No More Learning

Translation of Church and Brodribb.


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9100
LIVY (TITUS LIVIUS)
THE BATTLE OF LAKE TRASIMENE
H
From the Twenty-second Book of the History of Rome ›
ANNIBAL devastated with all the horrors of war the country
between Cortona and Lake Trasumennus, seeking to infuri-
ate the Romans into avenging the sufferings of their allies.
They had now reached a spot made for an ambuscade, where the
lake comes up close under the hills of Cortona. Between them
is nothing but a very narrow road, for which room seems to have
been purposely left. Further on is some comparatively broad
level ground. From this rise the hills, and here in the open
plain Hannibal pitched a camp for himself and his African and
Spanish troops only; his slingers and other light-armed troops he
marched to the rear of the hills; his cavalry he stationed at the
mouth of the defile, behind some rising ground which conven-
iently sheltered them. When the Romans had once entered the
pass and the cavalry had barred the way, all would be hemmed
in by the lake and the hills.
Flaminius had reached the lake at sunset the day before. On
the morrow, without reconnoitring and while the light was still
uncertain, he traversed the narrow pass. As his army began to
deploy into the widening plain, he could see only that part of
the enemy's force which was in front of him; he knew nothing
of the ambuscade in his rear and above his head. The Cartha-
ginian saw his wish accomplished. He had his enemy shut in
by the lake and the hills, and surrounded by his own troops.
He gave the signal for a general charge, and the attacking col-
umns flung themselves on the nearest points. To the Romans
the attack was all the more sudden and unexpected because the
mist from the lake lay thicker on the plains than on the heights,
while the hostile columns on the various hills had been quite
visible to each other and had therefore advanced in concert. As
for the Romans, with the shout of battle rising all round them,
before they could see plainly they found themselves surrounded;
and fighting began in their front and their flanks before they
could form in order, get ready their arms, or draw their swords.
Amidst universal panic the consul showed all the courage that
could be expected in circumstances so alarming. The broken
ranks, in which every one was turning to catch the discordant
shouts, he re-formed as well as time and place permitted; and as


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LIVY (TITUS LIVIUS)
9101
far as his presence or his voice could reach, bade his men stand
their ground and fight. "It is not by prayers," he cried, “or
entreaties to the gods, but by strength and courage that you must
win your way out. The sword cuts a path through the midst of
the battle; and the less fear, there for the most part the less
danger. " But such was the uproar and confusion, neither encour-
agements nor commands could be heard; so far were the men
from knowing their standards, their ranks, or their places, that
they had scarcely presence of mind to snatch up their arms and
address them to the fight, and some found them an overwhelm-
ing burden rather than a protection. So dense too was the mist,
that the ear was of more service than the eye. The groans of
the wounded, the sound of blows on body or armor, the mingled
shouts of triumph or panic, made them turn this way and that an
eager gaze. Some would rush in their flight on a dense knot of
combatants, and become entangled in the mass; others returning
to the battle would be carried away by the crowd of fugitives.
But after awhile, when charges had been vainly tried in every
direction, when it was seen that the hills and the lake shut them
in on either side, and the hostile lines in front and rear, when it
was manifest that the only hope of safety lay in their own right
hands and swords, then every man began to look to himself
for guidance and for encouragement, and there began afresh what
was indeed a new battle. No battle was it with its three ranks
of combatants, its vanguard before the standards and its second
line fighting behind them, with every soldier in his own legion,
cohort, or company: chance massed them together, and each
man's impulse assigned him his post, whether in the van or rear.
So fierce was their excitement, so intent were they on the battle,
that not one of the combatants felt the earthquake which laid
whole quarters of many Italian cities in ruins, changed the
channels of rapid streams, drove the sea far up into rivers, and
brought down enormous landslips from the hills.
For nearly three hours they fought, fiercely everywhere, but
with especial rage and fury round the consul. It was to him
that the flower of the army attached themselves. He, wherever
he found his troops hard pressed or distressed, was indefatigable
in giving help; conspicuous in his splendid arms, the enemy
assailed and his fellow Romans defended him with all their
might. At last an Insubrian trooper (his name was Ducarius),
recognizing him also by his face, cried to his comrades, "See!
-


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9102
LIVY (TITUS LIVIUS)
this is the man who slaughtered our legions, and laid waste our
fields and our city: I will offer him as a sacrifice to the shades
of my countrymen whom he so foully slew. " Putting spurs to
his horse, he charged through the thickest of the enemy, struck
down the armor-bearer who threw himself in the way of his
furious advance, and ran the consul through with his lance.
When he would have stripped the body, some veterans thrust
their shields between and hindered him.
Then began the flight of a great part of the army. And now
neither lake nor mountain checked their rush of panic; by every
defile and height they sought blindly to escape, and arms and
men were heaped upon each other. Many, finding no possibility
of flight, waded into the shallows at the edge of the lake, ad-
vanced until they had only head and shoulders above the water,
and at last drowned themselves. Some in the frenzy of panic
endeavored to escape by swimming; but the endeavor was end-
less and hopeless, and they either sunk in the depths when their
courage failed them, or they wearied themselves in vain till they
could hardly struggle back to the shallows, where they were
slaughtered in crowds by the enemy's cavalry which had now
entered the water. Nearly six thousand men of the vanguard
made a determined rush through the enemy, and got clear out
of the defile, knowing nothing of what was happening behind
Halting on some high ground, they could only hear the
shouts of men and clashing of arms, but could not learn or see
for the mist how the day was going. It was when the battle
was decided, that the increasing heat of the sun scattered the
mist and cleared the sky. The bright light that now rested
on hill and plain showed a ruinous defeat and a Roman army
shamefully routed. Fearing that they might be seen in the dis-
tance and that the cavalry might be sent against them, they took
up their standards and hurried away with all the speed they
could. The next day, finding their situation generally desperate,
and starvation also imminent, they capitulated to Hannibal, who
had overtaken them with the whole of his cavalry, and who
pledged his word that if they would surrender their arms, they
should go free, each man having a single garment. The promise
was kept with Punic faith by Hannibal, who put them all in
chains.
Such was the famous fight at Trasumennus, memorable as
few other disasters of the Roman people have been. Fifteen


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LIVY (TITUS LIVIUS)
9103
thousand men fell in the battle; ten thousand, flying in all direc-
tions over Etruria, made by different roads for Rome. Of the
enemy two thousand five hundred fell in the battle. Many died
afterwards of their wounds. Other authors speak of a loss on
both sides many times greater. I am myself averse to the idle
exaggeration to which writers are so commonly inclined; and I
have here followed as my best authority Fabius, who was actually
contemporary with the war. Hannibal released without ransom
all the prisoners who claimed Latin citizenship; the Romans he
imprisoned. He had the corpses of his own men separated from
the vast heaps of dead, and buried. Careful search was also
made for the body of Flaminius, to which he wished to pay due
honor; but it could not be found.
A CHARACTERISTIC EPISODE OF CLASSICAL WARFARE
HE Locrians had been treated with such insolence and cruelty
the Carthaginians since their revolt from the Romans,
that they were able to endure severities of an ordinary
kind not only with patience but almost with willingness. But
indeed, so greatly did Pleminius surpass Hamilcar who had com-
manded the garrison, so greatly did the Roman soldiers in the
garrison surpass the Carthaginians in villainy and rapacity, that
it would appear that they endeavored to outdo each other not in
arms but in vices. None of all those things which render the
power of a superior hateful to the powerless was omitted towards.
the inhabitants, either by the general or his soldiers. The most
shocking insults were committed against their own persons, their
children, and their wives.
One of Pleminius's men, while running away with a silver
cup which he had stolen from the house of a townsman, the
owners pursuing him, happened to meet Sergius and Matienus,
the military tribunes. The cup having been taken away from
him at the order of the tribunes, abuse and clamor ensued, and
at last a fight arose between the soldiers of Pleminius and those
of the tribunes; the numbers engaged and the tumult increasing
at the same time, as either party was joined by their friends
who happened to come up at the time. When the soldiers of
Pleminius, who had been worsted, had run to him in crowds,
not without loud clamoring and indignant feelings, showing their


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LIVY (TITUS LIVIUS)
blood and wounds, and repeating the reproaches which had been
heaped upon him during the dispute, Pleminius, fired with re-
sentment, flung himself out of his house, ordered the tribunes to
be summoned and stripped, and the rods to be brought out.
During the time which was consumed in stripping them,—for
they made resistance, and implored their men to aid them,—on a
sudden the soldiers, flushed with their recent victory, ran together
from every quarter, as if there had been a shout to arms against
enemies; and when they saw the bodies of their tribunes now
mangled with rods, then indeed, suddenly inflamed with much
more ungovernable rage, without respect not only for the dignity
of their commander but of humanity, they made an attack upon
the lieutenant-general, having first mutilated the lictors in a
shocking manner; they then cruelly lacerated the lieutenant-
general himself, having cut him off from his party and hemmed
him in, and after mutilating his nose and ears, left him almost
lifeless.
Accounts of these occurrences arriving at Messana, Scipio a
few days after, passing over to Locri in a ship with six banks of
oars, took cognizance of the cause of Pleminius and the tribunes.
Having acquitted Pleminius and left him in command of the
same place, and pronounced the tribunes guilty and thrown them
into chains, that they might be sent to Rome to the Senate, he
returned to Messana, and thence to Syracuse. Pleminius, unable
to restrain his resentment, for he thought the injury he had
sustained had been treated negligently and too lightly by Scipio,
and that no one could form an estimate of the punishment which
ought to be inflicted in such a case except the man who had in
his own person felt its atrocity,- ordered the tribunes to be
dragged before him, and after lacerating them with every punish-
ment which the human body could endure, put them to death; and
not satisfied with the punishment inflicted on them while alive,
cast them out unburied. The like cruelty he exercised towards the
Locrian nobles, who he heard had gone to Scipio to complain
of the injuries he had done them. The horrid acts, prompted
by lust and rapacity, which he had before perpetrated upon his
allies, he now multiplied from resentment; thus bringing infamy
and odium not only upon himself, but upon the general also.
―――


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9105
JOHN LOCKE
(1632-1704)
OHN LOCKE, one of the greatest philosophers of English race,
was born at Wrington, Somersetshire, England, on August
29th, 1632. His father was a lawyer, and a captain in the
Parliamentary army. John studied at Westminster School in London,
and in 1651 became a member of Christ's College, Oxford, whence he
was graduated in 1656. He remained at Oxford until 1664 as a lect-
urer. It was during a student metaphysical discussion in his rooms.
that the idea occurred to him that the only possible basis for sound
judgment lay in an analysis of the ultimate
possibilities of the human mind. This was
the seed thought of the Essay on the
Human Understanding,' which he worked
over for more than twenty years and did
not finish until 1687. It was these early
Oxford years and his readings in Descartes
which gave Locke his philosophical bent.
In 1664 he entered the diplomatic service
as secretary of legation at Berlin; after-
wards he studied medicine at Berlin, but
took no degree. This training, however,
stood him in good stead when he entered
the household of the Earl of Shaftesbury
as physician and confidential agent, over-
seeing the education of the earl's son and grandson. This connec-
tion brought him into the society of Buckingham, Halifax, and other
leaders; and when Shaftesbury became Lord Chancellor, Locke held
office under him. Upon the former's downfall the philosopher was
forced to leave the country, spending the years between 1675 and
1679 in France; mostly with Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, to whom his
chief work was dedicated. For the same reason, during the years
1683-9 he resided in Holland. The revolution of 1688 brought him
back to England; and he held the office of Commissioner of Appeals,
declining other posts because of age and failing health. Locke
devoted much time in his last years to the study of the Scriptures.
He died, a professing Christian, October 28th, 1704.
JOHN LOCKE
He wrote a treatise on Civil Government,' and other books in
which he plead for the rights of the folk against the captious power
XVI-570



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9106
JOHN LOCKE
of rulers. He wrote a Treatise on Education,' worth pondering yet.
He also drew up, for a commission of which Shaftesbury was one,
the most grotesque curiosity in modern political history,—the Con-
stitution of Carolina. It was framed in the trough of the reaction
which followed the downfall of Cromwell's military dictatorship, and
whose leaders held popular liberties to be pregnant with revolutions,
and was designed for a model State which should be free from such
dangers by keeping the populace forever in subjection. The inhabit-
tants were to be divided into four hereditary castes, the common peo-
ple being serfs of the soil: and among other provisions, any one over
seventeen not a member of some church body was made an outlaw,—
which would have startled the Inquisition itself. The constitution was
a dead letter from the start, as freemen did not emigrate to a savage
country to turn into predial serfs,-though a House of Magnates was
of course easily got together; but it gave the infant province thirty
years of anarchy and overflowing jails before it was withdrawn, and
deeply injured the future development of North Carolina in particular.
Locke's supreme work in philosophy was the Essay on the Human
Understanding,' which was published in 1690, four subsequent editions
appearing during his life. This work, which gives him a place in the
development of English metaphysics, and made his ideas influential
in European thought, so that the eighteenth-century philosophers,
French and English, based their arguments upon his sensualistic con-
clusions, is the searching inductive investigation of the human
intellect. He found the genesis of all thought in sensation; vigor-
ously rejecting the notion of 'innate ideas,' so popular with all ideal-
istic thinkers, before or since, whose theories are swayed by religious
considerations. Using his famous figure, Locke likened the mind to a
blank piece of paper, on which experience writes characters which
stand for the material of all thinking done by man. Sensations are
received, and then reflected on: from sensation objectively, and reflec-
tion subjectively, come all the data of knowledge. "I see no reason
to believe that the soul thinks before the senses have furnished it
with ideas to think on," he declared. Locke, in a wonderful way,
foreran the modern psychological school which is prominent to-day.
From him Hume and Kant built up their systems. He is only now
seen in his true greatness. What makes him especially interesting
to the student of literature is the fact that his prose is among the
best of his time; remarkable for its lucidity, easy elegance, dignity,
and modernness. Considering their subjects, his writings are conspicu-
ously untechnical: they can be read with pleasure still.
Locke's personal character was high and most amiable, and his
materialistic teachings—as they may be popularly described — were in
no wise indicative of looseness of life or lack of character.
Nor was
-
――――――――
―


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JOHN LOCKE
9107
his mind at all of that cast of pragmatic heaviness usually associated
with our idea of a metaphysician — and rarely found in one: he was
of excellent social talents, and his letters are full of a light and
gay buoyancy which shows that he enjoyed writing them. A man of
much social importance in his day, he is of permanent importance as
an independent thinker, an original force in English philosophy, and
a writer able to put before the world in an agreeable manner the
results of a student's lifetime of intellectual labor.
PLEASURE AND PAIN
From the Essay Concerning Human Understanding'
THE
HE infinitely wise Author of our being, having given us the
power over several parts of our bodies, to move or keep
them at rest, as we think fit; and also, by the motion of
them, to move ourselves and contiguous bodies, in which consists
all the actions of our body; having also given a power to our
mind, in several instances, to choose amongst its ideas which it
will think on, and to pursue the inquiry of this or that subject
with consideration and attention,- to excite us to these actions
of thinking and motion that we are capable of, has been pleased
to join to several thoughts and several sensations a perception of
delight. If this were wholly separated from all our outward
sensations and inward thoughts, we should have no reason to
prefer one thought or action to another, negligence to attention,
or motion to rest. And so we should neither stir our bodies nor
employ our minds: but let our thoughts-if I may so call it-
run adrift, without any direction or design; and suffer the ideas
of our minds, like unregarded shadows, to make their appearance
there as it happened, without attending to them. In which
state, man, however furnished with the faculties of understanding
and will, would be a very idle, inactive creature, and pass his
time only in a lazy, lethargic dream. It has therefore pleased
our wise Creator to annex to several objects, and the ideas which
we receive from them, as also to several of our thoughts, a con-
comitant pleasure; and that in several objects to several degrees,
that those faculties which he had endowed us with might not
remain wholly idle and unemployed by us.
Pain has the same efficacy and use to set us on work that
pleasure has, we being as ready to employ our faculties to avoid
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬


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9108
JOHN LOCKE
that as to pursue this; only this is worth our consideration,
"that pain is often produced by the same objects and ideas that
produce pleasure in us. " This their near conjunction, which
makes us often feel pain in the sensations where we expected
pleasure, gives us new occasion of admiring the wisdom and
goodness of our Maker; who, designing the preservation of our
being, has annexed pain to the application of many things to our
bodies, to warn us of the harm that they will do and as advices
to withdraw from them. But he, not designing our preservation
barely, but the preservation of every part and organ in its per-
fection, hath in many cases annexed pain to those very ideas
which delight us. Thus heat, that is very agreeable to us in one
degree, by a little greater increase of it proves no ordinary tor-
ment; and the most pleasant of all sensible objects, light itself,
if there be too much of it,-if increased beyond a due proportion
to our eyes, causes a very painful sensation: which is wisely.
and favorably so ordered by nature, that when any object does
by the vehemency of its operation disorder the instruments of
sensation, whose structures cannot but be very nice and delicate,
we might by the pain be warned to withdraw, before the organ be
quite put out of order and so be unfitted for its proper function
for the future. The consideration of those objects that produce
it may well persuade us that this is the end or use of pain.
For though great light be insufferable to our eyes, yet the high-
est degree of darkness does not at all disease them; because
that causing no disorderly motion in it, leaves that curious organ
unharmed in its natural state. But yet excess of cold as well as
heat pains us, because it is equally destructive to that temper
which is necessary to the preservation of life and the exercise of
the several functions of the body; and which consists in a mod-
erate degree of warmth, or if you please a motion of the insen-
sible parts of our bodies, confined within certain bounds.
Beyond all this, we may find another reason why God hath
scattered up and down several degrees of pleasure and pain in all
the things that environ and affect us, and blended them together
in almost all that our thoughts and senses have to do with; that
we, finding imperfection, dissatisfaction, and want of complete
happiness in all the enjoyments which the creatures can afford
us, might be led to seek it in the enjoyment of Him "with whom
there is fullness of joy, and at whose right hand there are pleas-
ures for evermore. "


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JOHN LOCKE
9109
INJUDICIOUS HASTE IN STUDY
From the Essay Concerning Human Understanding'
-
THE
HE eagerness and bent of the mind after knowledge,
if not warily regulated, is often a hindrance to it. It still
presses into further discoveries and new objects, and catches
at the variety of knowledge; and therefore often stays not long
enough on what is before it, to look into it as it should, for haste
to pursue what is yet out of sight. He that rides post through
a country may be able, from the transient view, to tell in general
how the parts lie; and may be able to give some loose descrip-
tion of here a mountain and there a plain, here a morass and
there a river, woodland in one part and savannahs in another.
Such superficial ideas and observations as these he may collect in
galloping over it: but the more useful observations of the soil,
plants, animals, and inhabitants, with their several sorts and prop-
erties, must necessarily escape him; and it is seldom men ever
discover the rich mines without some digging. Nature commonly
lodges her treasures and jewels in rocky ground. If the matter
be knotty, and the sense lies deep, the mind must stop and buckle
to it, and stick upon it with labor and thought and close contem-
plation, and not leave it until it has mastered the difficulty and
got possession of truth. But here care must be taken to avoid
the other extreme: a man must not stick at every useless nicety,
and expect mysteries of science in every trivial question or
scruple that he may raise. He that will stand to pick up and
examine every pebble that comes in his way, is as unlikely to
return enriched and laden with jewels, as the other that traveled
full speed. Truths are not the better nor the worse for their
obviousness or difficulty, but their value is to be measured by their
usefulness and tendency. Insignificant observations should not
take up any of our minutes; and those that enlarge our view,
and give light towards further and useful discoveries, should not
be neglected, though they stop our course and spend some of our
time in a fixed attention.
There is another haste that does often, and will, mislead the
mind, if it be left to itself and its own conduct. The under-
standing is naturally forward, not only to learn its knowledge by
variety, which makes it skip over one to get speedily to another
part of knowledge,— but also eager to enlarge its views by run-
ning too fast into general observations and conclusions, without a


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9110
JOHN LOCKE
due examination of particulars enough thereon to found those
general axioms. This seems to enlarge their stock, but it is of
fancies, not realities; such theories, built upon narrow founda-
tions, stand but weakly, and if they fall not themselves, are at
least very hardly to be supported against the assaults of opposi
tion. And thus men, being too hasty to erect to themselves
general notions and ill-grounded theories, find themselves de-
ceived in their stock of knowledge, when they come to examine
their hastily assumed maxims themselves or to have them at-
tacked by others. General observations, drawn from particulars,
are the jewels of knowledge, comprehending great store in a
little room; but they are therefore to be made with the greater
care and caution, lest if we take counterfeit for true, our loss
and shame will be the greater when our stock comes to a severe
scrutiny. One or two particulars may suggest hints of inquiry,
and they do well who take those hints; but if they turn them
into conclusions, and make them presently general rules, they are
forward indeed, but it is only to impose on themselves by propo-
sitions assumed for truths without sufficient warrant. To make
such observations is, as has been already remarked, to make the
head a magazine of materials which can hardly be called knowl-
edge, or at least it is but like a collection of lumber not reduced
to use or order; and he that makes everything an observation
has the same useless plenty, and much more falsehood mixed
with it. The extremes on both sides are to be avoided; and he
will be able to give the best account his studies who keeps his
understanding in the right mean between them.


## p. 9111 (#115) ###########################################

9111
FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
(1821-1895)
BY ELIZABETH STODDARD
O BETTER biography
Frederick Locker can be given than
that by himself in 'My Confidences,' published since his
death by his son-in-law, Augustine Birrell. When Mr.
Locker begins them, he laments that he had not kept a journal, as it
might have been of some interest; but it was now too late. He
certainly describes the man he was,- — a somewhat whimsical, modest
person of culture.
Born of a distinguished naval family, twice married to women of
rank and wealth, a man of society as well as of letters, he steered
his bark in and out of the inlets of life, and skirted the borders of
its placid lakes and verdant shores without attempting to sail in
stormy seas. Thus he lived and died a prosperous, amiable gentle-
man.
"I am well content," he writes, "to range with humble livers,
provided I am allowed my share of humble memories. " With an
agreeable inconsistency, he records the annals of the Locker family.
His great-great-grandfathers were barristers, and clerks in city com-
panies; one of them, John Locker, a member of the Society of
Antiquaries, is referred to by Johnson in his Life of Addison,' as
eminent for "curiosity and literature. " The grandfather of Frede-
rick Locker, William Locker, after fifty years of active service in the
navy, was retired. When he commanded the 'Lowestoffe,' a youth
of eighteen, one Horatio Nelson, was his second lieutenant; Cuthbert,
afterwards Lord Collingwood, serving under him in the same vessel.
In 1792 William Locker hoisted his flag as commodore at the shore;
his health failing, he was appointed lieutenant-governor of Green-
wich Hospital, where he died in 1800, and was followed to the grave
by his friend Lord Nelson.
Frederick Locker's father, Edward Hawke Locker, was the young-
est son of William Locker. He left Eton to become a clerk in the
Navy Office, and not long afterwards was appointed civil commissioner
of Greenwich Hospital. He was also one of the founders and a pro-
moter of the Royal Naval Gallery. According to Lockhart, among
the distinguished friends of Edward Hawke Locker "Scott was an old


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9112
FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
and dear friend. " In May 1814 Mr. Locker was charged with a mis-
sion to Elba, where Napoleon had just arrived from Fréjus after his
abdication; an account of which the commissioner published in The
Plain Englishman, a periodical which he conducted in association
with Charles Knight:-
"Napoleon," he wrote, "takes much snuff; he is short and fat; his head
handsome, though too large for his body; his smile is pleasing, but his laugh
is singularly discordant, almost a neigh; his hand is white and delicate, and
his limbs have that roundness which does not become a man and a soldier;
but like all men of eminent ability, his manner was plain and unaffected. "
Frederick Locker's mother was the daughter of the well-known
vicar of Epsom, Jonathan Boucher, who passed much of his youth in
America, and there formed a friendship with George Washington, a
friendship broken by political differences. The letters of Washington
to his grandfather, Mr. Frederick Locker lent to Thackeray when he
was writing Henry Esmond. ' Of his mother, the poet writes that she
was "exceedingly handsome, but timid and anxious, pious, and deeply
read in Graham's 'Domestic Medicine. '» For all this, she was as
merry as a grig—while plying us with tracts, and hanging texts
over our bed-heads. For years the question worked on a perforated
card in colored worsteds, 'Do you ever pray? ' was present to me.
Finally she came to the belief that every soul would be saved; even
Lord Hertford, the typical wicked nobleman of her time. " Edward
Hawke Locker, writes his son, was an able upright man, in a way
strait-laced and circumspect; so prejudiced in regard to the early
fashion of his period that he could not be persuaded to surrender his
queue, till some other Locker came behind his chair at dinner and
cut it off. He did things foreign to his character; and Mr. Birrell,
in an editorial note, remarks that the traits described in the Johns
and Williams were as noticeable in Frederick.
Frederick Locker was born in Greenwich Hospital in 1821. In his
father's apartment the boy grew up among delightful surroundings,
books and choice pictures. He never forgot the endearing sentiment
of those early days. It was a Philistine age; but he speaks of the
excellent taste in the paintings and furnishing of the apartments.
"The picture by Hogarth of David Garrick and his wife was so life-
like that we children were afraid of it, and persuaded their father to
sell it to George IV. "
The tale of Frederick Locker's school days is dismal. He went
through six schools in his seven years of pupildom. At the age of
eight his father writes to Mrs. Locker, when the lad was at a school
in Clapham, that "for all the teacher's pains, Fred remains as idle
as ever. " The child's memory of that teacher was that "she had all


## p. 9113 (#117) ###########################################

FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
9113
the qualities of a kitchen poker, except its occasional warmth. " After
the desultory and unsatisfactory schooling,-especially at one school
where the teacher, a clergyman, thrashed him with the buckle ends
of his own braces,- his father began to despair of him. What was
the use of his being good at fives and tolerably so at cricket, if he
spelt abominably and could not construe a line of Latin? The par-
ents abandoned their aspiration for church or bar, and with some
difficulty obtained for the boy a place as clerk in a colonial broker's
counting-house, where he was to learn the business without pay. He
turned out as incapable and inefficient at commerce as at everything
else; developing, however, a turn for quizzing his masters and supe-
riors, while giving a good deal of his time to the cut of his trousers.
He named his wit at this period, empty, "a sneeze of the mind. "
In spite of the duties given him at this place, he learned nothing.
His much-tried father was advised to remove him. This was done;
but when his prospects were at the darkest, he proved that "there
is a budding morrow in midnight. " One memorable day, by the
kindness of his father's friend Lord Haddington, he was transferred
to the Admiralty as a junior in the private office. About this time
the verse faculty sprouted. He remained in this place some years;
but losing his health, was given leave of absence, and fled to the
Continent, where he found his first happiness. At Paris he met
Lady Charlotte Bruce, Lord Elgin's daughter, and was struck with her
many charms. She returned to England; a correspondence took
place; he followed her home, proposed to her, and was married in
1850.
While she lived he moved in brilliant society,- at home, in
Rome, and in Paris. The marriage was a happy one. The Queen
had a warm regard for Charlotte, rejoiced in her humor, honored her
by giving her her books, and commended her to those select courts
which she decreed in the earlier days of her widowhood. "I have
never," says Locker, "felt much at my ease with royalty, and I
never shall. " He speaks with enthusiasm of the prize-fight between
Tom Sayers and Heenan; of the strange tremor which ran through
him when the men stood up and shook hands; and of the marvelous
qualities Sayers showed on that day,- of temper, judgment, and
staying power.
The Admiralty was not a genial soil for poetry, yet he planted
the laurel there. He contributed to Blackwood's, the Cornhill, and
the Times, in prose and verse. In 1859 he published what he called
certain sparrow-flights of song,-'London Lyrics,'-bearing in mind
"the narrowness of the scope of his little pipe. " When Thackeray
encouraged him, he speaks of the fine rapture, the flood of an author's
ecstasy which never rises to high-water mark but once.
This was
when Thackeray had sent him the proof of his 'Verses on a Human


## p. 9114 (#118) ###########################################

FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
9114
Skull, to be published in the Cornhill. In 1874 he married as his
second wife the only daughter of Sir Curtis Lampson, whose name
he adopted. In 1879 he published an olio of prose and verse, with
the title of 'Patchwork,' revealing himself as the poet of society
singing out the hearts of polite London folk to their faces. The
work he is best known by is 'Lyra Elegantiarum'; an anthology of
airy graceful verse, which has exhausted the field where he gathered
his gleanings.
Up to the event of Mr. Locker's first marriage, the 'Confidences'
observe a sequence more or less historical. The story then breaks
off abruptly, and a series of essays follow, on the incidents of his
life, portraits of authors, and criticisms on their books. In his clos-
ing paragraph in 'My Confidences' he asks his readers to think kindly
of Pierrot. They will regard him also with gratitude and affection.
The evening of his days was passed at Rowfant, where he died in
May 1895.
The verse of Frederick Locker-Lampson is of the kind which the
French call vers de société, and which may be seen in all its English
varieties in his Lyra Elegantiarum. ' He belongs to the seventeenth-
century school of light and airy singers; of which Carew, Suckling,
Lovelace, Herrick, and Sedley were masters, and which in the days
of Queen Anne was conducted by such modish, jaunty ushers as
Pope and Prior. But he belongs to it in its nineteenth-century con-
ditions, which, in common with Hood, Praed, and Thackeray, he has
bettered and enlarged with his finer taste, purer sentiment, and more
genuine human feeling. His 'London Lyrics' are the perfection of
humorous-pathetic poetry.
Elizabeth Stoddard
THE SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD
THE
HE characters of great and small
Come ready-made, we can't bespeak one;
Their sides are many, too- and all
(Except ourselves) have got a weak one.
Some sanguine people love for life;
Some love their hobby till it flings them;
And many love a pretty wife
For love of the éclat she brings them!


## p. 9115 (#119) ###########################################

FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
9115
We all have secrets: you have one
Which may not be your charming spouse's;
We all lock up a skeleton
In some grim chamber of our houses;
Familiars who exhaust their days
And nights in probing where our smart is,
And who, excepting spiteful ways,
Are quiet, confidential "parties. "
We hug the phantom we detest,
We rarely let it cross our portals:
It is a most exacting guest,-
Now are we not afflicted mortals?
Your neighbor Gay, that joyous wight,-
As Dives rich, and bold as Hector,-
Poor Gay steals twenty times a night,
On shaking knees, to see his spectre.
-
Old Dives fears a pauper fate,
And hoarding is his thriving passion;
Some piteous souls anticipate
A waistcoat straiter than the fashion.
She, childless, pines. -that lonely wife,-
And hidden tears are bitter shedding;
And he may tremble all his life,
And die but not of that he's dreading.
―
Ah me, the World! how fast it spins!
The beldams shriek, the caldron bubbles;
They dance, and stir it for our sins,
And we must drain it for our troubles.
We toil, we groan, - the cry for love
Mounts upward from this seething city;
And yet I know we have above
A Father, infinite in pity.
When Beauty smiles, when sorrow weeps,
When sunbeams play, when shadows darken,
One inmate of our dwelling keeps
A ghastly carnival - but hearken!
How dry the rattle of those bones! -
The sound was not to make you start meant -
Stand by your humble servant owns
The Tenant of this Dark Apartment.


## p. 9116 (#120) ###########################################

9116
FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
MY NEIGHBOR ROSE
TH
HOUGH slender walls our hearths divide,
No word has passed from either side.
Your days, red-lettered all, must glide
Unvexed by labor:
I've seen you weep, and could have wept;
I've heard you sing, and may have slept;
Sometimes I hear your chimneys swept,
My charming neighbor!
Your pets are mine. Pray what may ail
The pup, once eloquent of tail?
I wonder why your nightingale
Is mute at sunset!
Your puss, demure and pensive, seems
Too fat to mouse. She much esteems
Yon sunny wall-and sleeps and dreams
Of mice she once ate.
Our tastes agree.
I doat upon
Frail jars, turquoise and celadon,
The 'Wedding March' of Mendelssohn,
And Penseroso. '
When sorely tempted to purloin
Your pietà of Marc Antoine,
Fair Virtue doth fair play enjoin,
Fair Virtuoso!
At times an Ariel, cruel-kind,
Will kiss my lips, and stir your blind,
And whisper low, "She hides behind:
Thou art not lonely. "
The tricksy sprite did erst assist
At hushed Verona's moonlight tryst;
Sweet Capulet! thou wert not kissed
By light winds only.
I miss the simple days of yore,
When two long braids of hair you wore,
And chat botté was wondered o'er
In corner cosy.
But gaze not back for tales like those:
'Tis all in order, I suppose;
The Bud is now a blooming Rose,-
A rosy posy!


## p. 9117 (#121) ###########################################

FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
9117
Indeed, farewell to bygone years:
How wonderful the change appears,—
For curates now and cavaliers
In turn perplex you;
The last are birds of feather gay,
Who swear the first are birds of prey:
I'd scare them all, had I my way,
But that might vex you.
At times I've envied, it is true,
That joyous hero, twenty-two,
Who sent bouquets and billets-doux,
And wore a sabre.
The rogue! how tenderly he wound
His arm round one who never frowned:
He loves you well. Now, is he bound
To love my neighbor?
The bells are ringing. As is meet,
White favors fascinate the street;
Sweet faces greet me, rueful-sweet,
'Twixt tears and laughter;
They crowd the door to see her go:
The bliss of one brings many woe,—
Oh! kiss the bride, and I will throw
The old shoe after.
What change in one short afternoon,-
My charming neighbor gone,- so soon!
Is yon pale orb her honey-moon
Slow rising hither?
O lady, wan and marvelous,
How often have we communed thus;
Sweet memories shall dwell with us.
And joy go with her!
-


## p. 9118 (#122) ###########################################

9118
FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
THE ROSE AND THE RING
CHRISTMAS 1854, AND CHRISTMAS 1863
(W. M. T. )
SHE
HE smiles but her heart is in sable,
And sad as her Christmas is chill:
She reads, and her book is the fable
He penned for her while she was ill.
It is nine years ago since he wrought it
Where reedy old Tiber is king;
And chapter by chapter he brought it-
And read her the Rose and the Ring.
And when it was printed, and gaining
Renown with all lovers of glee,
He sent her this copy containing
His comical little croquis;
A sketch of a rather droll couple-
---
She's pretty-he's quite t'other thing!
He begs (with a spine vastly supple)
She will study the Rose and the Ring.
It pleased the kind Wizard to send her
The last and the best of his toys:
His heart had a sentiment tender
For innocent women and boys;
And though he was great as a scorner,
The guileless were safe from his sting:
How sad is past mirth to the mourner! -
A tear on the Rose and the Ring!
She reads-I may vainly endeavor
Her mirth-chequered grief to pursue:
For she hears she has lost and for ever-
-
A Heart that was known by so few:
But I wish on the shrine of his glory
One fair little blossom to fling;
And you see there's a nice little story
Attached to the Rose and the Ring!


## p. 9119 (#123) ###########################################

FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
9119
THE WIDOW'S MITE
HE Widow had but only one,-
A puny and decrepit son;
Yet day and night,
Though fretful oft, and weak, and small,
A loving child, he was her all-
The Widow's Mite.
THE
---
-
The Widow's might; - yes! so sustained,
She battled onward, nor complained
When friends were fewer;
And cheerful at her daily care,
A little crutch upon the stair
Was music to her.
I saw her then, - and now I see,
Though cheerful and resigned, still she
Has sorrowed much:
She has - He gave it tenderly -
Much faith; and, carefully laid by,
A little crutch.
Τ
TO MY GRANDMOTHER
SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE BY MR. ROMNEY
HIS relative of mine-
Was she seventy-and-nine
When she died?
By the canvas may be seen
How she looked at seventeen,-
As a bride.
Beneath a summer tree
As she sits, her revery
Has a charm;
-
Her ringlets are in taste, -
What an arm! and what a waist
For an arm!
In bridal coronet,
Lace, ribbons, and coquette
Falbala;


## p. 9120 (#124) ###########################################

FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
9120
Were Romney's limning true,
What a lucky dog were you,
Grandpapa!
Her lips are sweet as love,—
They are parting! Do they move?
Are they dumb? –
Her eyes are blue, and beam
Beseechingly, and seem
"Come. "
To say,
What funny fancy slips
From between these cherry lips?
Whisper me,
Sweet deity in paint,
What canon says I mayn't
Marry thee?
That good-for-nothing Time.
Has a confidence sublime!
When I first
Saw this lady, in my youth,
Her winters had, forsooth,
Done their worst.
Her locks (as white as snow)
Once shamed the swarthy crow.
By-and-by,
That fowl's avenging sprite
Set his cloven foot for spite
In her eye.
Her rounded form was lean,
And her silk was bombazine:-
Well I wot,
With her needles would she sit,
And for hours would she knit,-
Would she not?
Ah, perishable clay!
Her charms had dropped away
One by one.
But if she heaved a sigh
With a burthen, it was.
Will be done. "
« Thy


## p. 9121 (#125) ###########################################

FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
9121
XVI-571
D
In travail, as in tears,
With the fardel of her years
Overprest,-
In mercy was she borne
Where the weary ones and worn
Are at rest.
I'm fain to meet you there; -
If as witching as you were,
Grandmamma!
This nether world agrees
That the better it must please
Grandpapa.
ADVICE TO A POET
EAR Poet, never rhyme at all:-
But if you must, don't tell your neighbors;
Or five in six, who cannot scrawl,
Will dub you donkey for your labors.
This epithet may seem unjust
To you or any verse-begetter:
Oh, must we own I fear we must! .
That nine in ten deserve no better.
---
Then let them bray with leathern lungs,
And match you with the beast that grazes;
Or wag their heads, and hold their tongues,
Or damn you with the faintest praises.
Be patient, you will get your due
Of honors, or humiliations;
So look for sympathy-but do
Not look to find it from relations.
―――――
When strangers first approved my books,
My kindred marveled what the praise meant,
They now wear more respectful looks,
But can't get over their amazement.
Indeed, they've power to wound, beyond
That wielded by the fiercest hater;
For all the time they are so fond-
Which makes the aggravation greater.
Most warblers now but half express
The threadbare thoughts they feebly utter:


## p. 9122 (#126) ###########################################

9122
FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
If they attempted naught - or less! —
They would not sink, and gasp, and flutter.
Fly low, my friend; then mount, and win
The niche for which the town's contesting:
And never mind your kith and kin
But never give them cause for jesting.
--
A bard on entering the lists
Should form his plan; and having conned it,
Should know wherein his strength consists,
And never, never go beyond it.
Great Dryden all pretense discards;
Does Cowper ever strain his tether?
And Praed (Watteau of English Bards) -
How well he keeps his team together!
Hold Pegasus in hand-control
A vein for ornament ensnaring;
Simplicity is still the soul
Of all that Time deems worth the sparing.
Long lays are not a lively sport;
Reduce your own to half a quarter:
Unless your public thinks them short,
Posterity will cut them shorter.
I look on bards who whine for praise
With feelings of profoundest pity:
They hunger for the poet's bays,
And swear one's spiteful when one's witty.
The critic's lot is passing hard:
Between ourselves, I think reviewers,
When called to truss a crowing bard,
Should not be sparing of the skewers.
We all the foolish and the wise—
Regard our verse with fascination,
Through asinine paternal eyes,
And hues of Fancy's own creation;
Then pray, sir, pray, excuse a queer
And sadly self-deluded rhymer,
Who thinks his beer (the smallest beer! )
Has all the gust of alt hochheimer.
Dear Bard, the Muse is such a minx,
So tricksy, it were wrong to let her


## p. 9123 (#127) ###########################################

FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
9123
Rest satisfied with what she thinks
Is perfect: try and teach her better.
And if you only use, perchance,
One half the pains to learn that we, sir,
Still use to hide our ignorance ·
-
How very clever you will be, sir!
THE JESTER'S PLEA
[These verses were published in a volume by several hands, issued for the
benefit of the starving Lancashire weavers during the American Civil
War. ]
HE World! Was jester ever in
A viler than the present?
Yet if it ugly be-as sin,
It almost is-as pleasant!
It is a merry world (pro tem. );
And some are gay, and therefore
It pleases them- but some condemn
The fun they do not care for.
THE
It is an ugly world. Offend
Good people-how they wrangle!
The manners that they never mend!
The characters they mangle!
They eat, and drink, and scheme, and plod,
And go to church on Sunday;
And many are afraid of God-
And more of Mrs. Grundy.
The time for Pen and Sword was when
"My ladye fayre" for pity
Could tend her wounded knight, and then
Grow tender at his ditty!
Some ladies now make pretty songs,
And some make pretty nurses;
Some men are good for righting wrongs
And some for writing verses.
I wish We better understood
The tax that poets levy!
I know the Muse is very good-
I think she's rather heavy.


## p. 9124 (#128) ###########################################

9124
FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
She now compounds for winning ways
By morals of the sternest:
Methinks the lays of nowadays
Are painfully in earnest.
When Wisdom halts, I humbly try
To make the most of Folly;
If Pallas be unwilling, I
Prefer to flirt with Polly:
To quit the goddess for the maid
Seems low in lofty musers;
But Pallas is a haughty jade —
And beggars can't be choosers.
I do not wish to see the slaves
Of party, stirring passion;
Or psalms quite superseding staves,
Or piety "the fashion. "
I bless the hearts where pity glows,
Who, here together banded,
Are holding out a hand to those
That wait so empty-handed!
A righteous work! - My Masters, may
A Jester by confession,
Scarce noticed join, half sad, half gay,
The close of your procession?
The motley here seems out of place
With graver robes to mingle;
But if one tear bedews his face,
Forgive the bells their jingle.


## p. 9125 (#129) ###########################################

9125
JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART
(1794-1854)
HE poet and essayist John Gibson Lockhart is a striking ex-
ample of the class of men of no mean literary attainments
whose names have been overshadowed by being connected
with one greater than themselves. He is generally remembered as
the biographer and son-in-law of Walter Scott. He is less often named
as the admirable translator of the 'Spanish Ballads,' and still more
seldom spoken of as the scholarly editor
of the Quarterly Review. Yet he was one
of the most brilliant and most versatile of
the lesser men of English literature.
JOHN G. LOCKHART
Lockhart was born in the manse of Cam-
busnethan in Lanarkshire, where his father
was then a minister of the gospel. Two
years later the preacher was transferred to
Glasgow, and here presently the boy entered
the High School, and in time the Glasgow
College. He was remarkably clever,-en-
dowed with such unusual powers of concen-
tration and memory that study seemed no
effort; and he seemed to idle through his
class hours, chiefly employed in drawing car-
icatures of the instructors. He entered Balliol College, Oxford, when
just past fourteen; an unusually early age even for those days. He
was well equipped in languages, ancient and modern, and had a store
of curious information picked up in voracious reading; but he cared
little for mathematics, excellence in which was greatly insisted upon.
He continued caricaturing his tutors, and playing other harmless jokes
upon them; for he had an irrepressibly frolicsome turn of mind, and
was unconsciously developing his vein of satire and sarcasm. But he
was proud and reserved, and of a constitutional shyness that remained
with him all his life.

After graduation, he went to the Continent on money advanced by
Blackwood for a prospective translation of Friedrich Schlegel's 'Lect-
ures on the Study of History,' his first essay in authorship,-which
however did not appear until some years later. He visited Goethe at
Weimar, and went through France and the Netherlands studying art


## p. 9126 (#130) ###########################################

9126
JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART
Returning to Edinburgh, he read law, and was
and architecture.
called to bar in 1816. But he soon joined the staff of Black-
wood's Magazine, contributing literary papers and exercising his un-
rivaled powers of satire in political and critical essays. Here also
he printed a number of the 'Spanish Ballads. ' About this time he
became acquainted with Walter Scott, who took a great fancy to
the handsome, scholarly, witty young fellow, and accepted him as a
son-in-law in 1820. In the cottage which he fitted up for the young
couple on his own estate, they lived for some years in an ideal family
relation.
Having made himself a famous name for caustic wit and luminous
exposition, the brilliant critic of Blackwood was invited to take charge
of the (Tory) London Quarterly, from which "Anti-Jacobin" Gifford
was about to retire. He seems to have had, like Jeffrey, some doubts
as to whether well-paid editorship was an office quite becoming a
gentleman. But at Scott's advice he accepted the post, for which he
was admirably fitted. A born critic, his wide scholarship, his sane,
unbiased judgment, and his decided literary and political views, gave
great weight to his opinions. Aside from his editorial duties he con-
tributed many papers to the magazine. He is credited with having
written in his twenty-eight years of editorship no fewer than one hun-
dred carefully finished articles, besides scores of less elaborate papers.
His was the celebrated review on Tennyson's volume of 1832, which
began with a sarcastic pretense of retracting the Quarterly's adverse
judgment of Keats (plainly intimating that the writer still thought the
public admiration was the real mistake), and went on to say that here
at least was a case where it would never be necessary to retract any-
thing! The new mistake was fully as bad as the old; but it by no
means follows that the reviewer was altogether wrong in either case.
There were weak spots in the early work of both poets; and their
most individual note-a luxurious lingering over sensuous imagery,
and sometimes almost effeminate dalliance with verbal prettiness—
was precisely what most revolted the balladist, whose preference was
for rough and vigorous manliness of style.
Busy as he was, Lockhart managed to find time for contributions
to Blackwood's and to Fraser's. In 1843 he was appointed to the
auditorship of the Duchy of Lancaster, his only political preferment,
which he resigned in 1853 to spend that winter in Rome. Like Sir
Walter, however, he returned home to die. At Abbotsford, November
25th, 1854, he passed away, in the arms of his only surviving daughter,
Mrs. Hope-Scott, to whose son descended the title and estate of his
great-grandfather.
Lockhart was a brilliant talker and a delightful companion among
a few friends. In larger assemblies his shyness made him appear


## p. 9127 (#131) ###########################################

JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART
9127
haughty and reserved. He had not the gift of attracting the good-
will of strangers, and this debarred him from success as a public
speaker. His caustic pen, and his delicate position as responsible
editor of a great magazine, made him many enemies, both among
persons whose opinions he criticized and contributors whose articles
he blue-penciled. He was a man of most affectionate nature, not
expansive but deep, with almost a woman's love for children and
compassion for suffering.