Part 17 (2/2)

before assembled hundreds, sometimes thousands, as a public reader

People who have made themselves acquainted with my ”Proverbial Philosophy”contrasts the misery of the man who cannot speak with the happiness of the emancipated orator, and I have experienced them both; whilst it may be seen in what I have written about silence and seclusion how cordially and perhaps foolishly, as ”wearing reatly love to be alone, especially in what I am known to call ”holy silence;” in fact, as ill-nature may like to put it, I prefer my own quiet company to that disturbed by the talk of other people So much, then, as to one cause for the scantiness in this self-memoir of expected spicy anecdotes and perilous revelations Not but that I could make considerable mischief, and perhaps help my publisher in sales, if I chose to lish, hom I have had intercourse both at Albury and elsewhere

My huiven to strangers, have been like their author, proverbial; but that is no reason why our converse, free and frank as private fellowshi+p commands, should be produced in print; naturally the host was ever generous, and the guest--equally, of course--appreciative

Perhaps though, not quite always: and I am tempted here to say just one unpleasant word about the only one of uests, hospitably, nay almost affectionately treated, rote holy of his entertainer, his son having afterwards had the bad taste to publish those letters in his father's Life One comfort, however, is that in ”The Meenius praises no one of his English hosts (except, indeed, a perhaps too open-handed London one), and that he was not known (any o I found a rude custoood nature When at Albury, Hawthorne see ly affluent independence, as well as authorial fame; even of his friends when driven by him to visit beautiful and hospitable Wotton; and in every word and gesture openly entering his republican and ascetic protest against the aristocratic old country; even to protesting, e drove by a neeather-boarded cottage, ”Ha, that's the sort of house I prefer to see; it's like one of ours at home” That we did not take to each other is no wonder This, then, is ainst enius in ”The Scarlet Letter;” but, so far as I know, it ell-nigh a solitary one

One further curious illustration of an uncongenial guest is this: Alexander Sems, which at once h I asked him down to Albury, made much of him, praised warmly sundry _morceaux_ of his (which I had marked in my copy), and to my astonishment received the brusque reply, ”O, you like those, do you? I shall alter them in next edition:” as I found afterwards he did He was a coh h why I could not guess,--I tried in other ways to please hionette: but all would not do,--his day ca after, I stumbled upon the reason I had then for the first ties therein very similar to Alexander's; thereafter, other little bits from some other poets (I think Tennyson was one) struck me Little wonder, then, that I heard no ht hinorance of his plagiaristic tendency as if I had known all about it: and years after Aytoun had (as I was told) avenged justice by that cleverest of spasmodic poetries, ”Firmilian, by Percy Jones”--a burlesque on Alexander Sly let die Let no one, however, after all this, fancy that I am unaware of Alexander Smith's true merit He very neatly fitted into his mosaic word-pictures the titbits he had culled in his commonplace-book out of ht man, ”elbow to elbow,” as he told ner of patterns, he had well and wisely made the most of his scant opportunities of culture, and it is only a pity that he did not allude to so of this in a preface

It is not for me to recall here much about the inevitable hospitalities of an old country house, to which a not unkindly host often invited English and foreign friends, who to do with authorshi+p had made celebrities Do I not pleasantly re out, ”More hay, more hay!” covered Grace Greenith a haycock overturned, and had greeted a sculptor guest appropriately and wittily enough with ”Here we are, Durha besides others, Cae Godwin, and Francis Bennoch? Do I not remember how much surprised ere at the melodies whereof an old piano was capable when touched by Otto Golds Canadian, Joseph Macdougall, of Ottawa, exteenius can (Mr assher was another), and sent raphs, whereof he had e? And was not our village stirred to its depths by the visit to Albury House of two black gentle dress?

It was President Roberts of Monrovia, attended by his secretary and chief minister; for they came cordially to return thanks to one who had helped a little in slave emancipation, under the influences of Elliott Cresson, Dr Hodgkin Garrison, and others,--and, old medal for African literature, biennially to be competed for by emancipated slaves;--whereof I have heard very little, since (by the volunteered assistance of Mr Taylor, the seal engraver) I gave it e as a crown piece President Benson, also of Liberia, a nificent ebon speci before his lamented death--it was said, by murder

Letgone to a better world, but once welcoale, the enthusiastic antiquary; there was his _fidus Achates_, Akerreatly pleased by enabling hiate; there was Chief Baron Pollok, head of the Novioians: the eloquent Edwards Lester of America, whose speech at a Literary Fund dinner to which I had treated him was hailed by Hallam, dickens, and others on the spot as _the_ speech of the Society: and the Warrens of Troy, NY, about whose casual visit this singular thing happened For the first and only tie luck to catch at Netley Pond three perch of nearly a pound each, and a fine trout of about two: I little knew then the final cause thereof: in those days we could not easily get fish in the country, unless indeed we caught it: now er friends came on a Friday, and proved to be Roman Catholics: could any piscatorial luck have been more tihbour (it was Captain Russell of the Cleveland faler, he, of course, without iht have such luck again, as he would then come and dine with me I answered at once, ”Coht” He did,--and I produced from the same old mill-head a three-pound trout,--to his astonishht it I have never had such luck before or since, though always a zealous angler in an unprofessional way

Let et here also the beautiful ”Albury Waltz,” co, and published--it ton Street: wherein by request I originated the idea of song words for the dancers This singing as you danced has been often done since, but I suppose no one then thought of it butDavid I need say little more about Albury visitors:--for many years there were plenty of them,--but if one put down a tenth part of what even the faithless e still retains, there would be no end to such inexhaustible recordings

And here is an Alburian anecdote which may amuse, as illustrative of the mental calibre of soovernors have made politically equal with the wisest in the land Three young friends caht in their pockets the absurd noses popular at Epsoers, and my visitors mounted their masks to mystify them The clodpoles looked scared and very quiet, till I went up to one of thenoners:” and the poor ignora at those portentous noses said seriously, ”Ees, I sees they be” Clearly he thought all ”furriners” were so featured

Another specience is this: A labourer in my field one day said to me, ”Master, please to tell me where Jerusale about it, and I says as its in Ireland, because the Roht have heard also that St John's Pat-islative constituency being found to believe _that_

But not only is the comuests at my table One whom I had asked to meet two A them--red men!

And another (this time a provincial parson) wanted me to expostulate with my friend Hatchard (afterwards Bishop of Mauritius) because hefountain to Guildford

”Only think, a drinking fountain! surely you cannot approve?” The poorapparatuses for spirits presided over by barmaids! It is manifest that the schoolo as he has been since board schools have arisen

Ast other specialities of ancient Albury House, which has 1561 on a weathercock and 1701 on a kitchen wing, is the saford vexes hi,--and which Pindar of old declared to be the privilege of poets We are, and have been for generations, a very house-hive of bees: the whole front of two gables has thehout,--and when guests sleep in certain rooht are not those of perturbed spirits, but the hum and bustle of multitudinous bees We cannot drive them away, nor destroy them utterly,--as often has been attempted; and if we did, the worry would be only worsened, as in that case hornets would coe of bee-dom When the stuccoed front of our house was dehcast to keep out the weather), there were pailsful of honey carried off by the labourers, of course not without wounds and strife: but in ordinary ti their hosts; be careful only to remain quiet, and there is no war between reat comb was built outside an eaveboard, probably because there was no room for more comb inside It is curious that it should have survived two hard winters Is not all this apposite, as suited (let Pindar and Tennyson bear witness) to a poet's hoical connection (for bees are zoa) letbeen killed in our drawing-roo some tenancy in my absence,--only fancy the havoc of such a strife! but all had been cleared up before our return Also, it isfroe in our harness-rooht it was a mad donkey,--and no wonder, for as those brave barbarian sportset the antlers sawn off for fear of wounds to thes, the poor scared creature with its uncrowned head and loppity ears is very donkey-like

Let ive another like homely anecdote of past days

We are all norapt in security as country dwellers, guarded by the rural police everywhere, that the following ludicrous incident ood old days, when poor Jack was such a highway brigand that my nurses feared to take the children off the prelars were not infrequent callers at reo, on a certain dark winter's night, at Albury, one to bed, we heard with trepidation stealthy steps crunching the snow round the house, and _soround-floor doors and s, as if quietly trying to get in: at last _it_ fu handle of the outside kitchen-door! Noas the time for Paterfamilias to show his pluck, in the universal scare; so, armed _cap-a-pied_, with candles held in the rear by the terrified household, he valorously drew the bolts and flung open the heavy oaken door,--to greet--his children's donkey, escaped soht for ware was all the same; and if this donkey story is pounced upon by soraphy, I only hope he will behave as bravely if a real ruffian tries his doors and s by night; by no means an improbable hypothesis in these days of communistic radicalism

The old house itself may deserve a word It came to me as a--shall I say?--matrimony, from my mother; if patrimony reat-uncle, Anthony Devis, having bought it in 1780 He was a reood landscape painter (as Pilkington avouches), a collector of pictures and curiosities,--h a full gallery remains at Albury; a carver too, and a constructor of cabinets,--whereof two fine specimens (inlaid with brecciated jaspers, and -lathe) decorate our large drawing-rooood old gentleerbread in his pockets for them as children, and as known by the he was the first who ever had an umbrella in the place! There was, however, another and a better reason for this na-room on a hilltop near which he called Mushroom Hall, because it was just like one (as a picture in our drawing-roo a circular turret sur eaves all round This strange suood old stock paternally, as the civic archives of Preston, in Lancashi+re, testify; and his mother was Ann Blackburne, of Marrick Abbey, Yorkshi+re,--the title-deeds whereof, old slip parchments and maps from Henry II to Henry VIII, I found in a chest at Albury, and years after transmitted them to Lord Beaumont, the present owner; albeit, as a boy, I had been allowed to cut off the seals and paste them in a copy-book! All these deeds, and the history thereof, I had printed in Nichols's Antiquariana

The proion is concerned, has for nearly fifty years been the fact of its being the headquarters of the party originated by Edward Irving,--a full history whereof, impartially and ably written by Mr Miller of Bicester (whose hospitality I have enjoyed for soan Paul's, if any wish to read it I have always lived on kindly terh not quite of their faith; excellent aremy friends, specially as on neither side we meddle with each other's peculiar opinions I have known nearly all their twelve apostles, reat Hebraist, and as skilled even in Sanscrit and the arrow-headed characters), and eleven of thee to

CHAPTER xxxI

AMERICAN BALLADS