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" But the cows are very little better . They say there is much disease among the cows this year . Every morning I expect to hear that we have lost two or three cows in the night . We have had to throw atvay the greater part of the milk for this fortnight past . " Bill asked his brother whether anything was going well with him . Except the turnips and potatoes , everything seemed to be pure loss . He was told that he should go out upon the hills tomorrow , and see the stock ; some of the cattle were very fine .
The next morning was lovely . When the uncle looked forth from his window he saw that Rosa had already been busy , for there was a row of linen on the line on the green . A calf was doing mischief , however , munching away at a pretty blue cotton gown of the maids ' , varying its repast with a bite at an apron of Rosa ' s . As soon as the alarm was given the girl burst out , with the great whip ,
and had the frolic of a run round and round the green . But , as soon as she was again within doors the calf returned , and now with a companion , to the tempting blue gown . Bill went himself , when dressed , to drive away the creatures more effectually , and his niece came out to him . She beckoned to him to come to a spot she pointed out , under an elder bush which stood between the green and the garden .
" Do you see this ? " she asked , with a face of anxious gloom . " See what , my dear ? Those elder flowers ?" "Yes ; a second flowering , uncle . I know what it means . It was so last year . Either father or I shall die , and never see another year . " Her uncle stared ; but she went on : — "You see we are so low-spirited , I declare I dread the winter coming on . It is an omen , you see , the elder bush flowering twice . Last year it did so , and our very best man , you know , was thrown in the yard , coming from watering the pony , and his brains were dashed out against the great elm . I saw it , uncle , and I shall never get over it , and now I know it will be father or me . "
No reasoning was of any avail ; and the only satisfaction was in finding that this was the cause of Rosa ' s depression and irritability ; and that there was no clandestine love affair at present . It still appeared too probable that some daring low suitor would carry her off if her father would not hear of more suitable addresses ; but just now Rosa ' s thoughts were more full of death than of marriage .
Her father stood on the threshold , chewing tobacco , when they went in to breakfast . II is news was , that a fine young bullock , worth £ 7 , which he had meant his brother to admire , had been bogged in the night , and found dead this morning . The indifference with which all these losses were mentioned compelled the brother to believe that , after all , Bob must be rich . It certainly required some wealth to conduct farming in this style .
After breakfast Bill was asked to be ready in an hour to go out upon the hills . His brother wan busy for an hour . II is business was to go into the lane , and knock down rabbits for dinner . He took a cleaver and a cudgel , and stole forth , as if he were going to commit murder , —waiting till his sons were out . of sight . In two hours be stole home with something under his coat . His dog bad pulled down a leveret . It was a sad pity , because the steward might bear of it ; but as the leveret lay there , it was us well to bring it home . There were two rabbits also , each with a chop across the ruinj ) , they having been not quite quick enough in getting into holes through the wall . Dozens more were visible as the brothers went forth , little
white tails jerking everywhere among the gor . se in the sandy lane . Then , when the brothers turned into a field , a hare wuh scouring along under the fence . Then , in the ; oat-patch above , they started u eovt ; y of partridges ; and they themselves were startled , in thr woods beyond , by the whirring of two pheasants , which burst out from the ferns . As the shortest way to the fell where the cattle wen ; , they crossed the ridge of the deer park . A bunch of slender necks , with dark heads to them , moved a little among the heather mimI ferns . Tin ;
moorgumc were beginning to look about them . On a rock , in the hottest sunshine , na ( . a half circle ; of live rabbits , all on their hauncheH , all exactly alike , and looking absurdly meditative . A few Htepti further , and a- noble herd of red deer appeared in a hollow , and , taking fright , scampered of I" to the next ridge , turning once more to look , before
the tall antlers disappeared on the other side . Bill remarked on the quantity of game they had seen ; and his brother spoke with pride of its being a fine game country ; and of the pleasure that was to the Duke and his friends , though it might be said to be a bad thing for the farmers . It was true , no farmer need think of growing grain just hereabouts ; but it was certainly a fine game country .
Some of the cattle on the fells were fine ; but most of the sheep were in bad plight . It had been a bad spring for the sheep ; and the farmer had thought of going to Falkirk this week to buy both sheep and cattle . But he was not up to such doings as he once was : he was not what he had been . He could not make up his mind . "Why not send Tom ? " his brother asked . " Was not Tom near thirty by this time ?"
Yes . Tom was nine-and-twenty ; but he had no experience , and so forth . As it was clear , however , that Tom would never have experience unless he set about getting it , the decision was arrived at , that Tom should go to Falkirk fair , and buy stock . Tom opened his eyes wide when told of this ; and his unawakened heart opened , more than it had ever done before , during the really solemn scene of his being invested with his commission .
It really was a solemn scene . It was in the evening , and in the presence of the farm-servants . The young man stood before the table , on which his father , with trembling hands , untied his canvas money bags , and counted out £ 50 in five pound notes , and £ 100 in gold , and made Tom count them after him . "Do you mean , " inquired the uncle , that Tom is to carry his money in that shape , all the way to Falkirk ? ' » " That ' s what I say , uncle , " exclaimed Rosa : " I can't bear to think of it . There will he be among a dozen drunken drovers ; and I shall have no peace till he is back again . "
Timid as the father was , no persuasions would induce him to have the money put in a more portable shape . As for bank dealings , he knew nothing about them . With a faltering voice , he said there were dangers everywhere ; but he had come safe through . He had been yearly to Falkirk ; and he was safe , they saw ; and it was most convenient to have one ' s monev about one . So he gave Tom his
blessing , very solemnly , and wished him good fortune . Everybody was silent . Rosa rocked herself over her work : her father tried to clear his throat , and choked ; and Torn sighed lip to the rafters . His uncle had a great mind to offer to go with him ; but he thought it better to let him gain experience in his own way . ! So he invited Tom to visit him on his return , as his father had often done .
Tom did pop in on his uncle , on his return ; but it was only to excuse himself from staying even one day . He was in great affliction . He had done everything for the best , and bought as fine a flock of sheep as he had ever seen , —supposing them fattened , as they would soon have been . But more than half of them had fallen sick on the road . After waiting several days , he had determined on taking home the sound ones , and seeing what his father would have him do about the rest . The daily expense , where they were , was great ; and he doubted whether any one of them would ever get an inch further on the road .
His uncle was much concerned . He even said , " The truth is , Tom , I never saw anything so unlucky as your farming . The money seems to be draining away from you on all sides , every day . " " That'H what I say , " exclaimed Tom , eagerly . " 1 don ' t see , " pursued his uncle , " but that you must all be ruined , if you go on in this way . " " That ' H what 1 say , " declined Tom , solemnly , " We didn ' t want the Corn-laws done nothing to . "
" ' Stuff ! " cried the uncle , " 1 had my opinion about the Corn-lawn , like ; other uu ! n . Hut what on earth has that to do with these losses of yours , ' — with thin disgraceful mismanagement of yours , I ( till P
Tom turned very red , and his manner wan extremely dogged when he answered : ¦¦ " You used to think as father did . And fathei has farmed all his life ; and father didn't want the Corn-laws done nothing to . " The sheep died ; and probably it was their fate that was foreshown by the elder bush : for I Ion a and her father lived through the winter . The uncle in meditating another visit . He despairs of instituting any other change ; but the family have suffered ho much by the elder bush , that he thinks he may persuade them to let him cut it down
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VALERIA . The long-expected VaUria was produced on Wednesday , and achieved a noisy success . Clever the play undoubtedly is , full of " incident" and " situation , " abounding in those attractive , but essentially vulgar , qualities—mystery and surprise and affording the great tragedian an opportunity of displaying her versatility . But to confess the truth
I found it an ignoble spectacle . As a drama there was something painful to me in seeing the old routine of the Dumas-Maquet school thrown back into Rome of the Caesars ; and the second act with its double action going on in two different parts of the stage , reminded me too forcibly of Jonatkan Bradford , or the Murder at the Roadside Inn ! Say what you will there is a necessary " keeping " in all styles .
" Le style le moins noble a pourtant sa nobl esse , " but the Fast School in a Toga does not impress me favourably . As a cleverly complicated intrigue , VaUria is worthy of the collaborateur of Dumas ; but this application of the principles of he Tht&tre Historique to Roman life is to me revolting . How I longed for the austere simplicity of Racine , trusting more to lovely verses than to startling surprises , caring more for the emotions of his audience than for their sensations , and respecting Rome as a city not to be profaned by the intrusion of the barbarians ! In this Valeria the authors have
undertaken to paint the frivolity , stupidity , and pedantry of Claudius , and something of the corrupt condition of Rome . Tacitus and Juvenal have made this epoch eternally odious — they have pitilessly exposed the horrors of that age—but it remained for MM . Lacroix and Maquet to make it thoroughly vulgar and ignoble . Nor is that all . It being a tendency of the age to find materials for Art in any cloaca , as it is to find pathos in infirmities fitter for the Hospital , the authors may be excused their picture of
imperial Rome , as a farce to please the " groundlings ( pretty subject for a farce !) , but nothing can excuse . such stupid violation of history as their deliberate attempt to rehabilitate Messalina . The force of paradox can no farther go . I am willing to believe that Messalina was calumniated , and that Agrippina set much of the scandal on footfor the same reasons as we know that Egalite slandered Marie Antoinette . I am pretty sure that Catiline was by no means the daemon Sallust and Cicero would have us believe . I have a suspicion that the Gentleman in Black himself is " not so
black as he is painted . " But after all I do not consider Catiline—or the Gentleman just alluded to—to be models of respectability and propriety , nor should I permit any dramatic poet quietly to assume the fact of their purity . That Messalina was a lascivious , reckless , cruel , vicious woman is beyond a doubt ; the satire of Juvenal might be disregarded , but the Annals of Tacitus are precise and explicit . Nihil compositum miraculi causA , verum audit a scriptaque scnioribus tradam . He says , " I invent nothing for the sake of narrating extraordinary things , I but relate that which ageu men have written or said . "
You remember that Messalina was wont to leave the sleeping Claudius attended by a single slave , her dark hair hidden beneath a yellow covering —• " ComiteancillA . non nmplius una , lit , nigrum ilavo crincm nbscondente galero , Intravit calidum veteri centone lupanar . " What follows I forbear to quote ; Juvenal ' s Sixt Satire not being adapted for family reading . In these nocturnal orgies she assumed the name of Lysisca ; and our authors , with admirable coolness , have chosen to make Lysiscu , the courtezan , a real
person , so like the Kmpress in appearance , that every one mistakes them for each other . Hence all the debaucheries of which Messalina is accused fall away from her , and she is as pure as ice I Upon thi . s resemblance the piece rests . Valeria ( the authors weve , afraid to call her Messalina 1 ) in the victim of her resemblance to a courtezan , and her reputation through posterity is to suffer from thesame cau . se , until two chivalrous dramatists rescue
her from opprobrium ! But the paradox is so frivolous it will not bear a moment ' s examination ; the most cursory glance over the pages of Tacitus will acquaint any one that—granted the existence of Lysisca , granted her resemblance to the Kmpress , granted that she must bear the weight of all the lupanarian caprices , there still remains the JKmpress by daylight and her debaucheries undisguised . One phrase in Tacitus lots mo into the secret of her
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 12, 1851, page 662, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1891/page/18/
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