FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES.*
ANYONE who read the Episodes and has seen this continuation of them, must have greeted it, as we did, gratefully and with un- mixed pleasure. To return to these touching stories of real life,— which have much of the picturesqueness and movement of the best fiction, with the added interest of a book into which a high pur- pose is not intentionally worked, but by which it is of necessity attained,—after the unreality of works of imagination, or the com- parative heaviness of useful reading, is like escaping into the fields from the gardens of "show "-places, or from the streets of a town. This may seem paradoxical, since the tales are principally —not of streets, indeed, but--of alleys and of City lanes. It is of the moral atmosphere of the book, however, that we speak ; but it is also to some extent literally true, for Friends and Acquaintances lead us much more into the country than did their predecessors of the Episodes; and we have souse delightful rambles with our author, during his happy but rather serious boyhood and youth, when he seems more than once to have resorted to sea and country air to recruit a not very strong constitu- tion. This wandering back into the past and away into the country rather destroys the unity of effect and of purpose which were so conspicuous in the Episodes, as teaching us some- thing of the hardships and trials, the vices and virtues of the London East-End poor, as they revealed themselves to the sym- pathy of a cultivated clergyman with a genial and loving heart. But in country as well as town, and boy as well as man, it is the poor who attract his attention, and their bright but simple good- ness his regard. A ploughman, a fisherman, a basket-maker are his heroes, either for their virtues or their misfortunes,—genorally for both. One uneasy doubt, however, is suggested in these records of our author's childhood ; a doubt, namely, as to the possibility of his recording with such vividness, after so long an interval, the scenes and conversations in which he bore a part. This, again, raises the further doubt as to whether other stories are not a little dressed-up and polished-off by an imagination naturally rich, and supplied with ample materials to work upon from an unusually long and wide experience. Did, for instance, our author ever know that Esther, in " All 'Ot," cried her eyes out when she had shut herself into her room after her dismissal of her lover ? As we read the story, the Joyner could not have told it, and the girl would not. Or how could Sans, in the same story, have given our author any adequate idea of the grandiloquent speech addressed to hips by the begging-letter writer ? Is not our author's own humour more probably the inspirer of it ? But there can be no great harm in stating as facts trifles like these, which seem neces- sary to piece a story together, and of whieh his knowledge of human nature would leave him in little doubt. Our author gives us his word, besides, that he tells the stories as they were told to him, or as he discovered them by inquiry, so that we arc deter- mined to enjoy even his relation of his boyish adventures without uneasy doubts. There is one story of his youth rather out of keeping with the rest of the six volumes—for we cannot separate these from the Episodes—not very interesting, and not very amusing, and a little vulgar, and which we seem to have better told by Dickens, and which, therefore, we wish had been excluded. It is the account of an evening spent with some strolling players, and of the author's boyish fancy for the manager's daughter. But this story, like the rest, shows the same quick appreciation of the humour and of the pathos to be found in all unconventional life.
As in the Episodes, so here, we are struck first by the author's own unpretending and unselfish devotion to his work ; and next, by the ungrudging—and more than that—the unconscious generosity of the poor to each other. These volumes, indeed, have given us quite a different—a curiously home-like—feeling for the hitherto shunned and avoided East London, Mile End and the Commer- cial Road seem full of humble friends, whose addresses we have only to ask from our author when we have opportimity for renewing our acquaintance with them. It is difficult to make extracts from these stories, for they aro but short, to begin with, and contain little more than is necessary to make each complete. But as well as we can, we will give our readers some idea of their beauty and value. In the Mile-End Road—to quote an instance of the good- ness of the poor to each other—the attention of our author was attracted by a conversation between 'a rough carman and a poor gipsy girl, and learnt that the former spent his spare time in doing what he could by deed as well as word for his poorer neighbours ; making himself a thorn in the side of hard-hearted guardians, for * lopiencis and Aequalnlances. By the Author of "Episodes in an Obecure Life." Loadou Eta-slim and 00. instance,—one of the most unpleasant of duties for any one, bat especially for those whose pOsition in life cannot con-imam' eve* common civility from worthy, perhaps, but vulgar and purse-
proud wielders of brief authority. He relates several instances of the goodness of this carman—whom he designates " my mis- sionary "—and concludes thus :- " Space will allow mo to give only another specimen of my missionary's.
work. In that dreary Bromlcy-aud-Bow-Common district there lived a lonely old woman, who had not a friend in the world but my missionary. She lived in a boarded-up railway arch, which had ono°• been used as a stable. The graceless youth of the neighbourhood greatly persecuted the poor bent old creature, and there was not a soul there who oared whether she lived or died. The missionary's visits wore a great comfort to her, both as a protection and a proof that in the wide world. there was still one person left that would remember the old woman, who had outlived all the rest of her friends, when she was put into the ground. The missionary every now and then also took her a loaf, an ounce of tea,. a smoked haddock, and such like, and since she liked to hear a chapter in the Bible road, as ' minding of her o' the days when she could afford, to go to church,' he always took his Bible with him when he called upon her, and a candle to read it by. He made furrows between the lines, with his slowly-moving nail ; ho boggled terribly over the proper names;. but those readings, in that damp, rotten old place, with the candle stuck into a blacking-bottle on the corn-bin, were more touching than any poetry professor's prrelectione. And now I have only to toll of my missionary's end. It chanced that I had not seen him for more than two months, when one evening I again tapped at his door. A strange woman opened it. 'Mr. Brown ' she repeated dubiously after me. 'Oh, you moan John the Carman. Law, bless yo, sir, haven't ye hoard ? He's been dead this six weeks—him, and his missis, and one o' the gals. They took the foyer from one of his sick folk as he was settin' up with. Ah ! its was a good man, was John ; and the rest o' the gals, poor things,. 'as sold their traps and gone off to New Zealand.' I made out that father, mother, and daughter had been buried in one grave in the Tower Hamlets' Cemetery. It must be within sight of the railway arch where. he used to road the Bible; but the boarding is pulled down now, and the old woman is at rest as well as John."
The following passage describes so briefly and with so much pathos the fate which might be that of many a poor child amongst the-
struggling claims, that we must extract it for our readers' benefit. Haply it may meet the eye and touch the heart of some who- have the means, but have never had the thought, to seek and save some of the orphans of the poor from distress just as heartbreaking,. and not so terribly beyond all remedy. The story is of a little.
fiddler-boy who lost his sight by fire-works one Gay Fawkes night, going merrily to help his fellows, and led home, a few minutes later, irreparably and totally blind. At eleven years of ago he was not yet reconciled to his fate, great as the alleviation, was whitish he had found in music
From the time I turned eleven till I was about thirteen, I got quite contented at home, though I couldn't help wondering sometimes what would happen to me if father and mother were to die. They did die when I was thirteen, and Tom and Sissy too. Scarlet foyer was very bad in Hackney ; and they had it, and I had it. When I came to my- self, they were all dead and buried, and I was in the workhouse. I know I wasn't at home in a moment, because the room felt bigger. The man next door had saved my fiddle for me, and when I was safe to be spoke to he brought it to mo, and when I'd given the bow one draw, I. felt I wasn't quite alone in the world. But I broke down before I got through my that tune, it made me think so of poor father and mother,. and Tom and little Sissy. When the workhouse master found I could play the fiddle, he told the parish gentletnon, and they thought I might make. a living that way. So they rigged me out in a fresh suit of clothe* (they'd burnt the ones I went in), and told ins to come back if I eouldn't got on and then sent tno out with my fiddle. They'd told the master. to find tne a hed somewhere, and ho had spoken to a woman who lived down by the Triangle, who knew mother. The first morning I went out,. I got her to lot her little boy go with me to the church-yard, to take. mo to whore father and mother and Tom and Sissy were buried. I felt all over them and the graves next about, that I might find my way back, and I stuck a bit of tile in father and mother's grave, and an oyster-shell in Tom and Sissy's, to make sure, and I've been back there many a time since then."
Later the poor fiddler married, but early lost both wife and son,. and was again entirely alone in the world. When our author, in his evening rambles, first made his acquaintance, the fiddler had become an organist, and was playing in a dark and empty City church ; but with a little granddaughter—his only relative—by
his side, and he was happy and at peace. The book is so full of passages beautiful, humorous, and pathetic, that it is quite a trial to reject them, and many important subjects are touched upon as they happen to be incidentally illustrated by the stories which the author has collected. The history of a poor young governess. is told in "'He cornetts not, she said,' "—happily he came before the end. " Pont Derfel's Now Mistress " is a beautiful story of a. good step-mother, and the remarks which precede it might be read with advantage by many a detractor.of that maligned order,—wo will venture to say, as much sinned against as sinning. "A little. heroine" is a most touching tale of a child of twelve or thirteen,.
who canvassed, year after year, in her spare moments, for her sick mother's election to a hospital for Incurables. We wonder that some of the rich City men, upon whom she called tittle after time, 'could find in their hearts not to pay the good little woman the ...whole sum in a lump, necessary for the desired presentatiom But to enumerate the stories which have delighted us would be very 'nearly to copy the list of contents. We must be content to quote the speech of the writer of begging-letters to his friend the vendor of roast " 'tenets," who thinks it "queer there's nothing about ltaties in the Testament. Anyhow, I thank God," he continues, "for creatin' of 'em. It's a pleasure to sell 'em. They're such a fillin' comfort, specially with a nice dollop o' butter in'ena, to them as buys 'em." The begging-letter writer thought so too:—
"'I like your potatoes,' he had said, 'because they're the boat I can get anywhere, and they're the handiest I can get for my supper where I'm staying now—so it's only common-sense to buy them. You've mothing to thank me fur, so far. Perhaps I was kind to you formerly, but I have mot with so little gratitude in the course of my chequered existence that when I do see a show of it, it staggers mo. Perhaps I may not have done much to merit gratitude ; perhaps I may have done very much. Opinions differ, and it ill becomes a man to trumpet his own praises. There is only one thing I will ask of you, Sam. When you discover the identity of your anonymous benefactor, oblige me with his address. It will be for his benefit as well as mine,—or rather, of the numerous objects, deserving objects, whom I shall be able to bring within the play of his most benevolent hose-pipe. I have no doubt that his benevolence would burst him if it could not find a vent, and for his own sake as well as sufferers'—many sufferers whom I know, with unexceptionable vouchers of calamity and character—I wish to discover his address, were it only to thank him for justifying my belief in the innate goodness of human nature. It is often burled, sir—buried at a deuced depth, I must confess—but it is there, air, if you only dig deep enough. How refreshing, then, to a rightly-constituted mind to find that it is to be mot with on the surface if the rightly constitu- ted mind could only find the place 1 In the meantime, Sam, I shall eat your potatoes, because I relish them, and you must allow me to pay for them, Sam. It would be infra dig.—I am making no punning allusion to your stook in trade—for a professional man, a man of extensive acquirements, although in a pecuniary point of view, unfortunately, they have not secured the extensive acquisitions which, perhaps, they merited—to accept eleemosynary tubers from a prosperous street-seller, even though that professional man may possibly have slightly contributed to that prosperous street-seller's prosperity.'" And now we must leave our readers ; but we will leave them in the green fields, to which we said at our commencement that these volumes led us, both by their spirit and their words. In his "Travels behind a Plough," when our revered and reverend author was a little boy in search of an appetite and rosy cheeks, we have this beautiful reminiscence of summer days in the meadows about his host's farm-house:— " When the hay had been cut, and tossed, and cocked, and carried— littering the trees that joined hands across the lanes with wisps that the birds would have been glad of a few weeks before—and forked up into stacks under tarpaulins, and combed into neatness of side, and thatched Into seourity of top, an atmosphere of languor brooded for awhile over the farm. The weeders and the rabbits seemed the only busy creatures on it. The woods grew darker, the hedges grew dusty. Boos were over humming drowsily round the flowering sweet-lime in the farm garden. The luscious-scented blossoms dropped off in the blue-green bean fields. Green corn was fast becoming golden, with heavy oars which, in heavy land, tapped sleepily, as the wind softly moved them, against even a tall man's hat. The brown coveys of young partridges that sprang whirring up in sudden fright, and then as suddenly dropped like stones into the goldening green seas, spangled with blue corn- flower and rough-stalked scarlet poppies, were daily growing loss dis- tinguishable from their papas and manoraas."
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