Chapter XVII (7)

“Poor things, indeed! I should like to see the very person who thus
expresses his pity going at his best pace with a savage elephant after
him: give him a lawn to run upon if he likes, and see the elephant
gaining a foot in every yard of the chase, fire in his eye, fury in
his headlong charge; and would not the flying gentleman who lately
exclaimed ‘poor thing!’ be thankful to the lucky bullet that would
save him from destruction?

“There are no animals more misunderstood than elephants; they are
naturally savage, wary, and revengeful, displaying as great courage
when in their wild state as any animal known. The fact of their
natural sagacity renders them the more dangerous as foes.”

Of course, in describing a series of rencontres, involving so much personal peril as must necessarily be the accompaniment of elephant-shooting, there is much scope for exaggeration, and the more marvellous a story really is, the more susceptible it is of colouring; so that, unless the narrator be continually on his guard, he may insensibly be drawn, by the exciting nature of the incidents he recounts, into a way of relating them which smacks so strongly of undue embellishment, that the ignorant reader is disposed to discredit those facts themselves which, had he possessed personal experience, he would not have hesitated to accept. “Often,” says Mr Baker, who anticipates such unlearned criticism, “have I pitied Gordon Cumming, when I have heard him talked of as a palpable Munchausen by men who never fired a rifle or saw a wild beast except in a cage, and still these men form the greater proportion of the readers of these works.” And we are assured by our author that he has carefully abstained from working up his scenes for the sake of effect—that, in fact, if he has erred at all, it is in under-drawing them. Now, although we would not for a moment be supposed to discredit any one of the accounts which he gives us of his adventures, we cannot do Mr Baker the injustice to agree with him in this, and we consider ourselves competent judges, although we may not have been present. In looking over the illustrations which grace the work, and which are spiritedly done, there appeared to us one fault, if fault it may be called; our author and his friends always seem to be shooting with air-guns—there is a remarkable absence of any smoke. Now, without meaning in the least to infer that Mr Baker has transferred it from the pictorial representations of those scenes of which its presence would have been the appropriate ornament to the descriptions of them, which would suffer seriously from such an addition, we only remark that he has occasionally given a handle for that sort of criticism, which we, in common with himself, so much deprecate. We wish, for instance, that his measurements of distance in moments of extreme peril had been a little more vague than they are. A striking instance of the precision with which our author calculates distance occurs in the course of one of his elephant hunts; after a long combat with a rogue, he is obliged to throw away his heavy rifle and take to his heels.

“I had about three feet start of him, and I saw with delight that the
ground was as level and smooth as a lawn; there was no fear of
tripping up, and away I went at the fastest pace that I ever ran
either before or since, taking a look behind me to see how the chase
went on. I saw the bullet-mark in his forehead, which was covered with
blood; his trunk was stretched to its full length to catch me, and was
now within two feet of my back: he was gaining on me, although I was
running at a tremendous pace. I could not screw an inch more speed out
of my legs, and I kept on, with the brute gaining upon me at every
stride. He was within a foot of me, and I had not heard a shot fired,
and not a soul had come to the rescue. The sudden thought struck me
that my brother could not possibly overtake the elephant at the pace
at which we were going, and I suddenly doubled short to my left into
the open plain, and back towards the guns. The rogue overshot me. I
met my brother close to his tail,” &c. &c.

We remember hearing that Major Rogers once dodged between an elephant’s legs; but Major Rogers’ presence of mind was nothing to Mr Baker’s, who could deliberately calculate his distance when at full speed, and who, joyously trotting on with an elephant’s trunk first three, and then two feet from his back, does not think it worth while to double until the distance is decreased to twelve inches. It is quite possible that the elephant’s trunk was in most unpleasant proximity to the fugitive—indeed, a sporting friend of ours once had his cap taken off by a rogue in full chase, and after all fairly outran his pursuer—so that _we_ do not doubt that Mr Baker had an uncommonly near shave, and was excessively glad to find his brother at his pursuer’s tail; but this is just _the tone_ of description that gives rise to doubts in the minds of those who do not happen ever to have run away from an elephant.

It may be said that the same remark is applicable to the accounts we have of the powers of the four-ounce. There is an elephant killed stone dead at one hundred and twenty yards; a buffalo at six hundred, if not eight hundred. These are both unprecedented shots; but as sixteen drachms is a common charge with Mr Baker, and as we certainly never used a rifle heavy enough to bear a charge of _an ounce_ of powder, we are not in a position to question them. Moreover, when we consider the performances of the Minié, we are inclined to regard them as quite possible, although distance, if not actually measured, must always be very much a matter of opinion. However, in reading this narrative of adventure, the experience of an intrepid sportsman, it must be remembered that only those incidents are selected for relation which were most remarkable or attended with the greatest risk. They are a collection of the most perilous moments of a life of peril, and we have simply to add up the long catalogue of those who have fallen victims in Ceylon to that sport which Mr Baker so ardently pursues, to perceive its danger; and so far from denying the possibility of those hairbreadth escapes which startle us in every page of this work, we should then be induced rather to wonder that its author still lives to tempt that Providence by which he has hitherto been so wonderfully preserved.

But we must not allow the rifle an undue share of our attention. Mr Baker has as good reason to be proud of his hounds as of his rifles, and there is a greater novelty to the English sportsman in hunting elk at Newera Ellia than in shooting elephants or buffaloes at Minneria. A buck elk—the Samber deer of India—stands about fourteen hands high at the shoulder, and weighs about six hundred pounds: he is in colour dark brown, with a mane of coarse bristly hair of six inches in length; the rest of his body is covered with the same coarse hair of about two inches in length. His antlers are sometimes upwards of three feet long, but seldom have more than six points. He is a solitary animal; when brought to bay he fights to the last, and charges man and hound indiscriminately, a choice hound being often the price of victory. The country in which he is hunted is the mountainous district in Ceylon; for though he is to be found in almost every part of the island, the sport is only prosecuted at an elevation which varies from four thousand to seven thousand feet above the sea. The sharp, bracing climate of Newera Ellia, while it agrees admirably with the hounds, enables the sportsman to undergo that prolonged and violent exercise on foot which the sport involves, and which would be utterly out of the question in the low country.

The principal features of the highlands of Ceylon being a series of wild marshy plains, forests, torrents, mountains, and precipices, a peculiar hound is required for elk-hunting. Upon the occasion of Mr Baker’s second visit, he arrived with a pack of thorough-bred foxhounds. These he soon found were quite a mistake; they invariably open upon the scent at a great distance, and after warning the elk too soon, they stick to him too long, and ultimately fall victims to chetahs or starvation, the penalty of inexperienced perseverance. The offspring of crosses with pointers, bloodhounds, and half-bred foxhounds, are the right stamp for the sport; while the Australian lurcher proves often of immense service upon the open. The hero of Mr Baker’s pack was a Manilla bloodhound of enormous strength and indomitable pluck. The performances of old Smut are worthy of a volume to themselves; and if his master could appreciate the merits of his favourite hound when alive, he proves himself an historian well qualified to do justice to his memory. The reader will also be proud to make the acquaintance of Killbuck, Bran, and Lena, who prove themselves good dogs and true. About sixteen miles from Newera Ellia, lie the Horton Plains, situated at an elevation of seven thousand feet above the level of the sea. They are perfectly uninhabited; and here it is that Mr Baker introduces us to his favourite sport. He and his friends have taken up their abode in a snug corner of the plains, where they have built for themselves a hunting-lodge and kennel. They are within hail of civilisation, but they depend almost entirely upon the dogs for sustenance, combined with the efforts of a perfect Soyer of a cook.

“This knight of the gridiron was a famous fellow, and could perform
wonders; of stoical countenance, he was never seen to smile. His whole
thoughts were concentrated in the mysteries of gravies, and the magic
transformation of one animal into another by the art of cookery: in
this he excelled to a marvellous degree. The farce of ordering dinner
was always absurd. It was something in this style. ‘Cook!’ (_Cook
answers_) ‘Coming sar!’ (_enter cook_).—‘Now, cook, you make a good
dinner; do you hear?’ _Cook_: ‘Yes, sar: master tell, I make.’—‘Well,
mulligatawny soup.’ ‘Yes, sar.’—‘Calves’ head, with tongue, and
brain-sauce.’ ‘Yes, sar.’—‘Gravy omelette.’ ‘Yes, sar.’—‘Mutton
chops.’ ‘Yes, sar.’—‘Fowl cotelets.’ ‘Yes, sar.’—‘Beefsteaks.’ ‘Yes,
sar.’—‘Marrow-bones.’ ‘Yes, sar.’—‘Rissoles.’ ‘Yes, sar.’ All these
various dishes he literally imitated uncommonly well, the different
portions of an elk being their only foundation.”

During a trip of two months at the Horton Plains, Mr Baker killed forty-three elk, which was working the pack pretty hard. At Newera Ellia the game, though not quite so plentiful, is sufficiently abundant to satisfy any reasonable sportsman, and an extract of three months’ hunting, at his own door, from our author’s game-book, shows a return of eleven bucks, seventeen does, and four hogs.

Though the sport of elk-hunting is most exciting, the recital of elk-hunting experiences must ever be somewhat monotonous: there is so little room for varied incident. The hunter follows the music of his pack over the open, at a long swinging trot, and bursts his way through the dense jungle, and down the steep bank to the foaming torrent, in the midst of which the elk is keeping the hounds at bay:—

“There they are in that deep pool formed by the river as it sweeps
round the rock. A buck! a noble fellow! Now he charges at the hounds,
and strikes the foremost beneath the water with his forefeet; up they
come again to the surface,—they hear their master’s well-known
shout,—they look round and see his welcome figure on the steep bank.
Another moment, a tremendous splash, and he is among his hounds, and
all are swimming towards their noble game. At them he comes with a
fierce rush. Avoid him as you best can, ye hunters, man, and hounds!”

This reminds us of an amusing experience of our own, under somewhat similar circumstances. The master of one of the packs at Newera Ellia, in those days a good specimen of a Ceylon Nimrod, and an old elk-hunter, was anxious to show a naval friend of his the sport in perfection. We happened to be of the party, and before long our ears were rejoiced with that steady chorus which always tells of a buck at bay. Away we dashed through the thorny jungle, and arrived at the edge of a deep black pool, in which the elk was swimming, surrounded by the entire pack. Another moment and we should have formed one of the damp but picturesque group, when our naval friend, who had been left a little in the rear, unused to such rough work, came up torn and panting. It suddenly occurs to Nimrod, just as he is going to jump in, that it is hardly civil to his guest to secure to himself the sportsman’s most delicious moment; he feels the sacrifice he is making as, with a forced blandness, and an anxious glance at the buck, he presses his hunting-knife into Captain F.’s hand, saying, “After you, sir, pray.” “Eh! after me; where?—you don’t mean me to go in there, do you?” “Certainly not, if you would rather stay here; in that case be so good as give me the knife, as there is no time to be lost.” “Oh, ah!—I didn’t understand;—how very stupid! Go in—oh certainly: I shall be delighted;” and in dashed the gallant captain with his two-edged blade gleaming in the morning sun. For a second the waters closed over him, then he appeared spluttering and choking, and waving aloft the naked steel preparatory to going down again; it was plain that he could not swim a stroke, and it cost us no little trouble to pull out the plucky sailor, who took the whole thing as a matter of course, and would evidently have gone anywhere that he had been told. It is a difficult matter to stick an elk while swimming, as the hide is very thick, and the want of any sufficient purchase renders an effective blow almost impossible. There is also a great risk of being struck by the elk’s fore-legs, while impetuous young dogs are apt to take a nip of their master by mistake. A powerful buck at bay is always a formidable customer, and the largest dogs may be impaled like kittens if they do not learn to temper their valour with discretion.

“The only important drawback,” says Mr Baker, “to the pleasure of elk-hunting is the constant loss of dogs. The best are always sure to go. What with deaths by boars, leopards, elk, and stray hounds, the pack is with difficulty maintained. Poor old Bran, who, being a thorough-bred greyhound, is too fine in the skin for such rough hunting, has been sewn up in so many places that he is a complete specimen of needlework;” while Killbuck and Smut, the hero of about four hundred deaths of elk and boar, have terminated their glorious careers. Killbuck was pierced by the sharp antlers of a spotted buck, after a splendid course over the plains in the low country. If the bay of the deer is not so good as that of the elk, the enjoyment of riding to your game renders deer-coursing a far more agreeable sport than elk-hunting. Unfortunately for Killbuck his buck came to bay as pluckily as any elk, and had pinned the noble hound to the earth, before his master, who had been thrown in the course of a reckless gallop, could come up to the rescue. But the boar is the most destructive animal to the pack, and a fierce immovable bay, in which every dog joins in an impetuous chorus, is always a dreaded sound to the hunter, who knows well that tusks, and not antlers, are at work.

The following description of a boar at bay will give some idea of the scene that then occurs:—

“There was a fight! The underwood was levelled, and the boar rushed to
and fro with Smut, Bran, Lena, and Lucifer, all upon him. Yoick to
him! and some of the most daring of the maddened pack went in. The
next instant we were upon him mingled with a confused mass of hounds;
and throwing our whole weight upon the boar, we gave him repeated
thrusts, apparently to little purpose. Round came his head and
gleaming tusks to the attack of his fresh enemies, but old Smut held
him by the nose, and, although the bright tusks were immediately
buried in his throat, the stanch old dog kept his hold. Away went the
boar covered by a mass of dogs, and bearing the greater part of our
weight in addition, as we hung on to the hunting-knives buried in his
shoulders. For about fifty paces he tore through the thick jungle,
crashing it like a cobweb. At length he again halted; the dogs, the
boar, and ourselves were mingled in a heap of confusion. All covered
with blood and dirt, our own cheers added to the wild bay of the
infuriated hounds, and the savage roaring of the boar. Still he fought
and gashed the dogs right and left. He stood about thirty-eight inches
high, and the largest dogs seemed like puppies beside him; still not a
dog relaxed his hold, and he was covered with wounds. I made a lucky
thrust for the nape of his neck. I felt the point of the knife touch
the bone; the spine was divided, and he fell dead.

“Smut had two severe gashes in the throat, Lena was cut under the ear,
and Bran’s mouth was opened completely up to his ear in a horrible
wound.”

But the boar sometimes comes off victorious; and the death of poor old Smut has never been revenged. He was almost cut in half before Mr Baker reached the bay, which lasted for an hour. At the end of that period, Smut, gashed with many additional wounds, was expiring, and three of the best remaining dogs were severely wounded; the dogs were with difficulty called off the victorious monster; and Mr Baker records, with feelings of profound emotion, the only defeat he ever experienced, and which terminated fatally to the gallant leader of his pack.

The usual drawbacks and discomforts attendant upon a new settlement having been overcome, our author assures us that Newera Ellia forms a delightful place of residence. But it must not be supposed that, on the occasion of his second visit to Ceylon, he confined himself to elk-hunting and agriculture. He is frequently tempted from his highland home to the elephant country, which is only about two days’ journey distant; and the latter part of his volume abounds with exciting descriptions of new encounters with rogues, involving the usual amount of personal hazard; and lest the too ardent pursuit of this fascinating sport seems scarcely to justify the apparent cruelty it involves, it must be remembered that it is not more cruel to kill a large animal than a small one, though this is a distinction we are too apt to make; and when the large animal is also often destructive to life and property, its slaughter is not only justifiable, but commendable in those who are disposed to risk their lives for the benefit of the public and their own gratification.

Indeed, so extensive are the ravages committed by elephants, that a price is offered by government for their tails; since, however, the procuring of tails has become a fashionable amusement among Europeans, the reward has been reduced to the miserable sum of 7s. 6d. The Moorish part of the community were the recognised elephant-slayers, so long as there was profit to be made by these means. They now devote themselves almost entirely to the capture of elephants alive for the purpose of exportation to India. Mr Baker gives an amusing account of having assisted to catch an elephant. He started with his brother and thirty Moormen, armed with ropes, towards a herd of seven, of whose presence in the neighbourhood intelligence had been received. Upon coming in sight of the herd, one was selected for capture. Mr Baker and his brother and their gun-bearers, taking the wind, advance under cover of the jungle to open the ball. This they do in style, bagging six elephants in almost the same number of minutes. The seventh starts off in full retreat with the multitude at his heels. At last an active Moorman dexterously throws a noose of thick but finely twisted hide rope over one of his hind-legs. Following the line which the unconscious elephant trails after him like a long snake, they wait until he enters the jungle, and then unceremoniously check his further progress by taking a double turn round a tree.

“Any but a hide rope of that diameter must have given way; but this
stretched like a harp-string, and, at every effort to break it, the
yielding elasticity of the hide threw him upon his head, and the
sudden contraction after the fall jerked his leg back to its full
length.

“After many vain but tremendous efforts to free himself, he turned his
rage upon his pursuers, and charged every one right and left; but he
was safely tied, and we took some little pleasure in teasing him. He
had no more chance than a fly in a spider’s web. As he charged in one
direction, several nooses were thrown round his hind-legs; then his
trunk was caught in a slip-knot, then his fore-legs, then his neck,
and the ends of all these ropes being brought together and hauled
tight, he was effectually hobbled.

“This had taken some time to effect (about half an hour), and we now
commenced a species of harness to enable us to drive him to the
village.

“The first thing was to secure his trunk by tying it to one of his
fore-legs; this leg was then fastened with a slack rope to one of his
hind-legs, which prevented him from taking a longer stride than about
two feet; his neck was then tied to his other fore-leg, and two ropes
were made fast to both his fore and hind legs; the ends of these ropes
being manned by thirty men.”

He was then driven to the village, and three days afterwards was sufficiently tamed to be mounted. His value was then about £15.

Mr Baker at last becomes as dainty in his elephant-shooting as we have already found him in the deer country. Where elephants are abundant he despises a herd, and confines himself to rogues, where they are procurable, always singling out the most vicious-looking, and this must in some measure account for the redundancy of adventure in his narrative. For though elephant-shooting is always attended with some risk, the comparative extent of this depends entirely upon the manner in which the sport is pursued. If tails are the desiderata, then a herd in a nice open jungle presents the best chance of obtaining a supply with the least possible amount of personal danger; but if sport is really sought, then a rogue upon the open is certain to afford enough to satisfy the most ardent Nimrod that ever drew trigger. The fatigue of elephant-shooting is something inconceivable to those who have not for six or eight consecutive hours laboured under a tropical sun with a heavy rifle,—the barrels of which are so hot that they can scarcely be touched,—over wide plains, and through long grass, matted over hidden rocks and tangled jungle, with an underwood of the twining bamboo and thorny mimosa. It is only the most intense excitement that could carry a man through fatigue such as this; and a prize worthy of all that he has undergone is needed to reward him for the day’s work. Under these circumstances, it is clear that, the more imminent the peril, the more satisfactory is the sport considered. There would be very little gratification in toiling all day in a temperature of 130°, if there was no opportunity presented of risking one’s life. Mr Baker’s enjoyment must have reached its climax when he was actually wounded by an elephant’s tusk. This indeed compensated for much hardship and discomfort. It happened in this wise:

About two days’ journey from Newera Ellia is situated a large tract of country called the Park. This is the most favourite resort of Ceylon sportsmen, as elephants are generally abundant. The scenery is beautiful, of a character which may be inferred from the name it now bears among Europeans. It is of vast extent, watered by numerous large rivers, and ornamented by rocky mountains, such as no English park can boast. The lemon grass grows over the greater part of this country to a height of ten or twelve feet, and large herds of elephants wander through it, the crowns of their capacious brown heads, or the tips of their trunks, tossed occasionally into the air, alone attesting their presence.

A number of these appearing over the waving grass, delight the eyes of Mr Baker and his brother one morning as they sally forth from their night encampment with their usual deadly intent. Upon discovering the daring intruders, the herd, consisting of ten, rally round the two leaders, whose deep growls, like rumbling peals of thunder, is the call in time of danger. Our author and his brother immediately advance towards the dense mass, nothing daunted by so imposing an array. A part of the herd beat a retreat, but five charge viciously; they are dropped in as many successive shots, the last at a distance of only ten paces; four more are slain in retreat, a faithless mother alone escaping, whose little charge, so unusually deserted, Mr Baker captures, by taking hold of his tail and trunk, and throwing him on his back. Those who have seen an unweaned elephant calf will admit this to be no very difficult feat. Having secured the infant, and left him in charge of his brother and the gun-bearers, Mr Baker returns to seek his legitimate trophies in the shape of tails.

“I had one barrel still loaded, and I was pushing my way through the
tangled grass towards the spot where the five elephants lay together,
when I suddenly heard Wallace shriek out, ‘Look out, sir! Look out!—an
elephant’s coming!’

“I turned round in a moment; and close past Wallace, from the very
spot where the last dead elephant lay, came the very essence and
incarnation of a ‘rogue’ elephant in full charge. His trunk was thrown
high in the air, his ears were cocked, his tail stood high above his
back as stiff as a poker, and, screaming exactly like the whistle of a
railway engine, he rushed upon me through the high grass with a
velocity that was perfectly wonderful. His eyes flashed as he came on,
and he had singled me out as his victim.

“I have often been in dangerous positions, but I never felt so totally
devoid of hope as I did in this instance. The tangled grass rendered
retreat impossible. I had only one barrel loaded, and that was
useless, as the upraised trunk protected his forehead. I felt myself
doomed; the few thoughts that rush through men’s minds in such
hopeless positions flew through mine, and I resolved to wait for him
till he was close upon me before I fired, hoping that he might lower
his trunk and expose his forehead.

“He rushed along at the pace of a horse in full speed; in a few
moments, as the grass flew to the right and left before him, he was
close upon me, but still his trunk was raised and I would not fire.
One second more, and at this headlong pace he was within three feet of
me; down slashed his trunk with the rapidity of a whip-thong, and with
a shrill scream of fury he was upon me.

“I fired at that instant; but in the twinkling of an eye I was flying
through the air like a ball from a bat. At the moment of firing I had
jumped to the left, but he struck me with his tusk in full charge upon
my right thigh, and hurled me eight or ten paces from him. That very
moment he stopped, and, turning round, he beat the grass about with
his trunk, and commenced a strict search for me. I heard him advancing
close to the spot where I lay as still as death, knowing that my last
chance lay in concealment. I heard the grass rustling close to the
spot where I lay; closer and closer he approached, and he at length
beat the grass with his trunk several times exactly above me. I held
my breath, momentarily expecting to feel his ponderous foot upon me.
Although I had not felt the sensation of fear while I had stood
opposed to him, I felt like what I never wish to feel again while he
was deliberately hunting me up. Fortunately I had reserved my fire
until the rifle had almost touched him, for the powder and smoke had
nearly blinded him, and had spoiled his acute power of scent. To my
joy I heard the rustling of the grass grow fainter; again, I heard it
at a still greater distance; at length it was gone.”

“There could not,” says our author naïvely, “be a better exemplification of a rogue than in this case.” The knowing way in which he had remained patiently concealed, while his enemies expended their ammunition and energies upon the herd, and the sudden and furious manner in which he came upon them, while unsuspectingly appropriating the tails of his brethren, quite justifies this opinion of Mr Baker’s. He escapes triumphantly, as he deserves to have done, and leaves Mr Baker to contemplate his wounded leg for some days, during which he is unable to move. We must do our author the justice to say that he seeks his revenge as soon as he is able to put his foot to the ground, and a few days afterwards we find him chasing a herd, until he says “my leg, which had lost all feeling, suddenly gave way, and I lay sprawling on my face, incapable of going a step farther. I had killed four elephants; it was very bad luck, as the herd consisted of eleven, but my leg gave way when most required.” If Mr Baker is not satisfied, we are. We shall not, therefore, follow him through the exciting details of a jungle trip, with which he concludes his most interesting work, and from which he and his two companions, the Hon. Mr Stuart Wortley and Mr E. Palliser, return in three weeks, with a bag of fifty elephants, five deer, and two buffaloes. We have said enough to indicate to the reader in search of excitement by his fireside where it is to be found—more than enough to tempt the enthusiastic sportsman to exchange for a season the comforts of home for the wild stirring life of the elephant-hunter; and we may venture to assure him that he will ever recur with delight to the enjoyment and rough luxury that a jungle trip alone affords, and he will be ready to adopt, as we do ourselves, the concluding words of our author:

“The well-arranged tent, the neatly spread table, the beds forming a
triangle around the walls, and the clean guns piled in a long row
against the gun-rack, will often recall a _tableau_ in after years, in
countries far from this land of independence. The acknowledged sports
of England will appear child’s play; the exciting thrill will be
wanting, when a sudden rush in the jungle brings the rifle on full
cock; and the heavy guns will become useless mementos of past days,
like the dusty helmets of yore, hanging up in an old hall. The belt
and the hunting-knife will alike share the fate of the good rifle, and
the blade, now so keen, will blunt from sheer neglect. The slips,
which have held the necks of dogs of such staunch natures, will hang
neglected from the wall; and all these _souvenirs_ of wild sports,
contrasted with the puny implements of the English chase, will awaken
once more the longing desire for the ‘Rifle and the Hound in Ceylon.’”

GRAY’S LETTERS.[13]

We do not intend upon the present occasion, however legitimate the opportunity, to trespass long upon the patience of our readers, in discussing the merits or demerits of Gray’s poetical style. Some few remarks we are tempted to make, chiefly of a conciliatory character; but we shall very rapidly pass on to his Life and Letters, which are the more immediate subject of the book before us. In critical debates upon English poetry, the name of Gray has been often a rallying point for the disputants: he has been held up as a bright example by one party, and by another, as a salutary warning to all youthful aspirants. “Of all English poets,” says Sir James Mackintosh, “he was the most finished artist. He attained the highest degree of splendour of which poetical style seems to be capable.” We all know what Wordsworth thought of the splendour of this poetical style, and how severely he and others have dealt with it.

Poetry is a very difficult subject to reason about; and the more refined, and the more bold, and the more complex the associations of thought in which it deals, the more difficult does it become to prove, by any process of argument, that it is good or bad. As little can you teach a man to _enjoy_ poetry, to discover it when it lies before him, by any rules, or process of reasoning, analytic or synthetic, as you could teach a man by the same methods to _write_ poetry. For there is always in the more subtle kinds of poetry an element of _unreason_; plain truth is somewhere set at defiance; and who can possibly draw the line, or say precisely to what extent imagination, under the sway of feeling or sentiment, shall be allowed to transgress on the palpable verities of our senses, or our better judgment? How can reason decide exactly, where reason herself shall be set aside in favour of emotion? Emotion, after all, must have her voice in the matter; and the final result must be some uncertain compromise between them.

We will draw an illustration of our meaning from no vulgar critic. The refined taste of Mr Landor will be at once admitted; nor will he lie open to the objection often brought against our northern critics, that they are too metaphysical or analytic in their strictures upon metaphorical language. We extract the two following annotations, from his conversation between himself and Southey, on two several passages in _Milton’s Paradise Lost_. They will aptly illustrate the difficulty which every one will encounter who has to reason upon the right and wrong of a poet’s imagination.

“What a beautiful expression is there in verse 546, which I do not remember that any critic has noticed—

‘Obtain the brow of some _high-climbing_ hill.’

Here the hill itself is instinct with life and activity.”

Agreed: it is a beautiful expression; and if any one insists that a hill does not climb, but is a thing to be climbed upon, we pronounce him a blockhead for his pains. Nevertheless the blockhead has palpable truth upon his side. The hill does not climb in fact, and there is no process we know of by which it can be made to climb in his imagination. Now for our second comment—

“‘Sage he stood,
With Atlantean shoulders fit to bear
The weight of mightiest monarchies.’

Often and often have these verses been quoted without a suspicion how strongly the corporeal is substituted for the moral. However Atlantean his shoulders might be, the might of monarchies could no more be supported by them than by the shoulders of a grasshopper.”

Here, Mr Landor takes part with plain matter-of-fact against that play of poetic imagination, which often succeeds in making one deep and harmonious impression out of incongruous materials, merely by the dexterous rapidity with which these are passed before the mind. We confess to have admired the bold, vague, instantaneous, transitory combination of physical with moral properties, which we have in these celebrated lines. The monarchies do not rest directly on the “shoulders,” but on the sage man with these broad shoulders, and the epithet “Atlantean,” by suggesting immediately a mythological person, has already half allegorised the figure. The shoulders which are for an instant brought before the mind’s eye, have never supported any less honourable weight than that of a whole world. Mr Landor, however, may be right; we are not disputing the correctness of his criticism; we are only pointing out the inherent difficulties of the subject. Mr Landor may be right; but what answer would he give to the man of plain understanding who did not comprehend how a hill could climb, and who should insist upon it, that a mound of earth could no more be “instinct with life and activity” than broad shoulders could help a man to govern well?

Turning over the pages of a work of Meinherr Feuchtersleben on Medical Psychology, we met with the remark, that the effort to enjoy or attend to some of our finer sensations was not always followed by an increase in those pleasurable sensations. Thus, he says, we distend our nostrils and inspire vigorously when we would take our fill of some agreeable odour, and yet certain of the more refined scents escape us by this very effort to seize and appropriate them. Passing by a bed of violets, the flowers themselves perhaps unseen, how charming a fragrance has hit upon the unwarned sense! Turn back, and strenuously inhale for the very purpose of enjoying it more fully, the fairy favour has escaped you. It floated on the air, playing with the sense of him who sought not for it; but quite refusing to be fed upon voraciously by the prying and dilated nostril. Something like this may be observed in the case of poetical enjoyment. The susceptible reader feels it, though he sought it not, and the more varied the culture of his mind, the more likely is he to be visited by this pleasure; but it will not be captured by any effort of hard, vigorous attention, or the merely scrutinising intellect. The poetry of the verse, like the fragrance of the violet, will not be rudely seized; and he who knits his brow and strains his faculty of thought over the light and musical page may wonder how it happens that the charm grows less as his desire to fix and to appropriate it has increased.

When, therefore, we discuss the merits of a poetical style, we enter upon a subject on which we must not expect to reason with strict certainty, or arrive at very dogmatic conclusions. To the last some minds will find a glorious imagination, where others will perceive only a logical absurdity. We can only come, as we have said, to some compromise between reason and emotion. They meet together in the arena of imagination, and must settle their rival claims as they best can.

That Gray was a true poet surely no one will deny. Who has bequeathed, in proportion to the extent or volume of his writings, a greater number of those individual lines and passages which live in the memory of all men, and are recognised as the most perfect expression of a given thought or sentiment that our British world has produced? But such lines and passages rarely bear the stamp of the poet’s mannerism. They would not have gained their universal acceptation if they had. Highest excellence is all of one style. That manner which constitutes the peculiarity of Gray, and which distinguishes him from other poets, we certainly do not admire, and we will give the best reasons for our dislike to it that we are able.

Poetry we have somewhere heard defined as “passionate rhythmical expression;” and, if our memory fail us, and we do not quote correctly, we nevertheless venture to promulgate this as a very sufficient definition. It is passionate rhythmical expression; and it becomes imaginative because it is passionate. Every one knows that strong feeling runs to metaphor and imagery to express itself; or, in other words, that a predominant sentiment will gather round itself a host of kindred ideas held often together by almost imperceptible associations. In proportion as the mind is full of ideas or remembered objects, will be the complex structure which will grow out of this operation. It is not, therefore, because a strain is complex, ornate, or full of learning, that it ceases to be spontaneous or natural. If Milton rolls out thought after thought, gathered from the literature of Rome or Greece, the verse may be quite as natural, quite as genuine an expression of sentiment as any ballad in the _Percy Reliques_. But what is desired is, that, learned or not, the strain have this character of spontaneity, _that it be the language in which some mortal has verily and spontaneously thought_. We do not mean, of course, that the style should not be corrected by afterthought, but the corrections should be made in the same spirit, the language moving from the thought and passion of the man. Now, there is much of Gray’s writing of which it cannot be said that the language or imagery flows by any such spontaneous process; in which we are perpetually reminded of effort and artifice, which, as it never _came from_, so it can never go home straightway to any human soul.

We might venture even to take for an instance the popular line—

“E’en in our ashes live their wonted fires.”

This quotation has obtained a general currency: “ashes” and their “fires” bear each other out so well, that the careless reader has no doubt the meaning is all right. Yet we suspect that very many quote the line without any distinct meaning whatever attached to it. And for this reason,—no Englishman would ever naturally have expressed the sentiment in this language. Men, at least some men, are careful where they shall lay their bones; they would sleep amongst their fathers, their countrymen, their children; some seek a retired spot; some where friends will congregate; some choose the sun, and some the shadow. They endue the dead clay that will be lying under the turf with some vague sentiment of feeling—with some residue of the old affections. Would any Englishman, impressed with such a feeling, go back in imagination to classic times, when the body was burnt, and speak of “ashes” which never will exist, rather than of the slumbering corpse which his eye must be following, as he speaks, into the earth? Here is the whole stanza:—

“On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires,
E’en from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
E’en in our ashes live their wonted fires.”

It is altogether, it will be seen, a very elaborate structure. Gray was a genuine lover of nature; yet he would rather make a patchwork out of poetical phrases, and the traditional imagery of the poets, than place himself in the scene he meant to describe, and watch in imagination the effects it would produce upon him. The critics have remarked that, in the opening stanzas of the _Elegy_, events are described as contemporaneous which must have been successive. We have sunset in one stanza:—

“Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight.”

And in the next, we have advanced into the perfect moonlight:—

“Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon complain,
Of such as, wandering near her secret bow’r,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.”

It may be argued, indeed, that time does not stand still with the poet; and that, as he lingered in the churchyard, twilight had given way to midnight. But we are afraid that the true answer is simply this—that the ivy-mantled tower, the moon, and the owl, were, at all events, to be introduced as fit accompaniments of the scene; and that no question was ever asked how they would harmonise with the sunset view of distant fields, that we had glanced at just before.

“Hark, how each giant oak, and desert cave,
Sighs to the torrent’s awful voice beneath!”

That one who loved mountains, and frequented them, should put a string of unmeaning words like these into the mouth of his Welsh bard! There is absolutely _nothing_ in them. Give your Welsh harper the finest ear imaginable, and put him on what mountain you will, what “desert caves” will he hear sighing in response to giant oaks, and these again to the torrent beneath?

“O’er thee, oh King! their hundred arms they wave,
Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe.”

The oaks waving in wrath “their hundred arms,” is a fine frenzy enough; but it is spoilt again by the “hoarser murmurs breathe,”—words in which no man ever thought.

Instances of this artificial manner of building up the rhyme, it would be superfluous to multiply. Let us rather drop a hint against carrying our strictures to an undue degree of severity. There is, especially, a running charge of plagiarism brought against Gray, and all such _composite_ poets, which is altogether unfair. If they have formed their style in the study of other poets, it follows that they must repeat the phrases of their predecessors; but, if they do this in the expression of a new thought of their own, such use of their language must not be described as plagiarism. A critic before us thus comments on some lines in the _Elegy_:—

“Their furrow oft the _stubborn glebe_ has broke;
How jocund did they drive their _team a-field_,
How bent the woods beneath their _sturdy stroke_.”

“This stanza is made up of various pieces inlaid. ‘Stubborn glebe’ is from Gay; ‘drive a-field’ from Milton; ‘sturdy stroke’ from Spencer.”[14] Now, there is not one of these expressions which does not here fall very properly into its place; and a writer familiar with poetic diction would make use of them without any reference to the authors from whom they might have been, in the first place, received. Indeed, it would be quite impossible for any one to compose in this _mosaic_ fashion; nor is there any end to the charges of plagiarism that might, on this principle, be brought. If such expressions as “sturdy stroke,” and “drive a-field,” are to be traced to the ownership of some predecessor, one does not see how one is to move at all. The language of the country, like its arable land, is all appropriated. In the passage here commented on, the critic needed not have stopped where he did. “How jocund,” he might have added, is from Fletcher, and “how bent the woods,” from Dryden; and then only consider if these three lines were composed after such a fashion, what a wonderful piece of workmanship they must be! Whilst we are as hostile as any to laborious, conscious artifice, or the mere repetition of traditional phrases and images, we must deprecate a species of criticism which would shut out the poet from his legitimate resources, deter him from the careful study of his predecessors, and either drive him into a poor, timid, barren style of composition, or else induce him to seek the praise of originality by coining new words and fantastical expressions.

We must now address ourselves to the work before us, _The Correspondence of Gray and Mason_, as here presented to us by the careful editorship of Mr Mitford.

Mr Mitford has by his editorial offices for ever associated his own name with that of the poet Gray. In the Aldine edition of his works he performed the good office of restoring the genuine text of Gray’s letters, which his first biographer, Mason, had so singularly garbled. For this and other good services of the same kind the public were already indebted to Mr Mitford. He has now, we presume, completed his labours on this subject by the publication of _The Correspondence of Gray and Mason_ in the form Mason himself had preserved it, with copious notes explanatory of all things necessary to be known, and some which, we are happy to think, are not quite necessary items in the sum of human knowledge.

The publication of this octavo volume in its separate form was, we suppose, inevitable. The course of editorial labours will not run smooth any more than any other courses. In due order of things, Mr Mitford, when he prepared his edition of _Gray’s Letters_ for the press, should have had the materials which form this volume put into his hands; he could then have incorporated in his book such additions to the letters of Gray as are to be found here; he could have avoided reprinting a considerable number of them, and might have given us such of the letters of Mason (none others are of the least value) as throw light upon the biography and writings of the poet Gray. But this natural order of things was not to be permitted. It was, we must presume, after the Aldine edition had been printed that the manuscript of Mason came under his inspection. Thus this large new volume was judged indispensable, although it is manifestly destined to a very brief existence; and, in spite of its luxury of type, and its neat livery of green and gold, must be absorbed, its personality entirely lost, in the next and more complete edition of the works of Gray.

When Mason prepared the letters of his distinguished friend for publication, he was not sufficiently unreasonable to thrust many of his own upon the notice of the reader; but he took care to preserve carefully in a manuscript volume the correspondence of both parties, or at least such portions of his own letters as he thought were creditable to himself. This manuscript volume he bequeathed to his friend Mr Stonhewer; from him “it passed,” Mr Mitford tells us in his preface, “into the hands of his relative, Mr Bright of Skeffington Hall, Leicestershire. When, in the year 1845, the library of Gray was sold by the sons of that gentleman, then deceased, this volume of Correspondence was purchased by Mr Penn of Stoke Park, and by him was kindly placed in my hands for publication.”

Mr Mitford has not only judged it worthy of a separate publication, but has bestowed the utmost pains in preparing it for the press. His industrial annotation strikes us with a sort of wonder. We are amazed at the pertinacity of research, all the more laudable, we presume, because the prize held forth was of such almost inappreciable value. “So you have christened Mr Dayrolles’ child,” says Mr Gray to the Rev William Mason, and passes on, regardless, to other matter—to something pertaining to the then Chancellor of the Exchequer. Not so the conscientious editor. Who is this Mr Dayrolles? and why has the christening of his child by the Rev. William Mason been glanced at by the poet? Forthwith a ransacking amongst all memoirs; we are referred to _Chesterfield’s Letters_, Maty’s edition, and Lord Mahon’s edition, and _Walpole’s Miscellaneous Letters_; and at length, in a manuscript memorandum (so far do we extend our researches), we find the bit of scandal: this “Mr Dayrolles’ child” is not the child of Mr Dayrolles at all, but of one Mr Stanhope; and to this it was that, we are told, “Mr Gray silently pointed.”—P. 129.

It is not always that we get even such a result. Sometimes we have a long list of references, with some dates and facts, dry as a parish register. Here is a note on a certain Mr Cambridge.

“On Mr Cambridge and his habits of conversation, see ‘Walpole’s
Letters to Lady Ossory,’ vol. i. pp. 132, 140, 410; vol. ii. p. 242;
Walpole to Mason, vol. i. p. 235; and ‘Nichol’s Literary
Illustrations,’ vol. i. p. 130; and ‘Rockingham Memoirs,’ vol. i. p.
215, for his letter to Lord Hardwicke, in June 1765. In conversation
he was said to be full of entertainment, liveliness, and anecdote. One
sarcastic joke on Capability Brown testifies his wit, and his
_Scribleriad_ still survives in the praises of Dr Warton; yet the
radical fault that pervades it is well shown in _Annual Review_, ii.
584.”—P. 184.

Even the “one sarcastic joke” we are not permitted to hear; but we are kindly told in what volume of the _Annual Review_ we shall find the “radical fault,” pointed out of a satire that lives only “in the praises of Dr Warton.” One more instance we must select, that our readers may form some just appreciation of the indefatigable research of our learned editor. The name of Sir Richard Lyttleton being mentioned, we are invited to the perusal of the following note:—