Her
opinions
are not many nor new.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v13 - Her to Hux
On the contrary,
industry, their inseparable attendant, adds new force to both.
And if anger, which is said to be the whetstone of courage, loses
somewhat of its asperity by politeness and refinement,— a sense
of honor, which is a stronger, more constant, and more govern-
able principle, acquires fresh vigor by that elevation of genius
which arises from knowledge and a good education. Add to this
that courage can neither have any duration, nor be of any use,
when not accompanied with discipline and martial skill, which are
seldom found among a barbarous people. The ancients remarked
that Datames was the only barbarian that ever knew the art of
And Pyrrhus, seeing the Romans marshal their army with
war.
## p. 7786 (#608) ###########################################
7786
DAVID HUME
some art and skill, said with surprise, "These barbarians have
nothing barbarous in their discipline! " It is observable that as
the old Romans, by applying themselves solely to war, were
almost the only uncivilized people that ever possessed military
discipline, so the modern Italians are the only civilized people
among Europeans that ever wanted courage and a martial spirit.
Those who would ascribe this effeminacy of the Italians to their
luxury, or politeness, or application to the arts, need but con-
sider the French and English, whose bravery is as incontestable
as their love for the arts and their assiduity in commerce.
Italian historians give us a more satisfactory reason for this
degeneracy of their countrymen. They show us how the sword
was dropped at once by all the Italian sovereigns: while the
Venetian aristocracy was jealous of its subjects, the Florentine
democracy applied itself entirely to commerce, Rome was gov-
erned by priests and Naples by women. War then became the
business of soldiers of fortune, who spared one another, and to
the astonishment of the world, could engage a whole day in what
they called a battle and return at night to their camp without
the least bloodshed.
The
What has chiefly induced severe moralists to declaim against
refinement in the arts is the example of ancient Rome, which,
joining to its poverty and rusticity virtue and public spirit, rose
to such a surprising height of grandeur and liberty: but having
learned from its conquered provinces the Asiatic luxury, fell into
every kind of corruption; whence arose sedition and civil wars,
attended at last with the total loss of liberty. All the Latin
classics whom we peruse in our infancy are full of these senti-
ments, and universally ascribe the ruin of their State to the arts
and riches imported from the East; insomuch that Sallust repre-
sents a taste for painting as a vice, no less than lewdness and
drinking. And so popular were these sentiments during the lat-
ter ages of the republic, that this author abounds in praises of
the old rigid Roman virtue, though himself the most egregious
instance of modern luxury and corruption; speaks contemptuously
of the Grecian eloquence, though the most elegant writer in the
world; nay, employs preposterous digressions and declamations to
this purpose, though a model of taste and correctness.
But it would be easy to prove that these writers mistook
the cause of the disorders in the Roman State, and ascribed to
luxury and the arts what really proceeded from an ill-modeled
## p. 7787 (#609) ###########################################
DAVID HUME
7787
government, and the unlimited extent of conquests. Refinement
on the pleasures and conveniences of life has no natural tend-
ency to beget venality and corruption. The value which all men.
put upon any particular pleasure depends on comparison and expe-
rience; nor is a porter less greedy of money which he spends
on bacon and brandy, than a courtier who purchases champagne
and ortolans. Riches are valuable at all times and to all men,
because they always purchase pleasures such as men are accus-
tomed to and desire. Nor can anything restrain or regulate the
love of money but a sense of honor and virtue; which, if it be
not nearly equal at all times, will naturally abound most in ages
of knowledge and refinement.
Of all European kingdoms, Poland seems the most defective
in the arts of war as well as peace, mechanical as well as liberal;
yet it is there that venality and corruption do most prevail. The
nobles seem to have preserved their crown elective for no other
purpose than regularly to sell it to the highest bidder. This is
almost the only species of commerce with which that people are
acquainted.
The liberties of England, so far from decaying since the im-
provements in the arts, have never flourished so much as during
that period. And though corruption may seem to increase of late
years, this is chiefly to be ascribed to our established liberty,
when our princes have found the impossibility of governing with-
out Parliaments, or of terrifying Parliaments by the phantom of
prerogative. Not to mention that this corruption or venality
prevails much more among the electors than the elected, and
therefore cannot justly be ascribed to any refinements in luxury.
If we consider the matter in a proper light, we shall find that
a progress in the arts is rather favorable to liberty, and has a
natural tendency to preserve if not produce a free government.
In rude unpolished nations, where the arts are neglected, all
labor is bestowed on the cultivation of the ground; and the whole
society is divided into two classes,― proprietors of land, and their
vassals or tenants. The latter are necessarily dependent and
fitted for slavery and subjection, especially where they possess
no riches and are not valued for their knowledge in agriculture;
as must always be the case where the arts are neglected. The
former naturally erect themselves into petty tyrants; and must
either submit to an absolute master for the sake of peace and
order, or if they will preserve their independency, like the ancient
## p. 7788 (#610) ###########################################
7788
DAVID HUME
barons, they must fall into feuds and contests among themselves,
and throw the whole society into such confusion as is perhaps
worse than the most despotic government. But where luxury
nourisnes commerce and industry, the peasants, by a proper cul-
tivation of the land, become rich and independent; while the
tradesmen and merchants acquire a share of the property, and
draw authority and consideration to that middling rank of men
who are the best and firmest basis of public liberty. These sub-
mit not to slavery, like the peasants, from poverty and meanness
of spirit; and having no hopes of tyrannizing over others, like
the barons, they are not tempted for the sake of that gratifica-
tion to submit to the tyranny of their sovereign. They covet
equal laws, which may secure their property, and preserve them
from monarchical as well as aristocratical tyranny.
The lower House is the support of our popular government;
and all the world acknowledges that it owed its chief influence
and consideration to the increase of commerce, which threw such
a balance of property into the hands of the Commons. How
inconsistent then is it to blame so violently a refinement in the
arts, and to represent it as the bane of liberty and public spirit!
To declaim against present times, and magnify the virtue
of remote ancestors, is a propensity almost inherent in human
nature. And as the sentiments and opinions of civilized ages
alone are transmitted to posterity, hence it is that we meet with
so many severe judgments pronounced against luxury and even
science; and hence it is that at present we give so ready an
assent to them. But the fallacy is easily perceived by comparing
different nations that are contemporaries; where we both judge
more impartially, and can better set in opposition those manners
with which we are sufficiently acquainted. Treachery and cruelty,
the most pernicious and most odious of all vices, seem peculiar
to uncivilized ages; and by the refined Greeks and Romans were
ascribed to all the barbarous nations which surrounded them.
They might justly therefore have presumed that their own ances-
tors, so highly celebrated, possessed no greater virtue, and were
as much inferior to their posterity in honor and humanity as in
taste and science. An ancient Frank or Saxon may be highly
extolled. But I believe every man would think his life or for-
tune much less secure in the hands of a Moor or Tartar than
those of a French or English gentleman, the rank of men the
most civilized in the most civilized nations.
## p. 7789 (#611) ###########################################
DAVID HUME
7789
We come now to the second position which we proposed to
illustrate to wit, that as innocent luxury, or a refinement in the
arts and conveniences of life, is advantageous to the public, so
wherever luxury ceases to be innocent it also ceases to be bene-
ficial; and when carried a degree farther begins to be a quality
pernicious, though perhaps not the most pernicious, to political
society.
Let us consider what we call vicious luxury. No gratification,
however sensual, can of itself be esteemed vicious. A gratifi-
cation is only vicious when it engrosses all a man's expense, and
leaves no ability for such acts of duty and generosity as are
required by his situation and fortune. Suppose that he correct
the vice, and employ part of his expense in the education of his
children, in the support of his friends, and in relieving the poor,
would any prejudice result to society? On the contrary, the
same consumption would arise; and that labor which at present
is employed only in producing a slender gratification to one man,
would relieve the necessities and bestow satisfaction on hundreds.
The same care and toil that raise a dish of pease at Christmas
would give bread to a whole family during six months.
To say
that without a vicious luxury the labor would not have been
employed at all, is only to say that there is some other defect in
human nature, such as indolence, selfishness, inattention to others,
for which luxury in some measure provides a remedy; as one
poison may be an antidote for another. But virtue, like whole-
some food, is better than poisons however corrected.
Suppose the same number of men that are at present in Great
Britain, with the same soil and climate: I ask, is it not possible
for them to be happier, by the most perfect way of life that can
be imagined, and by the greatest reformation that Omnipotence
itself could work in their temper and disposition? To assert that
they cannot, appears evidently ridiculous. As the land is able to
maintain more than all its present inhabitants, they could never
in such a Utopian State feel any other ills than those which arise
from bodily sickness; and these are not the half of human miser-
ies. All other ills spring from some vice, either in ourselves or
others; and even many of our diseases proceed from the same
origin. Remove the vices, and the ills follow. You must only
take care to remove all the vices. If you remove part, you may
render the matter worse. By banishing vicious luxury, without
curing sloth and an indifference to others, you only diminish
## p. 7790 (#612) ###########################################
DAVID HUME
7790
industry in the State, and add nothing to men's charity or their
generosity. Let us therefore rest contented with asserting that
two opposite vices in a State may be more advantageous than
either of them alone; but let us never pronounce vice in itself
advantageous. Is it not very inconsistent for an author to assert
in one page that moral distinctions are inventions of politicians
for public interest, and in the next page maintain that vice is
advantageous to the public? And indeed it seems, upon any
system of morality, little less than a contradiction in terms to talk
of a vice which is in general beneficial to society.
I thought this reasoning necessary in order to give some light
to a philosophical question which has been much disputed in
England. I call it a philosophical question, not a political one.
For whatever may be the consequence of such a miraculous
transformation of mankind as would endow them with every
species of virtue and free them from every species of vice, this
concerns not the magistrate, who aims only at possibilities. He
cannot cure every vice by substituting a virtue in its place. Very
often he can only cure one vice by another; and in that case he
ought to prefer what is least pernicious to society. Luxury when
excessive is the source of many ills; but is in general preferable
to sloth and idleness, which would commonly succeed in its place,
and are more hurtful both to private persons and to the public.
When sloth reigns, a mean uncultivated way of life prevails
amongst individuals, without society, without enjoyment. And if
the sovereign, in such a situation, demands the service of his
subjects, the labor of the State suffices only to furnish the neces-
saries of life to the laborers, and can afford nothing to those who
are employed in the public service.
## p. 7791 (#613) ###########################################
7791
LEIGH HUNT
(1784-1859)
BY ERNEST RHYS
EIGH HUNT (whose two less distinctive first names, James and
Henry, his own pen has taught us to forget) was more
American than English by descent. His father, Rev. Isaac
Hunt, was a West-Indian, who received a large part of his education
at a college in Philadelphia; his mother, Mary Shewell, came of an
old Philadelphian Quaker family. His melancholy, which certainly
did not play a leading part in his temperament, Leigh Hunt always
declared came from his mother; his mirth from his father, who had
given up his charge in the West Indies
when the War of Independence threatened,
and sailed for England, where he lived a
rather improvident life. The boy Leigh,
who was by far the youngest of the family,
was born at Southgate, County Middlesex,
October 19th, 1784; then quite a country
village. At eight years old he was sent
to Christ's Hospital, some ten years after
Charles Lamb and Coleridge had passed
their memorable school days there. Eight
years of its strong discipline, and Leigh
Hunt emerged "with much classics and no
mathematics," such being then the tradition
of the school, to spend a couple of years
in writing verses and roaming London, under the easy-going rule of
the Rev. Isaac, who collected and published a first book of his boy's
poems as early as 1801. Its contents are curious, perhaps, but not
worth preserving.
LEIGH HUNT
Some intermittent experiences as a London clerk in the attorney's
office of his brother Stephen, and in the War Office, varied by his
first essays as a dramatic critic, bring us to the climacteric point
when he joined his brother John in sundry journalistic adventures.
These, after some failures, led to the successful commencement in
1808 of the now historical Examiner newspaper, whose future seemed
so secure in the second year that Leigh Hunt felt warranted in mar-
rying Marianne Kent, to whom he had been for long affianced.
## p. 7792 (#614) ###########################################
LEIGH HUNT
7792
It was not until 1812, in its issue of March 22d, that the Exam-
iner's growing independence led it to its well-timed attack on the
vicious Prince Regent, and brought down the law on its editors'
heads. The attack was made in an outspoken leading article (one of
a series of such social criticisms), entitled 'The Prince on St. Pat-
rick's Day. Some little delay occurred in the trial; and it was even
intimated that if the editors would refrain from free speech in the
future, their offense would be passed over: but with great courage
they refused to give any such undertaking. Eventually the trial
took place in the King's Bench, Westminster, on the 9th December,
1812; and Leigh Hunt and his brother, who were defended by Lord
Brougham, were condemned to two years' imprisonment in separate
prisons and a fine of £1,000. Of the two, Leigh Hunt was sent to
Horsemonger Lane Jail. There he went on directing and writing
for the Examiner with undiminished spirit. Two numbers of its issue
for February 1813 (No. 267 and No. 268, the only ones the present
writer has seen) bear traces, as one might expect, of his political
rather than his literary pen. The paper makes somewhat the effect
of a thinner and smaller Nation, its ink a little faded, its type older
fashioned. It is sub-titled 'A Sunday Paper on Politics, Domestic
Economy, and Theatricals,' and it bears a characteristic motto from
Swift: "Party is the madness of the Many for the gain of the Few. ”
In its pages, during the time of Leigh Hunt's imprisonment from
1813 to 1815, appeared several of his best sonnets, and notably those
addressed to his favorite Hampstead; one of which follows below.
His account of how he transformed his prison cell within, by a wall-
paper of trellised roses, a ceiling of blue sky and clouds, a piano,
books, and busts, while without he contrived a little flower garden,
added to the testimony of Charles Lamb and others, tends rather to
falsify the real effect his days in jail had upon him. In truth they
left him broken in health; and he was heavily embarrassed in for-
tune, moreover, by the heavy fine. And of the new friends that he
gained among those sympathizing with his misfortune, it cannot be
considered that he was altogether fortunate, for instance, in being
thrown into contact with Lord Byron. As for Shelley and Keats, the
two names that most naturally occur, and with the most ideal effect,
in the list of Hunt's friends,—their friendship dates from before his
imprisonment. His new intercourse with Byron under Shelley's aus-
pices led to the unlucky visit of the whole Hunt family to Italy, and
the still more unlucky founding of the Liberal. There is no more
entertaining chapter in all Leigh Hunt's delightful 'Autobiography'
than that so light-heartedly relating the story of the voyage to Italy
and its results. As for the fate of the Liberal, it only ran to four
numbers, issued during 1822-3; but it is a bibliophile's prize now,
## p. 7793 (#615) ###########################################
LEIGH HUNT
7793
whether in the original parts or in the two volumes in which these
were collected in 1823. Of Leigh Hunt's other journalistic doings,
Charles Lamb's couplet reminds us of one:—
"Wit, poet, prose-man, party-man, translator,-—
Hunt, thy best title yet is Indicator. "
The Indicator, issued weekly from 1819 to 1821; previously a quar-
terly, the Reflector, continuing from 1810 to 1812; and sequently
the Companion, a weekly similar to the Indicator,-- account for many
years of sheer hard writing in Leigh Hunt's life, which was never an
idle one.
But the hardest task of the kind he set himself was the
Talker, "A Daily Journal of Literature and the Stage," consisting of
four folio pages, written with very slight exception wholly and solely
by Hunt himself, from September 4th, 1830, to February 13th, 1832. It
proved, as might have been expected, with his other avocations to be
considered, too much for his health; and on giving it up he fell back
on his favorite belle-lettristic weekly publications, in his London Jour-
nal (1834-5), and again his Journal at the latter end of his career. If
so much is said of these papers, it is because so much of his most
characteristical writing first appeared in their pages; and we have
not yet nearly exhausted the list of the periodicals to which he was
an occasional contributor.
When we turn to his books, we find in his 'Autobiography' perhaps
the most complete and individual expression of the man: his charming
fancy, his high spirits, wit, gayety, and abiding good-nature. But the
same lightness and ease of style, the same kindliness and shrewdness
of thought and observation, are to be found in his essays, so often
written currente calamo for some one of his weekly periodicals. Such
are the papers on the 'Deaths of Little Children,' 'The Old Lady,'
'The Maid-Servant,' and 'Coaches. ' His contributions, whether as a
poet or as a critic and appreciator of poetry, are, it is said, not read
as much as they were ten, twenty years ago; but they make alone a
remarkable contribution to nineteenth-century literature. His favorite
Spenser owes a new laurel to his praise. 'The Story of Rimini,' his
longest poem, still delights in its best pages, full as they are of
reminders not only of older poets like Spenser, but of Keats, whom
Hunt so strongly influenced; and such lines as those to "Jenny,"
or upon 'Abou Ben Adhem,' are simply unforgettable. His poems,
together with such works as his Men, Women, and Books' (1847),
'Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla' (1848), Imagination and Fancy'
(1844), Wit and Humor' (1846), and The Town' (1848), are best to
be read in alternation with the chapters of his 'Autobiography. '
We have preferred to pass lightly over his much-bruited quarrel
with Byron, the fault of which was mainly Byron's. It is pleasanter
XIII-488
## p. 7794 (#616) ###########################################
LEIGH HUNT
7794
to think of his unbroken friendships with so many poets and men of
genius, from "Elia," Keats, and Shelley, on to Carlyle, whose tribute
to him may be remembered along with that of Emerson and of Haw-
thorne. Accepting it as essentially true, we shall be able to forget
that Dickens ever caricatured him, or that his lack of economics
ever impaired the genuine character of the man and his work. The
present writer, writing in a house traditionally associated with Leigh
Hunt's sojourn at Hampstead, can only say that every story of his
career told by his few remaining friends and acquaintances bears out
the brighter estimate of his life as the true one. He lived until 1859,
dying in the house of a friend at Putney on August 28th, 1859. "His
death was simply exhaustion," we are told: "he broke off his work to
lie down and repose. So gentle was the final approach that
it came without terrors. "
In his prime, Leigh Hunt was described as a tall, agile, slen-
der figure; with black hair, vivid features, brilliant dark eyes, and a
lurking humor in the expression of his mobile mouth.
And except
that his hair grew white, he preserved this effect, and the grace and
courtesy of his bearing, to the end.
The best edition of his poetical works is still the Boston one,
edited by Mr. S. Adams Lee, joint author with Hunt of his post-
humously published Book of the Sonnet. '
sment Phys
JAFFÁR
INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF SHELLEY
Shelley, take this to thy dear memory;-
To praise the generous is to think of thee.
-
AFFÁR, the Barmecide, the good Vizier,
JAFE
The poor man's hope, the friend without a peer,
Jaffar was dead, slain by a doom unjust;
And guilty Hároun, sullen with mistrust
Of what the good and e'en the bad might say,
Ordained that no man living from that day
Should dare to speak his name on pain of death. —
All Araby and Persia held their breath.
All but the brave Mondeer: he, proud to show
How far for love a grateful soul could go,
## p. 7795 (#617) ###########################################
LEIGH HUNT
--
And facing death for very scorn and grief
(For his great heart wanted a great relief),
Stood forth in Bagdad, daily, in the square
Where once had stood a happy house; and there
Harangued the tremblers at the scimitar
On all they owed to the divine Jaffár.
"Bring me this man," the Caliph cried. The man
Was brought was gazed upon.
The mutes began
To bind his arms. "Welcome, brave cords! " cried he;
"From bonds far worse Jaffár delivered me;
From wants, from shames, from loveless household fears;
Made a man's eyes friends with delicious tears;
Restored me-loved me- put me on a par
With his great self. How can I pay Jaffár? "
Hároun, who felt that on a soul like this
The mightiest vengeance could but fall amiss,
Now deigned to smile, as one great lord of fate
Might smile upon another half as great.
He said, "Let worth grow frenzied, if it will:
The Caliph's judgment shall be master still.
Go; and since gifts thus move thee, take this gem,
The richest in the Tartar's diadem,
And hold the giver as thou deemest fit. ”
"Gifts! " cried the friend. He took; and holding it
High towards the heavens, as though to meet his star,
Exclaimed, "This too I owe to thee, Jaffár! "
7795
THE NILE
I
T FLOWS through old, hushed Egypt and its sands,
Like some grave, mighty thought threading a dream;
And times and things, as in that vision, seem
Keeping along it their eternal stands,-
Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands
That roamed through the young world, the glory extreme
Of high Sesostris, and that southern beam,
The laughing queen that caught the world's great hands.
Then comes a mightier silence, stern and strong,
As of a world left empty of its throng,
And the void weighs on us; and then we wake,
And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along
'Twixt villages, and think how we shall take
Our own calm journey on for human sake.
## p. 7796 (#618) ###########################################
7796
LEIGH HUNT
TO HAMPSTEAD
WRITTEN IN SURREY JAIL, AUGUST 27TH, 1813
S
WEET upland, to whose walks, with fond repair,
Out of thy western slope I took my rise
Day after day, and on these feverish eyes
Met the moist fingers of the bathing air; —
If health, unearned of thee, I may not share,
Keep it, I pray thee, where my memory lies,
In thy green lanes, brown dells, and breezy skies,
Till I return, and find thee doubly fair.
Wait then my coming on that lightsome land,
Health, and the joy that out of nature springs,
And Freedom's air-blown locks; but stay with me,
Friendship, frank entering with the cordial hand,
And Honor, and the Muse with growing wings,
And Love Domestic, smiling equably.
TO THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET
REEN little vaulter in the sunny grass,
Catching your heart up at the feel of June,
Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy noon,
When even the bees lag at the summoning brass;
And you, warm little housekeeper, who class
With those who think the candles come too soon,
Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune
Nick the glad silent moments as they pass;-
O sweet and tiny cousins, that belong
One to the fields, the other to the hearth,
Both have your sunshine; both though small are strong
At your clear hearts; and both seem given to earth
To ring in thoughtful ears this natural song,-
In doors and out, summer and winter, Mirth.
GRE
ABOU BEN ADHEM
A
BOU BEN ADHEM (may his tribe increase! )
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold.
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
## p. 7797 (#619) ###########################################
LEIGH HUNT
And to the presence in the room he said,
"What writest thou? " The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord. "
"And is mine one? " said Abou. ་ Nay, not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow-men. "
The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,-
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest!
RONDEAU
ENNY kissed me when we met,
JR
Jumping from the chair she sat in:
Time, you thief! who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I'm growing old; but add. -
Jenny kissed me!
7797
THE OLD LADY
From the Indicator>
F THE old lady is a widow and lives alone, the manners of her
condition and time of life are so much the more apparent.
She generally dresses in plain silks, that make a gentle rus-
tling as she moves about the silence of her room; and she wears
a nice cap with a lace border, that comes under the chin. In a
placket at her side is an old enameled watch, unless it is locked
up in a drawer of her toilet for fear of accidents. Her waist is
rather tight and trim than otherwise, and she had a fine one
when young; and she is not sorry if you see a pair of her stock-
ings on a table, that you may be aware of the neatness of her
leg and foot. Contented with these and other evident indica-
tions of a good shape, and letting her young friends understand
that she can afford to obscure it a little, she wears pockets, and
## p. 7798 (#620) ###########################################
7798
LEIGH HUNT
uses them well too. In the one is her handkerchief, and any
heavier matter that is not likely to come out with it, such as the
change of a sixpence; in the other is a miscellaneous assortment,
consisting of a pocket-book, a bunch of keys, a needle-case, a
spectacle-case, crumbs of biscuit, a nutmeg and grater, a smelling-
bottle, and according to the season an orange or apple, which
after many days she draws out warm and glossy, to give to some
little child that has well-behaved itself.
She generally occupies two rooms, in the neatest condition
possible.
In the chamber is a bed with a white coverlet, built
up high and round to look well, and with curtains of a pasto-
ral pattern, consisting alternately of large plants and shepherds
and shepherdesses. On the mantelpiece are more shepherds and
shepherdesses, with dot-eyed sheep at their feet, all in colored
ware: the man perhaps in a pink jacket, and knots of ribbons at
his knees and shoes, holding his crook lightly in one hand and
with the other at his breast, turning his toes out and looking
tenderly at the shepherdess; the woman holding a crook also, and
modestly returning his look, with a gipsy hat jerked up behind,
a very slender waist with petticoat and hips to counteract, and
the petticoat pulled up through the pocket-holes, in order to show
the trimness of her ankles. But these patterns of course are
various. The toilet is ancient, carved at the edges, and tied
about with a snow-white drapery of muslin. Beside it are vari-
ous boxes, mostly japan; and the set of drawers are exquisite
things for a little girl to rummage, if ever little girl be so bold,—
containing ribbons and laces of various kinds; linen smelling of
lavender, of the flowers of which there is always dust in the
corners; a heap of pocket-books for a series of years; and pieces
of dress long gone by, such as head-fronts, stomachers, and
flowered satin shoes with enormous heels. The stock of letters
are under especial lock and key. So much for the bedroom. In
the sitting-room is rather a spare assortment of shining old ma-
hogany furniture, or carved arm-chairs equally old, with chintz
draperies down to the ground; a folding or other screen, with
Chinese figures, their round, little-eyed meek faces perking side-
ways; a stuffed bird, perhaps in a glass case (a living one is too
much for her); a portrait of her husband over the mantelpiece,
in a coat with frog-buttons, and a delicate frilled hand lightly
inserted in the waistcoat; and opposite him on the wall is a piece
of embroidered literature framed and glazed, containing some
## p. 7799 (#621) ###########################################
LEIGH HUNT
7799
moral distich or maxim worked in angular capital letters, with
two trees or parrots below in their proper colors; the whole con-
cluding with an A-B-C and numerals, and the name of the fair
industrious, expressing it to be "her work, Jan. 14, 1762. " The
rest of the furniture consists of a looking-glass with carved edges,
perhaps a settee, a hassock for the feet, a mat for the little dog,
and a small set of shelves, in which are the Spectator and
Guardian, the Turkish Spy,' a Bible and Prayer-Book, Young's
'Night Thoughts' with a piece of lace in it to flatten, Mrs.
Rowe's 'Devout Exercises of the Heart,' Mrs. Glasse's 'Cookery,'
and perhaps 'Sir Charles Grandison' and 'Clarissa. ' 'John Bun-
cle' is in the closet among the pickles and preserves. The clock
is on the landing-place between the two room doors, where it
ticks audibly but quietly; and the landing-place is carpeted to a
nicety. The house is most in character, and properly coeval, if
it is in a retired suburb, and strongly built, with wainscot rather
than paper inside, and lockers in the windows. Before the win-
dows should be some quivering poplars. Here the Old Lady
receives a few quiet visitors to tea, and perhaps an early game
at cards; or you may see her going out on the same kind of
visit herself, with a light umbrella running up into a stick and
crooked ivory handle, and her little dog, equally famous for his
love to her and captious antipathy to strangers. Her grandchild-
ren dislike him on holidays, and the boldest sometimes ventures
to give him a sly kick under the table. When she returns at
night she appears, if the weather happens to be doubtful, in a
calash; and her servant in pattens follows half behind and half
at her side, with a lantern.
Her opinions are not many nor new. She thinks the clergy-
man a nice man. The Duke of Wellington, in her opinion, is a
very great man; but she has a secret preference for the Marquis
of Granby. She thinks the young women of the present day
too forward, and the men not respectful enough, but hopes her
grandchildren will be better; though she differs with her daugh-
ter in several points respecting their management. She sets little
value on the new accomplishments; is a great though delicate
connoisseur in butcher's meat and all sorts of housewifery; and
if you mention waltzes, expatiates on the grace and fine breed-
ing of the minuet. She longs to have seen one danced by Sir
Charles Grandison, whom she almost considers as a real person.
She likes a walk of a summer's evening but avoids the new
## p. 7800 (#622) ###########################################
7800
LEIGH HUNT
streets, canals, etc. ; and sometimes goes through the church-yard
where her children and her husband lie buried, serious but not
melancholy. She has had three great epochs in her life: her
marriage; her having been at court, to see the King and Queen
and Royal Family; and a compliment on her figure she once
received in passing, from Mr. Wilkes, whom she describes as “a
sad loose man, but engaging. " His plainness she thinks much
exaggerated. If anything takes her at a distance from home, it
is still the court; but she seldom stirs even for that. The last
time but one that she went was to see the Duke of Würtemberg;
and most probably for the last time of all, to see the Princess
Charlotte and Prince Leopold. From this beatific vision she
returned with the same admiration as ever for the fine comely
appearance of the Duke of York and the rest of the family, and
great delight at having had a near view of the Princess, whom
she speaks of with smiling pomp and lifted mittens, clasping
them as passionately as she can together, and calling her, in a
transport of mixed loyalty and self-love, "a fine royal young
creature," and "Daughter of England. "
THE OLD GENTLEMAN
O
UR Old Gentleman, in order to be exclusively himself, must
be either a widower or a bachelor. Suppose the former.
We do not mention his precise age, which would be invidi-
ous; nor whether he wears his own hair or a wig, which would
be wanting in universality. If a wig, it is a compromise between
the more modern scratch and the departed glory of the toupee.
If his own hair, it is white, in spite of his favorite grandson,
who used to get on the chair behind him and pull the silver
hairs out ten years ago. If he is bald at top, the hair-dresser,
hovering and breathing about him like a second youth, takes
care to give the bald place as much powder as the covered, in
order that he may convey to the sensorium within a pleasing in-
distinctness of idea respecting the exact limits of skin and hair.
He is very clean and neat; and in warm weather is proud of
opening his waistcoat half-way down, and letting so much of his
frill be seen, in order to show his hardiness as well as taste. His
watch and shirt-buttons are of the best; and he does not care if
he has two rings on a finger. If his watch ever failed him at
## p. 7801 (#623) ###########################################
LEIGH HUNT
7801
the club or coffee-house, he would take a walk every day to the
nearest clock of good character, purely to keep it right. He has
a cane at home, but seldom uses it, on finding it out of fashion
with his elderly juniors. He has a small cocked hat for gala-
days, which he lifts higher from his head than the round one
when bowed to. In his pockets are two handkerchiefs (one for
the neck at night-time), his spectacles, and his pocket-book. The
pocket-book among other things contains a receipt for a cough,
and some verses cut out of an odd sheet of an old magazine, on
the lovely Duchess of A. , beginning-
"When beauteous Mira walks the plain. "
-
He intends this for a commonplace book which he keeps, con-
sisting of passages in verse and prose cut out of newspapers
and magazines, and pasted in columns, some of them rather gay.
His principal other books are-Shakespeare's Plays and Milton's
'Paradise Lost'; the Spectator, the History of England,' the
'Works of Lady M. W. Montagu,' Pope and Churchill; Middle-
ton's Geography; the Gentleman's Magazine; Sir John Sinclair on
'Longevity'; several plays with portraits in character; 'Account
of Elizabeth Canning,' 'Memoirs of George Ann Bellamy,' 'Poet-
ical Amusements at Bath-Easton,' Blair's Works, Elegant Extracts;
Junius, as originally published; a few pamphlets on the Ameri-
can War and Lord George Gordon, etc. , and one on the French
Revolution. In his sitting-rooms are some engravings from
Hogarth and Sir Joshua; an engraved portrait of the Marquis of
Granby; ditto M. le Comte de Grasse surrendering to Admiral
Rodney; a humorous piece after Penny; and a portrait of him-
self, painted by Sir Joshua. His wife's portrait is in his chamber,
looking upon his bed. She is a little girl, stepping forward with
a smile and a pointed toe, as if going to dance. He lost her
when she was sixty.
The Old Gentleman is an early riser, because he intends to
live at least twenty years longer. He continues to take tea for
breakfast, in spite of what is said against its nervous effects;
having been satisfied on that point some years ago by Dr. John-
son's criticism on Hanway, and by a great liking for tea previ-
ously. His china cups and saucers have been broken since
his wife's death,-all but one, which is religiously kept for his
use. He passes his morning in walking or riding, looking in
at auctions, looking after his India bonds or some such money
## p. 7802 (#624) ###########################################
7802
LEIGH HUNT
securities, furthering some subscription set on foot by his excellent
friend Sir John, or cheapening a new old print for his portfolio.
He also hears of the newspapers; not caring to see them till
after dinner at the coffee-house. He may also cheapen a fish or
so; the fishmonger soliciting his doubtful eye as he passes, with
a profound bow of recognition. He eats a pear before dinner.
His dinner at the coffee-house is served up to him at the
accustomed hour, in the old accustomed way, and by the accus-
tomed waiter. If William did not bring it, the fish would be sure
to be stale and the flesh new. He eats no tart; or if he ventures
on a little, takes cheese with it. You might as soon attempt to
persuade him out of his senses as that cheese is not good for
digestion. He takes port; and if he has drunk more than usual,
and in a more private place, may be induced, by some respectful
inquiries respecting the old style of music, to sing a song com-
posed by Mr. Oswald or Mr. Lampe, such as
or
-
"Chloe, by that borrowed kiss,"
"Come, gentle god of soft repose,"
or his wife's favorite ballad, beginning-
"At Upton on the hill
There lived a happy pair. "
Of course no such exploit can take place in the coffee-room; but
he will canvass the theory of that matter there with you, or dis-
cuss the weather, or the markets, or the theatres, or the merits.
of my lord North," or "my lord Rockingham "-for he rarely
says simply lord; it is generally "my lord," trippingly and gen-
teelly off the tongue. If alone after dinner, his great delight is
the newspaper; which he prepares to read by wiping his spec-
tacles, carefully adjusting them on his eyes, and drawing the can-
dle close to him, so as to stand sideways betwixt his ocular aim
and the small type. He then holds the paper at arm's-length,
and dropping his eyelids half down and his mouth half open, takes
cognizance of the day's information. If he leaves off, it is only
when the door is opened by a new-comer, or when he suspects
somebody is over-anxious to get the paper out of his hand. On
these occasions he gives an important hem! or so; and resumes.
In the evening, our Old Gentleman is fond of going to the
theatre or of having a game of cards. If he enjoys the latter at
## p. 7803 (#625) ###########################################
LEIGH HUNT
7803
his own house or longings, he likes to play with some friends
whom he has known for many years: but an elderly stranger may
be introduced, if quiet and scientific; and the privilege is ex-
tended to younger men of letters, who if ill players are good
losers. Not that he is a miser, but to win money at cards is like
proving his victory by getting the baggage; and to win of a
younger man is a substitute for his not being able to beat him
at rackets. He breaks up early whether at home or abroad.
At the theatre he likes a front row in the pit. He comes
early, if he can do so without getting into a squeeze, and sits
patiently waiting for the drawing up of the curtain, with his hands
placidly lying one over the other on the top of his stick. He
generously admires some of the best performers, but thinks them
far inferior to Garrick, Woodward, and Clive. During splendid
scenes he is anxious that the little boy should see.
He is also
He has been induced to look in at Vauxhall again, but likes
it still less than he did years back, and cannot bear it in com-
parison with Ranelagh. He thinks everything looks poor, flaring,
and jaded. "Ah! " says he with a sort of triumphant sigh,
"Ranelagh was a noble place! Such taste, such elegance, such
beauty! There was the Duchess of A- , the finest woman in
England, sir; and Mrs. L———, a mighty fine creature; and Lady
Susan What's-her-name, that had that unfortunate affair with Sir
Charles. Sir, they came swimming by you like the swans. "
The Old Gentleman is very particular in having his slippers.
ready for him at the fire when he comes home.
extremely choice in his snuff, and delights to get a fresh box-
ful in Tavistock Street on his way to the theatre. His box is a
curiosity from India. He calls favorite young ladies by their
Christian names, however slightly acquainted with them; and has
a privilege of saluting all brides, mothers, and indeed every
species of lady, on the least holiday occasion. If the husband, for
instance, has met with a piece of luck, he instantly moves for-
ward and gravely kisses the wife on the cheek. The wife then
says, "My niece, sir, from the country;" and he kisses the niece.
The niece, seeing her cousin biting her lips at the joke, says,
«< My cousin Harriet, sir;" and he kisses the cousin. He "never
recollects such weather," except during the "Great Frost," or
when he rode down with "Jack Skrimshire to Newmarket. " He
grows young again in his little grandchildren, especially the one
which he thinks most like himself, which is the handsomest. Yet
## p. 7804 (#626) ###########################################
7804
LEIGH HUNT
he likes best perhaps the one most resembling his wife; and will
sit with him on his lap, holding his hand in silence for a quarter
of an hour together. He plays most tricks with the former, and
makes him sneeze. He asks little boys in general who was the
father of Zebedee's children. If his grandsons are at school he
often goes to see them, and makes them blush by telling the
master of the upper scholars that they are fine boys, and of a
precocious genius. He is much struck when an old acquaintance
dies, but adds that he lived too fast, and that poor Bob was a
sad dog in his youth; "a very sad dog, sir; mightily set upon a
short life and a merry one. "
When he gets very old indeed, he will sit for whole evenings
and say little or nothing; but informs you that there is Mrs.
Jones (the housekeeper) - "She'll talk. "
## p. 7804 (#627) ###########################################
## p. 7804 (#628) ###########################################
THOMAS H. HUXLEY.
Grosch
## p. 7804 (#629) ###########################################
4
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## p. 7804 (#630) ###########################################
MUXLEY
THOMAS H
Máy đo ni m nằm lên
4
## p. 7805 (#631) ###########################################
7805
THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY
(1825-1895)
BY E. RAY LANKESTER
HE Right Honorable Thomas Henry Huxley was the seventh
child of George Huxley, himself a seventh child, and was
born on the 4th of May, 1825, at Ealing, near London. His
father was one of the masters in a large semi-public school at that
place, kept by a Dr. Nicholson. We know very little of this father,
and Huxley himself in a brief autobiographical sketch has nothing to
tell of him except that he passed on to his son "an inborn faculty
for drawing, a hot temper, and a tenacity of purpose which unfriendly
observers sometimes called obstinacy. " Of hi mother he tells us
somewhat more. He inherited from her his extremely black hair
and eyes, his sallow complexion, and (as he thinks) rapidity of thought
and mother wit. His school days (passed presumably in the school
at which his father was a master) left on Huxley only a painful
impression. He speaks of those who were over the boys "caring
about as much for their moral and intellectual welfare as if they
were baby-farmers. " When he was twelve or thirteen, he wished
to become a mechanical engineer; but a medical brother-in-law (Dr.
Salt) took him in hand, and he commenced at this early age the study
of medicine. Eventually he went to Charing Cross Hospital, and
passed the first M. B. examination of the University of London. He
read hard all kinds of literature,-novels, philosophy, history. The
one of his teachers who really interested him, and for whom he cher-
ished ever after a warm regard, was Mr. Wharton Jones, lecturer on
physiology, and surgeon-oculist.
Stern necessity compelled young Huxley, as soon as his medical
course was over, to seek at once, even before he was one-and-twenty,
some post or employment. We know nothing of his relatives at this
time, nor to what extent they assisted him. Apparently he stood
alone and decided for himself. At the suggestion of a fellow-student,
now Sir Joseph Fayrer. Huxley in 1846 applied for admission to the
Medical Service of the Navy. In two months more he was examined
and admitted, and was in attendance at the naval hospital at Haslar
under the care of that fine old naturalist and Arctic voyager, Sir
John Richardson.
## p. 7806 (#632) ###########################################
7806
THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY
Sir John Richardson took note of young Huxley, and instead of
sending him off to the fevers of the Gold Coast, procured him the
post of assistant surgeon on the surveying ship Rattlesnake, under
Captain Owen Stanley, who had expressed a wish to have a surgeon
who took some interest in science. The four years spent by Huxley
on the Rattlesnake, chiefly off the coast of Australia, were fine train-
ing for him, not only as a naturalist but as a man. He had ample
time to read, and laid in the foundations of that vast store of lit-
erary knowledge which so often astonished his scientific colleagues
in later years.
He also studied the anatomy and physiology of the
transparent oceanic forms-jelly-fish, salpæ, pelagic mollusks, and
worms - with irrepressible ardor and determination; not so much with
the expectation of opening a career in science for himself, as with
the desire of satisfying his own curiosity and exercising his intel-
lectual faculties. One of his most interesting studies (still quoted
with respect)—namely, that on the reproduction of Pyrosoma, the
transparent phosphorescent Ascidian-was carried out in his cabin.
at night, with only a tallow dip to illumine his microscope, whilst a
lively sea caused the ship to roll freely.
The Rattlesnake returned to England at the end of the year 1850.
Huxley found that the scientific papers he had sent home had already
made him famous. By the aid of those who valued the promise given
by his published work, he was allowed by the Admiralty for three.
years to draw pay as a navy surgeon whilst devoting himself to the
working up of the results of his observations when at sea.
In 1851
he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1852 received
one of the Royal medals of the society. In 1853, however, he was
ordered to proceed again to active service, and boldly took the alter-
native course of retiring from the naval service. He found himself
without professional employment or other resource, but trusted to his
pen. For a year or so he worked as a journalist, treating scientific
and literary themes in the weeklies and quarterlies, and still finding
energy to carry on scientific investigations in histology and in the
anatomy of microscopic organisms. His opportunity came in 1854.
through the appointment of his friend Edward Forbes to the chair of
natural history in Edinburgh. Thus was set free the post of lecturer
on natural history at the Royal School of Mines, which, together
with a special post of "naturalist to the Survey," was offered to
Huxley by the director of the Geological Survey and Royal School
of Mines, Sir Henry de la Bèche.
Huxley accepted this post, worth £800 a year, with the intention
of resigning it for one related to physiology whenever such should
offer. He declared he had no interest in "fossils," and in later years
said: "I am afraid there is very little of the genuine naturalist in me.
## p. 7807 (#633) ###########################################
THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY
7807
I never collected anything, and species-work was always a burden
to me. What I cared for was the architectural and engineering part
of the business, the working out the wonderful unity of plan in the
thousands and thousands of diverse living constructions, and the
modifications of similar apparatus to serve diverse ends. ” However,
Huxley held this post for thirty-one years, and soon turned his
attention to the fossils he had at first despised. Amongst his most
valuable scientific writings are those which embody his discoveries as
regards fossil animals, fishes, reptiles, and mammals.
There is no doubt that Huxley was fortunate to obtain at the age
of twenty-seven a first-rate post, worth nearly a thousand a year, in
London, and unburdened with any excessive duties. He had to give
during winter (October to end of February) a course of lectures on
five days of the week, and he had to attend in his study at the
Museum in Jermyn Street; but he had not the cares of a laboratory
nor of a collection to fritter away his time. Though he had devoted
disciples, he produced no pupils in the sense in which the German
professor produces them. He carried out his researches alone, with
his own hands, as he had done when at sea; and no younger men
were the objects of his care, or were inspired and directed in his
workshop. Consequently he was able to arrange the employment of
his day in his own way. He wrote largely for the press upon such
topics as belonged to his branch of science; he lectured frequently
in other places besides Jermyn Street; he took an active and im-
portant part in various government commissions, to which his official
position rendered it proper that he should be appointed. A favorite
audience for him to address was that of the Royal Institution, where
the members and their friends, ladies as well as gentlemen, are accus-
tomed to have the latest discoveries in science expounded to them
both by afternoon and evening lectures. Though it is incontestably
established by his own and others' testimony that Huxley was at
first an unattractive lecturer, he gradually developed a marvelous
power of lucid exposition and firm biting eloquence. I should say
that this had not attained its full development until he was about
forty years of age (in 1865), and that his written style developed
pari passu with that of his oral discourse.
As soon as he was appointed to his post in Jermyn Street, Huxley
married the lady to whom he had become engaged in 1847 at Sydney,
Miss Henrietta O. Heathorn, who survives him.
Soon after he returned from the voyage of the Rattlesnake he
made the acquaintance of Charles Darwin in London, and became a
firm friend of his, and of the botanist Hooker. Tyndall he met first
in a railway carriage en route for the meeting of the British Associa-
tion at Ipswich in 1851, and there and then commenced a warm and
## p. 7808 (#634) ###########################################
7808
THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY
lasting friendship. Huxley, Hooker, and Tyndall became a trium-
virate directing and determining the official side of scientific life in
London, operating through the Royal Society, the Royal Institution,
the Athenæum Club, and the press; influencing and guiding not only
popular opinion, but also such scanty patronage and employment of
scientific men as the British government permits itself.
For the purposes of a brief review, Huxley's life, after his return
from his voyage in 1850 at the age of twenty-five, may be divided
into the four decennia 1850-60, 1860–70, 1870-80, 1880-90, followed by
the five years 1890-95 which bring us to his death. In the first of
these Huxley established his reputation as a comparative anatomist,
and its close found him thoroughly in harness as a palæontologist no
less than a microscopist, the determined exponent of new views in
zoological science, and with the ambition clearly before him of dis-
placing both the personal influence and the loose philosophic teach-
ings of Richard Owen, twenty years his senior and enjoying great
popular and social authority. At the close of this decade appeared
the Origin of Species' by Darwin, and a new activity developed in
Huxley as the defender and exponent of Darwin's views. On the
very day after its publication, in November 1859, owing to a fortu-
nate chance Huxley's was the pen which reviewed the Origin of
Species in the Times. In 1860 he gave a Friday evening lecture on
'Species Races and their Origin' at the Royal Institution; and at the
Oxford meeting of the British Association had his famous encoun-
ter with Samuel Wilberforce, then Bishop of Oxford, who made a
gross and foolish attack upon Huxley individually in reference to his
contention, in opposition to Owen, that there was less difference in
structure between man and the higher apes than there is between
the higher apes and the lower monkeys.
Huxley was up to this date but little known outside scientific cir-
cles. Henceforward he was recognized in London society as a leader
of men in science, and a dangerous swordsman to challenge in a
public arena. In the winter of the same year he gave six evening
lectures to workingmen on The Relation of Man to the Lower
Animals' which appeared later, in 1863, as an illustrated volume
entitled 'Man's Place in Nature. ' In the same year, 1863, he again
addressed six lectures to workingmen, on 'Our Knowledge of the
Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature,' which were subse-
quently published from a short-hand reporter's transcript.
This sec-
ond course, like those which had preceded them, were attended by a
densely packed audience of workingmen, who paid the nominal fee
of sixpence only, for admission to the course. Never was there a
more rapt and enthusiastic audience, and never were greater skill and
power in the exposition of scientific methods and results to such an
## p. 7809 (#635) ###########################################
THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY
7809
audience exhibited. It was in these lectures that Huxley fully real-
ized the great power with which he was gifted.
So till the close of his second London decade he was busy on the
one hand with scientific research in palæontology,-introducing new
and most important views as to the structure of fishes' fins, of rep-
tilia and amphibia and of the vertebrate skull, teaching his regular
students in Jermyn Street, and giving Hunterian lectures on compara-
tive anatomy at the College of Surgeons, and on the other hand
expounding by occasional lectures, brief courses, or weighty essays,
the principles of Darwinism and the new doctrine of organic evolu-
tion, to a wider public.
In 1870 his growing conviction that it lay in his power not merely
to discover new scientific truth, but to put the methods and results
of science before his fellow-men, other than those who were special
students, in such a way as to influence their intellectual life, led
him to accept an invitation to become a candidate for the London
School Board, then first established. He was elected, and made him-
self felt in that assembly as a man not only acute and learned but
wise and just. In 1871 he became Secretary of the Royal Society, a
post which he retained until 1880; and devoted no small portion of
his time and energy to the maintenance of the high position and
influence which he conceived to be the just and historic attribute of
that society.
The enormous amount of varied intellectual work which now occu-
pied his brain, together with the strain of so many duties of such
various kinds, at last resulted in over-fatigue. He took a long holi-
day in Egypt in the winter of 1872, and returned refreshed. Now he
had to organize his laboratory and practical class in the new build-
ings at South Kensington to which the School of Mines was removed,
and where it eventually became known as the Royal College of Sci-
ence. Addresses, magazine articles, Royal Commissions, occupied him
as fully as before his illness: and his visit in 1876 to the United States,
where he gave an address on University Education at the opening of
the Johns Hopkins University and three lectures on Evolution in
New York, was a sort of royal progress; for everywhere his fame
had spread as one who united profound scientific knowledge with an
incisive power of speech, sparkling with wit such as few men of any
kind of career possessed.
Though during this decade (1870-80) Huxley gave more abundantly
of his strength to the delivery of scientific addresses, and to the
writing of essays on subjects so varied as Descartes, Joseph Priest-
ley, the Positive Philosophy, and Administrative Nihilism, yet in it
some of his most brilliant scientific work was accomplished. His full
memoir on the Triassic Crocodile Stagonolepis was published in 1877,
XII-489
## p. 7810 (#636) ###########################################
7810
THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY
and his memoir on Ceratodus in 1876; but most remarkable of all, his
book on the crayfish, which embodied in popular style an important
study of the crayfishes of all countries, and an important analysis of
the structure of the gill plumes as evidence of affinity and separation,
which formed simultaneously the subject of a memoir presented by
him to the Zoological Society.
About this time (1870-80) Huxley became a member of a very re-
markable society which called itself the Metaphysical Club. This club
met at irregular intervals to dine and discuss the higher philosophy.
It was organized by Mr. James Knowles, the editor of the Nineteenth
Century review, and included amongst its constant frequenters Lord
Tennyson, Froude, Cardinal Manning, Martineau, Bishop MacGee, and
"others of the weightier leaders of English thought. "
Huxley rarely met Mr. Gladstone, for whose mode of thought he
had a great dislike, although he admired the vivacity and irrepress-
ible loquacity of the veteran statesman. I remember his telling me
of a dinner where he had met Gladstone (towards the close of the
«< eighties"), and how he complained that he had not been able to
get a word in edgeways on account of the incessant discourse of
Mr.
industry, their inseparable attendant, adds new force to both.
And if anger, which is said to be the whetstone of courage, loses
somewhat of its asperity by politeness and refinement,— a sense
of honor, which is a stronger, more constant, and more govern-
able principle, acquires fresh vigor by that elevation of genius
which arises from knowledge and a good education. Add to this
that courage can neither have any duration, nor be of any use,
when not accompanied with discipline and martial skill, which are
seldom found among a barbarous people. The ancients remarked
that Datames was the only barbarian that ever knew the art of
And Pyrrhus, seeing the Romans marshal their army with
war.
## p. 7786 (#608) ###########################################
7786
DAVID HUME
some art and skill, said with surprise, "These barbarians have
nothing barbarous in their discipline! " It is observable that as
the old Romans, by applying themselves solely to war, were
almost the only uncivilized people that ever possessed military
discipline, so the modern Italians are the only civilized people
among Europeans that ever wanted courage and a martial spirit.
Those who would ascribe this effeminacy of the Italians to their
luxury, or politeness, or application to the arts, need but con-
sider the French and English, whose bravery is as incontestable
as their love for the arts and their assiduity in commerce.
Italian historians give us a more satisfactory reason for this
degeneracy of their countrymen. They show us how the sword
was dropped at once by all the Italian sovereigns: while the
Venetian aristocracy was jealous of its subjects, the Florentine
democracy applied itself entirely to commerce, Rome was gov-
erned by priests and Naples by women. War then became the
business of soldiers of fortune, who spared one another, and to
the astonishment of the world, could engage a whole day in what
they called a battle and return at night to their camp without
the least bloodshed.
The
What has chiefly induced severe moralists to declaim against
refinement in the arts is the example of ancient Rome, which,
joining to its poverty and rusticity virtue and public spirit, rose
to such a surprising height of grandeur and liberty: but having
learned from its conquered provinces the Asiatic luxury, fell into
every kind of corruption; whence arose sedition and civil wars,
attended at last with the total loss of liberty. All the Latin
classics whom we peruse in our infancy are full of these senti-
ments, and universally ascribe the ruin of their State to the arts
and riches imported from the East; insomuch that Sallust repre-
sents a taste for painting as a vice, no less than lewdness and
drinking. And so popular were these sentiments during the lat-
ter ages of the republic, that this author abounds in praises of
the old rigid Roman virtue, though himself the most egregious
instance of modern luxury and corruption; speaks contemptuously
of the Grecian eloquence, though the most elegant writer in the
world; nay, employs preposterous digressions and declamations to
this purpose, though a model of taste and correctness.
But it would be easy to prove that these writers mistook
the cause of the disorders in the Roman State, and ascribed to
luxury and the arts what really proceeded from an ill-modeled
## p. 7787 (#609) ###########################################
DAVID HUME
7787
government, and the unlimited extent of conquests. Refinement
on the pleasures and conveniences of life has no natural tend-
ency to beget venality and corruption. The value which all men.
put upon any particular pleasure depends on comparison and expe-
rience; nor is a porter less greedy of money which he spends
on bacon and brandy, than a courtier who purchases champagne
and ortolans. Riches are valuable at all times and to all men,
because they always purchase pleasures such as men are accus-
tomed to and desire. Nor can anything restrain or regulate the
love of money but a sense of honor and virtue; which, if it be
not nearly equal at all times, will naturally abound most in ages
of knowledge and refinement.
Of all European kingdoms, Poland seems the most defective
in the arts of war as well as peace, mechanical as well as liberal;
yet it is there that venality and corruption do most prevail. The
nobles seem to have preserved their crown elective for no other
purpose than regularly to sell it to the highest bidder. This is
almost the only species of commerce with which that people are
acquainted.
The liberties of England, so far from decaying since the im-
provements in the arts, have never flourished so much as during
that period. And though corruption may seem to increase of late
years, this is chiefly to be ascribed to our established liberty,
when our princes have found the impossibility of governing with-
out Parliaments, or of terrifying Parliaments by the phantom of
prerogative. Not to mention that this corruption or venality
prevails much more among the electors than the elected, and
therefore cannot justly be ascribed to any refinements in luxury.
If we consider the matter in a proper light, we shall find that
a progress in the arts is rather favorable to liberty, and has a
natural tendency to preserve if not produce a free government.
In rude unpolished nations, where the arts are neglected, all
labor is bestowed on the cultivation of the ground; and the whole
society is divided into two classes,― proprietors of land, and their
vassals or tenants. The latter are necessarily dependent and
fitted for slavery and subjection, especially where they possess
no riches and are not valued for their knowledge in agriculture;
as must always be the case where the arts are neglected. The
former naturally erect themselves into petty tyrants; and must
either submit to an absolute master for the sake of peace and
order, or if they will preserve their independency, like the ancient
## p. 7788 (#610) ###########################################
7788
DAVID HUME
barons, they must fall into feuds and contests among themselves,
and throw the whole society into such confusion as is perhaps
worse than the most despotic government. But where luxury
nourisnes commerce and industry, the peasants, by a proper cul-
tivation of the land, become rich and independent; while the
tradesmen and merchants acquire a share of the property, and
draw authority and consideration to that middling rank of men
who are the best and firmest basis of public liberty. These sub-
mit not to slavery, like the peasants, from poverty and meanness
of spirit; and having no hopes of tyrannizing over others, like
the barons, they are not tempted for the sake of that gratifica-
tion to submit to the tyranny of their sovereign. They covet
equal laws, which may secure their property, and preserve them
from monarchical as well as aristocratical tyranny.
The lower House is the support of our popular government;
and all the world acknowledges that it owed its chief influence
and consideration to the increase of commerce, which threw such
a balance of property into the hands of the Commons. How
inconsistent then is it to blame so violently a refinement in the
arts, and to represent it as the bane of liberty and public spirit!
To declaim against present times, and magnify the virtue
of remote ancestors, is a propensity almost inherent in human
nature. And as the sentiments and opinions of civilized ages
alone are transmitted to posterity, hence it is that we meet with
so many severe judgments pronounced against luxury and even
science; and hence it is that at present we give so ready an
assent to them. But the fallacy is easily perceived by comparing
different nations that are contemporaries; where we both judge
more impartially, and can better set in opposition those manners
with which we are sufficiently acquainted. Treachery and cruelty,
the most pernicious and most odious of all vices, seem peculiar
to uncivilized ages; and by the refined Greeks and Romans were
ascribed to all the barbarous nations which surrounded them.
They might justly therefore have presumed that their own ances-
tors, so highly celebrated, possessed no greater virtue, and were
as much inferior to their posterity in honor and humanity as in
taste and science. An ancient Frank or Saxon may be highly
extolled. But I believe every man would think his life or for-
tune much less secure in the hands of a Moor or Tartar than
those of a French or English gentleman, the rank of men the
most civilized in the most civilized nations.
## p. 7789 (#611) ###########################################
DAVID HUME
7789
We come now to the second position which we proposed to
illustrate to wit, that as innocent luxury, or a refinement in the
arts and conveniences of life, is advantageous to the public, so
wherever luxury ceases to be innocent it also ceases to be bene-
ficial; and when carried a degree farther begins to be a quality
pernicious, though perhaps not the most pernicious, to political
society.
Let us consider what we call vicious luxury. No gratification,
however sensual, can of itself be esteemed vicious. A gratifi-
cation is only vicious when it engrosses all a man's expense, and
leaves no ability for such acts of duty and generosity as are
required by his situation and fortune. Suppose that he correct
the vice, and employ part of his expense in the education of his
children, in the support of his friends, and in relieving the poor,
would any prejudice result to society? On the contrary, the
same consumption would arise; and that labor which at present
is employed only in producing a slender gratification to one man,
would relieve the necessities and bestow satisfaction on hundreds.
The same care and toil that raise a dish of pease at Christmas
would give bread to a whole family during six months.
To say
that without a vicious luxury the labor would not have been
employed at all, is only to say that there is some other defect in
human nature, such as indolence, selfishness, inattention to others,
for which luxury in some measure provides a remedy; as one
poison may be an antidote for another. But virtue, like whole-
some food, is better than poisons however corrected.
Suppose the same number of men that are at present in Great
Britain, with the same soil and climate: I ask, is it not possible
for them to be happier, by the most perfect way of life that can
be imagined, and by the greatest reformation that Omnipotence
itself could work in their temper and disposition? To assert that
they cannot, appears evidently ridiculous. As the land is able to
maintain more than all its present inhabitants, they could never
in such a Utopian State feel any other ills than those which arise
from bodily sickness; and these are not the half of human miser-
ies. All other ills spring from some vice, either in ourselves or
others; and even many of our diseases proceed from the same
origin. Remove the vices, and the ills follow. You must only
take care to remove all the vices. If you remove part, you may
render the matter worse. By banishing vicious luxury, without
curing sloth and an indifference to others, you only diminish
## p. 7790 (#612) ###########################################
DAVID HUME
7790
industry in the State, and add nothing to men's charity or their
generosity. Let us therefore rest contented with asserting that
two opposite vices in a State may be more advantageous than
either of them alone; but let us never pronounce vice in itself
advantageous. Is it not very inconsistent for an author to assert
in one page that moral distinctions are inventions of politicians
for public interest, and in the next page maintain that vice is
advantageous to the public? And indeed it seems, upon any
system of morality, little less than a contradiction in terms to talk
of a vice which is in general beneficial to society.
I thought this reasoning necessary in order to give some light
to a philosophical question which has been much disputed in
England. I call it a philosophical question, not a political one.
For whatever may be the consequence of such a miraculous
transformation of mankind as would endow them with every
species of virtue and free them from every species of vice, this
concerns not the magistrate, who aims only at possibilities. He
cannot cure every vice by substituting a virtue in its place. Very
often he can only cure one vice by another; and in that case he
ought to prefer what is least pernicious to society. Luxury when
excessive is the source of many ills; but is in general preferable
to sloth and idleness, which would commonly succeed in its place,
and are more hurtful both to private persons and to the public.
When sloth reigns, a mean uncultivated way of life prevails
amongst individuals, without society, without enjoyment. And if
the sovereign, in such a situation, demands the service of his
subjects, the labor of the State suffices only to furnish the neces-
saries of life to the laborers, and can afford nothing to those who
are employed in the public service.
## p. 7791 (#613) ###########################################
7791
LEIGH HUNT
(1784-1859)
BY ERNEST RHYS
EIGH HUNT (whose two less distinctive first names, James and
Henry, his own pen has taught us to forget) was more
American than English by descent. His father, Rev. Isaac
Hunt, was a West-Indian, who received a large part of his education
at a college in Philadelphia; his mother, Mary Shewell, came of an
old Philadelphian Quaker family. His melancholy, which certainly
did not play a leading part in his temperament, Leigh Hunt always
declared came from his mother; his mirth from his father, who had
given up his charge in the West Indies
when the War of Independence threatened,
and sailed for England, where he lived a
rather improvident life. The boy Leigh,
who was by far the youngest of the family,
was born at Southgate, County Middlesex,
October 19th, 1784; then quite a country
village. At eight years old he was sent
to Christ's Hospital, some ten years after
Charles Lamb and Coleridge had passed
their memorable school days there. Eight
years of its strong discipline, and Leigh
Hunt emerged "with much classics and no
mathematics," such being then the tradition
of the school, to spend a couple of years
in writing verses and roaming London, under the easy-going rule of
the Rev. Isaac, who collected and published a first book of his boy's
poems as early as 1801. Its contents are curious, perhaps, but not
worth preserving.
LEIGH HUNT
Some intermittent experiences as a London clerk in the attorney's
office of his brother Stephen, and in the War Office, varied by his
first essays as a dramatic critic, bring us to the climacteric point
when he joined his brother John in sundry journalistic adventures.
These, after some failures, led to the successful commencement in
1808 of the now historical Examiner newspaper, whose future seemed
so secure in the second year that Leigh Hunt felt warranted in mar-
rying Marianne Kent, to whom he had been for long affianced.
## p. 7792 (#614) ###########################################
LEIGH HUNT
7792
It was not until 1812, in its issue of March 22d, that the Exam-
iner's growing independence led it to its well-timed attack on the
vicious Prince Regent, and brought down the law on its editors'
heads. The attack was made in an outspoken leading article (one of
a series of such social criticisms), entitled 'The Prince on St. Pat-
rick's Day. Some little delay occurred in the trial; and it was even
intimated that if the editors would refrain from free speech in the
future, their offense would be passed over: but with great courage
they refused to give any such undertaking. Eventually the trial
took place in the King's Bench, Westminster, on the 9th December,
1812; and Leigh Hunt and his brother, who were defended by Lord
Brougham, were condemned to two years' imprisonment in separate
prisons and a fine of £1,000. Of the two, Leigh Hunt was sent to
Horsemonger Lane Jail. There he went on directing and writing
for the Examiner with undiminished spirit. Two numbers of its issue
for February 1813 (No. 267 and No. 268, the only ones the present
writer has seen) bear traces, as one might expect, of his political
rather than his literary pen. The paper makes somewhat the effect
of a thinner and smaller Nation, its ink a little faded, its type older
fashioned. It is sub-titled 'A Sunday Paper on Politics, Domestic
Economy, and Theatricals,' and it bears a characteristic motto from
Swift: "Party is the madness of the Many for the gain of the Few. ”
In its pages, during the time of Leigh Hunt's imprisonment from
1813 to 1815, appeared several of his best sonnets, and notably those
addressed to his favorite Hampstead; one of which follows below.
His account of how he transformed his prison cell within, by a wall-
paper of trellised roses, a ceiling of blue sky and clouds, a piano,
books, and busts, while without he contrived a little flower garden,
added to the testimony of Charles Lamb and others, tends rather to
falsify the real effect his days in jail had upon him. In truth they
left him broken in health; and he was heavily embarrassed in for-
tune, moreover, by the heavy fine. And of the new friends that he
gained among those sympathizing with his misfortune, it cannot be
considered that he was altogether fortunate, for instance, in being
thrown into contact with Lord Byron. As for Shelley and Keats, the
two names that most naturally occur, and with the most ideal effect,
in the list of Hunt's friends,—their friendship dates from before his
imprisonment. His new intercourse with Byron under Shelley's aus-
pices led to the unlucky visit of the whole Hunt family to Italy, and
the still more unlucky founding of the Liberal. There is no more
entertaining chapter in all Leigh Hunt's delightful 'Autobiography'
than that so light-heartedly relating the story of the voyage to Italy
and its results. As for the fate of the Liberal, it only ran to four
numbers, issued during 1822-3; but it is a bibliophile's prize now,
## p. 7793 (#615) ###########################################
LEIGH HUNT
7793
whether in the original parts or in the two volumes in which these
were collected in 1823. Of Leigh Hunt's other journalistic doings,
Charles Lamb's couplet reminds us of one:—
"Wit, poet, prose-man, party-man, translator,-—
Hunt, thy best title yet is Indicator. "
The Indicator, issued weekly from 1819 to 1821; previously a quar-
terly, the Reflector, continuing from 1810 to 1812; and sequently
the Companion, a weekly similar to the Indicator,-- account for many
years of sheer hard writing in Leigh Hunt's life, which was never an
idle one.
But the hardest task of the kind he set himself was the
Talker, "A Daily Journal of Literature and the Stage," consisting of
four folio pages, written with very slight exception wholly and solely
by Hunt himself, from September 4th, 1830, to February 13th, 1832. It
proved, as might have been expected, with his other avocations to be
considered, too much for his health; and on giving it up he fell back
on his favorite belle-lettristic weekly publications, in his London Jour-
nal (1834-5), and again his Journal at the latter end of his career. If
so much is said of these papers, it is because so much of his most
characteristical writing first appeared in their pages; and we have
not yet nearly exhausted the list of the periodicals to which he was
an occasional contributor.
When we turn to his books, we find in his 'Autobiography' perhaps
the most complete and individual expression of the man: his charming
fancy, his high spirits, wit, gayety, and abiding good-nature. But the
same lightness and ease of style, the same kindliness and shrewdness
of thought and observation, are to be found in his essays, so often
written currente calamo for some one of his weekly periodicals. Such
are the papers on the 'Deaths of Little Children,' 'The Old Lady,'
'The Maid-Servant,' and 'Coaches. ' His contributions, whether as a
poet or as a critic and appreciator of poetry, are, it is said, not read
as much as they were ten, twenty years ago; but they make alone a
remarkable contribution to nineteenth-century literature. His favorite
Spenser owes a new laurel to his praise. 'The Story of Rimini,' his
longest poem, still delights in its best pages, full as they are of
reminders not only of older poets like Spenser, but of Keats, whom
Hunt so strongly influenced; and such lines as those to "Jenny,"
or upon 'Abou Ben Adhem,' are simply unforgettable. His poems,
together with such works as his Men, Women, and Books' (1847),
'Jar of Honey from Mount Hybla' (1848), Imagination and Fancy'
(1844), Wit and Humor' (1846), and The Town' (1848), are best to
be read in alternation with the chapters of his 'Autobiography. '
We have preferred to pass lightly over his much-bruited quarrel
with Byron, the fault of which was mainly Byron's. It is pleasanter
XIII-488
## p. 7794 (#616) ###########################################
LEIGH HUNT
7794
to think of his unbroken friendships with so many poets and men of
genius, from "Elia," Keats, and Shelley, on to Carlyle, whose tribute
to him may be remembered along with that of Emerson and of Haw-
thorne. Accepting it as essentially true, we shall be able to forget
that Dickens ever caricatured him, or that his lack of economics
ever impaired the genuine character of the man and his work. The
present writer, writing in a house traditionally associated with Leigh
Hunt's sojourn at Hampstead, can only say that every story of his
career told by his few remaining friends and acquaintances bears out
the brighter estimate of his life as the true one. He lived until 1859,
dying in the house of a friend at Putney on August 28th, 1859. "His
death was simply exhaustion," we are told: "he broke off his work to
lie down and repose. So gentle was the final approach that
it came without terrors. "
In his prime, Leigh Hunt was described as a tall, agile, slen-
der figure; with black hair, vivid features, brilliant dark eyes, and a
lurking humor in the expression of his mobile mouth.
And except
that his hair grew white, he preserved this effect, and the grace and
courtesy of his bearing, to the end.
The best edition of his poetical works is still the Boston one,
edited by Mr. S. Adams Lee, joint author with Hunt of his post-
humously published Book of the Sonnet. '
sment Phys
JAFFÁR
INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF SHELLEY
Shelley, take this to thy dear memory;-
To praise the generous is to think of thee.
-
AFFÁR, the Barmecide, the good Vizier,
JAFE
The poor man's hope, the friend without a peer,
Jaffar was dead, slain by a doom unjust;
And guilty Hároun, sullen with mistrust
Of what the good and e'en the bad might say,
Ordained that no man living from that day
Should dare to speak his name on pain of death. —
All Araby and Persia held their breath.
All but the brave Mondeer: he, proud to show
How far for love a grateful soul could go,
## p. 7795 (#617) ###########################################
LEIGH HUNT
--
And facing death for very scorn and grief
(For his great heart wanted a great relief),
Stood forth in Bagdad, daily, in the square
Where once had stood a happy house; and there
Harangued the tremblers at the scimitar
On all they owed to the divine Jaffár.
"Bring me this man," the Caliph cried. The man
Was brought was gazed upon.
The mutes began
To bind his arms. "Welcome, brave cords! " cried he;
"From bonds far worse Jaffár delivered me;
From wants, from shames, from loveless household fears;
Made a man's eyes friends with delicious tears;
Restored me-loved me- put me on a par
With his great self. How can I pay Jaffár? "
Hároun, who felt that on a soul like this
The mightiest vengeance could but fall amiss,
Now deigned to smile, as one great lord of fate
Might smile upon another half as great.
He said, "Let worth grow frenzied, if it will:
The Caliph's judgment shall be master still.
Go; and since gifts thus move thee, take this gem,
The richest in the Tartar's diadem,
And hold the giver as thou deemest fit. ”
"Gifts! " cried the friend. He took; and holding it
High towards the heavens, as though to meet his star,
Exclaimed, "This too I owe to thee, Jaffár! "
7795
THE NILE
I
T FLOWS through old, hushed Egypt and its sands,
Like some grave, mighty thought threading a dream;
And times and things, as in that vision, seem
Keeping along it their eternal stands,-
Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands
That roamed through the young world, the glory extreme
Of high Sesostris, and that southern beam,
The laughing queen that caught the world's great hands.
Then comes a mightier silence, stern and strong,
As of a world left empty of its throng,
And the void weighs on us; and then we wake,
And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along
'Twixt villages, and think how we shall take
Our own calm journey on for human sake.
## p. 7796 (#618) ###########################################
7796
LEIGH HUNT
TO HAMPSTEAD
WRITTEN IN SURREY JAIL, AUGUST 27TH, 1813
S
WEET upland, to whose walks, with fond repair,
Out of thy western slope I took my rise
Day after day, and on these feverish eyes
Met the moist fingers of the bathing air; —
If health, unearned of thee, I may not share,
Keep it, I pray thee, where my memory lies,
In thy green lanes, brown dells, and breezy skies,
Till I return, and find thee doubly fair.
Wait then my coming on that lightsome land,
Health, and the joy that out of nature springs,
And Freedom's air-blown locks; but stay with me,
Friendship, frank entering with the cordial hand,
And Honor, and the Muse with growing wings,
And Love Domestic, smiling equably.
TO THE GRASSHOPPER AND THE CRICKET
REEN little vaulter in the sunny grass,
Catching your heart up at the feel of June,
Sole voice that's heard amidst the lazy noon,
When even the bees lag at the summoning brass;
And you, warm little housekeeper, who class
With those who think the candles come too soon,
Loving the fire, and with your tricksome tune
Nick the glad silent moments as they pass;-
O sweet and tiny cousins, that belong
One to the fields, the other to the hearth,
Both have your sunshine; both though small are strong
At your clear hearts; and both seem given to earth
To ring in thoughtful ears this natural song,-
In doors and out, summer and winter, Mirth.
GRE
ABOU BEN ADHEM
A
BOU BEN ADHEM (may his tribe increase! )
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold.
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
## p. 7797 (#619) ###########################################
LEIGH HUNT
And to the presence in the room he said,
"What writest thou? " The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord. "
"And is mine one? " said Abou. ་ Nay, not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow-men. "
The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,-
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest!
RONDEAU
ENNY kissed me when we met,
JR
Jumping from the chair she sat in:
Time, you thief! who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I'm growing old; but add. -
Jenny kissed me!
7797
THE OLD LADY
From the Indicator>
F THE old lady is a widow and lives alone, the manners of her
condition and time of life are so much the more apparent.
She generally dresses in plain silks, that make a gentle rus-
tling as she moves about the silence of her room; and she wears
a nice cap with a lace border, that comes under the chin. In a
placket at her side is an old enameled watch, unless it is locked
up in a drawer of her toilet for fear of accidents. Her waist is
rather tight and trim than otherwise, and she had a fine one
when young; and she is not sorry if you see a pair of her stock-
ings on a table, that you may be aware of the neatness of her
leg and foot. Contented with these and other evident indica-
tions of a good shape, and letting her young friends understand
that she can afford to obscure it a little, she wears pockets, and
## p. 7798 (#620) ###########################################
7798
LEIGH HUNT
uses them well too. In the one is her handkerchief, and any
heavier matter that is not likely to come out with it, such as the
change of a sixpence; in the other is a miscellaneous assortment,
consisting of a pocket-book, a bunch of keys, a needle-case, a
spectacle-case, crumbs of biscuit, a nutmeg and grater, a smelling-
bottle, and according to the season an orange or apple, which
after many days she draws out warm and glossy, to give to some
little child that has well-behaved itself.
She generally occupies two rooms, in the neatest condition
possible.
In the chamber is a bed with a white coverlet, built
up high and round to look well, and with curtains of a pasto-
ral pattern, consisting alternately of large plants and shepherds
and shepherdesses. On the mantelpiece are more shepherds and
shepherdesses, with dot-eyed sheep at their feet, all in colored
ware: the man perhaps in a pink jacket, and knots of ribbons at
his knees and shoes, holding his crook lightly in one hand and
with the other at his breast, turning his toes out and looking
tenderly at the shepherdess; the woman holding a crook also, and
modestly returning his look, with a gipsy hat jerked up behind,
a very slender waist with petticoat and hips to counteract, and
the petticoat pulled up through the pocket-holes, in order to show
the trimness of her ankles. But these patterns of course are
various. The toilet is ancient, carved at the edges, and tied
about with a snow-white drapery of muslin. Beside it are vari-
ous boxes, mostly japan; and the set of drawers are exquisite
things for a little girl to rummage, if ever little girl be so bold,—
containing ribbons and laces of various kinds; linen smelling of
lavender, of the flowers of which there is always dust in the
corners; a heap of pocket-books for a series of years; and pieces
of dress long gone by, such as head-fronts, stomachers, and
flowered satin shoes with enormous heels. The stock of letters
are under especial lock and key. So much for the bedroom. In
the sitting-room is rather a spare assortment of shining old ma-
hogany furniture, or carved arm-chairs equally old, with chintz
draperies down to the ground; a folding or other screen, with
Chinese figures, their round, little-eyed meek faces perking side-
ways; a stuffed bird, perhaps in a glass case (a living one is too
much for her); a portrait of her husband over the mantelpiece,
in a coat with frog-buttons, and a delicate frilled hand lightly
inserted in the waistcoat; and opposite him on the wall is a piece
of embroidered literature framed and glazed, containing some
## p. 7799 (#621) ###########################################
LEIGH HUNT
7799
moral distich or maxim worked in angular capital letters, with
two trees or parrots below in their proper colors; the whole con-
cluding with an A-B-C and numerals, and the name of the fair
industrious, expressing it to be "her work, Jan. 14, 1762. " The
rest of the furniture consists of a looking-glass with carved edges,
perhaps a settee, a hassock for the feet, a mat for the little dog,
and a small set of shelves, in which are the Spectator and
Guardian, the Turkish Spy,' a Bible and Prayer-Book, Young's
'Night Thoughts' with a piece of lace in it to flatten, Mrs.
Rowe's 'Devout Exercises of the Heart,' Mrs. Glasse's 'Cookery,'
and perhaps 'Sir Charles Grandison' and 'Clarissa. ' 'John Bun-
cle' is in the closet among the pickles and preserves. The clock
is on the landing-place between the two room doors, where it
ticks audibly but quietly; and the landing-place is carpeted to a
nicety. The house is most in character, and properly coeval, if
it is in a retired suburb, and strongly built, with wainscot rather
than paper inside, and lockers in the windows. Before the win-
dows should be some quivering poplars. Here the Old Lady
receives a few quiet visitors to tea, and perhaps an early game
at cards; or you may see her going out on the same kind of
visit herself, with a light umbrella running up into a stick and
crooked ivory handle, and her little dog, equally famous for his
love to her and captious antipathy to strangers. Her grandchild-
ren dislike him on holidays, and the boldest sometimes ventures
to give him a sly kick under the table. When she returns at
night she appears, if the weather happens to be doubtful, in a
calash; and her servant in pattens follows half behind and half
at her side, with a lantern.
Her opinions are not many nor new. She thinks the clergy-
man a nice man. The Duke of Wellington, in her opinion, is a
very great man; but she has a secret preference for the Marquis
of Granby. She thinks the young women of the present day
too forward, and the men not respectful enough, but hopes her
grandchildren will be better; though she differs with her daugh-
ter in several points respecting their management. She sets little
value on the new accomplishments; is a great though delicate
connoisseur in butcher's meat and all sorts of housewifery; and
if you mention waltzes, expatiates on the grace and fine breed-
ing of the minuet. She longs to have seen one danced by Sir
Charles Grandison, whom she almost considers as a real person.
She likes a walk of a summer's evening but avoids the new
## p. 7800 (#622) ###########################################
7800
LEIGH HUNT
streets, canals, etc. ; and sometimes goes through the church-yard
where her children and her husband lie buried, serious but not
melancholy. She has had three great epochs in her life: her
marriage; her having been at court, to see the King and Queen
and Royal Family; and a compliment on her figure she once
received in passing, from Mr. Wilkes, whom she describes as “a
sad loose man, but engaging. " His plainness she thinks much
exaggerated. If anything takes her at a distance from home, it
is still the court; but she seldom stirs even for that. The last
time but one that she went was to see the Duke of Würtemberg;
and most probably for the last time of all, to see the Princess
Charlotte and Prince Leopold. From this beatific vision she
returned with the same admiration as ever for the fine comely
appearance of the Duke of York and the rest of the family, and
great delight at having had a near view of the Princess, whom
she speaks of with smiling pomp and lifted mittens, clasping
them as passionately as she can together, and calling her, in a
transport of mixed loyalty and self-love, "a fine royal young
creature," and "Daughter of England. "
THE OLD GENTLEMAN
O
UR Old Gentleman, in order to be exclusively himself, must
be either a widower or a bachelor. Suppose the former.
We do not mention his precise age, which would be invidi-
ous; nor whether he wears his own hair or a wig, which would
be wanting in universality. If a wig, it is a compromise between
the more modern scratch and the departed glory of the toupee.
If his own hair, it is white, in spite of his favorite grandson,
who used to get on the chair behind him and pull the silver
hairs out ten years ago. If he is bald at top, the hair-dresser,
hovering and breathing about him like a second youth, takes
care to give the bald place as much powder as the covered, in
order that he may convey to the sensorium within a pleasing in-
distinctness of idea respecting the exact limits of skin and hair.
He is very clean and neat; and in warm weather is proud of
opening his waistcoat half-way down, and letting so much of his
frill be seen, in order to show his hardiness as well as taste. His
watch and shirt-buttons are of the best; and he does not care if
he has two rings on a finger. If his watch ever failed him at
## p. 7801 (#623) ###########################################
LEIGH HUNT
7801
the club or coffee-house, he would take a walk every day to the
nearest clock of good character, purely to keep it right. He has
a cane at home, but seldom uses it, on finding it out of fashion
with his elderly juniors. He has a small cocked hat for gala-
days, which he lifts higher from his head than the round one
when bowed to. In his pockets are two handkerchiefs (one for
the neck at night-time), his spectacles, and his pocket-book. The
pocket-book among other things contains a receipt for a cough,
and some verses cut out of an odd sheet of an old magazine, on
the lovely Duchess of A. , beginning-
"When beauteous Mira walks the plain. "
-
He intends this for a commonplace book which he keeps, con-
sisting of passages in verse and prose cut out of newspapers
and magazines, and pasted in columns, some of them rather gay.
His principal other books are-Shakespeare's Plays and Milton's
'Paradise Lost'; the Spectator, the History of England,' the
'Works of Lady M. W. Montagu,' Pope and Churchill; Middle-
ton's Geography; the Gentleman's Magazine; Sir John Sinclair on
'Longevity'; several plays with portraits in character; 'Account
of Elizabeth Canning,' 'Memoirs of George Ann Bellamy,' 'Poet-
ical Amusements at Bath-Easton,' Blair's Works, Elegant Extracts;
Junius, as originally published; a few pamphlets on the Ameri-
can War and Lord George Gordon, etc. , and one on the French
Revolution. In his sitting-rooms are some engravings from
Hogarth and Sir Joshua; an engraved portrait of the Marquis of
Granby; ditto M. le Comte de Grasse surrendering to Admiral
Rodney; a humorous piece after Penny; and a portrait of him-
self, painted by Sir Joshua. His wife's portrait is in his chamber,
looking upon his bed. She is a little girl, stepping forward with
a smile and a pointed toe, as if going to dance. He lost her
when she was sixty.
The Old Gentleman is an early riser, because he intends to
live at least twenty years longer. He continues to take tea for
breakfast, in spite of what is said against its nervous effects;
having been satisfied on that point some years ago by Dr. John-
son's criticism on Hanway, and by a great liking for tea previ-
ously. His china cups and saucers have been broken since
his wife's death,-all but one, which is religiously kept for his
use. He passes his morning in walking or riding, looking in
at auctions, looking after his India bonds or some such money
## p. 7802 (#624) ###########################################
7802
LEIGH HUNT
securities, furthering some subscription set on foot by his excellent
friend Sir John, or cheapening a new old print for his portfolio.
He also hears of the newspapers; not caring to see them till
after dinner at the coffee-house. He may also cheapen a fish or
so; the fishmonger soliciting his doubtful eye as he passes, with
a profound bow of recognition. He eats a pear before dinner.
His dinner at the coffee-house is served up to him at the
accustomed hour, in the old accustomed way, and by the accus-
tomed waiter. If William did not bring it, the fish would be sure
to be stale and the flesh new. He eats no tart; or if he ventures
on a little, takes cheese with it. You might as soon attempt to
persuade him out of his senses as that cheese is not good for
digestion. He takes port; and if he has drunk more than usual,
and in a more private place, may be induced, by some respectful
inquiries respecting the old style of music, to sing a song com-
posed by Mr. Oswald or Mr. Lampe, such as
or
-
"Chloe, by that borrowed kiss,"
"Come, gentle god of soft repose,"
or his wife's favorite ballad, beginning-
"At Upton on the hill
There lived a happy pair. "
Of course no such exploit can take place in the coffee-room; but
he will canvass the theory of that matter there with you, or dis-
cuss the weather, or the markets, or the theatres, or the merits.
of my lord North," or "my lord Rockingham "-for he rarely
says simply lord; it is generally "my lord," trippingly and gen-
teelly off the tongue. If alone after dinner, his great delight is
the newspaper; which he prepares to read by wiping his spec-
tacles, carefully adjusting them on his eyes, and drawing the can-
dle close to him, so as to stand sideways betwixt his ocular aim
and the small type. He then holds the paper at arm's-length,
and dropping his eyelids half down and his mouth half open, takes
cognizance of the day's information. If he leaves off, it is only
when the door is opened by a new-comer, or when he suspects
somebody is over-anxious to get the paper out of his hand. On
these occasions he gives an important hem! or so; and resumes.
In the evening, our Old Gentleman is fond of going to the
theatre or of having a game of cards. If he enjoys the latter at
## p. 7803 (#625) ###########################################
LEIGH HUNT
7803
his own house or longings, he likes to play with some friends
whom he has known for many years: but an elderly stranger may
be introduced, if quiet and scientific; and the privilege is ex-
tended to younger men of letters, who if ill players are good
losers. Not that he is a miser, but to win money at cards is like
proving his victory by getting the baggage; and to win of a
younger man is a substitute for his not being able to beat him
at rackets. He breaks up early whether at home or abroad.
At the theatre he likes a front row in the pit. He comes
early, if he can do so without getting into a squeeze, and sits
patiently waiting for the drawing up of the curtain, with his hands
placidly lying one over the other on the top of his stick. He
generously admires some of the best performers, but thinks them
far inferior to Garrick, Woodward, and Clive. During splendid
scenes he is anxious that the little boy should see.
He is also
He has been induced to look in at Vauxhall again, but likes
it still less than he did years back, and cannot bear it in com-
parison with Ranelagh. He thinks everything looks poor, flaring,
and jaded. "Ah! " says he with a sort of triumphant sigh,
"Ranelagh was a noble place! Such taste, such elegance, such
beauty! There was the Duchess of A- , the finest woman in
England, sir; and Mrs. L———, a mighty fine creature; and Lady
Susan What's-her-name, that had that unfortunate affair with Sir
Charles. Sir, they came swimming by you like the swans. "
The Old Gentleman is very particular in having his slippers.
ready for him at the fire when he comes home.
extremely choice in his snuff, and delights to get a fresh box-
ful in Tavistock Street on his way to the theatre. His box is a
curiosity from India. He calls favorite young ladies by their
Christian names, however slightly acquainted with them; and has
a privilege of saluting all brides, mothers, and indeed every
species of lady, on the least holiday occasion. If the husband, for
instance, has met with a piece of luck, he instantly moves for-
ward and gravely kisses the wife on the cheek. The wife then
says, "My niece, sir, from the country;" and he kisses the niece.
The niece, seeing her cousin biting her lips at the joke, says,
«< My cousin Harriet, sir;" and he kisses the cousin. He "never
recollects such weather," except during the "Great Frost," or
when he rode down with "Jack Skrimshire to Newmarket. " He
grows young again in his little grandchildren, especially the one
which he thinks most like himself, which is the handsomest. Yet
## p. 7804 (#626) ###########################################
7804
LEIGH HUNT
he likes best perhaps the one most resembling his wife; and will
sit with him on his lap, holding his hand in silence for a quarter
of an hour together. He plays most tricks with the former, and
makes him sneeze. He asks little boys in general who was the
father of Zebedee's children. If his grandsons are at school he
often goes to see them, and makes them blush by telling the
master of the upper scholars that they are fine boys, and of a
precocious genius. He is much struck when an old acquaintance
dies, but adds that he lived too fast, and that poor Bob was a
sad dog in his youth; "a very sad dog, sir; mightily set upon a
short life and a merry one. "
When he gets very old indeed, he will sit for whole evenings
and say little or nothing; but informs you that there is Mrs.
Jones (the housekeeper) - "She'll talk. "
## p. 7804 (#627) ###########################################
## p. 7804 (#628) ###########################################
THOMAS H. HUXLEY.
Grosch
## p. 7804 (#629) ###########################################
4
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## p. 7804 (#630) ###########################################
MUXLEY
THOMAS H
Máy đo ni m nằm lên
4
## p. 7805 (#631) ###########################################
7805
THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY
(1825-1895)
BY E. RAY LANKESTER
HE Right Honorable Thomas Henry Huxley was the seventh
child of George Huxley, himself a seventh child, and was
born on the 4th of May, 1825, at Ealing, near London. His
father was one of the masters in a large semi-public school at that
place, kept by a Dr. Nicholson. We know very little of this father,
and Huxley himself in a brief autobiographical sketch has nothing to
tell of him except that he passed on to his son "an inborn faculty
for drawing, a hot temper, and a tenacity of purpose which unfriendly
observers sometimes called obstinacy. " Of hi mother he tells us
somewhat more. He inherited from her his extremely black hair
and eyes, his sallow complexion, and (as he thinks) rapidity of thought
and mother wit. His school days (passed presumably in the school
at which his father was a master) left on Huxley only a painful
impression. He speaks of those who were over the boys "caring
about as much for their moral and intellectual welfare as if they
were baby-farmers. " When he was twelve or thirteen, he wished
to become a mechanical engineer; but a medical brother-in-law (Dr.
Salt) took him in hand, and he commenced at this early age the study
of medicine. Eventually he went to Charing Cross Hospital, and
passed the first M. B. examination of the University of London. He
read hard all kinds of literature,-novels, philosophy, history. The
one of his teachers who really interested him, and for whom he cher-
ished ever after a warm regard, was Mr. Wharton Jones, lecturer on
physiology, and surgeon-oculist.
Stern necessity compelled young Huxley, as soon as his medical
course was over, to seek at once, even before he was one-and-twenty,
some post or employment. We know nothing of his relatives at this
time, nor to what extent they assisted him. Apparently he stood
alone and decided for himself. At the suggestion of a fellow-student,
now Sir Joseph Fayrer. Huxley in 1846 applied for admission to the
Medical Service of the Navy. In two months more he was examined
and admitted, and was in attendance at the naval hospital at Haslar
under the care of that fine old naturalist and Arctic voyager, Sir
John Richardson.
## p. 7806 (#632) ###########################################
7806
THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY
Sir John Richardson took note of young Huxley, and instead of
sending him off to the fevers of the Gold Coast, procured him the
post of assistant surgeon on the surveying ship Rattlesnake, under
Captain Owen Stanley, who had expressed a wish to have a surgeon
who took some interest in science. The four years spent by Huxley
on the Rattlesnake, chiefly off the coast of Australia, were fine train-
ing for him, not only as a naturalist but as a man. He had ample
time to read, and laid in the foundations of that vast store of lit-
erary knowledge which so often astonished his scientific colleagues
in later years.
He also studied the anatomy and physiology of the
transparent oceanic forms-jelly-fish, salpæ, pelagic mollusks, and
worms - with irrepressible ardor and determination; not so much with
the expectation of opening a career in science for himself, as with
the desire of satisfying his own curiosity and exercising his intel-
lectual faculties. One of his most interesting studies (still quoted
with respect)—namely, that on the reproduction of Pyrosoma, the
transparent phosphorescent Ascidian-was carried out in his cabin.
at night, with only a tallow dip to illumine his microscope, whilst a
lively sea caused the ship to roll freely.
The Rattlesnake returned to England at the end of the year 1850.
Huxley found that the scientific papers he had sent home had already
made him famous. By the aid of those who valued the promise given
by his published work, he was allowed by the Admiralty for three.
years to draw pay as a navy surgeon whilst devoting himself to the
working up of the results of his observations when at sea.
In 1851
he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and in 1852 received
one of the Royal medals of the society. In 1853, however, he was
ordered to proceed again to active service, and boldly took the alter-
native course of retiring from the naval service. He found himself
without professional employment or other resource, but trusted to his
pen. For a year or so he worked as a journalist, treating scientific
and literary themes in the weeklies and quarterlies, and still finding
energy to carry on scientific investigations in histology and in the
anatomy of microscopic organisms. His opportunity came in 1854.
through the appointment of his friend Edward Forbes to the chair of
natural history in Edinburgh. Thus was set free the post of lecturer
on natural history at the Royal School of Mines, which, together
with a special post of "naturalist to the Survey," was offered to
Huxley by the director of the Geological Survey and Royal School
of Mines, Sir Henry de la Bèche.
Huxley accepted this post, worth £800 a year, with the intention
of resigning it for one related to physiology whenever such should
offer. He declared he had no interest in "fossils," and in later years
said: "I am afraid there is very little of the genuine naturalist in me.
## p. 7807 (#633) ###########################################
THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY
7807
I never collected anything, and species-work was always a burden
to me. What I cared for was the architectural and engineering part
of the business, the working out the wonderful unity of plan in the
thousands and thousands of diverse living constructions, and the
modifications of similar apparatus to serve diverse ends. ” However,
Huxley held this post for thirty-one years, and soon turned his
attention to the fossils he had at first despised. Amongst his most
valuable scientific writings are those which embody his discoveries as
regards fossil animals, fishes, reptiles, and mammals.
There is no doubt that Huxley was fortunate to obtain at the age
of twenty-seven a first-rate post, worth nearly a thousand a year, in
London, and unburdened with any excessive duties. He had to give
during winter (October to end of February) a course of lectures on
five days of the week, and he had to attend in his study at the
Museum in Jermyn Street; but he had not the cares of a laboratory
nor of a collection to fritter away his time. Though he had devoted
disciples, he produced no pupils in the sense in which the German
professor produces them. He carried out his researches alone, with
his own hands, as he had done when at sea; and no younger men
were the objects of his care, or were inspired and directed in his
workshop. Consequently he was able to arrange the employment of
his day in his own way. He wrote largely for the press upon such
topics as belonged to his branch of science; he lectured frequently
in other places besides Jermyn Street; he took an active and im-
portant part in various government commissions, to which his official
position rendered it proper that he should be appointed. A favorite
audience for him to address was that of the Royal Institution, where
the members and their friends, ladies as well as gentlemen, are accus-
tomed to have the latest discoveries in science expounded to them
both by afternoon and evening lectures. Though it is incontestably
established by his own and others' testimony that Huxley was at
first an unattractive lecturer, he gradually developed a marvelous
power of lucid exposition and firm biting eloquence. I should say
that this had not attained its full development until he was about
forty years of age (in 1865), and that his written style developed
pari passu with that of his oral discourse.
As soon as he was appointed to his post in Jermyn Street, Huxley
married the lady to whom he had become engaged in 1847 at Sydney,
Miss Henrietta O. Heathorn, who survives him.
Soon after he returned from the voyage of the Rattlesnake he
made the acquaintance of Charles Darwin in London, and became a
firm friend of his, and of the botanist Hooker. Tyndall he met first
in a railway carriage en route for the meeting of the British Associa-
tion at Ipswich in 1851, and there and then commenced a warm and
## p. 7808 (#634) ###########################################
7808
THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY
lasting friendship. Huxley, Hooker, and Tyndall became a trium-
virate directing and determining the official side of scientific life in
London, operating through the Royal Society, the Royal Institution,
the Athenæum Club, and the press; influencing and guiding not only
popular opinion, but also such scanty patronage and employment of
scientific men as the British government permits itself.
For the purposes of a brief review, Huxley's life, after his return
from his voyage in 1850 at the age of twenty-five, may be divided
into the four decennia 1850-60, 1860–70, 1870-80, 1880-90, followed by
the five years 1890-95 which bring us to his death. In the first of
these Huxley established his reputation as a comparative anatomist,
and its close found him thoroughly in harness as a palæontologist no
less than a microscopist, the determined exponent of new views in
zoological science, and with the ambition clearly before him of dis-
placing both the personal influence and the loose philosophic teach-
ings of Richard Owen, twenty years his senior and enjoying great
popular and social authority. At the close of this decade appeared
the Origin of Species' by Darwin, and a new activity developed in
Huxley as the defender and exponent of Darwin's views. On the
very day after its publication, in November 1859, owing to a fortu-
nate chance Huxley's was the pen which reviewed the Origin of
Species in the Times. In 1860 he gave a Friday evening lecture on
'Species Races and their Origin' at the Royal Institution; and at the
Oxford meeting of the British Association had his famous encoun-
ter with Samuel Wilberforce, then Bishop of Oxford, who made a
gross and foolish attack upon Huxley individually in reference to his
contention, in opposition to Owen, that there was less difference in
structure between man and the higher apes than there is between
the higher apes and the lower monkeys.
Huxley was up to this date but little known outside scientific cir-
cles. Henceforward he was recognized in London society as a leader
of men in science, and a dangerous swordsman to challenge in a
public arena. In the winter of the same year he gave six evening
lectures to workingmen on The Relation of Man to the Lower
Animals' which appeared later, in 1863, as an illustrated volume
entitled 'Man's Place in Nature. ' In the same year, 1863, he again
addressed six lectures to workingmen, on 'Our Knowledge of the
Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature,' which were subse-
quently published from a short-hand reporter's transcript.
This sec-
ond course, like those which had preceded them, were attended by a
densely packed audience of workingmen, who paid the nominal fee
of sixpence only, for admission to the course. Never was there a
more rapt and enthusiastic audience, and never were greater skill and
power in the exposition of scientific methods and results to such an
## p. 7809 (#635) ###########################################
THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY
7809
audience exhibited. It was in these lectures that Huxley fully real-
ized the great power with which he was gifted.
So till the close of his second London decade he was busy on the
one hand with scientific research in palæontology,-introducing new
and most important views as to the structure of fishes' fins, of rep-
tilia and amphibia and of the vertebrate skull, teaching his regular
students in Jermyn Street, and giving Hunterian lectures on compara-
tive anatomy at the College of Surgeons, and on the other hand
expounding by occasional lectures, brief courses, or weighty essays,
the principles of Darwinism and the new doctrine of organic evolu-
tion, to a wider public.
In 1870 his growing conviction that it lay in his power not merely
to discover new scientific truth, but to put the methods and results
of science before his fellow-men, other than those who were special
students, in such a way as to influence their intellectual life, led
him to accept an invitation to become a candidate for the London
School Board, then first established. He was elected, and made him-
self felt in that assembly as a man not only acute and learned but
wise and just. In 1871 he became Secretary of the Royal Society, a
post which he retained until 1880; and devoted no small portion of
his time and energy to the maintenance of the high position and
influence which he conceived to be the just and historic attribute of
that society.
The enormous amount of varied intellectual work which now occu-
pied his brain, together with the strain of so many duties of such
various kinds, at last resulted in over-fatigue. He took a long holi-
day in Egypt in the winter of 1872, and returned refreshed. Now he
had to organize his laboratory and practical class in the new build-
ings at South Kensington to which the School of Mines was removed,
and where it eventually became known as the Royal College of Sci-
ence. Addresses, magazine articles, Royal Commissions, occupied him
as fully as before his illness: and his visit in 1876 to the United States,
where he gave an address on University Education at the opening of
the Johns Hopkins University and three lectures on Evolution in
New York, was a sort of royal progress; for everywhere his fame
had spread as one who united profound scientific knowledge with an
incisive power of speech, sparkling with wit such as few men of any
kind of career possessed.
Though during this decade (1870-80) Huxley gave more abundantly
of his strength to the delivery of scientific addresses, and to the
writing of essays on subjects so varied as Descartes, Joseph Priest-
ley, the Positive Philosophy, and Administrative Nihilism, yet in it
some of his most brilliant scientific work was accomplished. His full
memoir on the Triassic Crocodile Stagonolepis was published in 1877,
XII-489
## p. 7810 (#636) ###########################################
7810
THOMAS HENRY HUXLEY
and his memoir on Ceratodus in 1876; but most remarkable of all, his
book on the crayfish, which embodied in popular style an important
study of the crayfishes of all countries, and an important analysis of
the structure of the gill plumes as evidence of affinity and separation,
which formed simultaneously the subject of a memoir presented by
him to the Zoological Society.
About this time (1870-80) Huxley became a member of a very re-
markable society which called itself the Metaphysical Club. This club
met at irregular intervals to dine and discuss the higher philosophy.
It was organized by Mr. James Knowles, the editor of the Nineteenth
Century review, and included amongst its constant frequenters Lord
Tennyson, Froude, Cardinal Manning, Martineau, Bishop MacGee, and
"others of the weightier leaders of English thought. "
Huxley rarely met Mr. Gladstone, for whose mode of thought he
had a great dislike, although he admired the vivacity and irrepress-
ible loquacity of the veteran statesman. I remember his telling me
of a dinner where he had met Gladstone (towards the close of the
«< eighties"), and how he complained that he had not been able to
get a word in edgeways on account of the incessant discourse of
Mr.
