The social history and improvements of our own country seem to have gone by irregular leaps and bounds. The Parliament, like the Times, follows upon the heels of public opinion in all measures concerning the welfare of the nation; and it is well it should be so. An Englishman will be led by a child; but it requires a strong hand and a sharp whip to drive him. One hundred and forty years ago the Wesleys and Whitfield caused a commotion in the religious world. Upwards of a century ago the first canal in this country was opened for the conveyance of goods upon our silent highways, and trade began in earnest to show signs of life and activity. A century ago Robert Raikes, of Gloucester, opened his first Sunday-school—the beginning of a system ever widening and expanding, carrying with it blessings incomprehensible to finite minds, and only to be revealed in another world. Nearly a century ago Raper’s translation of Grellmann’s “Dissertation on the Gipsies” was published, and which caused no little stir at the time, being the first work of any kind worth notice that had appeared. Seventy years ago an interesting correspondence took place in the Christian Observer upon the condition of the Gipsies, and various lines of missionary action were suggested; but no plan was adopted, and all words blown to the wind. Then, as now, people would look at the Gipsies in their pitiable condition, and with a shrug of the shoulders would say, “Poor things,” and away they would go to their mansions, doff their warm winter clothing, put on their needleworked slippers, stretch their legs before a blazing fire in the drawing-room, and call “John” to bring a box of the best cigars, the champagne, dry sherry, and crusted port, and then noddle off to sleep. Sixty-four years ago Hoyland’s “Historical Survey of the Gipsies” made its appearance, a work that caught the fire and spirit of Grellmann’s, the object of both being to stir up the missionary zeal of this country in the cause of the Gipsies. Fifty years ago James Crabb began his missionary work among the Gipsies at Southampton, and for a while did well; but in course of time, owing to the Gipsies moving about, as in the case of “Our Canal Population,” the work dwindled down and down, till there is not a vestige of this good man’s efforts to be seen. About the same time that Crabb was at work among the Gipsies missionary efforts were put in motion to improve the canal-boatmen, and mission stations were established at Newark, Stoke-on-Trent, Aylesbury, Oxford, Birmingham, and other places, but fared the same fate as the missionary effort of Crabb and others among the Gipsies. Fifty years ago railways were opened, which gave an impetus to trade never experienced before. Fifty years ago the preaching of Bourne and Clowes was causing considerable excitement in the country. Nearly fifty years ago witnessed the passing of the Reform Bill, and the Factory Act received the Royal signature. Forty years have passed away since George Borrow’s missionary efforts among the Gipsies were prominently before the public, which, sad to say, shared the fate of Crabb’s, Hoyland’s, Roberts’, and Raper’s. From that day till now, except the spasmodic efforts of a clergyman here and there, or some other kind-hearted friend, these 20,000 poor slighted outcasts have been left to themselves to sink or swim as they thought well. The only man, except the dramatist and novelist, who has seemed to notice them has been the policeman, and his vigilant eye and staff have been used to drive them from their camping-ground from time to time, and thus—if possible—made their lives more miserable, and created within them deeper-seated revenge, owing to the way in which they are carrying out the Enclosures Act. All missionary efforts put forth to improve the condition of the factory operative and canal-boatmen, previous to the passing of the Factory Act, nearly fifty years since, and the Canal Boats Act of 1877, were fruitless and unprofitable. The passing of the Factory Act has done more for the children in one year than all the missionaries in the kingdom could have done in their lifetime. Similar results are the outcome of the Brickyard Act of 1871, as touching the welfare of the children. And so in like manner it will be with the Canal Boats Act when properly carried out, the canal-boat children of to-day, in fifty years hence, will be equal to other working classes. From the days of Hoyland, and Borrow, and Crabb, down to the present time, but little seems to have been done for the Gipsies. With Crabb died all real interest in the welfare of these poor unfortunate people. The difficulties he had encountered seemed to have had a deterrent effect upon others. Missionary zeal, without moral force of law and the schoolmaster, will accomplish but little for the Gipsies at our doors; and it may be said with special emphasis as regards the improvement of the Gipsy children. From the days of the relentless, cruel, and merciless persecution the Gipsies received under the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, down to the present time, nothing has been done by law to reclaim these Indian outcasts and Asiatic emigrants. The case of the Gipsies shows us plainly that hunting the women and children with bloodhounds, and dragging the Gipsy leaders to the gallows, will neither stamp them out nor improve their character and habits; and, on the other hand, it appears that the love-like gentleness, child-like simplicity, and religious fervour of the circumscribed influence of Crabb and others, about this time, did but little for these poor, little, dark-eyed, wandering brethren of ours from afar. The next agents that appeared upon the scene to try to elevate the Gipsies into something like a respectable position in society were the dramatists and novelists. These flickering lights of the night have met with no better success, in fact, their efforts, in the way they have been put forth, have, as a rule, exhibited Gipsy life in a variety of false colours and shades, which exhibition has turned out to be a failure in accomplishing the object the authors had in view, other than to fill their coffers and mislead the public as to the real character of a Gipsy vagabond’s life; and thus it will be seen, I think, that the Gipsies and their children of to-day present to us the miserable failure, of bitter persecution in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the efforts of Christianity alone at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and more recently the novelist and dramatist as a means in themselves, separately, to effect a reformation in the habits and character of the Gipsy children and their parents.

If the Gipsy and other tramping, travelling “rob rats” of to-day are to become honest, industrious, and useful citizens of the future, it must be by the influence of the schoolmaster and the sanitary officer, coming to a great extent as they do between the fitful and uncertain efforts of the missionary, the relentless hands of persecution, the policeman, and the stage.

From the time the Gipsies landed in this country in 1515, down to the time when Raper’s translation of Grellmann’s work appeared in 1787, a period of 272 years, nothing seems to have been done to improve the Gipsies, except to pass laws for their extermination. The earliest notice of the Gipsies in our own country was published in a quarto volume in the year 1612, the object of which was to expose the system of fortune-telling, juggling, and legerdemain, and in which reference is made to the Gipsies as follows:—“This kind of people about a hundred years ago beganne to gather an head, as the first heere about the southerne parts. And this, as I am imformed and can gather, was their beginning: Certain Egyptians banished their country (belike not for their good conditions) arrived heere in England, who for quaint tricks and devices, not known heere at that time among us, were esteemed and had in great admiration; insomuch that many of our English loyterers joined with them, and in time learned their crafty cosening. The speech which they used was the right Egyptian language, with whom our Englishmen conversing at least learned their language. These people continuing about the country and practising their cosening art, purchased themselves great credit among the country people, and got much by palmistry and telling of fortunes; insomuch they pitifully cosened poor country girls, both of money, silver spoons, and the best of their apparalle or other goods they could make.” And he goes on to say, “But what numbers were executed on these statutes you would wonder; yet, notwithstanding, all would not prevaile, but they wandered as before uppe and downe and meeting once a year at a place appointed; sometimes at the Peake’s Hole in Derbyshire, and other whiles by Ketbroak at Blackheath.” The annual gathering of the Gipsies and others of the same class, who make Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire and neighbouring counties, their head-quarters, takes place at the well-known Bolton Fair, held about Whitsuntide, on the borders of Leicestershire, a village situated in a kind of triangle, between Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire. Spellman speaks of the Gipsies about this time as follows:—“The worst kind of wanderers and impostors springing up on the Continent, but yet rapidly spreading themselves through Britain and other parts of Europe, disfigured by their swarthiness, sun-burnt, filthy in their clothing and indecent in all their customs.” Under these circumstances it is not to be wondered at, in these dark ages, that some steps should be taken to stop these lawless desperadoes and vagabonds from contaminating our English labourers’ and servant girls with their loose ideas of labour, cleanliness, honesty, morality, truthfulness, and religion. It was soon manifest what kind of strange people had begun to flock to our shores to make their domiciles among us, as will be seen in a description given of them in an Act of Parliament passed in the twenty-second year of the reign of Henry VIII., being only about seven years after their landing in Scotland, and to which I have referred before. In the tenth chapter of the said act they are described as—“An outlandish people calling themselves Egyptians, using no crafte nor feat of merchandise; who have come into this realm and gone from shire to shire and place to place in great company, and used great subtle and crafty means to deceive the people, bearing them in hand that by palmistry they could tell the men’s and women’s fortunes, and so many times by crafte and subtlety have deceived the people of their money, and also have committed many heinous felonies and robberies. Wherefore all are directed to avoid the realm and not to return under pain of imprisonment and forfeitures of their goods and chattels; and on their trials for any felonies which they may have committed they shall not be entitled to a jury.” As if this was not sufficient or as if it had not the desired effect the authors anticipated viz., in preventing other Gipsies flocking to our shores or driving those away from us who were already in our midst another act was passed in the twenty-seventh year of the same reign, more severe than the previous act, and part of it runs as follows:—“Whereas certain outlandish people, who do not profess any crafte or trade, whereby to maintain themselves, but go about in great numbers from place to pace using insidious underhand means to impose on His Majesty’s subjects, making them believe that they understand the art of foretelling to men and women their good and evil fortunes by looking in their hands, whereby they frequently defraud people of their money; likewise are guilty of thefts and highway robberies; it is hereby ordered that the said vagrants, commonly called Egyptians, in case they remain one month in the kingdom, shall be proceeded against as thieves and rascals, and at the importation of such Egyptians (the importer) shall forfeit £40 for every trespass.”

The fine of £40 being inflicted at that time, which means a large sum at the present day, carries something more with it than the thefts committed by the Gipsies. It is evident that the Gipsies had wheedled themselves into the graces and favours of some portion of the aristocracy by their crafts and deception. If the Gipsy offences had been committed against the labouring population it would have been the height of absurdity for Parliament to have inflicted a fine of some hundreds of pounds upon the working man of the poorer classes. It has occurred to me that the question of Popery may have been one of the causes of their persecution; and it is not unlikely that wealthy Roman Catholics may have had something to do with their importation into this country. The fact is, before the Gipsies left the Continent for England they were Roman Catholic pilgrims, and going about the country doing the work of the Pope to some extent, and this may have been one of the objects of those who were opposed to the Protestant tendencies of Henry VIII. in causing them to come over to England. At this time our own country was in a very disturbed state, religiously, and no people were so suitable to work in the dark and carry messages from place to place as the Gipsies, especially if by so doing they could make plenty of plunder out of it; and this idea I have hinted at before as one of their leading characteristics. It should not be overlooked that telegraphs, railways, stagecoaches, and canals had not been established at this time, consequently for the Gipsies to be moving about the country from village to village under a cloak, as they appeared to the higher powers, was sufficient to make them the subjects of bitter persecution. For the Gipsies to have openly avowed that they were Roman Catholics before landing upon our shores, would in all probability have defeated the object of those who induced—if induced—them to come over to Britain. At any rate, we may, I think, fairly assume that this feature of their character, an addition to their fortune-telling proclivities, may have been one of the causes of their persecution, and in this view I am to some extent supported by circumstances.

During the reign of Henry VIII. a number of Gipsies were sent back to France, and in the book of receipts and payments of the thirty-fifth of the same reign the following entries are made:—“Nett payments, 1st Sept., 36 of Henry VIII. Item, to Tho. Warner, Sergeant of the Admyraltie, 10th Sept., for victuals prepared for a shippe appointed to convey certaine Egupeians, 58s. Item, to the same Tho. Warner, to the use of John Bowles for freight of said shippe, £6 5s. 0d. Item, to Robt. ap Rice, Esq., Shriff of Huntingdon, for the charge of the Egupeians at a special gailo delivery, and the bringing of them to be carreied over the sees; over and besides the sum of £4 5s. 0d. groming of seventeen horses sold at five shillings the peice as apperythe by a particular book, £17 17s. 7d. Item, to Will. Wever, appointed to have the charge of the conduct of the said Egupeians to Callis, £5.”

In 1426 a first-rate horse was worth about £1 6s. 8d., and a colt 4s. 6d. Twenty-two years later the hay of an acre of land was worth about £5.

There were several acts passed relating to the Gipsies during the reign of Philip and Mary, and fifth of Elizabeth, by which it states—“If any person, being fourteen years old, whether natural born subject or stranger, who had been seen in the fellowship of such persons, or had disguised himself like them, or should remain with them one month at once or several times, it should be felony without the benefit of the clergy.” Wraxall, in his “History of France,” vol. ii., page 32, in referring to the act of Elizabeth, in 1653, states that in her reign the Gipsies throughout England were supposed to exceed 10,000. About the year 1586 complaints were again made of the increase of vagabonds and loitering persons.

The following order is copied from the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum:—“Orders, rules, and directions, concluded, appointed, and agreed upon by us the Justices of Peace within the county of Suffolk, assembled at our general session of peace, holden at Bury, the 22nd daie of Aprill, in the 31st yeare of the raigne of our Souraigne Lady the Queen’s Majestie, for the punishing and suppressinge of roags, vacabonds, idle loyterings, and lewde persons, which doe or shall hereafter wander and goe aboute within the hundreths of Thingo cum Bury, Blackborne, Thedwardstree, Cosford, Babings, Risbridge, Lackford, and the hundreth of Exninge, in the said county of Suffolk, contrary to the law in that case made and provided.

“Whereas at the Parliament beganne and holden at Westminster, the 8th daie of Maye, in the 14th yeare of the raigne of the Queen’s Majesty that nowe is, one Acte was made intytuled, ‘An Acte for the punishment of Vacabonds and for releife of the Pooere and Impotent’; and whereas at a Session of the Parliament, holden by prorogacon at Westminster, the eight daie of February, in the 28th yeare of Her Majesties raigne, an other Acte was made and intytuled, ‘An Act for settinge of the Poore to work and for the avoydinge of idleness’; by virtue of which severall Acts certeyne provisions and remedies have been ordeyned and established, as well for the suppressinge and punishinge of all roags, vacabonds, sturdy roags, idle and loyteringe persons; as also for the reliefe and setting on worke of the aged and impotente persons within this realm, and authoritie gyven to justices of peace, in their several charges and commissions, to see that the said Acts and Statuts be putte in due execution, to the glorie of Allmightie God and the benefite of the Common Welth.

“And whereas also yt appeareth by dayly experience that the numbr of idle, vaggraunte, loyteringe sturdy roags, masterless men, lewde and yll disposed persons are exceedingly encreased and multiplied, committinge many grevious and outerageous disorders and offences, tendinge to the great . . . of Allmightie God, the contempt of Her Majesties laws, and to the great charge, trouble, and disquiet of the Common Welth:

“We, the Justices of Peace above speciefied, assembled and mett together at our general sessions above-named for remedie of theis and such lyke enormitities which hereafter shall happen to arrise or growe within the hundreths and lymits aforesaid, doe by theis presents order, decree, and ordeyne That there shall be builded or provided a convenient house, which shall be called the House of Correction, and that the same be establishd within the towne of Bury, within the hundreth of Thingoe aforesaid: And that all persons offendinge or lyvinge contrary to the tenor of the said twoe Acts, within the hundreths and lymitts aforesaid, shall be, by the warrante of any Justice of Peace dwellinge in the same hundreths or lymitts, committed thether, and there be received, punished, sett to worke, and orderd in such sorte and accordinge to the directions, provisions, and limitations hereafter in theis presents declard and specified.

“Fyrst—That yt maie appeare what persons arre apprehended, committed, and brought to the House of Correction, it is ordered and appointed, that all and every person and persons which shall be found and taken within the hundreths and lymitts aforesaid above the age of 14 yeares, and shall take upon them to be procters or procuraters goinge aboute without sufficiente lycense from the Queen’s Majestie; all idle persons goinge aboute usinge subtiltie and unlawfull games or plaie; all such as faynt themselves to have knowledge in physiognomeye, palmestrie, or other absurd sciences; all tellers of destinies, deaths, or fortunes, and such lyke fantasticall imaginations.”

In Scotland, the Gipsies, and other vagrants of the same class, were dealt with equally as severely under Mary Queen of Scots as they were under Henry VIII. and Elizabeth in England. In an act passed in 1579 I find the following relating to Gipsies and vagabonds:—“That sik as make themselves fules and ar bairdes, or uther sik like runners about, being apprehended, sall be put into the Kinge’s Waird, or irones, sa lang as they have ony gudes of their owin to live on, and fra they have not quhair upon to live of thir owin that their eares be nayled to the trone or to an uther tree, and thir eares cutted off and banished the countrie; and gif thereafter they be found againe, that they be hanged.

“And that it may be knowen quwhat maner of persones ar meaned to be idle and strong begares, and vagabounds, and worthy of the punischment before specified, it is declared: That all idle persones ganging about in any countrie of this realm, using subtil craftie and unlawful playes, as juglarie, fast-and-lous, and sik uthers; the idle people calling themselves Egyptians, or any uther, that feinzies themselves to have a knowledge or charming prophecie, or other abused sciences, quairby they perswade peopil that they can tell thir weirds, deaths, and fortunes, and sik uther phantastical imaginations,” &c., &c.

Another law was passed in Scotland in 1609, not less severe than the one passed in 1579, called Scottish Acts, and in which I find the following:—“Sorcerers, common thieves, commonly called Egyptians, were directed to pass forth of the kingdom, under pain of death as common, notorious, and condemned thieves.” This was persecution with vengeance, and no mistake; and it was under this kind of treatment, severe as it was, the Gipsies continued to grow and prosper in carrying out their nefarious practices. The case of these poor miserable wretches, midnight prowlers, with eyes and hearts and bending steps determined upon mischief and evil-doing, presents to us the spectacle of justice untempered with mercy. The phial filled with revenge, malice, spite, hatred, extermination and blood—without the milk of human kindness, the honey of love, water from the crystal fountain, and the tincture of Gethsemane’s garden being added to take away the nauseousness of it—being handed these poor deluding witches and wretches to drink to the last dregs, failed to get rid of social and national grievances. The hanging of thirteen Gipsies at one of the Suffolk Assizes a few years before the Restoration carried with it none of the seeds of a reformation in their character and habits, nor did it lessen the number of these wandering prowlers, for we find that from the landing of a few hundred of Gipsies from France in 1514, down to the commencement of the eighteenth century, the number had increased to something like 15,000. The number who had been hung, died in prison, suffered starvation, and the fewness of those who were Christians, and gone to heaven, during the period of over 250 years, and prior to the noble efforts of Raper, Sir Joseph Banks, Hoyland, Crabb, Borrow, and others, is fearful to contemplate. Hoyland tells us that in his day, “not one Gipsy in a thousand could read or write.”

Efforts put forth to exterminate these Asiatic heathens, babble-mongers, and bush-ranging thieves, were not confined to England alone. King Ferdinand of Spain was the first to set the persecuting machine at work to grind them to powder, and passed an edict in the year 1492 for their extermination, which only drove them into hiding-places, to come out, with their mouths watering, in greater numbers, for fresh acts of violence and plunder. At the King’s death, the Emperor Charles V. persecuted them afresh, but with no success, and the consequence was they were left alone in Spain to pursue their course of robbery and crime for more than 200 years. In France an edict was passed by Francis I. At a Council of the State of Orleans an order was sent to all Governors to drive the Gipsies out of the country with fire and the sword. Under this edict they still increased, and a new order was issued in 1612 for their extermination. In 1572 they were driven from the territories of Milan and Parma, and earlier than this date they were driven beyond the Venetian jurisdiction.

“It is the sound of fetters—sound of work
Is not so dismal. Hark! they pass along.
I know it is those Gipsy prisoners;
I saw them, heard their chains. O! terrible
To be in chains.”

In Denmark they were not allowed to pass about the country unmolested, and every magistrate was ordered to take them into custody. A very sharp and severe order came out for their expulsion from Sweden in the year 1662. Sixty-one years later a second order was published by the Diet; and in 1727 additional stringent measures were added to the foregoing edicts. Under pain of death they were excluded from the Netherlands by Charles V., and in 1582 by the United Provinces. Germany seems to have led the van in passing laws for their extermination. At the Augsburg Diet in 1500, Maximillian I. had the following edict drawn up:—“Respecting those people who call themselves Gipsies roving up and down the country. By public edict to all ranks of the empire, according to the obligations under which they are bound to us and the Holy Empire, it is strictly ordered that in future they do not permit the said Gipsies (since there is authentic evidence of their being spies, scouts, and conveyers of intelligence, betraying the Christians to the Turks) to pass or remain within their territories, nor to trade or traffic, neither to grant them protection nor convoy, and that the said Gipsies do withdraw themselves before Easter next ensuing from the German Dominions, entirely quit them, nor suffer themselves to be found therein. As in case they should transgress after this time, and receive injury from any person, they shall have no redress, nor shall such persons be thought to have committed any crime.” Grellmann says the same affair occupied the Diet in 1530, 1544, 1548, and 1551, and was also enforced in the stringent police regulations of Frankfort in 1577, and he goes on to say that with the exception of Hungary and Transylvania, they were similarly proscribed in every civilised state. I think it will be seen by the foregoing German edict that there is some foundation for the supposition I have brought forward earlier, viz., that the persecution of the Gipsies in this country was not so much on account of their thieving deeds, plunder, and other abominations, as their connection with the emissaries of the Pope of Rome, and in the secrecy of their movements in going from village to village, undermining the foundation of the State, law, and order, civil and religious liberty. The only bright spot and cheerful tint upon this sorrowful picture of persecution which took place in our own country during these dark ages was the appearance of the Star of Elstow, John Bunyan, the Bedfordshire tinker, whose life and death forcibly illustrates the last words of Jesus upon the Cross, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.”

“’Twere ill to banish hope and let the mind
Drift like a feather. I have had my share
Of what the world calls trial. Once a fire
Came in the darkness, when the city lay
In a still sea of slumber, stretching out
Great lurid arms which stained the firmament;
And when I woke the room was full of sparks,
And red tongues smote the lattice. Then a hand
Came through the sulphur, taking hold of mine,
And the next moment there were shouts of joy.
Ah! I was but a child and my first care
Was for my mother.”—Harris (the Cornish poet).

Towards the end of the eighteenth century it became evident that edicts and persecutions were not going to stamp out the Gipsies in this country, for instead of them decreasing in numbers they kept increasing; at this time there were supposed to be about 18,000 in the country. The following sad case, showing the malicious spirits of the Gipsies, and the relentless hand of the hangman, seemed to have had the effect of bringing the authorities to bay. They had begun to put their “considering caps” on, and were in a fix as to the next move, and it was time they had. They had never thought of tempering justice with mercy. A century ago, 1780, a number of young Gipsies were arrested at Northampton, upon what charge it does not appear. It should be noted that Northamptonshire at this time was a favourite round for the Gipsy fraternity as well as the adjoining counties. This, it seems, excited the feelings of the Gipsies in the county, and they sought to obtain the release of the young Gipsies who were in custody, but were not successful in their application to the magistrate; the consequence was—true to their instincts—the spirit of revenge manifested itself to such a degree that the Gipsies threatened to set fire to the town, and would, in all probability have carried it out had not a number of them been brought to the gallows for these threats. With this case the hands of persecution began to hang down, for it was evident that persecution alone would neither improve these Gipsies nor yet drive them out of the country. The tide of events now changed. Law, rigid, stern justice alone could do no good with them, and consequently handed them over to the minister of love and mercy. This step was a bound to the opposite extreme, and as we go along we shall see that the efforts put forth in this direction alone met with but little more success than under the former treatment. Seven years after the foregoing executions Grellmann’s work upon the Gipsies appeared, which caused a considerable commotion among the religious communities, following, as it did, the universal feeling aroused in the welfare of the children of this country by the establishment of Sunday-schools throughout the length and breadth of the land to teach the children of the working-classes reading and writing and the fundamental principles of Christianity. After repeated efforts put forth by a number of Christian gentlemen, and the interest caused by the publication of Grellmann’s book, the work of reforming the Gipsies by purely religious and philanthropic action began to lag behind; the result was, as in the case of persecution, no good was observable, and the Gipsies were allowed to go again on their way to destruction. The next step was one in the right direction, viz., that of trying to improve the Gipsies by the means of the schoolmaster; although humble and feeble in its plan of operation, yet if we look to the agency put forth and its results, the Sunday-school teacher must have felt encouraged in his work as he plodded on Sunday after Sunday.

It may be said of Thomas Howard as it was said of the poor widow of old, he “hath done more than them all.” The following account of this cheerful, encouraging, and interesting gathering is taken from Hoyland, in which he says:—“The first account he received of any of them was from Thomas Howard, proprietor of a glass and china shop, No. 50, Fetter Lane, Fleet Street. This person, who preached among the Calvinists, said that in the winter of 1811 he had assisted in the establishment of a Sunday-school in Windwill Street, Acre Lane, near Clapham. It was under the patronage of a single gentlewoman, of the name of Wilkinson, and principally intended for the neglected and forlorn children of brick-makers and the most abject poor.” At the present day Gipsies generally locate in the neighbourhood of brick-yards and low, swampy marshes, or by the side of rivers or canals. It was begun on a small scale, but increased till the number of scholars amounted to forty.

“During the winter a family of Gipsies, of the name of Cooper, obtained lodgings at a house opposite the school. Trinity Cooper, a daughter of the Gipsy family, who was about thirteen years of age, applied to be instructed at the school; but in consequence of the obloquy affixed to that description of persons she was repeatedly refused. She nevertheless persevered in her importunity, till she obtained admission for herself and two of her brothers. Thomas Howard says, surrounded as he was by ragged children, without shoes and stockings, the first lesson he taught them was silence and submission. They acquired habits of subordination and became tractable and docile; and of all his scholars there were not any more attentive and affectionate than these; and when the Gipsies broke up in the spring, to make their usual excursions, the children expressed much regret at leaving school. This account was confirmed by Thomas Jackson, of Brixton Row, minister of Stockwell Chapel, who said:—Since the above experiment, several Gipsies had been admitted to a Sabbath-school under the direction of his congregation. At their introduction, he compared them to birds when first put into the cage, which flew against the sides of it, having no idea of restraint; but by a steady, even care over them, and the influence of the example of other children, they soon become settled and fell into their ranks.” The next step taken to let daylight upon the Gipsy and his dark doings in the dark ages was by means of letters to the Press, and what surprises me is that this step, the most important of all, was not taken before.

In a letter addressed to the Christian Observer, vol. vii., p. 91, in the year about 1809, “Nil” writes:—“As the divine spirit of Christianity deems no object, however uncouth or insignificant, beneath her notice, I venture to apply to you on behalf of a race, the outcasts of society, of whose pitiable condition, among the many forms of human misery which have engaged your efforts, I do not recollect to have seen any notice in the pages of your excellent miscellany. I allude to the deplorable state of the Gipsies, on whose behalf I beg leave to solicit your good offices with the public. Lying at our very doors, they seem to have a peculiar claim on our compassion. In the midst of a highly refined state of society, they are but little removed from savage life. In this happy country, where the light of Christianity shines with its purest lustre, they are still strangers to its cheering influence. I have not heard even of any efforts which have been made either by individuals or societies for their improvement.” “Fraternicus,” writing to the same Journal, vol. vii., and in the same year, says:—“It is painful to reflect how many thousands of these unhappy creatures have, since the light of Christianity has shone on this island, gone into eternity ignorant of the ways of salvation;” and goes on to say that, “there is an awful responsibility attached to this neglect,” and recommends the appointment of missionaries to the work; and finishes his appeal as follows:—“Christians of various denominations, perhaps may, through the divine providence, be the means of exciting effectual attention to the spiritual wants of this deplorable set of beings; and the same benevolence which induced you to exert your talents and influence on behalf of the oppressed negroes may again be successfully employed in ameliorating the condition of a numerous class of our fellow-creatures.” “H.” wrote to the Christian Observer, and said he hoped “to see the day when the nation, which has at length done justice to the poor negroes, will be equally zealous to do their duty in this instance,” and he offered to subscribe “twenty pounds per annum towards so good an object.” “Minimus,” another writer to the same paper, with reference to missionary enterprise, says:—“The soil which it is proposed to cultivate is remarkably barren and unpropitious; of course, a plentiful harvest must not be soon expected;” and finishes his letter by saying, “Let us arise and build; let us begin; there is no fear of progress and help.” “H.,” a clergyman, writes again and says:—“Surely, when our charity is flowing in so wide a channel, conveying the blessings of the Gospel to the most distant quarters of the globe, we shall not hesitate to water this one barren and neglected field in our own land. My attention was drawn to the state of this miserable class of human beings by the letter of ‘Fraternicus,’ and looking upon it as a reproach to our country;” and ends his letter with a short prayer, as follows: “It is my earnest prayer to God that this may not be one of these projects which are only talked of and never begun; but that it may tend to the glory of His name and to the bringing back of these poor lost sheep to the fold of their Redeemer.” “J. P.” writes to the same Journal, April 28, 1810, in which he says:—“Circumstances lead to think that were encouragement given to them the Gipsies would be inclined to live in towns and villages like other people; and would in another generation become civilised, and with the pains which are now taken to educate the poor, and to diffuse the Scriptures and the knowledge of Christ, would become a part of the regular fold. It would require much patient continuance in well doing in those who attempted it, and they must be prepared, perhaps, to meet with some untowardness and much disappointment.” “Fraternicus” sums up the correspondence by suggesting a plan of taking the school to the Gipsies instead of taking the Gipsies to the schools:—“If the compulsory education of the Gipsies had taken place a century ago, and their tents brought under some sort of sanitary inspection, what a change by this time would have taken place in their habits,” &c.; and he further says:—“By degrees they might be brought to attend divine worship; and if in the parish of a pious clergyman he would probably embrace the opportunity of teaching them. Much might be done by a pious schoolmaster and schoolmistress, by whom the girls might be taught different kinds of work, knitting, sewing, &c. Should these suggestions be deemed worthy of your insertion, they might, perhaps, awaken the attention of some benevolent persons, whose superior talents and experience in the ways of beneficence would enable them to perfect and carry into execution a plan for the effectual benefit of these unhappy portioners of our kind.”

“Junius,” in the Northampton Mercury, under date June 27th, 1814, writes:—“When we consider the immense sums raised for every probable means of doing good which have hitherto been made public, we cannot doubt if a proper method should be proposed for the relief and ameliorating the state of these people it would meet with deserved encouragement. Suppose that legislature should think this not unworthy its notice, and as a part of the great family they ought not to be overlooked.” Another correspondent to the same Journal, “A Friend of Religion,” writes under date July 21st, 1815, urging the necessity of some means being adopted for their improvement, and remarks as follows:—“Thousands of our fellow-creatures would be raised from depravity and wretchedness to a state of comfort; the private property of individuals be much more secure, and the public materially benefited.”

Instead of putting into practice measures for their improvement, and the State taking hold of them by the hand as children belonging to us, and with us, and for whom our first care ought to have been, we have said in anger—

“‘Heathen dog!
Begone, begone! you shall have nothing here.’
The Indian turned; then facing Collingrew,
In accents low and musical, he said:
‘But I am very hungry; it is long
Since I have eaten. Only give me a crust,
A bone, to cheer me on my weary way.’
Then answered he, with fury and a frown:
‘Go! Get you gone! you red-skinned heathen hound!
I’ve nothing for you. Get you gone, I say!’”

Harris, “Wayside Pictures.”

During the summer of 1814, Mr. John Hoyland, of Sheffield, set to work in earnest to try to improve the condition of the Gipsies, and for that purpose he visited, in conjuction with Mr. Allen, solicitor at Higham Ferners, many parts of Northamptonshire and neighbouring counties; and he also sent out a circular to most of the sheriffs in England with a number of questions upon it relating to their numbers, condition, &c., and the following are a few of the answers sent in reply:—1. All Gipsies suppose the first of them came from Egypt. 2. They cannot form any idea of the number in England. 5. The more common names are Smith, Cooper, Draper, Taylor, Boswell, Lee, Lovell, Leversedge, Allen, Mansfield, Glover, Williams, Carew, Martin, Stanley, Buckley, Plunkett, and Corrie. 6 and 7. The gangs in different towns have not any connection or organisation. 8. In the county of Herts it is computed there may be sixty families, having many children. Whether they are quite so numerous in Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, and Northamptonshire the answers are not sufficiently definite to determine. In Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire, Wiltshire, and Dorsetshire, greater numbers are calculated upon. 9. More than half their numbers follow no business; others are dealers in horses and asses, &c., &c. 10. Children are brought up in the habits of their parents, particular to music and dancing, and are of dissolute conduct. 11. The women mostly carry baskets with trinkets and small wares, and tell fortunes. 13. In most counties there are particular situations to which they are partial. 15, 16, and 17. Do not know of any person that can write the language, or of any written specimen of it. 19. Those who profess any religion represent it to be that of the country in which they reside; but their description of it seldom goes beyond repeating the Lord’s Prayer, and only a few of them are capable of that. 20. They marry, for the most part, by pledging to each other, without any ceremony. 21. They do not teach their children religion. 22 and 23. Not one in a thousand can read. Most of these answers were confirmed by Riley Smith, who, during many years, was accounted the chief of the Gipsies in Northamptonshire. Mr. John Forster and Mr. William Carrington, respectable merchants of Biggleswade, and who knew Riley Smith well, corroborated his statements. After Hoyland had published his book no one stepped into the breach, with flag in hand, to take up the cry; and for several years—except the efforts of a clergyman here and there—the interest in the cause of the Gipsies dwindled down, and became gradually and miserably less, and the consequence was the Gipsies have not improved an iota during the three centuries they have been in our midst. As they were, so they are, and likely to remain unless brought under State control.

“On the winds
A voice came murmuring, ‘We must work and wait’;
And every echo in the far-off fen
Took up the utterance: ‘We must work and wait.’
Her spirit felt it, ‘We must work and wait.’”

Harris.

No one heeded the warning. No one listened to the cries of the poor Gipsy children as they glided into eternity. No one put out their hands to save them as they kept disappearing from the gaze of the bystanders, among whom were artificial Christians, statesmen, and philanthropists. All was as still as death, and the poor black wretches passed away.

Whether His Majesty George III. had ever read Grellmann’s or Hoyland’s works on Gipsies has not been shown. The following interesting account will show that royal personages are not deaf to the cries of suffering humanity, be it in a Gipsy’s wigwam, a cottage, or palace. It is taken from a missionary magazine for June, 1823, and in all probability the circumstance took place not many years prior to this date, and is as follows:—“A king of England of happy memory, who loved his people and his God better than kings in general are wont to do, occasionally took the exercise of hunting. Being out one day for this purpose, the chase lay through the shrubs of the forest. The stag had been hard run; and, to escape the dogs, had crossed the river in a deep part. As the dogs could not be brought to follow, it became necessary, in order to come up with it, to make a circuitous route along the banks of the river, through some thick and troublesome underwood. The roughness of the ground, the long grass and frequent thickets, gave opportunity for the sportsmen to separate from each other, each one endeavouring to make the best and speediest route he could. Before they had reached the end of the forest the king’s horse manifested signs of fatigue and uneasiness, so much so that his Majesty resolved upon yielding the pleasures of the chase to those of compassion for his horse. With this view he turned down the first avenue in the forest and determined on riding gently to the oaks, there to wait for some of his attendants. His Majesty had only proceeded a few yards when, instead of the cry of the hounds, he fancied he heard the cry of human distress. As he rode forward he heard it more distinctly. ‘Oh, my mother! my mother! God pity and bless my poor mother!’ The curiosity and kindness of the king led him instantly to the spot. It was a little green plot on one side of the forest, where was spread on the grass, under a branching oak, a little pallet, half covered with a kind of tent, and a basket or two, with some packs, lay on the ground at a few paces distant from the tent. Near to the root of the tree he observed a little swarthy girl, about eight years of age, on her knees, praying, while her little black eyes ran down with tears. Distress of any kind was always relieved by his Majesty, for he had a heart which melted at ‘human woe’; nor was it unaffected on this occasion. And now he inquired, ‘What, my child, is the cause of your weeping? For what do you pray?’ The little creature at first started, then rose from her knees, and pointing to the tent, said, ‘Oh, sir! my dying mother!’ ‘What?’ said his Majesty, dismounting, and fastening his horse up to the branches of the oak, ‘what, my child? tell me all about it.’ The little creature now led the king to the tent; there lay, partly covered, a middle-aged female Gipsy in the last stages of a decline, and in the last moments of life. She turned her dying eyes expressively to the royal visitor, then looked up to heaven; but not a word did she utter; the organs of speech had ceased their office! the silver cord was loosed, and the wheel broken at the cistern. The little girl then wept aloud, and, stooping down, wiped the dying sweat from her mother’s face. The king, much affected, asked the child her name, and of her family; and how long her mother had been ill. Just at that moment another Gipsy girl, much older, came, out of breath, to the spot. She had been at the town of W---, and had brought some medicine for her dying mother. Observing a stranger, she modestly curtsied, and, hastening to her mother, knelt down by her side, kissed her pallid lips, and burst into tears. ‘What, my dear child,’ said his Majesty, ‘can be done for you?’ ‘Oh, sir!’ she replied, ‘my dying mother wanted a religious person to teach her and to pray with her before she died. I ran all the way before it was light this morning to W---, and asked for a minister, but no one could I get to come with me to pray with my dear mother!’ The dying woman seemed sensible of what her daughter was saying, and her countenance was much agitated. The air was again rent with the cries of the distressed daughters. The king, full of kindness, instantly endeavoured to comfort them. He said, ‘I am a minister, and God has sent me to instruct and comfort your mother.’ He then sat down on a pack by the side of the pallet, and, taking the hand of the dying Gipsy, discoursed on the demerit of sin and the nature of redemption. He then pointed her to Christ, the all-sufficient Saviour. While the king was doing this the poor creature seemed to gather consolation and hope; her eyes sparkled with brightness, and her countenance became animated. She looked up; she smiled; but it was the last smile; it was the glimmering of expiring nature. As the expression of peace, however, remained strong in her countenance, it was not till some little time had elapsed that they perceived the struggling spirit had left mortality.

“It was at this moment that some of his Majesty’s attendants, who had missed him at the chase, and who had been riding through the forest in search of him, rode up, and found the king comforting the afflicted Gipsies. It was an affecting sight, and worthy of everlasting record in the annals of kings.

“His Majesty now rose up, put some gold into the hands of the afflicted girls, promised them his protection, and bade them look to heaven. He then wiped the tears from his eyes and mounted his horse. His attendants, greatly affected, stood in silent admiration. Lord L--- was now going to speak, when his Majesty, turning to the Gipsies, and pointing to the breathless corpse, and to the weeping girls, said, with strong emotion, ‘Who, my lord, who, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto these?’”

“Hark! Don’t you hear the rumbling of its wheels?
Nearer it comes and nearer! Oh, what light!
The tent is full; ’tis glory everywhere!
Dear Jesus, I am coming! Then she fell—
As falls a meteor when the skies are clear.”

After this solemn but interesting event nothing further seems to have been done by either Christian or philanthropist towards wiping out this national disgrace, and the Gipsies were left to follow the bent of their evil propensities for several years, till Mr. Crabb’s reading of Hoyland and witnessing the sentence of death passed upon a Gipsy at Winchester, in 1827, for horse-stealing.

Mr. Crabb happened to enter just as the judge was passing sentence of death on two unhappy men. To one he held out the hope of mercy; but to the other, a poor Gipsy, who was convicted of horse-stealing, he said, no hope could be given. The young man, for he was but a youth, immediately fell on his knees, and with uplifted hands and eyes, apparently unconscious of any persons being present but the judge and himself, addressed him as follows: “Oh, my Lord, save my life!” The judge replied, “No; you can have no mercy in this world: I and my brother judges have come to the determination to execute horse-stealers, especially Gipsies, because of the increase of the crime.” The suppliant, still on his knees, entreated—“Do, my Lord Judge, save my life! do, for God’s sake, for my wife’s sake, for my baby’s sake!” “No,” replied the judge, “I cannot; you should have thought of your wife and children before.” He then ordered him to be taken away, and the poor fellow was rudely dragged from his earthly judge. It is hoped, as a penitent sinner, he obtained the more needful mercy of God, through the abounding grace of Christ. After this scene Mr. Crabb could not remain in court. As he returned he found the mournful intelligence had been communicated to some Gipsies who had been waiting without, anxious to learn the fate of their companion. They seemed distracted.

On the outside of the court, seated on the ground, appeared an old woman and a very young one, and with them two children, the eldest three years and the other an infant but fourteen days old. The former sat by its mother’s side, alike unconscious of her bitter agonies and of her father’s despair. The old woman held the infant tenderly in her arms, and endeavoured to comfort its weeping mother, soon to be a widow under circumstances the most melancholy. “My dear, don’t cry,” said she; “remember you have this dear little baby.” Impelled by the sympathies of pity and a sense of duty, Mr. Crabb spoke to them on the evil of sin, and expressed his hope that the melancholy event would prove a warning to them, and to all their people. The poor man was executed about a fortnight after his condemnation.

Mr. Crabb being full of fire and zeal, set to work in right good earnest, and succeeded in forming a committee at Southampton to bring about a reformation among the Gipsies. He also enlisted the sympathy of other earnest Christians in the work, and for a time, while the sun shone, received encouraging signs of success, in fact, according to his little work published in 1831, his labours were attended with blessed results among the adult portion of the Gipsies. Owing to the wandering habits of the Gipsies, discouragements, and his own death, the work, so far as any organisation was concerned, came to an end. No Elisha came forward to catch his mantle, the consequence was the Gipsies were left again to work out their own destruction according to their own inclinations and tastes, as they deemed best, plainly showing that voluntary efforts are very little better than a shadow, vanishing smoke, and spent steam, to illuminate, elevate, warm, cheer, and encourage the wandering, dark-eyed vagabonds roving about in our midst into paths of usefulness, honesty, and sobriety.

Thus far in this part I have feebly endeavoured to show that rigid, stern, inflexible law and justice on the one hand, and meek, quiet, mild, human love and mercy on the other hand, have separately failed in the object the promoters had in view. Justice tried to exterminate the Gipsy; mercy tried to win them over. Of the two processes I would much prefer that of mercy. It is more pleasant to human nature to be under its influence, and more in the character of an Englishman to deal out mercy. The next efforts put forth to reform these renegades was by means of fiction, romance, and poetry. Some writers, in their praiseworthy endeavours to make up a medicine to improve the condition of the Gipsies, have neutralised its effects by adding too much honey and spice to it. Others, who have mistaken the emaciated condition of the Gipsy, have been dosing him with cordials entirely, to such a degree, that he—Romany chal—imagines he is right in everything he says and does, and he ought to have perfect liberty to go anywhere or do anything. Some have attempted to paint him white, and in doing so have worked up the blackness from underneath, and presented to us a character which excites a feeling in our notions—a kind of go-between, akin to sympathy and disgust. Not a few have thrown round the Gipsy an enchanting, bewitching halo, which an inspection has proved nothing less than a delusion and a snare. Others have tried to improve this field of thistles and sour docks by throwing a handful of daisy seeds among them. It requires something more than a phantom life-boat to rescue the Gipsy and bring him to land. Scents and perfumes in a death-bed chamber only last for a short time. A bottle of rose-water thrown into a room where decomposition is at work upon a body will not restore life. Scattering flowers upon a cesspool of iniquity will not purify it. A fictitious rope composed of beautiful ideas is not the thing to save drowning Gipsy children. To put artificially-coloured feathers upon the head of a Gipsy child dressed in rags and shreds, with his body literally teeming with vermin and filth, will not make him presentable at court or a fit subject for a drawing-room. To dress the Satanic, demon-looking face of a Gipsy with the violet-powder of imagery only temporally hides from view the repulsive aspect of his features. The first storm of persecution brings him out again in his true colour. The forked light of imagination thrown across the heavens on a dark night is not the best to reveal the character of a Gipsy and set him upon the highways for usefulness and heaven. The dramatist has strutted the Gipsy across the stage in various characters in his endeavour to improve his condition. After the fine colours have been doffed, music finished, applause ceased, curtain dropped, and scene ended, he has been a black, swarthy, idle, thieving, lying, blackguard of a Gipsy still. Applause, fine colours, and dazzling lights have not altered his nature. Bad he is, and bad he will remain, unless we follow out the advice of the good old book, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”

Would to God the voice of the little Gipsy girl would begin to ring in our ears, when she spoke with finger pointed and tears in her eyes:—

“There is a cabin half-way down the cliff,
You see it from this arch-stone; there we live,
And there you’ll find my mother. Poverty
Weeps on the woven rushes, and long grass
Rent from the hollows is our only bed.
I have no father here; he ran away;
Perhaps he’s dead, perhaps he’s living yet,
And may come back again and kiss his child;
For every day, and morn, and even star,
I pray for him with face upturned to heaven,
‘O blessed Saviour, send my father home!’”

The word “Gipsy” seems to have a magic thread running through it, beginning at the tip end of “G” and ending with the tail end of “y.” Geese have tried to gobble it, ducks swallow it, hens scratched after it, peacocks pecked it, dandy cocks crowed over it, foxes have hid it, dogs have fought for it, cats have sworn and spit over it, pigs have tried to gulp it as the daintiest morsel, parrots have chatted about it, hawks, eagles, jackdaws, magpies, ravens, and crows have tried to carry it away as a precious jewel, and in the end all have put it down as a thing they could neither carry nor swallow; and after all, when it has been stripped of its dowdy colours, what has it been? Only a “scamp,” in many cases, reared and fostered among thieves, pickpockets, and blackguards, in our back slums and sink gutters. Strip the 20,000 men, women, and children of the word “Gipsy,” moving about our country under the artificial and unreal association connected with Gipsy life, so-called, of the “red cloaks,” “silver buttons,” “pretty little feet,” “small hands,” “bewitching eyes,” “long black hair,” in nine cases out of ten in name only, and you, at a glance, see the class of people you have been neglecting, consequently sending to ruin and misery through fear on the one hand and lavishing smiles on the other.

In all ages there have been people silly enough to be led away by sights, sounds, colours, and unrealities, to follow a course of life for which they are not suited, either by education, position, or tastes. No one acts the part of a butterfly among school-boys better than the black-eyed Gipsy girl has done among “fast-goers,” swells, and fops. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred she has trotted them out to perfection and then left them in the lurch, and those, when they have come to their senses, and had their eyes opened to the stern facts of a Gipsy’s life, have said to themselves, “What fools we have been, to be sure,” and they would have given any amount to have undone the past. The praise, flattery, and looks bestowed upon the “bewitching deceivers,” when they have been labouring under the sense of infatuation and fascination instead of reason, has made them in the presence of friends hang down their heads like a willow, and to escape, if possible, the company of their “old chums” by all sorts of manoeuvres. Hubert Petalengro—a gentleman, and a rich member of a long family—conceived the idea, after falling madly in love with a dark-eyed beauty, so-called, of turning Gipsy and tasting for himself—not in fiction and romance—the charms of tent life, as he thought, in reality passing through the “first,” “second,” and “third degrees.” At first, it was ideal and fascinating enough in all conscience; it was a pity Brother Petalengro did not have a foretaste of it by spending a month in a Gipsy’s tent in the depth of winter, with no balance at his banker’s, and compelled to wear Gipsy clothing, and make pegs and skewers for his Sunday broth; gather sticks for the fire, and sleep on damp straw in the midst of slush and snow, and peeping through the ragged tent roof at the moon as he lay on his back, surrounded by Gipsies of both sexes, of all ages and sizes, cursing each other under the maddening influence of brandy and disappointment. To make himself and his damsel comfortable on a Gipsy tour he fills his pocket with gold, flask with brandy, buys a quantity of rugs upon which are a number of foxes’ heads—and I suppose tails too—waterproof covering for the tent, and waterproof sheets and a number of blankets to lay on the damp grass to prevent their tender bodies being overtaken with rheumatics, and he also lays in a stock of potted meats and other dainties; makes all “square” with Esmeralda and her two brothers and the donkeys; takes first and second-class tickets for the whole of them to Hull—the Balaams excepted (it is not on record that they spoke to him on his journey); provides Esmeralda with dresses and petticoats—not too long to hide her pretty ankles, red stockings, and her lovely little foot—gold and diamond rings, violin, tambourine, the guitar, Wellington boots, and starts upon his trip to Norway in the midst of summer beauty. Many times he must have said to himself, “Oh! how delightful.” “As we journeyed onward, how fragrant the wild flowers—those wild flowers can never be forgotten. Gipsies like flowers, it is part of their nature. Esmeralda would pluck them, and forming a charming bouquet, interspersed with beautiful wild roses, her first thoughts are to pin them in the button-hole of the Romany Rye (Gipsy gentleman). As we journeyed quietly through the forest, how delightful its scenes. Free from all care, we enjoy the anticipation of a long and pleasant ramble in Norway’s happy land. We felt contented with all things, and thankful that we should be so permitted to roam with our tents and wild children of nature in keeping the solitudes we sought. The rain had soon ceased, tinkle, tinkle went the hawk-bells on the collar of our Bura Rawnee as she led the way along the romantic Norwegian road.

A Respectable Gipsy and his Family “on the Road”

“‘Give the snakes and toads a twist,
And banish them for ever,’

sang Zachariah, ever and anon giving similar wild snatches. Then Esmeralda would rocker about being the wife of the Romany Rye (Gipsy gentleman) and as she proudly paced along in her heavy boots, she pictured in imagery the pleasant life she should lead as her Romany Rye’s joovel, monshi, or somi. She was full of fun, yet there was nothing in her fanciful delineations which could offend us. They were but the foam of a crested wave, soon dissipated in the air. They were the evanescent creations of a lively, open-hearted girl—wild notes trilled by the bird of the forest. We came again into the open valley. Down a meadow gushed a small streamlet which splashed from a wooden spout on to the roadside.” “The spot where we pitched our tents was near a sort of small natural terrace, at the summit of a steep slope above the road, backed by a mossy bank, shaded by brushwood and skirting the dense foliage of the dark forest of pine and fir, above our camp.” “We gave two of the peasants some brandy and tobacco.” “Then all our visitors left, except four interesting young peasant girls, who still lingered.” “They had all pleasant voices.” “We listened to them with much pleasure; there was so much sweetness and feeling in their melody. Zachariah made up for his brother’s timidity. Full of fun, what dreadful faces the young Gipsy would pull, they were absolutely frightful; then he would twist and turn his body into all sorts of serpentine contortions. If spoken to he would suddenly, with a hop, skip, and a jump alight in his tent as if he had tumbled from the sky, and, sitting bolt upright, make a hideous face till his mouth nearly stretched from ear to ear, while his dark eyes sparkled with wild excitement, he would sing—

“‘Dawdy! Dawdy! dit a kei
Rockerony, fake your bosh!’

“At one time a woman brought an exceedingly fat child for us to look at, and she wanted Esmeralda to suckle it, which was, of course, hastily declined. We began to ask ourselves if this was forest seclusion. Still our visitors were kind, good-humoured people, and some drank our brandy, and some smoked our English tobacco. After our tea, at five o’clock, we had a pleasant stroll. Once more we were with Nature. There we lingered till the scenes round us, in their vivid beauty, seemed graven deep in our thought. How graphic are the lines of Moore:—

“‘The turf shall be my fragrant shrine,
My temple, Lord, that arch of Thine,
My censor’s breath the mountain airs,
And silent thoughts my only prayers.

“‘My choir shall be the moonlight waves,
When murm’ring homeward to their caves,
Or when the stillness of the sea
Even more of music breathes of Thee!’

How appropriate were the words of the great poet to our feelings. We went and sat down.” “As we were seated by our camp fire, a tall, old man, looking round our tents, came and stood contemplating us at our tea. He looked as if he thought we were enjoying a life of happiness. Nor was he wrong. He viewed us with a pleased and kindly expression, as he seemed half lost in contemplation. We sent for the flask of brandy. Returning to our tents we put on our Napoleon boots and made some additions to our toilette.” Of course, kind Mr. Petalengro would assist lovely Esmeralda with hers. “Whilst we were engaged some women came to our tents. The curiosity of the sex was exemplified, for they were dying to look behind the tent partition which screened us from observation. We did not know what they expected to see; one, bolder than the rest, could not resist the desire to look behind the scenes, and hastily drew back and dropped the curtain, when we said rather sharply, ‘Nei! nei!’ Esmeralda shortly afterwards appeared in her blue dress and silver buttons. Then we all seated ourselves on a mossy bank, on the side of the terrace, with a charming view across the valley of the Logan. At eight o’clock the music commenced. The sun shone beautifully, and the mosquitoes and midges bit right and left with hungry determination. We sat in a line on the soft mossy turf of the grassy slope, sheltered by foliage. Esmeralda and Noah with their tambourines, myself with the castanets, and Zachariah with his violin. Some peasant women and girls came up after we had played a short time. It was a curious scene. Our tents were pleasantly situated on an open patch of green sward, surrounded by border thickets, near the sunny bank and the small flat terrace. The rising hills and rugged ravines on the other side of the valley all gave a singular and romantic beauty to the lovely view. Although our Gipsies played with much spirit until nine o’clock, none of the peasants would dance. At nine o’clock our music ceased, and we all retired to our tents with the intention of going to bed. When we were going into our tents, a peasant and several others with him, who had just arrived, asked us to play again. At length, observing several peasant girls were much disappointed, we decided to play once more. It was past nine o’clock when we again took up our position on the mossy bank; so we danced, and the peasant girls, until nearly ten o’clock. Once we nearly whirled ourself and Esmeralda over the slope into the road below. Esmeralda’s dark eyes flashed fire and sparkled with merriment and witchery.”

“The bacon and fish at dinner were excellent; we hardly knew which was best. A peasant boy brought us a bundle of sticks for our fire. The sun became exceedingly hot. Esmeralda and myself went and sat in some shade near our tents.” “Noah stood in the shade blacking his boots, and observed to Esmeralda, ‘I shall not help my wife as Mr. Petalengro does you.’ ‘Well,’ said Esmeralda, ‘what is a wife for?’ ‘For!’ retorted Noah, sharply, giving his boot an extra brush, ‘why, to wait upon her husband.’ ‘And what,’ said Esmeralda, ‘is a husband for?’ ‘What’s a husband for!’ exclaimed Noah, with a look of profound pity for his sister’s ignorance, ‘why, to eat and drink, and look on.’” Mr. Petalengro goes on to say: “It would seem to us that the more rude energy a man has in his composition the more a woman will be made to take her position as helpmate. It is always a mark of great civilisation and the effeminacy of a people when women obtain the undue mastery of men.” And he farther goes on to say: “We were just having a romp with Esmeralda and her two brothers as we were packing up our things, and a merry laugh, when some men appeared at the fence near our camping-ground. We little think,” says Mr. Petalengro, “how much we can do in this world to lighten a lonely wayfarer’s heart.”

A Bachelor Gipsy’s Bedroom

Esmeralda and Mr. Petalengro tell each other their fortunes. “Esmeralda and myself were sitting in our tents. Then the thought occurred to her that we should tell her fortune. ‘Your fortune must be a good one,’ said we, laughing; ‘let me see your hand and your lines of life.’ We shall never forget Esmeralda. She looked so earnestly as we regarded attentively the line of her open hand.” (Mr. Petalengro does not say that tears were to be seen trickling down those lovely cheeks of Esmeralda while this fortune-telling, nonsensical farce was being played out.) “Then we took her step by step through some scenes of her supposed future. We did not tell all. The rest was reserved for another day. There was a serious look on her countenance as we ended; but, reader, such secrets should not be revealed. Esmeralda commenced to tell our fortunes. We were interested to know what she would say. We cast ourselves on the waves of fate. The Gipsy raised her dark eyes from our hand as she looked earnestly in the face. You are a young gentleman of good connections. Many lands you have seen. But, young man, something tells me you are of a wavering disposition.’” And then charming Esmeralda would strike up “The Little Gipsy”—

“My father’s the King of the Gipsies, that’s true,
My mother she learned me some camping to do;
With a packel on my back, and they all wish me well,
I started up to London some fortunes for to tell.

“As I was a walking up fair London streets,
Two handsome young squires I chanced for to meet,
They viewed my brown cheeks, and they liked them so well,
They said ‘My little Gipsy girl, can you my fortune tell?’

“‘Oh yes! kind Sir, give me hold of your hand,
For you have got honours, both riches and land;
Of all the pretty maidens you must lay aside,
For it is the little Gipsy girl that is to be your bride.’

“He led me o’er the Mils, through valleys deep I’m sure,
Where I’d servants for to wait on me, and open me the door;
A rich bed of down to lay my head upon—
In less than nine months after I could his fortune tell.

“Once I was a Gipsy girl, but now a squire’s bride,
I’ve servants for to wait on me, and in my carriage ride.
The bells shall ring so merrily, sweet music they shall play,
And will crown the glad tidings of that lucky, lucky day.”

The drawback to this evening’s whirligig farce was that the mosquitoes determined to come in for a share. These little, nipping, biting creatures preferred settling upon young blood, full of life and activity, existing under artificial circumstances, to the carcase of a dead horse lying in the knacker’s yard. To prevent these little stingers drawing the sap of life from the sweet bodies of these pretty, innocent, lovable creatures, the Gipsies acted a very cruel part in dressing their faces over with a brown liquid, called the “tincture of cedar.” It is not stated whether the “tincture of cedar “was made in Shropshire or Lebanon, nor whether it was extracted from roses, or a decoction of thistles. Alas, alas! how fickle human life is! How often we say and do things in jest and fun which turn out to be stern realities in another form.

“As we looked upon the church and parsonage, surrounded as they were by the modern park, with the broad silver lake near, the rising mountains on all sides, and the clear blue sky above, our senses seemed entranced with the passing beauty of the scene. It was one of those glimpses of perfect nature which casts the anchor deep in memory, and leaves a lasting impression of bygone days.” And then Esmeralda danced as she sang the words of her song; the words not in English are her own, for I cannot find them even in the slang Romany, and what she meant by her bosh is only known to herself.

“Shula gang shaugh gig a magala,
I’ll set me down on yonder hill;
And there I’ll cry my fill,
And every tear shall turn a mill.
Shula gang shaugh gig a magala
To my Uskadina slawn slawn.

“Shula gang shaugh gig a magala,
I’ll buy me a petticoat and dye it red,
And round this world I’ll beg my bread;
The lad I love is far away.
Shula gang shaugh gig a magala
To my Uskadina slawn slawn.

“Shul shul gang along with me,
Gang along me, I’ll gang along with you,
I’ll buy you a petticoat and dye it in the blue,
Sweet William shall kiss you in the rue.
Shula gang shaugh gig a magala
To my Uskadina slawn slawn.”

“We were supremely happy,” says Mr. Petalengro, “in our wandering existence. We contrasted in our semi-consciousness of mind our absence from a thousand anxious cares which crowd upon the social position of those who take part in an overwrought state of extreme civilisation. How long we should have continued our half-dormant reflections which might have added a few more notes upon the philosophy of life, we knew not, but we were roused by the rumble of a stolk-jaerre along the road.”

“For the dance no music can be better than that of a Gipsy band; there is life and animation in it which carries you away. If you have danced to it yourself, especially in a czardas, [176] then to hear the stirring tones without involuntarily springing up is, I assert, an absolute impossibility.” Poor, deluded mortals, I am afraid they will find—

“Nothing but leaves!
Sad memory weaves
No veil to hide the past;
And as we trace our weary way,
Counting each lost and misspent day,
Sadly we find at last,
Nothing but leaves!”

The converse of all this artificial and misleading Gipsy life is to be seen in hard fate and fact at our own doors—“Look on this picture and then on that.”

“There is a land, a sunny land,
Whose skies are ever bright;
Where evening shadows never fall:
The Saviour is its light.”

“There’s a land that is fairer than day,
And by faith we can see it afar;
For the Father waits over the way
To prepare us a dwelling-place there
In the sweet by-and-bye.”

George Borrow, during his labours among the Gipsies of Spain forty years ago, did not find much occasion for rollicking fun, merriment, and boisterous laughter; his path was not one of roses, over mossy banks, among the honeysuckles and daisies, by the side of running rivulets warbling over the smooth pebbles; sitting among the primroses, listening to the enchanting voices of the thousand forest and valley songsters; gazing at the various and beautiful kinds of foliage on the hill-sides as the thrilling strains of music pealed forth from the sweet voice of Esmeralda and her tambourine. No, no, no! George Borrow had to face the hard lot of all those who start on the path of usefulness, honour, and heaven. Hard fare, disappointment, opposition, few friends, life in danger, his path was rough and covered with stones; his flowers were thistles, his songs attended with tears, and sorrow filled his heart. But note his object, and mark his end. In speaking of some of the difficulties in his travels, he says:—“My time lay heavily on my hands, my only source of amusement consisting in the conversation of the woman telling of the wonderful tales of the land of the Moors—prison escapes, thievish feats, and one or two poisoning adventures in which she had been engaged. There was something very wild in her gestures. She goggled frightfully with her eyes.” And then speaking of the old Gipsy woman whom he went to see:—“Here, thrusting her hand into her pocket, she discharged a handful of some kind of dust or snuff into the fellow’s face. He stamped and roared, but was for some time held fast by the two Gipsy men; he extricated himself, however, and attempted to unsheath a knife which he wore in his girdle; but the two young Gipsies flung themselves upon him like furies.”

Borrow says, after travelling a long distance by night, and setting out again the next morning to travel thirteen leagues:—“Throughout the day a drizzling rain was falling, which turned the dust of the roads into mud and mire. Towards evening we reached a moor—a wild place enough, strewn with enormous stones and rocks. The wind had ceased, but a strong wind rose and howled at our backs. The sun went down, and dark night presently came over us. We proceeded for nearly three hours, until we heard the barking of dogs, and perceived a light or two in the distance. ‘That is Trujillo,’ said Antonio, who had not spoken for a long time. ‘I am glad of it,’ I replied; ‘I am so thoroughly tired, I shall sleep soundly in Trujillo.’ That is as it may be. We soon entered the town, which appeared dark and gloomy enough. I followed close behind the Gipsy, who led the way, I knew not whither, through dismal streets and dark places where cats were squalling. ‘Here is the house,’ said he at last, dismounting before a low, mean hut. He knocked, but no answer. He knocked again, but no answer. ‘There can be no difficulty,’ said I, ‘with respect to what we have to do. If your friends are gone out, it is easy enough to go to a posada.’ ‘You know not what you say,’ replied the Gipsy. ‘I dare not go to the mesuna, nor enter any house in Trujillo save this, and this is shut. Well, there is no remedy; we must move on; and, between ourselves, the sooner we leave the place the better. My own brother was garroted at Trujillo.’ He lighted a cigar by means of a steel and yesca, sprung on his mule, and proceeded through streets and lanes equally dismal as those through which we had already travelled.” Mr. Borrow goes on to say:—“I confess I did not much like this decision of the Gipsy; I felt very slight inclination to leave the town behind, and to venture into unknown places in the dark of the night, amidst rain and mist—for the wind had now dropped, and the rain again began to fall briskly. I was, moreover, much fatigued, and wished for nothing better than to deposit myself in some comfortable manger, where I might sink to sleep lulled by the pleasant sound of horses and mules despatching their provender. I had, however, put myself under the direction of the Gipsy, and I was too old a traveller to quarrel with my guide under present circumstances. I therefore followed close to his crupper, our only light being the glow emitted from the Gipsy’s cigar. At last he flung it from his mouth into a puddle, and we were then in darkness. We proceeded in this manner for a long time. The Gipsy was silent. I myself was equally so. The rain descended more and more. I sometimes thought I heard doleful noises, something like the hooting of owls. ‘This is a strange night to be wandering abroad in,’ I at length said to Antonio, the Gipsy. (The Gipsy word for Antonio is ‘Devil.’) ‘It is, brother,’ said the Gipsy; ‘but I would sooner be abroad in such a night, and in such places, than in the estaripel of Trujillo.’

“We wandered at least a league further, and now appeared to be near a wood, for I could occasionally distinguish the trunks of immense trees. Suddenly Antonio stopped his mule. ‘Look, brother,’ said he, ‘to the left, and tell me if you do not see a light; your eyes are sharper than mine.’ I did as he commanded me. At first I could see nothing, but, moving a little further on, I plainly saw a large light at some distance, seemingly amongst the trees. ‘Yonder cannot be a lamp or candle,’ said I; ‘it is more like the blaze of a fire.’ ‘Very likely,’ said Antonio. ‘There are no queres (houses) in this place; it is doubtless a fire made by durotunes (shepherds); let us go and join them, for, as you say, it is doleful work wandering about at night amidst rain and mire.’

“We dismounted and entered what I now saw was a forest, leading the animals cautiously amongst the trees and brushwood. In about five minutes we reached a small open space, at the farther side of which, at the foot of a large cork-tree, a fire was burning, and by it stood or sat two or three figures. They had heard our approach, and one of them now exclaimed, ‘Quien Vive?’ ‘I know that voice,’ said Antonio, and, leaving the horse with me, rapidly advanced towards the fire. Presently I heard an ‘Ola!’ and a laugh, and soon the voice of Antonio summoned me to advance. On reaching the fire, I found two dark lads, and a still darker woman of about forty, the latter seated on what appeared to be horse or mule furniture. I likewise saw a horse and two donkeys tethered to the neighbouring trees. It was, in fact, a Gipsy bivouac . . . ‘Come forward, brother, and show yourself,’ said Antonio to me; ‘you are amongst friends; these are of the Errate, the very people whom I expected to find at Trujillo, and in whose house we should have slept.’

“‘And what,’ said I, ‘could have induced them to leave their house in Trujillo and come into this dark forest, in the midst of wind and rain, to pass the night?’

“‘They come on business of Egypt, brother, doubtless,’ replied Antonio, ‘and that business is none of ours. Calla boca! It is lucky we have found them here, else we should have had no supper, and our horses no corn.’

“‘My ro is prisoner at the village yonder,’ said the woman, pointing with her hand in a particular direction; ‘he is prisoner yonder for choring a mailla (stealing a donkey); we are come to see what we can do in his behalf; and where can we lodge better than in this forest, where there is nothing to pay? It is not the first time, I trow, that CalorÉ have slept at the root of a tree.’

“One of the striplings now gave us barley for our animals in a large bag, into which we successively introduced their heads, allowing the famished creatures to regale themselves till we conceived that they had satisfied their hunger. There was a puchero simmering at the fire, half-fall of bacon, garbanzos, and other provisions; this was emptied into a large wooden platter, and out of this Antonio and myself supped; the other Gipsies refused to join us, giving us to understand that they had eaten before our arrival; they all, however, did justice to the leathern bottle of Antonio, which, before his departure from Merida, he had the precaution to fill.

“I was by this time completely overcome with fatigue and sleep. Antonio flung me an immense horse-cloth, of which he bore more than one beneath the huge cushion on which he rode. In this I wrapped myself, and placing my head upon a bundle, and my feet as near as possible to the fire, I lay down.”

How delightful and soul-inspiring it would have been to the weary pilgrim, jaded in the cause of the poor Gipsies, if Antonio’s heart had been full of religious zeal and fervour, and Hubert Petalengro and Esmeralda, their souls filled to overflowing with the love of God, had been by the side of the camp-fire, and the trio had struck up with their sweet voices, as the good man was drawing his weary legs and cold feet together before the embers of the dying Gipsy fire—

“Guide me, O thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land;
I am weak, but Thou art mighty,
Hold me with Thy powerful hand.
Bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more.

“Open now the crystal fountain
Whence the healing waters flow;
Let the fiery, cloudy pillars,
Lead me all my journey through.
Strong Deliverer, be Thou still my strength and shield.”

“Antonio and the other Gipsies remained seated by the fire conversing. I listened for a moment to what they said, but I did not perfectly understand it, and what I did understand by no means interested me. The rain still drizzled, but I heeded it not, and was soon asleep.

“The sun was just appearing as I awoke. I made several efforts before I could rise from the ground; my limbs were quite stiff, and my hair was covered with rime, for the rain had ceased, and a rather severe frost set in. I looked around me, but could see neither Antonio nor the Gipsies; the animals of the latter had likewise disappeared, so had the horse which I had hitherto rode; the mule, however, of Antonio still remained fastened to the tree. The latter circumstance quieted some apprehensions which were beginning to arise in my mind. ‘They are gone on some business of Egypt,’ I said to myself, ‘and will return anon.’ I gathered together the embers of the fire, and heaping upon them sticks and branches, soon succeeded in calling forth a blaze, beside which I again placed the puchero, with what remained of the provision of last night. I waited for a considerable time in expectation of the return of my companions, but as they did not appear, I sat down and breakfasted. Before I had well finished I heard the noise of a horse approaching rapidly, and presently Antonio made his appearance amongst the trees, with some agitation in his countenance. He sprang from the horse, and instantly proceeded to untie the mule. ‘Mount, brother, mount!’ said he, pointing to the horse; ‘I went with the Callee and her chabÉs to the village where the ro is in trouble; the chino-baro, however, seized them at once with their cattle, and would have laid hands also on me; but I set spurs to the grasti, gave him the bridle, and was soon far away. Mount, brother, mount, or we shall have the whole rustic canaille upon us in a twinkling—it is such a bad place.’”

I almost imagine Borrow would have said, under the circumstances, as he was putting his foot into the stirrup to mount his horse to fly for his life into the wild regions of an unknown country:—

“Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to Thy bosom fly;
While the nearer waters roll,
While the tempest still is high.
Hide me, O my Saviour, hide,
Till the storm of life is past,
Safe into the haven guide,
Oh, receive my soul at last.

“Other refuge have I none,
Hangs my helpless soul on Thee,
Leave, O leave me not alone,
Still support and comfort me.
All my trust on Thee is stayed,
All my help from Thee I bring,
Cover my defenceless head,
With the shadow of Thy wing.”

Sir Walter Scott, in “Guy Mannering,” speaking of the dark deeds of the Gipsies, says:—“The idea of being dragged out of his miserable concealment by wretches whose trade was that of midnight murder, without weapons or the slightest means of defence, except entreaties which would be only their sport, and cries for help which could never reach other ear than their own—his safety intrusted to the precarious compassion of a being associated with these felons, and whose trade of rapine and imposture must have hardened her against every human feeling—the bitterness of his emotions almost choked him. He endeavoured to read in her withered and dark countenance, as the lamp threw its light upon her features, something that promised those feelings of compassion which females, even in their most degraded state, can seldom altogether smother. There was no such touch of humanity about this woman.”

“‘Never fear,’ said the old Gipsy man, ‘Meg’s true-bred; she’s the last in the gang that will start; but she has some queer ways, and often cuts queer words.’ With more of this gibberish, they continued the conversation, rendering it thus, even to each other, a dark, obscure dialect, eked out by significant nods and signs, but never expressing distinctly or in plain language the subject on which it turned.”

G. P. Whyte-Melville speaks of the Russian Gipsies in the language of fiction in his “Interpreter” as follows:—“The morning sun smiles upon a motley troop journeying towards the Danube. Two or three lithe, supple urchins, bounding and dancing along with half-naked bodies, and bright black eyes shining through knotted elf-locks, form the advanced guard. Half-a-dozen donkeys seem to carry the whole property of the tribe. The main body consists of sinewy, active-looking men, and strikingly handsome girls, all walking with the free, graceful air and elastic gait peculiar to those whose lives are passed entirely in active exercise, under no roof but that of heaven. Dark-browed women in the very meridian of beauty bring up the rear, dragging or carrying a race of swarthy progeny, all alike distinguished for the sparkling eyes and raven hair, which, with a cunning nothing can overreach, and a nature nothing can tame, seem to be the peculiar inheritance of the Gipsy. Their costume is striking, not to say grotesque. Some of the girls, and all the matrons, bind their brows with various coloured handkerchiefs, which form a very picturesque and not unbecoming head-gear; whilst in a few instances coins even of gold are strung amongst the jetty locks of the Zingyni beauties. The men are not so particular in their attire. One sinewy fellow wears only a goatskin shirt and a string of beads round his neck, but the generality are clad in the coarse cloth of the country, much tattered, and bearing evident symptoms of weather and wear. The little mischievous urchins who are clinging round their mothers’ necks, or dragging back from their mothers’ hands, and holding on to their mothers’ skirts, are almost naked. Small heads and hands and feet, all the marks of what we are accustomed to term high birth, are hereditary among the Gipsies; and we doubt if the Queen of the South herself was a more queenly-looking personage than the dame now marching in the midst of the throng, and conversing earnestly with her companion, a resolute-looking man scarce entering upon the prime of life, with a Gipsy complexion, but a bearing in which it is not difficult to recognise the soldier. He is talking to his protectress—for such she is—with a military frankness and vivacity, which even to that royal personage, accustomed though she be to exact all the respect due to her rank, appear by no means displeasing. The lady is verging on the autumn of her charms (their summer must have been scorching indeed!), and though a masculine beauty, is a beauty nevertheless. Black-browed is she, and deep-coloured, with eyes of fire, and locks of jet, even now untinged with grey. Straight and regular are her features, and the wide mouth, with its strong, even dazzling teeth, betokens an energy and force of will which would do credit to the other sex. She has the face of a woman that would dare much, labour much, everything but love much. She ought to be a queen, and she is one, none the less despotic for ruling over a tribe of Gipsies instead of a civilised community . . .

“‘Every Gipsy can tell fortunes; mine has been told many a time, but it never came true.’

“She was studying the lines on his palm with earnest attention. She raised her dark eyes angrily to his face.

“‘Blind! blind!’ she answered, in a low, eager tone. ‘The best of you cannot see a yard upon your way. Look at that white road, winding and winding many a mile before us upon the plain. Because it is flat and soft and smooth as far as we can see, will there be no hills on our journey, no rocks to cut our feet, no thorns to tear our limbs? Can you see the Danube rolling on far, far before us? Can you see the river you will have to cross some day, or can you tell me where it leads? I have the map of our journey here in my brain; I have the map of your career here on your hand. Once more I say, when the chiefs are in council, and the hosts are melting like snow before the sun, and the earth quakes, and the heavens are filled with thunder, and the shower that falls scorches and crushes and blasts—remember me! I follow the line of wealth: Man of gold! spoil on; here a horse, there a diamond; hundreds to uphold the right, thousands to spare the wrong; both hands full, and broad lands near a city of palaces, and a king’s favour, and a nation of slaves beneath thy foot. I follow the line of pleasure: costly amber; rich embroidery; dark eyes melting for the Croat; glances unveiled for the shaven head, many and loving and beautiful; a garland of roses, all for one—rose by rose plucked and withered and thrown away; one tender bud remaining; cherish it till it blows, and wear it till it dies. I follow the line of blood:—it leads towards the rising sun—charging squadrons with lances in rest, and a wild shout in a strange tongue; and the dead wrapped in grey, with charm and amulet that were powerless to save; and hosts of many nations gathered by the sea—pestilence, famine, despair, and victory. Rising on the whirlwind, chief among chiefs, the honoured of leaders, the counsellor of princes—remember me! But ha! the line is crossed. Beware! trust not the sons of the adopted land; when the lily is on thy breast, beware of the dusky shadow on the wall! beware, and remember me!’ . . .

“I proffered my hand readily to the Gipsy, and crossed it with one of the two pieces of silver which constituted the whole of my worldly wealth. The Gipsy laughed, and began to prophesy in German. There are some events a child never forgets; and I remember every word she said as well as if it had been spoken yesterday.

“‘Over the sea, and again over the sea; thou shalt know grief and hardship and losses, and the dove shall be driven from its nest. And the dove’s heart shall become like the eagle’s, that flies alone, and fleshes her beak in the slain. Beat on, though the poor wings be bruised by the tempest, and the breast be sore, and the heart sink; beat on against the wind, and seek no shelter till thou find thy resting-place at last. The time will come—only beat on.’

“The woman laughed as she spoke; but there was a kindly tone in her voice and a pitying look in her bright eyes that went straight to my heart. Many a time since, in life, when the storm has indeed been boisterous and the wings so weary, have I thought of those words of encouragement, ‘The time will come—beat on.’ . . .

“‘Thou shalt be a “De Rohan,” my darling, and I can promise thee no brighter lot—broad acres, and blessings from the poor, and horses, and wealth, and honours. And the sword shall spare thee, and the battle turn aside to let thee pass. And thou shalt wed a fair bride with dark eyes and a queenly brow; but beware of St. Hubert’s Day. Birth and burial, birth and burial—beware of St. Hubert’s Day.’”

Disraeli, speaking of the Gipsies in his “Venetia,” says:—“As Cadurcis approached he observed some low tents, and in a few minutes he was in the centre of an encampment of Gipsies. He was for a moment somewhat dismayed, for he had been brought up with the usual terror of these wild people; nevertheless he was not unequal to the occasion. He was surrounded in an instant, but only with women and children, for Gipsy men never immediately appear. They smiled with their bright eyes, and the flashes of the watch-fire threw a lurid glare over their dark and flashing countenances; they held out their practised hands; they uttered unintelligible, but not unfriendly sounds.”

Matilda Betham Edwards, in her remarks upon Gipsies, says:—“Your pulses are quickened to Gipsy pitch, you are ready to make love or war, to heal and slay, to wander to the world’s end, to be outlawed and hunted down, to dare and do anything for the sake of the sweet, untramelled life of the tent, the bright blue sky, the mountain air, the free savagedom, the joyous dance, the passionate friendship, the fiery love.”

I come now to notice what a few of the poets have said about these ignorant, nomadic tribes, who have been skulking and flitting about in our midst, since the days of Borrow, Roberts, Hoyland, and Crabb—a period of over forty years.

“He grows, like the young oak, healthy and broad,
With no home but the forest, no bed but the sward;
Half-naked he wades in the limpid stream,
Or dances about in the scorching beam.
The dazzling glare of the banquet sheen
Hath never fallen on him I ween,
But fragments are spread, and the wood pine piled,
And sweet is the meal of the Gipsy child.”—Eliza Cook.

“The Gipsy eye, bright as the star
That sends its light from heaven afar,
Wild with the strains of thy guitar,
This heart with rapture fill.
Then, maiden fair, beneath this star,
Come, touch me with the light guitar.
Thy brow unworked by lines of care,
Decked with locks of raven hair,
Seems ever beautiful and fair
At moonlight’s stilly hour.
What bliss! beside the leafy maze,
Illumined by the moon’s pale rays,
On thy sweet face to sit and gaze,
Thou wild, uncultured flower.
Then, maiden fair, beneath this star,
Come, touch me with the light guitar.”

Hubert Smith: “Tent Life in Norway.”

“From every place condemned to roam,
In every place we seek a home;
These branches form our summer roof,
By thick grown leaves made weather-proof;
In shelt’ring nooks and hollow ways,
We cheerily pass our winter days.
Come circle round the Gipsy’s fire,
Come circle round the Gipsy’s fire,
Our songs, our stories never tire,
Our songs, our stories never tire.”—Reeve.

“Where is the little Gipsy’s home?
Under the spreading greenwood tree,
Wherever she may roam,
Wherever that tree may be.
Roaming the world o’er,
Crossing the deep blue sea,
She finds on every shore,
A home among the free,
A home among the free,
Ah, voilÀ la Gitana, voilÀ la Gitana.”—Halliday.

“He checked his steed, and sighed to mark
Her coral lips, her eyes so dark,
And stately bearing—as she had been
Bred up in courts, and born a queen.
Again he came, and again he came,
Each day with a warmer, a wilder flame,
And still again—till sleep by night
For Judith’s sake fled his pillow quite.”—Delta.

“A race that lives on prey, as foxes do,
With stealthy, petty rapine; so despised,
It is not persecuted, only spurned,
Crushed under foot, warred on by chance like rats,
Or swarming flies, or reptiles of the sea,
Dragged in the net unsought and flung far off,
To perish as they may.”

George Eliot: “The Spanish Gipsies,” 1865.

“Help me wonder, here’s a booke,
Where I would for ever looke.
Never did a Gipsy trace
Smoother lines in hands or face;
Venus here doth Saturne move
That you should be the Queene of Love.”

Ben Jonson.

“Fond dreamer, pause! why floats the silvery breath
Of thin, light smoke from yonder bank of heath?
What forms are those beneath the shaggy trees,
In tattered tent, scarce sheltered from the breeze;
The hoary father and the ancient dame,
The squalid children, cowering o’er the flame?
Those were not born by English hearths to dwell,
Or heed the carols of the village bell;
Those swarthy lineaments, that wild attire,
Those stranger tones, bespeak an eastern sire;
Bid us in home’s most favoured precincts trace
The houseless children of a homeless race;
And as in warning vision seem to show
That man’s best joys are drowned by shades of woe.

“Pilgrims of Earth, who hath not owned the spell
That ever seems around your tents to dwell;
Solemn and thrilling as the nameless dread
That guards the chambers of the silent dead!
The sportive child, if near your camp he stray,
Stands tranced with fear, and heeds no more his play;
To gain your magic aid, the love-sick swain,
With hasty footsteps threads the dusky lane;
The passing traveller lingers, half in sport,
And half in awe beside your savage court,
While the weird hags explore his palm to spell
What varied fates these mystic lines foretell.

“The murmuring streams your minstrel songs supply,
The moss your couch, the oak your canopy;
The sun awakes you as with trumpet-call,
Lightly ye spring from slumber’s gentle thrall;
Eve draws her curtain o’er the burning west,
Like forest birds ye sink at once to rest.

“Free as the winds that through the forest rush,
Wild as the flowers that by the wayside blush,
Children of nature wandering to and fro,
Man knows not whence ye came, nor where ye go;
Like foreign weeds cast upon Western strands,
Which stormy waves have borne from unknown lands;
Like the murmuring shells to fancy’s ears that tell
The mystic secrets of their ocean cell.

“Drear was the scene—a dark and troublous time—
The Heaven all gloom, the wearied Earth all crime;
Men deemed they saw the unshackled powers of ill
Rage in that storm, and work their perfect will.
Then like a traveller, when the wild wind blows,
And black night flickers with the driving snows,
A stranger people, ’mid that murky gloom,
Knocked at the gates of awe-struck Christendom!
No clang of arms, no din of battle roared
Round the still march of that mysterious horde;
Weary and sad arrayed in pilgrim’s guise,
They stood and prayed, nor raised their suppliant eyes.
At once to Europe’s hundred shores they came,
In voice, in feature, and in garb the same.
Mother and babe and youth, and hoary age,
The haughty chieftain and the wizard sage;
At once in every land went up the cry,
‘Oh! fear us not—receive us or we die!’”

Dean Stanley’s Prize Poem, 1837: “The Gipsies.”