My Life as an Author Part 16

I.

(_Major forte._)

"Rejoice, O Land! Imperial Realm, rejoice!

Wherever round the world Our standard floats unfurl'd, Let every heart exult in music's voice!

Be glad, O grateful England, Triumphant shout and sing, Land!

As from each belfried steeple The clanging joy-bells sound, Let all our happy people The wandering world around, Rejoice with the joy this jubilee brings, Circling the globe as with seraphim wings!"

II.

(_Minor piano._)

"Lo, the wondrous story, Praise all praise above!

Fifty years of glory, Fifty years of love!

Chastened by much sadness, Mid the dark of death, But illumed with gladness By the sun of faith: What a life, O Nations, What a reign is seen In the consummations Crowning Britain's Queen!"

III.

(_Finale.--Crescendo._)

"Riches of Earth, and Graces of Heaven, G.o.d in His love hath abundantly given, More by a year than seven times seven, Blessing our Empress, the Queen!

Secrets of Science, and marvels of Art, Health of the home, and wealth of the mart, All that is best for the mind and the heart, Crowded around her are seen.

Honour, Religion, and Plenty are hers, Peace, and all heavenly messengers, While loyalty every spirit upstirs To shout aloud, G.o.d save the Queen!"

Here the words end, as brevity is wisdom. But the music, as a majestic finale, might include touches of Rule Britannia, Luther's Hymn, and the National Anthem.

I have asked my friend Mr. Manns if he will set my words to music, but his modesty declines, as he professes to be mainly a conductor rather than a composer; and he recommends me to apply to some more famous musician, as perhaps Sullivan, or Macfarren, or haply Count Gleichen.

All I can say is, nothing would be more gratifying to my muse than for either of those great names to adapt my poetry to his melody.

Suitably enough, I may here insert a page as to my own musical idiosyncrasy as a bit of author-life.

Keble is said to have had no ear for a tune, however perfect as to rhyme and rhythm; and there are those who suppose my tympanum to be similarly deficient, though I persistently dispute it. Living (when at Norwood) within constant free hearing of the best music in the world, at the Crystal Palace, I ought to be musical, if not always so accredited; but I do penitentially confess to occasional weariness in over long repeated symphonies, where the sweet little _motif_ is always trying to get out but is cruelly driven back,--in the endlessness of fugues, and what seems to my offended ear the useless waste of tone and power in extreme instrumentation, and in divers other disinclinings I cannot but acknowledge as to what is called cla.s.sical music. Accordingly, no one can accuse me of being _fanatico per la musica_; albeit I am transported too by (for example) Handel's largo in G, by the Prayer in Mose in Egitto, the Lost Chord, Rossini's Tell, Weber's Freischutz and Oberon, Tannhauser, Semiramide, and all manner of marches, choruses, ballads, and national airs. In fact, I really do like music, especially if tuneful and melodious, in spite of Wagner's apothegm, but some symphonies might be better if curtailed,--except only Schubert's,--but then his best is the Unfinished, and so the shortest. In my youth I learnt the double flageolet, and could play it fairly.

All this (wherein I am but the honest spokesman for many who do not like to confess as much) is introductory in my authorial capacity to this short poem, not long since pencilled in the concert-room and given to Mr. Manns as soon as clearly written. I insert it here very much to give pleasure to one who so continually ministers to the pleasure of thousands; and I hope some day soon to greet him Sir August, as he well deserves a knighthood.

_A Music Lesson._

"Marvellous orchestra! concert of heaven, Mingling more notes than the musical seven, Harmonious discords of treble and base In strange combinations of guilt and of grace-- O whose is the ear that can hear you aright, And note the dark providence mixt with the light?

Where, where is the eye that is swift to discern This lesson in music the dull ear should learn,-- That all, from the seraphim harping on high Down, down to the lowest, fit chords can supply To the paean of praises in every tone, With thunders and melodies circling the Throne!

"We are each a brief note in that wonderful hymn, And to us its Oneness is hazy and dim; We hear the few sounds from the viol we play, But all the full chorus floats far and away: Our poor little pipe of an instant is drown'd In the glorious rush of that ocean of sound; The player hears nothing beyond his own bars, Whilst all that grand symphony reaches the stars: Yet, though our piping seems but little worth It adds to the Anthem Creation pours forth, And, whether we know it or not, we can give Not a note more or less in the life that we live.

"Ah me! we are nothing--or little at best-- But duty with greatness the least can invest: One note on the flute or the trumpet may seem A poor petty work for ambition's fond dream,-- But what if that note be a need-be to blend And quicken the score from beginning to end?

To show forth the mind of the Master, who guides With baton unerring Time's mixture of tides, The good with the evil, the blessing and bane, The Amazon rushing far into the main, Until, from this skill'd combination of notes, Bound earth to the heavens His overture floats!"

CHAPTER XXVII.

F.R.S.

A page or two about my connection with the Royal Society may have some small interest. When my father (who had long been a Fellow) died in 1844, I wished to give to the Society his marble bust by Behnes as a memorial of honour to him; but my mother preferred to keep it, as was natural. Meanwhile, however, some of my father's friends, and in particular his old patron, Lord Melbourne, then recently elected, put me up as a candidate, and as I find recorded in my Archive-book, vol. ii., my certificate "was signed by Argyll, Bristol, Henry Hallam, Thomas Brande, Dr. Paris, P.B.C.S., Sir C.M. Clarke, and Sir Benjamin Brodie: in due time I was elected, and on the 8th of May 1845 was admitted by Lord Northampton." At my election occurred this very strange and characteristic incident. There was only one ball against me among twenty-seven for me in the ballot-box; the meetings were then held at Somerset House, the Society on a less numerous scale than at present, and the elections easier and more frequent. When the President announced the result, up jumped Lord Melbourne, begging pardon for his mistake in having dropped his ball into the wrong hole!--an amusing instance of the _laissez-faire_ carelessness habitual to that good-humoured Minister.

As I have now been more than forty years a Fellow, I ought to be ashamed to confess that I never contributed a Paper to its learned Proceedings; all of which as they come to me I give appropriately enough to the famous Wotton Library, belonging to my excellent friend Evelyn, heir and successor to the celebrated John Evelyn of the Sylva, one of the Society's founders. That I have seldom even read them is also a pitiful truth; for the mysterious nomenclature of modern chemistry, the incomprehensibility (to my ignorance) of the higher mathematics, the hopeless profundity of treatises on the tides, dynamics, electricity, and microscopic anatomicals, are, I am free to avow, worse to me than "heathen Greek," nay (for I _can_ in some sort tackle that), more difficult than the clay tablets of a.s.syria or a papyrus of Rameses II.

So I must confess to being an idle drone among the working bees.

Only thrice have I ventured to ask questions of consequence, scarcely yet answered by the pundits. One regards Spectrum a.n.a.lysis: How can we be sure that the lines indicative of gases and other elements are not mainly due to the emanations from our own globe, swathed as it is by more than forty miles of an atmosphere impregnated by its own salts and acids in aerial solution? May we not be deducing false conclusions as to the varying lights of stars and nebulae, if all the while to our vision they are as it were clouded by our own smoke? Telescopes have to pierce so thick a stratum of earth's aura and ether that it is expectable they, would show us only our own composites in those of other worlds. The spectra are varied, I know, but so may be our wrappings of atmosphere from one night to another. Let this ignorant query suffice about Dr.

Huggins' great discovery.

Again, I certainly (after some knowledge of strange facts) could have wished that Mr. Crookes's philosophical spiritualism had met with a more patient hearing than Dr. Carpenter or Mr. Huxley offered at the time; and that Faraday's clumsy mechanical refutation of table-turning had not been considered so conclusive. For there really are "more things in heaven and earth, Horatio," &c., than even your omniscience is aware of; and without pinning faith on Madame Blavatsky, or Mr. Hume, or any other wonder-worker from America or Thibet, there doubtless are petty miracles in what is called spiritualism (possibly some form of electricity) that demand more scrutiny than our materialists will have the patience to vouchsafe: I for one believe in human testimony even as to the miraculous.

For a third and last inquiry: justly indignant at the horrors of Continental vivisection, and especially in our own humane England at Dr.

Ferrier's red-hot wires thrust into live monkeys' brains, I have often vainly asked _cui bono_ such terrible cruelty? The highest authorities are at variance with each other as to the practical utility in human therapeutics of experiments upon agonised brutes; but all must be agreed that, so far as morals are concerned, vivisection only hardens the heart and sears the feelings and conscience of doctors who may surround the dying-bed of our dearest, and very possibly make capital of peculiar symptoms in their patient, by experiments transferred from dogs and rabbits to himself! Single votes are useless against the annual list of selected candidates, or I for one would have at all inconvenience testified both at Oxford and in the Royal Society against the election of a certain Professor whose glory lies in vivisection.

For an appropriate end to these discursive sentences, let me add this poetic morsel in my own vein. Mr. Butler of Philadelphia was quite right in his judgment of my _indoles_: I "write by impulse on occasion." Here is a very recent instance in point. I had lately visited Mr. Barraud's painted-window works near Seven Dials, and when I told Mr. Herbert Rix, our a.s.sistant-Secretary, of what you may read below, he exhorted me to put it into verse, which I did impromptu, and sent it to him: now thus first printed:--

"I saw the artist in a colour-shop Staining some bits of gla.s.s variously shaped To map the painted window of a church, And marvelled that the tintings all seemed wrong; Red, green, and brown should have been interchanged To show the colours right. Why did he use His brush so carelessly, my folly asked.

'Wait for the fire,--the fire will make all right, The reds and greens and browns will change again, Fusing harmoniously,' so Knowledge spake; And thus a thought of wisdom came to me Touching the truth, how kindly curative Must be the pains and cares and griefs of life, For that the furnace of adversity, Melts to its proper good each seeming ill.

Again, I noticed how the artist chose Not clear good gla.s.s, whether of plate or crown, But common-looking stuff, bubbled and flawed, As if selected for its blemishes Rather than for transparent purity.

'Why not choose better gla.s.s to paint upon?'

To this he answered, 'Wouldn't do at all.

My faces mustn't look lifeless and dull, But, as instinct with motion, light and life, Not in enamelled uniformity: The sunshine cannot sparkle where all's smooth; I choose the most imperfect panes to make A perfect, vigorous picture.'--Then I learnt How wonderfully Providence is pleased To cause all evil things to help the good; Nay, deeper, to ordain that good itself Can scarcely be discerned without the harm Of some companion-ill; even as gold Is useless unalloyed; and Very Light Unshadowed kills, as unapproachable; And absolute unmitigated good Alone is G.o.dhead. Every creature here (In this our human trial-world at least) Is full of faults and spots and blemishes, If only to set off his better self, His talents, graces, excellent good gifts, Burnt in the fire to brighter excellence And fused harmonious into perfect man."

I have often thought that our Great Teacher's parables were true pictures of things around Him; He painted from living models, "impulsively and on occasion." The prodigal son, the unjust judge, the rich fool, the camel unladen to pa.s.s the narrow tunnel of the needle's eye, the lost sheep, the found piece of money and the like,--all were real incidents made use of by His wisdom, who spake as never man spake, and did all things well.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

PERSONATION.

It has several times happened to me, as doubtless to others of my brethren, to find that I have been personated, certainly to my considerable discredit. Take these instances. When at Brighton, a fellow had the effrontery to collect money in my name, and I suppose he somewhat resembled me, as I heard more than once that I had been seen here and there, where I undoubtedly was not, and proved an _alibi_. At Bignor, where I went to see some Roman pavements on the property of a Suss.e.x yeoman of my name (very possibly a German cousin) the owner received me with more than suspicion when I said who I was,--because "the true Martin Tupper had been his guest for a week, and brought him a book he had written," and one of mine then was lying on the table! But I soon made it clear that he had been deceived, and that the real Simon Pure was now before him. Divers other cases might be mentioned; however, perhaps the most curious is this, and I extract the whole statement from one of my sc.r.a.p-books now before me. It is headed "An anecdote to account for certain slanders," the date being August 1865:--

"I have heard it seriously a.s.serted of me that I am a great pugilist!

and very far in conduct and manners from what one might expect, and so forth. Now it has just come to my knowledge that a sporting publican and dog-fancier, who called his public-house in the Waterloo Road 'The Greyhound' (my crest), and has my name over the lintel, has claimed to be the author, and is supposed to be myself! Mr. Payne (my publisher) told me about the 'pugilist,' and said he had heard it in the clubs that I was a match for Sayers,--as I conclude my sporting namesake is." In America, too, I found that my double lived at Hardwick, Worcester Co., N.Y., and that another Martin hailed from Buffalo. So, like poor Edgar Poe, who had to suffer from the machinations of a profligate brother, who gave Edgar's name whenever he got into a sc.r.a.pe, I may have sometimes been credited with the sins of strangers. No one is free from this sort of calumny. We all have heard of Sheridan's wicked witticism, in that when taken up in Pall Mall for drunkenness, he gave his name Wilberforce; and it is said that he got drunk on purpose to say so! My venerable friend, Thomas Cooper, the pious and eloquent old Chartist, has been similarly confused with Robert Cooper, the atheist, lecturer; not but that Thomas had once been an atheist too. In this connection, here is a curiously complicated case of _alibi_, which I abstract _verbatim_ from one of my Archive-books.

"On Sunday, the 17th of September 1848, I was all the afternoon and evening at my house on Furze Hill, Brighton, quietly reading and teaching my children, &c. Next day the 'Rev. J.C. Richmond (an American friend) called with me on the Rev. Mr. Vaughan, and in the course of conversation the latter said to me in a good-natured tone of rebuke: 'Some of my congregation tell me they saw you yesterday afternoon smoking a cigar in a fly on the Marine Parade.' I had hardly time to deny the soft impeachment, which I might well have done with emphasis, as a loather of cigars, and as little as possible a traveller on Sundays, when Richmond broke out with 'That's impossible; for I saw him myself in Sh.o.r.eham Church (five miles distant), and noticed that he went away in the middle of the sermon, as I supposed, to get home to Mrs.

Tupper.' Mr. Richmond says he could have made oath that I had been there, and that he told several persons after church that I 'had heard part of the sermon in the afternoon.' So, upon human and trustworthy evidence, I could have been proved to have been in three places at once."

My fetch similarly once rescued a young lady from death on Snowdon: at least a stranger in company once came up to me, to thank me for my prowess in having stopped his daughter's pony, which had run away down, the mountain!--in vain I denied it:--and he addressed me by my name, too! Somebody must have given him my card by accident.

And let me here allude (if I can without indelicacy) to another sort of personation of more financial importance to myself. Lately, I have seen some not very refined nor considerate paragraphs in American papers (Mr.