第6章 "EOTHEN"(1)

"EOTHEN" appeared in 1844. Twice, Kinglake tells us, he had essayed the story of his travels, twice abandoned it under a sense of strong disinclination to write. A third attempt was induced by an entreaty from his friend Eliot Warburton, himself projecting an Eastern tour; and to Warburton in a characteristic preface the narrative is addressed. The book, when finished, went the round of the London market without finding a publisher. It was offered to John Murray, who cited his refusal of it as the great blunder of his professional life, consoling himself with the thought that his father had equally lacked foresight thirty years before in declining the "Rejected Addresses"; he secured the copyright later on. It was published in the end by a personal friend, Ollivier, of Pall Mall, Kinglake paying 50 pounds to cover risk of loss; even worse terms than were obtained by Warburton two years afterwards from Colburn, who owned in the fifties to having cleared 6,000 pounds by "The Crescent and the Cross." The volume was an octavo of 418 pages; the curious folding-plate which forms the frontispiece was drawn and coloured by the author, and was compared by the critics to a tea-tray. In front is Moostapha the Tatar; the two foremost figures in the rear stand for accomplished Mysseri, whom Kinglake was delighted to recognize long afterwards as a flourishing hotel keeper in Constantinople, and Steel, the Yorkshire servant, in his striped pantry jacket, "looking out for gentlemen's seats." Behind are "Methley," Lord Pollington, in a broad-brimmed hat, and the booted leg of Kinglake, who modestly hid his figure by a tree, but exposed his foot, of which he was very proud. Of the other characters, "Our Lady of Bitterness" was Mrs. Procter, "Carrigaholt" was Henry Stuart Burton of Carrigaholt, County Clare. Here and there are allusions, obvious at the time, now needing a scholiast, which have not in any of the reprints been explained. In their ride through the Balkans they talked of old Eton days. "We bullied Keate, and scoffed at Larrey Miller and Okes; werode along loudly laughing, and talked to the grave Servian forest as though it were the Brocas clump." Keate requires no interpreter; Okes was an Eton tutor, afterwards Provost of King's. Larrey or Laurie Miller was an old tailor in Keate's Lane who used to sit on his open shop-board, facing the street, a mark for the compliments of passing boys; as frolicsome youngsters in the days of Addison and Steele, as High School lads in the days of Walter Scott, were accustomed to "smoke the cobler." The Brocas was a meadow sacred to badger- baiting and cat-hunts. The badgers were kept by a certain Jemmy Flowers, who charged sixpence for each "draw"; Puss was turned out of a bag and chased by dogs, her chance being to reach and climb a group of trees near the river, known as the "Brocas Clump." Of the quotations, "a Yorkshireman hippodamoio" (p. 35) is, I am told, an OBITER DICTUM of Sir Francis Doyle. "Striving to attain," etc. (p. 33), is taken not quite correctly from Tennyson's "Timbuctoo." Our crew were "a solemn company" (p. 57) is probably a reminiscence of "we were a gallant company" in "The Siege of Corinth." For "'the own armchair' of our Lyrist's 'Sweet Lady'" Anne'" (p. 161) see the poem, "My own arm- chair" in Barry Cornwall's "English Lyrics." "Proud Marie of Anjou" (p. 96) and "single-sin - " (p. 121), are unintelligible; a friend once asked Kinglake to explain the former, but received for answer, "Oh! that is a private thing." It may, however, have been a pet name for little Marie de Viry, Procter's niece, and the CHERE AMIE of his verse, whom Eothen must have met often at his friend's house. The St. Simonians of p. 83 were the disciples of Comte de St. Simon, a Parisian reformer in the latter part of the eighteenth century, who endeavoured to establish a social republic based on capacity and labour. Pere Enfantin was his disciple. The "mystic mother" was a female Messiah, expected to become the parent of a new Saviour. "Sir Robert once said a good thing" (p. 93), refers possibly to Sir Robert Peel, not famous for epigram, whose one good thing is said to have been bestowed upon a friend before Croker's portrait in the Academy. "Wonderful likeness," said the friend, "it gives the very quiver of the mouth." "Yes," said Sir Robert, "and the arrow coming out of it." Orit may mean Sir Robert Inglis, Peel's successor at Oxford, more noted for his genial kindness and for the perpetual bouquet in his buttonhole at a date when such ornaments were not worn, than for capacity to conceive and say good things. In some mischievous lines describing the Oxford election where Inglis supplanted Peel, Macaulay wrote"And then said all the Doctors sitting in the Divinity School, Not this man, but Sir Robert' - now Sir Robert was a fool."But in the fifth and later editions Kinglake altered it to "SirJohn."By a curious oversight in the first two editions (p. 41) JOVE was made to gaze on Troy from Samothrace; it was rightly altered to Neptune in the third; and "eagle eye of Jove" in the following sentence was replaced by "dread Commoter of our globe." The phrase "a natural Chiffney-bit" (p. 109), I have found unintelligible to- day through lapse of time even to professional equestrians and stable-keepers. Samuel Chiffney, a famous rider and trainer, was born in 1753, and won the Derby on Skyscraper in 1789. He managed the Prince of Wales's stud, was the subject of discreditable insinuations, and was called before the Jockey Club. Nothing was proved against him, but in consequence of the FRACAS the Prince severed his connection with the Club and sold his horses. Chiffney invented a bit named after him; a curb with two snaffles, which gave a stronger bearing on the sides of a horse's mouth. His rule in racing was to keep a slack rein and to ride a waiting race, not calling on his horse till near the end. His son Samuel, who followed him, observed the same plan; from its frequent success the term "Chiffney rush" became proverbial. In his ride through the desert (p.