Various

Our renowned contributor, Mansie Wauch, tailor in Dalkeith, has, for a long time past, retired from the cares of active business. We fear that, in his case, as in others which we could name, the glory and emolument resulting from distinguished literary success were the means of depriving two or three parishes of the services of a decent fabricator of small-clothes. Mansie, like Jeshurun, grew fat and kicked. Even before his autobiography had reached its sixth edition—now a traditionary epoch, as the nine-and-thirtieth is exhausted, and the trade clamorous for a new supply—Wauch began to turn up his nose at moleskin, and to exhibit a singular degree of indifference to orders for agricultural gaiters. He would still apply, with somewhat of his pristine science, the principles of sartorian mathematics to plush when ordered from the Palace, and was once known to devote three entire days to the exquisite finishing of a pair of buckskins for Mr Williamson, that famous huntsman, whose celebrity is so great, that the mere mention of his name is equivalent to a page of panegyric. And it was acknowledged, on all hands, that Mansie did his work well. The plush fitted admirably; and as for the buckskins, the master of the hounds averred, with a harmless oath, that they were as easy as a kid glove. But those testimonials, however satisfactory and unchallenged, did not avail our contributor as a perfect verdict of acquittal, discharging him from the bar of public opinion, as constituted in Dalkeith, without a stain upon his reputation as an eydent man and a tailor. Mr Hamorgaw, the precentor of the New Light Seceding Anti-pulpit Congregation, esteemed that Mansie acted under the influence of the Old Adam, in declining to reverse, propriis manibus, an ancient garment, dignified by the name of a coat, which had already been three times refreshed in the dyeing-tub, for the beautifying of him, the Hamorgaw: and Deacon Cansh, the leading Radical of the place, was sorely nettled to learn that our friend had intrusted the architecture of his new wrap-rascal to the tender mercies of his firstborn Benjamin. Not that Benjie was a bad hand at the goose, which indeed he drove with amazing celerity, sending it along at a rate nearly equal to the progress of a Parliamentary train; but his style of cutting was somewhat composite and florid, not distinguished by that severe simplicity of manner which was the glory of the earlier masters. In the hands of a Piercie Shafton, Benjamin might have proved a veritable treasure; Sir Thomas Urquhart would have descanted with enthusiasm on the quaint and oblique diversity of his shears, which seemed instinctively to dissever good broad-cloth into quincunxes more or less outrageous; but the age of Euphuism was gone, and neither elder, deacon, nor precentor, was in favour of slashed doublets. Benjamin was not only a tailor but a poet, and we fear it is a lamentable fact that the two trades are irreconcilable. The perpetrator of distichs is usually a bungler at cross-stitch: there is no analogy between the measurement of trousers and the measure of a Spenserian stanza. It will therefore be readily credited, that the business, when devolved upon Benjie, did not prosper as of old; and though Mansie did, in his advanced age, make one effort to retrieve the character of his firm by inventing a kind of paletot, which he denominated "a Fascinator," we have not been given to understand that the males of the royal family adopted it to the exclusion of all other upper garments of similar cut and pretension. Moreover, the prevailing influence and tendency of the age began to be felt in Dalkeith. Competition, as a maxim of political economy, was generally practised and understood: and a young schneider, who had served his apprenticeship with Mr Place of Westminster celebrity, opened an establishment for ready-made clothes, with a Greek title which would have puzzled an Homeric commentator. In process of time the Greek was opposed by a Hebrew, who ought to have been an especial favourite with his people, seeing that if any afflicted person had a fancy for rending his clothes, the garments supplied by Aaron and Son would have yielded to the slightest compulsion. A Polish emigrant next opened shop, and to the astonishment of the Dalkeithians, transferred their breeches' pockets from the waistband to the neighbourhood of their knees, and suggested frogs and braiding. Against this tide of innovation honest Mansie found it impossible to make head. Fortunately, being a saving creature, he had amassed a considerable sum of money, which, still more fortunately, he had abstained from investing in the Loanhead and Roslin Junction; and his annual income was such as to justify him in retiring from business to a pleasant villa on the banks of the Esk, where he now grows cabbages of such magnitude as to be recorded in an occasional newspaper paragraph, and cucumbers which have carried off the prize at several horticultural exhibitions. On the whole, Mr Wauch is a man decidedly to be envied, not only by those of his own trade, but by many of us who, in the vanity of our hearts, have been accustomed to look down, somewhat disparagingly, upon the gallant knights of the needle.

In his retirement Mansie Wauch has not altogether abandoned the pursuits of literature. He has, it is true, ceased, for a good while, to favour us with a continuation of those passages of his personal history which once took Christendom by storm; nor can we charge our memory with his having offered us any article for several years, beyond an elaborate and learned critique upon Mr Carlyle's Sartor Resartus, which, though decidedly able, was rather too technical for our columns. But Mr Wauch is a gluttonous reader, especially of novels and suchlike light gear; and very frequently is kind enough to favour us, by word of mouth, with his opinion touching the most noted ephemera of the season. We need hardly say that we set great store by the judgment of the excellent old man. His fine natural instinct enables him to perceive at a glance, what more erudite critics might overlook, the fitness and propriety of the tale, and the capability of the writer to deal with the several topics which he professes to handle. He can tell at once whether a man really knows his subject, or whether he is writing, as too many authors do now-a-days, in absolute ignorance of the character which he assumes, or the scenes which he selects for illustration. So, the other day, on receipt of a couple of volumes, entitled Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet: an Autobiography, we thought that we could hardly discharge our critical duty better than by despatching the same forthwith to Mansie, with a request that he would communicate to us his candid and unbiassed opinion.

Mr Locke we understand to be no more. He died upon his voyage to Texas, after having been concerned in the Chartist demonstration of 1848, and therefore his feelings cannot be aggrieved by the strictures of his Dalkeith brother. Were it otherwise, we certainly should have hesitated before recording in print the verdict of the indignant Mansie, expressed in the succinct phrase of "awfu' havers!" written at the close of the second volume, with a running commentary of notes on the margin, by no means complimentary to the practical acquirements or the intellectual calibre of the author. These we have diligently deciphered, and we find that friend Mansie's wrath has been especially excited by the discovery that it is no autobiography at all, nor anything like one, but a barefaced and impudent assumption of a specific character and profession by a person who never handled a goose in his life, and who knows no more about tailoring or slop-selling than he has learned from certain letters which lately appeared in the columns of the Morning Chronicle. Mr Wauch is very furious at the deception which he conceives has been practised on the public; and argues, with good show of reason, that any work, professing to set forth the hardships of any particular trade, and yet diverging so evidently into the wildest kind of romance—as to render its acceptance as an actual picture of life impossible—is calculated to do harm instead of good to the interests of the class in question, because no one can receive it as truth; neither can it possibly be acknowledged as an accurate picture of the age, or the state or feelings of that society which at present exists in Great Britain. "Who would have bought MY Autobiography," quoth Mansie, "if I had said that I was in love with a Countess, had been admitted to her society, and my passion partially returned? Or what think ye o' Benjie, fresh from the garret, and smelling of the goose, arguing conclusions wi' Dean Buckland about the Mosaic account o' the creation, and chalking out a new kind o' faith as glibly as he would chalk out auld Harrigle's measure on a new web o' claith for a Sunday's coat? The man that wrote you, take my word for it, never crookit his heugh-bane on a board; and the hail buik appears to me to be a pack o' wearifu' nonsense."

Notwithstanding Mr Wauch's anathema, we have perused the book; and, while agreeing with him entirely in his strictures regarding its artistical construction, and admitting that, as an autobiography—which it professes to be—it is so palpably absurd in its details, as to diminish the effect of the lesson which it is meant to convey, we yet honour and respect the feeling which has dictated it, and our warmest sympathy is enlisted in the cause which it intends to advocate. No man with a human heart in his bosom, unless that heart is utterly indurated and depraved by the influence of mammon, can be indifferent to the welfare of the working-classes. Even if he were not urged to consider the awful social questions which daily demand our attention in this perplexing and bewildered age, by the impulses of humanity, or by the call of Christian duty, the lower motive of interest alone should incline him to serious reflection on a subject which involves the wellbeing, both temporal and eternal, of thousands of his fellow-creatures, and possibly the permanence of order and tranquillity in this realm of Great Britain. Our civil history during the last thirty years of peace resembles nothing which the world has yet seen, or which can be found in the records of civilisation. The progress which has been made in the mechanical sciences is of itself almost equivalent to a revolution. The whole face of society has been altered; old employments have become obsolete, old customs have been abrogated or remodelled, and old institutions have undergone innovation. The modern citizen thinks and acts differently from his fathers. What to them was object of reverence is to him subject for ridicule; what they were accustomed to prize and honour, he regards with undisguised contempt. All this we style improvement, taking no heed the whilst whether such improvement has fulfilled its primary condition of contributing to and increasing the welfare and prosperity of the people. Statistical books are written to demonstrate how enormously we have increased in wealth; and yet, side by side with Mr Porter's bulky tomes, you will find pamphlets containing ample and distinct evidence that hundreds of thousands of our industrious fellow-countrymen are at this moment famishing for lack of employment, or compelled to sell their labour for such wretched remuneration that the pauper's dole is by many regarded with absolute envy. Dives and Lazarus elbow one another in the street; and our political economists select Dives as the sole type of the nation. Sanitary commissioners are appointed to whiten the outside of the sepulchre; and during the operation, their souls are made sick by the taint of the rottenness from within. The reform of Parliament is, comparatively speaking, a matter of yesterday, and yet the operatives are petitioning for the Charter!

These are stern realities—grim facts which it is impossible to gainsay. What may be the result of them, unless some adequate remedy can be provided, it is impossible with certainty to predict; but unless we are prepared to deny the doctrine of that retribution which has been directly revealed to us from above, and of which the history of neighbouring states affords us so many striking examples, we can hardly expect to remain unpunished for what is truly a national crime. The offence, indeed, according to all elements of human calculation, is likely to bring its own punishment. It cannot be that society can exist in tranquillity, or order be permanently maintained, so long as a large portion of the working-classes, of the hard-handed men whose industry makes capital move and multiply itself, are exposed to the operation of a system which renders their position less tolerable than that of the Egyptian bondsman. To work is not only a duty but a privilege; but to work against hope, to toil under the absolute pressure of despair, is the most miserable lot that the imagination can possibly conceive. It is, in fact, a virtual abrogation of that freedom which every Briton is taught to consider as his birthright; but which now, however well it may sound as an abstract term, is practically, in the case of thousands, placed utterly beyond their reach.

We shall not probably be suspected of any intention to inculcate Radical doctrines. We have no sympathy, but the reverse, with the quacks, visionaries, and agitators, who make a livelihood by preaching disaffection in our towns and cities, and who are the worst enemies of the people whose cause they affect to advocate. We detest the selfish views of the Manchester school of politicians, and we loathe that hypocrisy which, under the pretext of reforming, would destroy the institutions of the country. But if it be true—as we believe it to be—that the working and producing classes of the community are suffering unexampled hardship, and that not of a temporary and exceptional kind, but from the operation of some vicious and baneful element which has crept into our social system, it then becomes our duty to attempt to discover the actual nature of the evil; and having discovered that, to consider seriously what cure it is possible to apply. That there is a cure for every evil, social, moral, or physical, it is worse than cowardice to doubt. And we need not be surprised if, in our search, we find ourselves compelled to arrive at some conclusions totally hostile to the plans which the so-called Liberals have encouraged—nay, so hostile, that beneath that mask of Liberalism we can plainly descry the features of greedy and ravenous Mammon, enticing his victims by a novel lure, and gloating and grinning in triumph over their unsuspicious credulity.

The author of Alton Locke is at least no vulgar theorist, though a warm imagination and great enthusiasm have led him occasionally to appear most vague and theoretical. He has had recourse to fiction, as the most agreeable, and probably the most efficacious mode of bringing his peculiar social views under the notice of the public; but in doing so, he has fallen into an error very common with recent novelists, who have undertaken to depict certain phases of society, with ulterior views beyond the mere amusement of the reader. He has not studied, or he does not understand, what has been fitly termed the properties of a composition: he allows himself in almost every chapter to outrage probability; his situations are often ludicrously incongruous; and the language of his characters, as well as that employed throughout the narrative, is totally out of keeping with the quality and circumstances of the interlocutors. That a young and gifted tailor, who for the whole day has been pent up in a stifling garret, with the symptoms of consumptive disease unmistakeably developed in his constitution, should also devote the moiety of his hours of rest to the acquisition of the Latin language, and become in three months' time a perfect master of Virgil, is not an impossibility, though we opine that such instances of suicidal exertion are comparatively rare; but when we find the same young man, not only versed in the classics, but tolerably acquainted with the Italian and German poets, a fluent speaker of French, an accurate historian, a proficient in divinity, in metaphysics, and in natural science—a disciple of Tennyson in verse, and a pupil of Emerson in style—the draft upon our credulity is somewhat too large, and we must necessarily decline to honour it. The world has only beheld one Admirable Crichton; and even he is rather a myth than a reality—seeing that we can merely judge of the extent of his acquirements by the vague report of contemporaries, and the collections of an amusing coxcomb, who, out of very slender materials, has contrived to construct a ponderous and bombastic romance.[49] Crichton has not left us one scrap of writing to prove that his attainments were more than the results of a gigantic memory, aided by a singularly acute and logical intellect. But Alton Locke altogether eclipses Crichton. The latter had, at all events, the full benefit of the schools: the former was wholly devoid of such instruction. Crichton spent his days at least in the College; Alton sat stitching on the shop-board. So that the existence of such a phenomenon becomes worse than problematical, especially when we find that, after abandoning paletots and launching into a literary career, Mr Locke could find no more profitable employment than that of writing articles for a Chartist newspaper, which articles, moreover, were by no means invariably inserted. We take this to be the leading fault of the book, because it is infinitely more glaring than even exaggerated incident. In the hands of such a writer as Defoe, the story of Alton Locke would have assumed the aspect of woeful and sad reality. Not an expression would have been allowed to enter which could betray the absolute and irreconcilable difference between the mental powers, habits, and acquirements of the author and his fictitious hero: we should have had no idealism, at least of the transcendental kind; and no dreams, decidedly of a tawdry and uninterpretable description, which bear internal evidence of having been copied at second-hand from Richter.

Let it, however, be understood, that these remarks of ours are not intended to detract from the genius, the learning, or the descriptive powers of the writer. Where excellencies such as these exist, even though they may be of rare occurrence, anything approaching to absurdity or incongruity is far more painfully, or rather provokingly, apparent than in the work of a common hackneyed novelist, from whom we expect no better things: and the error is peculiarly felt when it is calculated in any degree to convey the notion that the pictures shadowed forth upon the canvass are rather ideal than true. This mode of dealing with a subject is by no means the best to insure sympathy. Men are naturally incredulous of pain, and unwilling to believe in suffering, more especially when it is said to exist in their own vicinity, and may be the effect of their own indifference or caprice. Many persons will read Alton Locke, not unmoved by the wretchedness which it depicts—not without feeling a thrill of indignation at the bondage under which the operative is said to labour from the ruthless system of competition—and yet lay down the book unconvinced of the actual existence of such misery, and no more inclined to bestir themselves for its remedy than if they had been the spectators of a tragedy, the scene of which was laid in another country, and the period indicated as occurring in the middle ages. Nor is it possible to blame them for this; for, as the whole tenor of the work belies its assumed character, it is hard to expect that any one shall give credence to mere details, or such qualified credence as shall enable him to accept them as accurate representations of existing facts, in the face of the evident obstacle which meets him at the beginning. The usefulness of many clever books in this range of literature has been impaired by the authors' wanton neglect, or rather wilful breach, of the leading rules of propriety. Few people will accept Mr D'Israeli's novel of Sybil as containing an accurate representation of the state of the people of England in the middle of the nineteenth century, simply because the writer is chargeable with the same error; and yet recent disclosures have abundantly proved that many of the social pictures contained in Sybil were drawn with extreme accuracy, and without any attempt at exaggeration.

We shall now attempt to sketch out the story of Alton Locke, in order that our readers may comprehend the nature of the book with which we are dealing—less, we admit, on account of the book itself, than for the sake of the subject which it is manifestly intended to illustrate. By no other method can we do justice to the topic; and if situations should occur which may seem to justify the strictures of Mr Wauch, and to provoke a smile, we ask indulgence for the sake of a cause which is here most earnestly advocated—according to the best of his ability—by a man of no common acquirements, zeal, energy, and purity of purpose, though the warmth of his heart may very frequently overpower the discretion of his head.

Alton Locke, the subject of this autobiography, is the son of poor parents. His father had failed in business as a grocer, having imprudently started a small shop, without adequate capital, in an obscure district of London, where indeed there were far too many such already, and died, "as many small tradesmen do, of bad debts and a broken heart, and left us beggars." Alton's mother was a woman of a sterner mood. Reared in the most rigid tenets of the Baptist sect, and steeped in the austerest Calvinism, she regarded this world necessarily as a place of tribulation and inevitable woe, and fought and struggled on right earnestly, mortifying every natural affection in her bosom, except love to her children, and exhibiting that only through the medium of severity and restraint.

"My mother," says Alton, "moved by rule and method; by God's law, as she considered, and that only. She seldom smiled. Her word was absolute. She never commanded twice without punishing. And yet there were abysses of unspoken tenderness in her, as well as clear, sound, womanly sense and insight. But she thought herself as much bound to keep down all tenderness as if she had been some ascetic of the middle ages—so do extremes meet! It was 'carnal,' she considered. She had as yet no right to have any 'spiritual affection' for us. We were still 'children of wrath and of the devil'—not yet 'convinced of sin,' 'converted, born again.' She had no more spiritual bond with us, she thought, than she had with a heathen or a Papist. She dared not even pray for our conversion, earnestly as she prayed on every other subject. For though the majority of her sect would have done so, her clear logical sense would yield to no such tender inconsistency. Had it not been decided from all eternity? We were elect, or we were reprobate. Could her prayers alter that?"

A gruesome carline this, and a revolting contrast to dear old Mause Headrigg, who not only prayed morning and night, but never doubted as to the destiny of Cuddie! Mrs Locke's conversation, however, had its charms; for we find that, in a small way, she was fond of entertaining ministers of her own persuasion at tea, and Alton's ire was early kindled by the precipitancy with which on such occasions the sugar and muffins disappeared. The old lady, moreover, had a kind of ancestral pride, being traditionally descended from a Cambridgeshire puritan who had turned out under Cromwell; and of a winter night she would tell the children long stories about the glorious times when Englishmen arose to smite kings and prelates. Of course these things had their effect. Little Alton did not become a fanatic, for this kind of religious training is never palatable to the young: he became, indeed, a sceptic as soon as he could think for himself, with a nice little germ of radicalism ready to expand whenever circumstances would permit of its development.

That period quickly arrived. Alton's paternal uncle had been as fortunate in business as his brother was unlucky, and was now a kind of city magnate—purse-proud, yet not altogether oblivious of his poorer kith and kin. He had an only son, who was to be the inheritor of his wealth, and who, being destined for the Church, was undergoing the necessary education. To this relative, who made her an annual petty allowance, Mrs Locke applied for advice regarding her son, now a cadaverous lad of fifteen, with a weak constitution, and a tendency to the manufacture of verse; and by his advice and recommendation, Alton was introduced to a tailoring establishment at the West End. Uncle certainly might have done something better for him; but perhaps he had George Barnwell in his eye: and, moreover, any superior settlement would probably have spoilt the story. Here is his first entry into the new scene:

This is intended, or at all events given, as an accurate picture of a respectable London tailoring establishment, where the men receive decent wages. Such a house is called an "honourable" one, in contradistinction to others, now infinitely the more numerous, which are springing up in every direction under the fostering care of competition. As it is most important that no doubt should be left in the minds of any as to the actual condition of the working classes, we quote, not from Alton Locke, but from one pamphlet out of many which are lying before us, a few sentences explanatory of the system upon which journeymen tailors in London are compelled to work. The pamphlet, for aught we know, may be written by the author of the novel; but it is clear, specific, and apparently well-vouched.

These sweaters are commonly Jews, to which persuasion also the majority of the dishonourable proprietors belong. Few people who emerge from the Euston Square Station are left in ignorance as to the fact, it being the insolent custom of a gang of hook-nosed and blubber-lipped Israelites to shower their fetid tracts, indicating the localities of the principal dealers of their tribe, into every cab as it issues from the gate. These are, in plain terms, advertisements of a more odious cannibalism than exists in the Sandwich Islands. Very often have we wished that the miscreant who so assailed us were within reach of our black-thorn cudgel, that we might have knocked all ideas of fried fish out of his head for at least a fortnight to come! In these days of projected Jewish emancipation, the sentiment may be deemed an atrocious one, but we cannot retract it. Shylock was and is the true type of his class; only that the modern London Jew is six times more personally offensive, mean, sordid, and rapacious than the merchant of the Rialto. And why should we stifle our indignation? Dare any one deny the truth of what we have said? It is notorious to the whole world that these human leeches acquire their wealth, not by honest labour and industry, but by bill-broking, sweating, discounting, and other nefarious arts, which inevitably lead the unfortunate victims who have once trafficked with the tribe of Issachar, to the spunging houses of which they have the monopoly; nor can the former escape from these loathsome dens—if they ever escape at all—without being stripped as entirely as any turkey when prepared for the spit at the genial season of Christmas. Talk of Jewish legislation indeed! We have had too much of it already in our time, from the days of Ricardo, the instigator of Sir Robert Peel's earliest practices upon the currency, down to those of Nathan Rothschild, the first Baron of Jewry, for whose personal character and upright dealings the reader is referred to Mr Francis' Chronicles of the Stock Exchange.

It is little wonder if men who know not what a scruple of conscience is, should amass enormous fortunes. It is much to be regretted that our present state of society affords them such ample opportunities. We allude not now to the plundering of heirs expectant, or the wheedling of young men just fresh from the colleges, and launched upon the town, to their ruin—to fraudulent dodges for affecting unnatural oscillations of stocks, or those more deliberate schemes which result in important public changes being effected for the private emolument of a synagogue. Bad as these things are—shameful and abhorrent as they must be to every mind alive to the ordinary feelings of rectitude—they are not yet so bad or so shameful as the deliberate rapine which is exercised upon the poor by the off-scourings of the Caucasian race. Read the following account by a working tailor of their doings, and then settle the matter with your conscience, whether it is consistent with the character of a Christian gentleman to have dealings with such inhuman vampires:—

The salary of a puisne judge of the Court of Session in Scotland! A profitable commencement of life that of dealing in sponges, seeing that it endows the vender with the absorbent qualities of the marine vegetable! And mark the consequences which may befall those who connive at such iniquity by their custom! We still quote from the same pamphlet, not to deaf ears we trust, while telling them of the calamity which such conduct may bring home to their own hearths, as it has done already to that of hundreds who worship Cheapness as a god.

But we must return to Alton Locke, whom we left speechless with astonishment and overpowered with nausea on his first admission to the sight and odours of a stitching Pandemonium. We are told, and we believe it to be true, that of late years several of the first-rate London tradesmen of the West End have effected important and salutary improvements as regards the accommodation of their men, and that the men themselves have assumed a better tone. We must, however, accept the sketch as given; and of a truth it is no ways savoury. Some of Alton's comrades are distinct Dungs—drunken, lewd, profane wretches; but there is at least one Flint among them, a certain John Crossthwaite, who, beneath a stolid manner and within a stunted body, conceals a noble heart, beating strongly with the fiercest Chartist sentiments; and beside this diminutive Hercules, Alton crooks his thigh. Crossthwaite, like all little chaps, has a good conceit of himself, and an intense contempt for thews and sinews, stature, chest, and the like points, which excite the admiration of the statuary. On one occasion, when incensed, as tailors are apt to be, by the sight of a big bulky Life-guardsman, who could easily have crammed him into his boot, Alton's new friend thus develops his ideas:—

We had no previous idea that the fumes generated by cabbage produced an effect so nearly resembling that which is consequent on the inhalation of chloroform. Crossthwaite, however, is a learned man in his way, and can quote Ariosto when he pleases—indeed, most of the workmen who figure in these volumes seem to be adepts in foreign tongues and literature. From Crossthwaite, Alton Locke derives his first lesson as regards the rights of man, and becomes conscious, as he tells us, that "society had not given him his rights." From another character, Sandy Mackaye, a queer old Scotsman, who keeps a book-stall, he receives his first introduction to actual literature. Sandy is a good sketch—perhaps the best in the book. He is a Radical of course, and, like the Glasgow shoemaker, whom the late Dr Chalmers once visited, "a wee bit in the deistical line;" but he has a fine heart, warm sympathies, and, withal, some shrewdness and common sense, which latter quality very few indeed of the other characters exhibit. We are left in some obscurity as to Sandy's early career, but from occasional hints we are led to believe that he must have been honoured with the intimacy of Messrs Muir and Palmer, and not improbably got into some scrape about pike-heads, which rendered it convenient for him to remove beyond the jurisdiction of the High Court of Justiciary. On one occasion he seems to have averred that he was even older, alluding to a conversation he had with "Rab Burns ance, sitting up a' canty at Tibbie Shiels' in Meggot Vale." This is a monstrous libel against our excellent friend Tibbie, at whose well-known hostelry of the Lochs it was our good fortune, as usual, to pass a pleasant week no later than the bygone spring; the necessary inference being that she has pursued her present vocation for nearly three quarters of a century! The author might have stated, with equal propriety, that he had the honour of an interview with Ben Jonson, in a drawing-room of Douglas's hotel! But Sandy's age is quite immaterial to the story. He may have been out in the Forty-five for anything we care. It is enough to know that he takes a particular fancy to the young tailor; lends him books; puts him in the way of learning Latin, as we have already hinted, in three months; and, finally, receives him under his own roof when he is ejected from that of his mother on account of his having proclaimed himself, in her presence, a rank and open unbeliever.

Alton stitches on till he is nearly twenty, educating himself at spare hours as well as he can, by the aid of Sandy Mackaye, until he acquires a certain reputation among his comrades as an uncommonly clever fellow. The old bookdealer having some mysterious acquaintanceship with Alton's uncle, informs that gentleman of the prodigy to whom he is related, whereupon there is an interview, and the nephew is presented with five shillings. Cousin George now comes, for the first time, on the tapis, tall, clean-limbed, and apparently good-humoured, but, as is shown in the sequel, selfish and a tuft-hunter. His maxim is to make himself agreeable to everybody, because he finds it pay: and he gives Alton a sample of his affability, by proposing a visit to the Dulwich Gallery. At this point the story becomes deliciously absurd. Young Snip, to whom pictures were a novelty, instantly fastens upon Guido's St Sebastian, of which he is taking mental measure, when he is accosted by a young lady. Although we have little space to devote to extracts, we cannot refuse ourselves the gratification of transcribing a passage which beats old Leigh Hunt's account of the interviews between Ippolito de Buondelmonte and Dianora d'Amerigo hollow. This artist, indeed, has evidently dipped his pencil in the warmest colours of the Cockney School.

Were we to extend points of admiration over a couple of columns, we could not adequately express our feelings with regard to the above passage. How natural—how simple! The entranced Snip gaping at the Guido—the ladies accosting him, as ladies invariably do when they encounter a casual tailor in such places—the passionate warmth of the description—the ecclesiastical lore of Lillian—and the fine instinct of the old gentleman, (a dignitary of the Church, by the way,) which warns him at once that he is in the presence of a sucking poet,—all these things combined take away our breath, and take, moreover, our imagination utterly by storm! We shall not be surprised if hereafter Greenwich Park should be utterly deserted on a holiday, and Dulwich Gallery become the favourite resort of apprentices, each expecting, on the authority of Alton Locke, to meet with some wealthy and high-born, but most free-and-easy Lindamira!

But the best of it is to come. They have yet more conversation: the strangers manifest a deep interest in the personal history of our hero. "While I revelled in the delight of stolen glances at my new-found Venus Victrix, who was as forward as any of them in her questions and her interest. Perhaps she enjoyed—at least she could not help seeing—the admiration for herself, which I took no pains to conceal!" O thrums and trimmings! it is but too plain—Venus Victrix, with the peculiar crisped auburn hair, and the skin of privet-flowers, has all but lost her heart to the juvenile bandy-legged tailor!

Two can play at that game. Cousin George in the mean time, though taking no part in the conversation—a circumstance which strikes us as rather odd—has likewise fallen in love with the beautiful apparition, and, after her departure, drives Alton "mad with jealousy and indignation," by talking about the lady rather rapturously, as a young snob of his kidney is pretty certain to do under circumstances such as are described. The kinsmen part, and Alton returns to the garret full of the thoughts of Lillian. She becomes his muse, and with the aid of a stray volume of Tennyson, he sets himself sedulously to the task of elaborating poetry. Sandy Mackaye, his censor, betrays no great admiration for his earlier efforts, which indeed are rather milk-and-water, and recommends him to become a poet for the people, pointing out to him, in various scenes of wretchedness which they visit, the true elements of the sublime. The graphic power and real pathos of those scenes afford a marvellous contrast to the rubbish which is profusely interspersed through the volumes. It is much to be regretted that an author, who can write so naturally and well, should allow himself to mar his narrative and destroy its interest, by the introduction not only of absurdities in point of incident, but of whole chapters of mystical jargon, inculcating doctrines which, we are quite sure, are not distinctly comprehended even by himself. He has got much to learn, if not to unlearn, before he can do full justice to his natural powers. So long as he addicts himself, both in thought and language, to the use of general terms, he must fail in producing that effect which he otherwise might easily achieve.

Alton then, though still a tailor, becomes a poet; and, after two years and a half incubation, produces a manuscript volume, enough to fill a small octavo, under the somewhat spoliative and suspicious title of Songs of the Highways. Still no talk of publishing. Then comes a movement among the tailors, caused by Alton's master determining to follow the example of others, and reduce wages. A private meeting of the operatives is held, at which John Crossthwaite the Flint counsels resistance and a general strike; but the faint-hearted Dungs fly from him, and he finds no supporter save Alton. The two resolve, coÛte qui coÛte, to hold out, and Crossthwaite takes his friend that night to a Chartist meeting, where he is sworn to all the points.

Never more did Alton bury needle in the hem of a garment. Nobody would give employment to the two protesters; so John Crossthwaite, being a man of a practical tendency, and not bad at statistics, determined to turn an honest penny by writing for a Chartist newspaper, and would have persuaded Alton to do the same, had not Sandy Mackaye interposed, and very properly represented that his young friend was too juvenile to become a martyr. So it was fixed at a general council that Alton should prepare his bundle, including his precious manuscripts, and start on foot for Cambridge, where his cousin was, to see whether he could not procure help to have his volume launched into the world. We must pass over his journey to Cambridge, interesting as it is, to arrive at his cousin's rooms. There he finds George with half-a-dozen of his companions all equipped for a rowing match, and just about to start. George behaves like a trump, orders him luncheon, and then departs for the river, whither Alton follows, with the intention of seeing the fun. His behaviour is a libel on the Cockneys. He sees Lillian on the opposite side of the river, and makes an ass of himself; then he bursts into ecstasies at the sight of the boats, feeling "my soul stirred up to a sort of sweet madness, not merely by the shouts and cheers of the mob around me, but by the loud, fierce pulse of the rowlocles; the swift whispering rush of the long, snake-like eight oars; the swirl and gurgle of the water on their wake; the grim, breathless silence of the straining rowers. My blood boiled over, and fierce tears swelled into my eyes; for I, too, was a man and an Englishman." The author should have added—and a tailor to boot. So Alton, like an idiot, begins to roar and shout, and is ridden over by a young sprig of nobility, in whose way he insists on standing; and is soused in the river; and insults another young nobleman, Lord Lynedale, of whom more anon, who picks him up, and out of good nature offers him half-a-crown: all which shows, or is intended to show, that our friend is a splendid specimen of the aristocracy of nature. Well—to cut a long story short—he returns to his cousin's rooms, is kindly received, introduced to a supper party of Cantabs, and afterwards to Lord Lynedale, for whom he corrects certain proofs, and receives a sovereign in return. The said Lord Lynedale is engaged to a lady, the same with "the deeper voice than most"—not Lillian—who accosted him in the Dulwich Gallery. She is the niece of a Dean Winnstay, Lillian being the daughter. They meet. She recognises him, and he favours us with a sketch of Miss Eleanor Staunton. "She was beautiful, but with the face and figure rather of a Juno than a Venus—dark, imperious, restless—the lips almost too firmly set, the brow almost too massive and projecting—a queen, rather to be feared than loved—but a queen still, as truly royal as the man into whose face she was looking up with eager admiration and delight, as he pointed out to her eloquently the several beauties of the landscape." So Alton is introduced to the Dean, and finally asked down to the deanery.

The result, of course, is, that he becomes, if possible, ten times more deeply in love than before with Venus Victrix, who is naughty enough to flirt with Snip, and to astonish him by singing certain of his songs. As a matter of course, he immediately conjures up an imaginary Eden, with an arbour of cucumber vine, in which he, Alton, and she, Lillian, are to figure as Adam and Eve—we trust in such becoming costume as his previous pursuits must have given him the taste to devise. Miss Staunton, however, does not appear to relish the liaison, and rather throws cold water upon it, which damper Locke seems to attribute to jealousy! though it afterwards turns out to have been dictated by a higher feeling; namely, her conviction that Lillian was too shallow-hearted to be a fit object for the affections of the inspired tailor!! The old Dean meanwhile, quite unconscious of the ravages which young Remnants is making in his family circle, bores him with lectures on entomology, and finally agrees to patronise his poems, and head a subscription list, provided he will expunge certain passages which savour of republican principles. Alton consents; and as a reward for his so doing, Miss Staunton pronounces him to be "weak," and Lillian deplores that he has spoilt his best verses, which her cousin had set to music. Reading these things, we begin to comprehend the deep anxiety of Petruchio to get the tailor out of his house,—

Who knows what effect the flatteries of an insinuator like Alton Locke might have had upon the lively Katherina?

The list, however, is not yet made up—so Alton returns to London, and is entered upon the staff of the Weekly Warwhoop, a Chartist journal, conducted by one Mr O'Flynn, a red-hot Hibernian and republican. The engagement is not satisfactory. The editor has a playful habit of mutilating the articles of his contributors, and sometimes of putting in additional pepper, so as to adapt them to his own peculiar tastes and purposes; and Alton Locke finds that it goes rather against his conscience to libel the Church of England and the Universities by inventing falsehoods by the score, as he is earnestly entreated to do by his uncompromising chief. There is nothing like a peep behind the scenes. Alton begins to suspect that he may have been misled regarding matters of political faith, and that it is quite possible for a man to call himself a patriot, and yet be a consummate blackguard. Touching religious tenets, also, he has some qualms; a discourse which he happens to hear from a peripatetic idiot of the Emersonian school having put new notions into his head, and he is especially attracted by the dogma that "sin is only a lower form of good." He next breaks with O'Flynn, encounters his cousin George, now in orders, though certainly quite unfitted for the duties of his profession; and a regular quarrel ensues on the subject of Lillian, whom George is determined to win. Poetical justice demands that both whelps should be soused in the kennel. Alton gets a new engagement from "the editor of a popular journal of the Howitt and Eliza Cook school;" and at last brings out his poems, which, though considerably castrated, have the good fortune to take with the public. Then he is asked to be at the Dean's town residence, to meet with divers "leaders of scientific discovery in this wondrous age; and more than one poet, too, over whose works I had gloated, whom I had worshipped in secret." In short, he felt that "he was taking his place there among the holy guild of authors." Nor are these all his triumphs. Lillian smiles upon him; and Lady Ellerton, formerly Miss Staunton, who has since been wedded to Lord Lynedale, and raised to a higher title in the peerage, introduces him to the —— ambassador, evidently the Chevalier Bunsen, who instantly invites him to Germany! "I am anxious," quoth the ambassador, "to encourage a holy spiritual fraternisation between the two great branches of the Teutonic stock, by welcoming all brave young English spirits to their ancient fatherland. Perhaps, hereafter, your kind friends here will be able to lend you to me"!! So the brave young English spirit goes home that night in a perfect whirl of excitement. In the morning comes reaction. Alton, on going to leave his card for the Dean, finds the house shut up, and is informed that the young Earl of Ellerton has been killed by a fall from his horse, and that the whole family are gone to the country. "That day was the first of June 1845. On the 10th of April 1848, I saw Lillian Winnstay again. Dare I write my history between these two points of time?" By all means: and, if you please, get on a little faster.

It will naturally occur to the reader that Messrs Crossthwaite and Mackaye could not be remarkably well pleased at witnessing their friend's intromissions with the aristocracy. The docking of the poems had been the first symptom of retrogression from the Chartist camp; the acceptance of invitations to exclusive soirÉes was a still more grievous offence. Accordingly, Alton began to suffer for his sins. His old employer, O'Flynn, was down upon him in the columns of the Warwhoop, tomahawking him for his verses, ridiculing his pretensions, exposing his private history, and denouncing him as no better than a renegade. Then, somebody sent him a pair of plush breeches, in evident token of his flunkyism—a doubleedged and cruel insult which nearly drove him distracted. Old Sandy Mackaye, over his pipe and tumbler of toddy, descanted upon the degeneracy of the age, and John Crossthwaite told him in so many words that he had disappointed his expectations most miserably. Under these circumstances, Alton felt that there was nothing for him but to redeem his character as a Chartist by some daring step, even though it brought him within the iron grasp of the law. An opportunity soon presented itself. There was distress among the agricultural labourers in several districts; a monster meeting was to be held; and the club to which Alton belonged determined to send down a delegate to represent them. Alton instantly proffered himself for the somewhat perilous post: and the warmth of his protestations and entreaties overcame the suspicions, and removed the jealousy, of his comrades. Even O'Flynn pronounced him to be "a broth of a boy." In the midst of the meeting, however, he was startled by a glimpse of the countenance of his cousin George, who, it afterwards appears, had come thither as a spy, armed with a bowie-knife and revolver!

As a delegate, therefore, Alton goes down to the place of rendezvous, in the neighbourhood of the Deanery, where he had once been hospitably entertained; listens to several speeches on the low rate of wages, which he justly considers to be rather purposeless and incoherent; strives to inculcate the principles of the Charter, which the agriculturists won't listen to; and finally, by a flaming harangue on the rights of man, sends them off in a body to a neighbouring hall to plunder, burn, and destroy. Of course he is actuated by none but the most praiseworthy and philanthropic motives. The mob do their work as usual, and proceed to arson and pillage; Mr Locke, who has accompanied them, all the while preaching respect to the sacred rights of property. A handful of yeomanry approach; the mob begins to scamper; and the misunderstood patriot and poet is cut down in the act of rescuing a desk from the clutches of an agricultural Turpin. He is tried, of course, for the offence; John Crossthwaite and Mackaye are brought to speak to character, but they break down under the cross-examination. An extempore witness, however, gives evidence in his favour, which suffices to clear him of the most serious part of the charge. He intends to make a magnificent speech in his defence, and has actually got through three sentences, "looking fixedly and proudly at the reverend face opposite," when a slight deviation of the eye reveals to him the form of Lillian!

Alas for poor Snip! They gave him three years.

Three years passed in prison afford ample time for reflection, and are calculated to lead to amendment. We are sorry, however, to say that Mr Alton Locke by no means turned them to profit. He had many long interviews with the chaplain, who attempted to reclaim him to Christianity; but it would seem that the reverend gentleman did not set about it in the right way, as he advanced only old-fashioned arguments against infidelity, whereas the inspired tailor "was fighting for Strauss, Hennell, and Emerson." So the chaplain gave him up at last, and he turned for recreation and solace to the works of M.M. Prudhon and Louis Blanc, which he got somehow smuggled into his cell. During his imprisonment he experienced great tribulation by the sight of a handsome new church rising not far from his window, and occasional glimpses of a person whom he took to be the incumbent, and who bore a marvellous likeness to his cousin George. Sometimes this personage was accompanied by a lady, who might possibly be Lillian—for the mooncalf, notwithstanding the court-scene, and the consciousness that he was a sentenced felon, still seems to have supposed that he was beloved, and to have expected a visit to his cell—and the bare idea was distraction. And it turns out that he was right. George Locke, the incumbent, was about to be married—a fact which he learned immediately before his own release, coinciding in point of time with the French Revolution of 1848.

Back to London goes Alton, and, as a matter of course, instantaneously consorts with Cuffey. Then come the preparations for the memorable demonstration of 10th April, the provision of arms, and the wild schemes for resorting to physical force. That a large, ramified, and by no means contemptible conspiracy then existed, no man can doubt; and there is but too much reason to believe that social suffering was as much the cause of the projected outbreak as abstract political doctrines, however pernicious, or even the influence of the revolutionary example extended and propagated from the Continent. Alton had by this time worked himself up to such a pitch that he was ready to mount a barricade, and so was his companion and coadjutor, the valorous John Crossthwaite. But old Sandy Mackaye, who had some acquaintanceship with pikes in his youth, and experience of the extreme doubtfulness of the popular pluck, especially under the guidance of such leaders as the imbecile and misguided fools who made themselves most prominent in the Convention, astonished his friends by denouncing the whole concern as not only silly but sinful, and prophesying, almost with his dying breath as it proved, its complete and shameful failure. Very beautifully, indeed, and very naturally drawn, is the deathbed scene of the old reformer; the spirit, ere quitting for ever the tenement of clay, wandering back and recurring to the loved scenes of childhood and of youth—the bonny braes, and green hillsides, and clear waters of his native land.

Old Sandy dies, and Alton watches by his corpse till the morning of the 10th of April, the day on which the liberties of England were to be decided, and a general muster of the adherents of the Charter held on Kensington Common. Going forth, he encounters at the door a lady dressed in deep mourning, who had come to visit Mackaye, and who should this prove to be but the widowed Countess of Ellerton! It now comes out that Alton had been altogether mistaken in her character: instead of being a proud imperious aristocrat, she proves to be a lowly, devoted, and self-sacrificing friend of the poor, who has surrendered her whole means for the relief of unfortunate needle-women, and even lived and worked among them, in order personally to experience the hardships of their condition. There is nothing in this to provoke a sneer; for it is impossible to exaggerate the extent of that sacrifice which women in all ages have been content to make, either at the call of love, the claim of duty, or the demand of religion; and the noble and unswerving heroism, which they have exhibited in the accomplishment of their task. To tend the sick and dying even in public, hospitals—to brave the pestilence and the plague—to visit prisons—utterly to abjure the world, and to give up everything for the sake of their Divine Master—all these things have been done by women, and done so quietly and unobtrusively as to escape the notice of the multitude; for good deeds are like the sweetest flowers, they blossom in the most secret places. But our author goes a great deal further, and, as usual, plunges into the ludicrous. Lady Ellerton has, from the first, recognised Alton Locke as an inspired being; she has kept her eye upon him throughout the whole of his career; has paid his debts through old Mackaye, with whom she seems to have been in constant correspondence; has supplied the means for his defence at his trial; and has now come to arrest, if possible, the headlong career of the outrageous and revolutionary tailor! We must indulge ourselves with one more extract, and it shall be the last.

But Alton Locke did not die on a barricade, any more than Mr John O'Connell on the floor of the House of Commons. He did not sever with his shears the thread of life either of soldier or policeman. He got down from the waggons with the rest when Feargus showed the white feather, and by way of change of scene and subject, contrived to get into the house where Lillian was residing, and in a very sneaking way to become witness of sundry love passages between her and his cousin George. As a matter of course, he was kicked into the street by two able-bodied servitors in plush. Then follows a scene with a former comrade of his, a drunken, worthless, treacherous Dung, by name Jemmy Downes, who had become a sweater and kidnapper, and descended through every stage of degradation to the very cesspool of infamy. His wife and children are lying dead, fever-stricken, half-consumed by vermin in a horrible den, overhanging a rankling ditch, into which Downes in his delirium falls, and Alton staggers home with the typhus raging in his blood. Then come the visions of delirium, ambitiously written, but without either myth or meaning, so far as we can discover. Sometimes Alton fancies himself a mylodon eating his way through a forest of cabbage palms, and "browsing upon the crisp tart foliage,"—sometimes he is impressed with the painful conviction that he is a baboon agitated "by wild frenzies, agonies of lust, and aimless ferocity." The conscience, it would seem, was not utterly overpowered by the disease. He at length awakes to reality—

"Surely I know that voice! She lifted her veil. The face was Lillian's! No! Eleanor's!

"Gently she touched my hand—I sunk down into soft, weary, happy sleep."