" asks
Bodenham, scanning the barren bush that stretches to the barren
sea.
Bodenham, scanning the barren bush that stretches to the barren
sea.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v07 - Cic to Cuv
His education for some years had been in Ireland,
where his father was Lord Deputy; so that when he returned
into England to the possession of his fortune, he was unentan-
gled with any acquaintance or friends, which usually grow up
by the custom of conversation; and therefore was to make a
pure election of his company, which he chose by other rules
than were prescribed to the young nobility of that time. And
it cannot be denied, though he admitted some few to his friend-
ship for the agreeableness of their natures and their undoubted
affection to him, that his familiarity and friendship, for the
most part, was with men of the most eminent and sublime parts,
and of untouched reputation in the point of integrity; and such
men had a title to his bosom.
He was a great cherisher of wit and fancy and good parts in
any man; and if he found them clouded with poverty or want, a
most liberal and bountiful patron towards them, even above his
fortune; of which, in those administrations, he was such a dis-
penser as if he had been trusted with it to such uses; and if
there had been the least of vice in his expense he might have been
thought too prodigal. He was constant and pertinacious in
whatsoever he resolved to do, and not to be wearied by any
pains that were necessary to that end. And therefore having
once resolved not to see London, which he loved above all
places, till he had perfectly learned the Greek tongue, he went
to his own house in the country and pursued it with that inde-
fatigable industry that it will not be believed in how short a
time he was master of it, and accurately read all the Greek
historians.
In this time, his house being within ten miles of Oxford, he
contracted familiarity and friendship with the most polite and
accurate men of that university; who found such an immenseness
of wit and such a solidity of judgment in him, so infinite a
fancy bound in by a most logical ratiocination, such a vast
knowledge that he was not ignorant in anything, yet such an
excessive humility as if he had known nothing, that they fre-
quently resorted and dwelt with him, as in a college situated in
a purer air; so that his house was a university bound in a less
## p. 3740 (#98) ############################################
3740
EARL OF CLARENDON
volume, whither they came not so much for repose as study, and
to examine and refine those grosser propositions which laziness
and consent made current in vulgar conversation.
The great opinion he had of the uprightness and integrity of
those persons who appeared most active, especially of Mr. Hamp-
den, kept him longer from suspecting any design against the
peace of the kingdom; and though he differed commonly from
them in conclusions, he believed long their purposes were honest.
When he grew better informed what was law, and discerned (in
them) a desire to control that law by a vote of one or both
Houses, no man more opposed those attempts, and gave the
adverse party more trouble by reason and argumentation; inso-
much as he was, by degrees, looked upon as an advocate for the
court, to which he contributed so little that he declined those
addresses and even those invitations which he was obliged
almost by civility to entertain. And he was so jealous of the
least imagination that he should incline to preferment, that he
affected even a morosity to the court and to the courtiers, and
left nothing undone which might prevent and divert the King's
or Queen's favor towards him, but the deserving it. For when
the King sent for him once or twice to speak with him, and to
give him thanks for his excellent comportment in those councils
which his Majesty graciously termed doing him service, his
answers were more negligent and less satisfactory than might
have been expected; as if he cared only that his actions should
be just, not that they should be acceptable, and that his Majesty
should think that they proceeded only from the impulsion of
conscience, without any sympathy in his affections; which from a
stoical and sullen nature might not have been misinterpreted;
yet from a person of so perfect a habit of generous and obse-
quious compliance with all good men, might very well have been
interpreted by the King as more than an ordinary averseness to
his service: so that he took more pains and more forced his
nature to actions unagreeable and unpleasant to it, that he might
not be thought to incline to the court, than any man hath done
to procure an office there.
Two reasons prevailed with him to receive the seals, and but
for those he had resolutely avoided them. The first, consideration
that it [his refusal] might bring some blemish upon the King's
affairs, and that men would have believed that he had refused
so great an honor and trust because he must have been with it
## p. 3741 (#99) ############################################
EARL OF CLARENDON
3741
obliged to do somewhat else not justifiable. And this he made.
matter of conscience, since he knew the King made choice of him
before other men especially because he thought him more hon-
est than other men. The other was, lest he might be thought to
avoid it out of fear to do an ungracious thing to the House of
Commons, who were sorely troubled at the displacing of Harry
Vane, whom they looked upon as removed for having done them
those offices they stood in need of; and the disdain of so popu-
lar an incumbrance wrought upon him next to the other. For
as he had a full appetite of fame by just and generous actions,
so he had an equal contempt of it by any servile expedients;
and he had so much the more consented to and approved the
justice upon Sir Harry Vane in his own private judgment, by
how much he surpassed most men in the religious observation of
a trust, the violation whereof he would not admit of any excuse
for.
For these reasons he submitted to the King's command and
became his secretary, with as humble and devout an acknowl-
edgment of the greatness of the obligation as could be expressed,
and as true a sense of it in his own heart. Yet two things he
could never bring himself to whilst he continued in that office, that
was to his death; for which he was contented to be reproached,
as for omissions in a most necessary part of his office. The one,
employing of spies, or giving any countenance or entertainment
to them. I do not mean such emissaries as with danger would
venture to view the enemy's camp and bring intelligence of
their number and quartering, or such generals as such an obser-
vation can comprehend; but those who by communication of
guilt or dissimulation of manners wound themselves into such
trusts and secrets as enabled them to make discoveries for the ben-
efit of the State. The other, the liberty of opening letters upon.
a suspicion that they might contain matter of dangerous conse-
quence. For the first he would say, such instruments must be
void of all ingenuity and common honesty, before they could be
of use; and afterwards they could never be fit to be credited:
and that no single preservation could be worth so general a
wound and corruption of human society as the cherishing such
persons would carry with it. The last, he thought such a viola-
tion of the law of nature that no qualification by office could
justify a single person in the trespass; and though he was con-
vinced by the necessity and iniquity of the time that those
## p. 3742 (#100) ###########################################
3742
EARL OF CLARENDON
advantages of information were not to be declined and were
necessarily to be practiced, he found means to shift it from him-
self; when he confessed he needed excuse and pardon for the
omission: so unwilling he was to resign anything in his nature
to an obligation in his office.
In all other particulars he filled his place plentifully, being
sufficiently versed in languages to understand any that [are] used
in business, and to make himself again understood. To speak
of his integrity, and his high disdain of any bait that might
seem to look towards corruption, in tanto viro, injuria virtutum
fuerit [in the case of so great a man, would be an insult to his
merits].
.
·
He had a courage of the most clear and keen temper, and so
far from fear that he was not without appetite of danger; and
therefore, upon any occasion of action, he always engaged his
person in those troops which he thought by the forwardness of
the commanders to be most like to be farthest engaged; and in
all such encounters he had about him a strange cheerfulness and
companionableness, without at all affecting the execution that
was then principally to be attended, in which he took no
delight, but took pains to prevent it, where it was not by
resistance necessary; insomuch that at Edgehill, when the
enemy was routed, he was like to have incurred great peril by
interposing to save those who had thrown away their arms, and
against whom, it may be, others were more fierce for their hav-
ing thrown them away: insomuch as a man might think he
came into the field only out of curiosity to see the face of
danger, and charity to prevent the shedding of blood. Yet in
his natural inclination he acknowledged that he was addicted to
the profession of a soldier; and shortly after he came to his
fortune, and before he came to age, he went into the Low
Countries with a resolution of procuring command, and to give
himself up to it, from which he was converted by the complete
inactivity of that summer: and so he returned into England and
shortly after entered upon that vehement course of study we
mentioned before, till the first alarm from the North; and then
again he made ready for the field, and though he received some
repulse in the command of a troop of horse of which he had a
promise, he went volunteer with the Earl of Essex.
From the entrance into this unnatural war his natural cheer-
fulness and vivacity grew clouded, and a kind of sadness and
## p. 3743 (#101) ###########################################
EARL OF CLARENDON
3743
dejection of spirit stole upon him which he had never been
used to; yet being one of those who believed that one battle
would end all differences, and that there would be so great a
victory on the one side that the other would be compelled to
submit to any conditions from the victor (which supposition and
conclusion generally sunk into the minds of most men, and pre-
vented the looking after many advantages which might then
have been laid hold of), he resisted those indispositions, et in
luctu, bellum inter remedia erat [and in his grief, strife was one
of his curatives]. But after the King's return from Brentford,
and the furious resolution of the two Houses not to admit any
treaty for peace, those indispositions which had before touched
him grew into a perfect habit of uncheerfulness; and he who
had been so exactly unreserved and affable to all men that his
face and countenance was always present and vacant to his com-
pany, and held any cloudiness and less pleasantness of the visage
a kind of rudeness or incivility, became, on a sudden, less com-
municable; and thence, very sad, pale, and exceedingly affected
with the spleen. In his clothes and habit, which he had
intended before always with more neatness and industry and
expense than is usual in so great a mind, he was now not only
incurious, but too negligent; and in his reception of suitors, and
the necessary or casual addresses to his place, so quick and
sharp and severe that there wanted not some men (who were
strangers to his nature and disposition) who believed him proud
and imperious,- from which no mortal man was ever more free.
The truth is, that as he was of a most incomparable gentle-
ness, application, and even a demissness and submission to good
and worthy and entire men, so he was naturally (which could not
but be more evident in his place, which objected him to another
conversation and intermixture than his own election had done)
adversus malos injucundus [toward evil-doers ungracious] and was
so ill a dissembler of his dislike and disinclination to ill men
that it was not possible for such not to discern it. There was
once in the House of Commons such a declared acceptation of
the good service an eminent member had done to them, and as
they said, to the whole kingdom, that it was moved, he being
present, that the Speaker might in the name of the whole House
give him thanks; and then, that every member might as a testi-
mony of his particular acknowledgment stir or move his hat
towards him; the which (though not ordered) when very many
## p. 3744 (#102) ###########################################
EARL OF CLARENDON
3744
did, the Lord Falkland (who believed the service itself not to be
of that moment, and that an honorable and generous person
could not have stooped to it for any recompense), instead of
moving his hat, stretched both his arms out and clasped his
hands together upon the crown of his hat, and held it close
down to his head; that all men might see how odious that flat-
tery was to him, and the very approbation of the person, though
at that time most popular.
When there was any overture or hope of peace, he would be
more erect and vigorous, and exceedingly solicitous to press
anything which he thought might promote it; and sitting amongst
his friends, often, after a deep silence and frequent sighs, would
with a shrill and sad accent ingeminate the word Peace, Peace;
and would passionately profess that the very agony of the war
and the view of the calamities and desolation the kingdom
did and must endure, took his sleep from him, and would
shortly break his heart. This made some think or pretend to
think that he was so much enamored on peace, that he would
have been glad the King should have bought it at any price;
which was a most unreasonable calumny. As if a man that
was himself the most punctual and precise in every circumstance
that might reflect upon conscience or honor, could have wished
the King to have committed a trespass against either.
In the morning before the battle, as always upon action, he
was very cheerful, and put himself into the first rank of the
Lord Byron's regiment, who was then advancing upon the
enemy, who had lined the hedges on both sides with musketeers,
from whence he was shot with a musket in the lower part of the
belly, and in the instant falling from his horse, his body was
not found till the next morning; till when, there was some hope
he might have been a prisoner; though his nearest friends, who
knew his temper, received small comfort from that imagination.
Thus fell that incomparable young man, in the four-and-thirtieth
year of his age, having so much dispatched the business of life.
that the oldest rarely attain to that immense knowledge, and the
youngest enter not into the world with more innocence: and
whosoever leads such a life needs not care upon how short
warning it be taken from him.
·
## p. 3745 (#103) ###########################################
3745
MARCUS A. H. CLARKE
(1846-1881)
LTHOUGH a native of England, Marcus Clarke is always classed
as an Australian novelist. The son of a barrister, he was
born in Kensington April 24th, 1846. In 1864 he went to
seek his fortune in Australia. His taste for adventure soon led him
to "the bush," where he acquired many experiences afterwards used
by him for literary material. Drifting into journalism, he joined the
staff of the Melbourne Argus. After publishing a series of essays
called The Peripatetic Philosopher,' he purchased the Australian
Magazine, the name of which he changed to the Colonial Monthly,
and in 1868 published in it his first novel, entitled 'Long Odds. '
Owing to a long illness, this tale of sporting life was completed by
other hands. When he resumed his literary work he contributed to
the Melbourne Punch, and edited the Humbug, a humorous journal.
He dramatized Charles Reade's and Dion Boucicault's novel of 'Foul
Play'; adapted Molière's 'Bourgeois Gentilhomme'; wrote a drama
entitled 'Plot,' successfully performed at the Princess Theatre in
1873; and another play called 'A Daughter of Eve. ' He was con-
nected with the Melbourne press until his death, August 2d, 1881.
Clarke's literary fame rests upon the novel 'His Natural Life,'
a strong story, describing the life of an innocent man under a life
sentence for felony. The story is repulsive, but gives a faithful
picture of the penal conditions of the time, and is built upon official
records. It appeared in the Australian Magazine, and before it was
issued in book form, Clarke, with the assistance of Sir Charles Gavin
Duffy, revised it almost beyond recognition. It was republished in
London in 1875 and in New York in 1878. He was also the author
of 'Old Tales of a New Country'; 'Holiday Peak,' another collec-
tion of short stories; Four Stories High'; and an unfinished novel
called 'Felix and Felicitas. '
Clarke was a devoted student of Balzac and Poe, and some of his
sketches of rough life in Australia have been compared to Bret
Harte's pictures of primitive California days. His power in depicting
landscape is shown by this glimpse of a midnight ride in the bush,
taken from 'Holiday Peak’:-
"There is an indescribable ghastliness about the mountain bush at mid-
night, which has affected most imaginative people. The grotesque and dis-
torted trees, huddled here and there together in the gloom like whispering
VII-235
## p. 3746 (#104) ###########################################
3746
MARCUS A. H. CLARKE
conspirators; the little open flats encircled by bowlders, which seem the for-
gotten altars of some unholy worship; the white, bare, and ghostly gum-trees,
gleaming momentarily amid the deeper shades of the forest; the lonely pools
begirt with shivering reeds and haunted by the melancholy bittern only; the
rifted and draggled creek-bed, which seems violently gouged out of the lacer-
ated earth by some savage convulsion of nature; the silent and solitary places
where a few blasted trees crouch together like withered witches, who, brood-
ing on some deed of blood, have suddenly been stricken horror-stiff. Riding
through this nightmare landscape, a whirr of wings and a harsh cry disturb
you from time to time, hideous and mocking laughter peals above and about
you, and huge gray ghosts with little red eyes hop away in gigantic but
noiseless bounds. You shake your bridle, the mare lengthens her stride, the
tree-trunks run into one another, the leaves make overhead a continuous cur-
tain, the earth reels out beneath you like a strip of gray cloth spun by a
furiously flying loom, the air strikes your face sharply, the bush-always gray
and colorless-parts before you and closes behind you like a fog. You lose
yourself in this prevailing indecision of sound and color. You become drunk
with the wine of the night, and losing your individuality, sweep onward, a
flying phantom in a land of shadows. "
HOW A PENAL SYSTEM CAN WORK
From His Natural Life ›
HE next two days were devoted to sight-seeing.
THE
Sylvia Frere
was taken through the hospital and the workshops, shown
the semaphores, and shut up by Maurice in a "dark cell. "
Her husband and Burgess seemed to treat the prison like a tame
animal, whom they could handle at their leisure, and whose
natural ferocity was kept in check by their superior intelligence.
This bringing of a young and pretty woman into immediate
contact with bolts and bars had about it an incongruity which
pleased them. Maurice Frere penetrated everywhere, questioned
the prisoners, jested with the jailers; even, in the munificence of
his heart, bestowed tobacco on the sick.
With such graceful rattlings of dry bones, they got by-and-by
to Point Puer, where a luncheon had been provided.
An unlucky accident had occurred at Point Puer that morn-
ing, however; and the place was in a suppressed ferment. A
refractory little thief named Peter Brown, aged twelve years,
had jumped off the high rock and drowned himself in full view
of the constables. These "jumpings-off" had become rather
frequent lately, and Burgess was enraged at one happening on
## p. 3747 (#105) ###########################################
MARCUS A. H. CLARKE
3747
this particular day. If he could by any possibility have brought
the corpse of poor little Peter Brown to life again, he would
have soundly whipped it for its impertinence.
"It is most unfortunate," he said to Frere, as they stood in
the cell where the little body was laid, "that it should have
happened to-day. "
"Oh," says Frere, frowning down upon the young face that
seemed to smile up at him, "it can't be helped. I know those
young devils. They'd do it out of spite. What sort of a charac-
ter had he? "
"Very bad. Johnson, the book. "
Johnson bringing it, the two saw Peter Brown's iniquities set
down in the neatest of running-hand, and the record of his
punishments ornamented in quite an artistic way with flourishes
of red ink.
"20th November, disorderly conduct, 12 lashes. 24th Novem-
ber, insolence to hospital attendant, diet reduced. 4th December,
stealing cap from another prisoner, 12 lashes. 15th December,
absenting himself at roll-call, two days' cells. 23d December,
insolence and insubordination, two days' cells. 8th January,
insolence and insubordination, 12 lashes. 20th January, insolence
and insubordination, 12 lashes. 22d February, insolence and
insubordination, 12 lashes and one week's solitary. 6th March,
insolence and insubordination, 20 lashes. "
"That was the last? " asked Frere.
"Yes, sir," says Johnson.
"And then he-hum-did it? "
"Just so, sir. That was the way of it. "
Just so! The magnificent system starved and tortured a child
of twelve until he killed himself. That was the way of it.
•
•
After the farce had been played again, and the children had
stood up and sat down, and sung a hymn, and told how many
twice five were, and repeated their belief in "One God the
Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and earth," the party re-
viewed the workshops, and saw the church, and went everywhere
but into the room where the body of Peter Brown, aged twelve,
lay starkly on its wooden bench, staring at the jail roof which
was between it and heaven.
Just outside this room Sylvia met with a little adventure.
Meekin had stopped behind, and Burgess being suddenly sum-
moned for some official duty, Frere had gone with him, leaving
## p. 3748 (#106) ###########################################
3748
MARCUS A. H. CLARKE
his wife to rest on a bench that, placed at the summit of the
cliff, overlooked the sea. While resting thus she became aware
of another presence, and turning her head, beheld a small boy
with his cap in one hand and a hammer in the other. The
appearance of the little creature, clad in a uniform of gray cloth
that was too large for him, and holding in his withered little
hand a hammer that was too heavy for him, had something
pathetic about it.
"What is it, you mite? " asked Sylvia.
"We thought you might have seen him, mum," said the little
figure, opening its blue eyes with wonder at the kindness of the
tone.
"Him? Whom? "
"Cranky Brown, mum," returned the child; "him as did it
this morning. Me and Billy knowed him, mum; he was a mate
of ours, and we wanted to know if he looked happy. "
"What do you mean, child? " said she, with a strange terror
at her heart; and then, filled with pity at the aspect of the little
being, she drew him to her, with sudden womanly instinct, and
kissed him.
He looked up at her with joyful surprise. "Oh! " he said.
Sylvia kissed him again.
"Does nobody ever kiss you, poor little man? " said she.
"Mother used to," was the reply; "but she's at home. Oh,
mem," with a sudden crimsoning of the little face, "may I fetch
Billy? »
And taking courage from the bright young face, he gravely
marched to an angle of the rock, and brought out another little
creature, with another gray uniform, and another hammer.
"This is Billy, mum," he said. "Billy never had no mother.
Kiss Billy. "
The young wife felt the tears rush to her eyes.
"You two poor babies! " she cried. And then, forgetting that
she was a lady, dressed in silk and lace, she fell on her knees
in the dust, and folding the friendless pair in her arms, wept
over them.
"What is the matter, Sylvia? " said Frere, when he came up.
"You've been crying. "
"Nothing, Maurice; at least, I will tell you by-and-by. "
When they were alone that evening she told him of the two
little boys, and he laughed.
## p. 3749 (#107) ###########################################
MARCUS A. H. CLARKE
3749
"Artful little humbugs," he said, and supported his argument
by so many illustrations of the precocious wickedness of juvenile
felons that his wife was half convinced against her will.
Unfortunately, when Sylvia went away, Tommy and Billy put
into execution a plan which they had carried in their poor little
heads for some weeks.
"I can do it now," said Tommy. "I feel strong. " >>
"Will it hurt much, Tommy? " said Billy, who was not so
courageous.
"Not so much as a whipping. "
"I'm afraid! Oh, Tom, it's so deep! Don't leave me, Tom! "
The bigger boy took his little handkerchief from his neck,
and with it bound his own left hand to his companion's right.
"Now I can't leave you. "
"What was it the lady that kissed us said, Tommy? "
“Lord, have pity of them two fatherless children! " repeated
Tommy.
"Let's say it, Tom. "
And so the two babies knelt on the brink of the cliff, and
raising the bound hands together, looked up at the sky, and
ungrammatically said, "Lord, have pity on we two fatherless
children. " And then they kissed each other, and "did it. "
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH
From His Natural Life'
I
T WAS not until they had scrambled up the beach to safety that
the absconders became fully aware of the loss of another of
their companions. As they stood on the break of the beach,
wringing the water from their clothes, Gabbett's small eye,
counting their number, missed the stroke oar.
"Where's Cox? "
« He
"The fool fell overboard," said Jemmy Vetch, shortly.
never had as much sense in that skull of his as would keep it
sound on his shoulders. "
Gabbett scowled. "That's three of us gone," he said, in the
tones of a man suffering some personal injury.
They summed up their means of defense against attack.
Sanders and Greenhill had knives. Gabbett still retained the axe
in his belt. Vetch had dropped his musket at the Neck; and
Bodenham and Cornelius were unarmed.
## p. 3750 (#108) ###########################################
3750
MARCUS A. H. CLARKE
1
"Let's have a look at the tucker," said Vetch.
There was but one bag of provisions. It contained a piece of
salt pork, two loaves, and some uncooked potatoes. Signal Hill
station was not rich in edibles.
"That ain't much," said the Crow, with rueful face. "Is it,
Gabbett ? »
"It must do, anyway," returned the giant, carelessly.
The inspection over, the six proceeded up the shore, and
encamped under the lee of a rock. Bodenham was for lighting
a fire; but Vetch, who by tacit consent had been chosen leader
of the expedition, forbade it, saying that the light might betray
them. "They'll think we're drowned, and won't pursue us," he
said. So all that night the miserable wretches crouched fireless
together.
Morning breaks clear and bright, and-free for the first time
in ten years—they comprehend that their terrible journey has
begun. "Where are we to go? How are we to live?
" asks
Bodenham, scanning the barren bush that stretches to the barren
sea. "Gabbett, you've been out before-how's it done? "
"We'll make the shepherds' huts, and live on their tucker till
we get a change o' clothes," said Gabbett, evading the main ques-
tion. "We can follow the coast-line. "
"Steady, lads," said prudent Vetch; "we must sneak round
yon sandhills, and so creep into the scrub. If they've a good
glass at the Neck, they can see us. "
"It does seem close," said Bodenham, "I could pitch a stone
on to the guard-house. Good-by, you bloody spot! " he adds,
with sudden rage, shaking his fist vindictively at the peniten-
tiary, "I don't want to see you no more till the Day o' Judg-
ment. "
Vetch divides the provisions, and they travel all that day
until dark night. The scrub is prickly and dense. Their clothes
are torn, their hands and feet bleeding. Already they feel out-
wearied. No one pursuing, they light a fire, and sleep. The
second day they come to a sandy spit that runs out into the sea,
and find that they have got too far to the eastward, and must
follow the shore-line to East Bay Neck. Back through the scrub
they drag their heavy feet. That night they eat the last crumb
of the loaf. The third day at high noon, after some toilsome
walking, they reach a big hill, now called Collins's Mount, and
see the upper link of the ear-ring, the isthmus of East Bay
## p. 3751 (#109) ###########################################
MARCUS A. H. CLARKE
3751
A few rocks are on their right hand,
« We
Neck, at their feet.
and blue in the lovely distance lies hated Maria Island.
must keep well to the eastward," said Greenhill, "or we shall
fall in with the settlers and get taken. " So, passing the isth-
mus, they strike into the bush along the shore, and tightening
their belts over their gnawing bellies, camp under some low-
lying hills.
The fourth day is notable for the indisposition of Bodenham,
who is a bad walker, and falling behind, delays the party by fre-
quent cooeys. Gabbett threatens him with a worse fate than
sore feet if he lingers. Luckily, that evening Greenhill espies a
hut; but not trusting to the friendship of the occupant, they wait
until he quits it in the morning, and then send Vetch to forage.
Vetch, secretly congratulating himself on having by his counsel
prevented violence, returns bending under half a bag of flour.
"'You'd better carry the flour," said he to Gabbett, "and give
me the axe. " Gabbett eyes him for a while, as if struck by his
puny form, but finally gives the axe to his mate Sanders. That
day they creep along cautiously between the sea and the hills,
camping at a creek. Vetch, after much search, finds a handful
of berries, and adds them to the main stock. Half of this hand-
ful is eaten at once, the other half reserved for "to-morrow. "
The next day they come to an arm of the sea, and as they
struggle northward Maria Island disappears, and with it all
danger from telescopes. That evening they reach the camping-
ground by twos and threes; and each wonders-between the
paroxysms of hunger-if his face is as haggard and his eyes as
'blood-shot as those of his neighbor.
On the seventh day Bodenham says his feet are so bad he
can't walk, and Greenhill, with a greedy look at the berries, bids
him stay behind. Being in a very weak condition, he takes his
companion at his word, and drops off about noon the next day.
Gabbett, discovering this defection, however, goes back, and in
an hour or so appears, driving the wretched creature before him
with blows, as a sheep is driven to the shambles. Greenhill
remonstrates at another mouth being thus forced upon the party,
but the giant silences him with a hideous glance. Jemmy Vetch
remembers that Greenhill accompanied Gabbett once before, and
feels uncomfortable. He gives hint of his suspicions to Sanders,
but Sanders only laughs. It is horribly evident that there is an
understanding among the three.
## p. 3752 (#110) ###########################################
3752
MARCUS A. H. CLARKE
secrets.
The ninth sun of their freedom, rising upon sandy and bar-
ren hillocks, bristling thick with cruel scrub, sees the six famine-
stricken wretches cursing their God, and yet afraid to die. All
round is the fruitless, shadeless, shelterless bush. Above, the
pitiless heaven. In the distance the remorseless sea. Something
terrible must happen. That gray wilderness, arched by gray
heaven stooping to gray sea, is a fitting keeper of hideous
Vetch suggests that Oyster Bay cannot be far to the
eastward, the line of ocean is deceitfully close, and though
such a proceeding will take them out of their course, they
resolve to make for it. After hobbling five miles they seem no
nearer than before, and nigh dead with fatigue and starvation,
sink despairingly upon the ground. Vetch thinks Gabbett's eyes
have a wolfish glare in them, and instinctively draws off from
him. Said Greenhill, in the course of a dismal conversation, "I
am so weak that I could eat a piece of a man. "
On the tenth day Bodenham refuses to stir, and the others,
being scarcely able to drag along their limbs, sit on the ground
about him. Greenhill, eyeing the prostrate man, said slowly, “I
have seen the same done before, boys, and it tasted like pork. "
Vetch, hearing his savage comrade give utterance to a
thought all had secretly cherished, speaks out, crying, "It would
be murder to do it; and then perhaps we couldn't eat it. "
"Oh," said Gabbett, with a grin, "I'll warrant you that; but
you must all have a hand in it. "
Gabbett, Sanders, and Greenhill then go aside, and presently
Sanders, coming to the Crow, said, "He consented to act as
flogger. He deserves it. "
―――
-
"So did Gabbett, for that matter," shudders Vetch.
"Ay, but Bodenham's feet are sore," said Sanders, "and 'tis
a pity to leave him. "
Having no fire, they made a little break-wind; and Vetch,
half dozing behind this, at about three in the morning hears
some one cry out "Christ! " and awakes, sweating ice.
No one but Gabbett and Greenhill would eat that night.
That savage pair, however, make a fire, fling ghastly fragments
on the embers, and eat the broil before it is right warm. In
the morning the frightful carcass is divided.
That day's march takes place in silence, and at the mid-
day halt Cornelius volunteers to carry the billy, affecting great
restoration from the food. Vetch gives it him, and in half an
## p. 3753 (#111) ###########################################
MARCUS A. H. CLARKE
3753
hour afterward Cornelius is missing. Gabbett and Greenhill
pursue him in vain, and return with curses. "He'll die like a
dog," said Greenhill, "alone in the bush. " Jemmy Vetch, with
his intellect acute as ever, thinks that Cornelius prefers such a
death to the one in store for him, but says nothing.
The twelfth morning dawns wet and misty, but Vetch, seeing
the provision running short, strives to be cheerful, telling stories
of men who have escaped greater peril. Vetch feels with dis-
may that he is the weakest of the party, but has some sort of
ludicro-horrible consolation in remembering that he is also the
leanest. They come to a creek that afternoon, and look until
nightfall in vain for a crossing-place. The next day Gabbett and
Vetch swim across, and Vetch directs Gabbett to cut a long sap-
ling, which being stretched across the water, is seized by Green-
hill and the Moocher, who are dragged over.
"What would you do without me? " said the Crow, with a
ghastly grin.
They cannot kindle a fire, for Greenhill, who carries the tin-
der, has allowed it to get wet. The giant swings his axe in
savage anger at enforced cold, and Vetch takes an opportunity
to remark privately to him what a big man Greenhill is.
On the fourteenth day they can scarcely crawl, and their
limbs pain them. Greenhill, who is the weakest, sees Gabbett
and the Moocher go aside to consult, and crawling to the Crow,
whimpers, "For God's sake, Jemmy, don't let 'em murder me! »
"I can't help you," says Vetch, looking about in terror.
"Think of poor Tom Bodenham. "
"But he was no murderer. If they kill me, I shall go to hell
with Tom's blood on my soul. "
He writhes on the ground in sickening terror, and Gabbett,
arriving, bids Vetch bring wood for the fire. Vetch going, sees
Greenhill clinging to wolfish Gabbett's knees, and Sanders calls
after him, "You will hear it presently, Jem. "
The nervous Crow puts his hands to his
scious, nevertheless, of a dull crash and a groan.
back, Gabbett is putting on the dead man's shoes, which are
better than his own.
«<
"We'll stop here a day or so and rest," said he, now we've
got provisions. "
Two more days pass, and the three, eying each other sus-
piciously, resume their march. The third day-the sixteenth of
ears, but is con-
When he comes
## p. 3754 (#112) ###########################################
MARCUS A. H. CLARKE
3754
their awful journey—such portions of the carcass as they have
with them prove nfit to eat. They look into each other's famine-
sharpened faces, and wonder "Who next? »
"We must all die together," said Sanders, quickly, "before
anything else must happen. "
Vetch marks the terror concealed in the words, and when the
dreaded giant is out of ear-shot, says, "For God's sake, let's go
on alone, Alick. You see what sort of a cove that Gabbett is,—
he'd kill his father before he'd fast one day. "
They made for the bush, but the giant turned and strode
toward them. Vetch skipped nimbly on one side, but Gabbett
struck the Moocher on the forehead with the axe. "Help! Jem,
help! " cried the victim, cut but not fatally, and in the strength
of his desperation tore the axe from the monster who bore it,
and flung it to Vetch. "Keep it, Jemmy," he cried; "let's have
no more murder done! "
They fare again through the horrible bush until nightfall,
when Vetch, in a strange voice, called the giant to him.
"He must die. "
"Give me the axe. "
>>>
"Either you or he," laughs Gabbett.
"No, no," said the Crow, his thin malignant face distorted
by a horrible resolution. "I'll keep the axe. Stand back! You
shall hold him, and I'll do the job. "
Sanders, seeing them approach, knew his end had come, and
submitted, crying, "Give me half an hour to pray for myself. "
They consent, and the bewildered wretch knelt down and
folded his hands like a child. His big stupid face worked with
emotion. His great cracked lips moved in desperate agony.
He wagged his head from side to side, in pitiful confusion of
his brutalized senses. "I can't think o' the words, Jem! "
"Pah," snarled the cripple, swinging the axe, we can't
starve here all night. "
((
Four days had passed, and the two survivors of this awful
journey sat watching each other. The gaunt giant, his eyes
gleaming with hate and hunger, sat sentinel over the dwarf.
The dwarf, chuckling at his superior sagacity, clutched the fatal
axe. For two days they had not spoken to each other. For two
days each had promised himself that on the next his companion
must sleep-and die. Vetch comprehended the devilish scheme
of the monster who had entrapped five of his fellow-beings to
aid him by their deaths to his own safety, and held aloof.
## p. 3755 (#113) ###########################################
MARCUS A. H. CLARKE
3755
Gabbett watched to snatch the weapon from his companion, and
make the odds even for once and forever. In the daytime they
traveled on, seeking each a pretext to creep behind the other.
In the night-time when they feigned slumber, each stealthily
raising a head caught the wakeful glance of his companion.
Vetch felt his strength deserting him, and his brain overpow-
ered by fatigue. Surely the giant, muttering, gesticulating, and
slavering at the mouth, was on the road to madness. Would the
monster find opportunity to rush at him, and braving the blood-
stained axe, kill him by main force? or would he sleep, and be
himself a victim? Unhappy Vetch! It is the terrible privilege
of insanity to be sleepless.
On the fifth day, Vetch, creeping behind a tree, takes off his
belt, and makes a noose. He will hang himself. He gets one
end of the belt over a bough, and then his cowardice bids him
pause. Gabbett approaches; he tries to evade him, and steal
away into the bush. In vain. The insatiable giant, ravenous
with famine and sustained by madness, is not to be shaken off.
Vetch tries to run, but his legs bend under him. The axe that
has tried to drink so much blood feels heavy as lead. He will
fling it away. No-he dares not. Night falls again. He must
rest, or go mad. His limbs are powerless. His eyelids are
glued together. He sleeps as he stands. This horrible thing
must be a dream. He is at Port Arthur, or will wake on his
pallet in the penny lodging-house he slept at when a boy. Is
that the deputy come to wake him to the torment of living? It
is not time-surely not time yet. He sleeps and the giant,
grinning with ferocious joy, approaches on clumsy tiptoe and
seizes the coveted axe.
On the northeast coast of Van Diemen's Land is a place
called St. Helen's Point, and a certain skipper, being in want of
fresh water, landing there with a boat's crew, found on the
banks of the creek a gaunt and blood-stained man, clad in
tattered yellow, who carried on his back an axe and a bundle.
When the sailors came within sight of him he made signs to
them to approach, and opening his bundle with much ceremony,
offered them some of its contents. Filled with horror at what
the maniac displayed, they seized and bound him. At Hobart
Town he was recognized as the only survivor of the nine
desperadoes who had escaped from Colonel Arthur's "natural
penitentiary. "
## p. 3756 (#114) ###########################################
3756
MATTHIAS CLAUDIUS
(1740-1815)
M
ATTHIAS CLAUDIUS, best known as "the Wandsbecker Bote>
(the Messenger from Wandsbeck), was born at Reinfeld in
Holstein, August 15th, 1740. He was of excellent stock,
coming from a long line of clergymen. It was said that scarcely
another family in Schleswig-Holstein had given to the church so
many sons.
There is but little to record of the quiet boyhood passed in the
picturesque stillness of the North German village. At the outset the
education of Claudius was conducted by his
father, the village pastor. From beginning
to end his life was simple, moderate, and
well ordered. After finishing his school
days at Ploen, he entered the University
of Jena (1759), with the intention of study-
ing theology, in order to follow the tradi-
tions of the family and enter the ministry.
This idea he was soon obliged to relinquish
on account of a pulmonary weakness, and
he turned instead to the study of juris-
prudence. His strongest attraction was
towards literature. He became a member
of the literary guild in Jena; and later.
when he had attained fame as the "Wands-
becker Bote," he was intimately associated with Voss, F. L. Stol-
berg, Herder, and others of the Göttingen fraternity. His first
verses, published in Jena in 1763, under the title Tändeleien und
Erzählungen (Trifles and Tales), gave no indication of his talents,
and were no more than the usual student efforts of unconscious
imitation; they have absolutely no poetic value, and are interesting
only as they indicate a stage of development. In editing his works
in later years, Claudius preserved of this early poetry only one song,
'An eine Quelle (To a Spring).
After leaving the university in 1764, he took a position as pri-
vate secretary to Count Holstein in Copenhagen; and here, under
the powerful influence of Klopstock, whose friendship was at this
time the most potent element of his life, and in the brilliant circle
which that poet had drawn around him, Claudius entered fully into
MATTHIAS CLAUDIUS
## p. 3757 (#115) ###########################################
MATTHIAS CLAUDIUS
3757
In
the life of sentiment and ideas which conduced so largely to his
intellectual development. Some years later, after a fallow period
spent in the quiet of his father's house at Reinfeld, he settled at
Wandsbeck, near Altona (1771), where in connection with Bode he
published the Wandsbecker Bote, the popular weekly periodical so
indissolubly associated with his name. His contributions under the
name of "Asmus" found everywhere the warmest acceptance.
1775, through Herder's recommendation, Claudius was appointed
Chief Land Commissioner at Darmstadt; but circumstances rendering
the position uncongenial, he returned to his beloved Wandsbeck,
where he supported his family by his pen until 1788, when Crown
Prince Frederick of Denmark appointed him revisor of the Holstein
Bank at Altona. He died in Hamburg, January 1st, 1815, in the
house of his son-in-law, the bookseller Perthes.
A collection of his works, with the title Asmus omnia sua secum
portans, oder Sämmtliche Werke des Wandsbecker Boten' (The Col-
lected Works of the Wandsbeck Messenger), appeared at Hamburg,
1775-1812. These collected works comprise songs, romances, fables,
poems, letters, etc. , originally published in various places. The
translation of Saint Martin and Fénelon marked the pietistic spirit of
his later years, and is in strong contrast to the exuberance which
produced the 'Rheinweinlied' (Rhine Wine Song) and Urian's Reise
um die Welt' (Urian's Journey around the World).
Claudius as a poet won the hearts of his countrymen.
His verses
express his idyllic love of nature and his sympathy with rustic life.
The poet and the man are one. His pure and simple style appealed
to the popular taste, and some of his lyrics have become genuine
folk-songs.
SPECULATIONS ON NEW YEAR'S DAY
From the Wandsbecker Bote
A
HAPPY new year! A happy new year to my dear country,
the land of old integrity and truth! A happy new year to
friends and enemies, Christians and Turks, Hottentots and
Cannibals!
where his father was Lord Deputy; so that when he returned
into England to the possession of his fortune, he was unentan-
gled with any acquaintance or friends, which usually grow up
by the custom of conversation; and therefore was to make a
pure election of his company, which he chose by other rules
than were prescribed to the young nobility of that time. And
it cannot be denied, though he admitted some few to his friend-
ship for the agreeableness of their natures and their undoubted
affection to him, that his familiarity and friendship, for the
most part, was with men of the most eminent and sublime parts,
and of untouched reputation in the point of integrity; and such
men had a title to his bosom.
He was a great cherisher of wit and fancy and good parts in
any man; and if he found them clouded with poverty or want, a
most liberal and bountiful patron towards them, even above his
fortune; of which, in those administrations, he was such a dis-
penser as if he had been trusted with it to such uses; and if
there had been the least of vice in his expense he might have been
thought too prodigal. He was constant and pertinacious in
whatsoever he resolved to do, and not to be wearied by any
pains that were necessary to that end. And therefore having
once resolved not to see London, which he loved above all
places, till he had perfectly learned the Greek tongue, he went
to his own house in the country and pursued it with that inde-
fatigable industry that it will not be believed in how short a
time he was master of it, and accurately read all the Greek
historians.
In this time, his house being within ten miles of Oxford, he
contracted familiarity and friendship with the most polite and
accurate men of that university; who found such an immenseness
of wit and such a solidity of judgment in him, so infinite a
fancy bound in by a most logical ratiocination, such a vast
knowledge that he was not ignorant in anything, yet such an
excessive humility as if he had known nothing, that they fre-
quently resorted and dwelt with him, as in a college situated in
a purer air; so that his house was a university bound in a less
## p. 3740 (#98) ############################################
3740
EARL OF CLARENDON
volume, whither they came not so much for repose as study, and
to examine and refine those grosser propositions which laziness
and consent made current in vulgar conversation.
The great opinion he had of the uprightness and integrity of
those persons who appeared most active, especially of Mr. Hamp-
den, kept him longer from suspecting any design against the
peace of the kingdom; and though he differed commonly from
them in conclusions, he believed long their purposes were honest.
When he grew better informed what was law, and discerned (in
them) a desire to control that law by a vote of one or both
Houses, no man more opposed those attempts, and gave the
adverse party more trouble by reason and argumentation; inso-
much as he was, by degrees, looked upon as an advocate for the
court, to which he contributed so little that he declined those
addresses and even those invitations which he was obliged
almost by civility to entertain. And he was so jealous of the
least imagination that he should incline to preferment, that he
affected even a morosity to the court and to the courtiers, and
left nothing undone which might prevent and divert the King's
or Queen's favor towards him, but the deserving it. For when
the King sent for him once or twice to speak with him, and to
give him thanks for his excellent comportment in those councils
which his Majesty graciously termed doing him service, his
answers were more negligent and less satisfactory than might
have been expected; as if he cared only that his actions should
be just, not that they should be acceptable, and that his Majesty
should think that they proceeded only from the impulsion of
conscience, without any sympathy in his affections; which from a
stoical and sullen nature might not have been misinterpreted;
yet from a person of so perfect a habit of generous and obse-
quious compliance with all good men, might very well have been
interpreted by the King as more than an ordinary averseness to
his service: so that he took more pains and more forced his
nature to actions unagreeable and unpleasant to it, that he might
not be thought to incline to the court, than any man hath done
to procure an office there.
Two reasons prevailed with him to receive the seals, and but
for those he had resolutely avoided them. The first, consideration
that it [his refusal] might bring some blemish upon the King's
affairs, and that men would have believed that he had refused
so great an honor and trust because he must have been with it
## p. 3741 (#99) ############################################
EARL OF CLARENDON
3741
obliged to do somewhat else not justifiable. And this he made.
matter of conscience, since he knew the King made choice of him
before other men especially because he thought him more hon-
est than other men. The other was, lest he might be thought to
avoid it out of fear to do an ungracious thing to the House of
Commons, who were sorely troubled at the displacing of Harry
Vane, whom they looked upon as removed for having done them
those offices they stood in need of; and the disdain of so popu-
lar an incumbrance wrought upon him next to the other. For
as he had a full appetite of fame by just and generous actions,
so he had an equal contempt of it by any servile expedients;
and he had so much the more consented to and approved the
justice upon Sir Harry Vane in his own private judgment, by
how much he surpassed most men in the religious observation of
a trust, the violation whereof he would not admit of any excuse
for.
For these reasons he submitted to the King's command and
became his secretary, with as humble and devout an acknowl-
edgment of the greatness of the obligation as could be expressed,
and as true a sense of it in his own heart. Yet two things he
could never bring himself to whilst he continued in that office, that
was to his death; for which he was contented to be reproached,
as for omissions in a most necessary part of his office. The one,
employing of spies, or giving any countenance or entertainment
to them. I do not mean such emissaries as with danger would
venture to view the enemy's camp and bring intelligence of
their number and quartering, or such generals as such an obser-
vation can comprehend; but those who by communication of
guilt or dissimulation of manners wound themselves into such
trusts and secrets as enabled them to make discoveries for the ben-
efit of the State. The other, the liberty of opening letters upon.
a suspicion that they might contain matter of dangerous conse-
quence. For the first he would say, such instruments must be
void of all ingenuity and common honesty, before they could be
of use; and afterwards they could never be fit to be credited:
and that no single preservation could be worth so general a
wound and corruption of human society as the cherishing such
persons would carry with it. The last, he thought such a viola-
tion of the law of nature that no qualification by office could
justify a single person in the trespass; and though he was con-
vinced by the necessity and iniquity of the time that those
## p. 3742 (#100) ###########################################
3742
EARL OF CLARENDON
advantages of information were not to be declined and were
necessarily to be practiced, he found means to shift it from him-
self; when he confessed he needed excuse and pardon for the
omission: so unwilling he was to resign anything in his nature
to an obligation in his office.
In all other particulars he filled his place plentifully, being
sufficiently versed in languages to understand any that [are] used
in business, and to make himself again understood. To speak
of his integrity, and his high disdain of any bait that might
seem to look towards corruption, in tanto viro, injuria virtutum
fuerit [in the case of so great a man, would be an insult to his
merits].
.
·
He had a courage of the most clear and keen temper, and so
far from fear that he was not without appetite of danger; and
therefore, upon any occasion of action, he always engaged his
person in those troops which he thought by the forwardness of
the commanders to be most like to be farthest engaged; and in
all such encounters he had about him a strange cheerfulness and
companionableness, without at all affecting the execution that
was then principally to be attended, in which he took no
delight, but took pains to prevent it, where it was not by
resistance necessary; insomuch that at Edgehill, when the
enemy was routed, he was like to have incurred great peril by
interposing to save those who had thrown away their arms, and
against whom, it may be, others were more fierce for their hav-
ing thrown them away: insomuch as a man might think he
came into the field only out of curiosity to see the face of
danger, and charity to prevent the shedding of blood. Yet in
his natural inclination he acknowledged that he was addicted to
the profession of a soldier; and shortly after he came to his
fortune, and before he came to age, he went into the Low
Countries with a resolution of procuring command, and to give
himself up to it, from which he was converted by the complete
inactivity of that summer: and so he returned into England and
shortly after entered upon that vehement course of study we
mentioned before, till the first alarm from the North; and then
again he made ready for the field, and though he received some
repulse in the command of a troop of horse of which he had a
promise, he went volunteer with the Earl of Essex.
From the entrance into this unnatural war his natural cheer-
fulness and vivacity grew clouded, and a kind of sadness and
## p. 3743 (#101) ###########################################
EARL OF CLARENDON
3743
dejection of spirit stole upon him which he had never been
used to; yet being one of those who believed that one battle
would end all differences, and that there would be so great a
victory on the one side that the other would be compelled to
submit to any conditions from the victor (which supposition and
conclusion generally sunk into the minds of most men, and pre-
vented the looking after many advantages which might then
have been laid hold of), he resisted those indispositions, et in
luctu, bellum inter remedia erat [and in his grief, strife was one
of his curatives]. But after the King's return from Brentford,
and the furious resolution of the two Houses not to admit any
treaty for peace, those indispositions which had before touched
him grew into a perfect habit of uncheerfulness; and he who
had been so exactly unreserved and affable to all men that his
face and countenance was always present and vacant to his com-
pany, and held any cloudiness and less pleasantness of the visage
a kind of rudeness or incivility, became, on a sudden, less com-
municable; and thence, very sad, pale, and exceedingly affected
with the spleen. In his clothes and habit, which he had
intended before always with more neatness and industry and
expense than is usual in so great a mind, he was now not only
incurious, but too negligent; and in his reception of suitors, and
the necessary or casual addresses to his place, so quick and
sharp and severe that there wanted not some men (who were
strangers to his nature and disposition) who believed him proud
and imperious,- from which no mortal man was ever more free.
The truth is, that as he was of a most incomparable gentle-
ness, application, and even a demissness and submission to good
and worthy and entire men, so he was naturally (which could not
but be more evident in his place, which objected him to another
conversation and intermixture than his own election had done)
adversus malos injucundus [toward evil-doers ungracious] and was
so ill a dissembler of his dislike and disinclination to ill men
that it was not possible for such not to discern it. There was
once in the House of Commons such a declared acceptation of
the good service an eminent member had done to them, and as
they said, to the whole kingdom, that it was moved, he being
present, that the Speaker might in the name of the whole House
give him thanks; and then, that every member might as a testi-
mony of his particular acknowledgment stir or move his hat
towards him; the which (though not ordered) when very many
## p. 3744 (#102) ###########################################
EARL OF CLARENDON
3744
did, the Lord Falkland (who believed the service itself not to be
of that moment, and that an honorable and generous person
could not have stooped to it for any recompense), instead of
moving his hat, stretched both his arms out and clasped his
hands together upon the crown of his hat, and held it close
down to his head; that all men might see how odious that flat-
tery was to him, and the very approbation of the person, though
at that time most popular.
When there was any overture or hope of peace, he would be
more erect and vigorous, and exceedingly solicitous to press
anything which he thought might promote it; and sitting amongst
his friends, often, after a deep silence and frequent sighs, would
with a shrill and sad accent ingeminate the word Peace, Peace;
and would passionately profess that the very agony of the war
and the view of the calamities and desolation the kingdom
did and must endure, took his sleep from him, and would
shortly break his heart. This made some think or pretend to
think that he was so much enamored on peace, that he would
have been glad the King should have bought it at any price;
which was a most unreasonable calumny. As if a man that
was himself the most punctual and precise in every circumstance
that might reflect upon conscience or honor, could have wished
the King to have committed a trespass against either.
In the morning before the battle, as always upon action, he
was very cheerful, and put himself into the first rank of the
Lord Byron's regiment, who was then advancing upon the
enemy, who had lined the hedges on both sides with musketeers,
from whence he was shot with a musket in the lower part of the
belly, and in the instant falling from his horse, his body was
not found till the next morning; till when, there was some hope
he might have been a prisoner; though his nearest friends, who
knew his temper, received small comfort from that imagination.
Thus fell that incomparable young man, in the four-and-thirtieth
year of his age, having so much dispatched the business of life.
that the oldest rarely attain to that immense knowledge, and the
youngest enter not into the world with more innocence: and
whosoever leads such a life needs not care upon how short
warning it be taken from him.
·
## p. 3745 (#103) ###########################################
3745
MARCUS A. H. CLARKE
(1846-1881)
LTHOUGH a native of England, Marcus Clarke is always classed
as an Australian novelist. The son of a barrister, he was
born in Kensington April 24th, 1846. In 1864 he went to
seek his fortune in Australia. His taste for adventure soon led him
to "the bush," where he acquired many experiences afterwards used
by him for literary material. Drifting into journalism, he joined the
staff of the Melbourne Argus. After publishing a series of essays
called The Peripatetic Philosopher,' he purchased the Australian
Magazine, the name of which he changed to the Colonial Monthly,
and in 1868 published in it his first novel, entitled 'Long Odds. '
Owing to a long illness, this tale of sporting life was completed by
other hands. When he resumed his literary work he contributed to
the Melbourne Punch, and edited the Humbug, a humorous journal.
He dramatized Charles Reade's and Dion Boucicault's novel of 'Foul
Play'; adapted Molière's 'Bourgeois Gentilhomme'; wrote a drama
entitled 'Plot,' successfully performed at the Princess Theatre in
1873; and another play called 'A Daughter of Eve. ' He was con-
nected with the Melbourne press until his death, August 2d, 1881.
Clarke's literary fame rests upon the novel 'His Natural Life,'
a strong story, describing the life of an innocent man under a life
sentence for felony. The story is repulsive, but gives a faithful
picture of the penal conditions of the time, and is built upon official
records. It appeared in the Australian Magazine, and before it was
issued in book form, Clarke, with the assistance of Sir Charles Gavin
Duffy, revised it almost beyond recognition. It was republished in
London in 1875 and in New York in 1878. He was also the author
of 'Old Tales of a New Country'; 'Holiday Peak,' another collec-
tion of short stories; Four Stories High'; and an unfinished novel
called 'Felix and Felicitas. '
Clarke was a devoted student of Balzac and Poe, and some of his
sketches of rough life in Australia have been compared to Bret
Harte's pictures of primitive California days. His power in depicting
landscape is shown by this glimpse of a midnight ride in the bush,
taken from 'Holiday Peak’:-
"There is an indescribable ghastliness about the mountain bush at mid-
night, which has affected most imaginative people. The grotesque and dis-
torted trees, huddled here and there together in the gloom like whispering
VII-235
## p. 3746 (#104) ###########################################
3746
MARCUS A. H. CLARKE
conspirators; the little open flats encircled by bowlders, which seem the for-
gotten altars of some unholy worship; the white, bare, and ghostly gum-trees,
gleaming momentarily amid the deeper shades of the forest; the lonely pools
begirt with shivering reeds and haunted by the melancholy bittern only; the
rifted and draggled creek-bed, which seems violently gouged out of the lacer-
ated earth by some savage convulsion of nature; the silent and solitary places
where a few blasted trees crouch together like withered witches, who, brood-
ing on some deed of blood, have suddenly been stricken horror-stiff. Riding
through this nightmare landscape, a whirr of wings and a harsh cry disturb
you from time to time, hideous and mocking laughter peals above and about
you, and huge gray ghosts with little red eyes hop away in gigantic but
noiseless bounds. You shake your bridle, the mare lengthens her stride, the
tree-trunks run into one another, the leaves make overhead a continuous cur-
tain, the earth reels out beneath you like a strip of gray cloth spun by a
furiously flying loom, the air strikes your face sharply, the bush-always gray
and colorless-parts before you and closes behind you like a fog. You lose
yourself in this prevailing indecision of sound and color. You become drunk
with the wine of the night, and losing your individuality, sweep onward, a
flying phantom in a land of shadows. "
HOW A PENAL SYSTEM CAN WORK
From His Natural Life ›
HE next two days were devoted to sight-seeing.
THE
Sylvia Frere
was taken through the hospital and the workshops, shown
the semaphores, and shut up by Maurice in a "dark cell. "
Her husband and Burgess seemed to treat the prison like a tame
animal, whom they could handle at their leisure, and whose
natural ferocity was kept in check by their superior intelligence.
This bringing of a young and pretty woman into immediate
contact with bolts and bars had about it an incongruity which
pleased them. Maurice Frere penetrated everywhere, questioned
the prisoners, jested with the jailers; even, in the munificence of
his heart, bestowed tobacco on the sick.
With such graceful rattlings of dry bones, they got by-and-by
to Point Puer, where a luncheon had been provided.
An unlucky accident had occurred at Point Puer that morn-
ing, however; and the place was in a suppressed ferment. A
refractory little thief named Peter Brown, aged twelve years,
had jumped off the high rock and drowned himself in full view
of the constables. These "jumpings-off" had become rather
frequent lately, and Burgess was enraged at one happening on
## p. 3747 (#105) ###########################################
MARCUS A. H. CLARKE
3747
this particular day. If he could by any possibility have brought
the corpse of poor little Peter Brown to life again, he would
have soundly whipped it for its impertinence.
"It is most unfortunate," he said to Frere, as they stood in
the cell where the little body was laid, "that it should have
happened to-day. "
"Oh," says Frere, frowning down upon the young face that
seemed to smile up at him, "it can't be helped. I know those
young devils. They'd do it out of spite. What sort of a charac-
ter had he? "
"Very bad. Johnson, the book. "
Johnson bringing it, the two saw Peter Brown's iniquities set
down in the neatest of running-hand, and the record of his
punishments ornamented in quite an artistic way with flourishes
of red ink.
"20th November, disorderly conduct, 12 lashes. 24th Novem-
ber, insolence to hospital attendant, diet reduced. 4th December,
stealing cap from another prisoner, 12 lashes. 15th December,
absenting himself at roll-call, two days' cells. 23d December,
insolence and insubordination, two days' cells. 8th January,
insolence and insubordination, 12 lashes. 20th January, insolence
and insubordination, 12 lashes. 22d February, insolence and
insubordination, 12 lashes and one week's solitary. 6th March,
insolence and insubordination, 20 lashes. "
"That was the last? " asked Frere.
"Yes, sir," says Johnson.
"And then he-hum-did it? "
"Just so, sir. That was the way of it. "
Just so! The magnificent system starved and tortured a child
of twelve until he killed himself. That was the way of it.
•
•
After the farce had been played again, and the children had
stood up and sat down, and sung a hymn, and told how many
twice five were, and repeated their belief in "One God the
Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and earth," the party re-
viewed the workshops, and saw the church, and went everywhere
but into the room where the body of Peter Brown, aged twelve,
lay starkly on its wooden bench, staring at the jail roof which
was between it and heaven.
Just outside this room Sylvia met with a little adventure.
Meekin had stopped behind, and Burgess being suddenly sum-
moned for some official duty, Frere had gone with him, leaving
## p. 3748 (#106) ###########################################
3748
MARCUS A. H. CLARKE
his wife to rest on a bench that, placed at the summit of the
cliff, overlooked the sea. While resting thus she became aware
of another presence, and turning her head, beheld a small boy
with his cap in one hand and a hammer in the other. The
appearance of the little creature, clad in a uniform of gray cloth
that was too large for him, and holding in his withered little
hand a hammer that was too heavy for him, had something
pathetic about it.
"What is it, you mite? " asked Sylvia.
"We thought you might have seen him, mum," said the little
figure, opening its blue eyes with wonder at the kindness of the
tone.
"Him? Whom? "
"Cranky Brown, mum," returned the child; "him as did it
this morning. Me and Billy knowed him, mum; he was a mate
of ours, and we wanted to know if he looked happy. "
"What do you mean, child? " said she, with a strange terror
at her heart; and then, filled with pity at the aspect of the little
being, she drew him to her, with sudden womanly instinct, and
kissed him.
He looked up at her with joyful surprise. "Oh! " he said.
Sylvia kissed him again.
"Does nobody ever kiss you, poor little man? " said she.
"Mother used to," was the reply; "but she's at home. Oh,
mem," with a sudden crimsoning of the little face, "may I fetch
Billy? »
And taking courage from the bright young face, he gravely
marched to an angle of the rock, and brought out another little
creature, with another gray uniform, and another hammer.
"This is Billy, mum," he said. "Billy never had no mother.
Kiss Billy. "
The young wife felt the tears rush to her eyes.
"You two poor babies! " she cried. And then, forgetting that
she was a lady, dressed in silk and lace, she fell on her knees
in the dust, and folding the friendless pair in her arms, wept
over them.
"What is the matter, Sylvia? " said Frere, when he came up.
"You've been crying. "
"Nothing, Maurice; at least, I will tell you by-and-by. "
When they were alone that evening she told him of the two
little boys, and he laughed.
## p. 3749 (#107) ###########################################
MARCUS A. H. CLARKE
3749
"Artful little humbugs," he said, and supported his argument
by so many illustrations of the precocious wickedness of juvenile
felons that his wife was half convinced against her will.
Unfortunately, when Sylvia went away, Tommy and Billy put
into execution a plan which they had carried in their poor little
heads for some weeks.
"I can do it now," said Tommy. "I feel strong. " >>
"Will it hurt much, Tommy? " said Billy, who was not so
courageous.
"Not so much as a whipping. "
"I'm afraid! Oh, Tom, it's so deep! Don't leave me, Tom! "
The bigger boy took his little handkerchief from his neck,
and with it bound his own left hand to his companion's right.
"Now I can't leave you. "
"What was it the lady that kissed us said, Tommy? "
“Lord, have pity of them two fatherless children! " repeated
Tommy.
"Let's say it, Tom. "
And so the two babies knelt on the brink of the cliff, and
raising the bound hands together, looked up at the sky, and
ungrammatically said, "Lord, have pity on we two fatherless
children. " And then they kissed each other, and "did it. "
THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH
From His Natural Life'
I
T WAS not until they had scrambled up the beach to safety that
the absconders became fully aware of the loss of another of
their companions. As they stood on the break of the beach,
wringing the water from their clothes, Gabbett's small eye,
counting their number, missed the stroke oar.
"Where's Cox? "
« He
"The fool fell overboard," said Jemmy Vetch, shortly.
never had as much sense in that skull of his as would keep it
sound on his shoulders. "
Gabbett scowled. "That's three of us gone," he said, in the
tones of a man suffering some personal injury.
They summed up their means of defense against attack.
Sanders and Greenhill had knives. Gabbett still retained the axe
in his belt. Vetch had dropped his musket at the Neck; and
Bodenham and Cornelius were unarmed.
## p. 3750 (#108) ###########################################
3750
MARCUS A. H. CLARKE
1
"Let's have a look at the tucker," said Vetch.
There was but one bag of provisions. It contained a piece of
salt pork, two loaves, and some uncooked potatoes. Signal Hill
station was not rich in edibles.
"That ain't much," said the Crow, with rueful face. "Is it,
Gabbett ? »
"It must do, anyway," returned the giant, carelessly.
The inspection over, the six proceeded up the shore, and
encamped under the lee of a rock. Bodenham was for lighting
a fire; but Vetch, who by tacit consent had been chosen leader
of the expedition, forbade it, saying that the light might betray
them. "They'll think we're drowned, and won't pursue us," he
said. So all that night the miserable wretches crouched fireless
together.
Morning breaks clear and bright, and-free for the first time
in ten years—they comprehend that their terrible journey has
begun. "Where are we to go? How are we to live?
" asks
Bodenham, scanning the barren bush that stretches to the barren
sea. "Gabbett, you've been out before-how's it done? "
"We'll make the shepherds' huts, and live on their tucker till
we get a change o' clothes," said Gabbett, evading the main ques-
tion. "We can follow the coast-line. "
"Steady, lads," said prudent Vetch; "we must sneak round
yon sandhills, and so creep into the scrub. If they've a good
glass at the Neck, they can see us. "
"It does seem close," said Bodenham, "I could pitch a stone
on to the guard-house. Good-by, you bloody spot! " he adds,
with sudden rage, shaking his fist vindictively at the peniten-
tiary, "I don't want to see you no more till the Day o' Judg-
ment. "
Vetch divides the provisions, and they travel all that day
until dark night. The scrub is prickly and dense. Their clothes
are torn, their hands and feet bleeding. Already they feel out-
wearied. No one pursuing, they light a fire, and sleep. The
second day they come to a sandy spit that runs out into the sea,
and find that they have got too far to the eastward, and must
follow the shore-line to East Bay Neck. Back through the scrub
they drag their heavy feet. That night they eat the last crumb
of the loaf. The third day at high noon, after some toilsome
walking, they reach a big hill, now called Collins's Mount, and
see the upper link of the ear-ring, the isthmus of East Bay
## p. 3751 (#109) ###########################################
MARCUS A. H. CLARKE
3751
A few rocks are on their right hand,
« We
Neck, at their feet.
and blue in the lovely distance lies hated Maria Island.
must keep well to the eastward," said Greenhill, "or we shall
fall in with the settlers and get taken. " So, passing the isth-
mus, they strike into the bush along the shore, and tightening
their belts over their gnawing bellies, camp under some low-
lying hills.
The fourth day is notable for the indisposition of Bodenham,
who is a bad walker, and falling behind, delays the party by fre-
quent cooeys. Gabbett threatens him with a worse fate than
sore feet if he lingers. Luckily, that evening Greenhill espies a
hut; but not trusting to the friendship of the occupant, they wait
until he quits it in the morning, and then send Vetch to forage.
Vetch, secretly congratulating himself on having by his counsel
prevented violence, returns bending under half a bag of flour.
"'You'd better carry the flour," said he to Gabbett, "and give
me the axe. " Gabbett eyes him for a while, as if struck by his
puny form, but finally gives the axe to his mate Sanders. That
day they creep along cautiously between the sea and the hills,
camping at a creek. Vetch, after much search, finds a handful
of berries, and adds them to the main stock. Half of this hand-
ful is eaten at once, the other half reserved for "to-morrow. "
The next day they come to an arm of the sea, and as they
struggle northward Maria Island disappears, and with it all
danger from telescopes. That evening they reach the camping-
ground by twos and threes; and each wonders-between the
paroxysms of hunger-if his face is as haggard and his eyes as
'blood-shot as those of his neighbor.
On the seventh day Bodenham says his feet are so bad he
can't walk, and Greenhill, with a greedy look at the berries, bids
him stay behind. Being in a very weak condition, he takes his
companion at his word, and drops off about noon the next day.
Gabbett, discovering this defection, however, goes back, and in
an hour or so appears, driving the wretched creature before him
with blows, as a sheep is driven to the shambles. Greenhill
remonstrates at another mouth being thus forced upon the party,
but the giant silences him with a hideous glance. Jemmy Vetch
remembers that Greenhill accompanied Gabbett once before, and
feels uncomfortable. He gives hint of his suspicions to Sanders,
but Sanders only laughs. It is horribly evident that there is an
understanding among the three.
## p. 3752 (#110) ###########################################
3752
MARCUS A. H. CLARKE
secrets.
The ninth sun of their freedom, rising upon sandy and bar-
ren hillocks, bristling thick with cruel scrub, sees the six famine-
stricken wretches cursing their God, and yet afraid to die. All
round is the fruitless, shadeless, shelterless bush. Above, the
pitiless heaven. In the distance the remorseless sea. Something
terrible must happen. That gray wilderness, arched by gray
heaven stooping to gray sea, is a fitting keeper of hideous
Vetch suggests that Oyster Bay cannot be far to the
eastward, the line of ocean is deceitfully close, and though
such a proceeding will take them out of their course, they
resolve to make for it. After hobbling five miles they seem no
nearer than before, and nigh dead with fatigue and starvation,
sink despairingly upon the ground. Vetch thinks Gabbett's eyes
have a wolfish glare in them, and instinctively draws off from
him. Said Greenhill, in the course of a dismal conversation, "I
am so weak that I could eat a piece of a man. "
On the tenth day Bodenham refuses to stir, and the others,
being scarcely able to drag along their limbs, sit on the ground
about him. Greenhill, eyeing the prostrate man, said slowly, “I
have seen the same done before, boys, and it tasted like pork. "
Vetch, hearing his savage comrade give utterance to a
thought all had secretly cherished, speaks out, crying, "It would
be murder to do it; and then perhaps we couldn't eat it. "
"Oh," said Gabbett, with a grin, "I'll warrant you that; but
you must all have a hand in it. "
Gabbett, Sanders, and Greenhill then go aside, and presently
Sanders, coming to the Crow, said, "He consented to act as
flogger. He deserves it. "
―――
-
"So did Gabbett, for that matter," shudders Vetch.
"Ay, but Bodenham's feet are sore," said Sanders, "and 'tis
a pity to leave him. "
Having no fire, they made a little break-wind; and Vetch,
half dozing behind this, at about three in the morning hears
some one cry out "Christ! " and awakes, sweating ice.
No one but Gabbett and Greenhill would eat that night.
That savage pair, however, make a fire, fling ghastly fragments
on the embers, and eat the broil before it is right warm. In
the morning the frightful carcass is divided.
That day's march takes place in silence, and at the mid-
day halt Cornelius volunteers to carry the billy, affecting great
restoration from the food. Vetch gives it him, and in half an
## p. 3753 (#111) ###########################################
MARCUS A. H. CLARKE
3753
hour afterward Cornelius is missing. Gabbett and Greenhill
pursue him in vain, and return with curses. "He'll die like a
dog," said Greenhill, "alone in the bush. " Jemmy Vetch, with
his intellect acute as ever, thinks that Cornelius prefers such a
death to the one in store for him, but says nothing.
The twelfth morning dawns wet and misty, but Vetch, seeing
the provision running short, strives to be cheerful, telling stories
of men who have escaped greater peril. Vetch feels with dis-
may that he is the weakest of the party, but has some sort of
ludicro-horrible consolation in remembering that he is also the
leanest. They come to a creek that afternoon, and look until
nightfall in vain for a crossing-place. The next day Gabbett and
Vetch swim across, and Vetch directs Gabbett to cut a long sap-
ling, which being stretched across the water, is seized by Green-
hill and the Moocher, who are dragged over.
"What would you do without me? " said the Crow, with a
ghastly grin.
They cannot kindle a fire, for Greenhill, who carries the tin-
der, has allowed it to get wet. The giant swings his axe in
savage anger at enforced cold, and Vetch takes an opportunity
to remark privately to him what a big man Greenhill is.
On the fourteenth day they can scarcely crawl, and their
limbs pain them. Greenhill, who is the weakest, sees Gabbett
and the Moocher go aside to consult, and crawling to the Crow,
whimpers, "For God's sake, Jemmy, don't let 'em murder me! »
"I can't help you," says Vetch, looking about in terror.
"Think of poor Tom Bodenham. "
"But he was no murderer. If they kill me, I shall go to hell
with Tom's blood on my soul. "
He writhes on the ground in sickening terror, and Gabbett,
arriving, bids Vetch bring wood for the fire. Vetch going, sees
Greenhill clinging to wolfish Gabbett's knees, and Sanders calls
after him, "You will hear it presently, Jem. "
The nervous Crow puts his hands to his
scious, nevertheless, of a dull crash and a groan.
back, Gabbett is putting on the dead man's shoes, which are
better than his own.
«<
"We'll stop here a day or so and rest," said he, now we've
got provisions. "
Two more days pass, and the three, eying each other sus-
piciously, resume their march. The third day-the sixteenth of
ears, but is con-
When he comes
## p. 3754 (#112) ###########################################
MARCUS A. H. CLARKE
3754
their awful journey—such portions of the carcass as they have
with them prove nfit to eat. They look into each other's famine-
sharpened faces, and wonder "Who next? »
"We must all die together," said Sanders, quickly, "before
anything else must happen. "
Vetch marks the terror concealed in the words, and when the
dreaded giant is out of ear-shot, says, "For God's sake, let's go
on alone, Alick. You see what sort of a cove that Gabbett is,—
he'd kill his father before he'd fast one day. "
They made for the bush, but the giant turned and strode
toward them. Vetch skipped nimbly on one side, but Gabbett
struck the Moocher on the forehead with the axe. "Help! Jem,
help! " cried the victim, cut but not fatally, and in the strength
of his desperation tore the axe from the monster who bore it,
and flung it to Vetch. "Keep it, Jemmy," he cried; "let's have
no more murder done! "
They fare again through the horrible bush until nightfall,
when Vetch, in a strange voice, called the giant to him.
"He must die. "
"Give me the axe. "
>>>
"Either you or he," laughs Gabbett.
"No, no," said the Crow, his thin malignant face distorted
by a horrible resolution. "I'll keep the axe. Stand back! You
shall hold him, and I'll do the job. "
Sanders, seeing them approach, knew his end had come, and
submitted, crying, "Give me half an hour to pray for myself. "
They consent, and the bewildered wretch knelt down and
folded his hands like a child. His big stupid face worked with
emotion. His great cracked lips moved in desperate agony.
He wagged his head from side to side, in pitiful confusion of
his brutalized senses. "I can't think o' the words, Jem! "
"Pah," snarled the cripple, swinging the axe, we can't
starve here all night. "
((
Four days had passed, and the two survivors of this awful
journey sat watching each other. The gaunt giant, his eyes
gleaming with hate and hunger, sat sentinel over the dwarf.
The dwarf, chuckling at his superior sagacity, clutched the fatal
axe. For two days they had not spoken to each other. For two
days each had promised himself that on the next his companion
must sleep-and die. Vetch comprehended the devilish scheme
of the monster who had entrapped five of his fellow-beings to
aid him by their deaths to his own safety, and held aloof.
## p. 3755 (#113) ###########################################
MARCUS A. H. CLARKE
3755
Gabbett watched to snatch the weapon from his companion, and
make the odds even for once and forever. In the daytime they
traveled on, seeking each a pretext to creep behind the other.
In the night-time when they feigned slumber, each stealthily
raising a head caught the wakeful glance of his companion.
Vetch felt his strength deserting him, and his brain overpow-
ered by fatigue. Surely the giant, muttering, gesticulating, and
slavering at the mouth, was on the road to madness. Would the
monster find opportunity to rush at him, and braving the blood-
stained axe, kill him by main force? or would he sleep, and be
himself a victim? Unhappy Vetch! It is the terrible privilege
of insanity to be sleepless.
On the fifth day, Vetch, creeping behind a tree, takes off his
belt, and makes a noose. He will hang himself. He gets one
end of the belt over a bough, and then his cowardice bids him
pause. Gabbett approaches; he tries to evade him, and steal
away into the bush. In vain. The insatiable giant, ravenous
with famine and sustained by madness, is not to be shaken off.
Vetch tries to run, but his legs bend under him. The axe that
has tried to drink so much blood feels heavy as lead. He will
fling it away. No-he dares not. Night falls again. He must
rest, or go mad. His limbs are powerless. His eyelids are
glued together. He sleeps as he stands. This horrible thing
must be a dream. He is at Port Arthur, or will wake on his
pallet in the penny lodging-house he slept at when a boy. Is
that the deputy come to wake him to the torment of living? It
is not time-surely not time yet. He sleeps and the giant,
grinning with ferocious joy, approaches on clumsy tiptoe and
seizes the coveted axe.
On the northeast coast of Van Diemen's Land is a place
called St. Helen's Point, and a certain skipper, being in want of
fresh water, landing there with a boat's crew, found on the
banks of the creek a gaunt and blood-stained man, clad in
tattered yellow, who carried on his back an axe and a bundle.
When the sailors came within sight of him he made signs to
them to approach, and opening his bundle with much ceremony,
offered them some of its contents. Filled with horror at what
the maniac displayed, they seized and bound him. At Hobart
Town he was recognized as the only survivor of the nine
desperadoes who had escaped from Colonel Arthur's "natural
penitentiary. "
## p. 3756 (#114) ###########################################
3756
MATTHIAS CLAUDIUS
(1740-1815)
M
ATTHIAS CLAUDIUS, best known as "the Wandsbecker Bote>
(the Messenger from Wandsbeck), was born at Reinfeld in
Holstein, August 15th, 1740. He was of excellent stock,
coming from a long line of clergymen. It was said that scarcely
another family in Schleswig-Holstein had given to the church so
many sons.
There is but little to record of the quiet boyhood passed in the
picturesque stillness of the North German village. At the outset the
education of Claudius was conducted by his
father, the village pastor. From beginning
to end his life was simple, moderate, and
well ordered. After finishing his school
days at Ploen, he entered the University
of Jena (1759), with the intention of study-
ing theology, in order to follow the tradi-
tions of the family and enter the ministry.
This idea he was soon obliged to relinquish
on account of a pulmonary weakness, and
he turned instead to the study of juris-
prudence. His strongest attraction was
towards literature. He became a member
of the literary guild in Jena; and later.
when he had attained fame as the "Wands-
becker Bote," he was intimately associated with Voss, F. L. Stol-
berg, Herder, and others of the Göttingen fraternity. His first
verses, published in Jena in 1763, under the title Tändeleien und
Erzählungen (Trifles and Tales), gave no indication of his talents,
and were no more than the usual student efforts of unconscious
imitation; they have absolutely no poetic value, and are interesting
only as they indicate a stage of development. In editing his works
in later years, Claudius preserved of this early poetry only one song,
'An eine Quelle (To a Spring).
After leaving the university in 1764, he took a position as pri-
vate secretary to Count Holstein in Copenhagen; and here, under
the powerful influence of Klopstock, whose friendship was at this
time the most potent element of his life, and in the brilliant circle
which that poet had drawn around him, Claudius entered fully into
MATTHIAS CLAUDIUS
## p. 3757 (#115) ###########################################
MATTHIAS CLAUDIUS
3757
In
the life of sentiment and ideas which conduced so largely to his
intellectual development. Some years later, after a fallow period
spent in the quiet of his father's house at Reinfeld, he settled at
Wandsbeck, near Altona (1771), where in connection with Bode he
published the Wandsbecker Bote, the popular weekly periodical so
indissolubly associated with his name. His contributions under the
name of "Asmus" found everywhere the warmest acceptance.
1775, through Herder's recommendation, Claudius was appointed
Chief Land Commissioner at Darmstadt; but circumstances rendering
the position uncongenial, he returned to his beloved Wandsbeck,
where he supported his family by his pen until 1788, when Crown
Prince Frederick of Denmark appointed him revisor of the Holstein
Bank at Altona. He died in Hamburg, January 1st, 1815, in the
house of his son-in-law, the bookseller Perthes.
A collection of his works, with the title Asmus omnia sua secum
portans, oder Sämmtliche Werke des Wandsbecker Boten' (The Col-
lected Works of the Wandsbeck Messenger), appeared at Hamburg,
1775-1812. These collected works comprise songs, romances, fables,
poems, letters, etc. , originally published in various places. The
translation of Saint Martin and Fénelon marked the pietistic spirit of
his later years, and is in strong contrast to the exuberance which
produced the 'Rheinweinlied' (Rhine Wine Song) and Urian's Reise
um die Welt' (Urian's Journey around the World).
Claudius as a poet won the hearts of his countrymen.
His verses
express his idyllic love of nature and his sympathy with rustic life.
The poet and the man are one. His pure and simple style appealed
to the popular taste, and some of his lyrics have become genuine
folk-songs.
SPECULATIONS ON NEW YEAR'S DAY
From the Wandsbecker Bote
A
HAPPY new year! A happy new year to my dear country,
the land of old integrity and truth! A happy new year to
friends and enemies, Christians and Turks, Hottentots and
Cannibals!
