into the same ears. I could swear almost that that pale, beardless boy, with the fair, loose hair, and the white trembling hands, and smooth receding forehead, and underhanging jaw, and half-open mouth, with the weak smile playing fully over his face, who is sitting in the open barouche by the side of a bold darkeyed woman, old enough to be his mother, and vulgar enough to be his mother's maid, is a lad who died eighteen years ago in a far distant land, having lived, young as his life was, too long for those who loved him. I can see the old by-play I can remember so well played by the same actors. The raffish men about town-the Haymarket habitués, the second-class Stock Exchange speculators-are still gathered round the carriage, and half flatter, half bully the boy into any act of folly which brings money into their own greedy hands. And the woman who might protect him knows the world too well not to be aware that her hold upon the lad is due only to the fact that his vanity is flattered by being seen in company with one so notorious as herself, and therefore leaves him to his fate. If she warned him of his friends, told him that he was a pigeon whom they were all plucking, she would disenchant him at once with himself and her, and throw him into the hands of somebody who played her cards more prudently. They are a bad lot round that carriage, sir; and I don't think the lady is the worst. I know that in the case I am thinking of, the woman whom all his family considered the one cause of Charlie's ruin was the only one of his friends, male or female, who did anything for him. When the crash came, it was with money raised on her jewels that he was got away out of the reach of the law, while the very men who had swindled him out of hundreds and thousands talked of him everywhere as having cheated them.

The gipsy women, too, and singing-girls are, it seems to me, the very same I have always known since I first came to the Derby as a boy myself. Even the songs are the same. Can it be that within the last quarter of a century there has been no hedge-side pothouse poet to string together new doggrel rhymes of doubtful or undoubtful decency? The old ones, at any rate, are as good as new; and our grandchildren will listen to the cracked voices jingling out the same foulmouthed ditties as our grandfathers chuckled over when the Derby was first run for on Epsom downs. Aunt Sally has come up, I fancy, since my time upon the turf, and the buy-a-broom girls have disappeared; but otherwise the world of Epsom looks not a bit wiser, and quite as wicked, as when I was one of those whom tramps and flower-girls

and ballad singers marked out for their especial prey.

Pottering about amidst the carriages, picking up, every now and then, a half-empty bottle, or a piece of chicken, I wriggled my way somehow or other towards the ring. I have not nerve enough to beg; somehow the words stick in my throat. I could pick a pocket sooner than I could say, “Please, kind sir," or run through the rigmarole of asking for charity. But there are things which will give courage to anybody; and whether it was due to the wine I had drunk or not, I felt bolder than usual. I saw a lady, very richly dressed, very handsome and quite alone, sitting in a close carriage with her luncheon, almost untouched, laid out on the seat before her. There was a Strasburgh pie half finished on her lap; and if you knew how fond I used to be of truffles, you would understand my feelings, as I looked upon it. Almost without thinking, the words came to my lips, "If you had eaten as many truffles in your life as I have, you would give me that pie before you." She heard the words, smiled with that soft, sweet smile, I used to love so well on women's faces, and handed me the pie, truffles and all. Sentiment is not, and never was, my line; and I daresay you think a paté de foie gras not a thing to be sentimental about; but I tell you I could hardly eat it, because something seemed to rise in my throat every mouthful I swallowed. I did eat it, though, every morsel and crumb; and I felt more like myself than I had felt for years.

When I got at last near the ring, the numbers were up for the great race, and one great roar of voices seemed to be shouting in unison. "Ten to one against the field, bar one." Even if I had never seen a horse in my life, I should have heard enough about the race to know that Fly-by-night was thought a certainty. Even we Posters, and I don't suppose you could go much lower than us, had had a sixpenny sweep a week ago among ourselves; and P, of course, had drawn the favourite; for badly as he might want five shillings, he probably wanted it less, and certainly deserved it less, than any one amongst us. Every public-house we had been inside for weeks was filled with people talking about the Derby; and we must have been deaf as posts, if we had not known that Fly-by-night was going to win. They were laying odds upon him in the ring as fast as they could get on; and the only difficulty was to find anybody to bet against him.

In the crush and the roar I could hardly hear the ringing of the bell to clear the course, when I felt my arm clutched, and looking

round, I saw A looking very pale, with an odd light in his sunken eyes, and his bent stooping figure for once stretched to his full height. "Come along," he said, and dragging me aside, he whispered to me that he had heard Fly-by-night's jockey tell a pal to go and back Saraband for all he could get on. "They are laying anything you like against her, and if we could get a sovereign between us, we might have a hundred pounds in our pockets before another hour was over." He had ninepence-halfpenny in coppers; I had a shilling, a bad sixpence, and a French sou. If I could have seen you down there, Mr. Nomad, we might have made our fortunes easily.

I have been long enough behind the scenes to know that when a favourite is not meant to win, the jockey who rides him knows pretty well who is meant to win. It was an odd feeling, I can tell you, to know that you could win a fortune if you had only the few wretched shillings, or pounds, wanted to make your stake. With men like us, it must be money down before the bet is entered; there were tens of thousands of people all about us, who could have lent us the money at once, but there was not one who would have listened to us for a minute, or would, if he had listened, not have handed us over to the police as impudent impostors. It made me mad almost to think that all day long, perhaps, and every day till I broke down dying, I should be trudging with those cursed boards round my neck, all because I could not borrow a sovereign or two for an hour. My luck had come at last. I had waited for it, Heaven knows, long enough, and now I was unable to use it just when I most wanted it. I looked all round the carriages. If I could have seen one of the faces I knew in the bygone time, I would have gone and asked for what I wanted, even if I had had to tell who and what I was, or rather, had been. But far and near amidst that sea of faces I could not see a single one I could recall; I thought of going and telling our secret to some of the betting men outside the stand, but I knew that every one of them was too sharp to believe a word I said, and that if by any chance he did, he would go and back Saraband for himself, and leave me in the lurch; and all this time the bell was ringing, and I knew the few minutes during which it was still possible to get our money on were hurrying past.

At last A turned to me, very white indeed, and, pointing to the carriage, some hundred yards away, where the lad of whom I have spoken and the bold, hard-faced woman were seated, muttered to me," Go there, whisper

"I

into the woman's ear the name of Willie Hamilton, ask her for two sovereigns, and you will get them at once." I didn't like the job, I can tell you. Without being particular, getting money out of a woman was a thing I had never done; and I told A so plainly. can't go myself," he answered hurriedly, "but I tell you I am asking for my own money back; and for you there need be no shame in asking." I could not stop to think, and, right or wrong, I went. There was a crowd round the carriage-sharpers in rags, and sharpers in broad-cloth; and I tried in vain to get up, and the bell had begun ringing again for the last time. In despair I called out, "They're off!" and the crowd dispersed at once, and I got close to the lady's side, and asked her for what we wanted, in the name of Willie Hamilton. She turned very pale, so pale that the red paint upon her cheeks stood out like scarlet on a sheet of white paper; and the wrinkles came out beneath her eyes; and in a moment she looked old, and coarse, and haggard. But though her fingers trembled so she could not get her purse open for a time, she did not faint away as I feared, but remained smiling a hard, stony smile, with one hand leant upon the young prodigal's shoulder and the other clutching. nervously at her purse, which she slipped into my hands. Then I saw her begin to sway to and fro, and in a moment I was gone. The bell had stopped, and the course was clear, and all eyes were turned towards the paddock, and still I could hear the hoarse shout of " I'll lay against the field,— -a hundred to one against Saraband." I pushed on, squeezing my way forwards, as if I was young and stalwart again; but I made way very slowly, so that at last, when I had just reached the railings, had got my head under, and was preparing to dash across the course up to the bettingbooths, a policeman pulled me aside, and I heard a shout I had heard too often before not to know only too well. They were off, indeed. In a minute, as it seems, I could see them passing down the hill, and the shout rose on every side that the favourite wins. I could see them coming on and on; and then just at the last the favourite seemed to lose her stride, and a horse came dashing from the ruck, and I heard a loud yell, screaming that Saraband had won; and I knew that I had lost my one chance, and was still poor and penniless.

I felt giddy and stunned like; and when I came to myself the race was over, and the purse had dropped from my hand and was gone. Well, I am too old to take things much to heart now. All I can say is, it was like my luck!

AMONG several other quaint old books in my house, written about the same date, and bearing on the same subject, is a very scarce volume, written and published in 1584, which bears on its title-page the following exposition of its contents:

"Scot's discovery of Witchcraft, proving the com. mon opinions of Witches contracting with devils, spirits, or familiars, and their power to kill, torment, and consume the bodies of men, women, and child ren, or other creatures, by diseases or otherwise, their

flying in the air, &c., to be but imaginary erroneous conceptions and novelties; wherein also the lewd unchristian practices of witchmongers upon aged, melancholy, ignorant and superstitious people, in extorting confessions by inhumane terrors and tortures is notably detected. With many other secrets opened that have long lain hidden; though very necessary to be known for the undeceiving of Judges, Justices, and Juries, and for the preservation of poor, aged deformed ignorant people; frequently taken, arraigned, condemned and executed for Witches, when, according to a right understanding, and a good consience, Physick, food, and necessaries should be administered to them. Whereunto is added a treatise upon the nature and substance of Spirits and Devils, &c., all written and published in Anno 1584, by Reginald Scot, Esq."

Though I daresay there will be few, if any, of my readers who will have seen this rare old book, there will be many who will have Loticed the placards all over London, advertising the sensation trick of the "decapitated head," which is now drawing so many to the Polytechnic. Though I have never seen this exhibition, I can't help thinking, from the pictures on the placards I have mentioned before, that this trick must be essentially the same in principle that Reginald Scot thus described some 300 years ago; anyhow it will be interesting to many who have witnessed the trick at the Polytechnic to read this description. First let me add that this trick is of great antiquity, for in the "Walking Spirit," another scarce old book, of about the same date, written in black letter, I find that this same mystery disturbed princes as early as A.D. 876. In the following passage it is evidently alluded to :—

"Johannes Pritenhemius, Abbat of Spanheimum writeth in his chronicles concerning the monastery of Hirsgraune of the order of St. Bennet, in the year of our Lord 970, that in the year 876 there was a certain Jew named Sedechias, sometimes Philoso pher and physitian unto Lewes the Emperour, who being very cunning in sorcerie did strange miracles and wonderful slights before princes, and before all

He cut off men's heads

other men. which he set in a basin, before all the lookers on to behold, with the blood running about the basin which by and bye he would put again upon the places, whence they seemed to have been cut off without any hurt to the parties."

Now this feat, which the Abbot describes about 600 years before Scot was born, is explained to us.

The chapter is headed "To cut off one's head, and to lay it in a platter, which the Juglers call the decolation of John the Baptist," and is thus explained by our author, Scot :

"To shew a most notable execution by this art, you must cause a board, a cloth, and a platter to be made purposely, and in each of them holes for a bodies neck. The boards must be made of two planks, the longer and broader the better (see plate A), there must be left within half a yard of the end of

each plank half a hole; so as both the planks being thrust together there may remain two holes, like to the holes in a pair of stocks; there must be made a hole in the table cloth or carpet. A platter must also be set directly over or upon one of them, having a hole in the middle thereof of like quality, (see plate b. b.) and also a piece cut out of the same, so big as his neck, through which his head may be conveyed into the midst of the platter, and then sitting or kneeling under the board, let the head only remain upon the board in the same. Then to make the sight more dreadful put a little brimstone into a chafing dish of coals (see plate c.) setting it before the head of the boy, who must gasp two or three times, so as the smoke enter a little into his nostrils and mouth (which is not unwholesome), and the head will presently appear stark dead; if the boy set his face accordingly; and if a little blood be sprinkled on his face, the sight will be the stranger. In the other end of the table where a like hole is made, another boy of the bigness of the known boy must be placed, having upon him his usual apparel; he must lean or lie upon the board, and must put his head under the board through the said hole, so as his body shall seem to lie on the one end of the board, and his head shall lie in a platter on the other end. There are other things which might be performed in this action the more to astonish the beholders, which because they appear long descriptions, I omit; as to put about his neck a little dough needed with bullocks blood which being pricked with a sharp round hollow quill will bleed and seem strange; many rules are to be observed herein, as to have the table cloth so long and wide as it may almost touch the ground, not to suffer the company to stay too long in the place, &c."

The plate is an exact copy of the original illustration in Scot's book, and is almost as sensational in its character as those on the London placards.

Should this trick prove to be similar to that I have alluded to, it will certainly not diminish the interest of any future visit to the Polytechnic to think that it is of immense antiquity; and that under the title of "The decolation of John the Baptist," it was a favourite trick in old John Scot's time, and even as early as A.D. 876, nearly a thousand years ago. RANDOLPHE H. PIGOTT.

CLARKSON STANFIELD, R.A.
In Memoriam.

Ir is not every year that carries off from among us a painter so celebrated in his own profession, and at the same time so widely and deservedly beloved among literary and general circles as Clarkson Stanfield, who has just been called to his rest, at a good old age of upwards of threescore years and ten, the vigour of his mind and his pencil alike undiminished to the very last. His death occurred at his house in Belsize Park, whither he had removed with his family about two years ago from the Green Hill, Hampstead. There he had resided for many years, beloved and respected by all his neighbours, and his

house was the general rendezvous of a large circle of literary, artistic, and dramatic friends, including the Landseers, David Roberts, Herbert, Charles Dickens, and a host of minor celebrities. The attack which actually carried him off was not of any long duration; for although he had shown symptoms of failing strength and spirits so far back as last autumn, when he returned from his annual seaside trip, without having derived any benefit to his health, still it was only within a week or two of his death that his illness assumed a really alarming character. Happily he has been summoned away in the fulness of his powers, and before the arrival of extreme old age had shaken the vigour and certainty of his pencil. Happily, he was not destined, like many an artist has been, to outlive his fame; and a career which, ever since he battled with and surmounted the first struggles of early life, was a succession of triumphs right worthily earned, has been peacefully and tranquilly closed within a few weeks after the completion of the latest work of his pencil, "Off the Coast of Heligoland,"'-a picture which, as it hangs on the walls of the Exhibition of the Royal Academy, in Trafalgar Square, will be full of painful reminiscences to those who admired the artist and loved and respected the

man.

66

Clarkson Stanfield was born at Sunderland, on the 3rd of December, 1793. His father, the late Mr. James Field Stanfield, had spent some of his early years at sea, but afterwards devoted himself to literary pursuits, and is known as the author of several works of merit, among which we may mention an Essay on Biography." The son's infancy and boyhood, passed as they were in his native seaport town, influenced the choice of his profession in favour of the naval service, which he entered whilst still a lad; and his early practical acquaintance with the sea and with shipping doubtless contributed largely to his ultimate success as a marine painter; though it was not as a marine painter that he made himself first known to fame. It is said that at sea he had Douglas Jerrold for his shipmate. Be this, however, true or not, it is certain that while still young, he retired from the navy, his foot having been severely hurt in a fall from the mast-head, and commenced his artistic career as a scene-painter at the Theatre Royal at Edinburgh. Thence he gravitated to London, in company with his old and attached friend, David Roberts, who, as is well-known, was a native of the country north of the Tweed.

In 1820 he made his first appearance before the London public as an exhibitor at the Royal Academy, on whose walls he had the

satisfaction of seeing hung, a "View on the Thames at Battersea," representing a river scene at the back of the old Red House. He had already engaged himself to paint scenes for Drury Lane Theatre, where he soon became the acknowledged chief of the sceneroom. Here he reigned supreme for several years; his commanding talent in this department of art was widely acknowledged, and "old stagers" to this day are fond of recalling some of his master efforts, such as the scenery to Macready's famous production of "Acis and Galatea." Ere long he had the satisfaction of seeing the art of scene-painting raised, very much through his own genius and labours, to a creditable and recognised position. It is scarcely too much to say that to Stanfield, in conjunction with his old friend the late David Roberts, R.A., must be assigned the honour of rendering the scenery of the British stage the best in Europe. Indeed, there are those who would go further and affirm that as in this branch of his art he stood unrivalled, he had also the merit of having practically created it. Be this, however, as it may, no one can doubt that his influence in this latter sphere has done much to improve the taste of the great mass of the people, and to elevate a department of art which had before his time been too much neglected; and indeed was hardly cultivated as an art at all. Under his pencil the scenery of the stage assumed an almost classic character, and the art of scene-painting ceased to be a synonym with whatever was the opposite of perfection. If Mr. Stanfield had done no more than raise and refine this branch of his profession he would have rendered a most valuable service to the cause of art education, since no other line of the painter's art appeals so directly or so strikingly to the senses and feelings of the great mass of the people.

In 1823 he became an exhibitor at the Society of British Artists, to which he lent his support for many years; but it was not until three years later that he achieved celebrity by his marine paintings, with his "Wreckers near Calais." He was now just thirty-three years of age; and though he had lived so long ashore, still his early profession of a sailor enabled him to receive on the retina of his mind's eye a multitude of impressions of wild ocean scenery, which he subsequently utilised and transferred to canvas with such eminent success and skill. In the same year with "The Wreckers," he also exhibited his "Calm "" at the Royal Academy, and thenceforth his works came forth from his easel in rapid succession, and with an ever increasing excellence and finish. Two years later his "View near Chalons" was produced, and

in the year following, "St. Michael's Mount." In 1832 he became an associate of the Royal Academy, to whose full honours he was admitted as R.A. in 1835. In the following year he painted his well-known large picture of "The Battle of Trafalgar" for the Senior United Service Club.

At this time the "Annuals" were in the height of their prosperity, and in the years 1834 and 1835, Stanfield employed his pencil in illustrating the 'Picturesque Annual," mostly with pieces of coast scenery. Subsequently he joined with Turner, Roberts, and other friends in producing the designs for an admirable series of illustrations, engraved on steel, to the Abbotsford edition of the Waverley Novels. In playful allusion to his early days, when he and David Roberts were living, young and unknown, in the northern metropolis, Stanfield used to say that he was more than half a Scotchman; and no doubt he undertook this work on that account with more than ordinary zeal and pleasure.

"The Castle of Ischia " was produced when he was forty-seven, "The Day after the Wreck" four years later; and then followed "Wind against Tide," "The Battle of Noveredo," and "French Troops crossing the Magra," which, with the first of this group ("The Castle"), were selected by the author to be sent to the French Exhibition of 1855. We mention these dates as showing that our artist's fertility of invention and powers of production seemed to increase with age. When he was fifty-nine his great work, "The Victory towed into Gibraltar after the Battle of Trafalgar," came out; then, after another two years, the "Siege of St. Sebastian." One of his finest works, "The Abandoned," was produced when he was sixty-three. His age, merely regarded in years, was not indeed so very great; but it must be borne in mind that he had lived, as it were, two artistic lives, and had done the work of three or four painters, both mentally and mechanically. It was only two or three years ago that he produced what many would be disposed to class among his finest pictures, "the Worm's Head," "The Bass Rock," and "Tintagel Castle." The only picture which he exhibited this year, "Off the Coast of Heligoland," which we have already mentioned, will serve at least to remind the friends of Clarkson Stanfield that there was no falling off in the touch of his pencil to the very last.

This is not the place for putting on record a complete list of Stanfield's pictures, chronologically or otherwise arranged; but we may be pardoned for quoting here the following criticism upon the painter from a contemporary pen.