels, and by filing a touch-hole, filing off the handle, and mounting them on block carriages, we were able to fire off salutes or startle our sister or the servant to our great satis¬ faction. When, later, by some exchange with a fellow school¬ boy or in any otjier way, we got possession of one of the small brass cannons made for toys, our joy was great ; and I remember our immense admiration at one of these brass cannon, about six inches long, in the possession of a friend, which would go off with a bang as loud as that of a large pistol. We also derived great pleasure by loading one of our weapons to the very muzzle, pressing it down into the ground

VOL. I. F

66

MY LIFE

[Chap.

so that we could lay a train of powder to it about two feet long, and then escape to a safe distance, and see it jump up into the air with the force of the explosion.

On the fifth of November we always had a holiday, and in the evening there was always in the playground a large bonfire and a considerable display of fireworks by a profes¬ sional, some of the wealthier of the boys’ parents contributing the outlay. On these occasions almost all the day-scholars came, their pockets more or less filled with crackers and squibs, to occupy the time before the more elaborate fire¬ works. The masters were all present to help keep order and prevent accidents, and no boy was allowed to light squib or cracker till about seven o’clock, when Mr. Crutwell himself lighted the first squib, threw it in the air, and was immediately followed by the boys in every part of the play¬ ground, which soon presented a very animated scene. Many of the parents, relatives, and friends of the boys were also present, so that the playground was quite crowded, yet though the boys recklessly threw squibs and crackers in all directions, no accidents of any importance happened. Now and then a boy would have the squibs or crackers in his pocket exploded, but I do not remember any injury being done in that way. But shortly after I left, I think, a serious accident occurred, by which some one was permanently injured, and after that I believe the miscellaneous fireworks of the boys were no longer allowed.

Among our favourite playthings were pop-guns and minia¬ ture spring-guns and pistols. Pop-guns were made of stout pieces of elder-wood, which, when the pith is pushed out has a perfectly smooth, glossy inner surface which made a better pop than those bought at the toy-shop. Many a pleasant walk we had to get good straight pieces of elder, which, when cut to the proper length and a suitable strong stick made to force out the pellets of well-chewed brown paper or tow, would shoot them out with a report almost equal to that of a small pistol.

Far more elaborate and ingenious, however, were the spring-pistols which my brother made so well and finished

V]

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so beautifully that he often sold them for a shilling or more, and thus obtained funds for the purchase of tools or materials. For the stocks he would beg odd bits of mahogany or walnut or oak from a cabinet-maker’s shop, and carve them out care¬ fully with a pocket-knife to the exact shape of pistol or gun. The barrel was formed of a goose-quill or swan’s-quill, care¬ fully fastened into the hollow of the stock with waxed thread, and about an inch of the hinder part of this had the upper half cut away to allow the spring to act. In the straight part near the bend of the stock a hole was cut for the trigger, which was held in its place by a stout pin passing through it on which it could turn. The only other article needed was a piece of strong watch or clock-spring, of which we could get several at a watchmaker’s for a penny. The piece of watch-spring being broken off the right length and the ends filed to a smooth edge, was tied on to the stock between the barrel and the trigger, curving upwards, and one end fitting into a notch at the top of the trigger, while the other end was bent round so that the end fitted into a small notch in the open part of the quill at its hinder end. It was then cocked, and a pea or shot being placed in front of the spring, a slight pressure on the trigger would release it and cause it to drive out the shot or pea with considerable velocity. My brother used to take great delight in making these little pistols, shaping the stocks very accurately, rubbing them smooth with sandpaper, and then oiling or varnishing them ; while every part was finished off with the greatest neatness. I do not think there was any boy in the school who made them better than he did, and very few equalled him.

One of the most generally used articles of a boy’s stock of playthings are balls, and as these are often lost and soon worn out we used to make them ourselves. An old bung cut nearly round formed the centre ; this we surrounded with narrow strips of list, while for the outside we used coarse worsted thread tightly wound on, which formed a firm and elastic ball. We had two ways of covering the balls. One was to first quarter it tightly with fine string, and using this as a base, cover the whole with closely knitted string by

68

MY LIFE

[Chap.

means of a very simple loop-stitch. A much superior plan was to obtain from the tan-yard some partly tanned sac- shaped pieces of calf-skin which were of just the size required for a small-sized cricket-ball. These were stretched over the ball, stitched up closely on the one side, the joint rubbed down smooth, and by its partial contraction when drying an excellent leather-covered ball was made, which at first was hairy outside, but this soon wore off. In this way, at a cost of about twopence or threepence, we had as good a ball as one which cost us a shilling to buy, and which served us well for our boyish games at cricket.

Other house occupations which employed much of our spare time in wet weather and in winter were the making of cherry-stone chains and bread-seals. For the former we collected some hundreds of cherry-stones in the season. These, with much labour and scraping of fingers, were ground down on each side till only a ring of suitable thickness was left. The rings were then soaked in water for some days, which both cleaned and softened them, so that with a sharp pen-knife they could be cut through, and by carefully expand¬ ing them the next ring could be slipped in, the joint closing up so as to be scarcely, if at all, visible. When nicely cleaned, and if made from stones of nearly uniform size, these chains made very pretty and useful watch-guards, or even necklaces for little girls of our acquaintance.

Bread-seals were easier to make, and were more interest¬ ing in their results. In those ante-penny-postage days envelopes were unknown, as one of the rules of the post-office was that each letter must consist of a single sheet, any separate piece of paper either enclosed or outside constituting it a double letter with double postage. Almost every letter, therefore, was sealed, and many of them had either coats-of- arms, crests, heads, or mottoes, so that besides the contents, which were, perhaps, only of importance to the recipient, the seal would often interest the whole family. In such a case we begged for the seal to be carefully cut round so that we might make a copy of it. To do this we required only a piece of the crumb of new bread, and with cleanly washed

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hands we worked this up with our fingers till it formed a compact stiff mass. Before doing this, we begged a little bright water-colour, carmine or Prussian blue, from our sisters, and also, I think, a very small portion of gum. When all was thoroughly incorporated so that the whole lump was quite uniform in colour and texture, we divided it into balls about the size of a large marble, and carefully pressed them on to the seals, at the same time squeezing the bread up between our fingers into a conical shape to form the upper part of the seal serving as a handle and suspender. Each seal was then care¬ fully put away to dry for some days, when it got sufficiently hard to be safely removed. It was then carefully trimmed round with a sharp pen-knife, and accurately shaped to resemble the usual form of the gold or silver seals which most persons carried on their watch-chains to seal their letters. The seal itself would be perfectly reproduced with the glossy surface of the original, and when still more hardened by thorough drying, would make a beautiful impression in sealing-wax. In this way we used to get quite a collection of ornamental seals, which, if carefully preserved, would last for years.

Almost all the above amusements and occupations were carried on in the stable and loft already described, during the two or three years we lived there. After that my brother John went to London, and was apprenticed to a builder to learn carpentry and joinery. When left alone at home, my younger brother being still too young for a playmate, I gave up most of these occupations, and began to develop a taste for reading. I still had one or two favourite companions with whom I used to go for long walks in the country round, amusing ourselves in gravel or chalk pits, jumping over streams, and cutting fantastic walking-sticks out of the woods ; but nothing afterwards seemed to make up for the quiet hours spent with my brother in the delightful privacy of the loft which we had all to ourselves. The nearest approach to it was about a year later when, for some family reason that I quite forget, I was left to board with Miss Davies at

MY LIFE

[Chap.

70

All Saints’ Vicarage, then used as a post-office, a large rambling old house with a large garden, in which there was among other fruit an apple tree which bore delicious ribston- pippins, of which I was allowed to eat as many as I liked of the windfalls. In this house there was a loft in the roof, which I was told was full of old furniture and other things, so I one day asked if I might go up into it. Miss Davies, who was very kind though melancholy, said I might. So I went up, and found all kinds of old broken or moth-eaten furniture, broken lamps, candlesticks, and all the refuse of a house where a family have lived for many years. But among these interesting things I hit upon two veritable treasures from my point of view. One was a very good, almost new, cricket-bat, of a size just suitable to me ; and the other was still more surprising and attractive to me, being a very large, almost gigantic, box-wood pegtop, bigger than any I had seen. It seemed to me then almost incredible that such treasures could have been ranked as lumber, and purposely left in that old attic. I thought some one must surely have put them there for safety, and would soon come and claim them. I therefore waited a few days till Miss Davies seemed rather more communicative than usual, when I said to her, “ I found something very nice in the lumber-room.” “ Oh, indeed ; and what is it ? ” said she, “ I did not know there was anything nice there.” “ May I go and fetch them for you to see ? ” said I ; and she said I might. So I rushed off, and brought down the top and the bat, and said, “ I found these up there ; do you know whose they are ? ” She looked at them, and said,

“ They must have belonged to - ,” mentioning a name

which I have forgotten. “They have been there a good many years.” Then, as I looked at them longingly, she said, “You can have them if you like” — as if they were of not the least value. I felt as if I had had a fortune left me. The top was the admiration of the whole school. No one had so large a top or had even seen one so large, yet I was quite able to spin it properly, my hands being rather large for my age. This occurred in the winter, and when the cricket season came, I equally enjoyed my bat, which at once

V] HERTFORD: MY HOME-LIFE 71

elevated me to the rank of the few bigger boys who had bats of their own.

But even these rapturous delights were not so enduring, and certainly not so educational, as those derived from making as well as possessing toys and playthings, and the year or two I spent with my brother in these pleasant occupations were certainly the most interesting and perhaps the most permanently useful of my whole early boyhood. They enabled me to appreciate the pleasure and utility of doing for one’s self everything that one is able to do, and this has been a constant source of healthy and enjoyable occupation during my whole life. It led, I have no doubt, to my brother being apprenticed to a carpenter and builder, where he became a first-rate workman ; and from him later on I learnt to use the simpler tools. During my whole life I have kept a few such tools by me, and have always taken a pleasure in doing the various little repairs continually needed in a house and garden. I therefore look with compassion on the present generation of children and schoolboys who, from their earliest years, are overloaded with toys, so elaborately constructed and so highly finished that the very idea of making any toys for themselves seems absurd. And these purchased toys do not give anything like the enduring pleasure derived from the process of making and improving as well as afterwards using ; while it leads to the great majority of men growing up without any idea of doing the simplest mechanical work required in their own homes.

It was during our residence at this house near the Old Cross that, I think, my father enjoyed his life more than any¬ where else at Hertford. Not only had he a small piece of garden and the fine grape-vine already mentioned, but there was a roomy brew-house with a large copper, which enabled him to brew a barrel of beer as well as make elder-wine and grape-wine, bottle gooseberries, and other such work as he took great pleasure in doing. When here also, I think, he hired a small garden about half a mile off, where he could grow vegetables and small fruit, and where he spent a few

72

MY LIFE

[Chap.

hours of every fine day. And these various occupations were an additional source of interest and instruction to us boys. It was here, however, that our elder sister died of consump¬ tion in the year 1832, a little before she attained her twenty- second year. This was a severe loss to my father and mother, though I was not of an age to feel it much. I think it was soon afterwards that my remaining sister went to live at Hoddesdon, four miles away, as governess to two girls in a gentleman’s family there. These girls were somewhere near my age, or a little older, and occasionally in the summer my brother and I were invited to dine and spend the after¬ noon with them, which we greatly enjoyed, as there was a large garden, and beyond it a large grass orchard full of apple and other fruit trees. We also enjoyed the walk there, and back in the evening, through the picturesque country I have already described. My sister lived in this family for two or three years, and was on terms of affection with the two girls till they were married.

In the year 1834, I think, my sister went to a French school in Lille in order to perfect herself in conversation, in view of becoming a governess or keeping a school. But the following year the misfortune occurred that still further reduced the family income. Mr. Wilson, who had married my mother’s only sister, was one of the executors of her father’s will, and as he was a lawyer (the other executor being a clergyman), and his own wife and her sister were the only legatees, he naturally had the sole management of the property. Owing to a series of events which we were only very imperfectly acquainted with, he became bankrupt in this year, and his own wife and large family were at once reduced from a condition of comfort and even affluence to poverty, almost as great as our own. But we children also suffered, for legacies of ;£ioo each to my father’s family, to be paid to us as we came of age, together with a considerable sum that had reverted to my mother on the death of her stepmother in 1828, had remained in Mr. Wilson’s hands as trustee, and was all involved in the bankruptcy. He did all he possibly

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could for us, and ultimately, I believe, repaid a considerable part of the money, but while the legal proceedings were in progress, and they lasted full three years, it was necessary for us to reduce expenses as much as possible. We had to leave our comfortable house and garden, and for a time had the use of half the rambling old house near All Saints’ Church already mentioned.

Before this, I think, my brother John had gone to London to be apprenticed, and the family at home consisted only of myself and my younger brother Herbert till my sister returned from France. It must have been about this time that I was sent for a few months as a boarder at the Grammar School, as already stated ; but this whole period of my life is very indis¬ tinct. I am sure, however, that we moved to the next house in St. Andrew’s Street early in 1836, because on May 15 of that year an annular eclipse of the sun occurred, visible in England, and I well remember the whole family coming out with smoked glasses into the narrow yard at the side of the house in order to see it. I was rather disappointed, as it only produced a peculiar gloom such as often occurs before a thunderstorm. While we were here a brewery was being built at the bottom of the yard, and while inspecting it and inquiring what the various tanks, boilers, etc., were for, I learnt that the word “ water ” was tabooed in a brewery ; that it must always be spoken of as “ liquor,” and any workman or outsider mentioning “ water” is immediately fined or called upon to stand a gallon of beer, or more if he can afford it.

At midsummer, I think, we again moved to a part of a house next to St. Andrew’s Church, where we again had the Silk family for neighbours in the larger half of the house. They also had most of the garden, on the lawn of which was a fine old mulberry tree, which in the late summer was so laden with fruit that the ground was covered beneath it, and I and my friend George used to climb up into the tree, where we could gather the largest and ripest fruit and feast luxuriously.

This was the last house we occupied in Hertford, the family moving to Hoddesdon some time in 1837, to a pretty

MY LIFE

[Chap.

74

but very small red-brick house called Rawdon Cottage, while I went to London and stayed at Mr. Webster’s with my brother John, preparatory to going with my eldest brother William to learn land-surveying.

During the time I lived at Hertford I was subject to influences which did more for my real education than the mere verbal training I received at school. My father belonged to a book club, through which we had a constant stream of interesting books, many of which he used to read aloud in the evening. Among these I remember Mungo Park’s travels and those of Denham and Clapperton in West Africa. We also had Hood's Comic Annual for successive years, and I well remember my delight with “ The Pugsley Papers ” and “ A Tale of the Great Plague,” while as we lived first at a No. i, I associated Hood’s “Number One” with our house, and learnt the verses by heart when I was about seven years old. Ever since those early experiences I have been an admirer of Hood in all his various moods, from his inimitable mixture of pun and pathos in his “ Sea Spell,” to the exquisite poetry of “The Haunted House,” “The Elm Tree,” and “ The Bridge of Sighs.”

We also had some good old standard works in the house, “Fairy Tales,” “Gulliver’s Travels,” “ Robinson Crusoe,” and the “ Pilgrim’s Progress,” all of which I read over again and again with constant pleasure. We also had “The Lady of the Lake,” “ The Vicar of Wakefield,” and some others ; and among the books from the club I well remember my father reading to us Defoe’s wonderful “ History of the Great Plague.” We also had a few highly educational toys, among which were large dissected maps of England and of Europe, which we only had out as a special treat now and then, and which besides having the constant charm of a puzzle, gave us a better knowledge of topographical geography than all our school teaching, and also gave me that love of good maps which has continued with me throughout life. Another valuable toy was a model of a bridge in wood, the separate stones constituting the arch of which could be built up on a

V]

HERTFORD: MY HOME-LIFE

75

light centre, showing beautifully the principle of the arch, and how, when the keystone was inserted the centre supports could be removed and a considerable weight supported upon it. This also was a constant source of pleasure and instruction to us, and one that seems to be not now included among instructive toys.

I think it was soon after we went to the Old Cross house that my father became librarian to a fairly good proprietary town library, to which he went for three or four hours every afternoon to give out and receive books and keep everything in order. After my brother John left home and I lost my chief playmate and instructor, this library was a great resource for me, as it contained a large collection of all the standard novels of the day. Every wet Saturday after¬ noon I spent there ; and on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which were our four-o’clock days, I usually spent an hour there instead of stopping to play or going straight home. Some¬ times I helped my father a little in arranging or getting down books, but I had most of the time for reading, squatting down on the floor in a corner, where I was quite out of the way. It was here that I read all Fenimore Cooper’s novels, a great many of James’s, and Harrison Ainsworth’s “ Rook- wood,” that fine highwayman’s story containing a vivid account of Dick Turpin’s Ride to York. It was here, too, I read the earlier stories of Marryat and Bulwer, Godwin’s “ Caleb Williams,” Warren’s “ Diary of a Physician,” and such older works as “Don Quixote,” Smollett’s “Roderick Random,” “Peregrine Pickle,” and “Humphry Clinker,” Fielding’s “Tom Jones,” and Miss Burney’s “Evelina.” I also read, partially or completely, Milton’s “ Paradise Lost,” Pope’s “ Iliad,” Spenser’s “ Faerie Queene,” and Dante’s “ Inferno,” a good deal of Byron and Scott, some of the Spectator and Rambler , Southey’s “ Curse of Kehama,” and, in fact, almost any book that I heard spoken of as celebrated or interesting. At this time “ Pickwick ” was coming out in monthly parts, and I had the opportunity of reading bits of it, but I do not think I read it through till a considerably

MY LIFE

[Chap.

76

later period. I heard it a good deal talked about, and it occasioned quite an excitement among the masters in the Grammar School. Walton’s “ Angler ” was a favourite of my father’s, and I well remember a wood-cut illustration of Dove Dale with greatly exaggerated rocks and pinnacles, which made me long to see such a strange and picturesque spot — a longing which I only gratified about a dozen years ago, finding it more exquisitely beautiful than I had imagined it to be, even if not quite so fantastic.

I may now say a few words about our home-life as regards meals and other small matters, because I think its simplicity was perhaps better for children than what is common now. Till we reached the age of ten or twelve we never had tea or coffee, our breakfast consisting of bread-and-milk and our tea of milk-and-water with bread-and-butter. Toast, cake, muffins, and such luxuries were only indulged in on festive occasions. At our one-o’clock dinner we began with pudding and finished with meat and vegetables. During this period we made our own bread, and good wholesome bread it was, made with brewer’s yeast (which I often went for to the brewery), and sent to the nearest baker to be baked, as were most of our baked pies and puddings. Kitcheners were almost unknown then, and meat was roasted before the open fire with a clock-work jack, dripping-pan, and large tinned screen to reflect the heat and to warm plates and dishes.

A few words about the cost of living will not be out of place here, and will serve to correct some erroneous ideas on the subject. Tea was about double the price it is now, but coffee and cocoa were about the same as at present ; and these latter were commonly used for breakfast, while tea was only taken at tea, and then only by the older members of the family. Sugar was also more than twice as dear, but milk, eggs, and butter were all cheaper. Although this was in the corn-law days I doubt if our bread was any dearer than it is now, and it was certainly much better. It was ground in the mills of the town from wheat grown in the country round, and the large size of the penny rolls, which I have already

V]

HERTFORD: MY HOME-LIFE

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mentioned, shows that there cannot have been much difference of price to the retail buyer, who was then usually one or two steps nearer to the actual corn-grower than he is now. Meat also was cheaper than now. The price of the best beef was sixpence to sevenpence a pound ; while mutton was seven- pence to eightpence for the best joints, but for ordinary parts much less. In the country gleaning was a universal practice, and numbers of cottagers thus got a portion of their bread ; while a much larger proportion than now lived in the country and had large gardens or a few acres of land. My mother often took me with her when visiting such poor cottagers as were known to her, and my impression is that there was very little difference in the kind and degree of the rural poverty of that day and this ; and a few years later, as I shall show, the same may be said of the skilled mechanic. As a prime factor in this question, it must always be re¬ membered that rent, both in villages and towns, was in most cases less than half what it is at present, and this more than compensated for the few cheaper articles of food and clothing to-day.

My father and mother were old-fashioned religious people belonging to the Church of England, and, as a rule, we all went to church twice on Sundays, usually in the morning and evening. We also had to learn a collect every Sunday morn¬ ing, and were periodically examined in our catechism. On very wet evenings my father read us a chapter from the Bible and a sermon instead of the usual service. Among our friends, however, were some Dissenters, and a good many Quakers, who were very numerous in Hertford ; and on rare occasions we were taken to one of their chapels instead of to church, and the variety alone made this quite a treat. We were generally advised when some “ friend ” was expected to speak, and it was on such occasions that we visited the Friends’ Meeting House, though I remember one occasion when, during the whole time of the meeting, there was complete silence. And when any brother or sister was " moved to speak,” it was usually very dull and wearisome ; and after having attended two or three times, and witnessed the novelty of the men and

MY LIFE

[Chap. V]

78

women sitting on opposite sides of the room, and there being no pulpit and no clergyman and no singing, we did not care to go again. But the Dissenters’ chapel was always a welcome change, and we went there not unfrequently to the evening service. The extempore prayers, the frequent singing, and the usually more vigorous and exciting style of preaching was to me far preferable to the monotony of the Church service ; and it was there only that, at one period of my life, I felt something of religious fervour, derived chiefly from the more picturesque and impassioned of the hymns. As, however, there was no sufficient basis of intelligible fact or connected reason¬ ing to satisfy my intellect, this feeling soon left me, and has never returned.

Among our Quaker friends were two or three to whose houses we were occasionally invited, and I remember being greatly impressed by the excessive cleanliness and neatness of everything about their houses and gardens, corresponding to the delicate colouring and simple style of their clothing. At that time every Quaker lady wore the plainest of dresses, but of the softest shades of brown or lilac, while the men all wore the plain cutaway coat with upright collar, also of some shade of brown, which, with the low broad-brimmed beaver hat of the best quality, gave them a very distinctive and old-world appearance. They also invariably used “ thee ” and “ thou ” instead of “you” in ordinary conversation, which added to the conviction that they were a people apart, who had many habits and qualities that might well be imitated by their neighbours of other religious denominations.

CHAPTER VI

LONDON WORKERS, SECULARISTS AND OWENITES

HAVING finally left school at Christmas, 183 6, I think it was early in 1837 that I was sent to London to live at Mr. Webster’s in Robert Street, Hampstead Road, where my brother John was apprenticed. My father and mother were then about to move to the small cottage at Hoddesdon, and it was convenient for me to be out of the way till my brother William could arrange to have me with him to learn land-surveying. As I shared my brother’s bedroom and bed, I was no trouble, and I suppose I was boarded at a very low rate. As the few months I spent here at the most impres¬ sionable age had some influence in moulding my character, and also furnished me with information which I could have obtained in no other way, I devote the present chapter to giving a short account of it.

Mr. Webster was a small master builder, who had a work shop in a yard about five minutes’ walk from the house, where he constantly employed eight or ten men preparing all the joinery work for the houses he built. At that time there were no great steam-factories for making doors and windows, working mouldings, etc., everything being done by hand, except in the case of the large builders and contractors, who had planing and sawing-mills of their own. Here in the yard was a sawpit in which two men, the top- and bottom-sawyers, were always at work cutting up imported balks of timber into the sizes required, while another oldish man was at work day after day planing up floor-boards. In the shop itself windows

79

8 o

MY LIFE

[Chap.

and doors, cupboards, staircases, and other joiner’s work was always going on, and the men employed all lived in the small streets surrounding the shop. The working hours were from six to half-past five, with one and a half hours out for meals, leaving a working day of ten hours.

Having nothing else to do, I used to spend the greater part of my time in the shop, seeing the men work, doing little jobs occasionally, and listening to their conversation. These were no doubt an average sample of London mechanics, and were on the whole quite as respectable a set of men as any in a similar position to-day. I soon became quite at home in the shop, and got to know the peculiarities of each of the men. I heard their talk together, their jokes and chaff, their wishes and their ideas, and all those little touches of character which come out in the familiar intercourse of the workshop. My general impression is that there was very little swearing among them, much less than became common thirty years later, and perhaps about as much as among a similar class of men to-day. Neither was there much coarseness or indecency in their talk, far less indeed than I met with among pro¬ fessional young men a few years afterwards. One of the best of the workmen was a very loose character — a kind of Lothario or Don Juan by his own account — who would often talk about his adventures, and boast of them as the very essence of his life. He was a very good and amusing talker, and helped to make the time pass in the monotony of the shop ; but occasionally, when he became too explicit or too boastful, the foreman, who was a rather serious though very agreeable man, would gently call him to order, and repudiate altogether his praises of the joys of immorality. But I never once heard such foul language as was not uncommonly used among themselves by young men of a much higher class and much more education.

Of course, I heard incidentally a good deal about how they lived, and knew exactly what they earned, and I am thus enabled to correct some very erroneous statements which have been made of late years as to the condition of artisans in the early part of the nineteenth century, before the repeal

VI] LONDON WORKERS, SECULARISTS, ETC. 81

of the corn-laws. Perhaps the most glaring and the most numerous of these errors are due to Sir Robert Giffen, who, being considered an official statistical authority, continues to be quoted to the present day as if his statements were to be absolutely relied on. More often quoted than any other of his writings is his “ Progress of the Working Classes in the last Half Century,” given as a Presidential Address to the Statistical Society in 1883, and issued as a pamphlet, price threepence, in 1884, at the request of several friends, including Mr. Gladstone, who styled it “ a masterly paper.” It would occupy a whole chapter to expose the errors and the fallacies that pervade this paper, and I must therefore confine myself to two points only, that of the rise of wages and of the food of skilled artisans.

Mr. Giffen gives the weekly wages of carpenters at Man¬ chester as 24s. fifty years ago and 34^. in 1883, an increase of 42 per cent., but he omits to give prices for London. In the Report of the Industrial Remuneration Conference, Mr. J. G. Hutchinson gives the wages at Greenwich in 1832 as 32^. 6d.f and in 1876 as 39^. 8d.f a rise of only 22 per cent. Again, Mrs. Ellis, a Huddersfield pattern-weaver, told the conference that Mr. Giffen’s statements in the same table, of the earnings of her fellow-workers, were grossly inaccurate. He gave them as 2$s. a week against 1 6s. fifty years earlier, whereas they were only earning an average of 20s. in 1883. The wages where my brother worked were 30^. a week for all the men employed. We see, therefore, that Mr. Giffen’s general statement that wages have risen “ in most cases from 50 to 100 per cent.” is open to the gravest doubt ; while even if it were nearly accurate, it would not by any means prove what he claims — that these workers are very much better off than they were fifty years earlier. He certainly saves himself, verbally, by terming it an “apparent rise,” but he never attempts to get at the real rise, and throughout his argument hardly refers to this point again. Yet it is a most important one, on account of the fact which he notices, that, at the date of his paper as now, in all the building trades wages are reckoned and paid by the houry instead of by the day as at the VOL. 1. G

82

MY LIFE

[Chap.

earlier period, when also men were rarely discharged except at the week end. Then, again, Mr. Giffen speaks of the shorter hours of work which from “ one or two scattered notices ” he estimates at nearly 20 per cent., and then adds, “ The work¬ man gets from 50 to 100 per cent, more money for 20 per cent, less work ; in round figures, he has gained from 70 to 120 per cent, in fifty years in money return.” What a con¬ clusion for a statistician, from a very limited comparison of wages obtained almost wholly from the masters, and from “ one or two scattered notices/’ as regards hours of work !

But it is when he deals with the real value or purchasing power of this greatly exaggerated increase of wages that we find the grossest errors and the wildest declamation. After just remarking that “ sugar and such articles” have decreased greatly in price, that clothing is also cheaper, and that though house-rent has gone up, “ it cannot have gone up so much as to neutralize to any serious extent the great rise in the money wages of the workman,” he admits that the increase in the price of meat is considerable. And then comes this amazing statement : “ The truth is, however, that meat fifty years ago was not an article of the workman’s diet as it has since become. He had little more concern with its price than with the price of diamonds.”

I was so perfectly astounded at this statement that I at once made a few inquiries. A very intelligent man, a printer in the City, gave me facts from his own observation. About the time referred to, his father kept a public-house in or near Greenwich, much frequented by mechanics and other work¬ men, who came there in considerable numbers to have their dinner. He assured me that almost without exception they had fresh meat, which they either brought ready cooked, or had purchased on their way to work and cooked in a frying-pan or gridiron at the kitchen fire, many of them bringing large chops or steaks of good quality. Remember¬ ing the cheapness of meat when I was a boy, and remember¬ ing also the well-to-do appearance of the carpenters in Mr. Webster’s shop, I wrote to ask my brother how they lived during the twelve years he was in London, the last six working

VI] LONDON WORKERS, SECULARISTS, ETC. 83

as a journeyman in large shops and living on journeyman’s wages. His statement is as follows : —

“ Having been personally associated with the workers in the building trade about half a century ago (from 1835 to 1845), I feel qualified to describe the social condition of skilled mechanics at that period, more especially that of the car¬ penters and joiners. At that time every kind of work was done by hand, no machines except hand-tools were ever used, even boards of all thicknesses being sawn on the premises by hand labour out of thick planks from Northern Europe or Canada.

“The wages of good workmen were 5^. a day of ten hours ; and 6d. an hour was added or deducted for any variation from that time. No wages were paid except for a fair amount of work, and if the work was temporarily suspended by rain or otherwise, no compensation was given or expected. All the joiner’s work was done in shops, gene¬ rally well lighted and with good sanitary conditions ; nothing but the rough carpenter’s work was done in buildings before the roof was on. Working hours were from 6 a.m. to 5.30 p.m., with an hour and a half out for breakfast and dinner. Men were paid weekly on Saturday evening, and were generally discharged at that time, and the last two hours and a half were allowed for grinding tools.

“ The best workmen were seldom discharged unless in very dull times. At many shops men often worked for years without ever losing time except through sickness or accident ; but, of course, these were the very best men. There were always some out of work, especially in winter or in times of depression.

“As regards their social condition, the skilled work¬ man with his 30j\ a week, if a single man of steady and frugal habits, could save half his wages and have proper food, lodging, and clothing suitable to his position. His furnished lodging of one room would cost 4^. a week, and his three meals a day, taken at the eating-houses and coffee-shops, would not cost more than 8s. a week; his working clothes were cheap, and he would have one

84

MY LIFE

[Chap.

superior suit for Sundays and holidays. Of course, if he were of a gay disposition, he would spend more and save less, but that would not be the indispensable outlay of a working man.

“ In the case of a married man with a family, it would, of course, be more difficult to save money, but I have known men live well and respectably, bring up a family, and put by regularly for the expected ‘ rainy day,’ and eventually build their own house, and start in business, in a small way at first, and become masters and gain a competence ; but these are exceptional cases.

“ The generality of carpenters and joiners with a family would live in lodgings of two or three rooms with their own furniture (much of which the man could make in his spare time in the evening), paying 5 s. or 6s. a week, and with a careful and industrious wife could live well on their wages, clothe and educate their children, and still have something to put by. I have never known a carpenter in work, whether married or single, that did not have a good dinner of meat and vegetables every day, and on Sundays something extra ; they always had beer for dinner and often at their work about ten o’clock, and sometimes in the afternoon.

“ As near as I can recollect the prices of provisions were for meat from 6d. to Sd. a pound, bread yd. the four-pound loaf, butter 10 d.f cheese 8d., and sugar 6d. to 9 d. The brick¬ layers had about the same wages as the carpenters, but owing to lost time during bad weather, they were generally not so well off, or generally so well housed and fed, but I never heard or knew of any destitution or want among them. Of the social condition of the plasterers, painters, and other house finishers I know less, but all appeared well satisfied with their condition, and, at all events, no general dissatis¬ faction was expressed.”

It is, I think, quite clear from this statement of my brother’s that the standard of comfort of the skilled artisan was as high fifty years ago as it is now, notwithstanding his somewhat lower wages and his working ten instead of nine hours a day.

VI] LONDON WORKERS, SECULARISTS, ETC. 85

There being no railways and many more small employers, he seldom spent anything in going to and from his work ; while, as access to the country was then easier, his holidays cost him less, with more enjoyment, than going by rail to some place fifty miles away. It is also absolutely certain that the food of the workman was quite as good as it is now or even better, and that meat and beer formed regular articles of consumption by the average mechanic.

Now, these almost incredible errors as to matters of fact teach us that Government officials are quite unfitted to deal with such questions as