Kitabı oku: «Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 427, May, 1851», sayfa 3

But to Mr Lowell. The first piece in his collection of poems is entitled "A Legend of Brittany." The subject is as grotesque as legendary lore could have supplied him with. A knight-templar, a soldier-priest who has taken the vow of chastity at a time and place when that vow was expected to be kept, has fallen in love with a beautiful girl. He seduces her; then to hide his own disgrace he murders her; and he buries the body, with the unborn infant, under the altar of the church! One day at high mass, when the guilty templar is there himself standing, with others, round the altar, a voice is heard, a vision is seen – it is the spirit of the murdered girl and mother. She appears – not to denounce the assassin – she regrets to expose his guilt – there is so much woman in the angel that she loves him still – she appears to claim the rite of baptism for her unborn infant, who, till that rite is performed, wanders in darkness and in pain. The legend must have received this turn during some Gorham controversy now happily forgotten. Notwithstanding the very strange nature of the whole story, there is a pleasing tenderness in this address of the spirit to the wicked templar. After glancing more in sadness than in anger at his falsehood, it continues: —

 
"And thou hadst never heard such words as these,
Save that in heaven I must ever be
Most comfortless and wretched, seeing this
Our unbaptisèd babe shut out from bliss.
 
 
This little spirit, with imploring eyes,
Wanders alone the dreary wild of space;
The shadow of his pain forever lies
Upon my soul in this new dwelling-place;
His loneliness makes me in paradise
More lonely; and unless I see his face,
Even here for grief could I lie down and die,
Save for my curse of immortality.
 
 
I am a mother, spirits do not shake
This much of earth from them, and I must pine,
Till I can feel his little hands, and take
His weary head upon this heart of mine.
And might it be, full gladly for his sake
Would I this solitude of bliss resign,
And be shut out of heaven to dwell with him
For ever in that silence drear and dim.
 
 
I strove to hush my soul, and would not speak
At first for thy dear sake. A woman's love
Is mighty, but a mother's heart is weak,
And by its weakness overcomes; I strove
To smother better thoughts with patience meek,
But still in the abyss my soul would rove,
Seeking my child, and drove me here to claim
The rite that gives him peace in Christ's dear name.
 
 
I sit and weep while blessed spirits sing:
I can but long and pine the while they praise,
And, leaning o'er the wall of heaven, I fling
My voice to where I deem my infant stays,
Like a robbed bird that cries in vain to bring
Her nestlings back beneath her wings' embrace;
But still he answers not, and I but know
That heaven and earth are but alike in woe."
 

The sacred rite, so piteously pleaded for, was of course duly performed. This poem seems to have been written when Keats was in the ascendant, and predominated over the imagination of our author. Nor has he failed to catch a portion of the finer fancy of that exuberant poet. Such lines as the following are quite in the manner of Keats.

 
"The deep sky, full-hearted with the moon."
… "the nunneries of silent nooks,
The murmured longing of the wood."
 

Or this description: —

 
"In the courtyard a fountain leaped alway,
A Triton blowing jewels through his shell
Into the sunshine."
 

In the second volume we have another legend, or rather a legendary vision, of the author's own invention, which is of a higher import, and still more redolent of poetry. It is called "The vision of Sir Launfal." This knight has a vision, or a dream, in which he beholds himself going forth from his proud castle to accomplish a vow he had made, namely, to seek "over land and sea for the Holy Grail." What the Holy Grail is, Mr Lowell is considerate enough to inform, or remind his readers, in a note which runs thus, – "According to the mythology of the Romancers, the San Greal, or Holy Grail, was the cup out of which Jesus partook of the Last Supper with his disciples. It was brought into England by Joseph of Arimathea, and remained there, an object of pilgrimage and adoration, for many years in the keeping of his lineal descendants. It was incumbent upon those who had charge of it to be chaste in thought, word, and deed; but one of the keepers having broken this condition, the Holy Grail disappeared. From that time it was a favourite enterprise of the knights of Arthur's court to go in search of it." Well, Sir Launfal, in his vision, starts forth upon this knightly and pious enterprise. It is the month of June when he sallies from his castle, and the poet revels in a description of the glories of the summer: —

 
"Whether we look, or whether we listen,
We hear life murmur, or see it glisten:
Every clod feels a stir of might,
An instinct within it that reaches and towers,
And, grasping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers.
The cowslip startles in meadows green,
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there's never a leaf or a blade too mean
To be some happy creature's palace;
The little bird sits at his door in the sun
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o'errun
With the deluge of summer it receives.
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings —
He sings to the wide world, she to her nest.
 
 
Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;
Everything is happy now,
Everything is upward striving;
'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true
As for grass to be green or skies to be blue, —
'Tis the natural way of living:
Who knows whither the clouds have fled?
In the unscarred heaven they leave no wake;
And the eyes forget the tears they have shed,
And the heart forgets its sorrow and ache;
And the soul partakes the season's youth."
 

The drawbridge of the castle is let down, and Sir Launfal, on his charger, springs from under the archway, clothed in his glittering mail —

 
"To seek in all climes for the Holy Grail."
"As Sir Launfal made morn through the darksome gate
He was ware of a leper, crouched by the same,
Who begged with his hand and moaned as he sate;
And a loathing over Sir Launfal came;
The sunshine went out of his soul with a thrill,
The flesh 'neath his armour did shrink and crawl,
 
 
For this man, so foul and bent of stature,
Rasped harshly against his dainty nature,
And seemed the one blot on the summer morn, —
So he tossed him a piece of gold in scorn.
 
 
The leper raised not the gold from the dust:
'Better to me the poor man's crust.
Better the blessing of the poor,
Though I turn me empty from his door;
That is no true alms which, the hand can hold.'"
 

Sir Launfal proceeds in search of the Holy Grail; but he finds it not. He returns an old man, worn with toil, and sad at heart, and full of tender commiseration for all the afflicted and distressed. It is winter when he returns to his castle. There sits the same miserable leper, and moans out the same prayer for alms; but this time it is answered in a very different spirit.

 
"Straightway he
Remembered in what a haughty guise
He had flung an alms to leprosie,
When he caged his young life up in gilded mail
To set forth in search of the Holy Grail —
The heart within him was ashes and dust;
He parted in twain his single crust,
He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink,
And gave the leper to eat and to drink;
'Twas a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread,
'Twas water out of a wooden bowl, —
Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed,
And 'twas red wine he drank with his thirsty soul.
 
 
As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face,
A light shone round about the place;
The leper no longer crouched at his side,
But stood before him glorified,
And a voice that was calmer than silence said —
'In many climes, without avail,
Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail;
Behold it is here, – this cup which thou
Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now!
The Holy Supper is kept, indeed,
In whatso we share with another's need.'"
 

Such was the dream or vision of Sir Launfal. We need hardly add that, when he awoke from it, he exclaimed that the Holy Grail was already found – bade his servants hang up his armour on the wall, and open his gates to the needy and the poor.

We shall venture upon one more quotation before we quit Mr Lowell. We must premise that we do not always mark by asterisks the omission that we make, when that omission creates no obscurity whatever in the passage. The following poem we take the liberty of abridging, and we print it, without any interruption of this kind, in its abridged form. In this form it will perhaps remind our readers of some of those tender, simple, and domestic lyrics in which German poetry is so rich. There is no other language from which so many beautiful poems might be collected which refer to childhood, and the love of children, as from the German. It has sometimes occurred to us that our poetesses, or fair translators of poetry, might contrive a charming volume of such lyrics on childhood.

THE CHANGELING

 
"I had a little daughter,
And she was given to me
To lead me gently onward
To the Heavenly Father's knee.
 
 
I know not how others saw her,
But to me she was wholly fair,
And the light of the heaven she came from
Still lingered and gleamed in her hair.
 
 
She had been with us scarce a twelvemonth,
And it hardly seemed a day,
When a troop of wandering angels
Stole my little daughter away.
 
 
But they left in her stead a changeling,
A little angel child,
That seems like her bud in full blossom,
And smiles as she never smiled.
 
 
This child is not mine as the first was,
I cannot sing it to rest,
I cannot lift it up fatherly,
And bless it upon my breast.
 
 
Yet it lies in my little one's cradle,
And sits in my little one's chair,
And the light of the heaven she's gone to
Transfigures its golden hair."
 

We have still a brief space for Mr Holmes. It is fit that, amongst our list, there should be one representative of the comic muse. Mr Holmes, however, is not always comic. Some of his serious pieces are not without a certain manly pathos. Some, too, are of a quite didactic character, and have the air of college exercises. But it is only a few of his lighter pieces we should feel any disposition to quote, or refer to. Mr Holmes portrays himself to us as a boon companion; – a physician by profession, and one to whom poetry has been only an occasional amusement – one of those choice spirits who can set the table in a roar, and who can sing himself the good song that he indites. Such being the case, we have only to lay down the critical pen to court amusement ourselves, and conclude our paper by sharing with the reader a few specimens of wit or humour.

Civilised life in New York, or Boston, seems to have the same disagreeable accompaniments as with us – as witness.

THE MUSIC-GRINDERS

 
"There are three ways in which men take
One's money from his purse,
And very hard it is to tell
Which of the three is worse;
But all of them are bad enough
To make a body curse.
 
 
You're riding out some pleasant day,
And counting up your gains;
A fellow jumps from out a bush,
And takes your horse's reins;
Another hints some words about
A bullet in your brains.
 
 
It's hard to meet such pressing friends
In such a lonely spot;
It's very hard to lose your cash,
But harder to be shot;
And so you take your wallet out,
Though you had rather not.
 
 
Perhaps you're going out to dine,
Some filthy creature begs
You'll hear about the cannon-ball
That carried off his pegs;
He says it is a dreadful thing
For men to lose their legs.
 
 
He tells you of his starving wife,
His children to be fed,
Poor little lovely innocents.
All clamorous for bread;
And so you kindly help to put
A bachelor to bed.
 
 
You're sitting on your window-seat,
Beneath a cloudless moon;
You hear a sound that seems to wear
The semblance of a tune,
As if a broken fife should strive
To drown a cracked basoon.
 
 
And nearer, nearer still, the tide
Of music seems to come,
There's something like a human voice
And something like a drum;
You sit in speechless agony
Until your ear is numb.
 
 
Poor 'home, sweet home,' should seem to be
A very dismal place,
Your 'auld acquaintance,' all at once
Is altered in the face —
But hark! the air again is still,
The music all is ground;
 
 
It cannot be – it is – it is —
A hat is going round!
No! Pay the dentist when he leaves
A fracture in your jaw;
And pay the owner of the bear,
That stunned you with his paw;
 
 
And buy the lobster that has had
Your knuckles in his claw;
But if you are a portly man,
Put on your fiercest frown,
And talk about a constable
To turn them out of town;
 
 
Then close your sentence with an oath,
And shut the window down!
And if you are a slender man,
Not big enough for that,
Or, if you cannot make a speech,
Because you are a flat,
 
 
Go very quietly and drop
A button in the hat!"
 

Excellent advice! How many hats there are – and not of music-grinders only – in which we should be delighted to see the button dropped! The next in order is very good, and equally intelligible on this side of the Atlantic. We give the greater part of it: —

THE TREADMILL SONG

 
"They've built us up a noble wall,
To keep the vulgar out;
We've nothing in the world to do,
But just to walk about;
So faster now, you middle men,
And try to beat the ends,
Its pleasant work to ramble round
Among one's honest friends.
 
 
Here, tread upon the long man's toes,
He shan't be lazy here —
And punch the little fellow's ribs,
And tweak that lubber's ear,
He's lost them both – don't pull his hair,
Because he wears a scratch,
But poke him in the further eye,
That isn't in the patch.
 
 
Hark! fellows, there's the supper-bell,
And so our work is done;
It's pretty sport – suppose we take
A round or two for fun!
If ever they should turn me out,
When I have better grown,
Now hang me, but I mean to have
A treadmill of my own!"
 

"The September Gale," "The Ballad of an Oysterman," "My Aunt," all solicit admission, but we have no space. A few of the verses "On the Portrait of 'A Gentleman,' in the Athenæum Gallery," we will insert. Perhaps we may see the companion picture to it on the walls of our own Exhibition at Trafalgar Square: —

 
"It may be so, perhaps thou hast
A warm and loving heart;
I will not blame thee for thy face,
Poor devil as thou art.
 
 
That thing thou fondly deem'st a nose,
Unsightly though it be,
In spite of all the cold world's scorn,
It may be much to thee.
 
 
Those eyes, among thine elder friends,
Perhaps they pass for blue;
No matter – if a man can see,
What more have eyes to do?
 
 
Thy mouth – that fissure in thy face,
By something like a chin —
May be a very useful place
To put thy victual in."
 

Not, it seems, a thing to paint for public inspection. Apropos of the pictorial art, we cannot dismiss Mr Holmes' book without noticing the two or three tasteful vignettes or medallions, or by whatever name the small engravings are to be called, which are scattered through its pages. We wish there were more of them, and that such a style of illustration, or rather of decoration, (for they have little to do with the subject of the text,) were more general. Here are two little children sitting on the ground, one is reading, the other listening – a mere outline, and the whole could be covered by a crown-piece. A simple medallion, such as we have described, gives an exquisite and perpetual pleasure; the blurred and blotched engraving, where much is attempted and nothing completed, is a mere disfigurement to a book. The volume before us, we ought perhaps to add, comes from the press of Messrs Ticknor and Co., Boston.

MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE

BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON

BOOK V. – INITIAL CHAPTER

"I hope, Pisistratus," said my father, "that you do not intend to be dull!"

"Heaven forbid, sir! what could make you ask such a question? Intend. No! if I am dull it is from innocence."

"A very long Discourse upon Knowledge!" said my father; "very long. I should cut it out!"

I looked upon my father as a Byzantian sage might have looked on a Vandal. "Cut it out!" —

"Stops the action, sir!" said my father, dogmatically.

"Action! But a novel is not a drama."

"No, it is a great deal longer – twenty times as long, I dare say," replied Mr Caxton with a sigh.

"Well, sir – well! I think my Discourse upon Knowledge has much to do with the subject – is vitally essential to the subject; does not stop the action – only explains and elucidates the action. And I am astonished, sir, that you, a scholar, and a cultivator of knowledge" —

"There – there!" cried my father, deprecatingly. "I yield – I yield. What better could I expect when I set up for a critic! What author ever lived that did not fly into a passion – even with his own father, if his father presumed to say – 'Cut out!' Pacem imploro" —

Mrs Caxton. – "My dear Austin, I am sure Pisistratus did not mean to offend you, and I have no doubt he will take your" —

Pisistratus, (hastily.) – "Advice for the future, certainly. I will quicken the action, and" —

"Go on with the Novel," whispered Roland, looking up from his eternal account-book. "We have lost £200 by our barley!"

Therewith I plunged my pen into the ink, and my thoughts into the "Fair Shadowland."

CHAPTER II

"Halt!" cried a voice; and not a little surprised was Leonard when the stranger who had accosted him the preceding evening got into the chaise.

"Well," said Richard, "I am not the sort of man you expected, eh? Take time to recover yourself." And with these words Richard drew forth a book from his pocket, threw himself back, and began to read. Leonard stole many a glance at the acute, hardy, handsome face of his companion, and gradually recognised a family likeness to poor John, in whom, despite age and infirmity, the traces of no common share of physical beauty were still evident. And, with that quick link in ideas which mathematical aptitude bestows, the young student at once conjectured that he saw before him his uncle Richard. He had the discretion, however, to leave that gentleman free to choose his own time for introducing himself, and silently revolved the new thoughts produced by the novelty of his situation. Mr Richard read with notable quickness – sometimes cutting the leaves of the book with his penknife, sometimes tearing them open with his forefinger, sometimes skipping whole pages altogether. Thus he galloped to the end of the volume – flung it aside – lighted his cigar, and began to talk.

He put many questions to Leonard relative to his rearing, and especially to the mode by which he had acquired his education; and Leonard, confirmed in the idea that he was replying to a kinsman, answered frankly.

Richard did not think it strange that Leonard should have acquired so much instruction with so little direct tuition. Richard Avenel himself had been tutor to himself. He had lived too long with our go-ahead brethren, who stride the world on the other side the Atlantic with the seven-leagued boots of the Giant-killer, not to have caught their glorious fever for reading. But it was for a reading wholly different from that which was familiar to Leonard. The books he read must be new; to read old books would have seemed to him going back in the world. He fancied that new books necessarily contained new ideas – a common mistake – and our lucky adventurer was the man of his day.

Tired with talking, he at length chucked the book he had run through to Leonard, and, taking out a pocket-book and pencil, amused himself with calculations on some detail of his business, after which he fell into an absorbed train of thought – part pecuniary, part ambitious.

Leonard found the book interesting; it was one of the numerous works, half-statistic, half-declamatory, relating to the condition of the working-classes, which peculiarly distinguish our century, and ought to bind together rich and poor, by proving the grave attention which modern society bestows upon all that can affect the welfare of the last.

"Dull stuff – theory – claptrap," said Richard, rousing himself from his reverie at last: "it can't interest you."

"All books interest me, I think," said Leonard, "and this especially; for it relates to the working-class, and I am one of them."

"You were yesterday, but you mayn't be to-morrow," answered Richard good-humouredly, and patting him on the shoulder. "You see, my lad, that it is the middle class which ought to govern the country. What the book says about the ignorance of country magistrates is very good; but the man writes pretty considerable trash when he wants to regulate the number of hours a free-born boy should work at a factory – only ten hours a-day – pooh! and so lose two to the nation! Labour is wealth: and if we could get men to work twenty-four hours a-day, we should be just twice as rich. If the march of civilisation is to proceed," continued Richard, loftily, "men, and boys too, must not lie a-bed doing nothing all night, sir." Then with a complacent tone – "We shall get to the twenty-four hours at last; and, by gad, we must, or we shan't flog the Europeans as we do now."

On arriving at the inn at which Richard had first made acquaintance with Mr Dale, the coach by which he had intended to perform the rest of the journey was found to be full. Richard continued to perform the journey in post-chaises, not without some grumbling at the expense, and incessant orders to the postboys to make the best of the way. "Slow country this, in spite of all its brag," said he – "very slow. Time is money – they know that in the States; for why, they are all men of business there. Always slow in a country where a parcel of lazy idle lords, and dukes, and baronets, seem to think 'time is pleasure.'"

Towards evening the chaise approached the confines of a very large town, and Richard began to grow fidgety. His easy cavalier air was abandoned. He withdrew his legs from the window, out of which they had been luxuriously dangling; pulled down his waistcoat; buckled more tightly his stock: it was clear that he was resuming the decorous dignity that belongs to state. He was like a monarch who, after travelling happy and incognito, returns to his capital. Leonard divined at once that they were nearing their journey's end.

Humble foot-passengers now looked at the chaise, and touched their hats. Richard returned the salutation with a nod – a nod less gracious than condescending. The chaise turned rapidly to the left, and stopped before a smart lodge, very new, very white, adorned with two Doric columns in stucco, and flanked by a large pair of gates. "Hollo!" cried the postboy, and cracked his whip.

Two children were playing before the lodge, and some clothes were hanging out to dry on the shrubs and pales round the neat little building.

"Hang those brats! they are actually playing," growled Dick. "As I live, the jade has been washing again! Stop, boy." During this soliloquy, a good-looking young woman had rushed from the door – slapped the children as, catching sight of the chaise, they ran towards the house – opened the gates, and, dropping a curtsey to the ground, seemed to wish that she could drop into it altogether, so frightened and so trembling seemed she to shrink from the wrathful face which the master now put out of the window.

"Did I tell you, or did I not," said Dick, "that I would not have these horrid disreputable cubs of yours playing just before my lodge gates?"

"Please, sir – "

"Don't answer me. And did I tell you, or did I not, that the next time I saw you making a drying-ground of my lilacs, you should go out, neck and crop – "

"Oh, please sir – "

"You leave my lodge next Saturday: drive on, boy. The ingratitude and insolence of those common people are disgraceful to human nature," muttered Richard, with an accent of the bitterest misanthropy.

The chaise wheeled along the smoothest and freshest of gravel roads, and through fields of the finest land, in the highest state of cultivation. Rapid as was Leonard's survey, his rural eye detected the signs of a master in the art agronomial. Hitherto he had considered the Squire's model farm as the nearest approach to good husbandry he had seen; for Jackeymo's finer skill was developed rather on the minute scale of market-gardening than what can fairly be called husbandry. But the Squire's farm was degraded by many old-fashioned notions, and concessions to the whim of the eye, which would not be found in model farms now-a-days – large tangled hedgerows, which, though they constitute one of the beauties most picturesque in old England, make sad deductions from produce; great trees, overshadowing the corn, and harbouring the birds; little patches of rough sward left to waste; and angles of woodland running into fields, exposing them to rabbits, and blocking, out the sun. These and suchlike blots on a gentleman farmer's agriculture, common-sense and Giacomo had made clear to the acute comprehension of Leonard. No such faults were perceptible in Richard Avenel's domain. The fields lay in broad divisions, the hedges were clipped and narrowed into their proper destination of mere boundaries. Not a blade of wheat withered under the cold shade of a tree; not a yard of land lay waste; not a weed was to be seen, not a thistle to waft its baleful seed through the air: some young plantations were placed, not where the artist would put them, but just where the farmer wanted a fence from the wind. Was there no beauty in this? Yes, there was beauty of its kind – beauty at once recognisable to the initiated – beauty of use and profit – beauty that could bear a monstrous high rent. And Leonard uttered a cry of admiration which thrilled through the heart of Richard Avenel.

"This is farming!" said the villager.

"Well, I guess it is," answered Richard, all his ill-humour vanishing. "You should have seen the land when I bought it. But we new men, as they call us – (damn their impertinence) – are the new blood of this country."

Richard Avenel never said anything more true. Long may the new blood circulate through the veins of the mighty giantess; but let the grand heart be the same as it has beat for proud ages.

The chaise now passed through a pretty shrubbery, and the house came into gradual view – a house with a portico – all the offices carefully thrust out of sight.

The postboy dismounted, and rang the bell.

"I almost think they are going to keep me waiting," said Mr Richard, wellnigh in the very words of Louis XIV.

But that fear was not realised – the door opened; a well-fed servant out of livery presented himself. There was no hearty welcoming smile on his face, but he opened the chaise-door with demure and taciturn respect.

"Where's George? why does not he come to the door?" asked Richard, descending from the chaise slowly, and leaning on the servant's outstretched arm with as much precaution as if he had had the gout.

Fortunately, George here came into sight, settling himself hastily into his livery coat.

"See to the things, both of you," said Richard, as he paid the postboy.

Leonard stood on the gravel sweep, gazing at the square white house.

"Handsome elevation – classical, I take it – eh?" said Richard, joining him. "But you should see the offices."

He then, with familiar kindness, took Leonard by the arm, and drew him within. He showed him the hall, with a carved mahogany stand for hats; he showed him the drawing-room, and pointed out all its beauties – though it was summer the drawing-room looked cold, as will look rooms newly furnished, with walls newly papered, in houses newly built. The furniture was handsome, and suited to the rank of a rich trader. There was no pretence about it, and therefore no vulgarity, which is more than can be said for the houses of many an honourable Mrs Somebody in Mayfair, with rooms twelve feet square, chokeful of buhl, that would have had its proper place in the Tuilleries. Then Richard showed him the library, with mahogany bookcases and plate glass, and the fashionable authors handsomely bound. Your new men are much better friends to living authors than your old families who live in the country, and at most subscribe to a book-club. Then Richard took him up-stairs, and led him through the bedrooms – all very clean and comfortable, and with every modern convenience; and, pausing in a very pretty single gentleman's chamber, said, "This is your den. And now, can you guess who I am?"

"No one but my Uncle Richard could be so kind," answered Leonard.

But the compliment did not flatter Richard. He was extremely disconcerted and disappointed. He had hoped that he should be taken for a lord at least, forgetful of all that he had said in disparagement of lords.

"Pish!" said he at last, biting his lip – "so you don't think that I look like a gentleman? Come, now, speak honestly."

Leonard wonderingly saw he had given pain, and, with the good breeding which comes instinctively from good nature, replied – "I judged you by your heart, sir, and your likeness to my grandfather – otherwise I should never have presumed to fancy we could be relations."

"Hum!" answered Richard. "You can just wash your hands, and then come down to dinner; you will hear the gong in ten minutes. There's the bell – ring for what you want."

With that, he turned on his heel; and, descending the stairs, gave a look into the dining-room, and admired the plated salver on the sideboard, and the king's pattern spoons and forks on the table. Then he walked to the looking-glass over the mantlepiece; and, wishing to survey the whole effect of his form, mounted a chair. He was just getting into an attitude which he thought imposing, when the butler entered, and, being London bred, had the discretion to try to escape unseen; but Richard caught sight of him in the looking-glass, and coloured up to the temples.

"Jarvis," said he mildly – "Jarvis, put me in mind to have these inexpressibles altered."