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cities of Troy, Carthage, &c., and similar to Shakespeare's cloud-cap't towers, &c.

"The above manufactory was carried on for many years under the firm of Messrs. Crowther & Weatherby, whose names were known almost over the world; they employed 300 persons; about 90 painters (of whom I was one) and about 200 turners, throwers, &c., were employed under one roof. The model of the building was taken from that at Canton, in China. The whole was heated by two stoves on the outside of the building and conveyed through flues or pipes and warmed the whole, sometimes to an intense heat-unbearable in winter. It now wears a miserable aspect, being a manufactory for turpentine, and small tenements, and like Shakespeare's baseless fabric, &c. Mr. Weatherby has been dead many years; Mr. Crowther is in Morden College, Blackheath, and I am the only person, of all those employed there, who annually visit him.-T. CRAFT, 1790."

It is a melancholy picture that these last lines conjure up-a dismantled works, a lost trade, and two old men crooning together in an almshouse over the things that have been.

Marshall's emery mills and Bell & Black's match factory stand where Bow porcelain was once made. Some years ago, in digging a drain eight or ten feet below the surface, the ruins of one of the kilns were laid bare and a quantity of broken débris was found, which proved of great value in illustrating the different descriptions of ware made, and identifying the paste, glaze, and method of ornamentation. Some of these fragments are illustrated in both Mr. Chaffers' and Mr. Jewitt's books. Those whose interest is not technical, and who do not care for fragments, may go gaze at the fine examples included in the Schreiber collection at South Kensington. And while they

Gloat o'er the glaze and the mark
Of china that's Chelsea and Bow,

heave a sigh over the departed glories of those art industries of old London, that, as the old potter's painter has it, have become even as "Shakespeare's baseless fabric, &c."

CHARLES COOPER.

THE BOOKS OF RUDYARD KIPLING.

Now

OW two beings lived in one world. And the name of the one was Man; and the name of the other, Woman. And writers by the battalion came along and inspected the two. And they said, "Lo! Man is a normal type; there is nothing strange about him. He offers no field for investigation. Woman is a sport. We are not sure that she is not a fabulous monster. Assuredly there is much copy to be made out of this extraordinary creature. Let us therefore devote our attention to Woman." And they did. They pulled her into little bits, they moralised about her, they ran her down, they cracked her up, they stuck epigrams into her till her name became a weariness to the flesh of them that read; and they fled to treasureislands and wolf caverns, if haply for a season they might forget her and find amusement. And there appeared on the scene a young editor-a Mere Boy. And he made oration to the writers, who were mostly engaged with incorrect monographs, of the most entire cocksureness, on the usual subject; and to the readers, who were all crying out for something new. And he said, "You are a set of blatant idiots. You have spilt ink and blood about Woman for several thousand years, and you are not greatly nearer the solving of her riddle than when you began. I, myself, have tried my hand at her, and have done vastly better than most of you; because I acknowledged that I should never know more than a very little of her life. She is not the only section of humanity worth studying. I have lived and toiled with Men. I speak of what I know. Listen to me, and you shall hear, not realism, but reality. I will show you such defiant courage, such dogged endurance, such savagery, such chivalry, such piteousness as you know not of. I will draw for you the lives of your countrymen in a desolate land of lurking horror. I will make you realise the vast mystery of the world, as no one ever did before. I will tell you stories to make you laugh, to make you swear, to stir your blood like a bugle-call. You need not believe any of them unless you like."

And of the readers many have listened to Rudyard Kipling and

reported right good entertainment. But the writers and the critics are, though by no means slow to patronise, very slow to praise. For they keep sacredly to the rule of withholding from a man his rightful status so long as he continues to live-that is to say, as long as it can do him any possible good. Especially do they not approve of a genius under thirty, and far better acquainted with Browning than with Homer. So they do not usually go greater lengths than to remark that he seems really a clever young chap, and does as well as can be expected of anyone alive in '92. They call him abrupt: he whose work is polished and clean cut as the Crown diamonds. They call him illiterate, because he thinks more about the live present than the dead past. They accuse him of giving prominence to the seamy side; more commendable conduct than ineffectual lying about its existence. They sometimes say he is coarse, and the firm of Grundy & Podsnap have proved as eager as usual to take up the cry. Verily they are consistent, these good folk! The Young Person finds commended to her attention "Paradise Lost"; a lively time would be in store for her were she discovered reading "Under the Deodars." Time and pains enormous do they expend in whitewashing certain early heroes. Let any unlucky wight venture a word on behalf of John Holden or Otis Yeere, and he will encounter epithets that are not pretty.

Of course the man from India has received a great deal of praise. From all quarters the "Soldiers Three" have been hailed as revelations of the most marvellous freshness and fidelity. It is impossible to deny the crisp go of "Plain Tales from the Hills." The sketches of native life insure popularity through many qualities-absolute novelty to begin with. But critics are very slow to admit that any work of this young man's deserves to take its place in Literature with a big L. Likewise the stodgier part of the British public. As a matter of fact, they consider him too off-hand and too exciting. Standard works, the leather-bound and gilt-edged tribes, do not in general err in either of these directions. Reviewers hail "The Naulahka" with joy, because it is long enough to be praised with some semblance of orthodoxy. Now Rudyard Kipling in his most characteristic mood is not orthodox. One cannot claim respectability for the average Early Gothic gargoyle or stringing-course ornament; and his power in the region of the grotesque rivals that of a twelfth-century stone-carver. This in itself suffices to raise suspicion. Again, he possesses far too much decision for many people's taste. He never exhibits the slightest haziness or hesitation, either in manner or matter. The curt direct sentences move with

the "spring and swing and snap " of well-drilled soldiers, and like them suggest some far from unjustifiable putting on of side. The man writes with the untrammelled assurance of one who knows his subject through and through, and does not intend to alter his conclusions for anybody. That quaintly audacious humour which blends so well with his terse grim tragedy would be impossible were he not thus coolly at his ease. He clothes his thoughts in a kind of active-service garb which, albeit showing infinite grace and spirit, appears in the light of irregularity demanding suppression to some who are accustomed to a cumbrous fulldress diction. This bumptious young fellow insists on seeing with his own eyes, and declines to give honour where he does not consider honour due. Right clearly he can see, as many have borne witness. His short, bold stories throb with life like arteries. Corollary he never pretends. He limns in bright colour the most terrible sight under the sun-a broken British regiment. He not only admits, but justifies the dread of the supernatural existing somewhere in every human being, the which India serves so efficiently to bring He refuses to admit that an equally learned Bengali equals his conquerors. He helps Strickland with all tortures that are needful in the fight with the Silver Man. He does not gloss over Mulvaney and Ortheris, nor ask unalloyed condolence for Boulte. Twice, forgetting the traditional dignity of his sex, he talks of a man in hysterics. He writes of men as they are. And therefore it falls out that in his tales heroism shows nobler and friendship stauncher and pathos more touching than ever books showed them before. Here they ring real. Hummil-a hero of heroes, a man for whom the V.C. would be wretchedly inadequate-would not stand so high were it not obvious that to himself, and the world without, he appeared the most ordinary of plodding civilians. His black agony would not look so gruesome had he not endured it in the midst of very real discomfort and ugliness. Mottram's comment would not contain so much weariness and pain, had it been couched in finer language. As it is recorded nothing more significant ever stood in print.

out.

The body lay on its back, the hands clinched by its side, as Spurstow had seen it seven days previously. In the staring eyes was written terror beyond the expression of any pen.

Mottram, who had entered behind Lowndes-bent over the dead and touched the forehead lightly with his lips. 'Oh, you lucky, lucky devil !” he whispered. All the four-Mottram, Hummil, Spurstow, and Lowndes-seem as real as any acquaintance one comes across in the street. Their hankering attempts at some sort of domesticity (had they got the genuine article they would probably not have liked it at all-but that

is a detail) is an excellent instance of Rudyard Kipling's unique grasp of the pitiful side of masculine nature. The majority of writers prefer to stand on their dignity and ignore it. If the power and pathos of a certain mournful little history called "Thrown Away" fail to show them their error, nothing will. It has been demonstrated ad nauseam that it is sad to be a woman; nobody ever showed before how sad it is to be a man. This writer does not flinch from the fact that sensitive boys and strong men alike go sometimes in helpless pain and fear, and are not exempt from mental burdens which their wives are supposed to monopolise. The religious notions of Rudyard Kipling's men-men, be it remembered "practically alive "—are a mixture of blank stoicism and paganism primitive to ghastliness. Hummil moans in his misery, " And yet I'm not conscious of having done anything wrong," exactly as if he had flourished in the Neolithic Age. Gadsby prays as an ancient Greek might have prayed with his wife senseless and dying: "I never asked a favour yet. If there is anybody to hear me, let her know me—even if I die, too!"

An infant crying in the night. The nervous trepidation displayed on his wedding-day by "the man who went through the guns at Amdheran like a devil possessed of devils," is not altogether a thing. to laugh at. No stereotyped rhapsody about a young mother was ever so striking as the description of Holden's feelings on the night when he came back. There is more pathos in Mafflin's disconsolate soliloquy and his minute attempt at a caress than in many maundering conventionalities about the sacrifices made by a bride on leaving her kindred. Mafflin, wild ass and trustiest of chums, has one's sympathy all through. By the way, how admirably Mafflin and Gadsby are differentiated. They are about the same age, in the same regiment, of the same tastes; they talk in the same diction on the same subjects; there is nothing at all out of the way in either. And they differ as two live human beings differ. Jack, the matterof-fact, albeit he plays an entirely subordinate part, possesses the grit of a dozen Gadsbys. Pip lacks his friend's staying-power. His moral muscle wants toughness. Hence proceed his shamefaced selfishness, his self-consciousness, and the completeness of his final break-down. "Lord help him, he hadn't the nerve!" In its quiet, scathing intensity, "The Swelling of Jordan" stands first, and the rest nowhere, as a deliberate exposition of Mafflin's quotation, "A young man married is a young man marred." This scene's peculiar effectiveness lies in its moderation. Many other people have said, though not nearly so well, that marriage cripples a man's sword-arm

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