Letter V.

Rough cloak of hair, it is, still at Assisi; concerning which, and the general use of camels' hair, or sackcloth, or briars and thorns, in the Middle Ages, together with seal-skins (not badgers'), and rams' skins dyed gules, by the Jews, and the Crusaders, as compared with the use of the two furs, Ermine and Vair, and their final result in the operations of the Hudson's Bay Company, much casual notice will be found in my former work. And now, this is the sum of it all, so far as I can shortly write it.

There is no possibility of explaining the system of life in this world, on any principle of conqueringly Divine benevolence. That piece of bold impiety, if it be so, I have always asserted in my well-considered books,--I considering it, on the contrary, the only really pious thing to say, namely, that the world is under a curse, which we may, if we will, gradually remove, by doing as we are bid, and believing what we are told; and when we are told, for instance, in the best book we have about our own old history, that "unto Adam also, and to his wife, did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them," we are to accept it as the best thing to be done under the circumstances, and to wear, if we can get them, wolf skin, or cow skin, or beaver's, or ermine's; but not therefore to confuse God with the Hudson's Bay Company, nor to hunt foxes for their brushes instead of their skins, or think the poor little black tails of a Siberian weasel on a judge's shoulders may constitute him therefore a Minos in matters of retributive justice, or an AEacus in distributive, who can at once determine how many millions a Railroad Company are to make the public pay for not granting them their exclusive business by telegraph.

133. And every hour of my life, since that paragraph of 'Modern Painters' was written, has increased, I disdain to say my feeling, but say, with fearless decision, my knowledge, of the bitterness of the curse, which the habits of hunting and 'la chasse' have brought upon the so-called upper classes of England and France; until, from knights and gentlemen, they have sunk into jockeys, speculators, usurers, butchers by battue; and, the English especially, now, as a political body, into what I have called them in the opening chapter of 'The Bible of Amiens,'--"the scurviest louts that ever fouled God's earth with their carcasses."

The language appears to be violent. It is simply brief, and accurate. But I never meant it to remain without justification, and I will give the justification here at once.

Take your Johnson, and look out the adjective Scurvy, in its higher or figurative sense.

You find the first quotation he gives is from 'Measure for Measure,' spoken of the Duke, in monk's disguise:

"I know him for a man divine and holy; Not scurvy, nor a temporary meddler."

In which passage, Shakspeare, who never uses words in vain, nor with a grain less than their full weight, opposes the divineness of men, or their walking with God, to the scurviness of men, or their wallowing with swine; and again, he opposes the holiness of men,--in the sense of "Holy--harmless, undefiled," and more than that, helpful or healthful in action--to the harmful and filthy action of temporary meddlers, such as the hanging of seventeen priests before breakfast, and our profitable military successes, in such a prolonged piece of 'temporary meddling' as the Crimean war.

134. But, secondly, if you look down Johnson's column, you will find his last quotation is not in the higher or figurative, but the lower and literal sense, from Swift, to the effect that "it would be convenient to prevent the excess of drink, with that scurvy custom of taking tobacco." And you will also find, if you ever have the sense or courage to look the facts of modern history in the face, that those two itches, for the pot and the pipe, have been the roots of every other demoralization of the filthiest and literally 'scurviest' sort among all classes;--the dirty pack of cards; the church pavement running with human saliva,--(I have seen the spittings in ponds half an inch deep, in the choir of Rouen cathedral); and the entirely infernal atmosphere of the common cafes and gambling-houses of European festivity, infecting every condition of what they call 'aesthesis,' left in the bodies of men, until they cannot be happy with the pines and pansies of the Alps, until they have mixed tobacco smoke with the scent of them; and the whole concluding in the endurance--or even enjoyment--of the most squalid conditions of filth in our capital cities, that have ever been yet recorded, among the disgraces of mankind.

135. But, thirdly, Johnson's central quotation is again from 'Measure for Measure':--

"He spoke scurvy and provoking terms against your honor."

The debates in the English House of Commons, for the last half-century, having consisted virtually of nothing else!

I next take the word 'lout,' of which Johnson gives two derivations for our choice: it is either the past participle of 'to lower, or make low;' a lowed person, (as our House of Lords under the direction of railway companies and public-house keepers); or else--and more strictly I believe in etymology--a form of the German 'leute,' 'common people.' In either case, its proper classical English sense is given by Johnson as "a mean, awkward fellow; a bumpkin, a clown."

Now I surely cannot refer to any general representation of British society more acceptable to, and acknowledged by, that society, than the finished and admirably composed drawings of Du Maurier in Punch which have become every week more and more consistent, keen, and comprehensive, during the issues of the last two years.

I take three of them, as quite trustworthy pictures, and the best our present arts of delineation could produce, of the three Etats, or representative orders, of the British nation of our day.

Of the Working class, take the type given in Lady Clara Robinson's garden tea party, p. 174, vol. 79.

Of the Mercantile class, Mr. Smith, in his drawing-room after dinner, p. 222, vol. 80.

And of the Noblesse, the first five gentlemen on the right (spectator's right) of the line, in the ball at Stilton House, (July 3d, 1880).

136. Of the manner or state of lout, to which our manufacturing prosperity has reduced its artisan, as represented in the first of these frescoes, I do not think it needful to speak here; neither of the level of sublime temperament and unselfish heroism to which the dangers of commercial enterprise have exalted Mr. Smith. But the five consecutive heads in the third fresco are a very notable piece of English history, representing the polished and more or less lustrous type of lout; which is indeed a kind of rolled shingle of former English noblesse capable of nothing now in the way of resistance to Atlantic liberalism, except of getting itself swept up into ugly harbor bars, and troublesome shoals in the tideway.

And observe also, that of the three types of lout, whose combined chorus and tripudiation leads the present British Constitution its devil's dance, this last and smoothest type is also the dullest. Your operative lout cannot indeed hold his cup of coffee with a grace, or possess himself of a biscuit from Lady Clara's salver without embarrassment; but, in his own mill, he can at least make a needle without an eye, or a nail without a head, or a knife that won't cut, or something of that sort, with dexterity. Also, the middle class, or Smithian lout, at least manages his stockbroking or marketing with decision and cunning; knows something by eye or touch of his wares, and something of the characters of the men he has to deal with. But the Ducal or Marquisian lout has no knowledge of anything under the sun, except what sort of horse's quarters will carry his own, farther weighted with that smooth block or pebble of a pow; and no faculty under the sun of doing anything, except cutting down the trees his fathers planted for him, and selling the lands his fathers won.

137. That is indeed the final result of hunting and horse-racing on the British landlord. Of its result on the British soldier, perhaps the figures of Lord George Sackville at the battle of Minden, and of Lord Raglan at the battle of Alma, (who in the first part of the battle did not know where he was, and in the second plumed himself on being where he had no business to be,) are as illustrative as any I could name; but the darkest of all, to my own thinking, are the various personages, civil and military, who have conducted the Caffre war to its last successes, of blowing women and children to death with dynamite, and harrying the lands of entirely innocent peasantry, because they would not betray their defeated king.

138. Of the due and noble relations between man and his companion creatures, the horse, dog, and falcon, enough has been said in my former writings--unintelligible enough to a chivalry which passes six months of its annual life in Rotten Row, and spends the rents of its Cumberland Hills in building furnaces round Furness Abbey; but which careful students either of past knighthood, or of future Christianity, will find securely and always true. For the relations between man and his beast of burden, whether the burden be himself or his goods, become beautiful and honorable, just in the degree that both creatures are useful to the rest of mankind, whether in war or peace. The Greeks gave the highest symbol of them in the bridling of Pegasus for Bellerophon by Athena; and from that myth you may go down to modern times--understanding, according to your own sense and dignity, what all prophecy, poetry, history, have told you--of the horse whose neck is clothed with thunder, or the ox who treadeth out the corn--of Joseph's chariot, or of Elijah's--of Achilles and Xanthus--Herminius and Black Auster--down to Scott and Brown Adam--or Dandie Dinmont and Dumple. That pastoral one is, of all, the most enduring. I hear the proudest tribe of Arabia Felix is now reduced by poverty and civilization to sell its last well-bred horse; and that we send out our cavalry regiments to repetitions of the charge at Balaclava, without horses at all; those that they can pick up wherever they land being good enough for such military operations. But the cart-horse will remain, when the charger and hunter are no more; and with a wiser master.

"I'll buy him, for the dogs shall never Set tooth upon a friend so true; He'll not live long; but I forever Shall know I gave the beast his due.

Ready as bird to meet the morn Were all his efforts at the plow; Then the mill-brook--with hay or corn, Good creature! how he'd spatter through.

I left him in the shafts behind, His fellows all unhook'd and gone; He neigh'd, and deemed the thing unkind; Then, starting, drew the load alone.

* * * *

Half choked with joy, with love, and pride, He now with dainty clover fed him; Now took a short, triumphant ride, And then again got down, and led him."

139. Where Paris has had to lead her horses, we know; and where London had better lead hers, than let her people die of starvation. But I have not lost my hope that there are yet in England Bewicks and Bloomfields, who may teach their children--and earn for their cattle--better ways of fronting, and of waiting for, Death.

Nor are the uses of the inferior creatures to us less consistent with their happiness. To all that live, Death must come. The manner of it, and the time, are for the human Master of them, and of the earth, to determine--not to his pleasure, but to his duty and his need.

In sacrifice, or for his food, or for his clothing, it is lawful for him to slay animals; but not to delight in slaying any that are helpless. If he choose, for discipline and trial of courage, to leave the boar in Calydon, the wolf in Taurus, the tiger in Bengal, or the wild bull in Aragon, there is forest and mountain wide enough for them: but the inhabited world in sea and land should be one vast unwalled park and treasure lake, in which its flocks of sheep, or deer, or fowl, or fish, should be tended and dealt with, as best may multiply the life of all Love's Meinie, in strength, and use, and peace.

APPENDIX.

140. This part of the book will, I hope, be continuous with the text of it, containing henceforward, in each number, the nomenclature hitherto used for the birds described in it, and the Author's reason for his choice or change of names. In the present number, it supplies also the nomenclature required for the two preceding ones, and thus finishes the first volume.

The names given first, in capitals, for each bird, are those which the Author will in future give it, and proposes for use in elementary teaching. They will consist only of a plain Latin specific name, with one, or at the most two, Latin epithets; and the simplest popular English name, if there be one; if not, the English name will usually be the direct translation of the Latin one.

Then in order will follow--

I. Linnaeus's name, marked L.

II. Buffon's name, marked F, the F standing also for 'French' when any popular French name is given with Buffon's.

III. The German popular name, marked T (Teutonic), for I want the G for Mr. Gould; and this T will include authoritative German scientific names also.

IV. The Italian popular name, if one exists, to give the connection with old Latin, marked I.

V. Mr. Gould's name, G; Yarrell's, Y; Dressler's, D; and Gesner's, Ges, being added, if different.

VI. Bewick's, B.

VII. Shakspeare's and Chaucer's, if I know them; and general references, such as may be needful.

The Appendix will thus contain the names of all the birds I am able to think or learn anything about, as I can set down what I think or learn; and with no other attempt at order than the slight grouping of convenience: but the numbers of the species examined will be consecutive, so that L. M. 25,--Love's Meinie, Number twenty-five,--or whatever the number may be, will at once identify any bird in the system of the St. George's schools.

The following note by the Author has in previous editions faced the first page of Lecture III., with the exception of the Nos. i.-vii., which are now added by the Editor for the sake of completeness.

* * * *

Names of the birds noticed, according to the Author's system, with reference to the sections of the text and the Appendix in which the reader will find their more melodious scientific nomenclature:--

Sect. Sect.

I. Rutila Familiaris. Robin Redbreast Text 1 seqq. App. 141 II. Hirundo Domestica. House Swallow " 41 seqq. " 142 III. Hirundo Monastica. Martlet " -- " 143 IV. Hirundo Riparia. Bank Martlet " -- " 144 V. Hirundo Sagitta. Swift " 64 " 145 VI. Hirundo Alpina. Alpine Swift " -- " 146 VII. Noctua Europaea. Night-jar of Europe " -- " 147 VIII. Merula Fontium. Torrent Ouzel " 89 " 148 IX. Allegretta Nymphaea. Lily Ouzel " 93 " 149 IX.A. Allegretta Maculata. Spotted Allegret " 96 " 149 IX.B. Allegretta Stellaris. Starry Allegret " 97 " 149 IX.C. Allegretta Minuta. Tiny Allegret " 98 " 149 X. Trepida Stagnarum. Little Grebe " 100 " 150 XI.A. Titania Arctica. Arctic Fairy " 111 " 151 XI. Titania Inconstans. Changeful Fairy " 114 " 151 XII. Rallus Aquaticus. Water Rail " 116 " 152 XII.A. Pulla Aquatica. Water Hen " 133 " 153

141. RUTILA FAMILIARIS. ROBIN REDBREAST.

Motacilla Rubecula. L. Rouge-Gorge. F. Roth-breustlein.--Wald-roetele.--Winter-roetele.--Roth-kehlschen. T. Petti-rosso. I.

Erythacus Rubecula. G. Rubecula Erythacus. Ges. Erythaca Rubecula. Y. Rebecula Familiaris. D.

Ruddock. B. Ruddock, in Cymbeline; tame Ruddocke, in Assembly of Fowles; full robin-redebreast, in the Court of Love:

"The second lesson, Robin Redebreast sang."

It is rightly classed by F. and Y. with the Warblers. Gould strangely puts it with his rock-birds, 'saxicolinae,'--in which, however, he also includes the sedge warbler.

The true Robin is properly a wood-bird; the Swedish blue-throated one lives in marshes and arable fields. I have never seen a robin in really wild mountain ground.

There is only one European species of the red-breasted Robin. Gould names two Japanese ones.

II.

142. HIRUNDO DOMESTICA. HOUSE SWALLOW.

Hirundo Rustica. L. Hirondelle Domestique. F. Schwalbe. T. Swala, Swedish, and Saxon, whence our Swallow: but compare