"And yet it may be doubted," said I maliciously, "whether William Caxton the printer did not – "
"Plague, pestilence, and fire seize William Caxton the printer, and his invention too!" cried my uncle barbarously. "When there were only a few books, at least they were good ones; and now they are so plentiful, all they do is to confound the judgment, unsettle the reason, drive the good books out of cultivation, and draw a ploughshare of innovation over every ancient landmark; seduce the women, womanize the men, upset states, thrones, and churches; rear a race of chattering, conceited, coxcombs, who can always find books in plenty to excuse them from doing their duty; make the poor discontented, the rich crotchety and whimsical, refine away the stout old virtues into quibbles and sentiments! All imagination formerly was expended in noble action, adventure, enterprise, high deeds and aspirations; now a man can but be imaginative by feeding on the false excitement of passions he never felt, dangers he never shared; and he fritters away all there is of life to spare in him upon the fictitious love-sorrows of Bond Street and St James's. Sir, chivalry ceased when the press rose! And to fasten upon me, as a forefather, out of all men who have ever lived and sinned, the very man who has most destroyed what I most valued – who, by the Lord! with his cursed invention has wellnigh got rid of respect for forefathers altogether – is a cruelty of which my brother had never been capable, if that printer's devil had not got hold of him!"
That a man in this blessed nineteenth century should be such a Vandal! and that my uncle Roland should talk in a strain that Totila would have been ashamed of, within so short a time after my father's scientific and erudite oration on the Hygeiana of Books, was enough to make one despair of the progress of intellect and the perfectibility of our species. And I have no manner of doubt that, all the while, my uncle had a brace of books in his pockets, Robert Hall one of them! In truth, he had talked himself into a passion, and did not know what nonsense he was saying, poor man. But this explosion of Captain Roland's has shattered the thread of my matter. Pouff! I must take breath and begin again!
Yes, in spite of my sauciness, the old soldier evidently took to me more and more. And, besides our critical examination of the property and the pedigree, he carried me with him on long excursions to distant villages, where some memorial of a defunct Caxton, a coat of arms, or an epitaph on a tombstone, might be still seen. And he made me pore over topographical works and county histories, (forgetful, Goth that he was, that for those very authorities he was indebted to the repudiated printer!) to find some anecdote of his beloved dead! In truth, the county for miles round bore the vestigia of those old Caxtons; their handwriting was on many a broken wall. And, obscure as they all were, compared to that great operative of the Sanctuary at Westminster, whom my father clung to – still, that the yesterdays that had lighted them the way to dusty death had cast no glare on dishonoured scutcheons seemed clear, from the popular respect and traditional affection in which I found that the name was still held in hamlet and homestead. It was pleasant to see the veneration with which this small hidalgo of some three hundred a-year was held, and the patriarchal affection with which he returned it. Roland was a man who would walk into a cottage, rest his cork leg on the hearth, and talk for the hour together upon all that lay nearest to the hearts of the owners. There is a peculiar spirit of aristocracy amongst agricultural peasants: they like old names and families; they identify themselves with the honours of a house, as if of its clan. They do not care so much for wealth as townsfolk and the middle class do; they have a pity, but a respectful one, for wellborn poverty. And then this Roland, too – who would go and dine in a cook shop, and receive change for a shilling, and shun the ruinous luxury of a hack cabriolet – could be positively extravagant in his liberalities to those around him. He was altogether another being in his paternal acres. The shabby-genteel, half-pay captain, lost in the whirl of London, here luxuriated into a dignified case of manner that Chesterfield might have admired. And, if to please is the true sign of politeness, I wish you could have seen the faces that smiled upon Captain Roland, as he walked down the village, nodding from side to side.
One day a frank, hearty, old woman, who had known Roland as a boy, seeing him lean on my arm, stopped us, as she said bluffly, to take a "geud luik" at me.
Fortunately I was stalwart enough to pass muster, even in the eyes of a Cumberland matron; and, after a compliment at which Roland seemed much pleased, she said to me, but pointing to the Captain —
"Hegh, sir, now you ha the bra time before you; you maun een try and be as geud as he. And if life last, ye wull too – for there never waur a bad ane of that stock. Wi' heads kindly stup'd to the least, and lifted manfu' oop to the heighest – that ye all war' sin ye came from the Ark. Blessins on the ould name – though little pelf goes with it – it sounds on the peur man's ear like a bit o' gould!"
"Do you not see now," said Roland, as we turned away, "what we owe to a name, and what to our forefathers? – do you not see why the remotest ancestor has a right to our respect and consideration – for he was a parent? 'Honour your parents' – the law does not say, 'Honour your children!' If a child disgrace us, and the dead, and the sanctity of this great heritage of their virtues —the name; – if he does – " Roland stopped short, and added fervently, "But you are my heir now – I have no fear! What matters one foolish old man's sorrow? – the name, that property of generations, is saved, thank Heaven – the name!"
Now the riddle was solved, and I understood why, amidst all his natural grief for a son's loss, that proud father was consoled. For he was less himself a father than a son – son to the long dead. From every grave, where a progenitor slept, he had heard a parent's voice. He could bear to be bereaved, if the forefathers were not dishonoured. Roland was more than half a Roman – the son might still cling to his household affections, but the lares were a part of his religion.
CHAPTER L
But I ought to be hard at work, preparing myself for Cambridge. The deuce! – how can I? The point in academical education on which I require most preparation is Greek composition. I come to my father, who, one might think, was at home enough in this. But rare indeed is it to find a great scholar who is a good teacher.
My dear father! if one is content to take you in your own way, there never was a more admirable instructor for the heart, the head, the principles, or the tastes – in your own way, when you have discovered that there is some one sore to be healed – one defect to be repaired; and you have rubbed your spectacles, and got your hand fairly into that recess between your frill and your waistcoat. But to go to you, cut and dry, monotonously, regularly – book and exercise in hand – to see the mournful patience with which you tear yourself from that great volume of Cardan in the very honeymoon of possession – and then to note those mild eyebrows gradually distend themselves into perplexed diagonals, over some false quantity or some barbarous collocation – till there steal forth that horrible "Papæ!" which means more on your lips than I am sure it ever did when Latin was a live language, and "Papæ!" a natural and unpedantic ejaculation! – no, I would sooner blunder through the dark by myself a thousand times, than light my rush-light at the lamp of that Phlegethonian "Papæ!"
And then my father would wisely and kindly, but wondrous slowly, erase three-fourths of one's pet verses, and intercalate others that one saw were exquisite, but could not exactly see why. And then one asked why; and my father shook his head in despair, and said – "But you ought to feel why!"
In short, scholarship to him was like poetry: he could no more teach it you than Pindar could have taught you how to make