Heads And Tales Part 20

Luttrell visited Sydney Smith at his parsonage in Somersets.h.i.+re. The London wit told some amusing Irish stories, and his manner of telling them was so good. "One: 'Is your master at home, Paddy?' '_No_, your honour.' 'Why, I saw him go in five minutes ago.' 'Faith, your honour, he's not exactly at home; he's only there in the back yard a-shooting rats with cannon, your honour, for his _devarsion_.'"[165]

JAMES WATT AND THE RAT'S WHISKERS.

Mrs Schimmelpenninck in her youth lived at Birmingham, where she often met James Watt. In her autobiography (p. 34), she says, "Everybody practically knew the infinite variety of his talents and stores of knowledge. When Mr Watt entered a room, men of letters, men of science, nay, military men, artists, ladies, even little children thronged round him. I remember a celebrated Swedish artist having been instructed by him that rats' whiskers made the most pliant and elastic painting-brush; ladies would appeal to him on the best means of devising grates, curing smoky chimneys, warming their houses, and obtaining fast colours. I can speak from experience of his teaching me how to make a dulcimer, and improve a Jew's harp."

THE POET GRAY COMPARES THE POET-LAUREATE TO A RAT-CATCHER.

The poet Gray very much despised such offices as that of the poet-laureate, or that held by Elkanah Settle, the last of the city poets whose name is held up to ridicule by Pope in the "Dunciad." In a letter to the Rev. Wm. Mason,[166] he puts this very strikingly:--

"Though I very well know the bland emolient saponaceous qualities both of sack and silver, yet if any great man would say to me, 'I make you rat-catcher to his Majesty, with a salary of 300 a year, and two b.u.t.ts of the best Malaga; and though it has been usual to catch a mouse or two, for form's sake, in public once a year, yet to you, sir, we shall not stand upon these things,' I cannot say I should jump at it; nay, if they would drop the very name of the office, and call me Sinecure to the King's Majesty, I should still feel a little awkward, and think everybody I saw smelt a rat about me: but I do not pretend to blame any one else that has not the same sensations. For my part, I would rather be serjeant-trumpeter or pinmaker to the palace."

JEREMY BENTHAM AND THE MICE.

The biographer of Jeremy Bentham[167] tells us that among the animals he was fond of were mice. They were encouraged "to play" about in his workshop. I remember, when one got among his papers, that he exclaimed, "Ho! ho! here's a mouse at work; why won't he come into my lap?--but then I ought to be writing legislation, and that would not do."

One day, while we were at dinner, mice had got, as they frequently did, into the drawers of the dinner-table, and were making no small noise. "O you rascals," exclaimed Bentham, "there's an uproar among you. I'll tell puss of you;" and then added, "I became once very intimate with a colony of mice. They used to run up my legs, and eat crumbs from my lap.

I love everything that has four legs; so did George Wilson. We were fond of mice, and fond of cats; but it was difficult to reconcile the two affections."

Jeremy Bentham records: "George Wilson had a disorder which kept him two months to his couch. The _mouses_ used to run up his back and eat the powder and pomatum from his hair. They used also to run up my knees when I went to see him. I remember they did so to Lord Glenbervie, who thought it odd."[168]

BURNS AND THE FIELD MOUSE.

The history of the origin of this well-known piece of the Scottish poet is thus given by Mr Chambers in that edition of the Life and Works of Robert Burns,[169] which will ever be regarded, by Scotchmen at least, as the most complete and carefully-edited of the numerous editions of that most popular poet.

"We have the testimony of Gilbert Burns that this beautiful poem was composed while the author was following the plough. Burns ploughed with four horses, being twice the amount of power now required on most of the soils of Scotland. He required an a.s.sistant, called a _gaudsman_, to drive the horses, his own duty being to hold and guide the plough. John Blane, who had acted as gaudsman to Burns, and who lived sixty years afterwards, had a distinct recollection of the turning-up of the mouse.

Like a thoughtless youth as he was, he ran after the creature to kill it, but was checked and recalled by his master, who, he observed, became thereafter thoughtful and abstracted. Burns, who treated his servants with the familiarity of fellow-labourers, soon after read the poem to Blane.

TO A MOUSE, ON TURNING UP HER NEST WITH THE PLOUGH, NOVEMBER 1785.

"Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie, Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie!

Thou needna start awa sae hasty Wi' bickering brattle!

I wad be laith to rin and chase thee Wi' murd'ring pattle.[170]

"I'm truly sorry man's dominion Has broken nature's social union, And justifies that ill opinion, Which makes thee startle At me, thy poor earth-born companion, And fellow-mortal!

"I doubt na whyles, but thou may thieve; What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!

A daimen icker in a thrave[171]

'S a sma' request: I'll get a blessin' wi' the laive, And never miss't.

"Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!

Its silly wa's the win's are strewin"!

And naething now to big a new ane O, foggage green, And bleak December's winds ensuin'

Baith snell and keen!

"Thou saw the fields laid bare and waste, And weary winter coming fast, And cozie here, beneath the blast, Thou thought to dwell, Till cras.h.!.+ the cruel coulter pa.s.sed Out through thy cell.

"That wee bit heap o' leaves and stibble, Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!

Now thou's turned out for a' thy trouble, But house or hald, To thole the winter's sleety dribble, And cranreuch cauld!

"But, mousie, thou art no thy lane; Improving foresight may be vain; The best-laid schemes o' mice and men Gang aft a-gley, And lea'e us nought but grief and pain For promised joy.

"Still thou art blest, compared wi' me!

The present only toucheth thee; But, och! I backward cast my e'e, On prospects drear!

And forward, though I canna see, I guess and fear."

It was on the farm of Mossgiel, in the parish of Mauchline, where he resided nearly nine years, that the occurrence took place so pathetically recorded and gloriously commented on in this piece.

DESTRUCTIVE FIELD MICE.

Thomas Fuller, in "The Farewell" to his description of the "Worthies of Ess.e.x," says, "I wish the sad casualties may never return which lately have happened in this county; the one, 1581, in the Hundred of Dengy, the other, 1648, in the Hundred of Rochford and Isle of Foulness (rented in part by two of my credible paris.h.i.+oners, who attested it, having paid dear for the truth thereof); when an army of mice, nesting in ant-hills, as conies in burrows, shaved off the gra.s.s at the bare roots, which, withering to dung, was infectious to cattle. The March following, numberless flocks of owls from all parts flew thither, and destroyed them, which otherwise had ruined the country, if continuing another year. Thus, though great the distance betwixt a man and a mouse, the meanest may become formidable to the mightiest creature by their mult.i.tudes; and this may render the punishment of the Philistines more clearly to our apprehensions, at the same time pestered with mice in their barns and pained with emerods in their bodies."[172]

THE BARON VON TRENCK AND THE TAME MOUSE IN PRISON.

The unfortunate Baron Von Trenck was a Prussian officer, whose adventures, imprisonments, and escape form the subject of memoirs which he wrote in Hungary. He at last settled in France, and there, in 1794, perished by the guillotine.

Before he obtained his liberty, he lost a companion which had for two years helped to beguile the solitude of his captivity. This was a mouse, which he had tamed so perfectly, that the little creature was continually playing with him, and would eat out of his mouth. "One night it skipped about so much that the sentinels heard a noise and reported it to the officer of the guard. As the garrison had been changed at the peace (between Austria and Prussia), and as Trenck had not been able to form at once so close a connexion with the officers of the regular troops as he had done with those of the militia, one of the former, after ascertaining the truth of the report with his own ears, sent to inform the commandant that something extraordinary was going on in the prison. The town-major arrived in consequence early in the morning, accompanied by locksmiths and masons. The floor, the walls, the baron's chains, his body, everything in short, were strictly examined. Finding all in order, they asked the cause of the last evening's bustle. Trenck had heard the mouse, and told them frankly by what it had been occasioned. They desired him to call his little favourite; he whistled, and the mouse immediately leaped upon his shoulder. He solicited that its life might be spared; but the officer of the guard took it into his possession, promising, however, on his word of honour, to give it to a lady who would take great care of it. Turning it afterwards loose in his chamber, the mouse, who knew n.o.body but Trenck, soon disappeared, and hid himself in a hole. At the usual hour of visiting his prison, when the officers were just going away, the poor little animal darted in, climbed up his legs, seated itself on his shoulder, and played a thousand tricks to express the joy it felt on seeing him again. Every one was astonished, and wished to have it. The major, to terminate the dispute, carried it away, gave it to his wife, who had a light cage made for it; but the mouse refused to eat, and a few days after was found dead."[173]

ALEXANDER WILSON AND THE MOUSE.

About the time when Alexander Wilson formed the design of drawing the American birds, and writing those descriptions which, when published, gave him that name which has clung to him, "_the American Ornithologist_" he had a school within a few miles of Philadelphia. He was then a keen student of the animal life around him. In 1802 he wrote to his friend Bertram, and tells him of his having had "live crows, hawks, and owls; opossums, squirrels, snakes, lizards," &c. He tells him that his room sometimes reminded him of Noah's ark, and comically adds, "but Noah had a wife in one corner of it, and in this particular our parallel does not altogether tally. I receive every subject of natural history that is brought to me; and, though they do not march into my ark from all quarters, as they did into that of our great ancestor, yet I find means, by the distribution of a few fivepenny _bits_, to make them find the way fast enough. A boy, not long ago, brought me a large basketful of crows. I expect his next load will be bull-frogs, if I don't soon issue orders to the contrary. One of my boys caught a mouse in school a few days ago, and directly marched up to me with his prisoner. I set about drawing it the same evening, and all the while the pantings of its little heart showed it to be in the most extreme agonies of fear. I had intended to kill it, in order to fix it in the claws of a stuffed owl; but, happening to spill a few drops of water near where it was tied, it lapped it up with such eagerness, and looked in my face with such an eye of supplicating terror, as perfectly overcame me. I immediately restored it to life and liberty. The agonies of a prisoner at the stake, while the fire and instruments of torture are preparing, could not be more severe than the sufferings of that poor mouse; and, insignificant as the object was, I felt at that moment the sweet sensation that mercy leaves in the mind when she triumphs over cruelty."[174]

FOOTNOTES:

[163] "The Life of General Sir Howard Douglas, Bart., G.C.B., F.R.S., D.C.L., from his Notes, Conversations, and Correspondence," by S. W.

Fullom. 1863. P. 28.

[164] "History of England, from the Peace of Utrecht," by Lord Mahon, vol. vii. p. 465.

[165] Life of Sydney Smith, by his daughter, Lady Holland, vol. i. 374.

[166] "Correspondence of Thomas Gray and Mason, edited from the originals," by the Rev. John Mitford, p. 112.

[167] Dr Bowring's "Life of Jeremy Bentham," Works, vol. xi. p. 80, 81.

[168] "Bowring's Life," vol. x., Works, p. 186.

[169] By Robert Chambers, Edinburgh, 1851, 4 vols., vol. i., p. 146.

[170] The stick used for clearing away the clods from the plough.