Wanderings of a War Artist

Front matter

/ ( ( jjjjftjfcB^^^j^^y^ I K£M i \ V v vv\. n. \ W .i\\\\\\\\\\\\\\WWm Hk^fl \ 1 E^Vfl 1 ww \ Kx^ K^ Sk '***»•• * ' *■ BhkS WANDERINGS OF A WAR ARTIST. WANDERINGS OF A WAR ARTIST. I'.V X. IRVING MONTAGU, Late of the "Illustrated London News," &c.,^&c. LONDON : W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE, PALL MALL. S.W. 1889. [All Rights Reserved.) LONDON : PRINTED BY W. H. ALLEN AND CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE. PALL MALL. S.W. DEDICATED TO iJitOTl gir %xmh fUmbsII, §$., K.C.B.. K.C.S.I., i.P., D.L., TO WHOSE COURTEOUS CONSIDERATION THE AUTHOR HAS AS A WAR ARTIST — BEEN INDEBTED FOR ADVANTAGES WHICH MAKE THIS SMALL TRIBUTE TO HIS KINDLINESS A PERSONAL GRATIFICATION.

Preface

. -— "?<££?- — I believe that although a large section of the public do not read the prefaces to books, preferring to judge unbiassed by the author's promises or apologies for themselves, there are, on the other hand, many who do, and to whom it is a sort of key-note to the contents ; therefore should it incisively convey a suggestion of the menu with which their mental appetite is about to be appeased. Throughout these pages I have endeavoured, without egotism, to tell a plain, unvarnished tale of my wanderings. Commencing, then, with a first course, in which I touch on my early life and its subsequent vicissitudes, I go on to those campaigns that form the more substantial fare which follows, and which if found acceptable will, before long, be succeeded by the publication of yet another volume, which, as a sequel

PREFACE.

. VIII to this, will so far terminate my somewhat eventful history. In the meantime, if my readers have been able, in some sense, to live with me my life over agam, to have gone with me through the experiences I have recorded without suffering from ennui, then shall I be pleased indeed to have interested them in some of the Wander ings of a War Artist, so that when they next turn over the pages of our illustrated newspapers they may perhaps more fully realise the process by which the point of the " special's " pencil is sharpened. Linden Gardens, W. March, 1889. —?«*£S*«L*&Je?<S- PAGE 1 41 CONTENTS. Introduction. Childhood. — Bloodless Battles. — The Unfortunate Goose. — The Wooden Sword. — Bob Landells. — Early Influences. — School-days. — Caught red-handed. — A Lesson. — Student Life. — Prince Albert. — Cutting through Gold. — Heatherly's Life School. — Alone in the Metropolitan Desert. — Parentage. — Family Mystery. — A well-earned Three-and-Ninepence. — An Animated Door-mat. — Mangling done here. — Warm Hearts under Three Hats. — Cockerell's Coals. — Early Struggles. — The Expanding Bun. — Queer Quarters. — George Augustus Sala. — Sign-painting. — Scholastic. — My Friend the Lunatic. — The World Blown to Bits. — My Mother. — Meditations on Friendship.— The Catacombs. — Sad Memories. — Rossall. — War! — Off to the Front - THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR.

Chapter I. The Dogs of War. — Procrastination. — Guarding the Frontier. — Arrested. — Entertaining a Prisoner. — Taken as a Spy. — A Fond Farewell. — A Struggle for Liberty. — The Fair American. — The Union Jack. — A Narrow Escape. — Dijon. — Poor Old Francois.. — Lisette. — The Spy Mania. — " Oh, mon petit chien!" — Weissenberg. — The Key-note to Disaster - CONTENTS. X PAGE Chapter II. Worth. — Inefficiency. — A True Philospher.— A Quiet Retreat. — The City of Pleasure. — My Shadow. — Arrested again. — The Home of the Commune. — Belleville Society. — A Treasure-seeker. — On the Boulevards. — An Unwarlike Teuton. — True Love. — Hoffman's Dilemma ------- D7 Chapter III. McMahon's Surrender. — Wolves in Sheep's Clothing. — Pestilence. — Romance of War. — A Woman's Smile. — He would be a Soldier. — The Miser's End. — Frozen in the Saddle. — Quartered in a Ladies' School. — Was he a Deserter? — Carpet Knights. — Saved by a Sketch-book. — Venus and Mars ----- 93 Chapter IV.

The Army of the North. — Fire and Sword. — Babies and Revolvers. — Poor Elise ! — In the Dead of Night. — Curious Passports. — A Queer Character. — His only Friend. — A disjointed Python. — Breakfast and Bomb-shells. — Wanton Devilry. — Paris in Flames. — Nttda Veritas. — Desecration of God's Acre. — Infant Warriors 120 Chapter V. Caught at Last. — Waiting for Death. — Mad! — The Petroleuse in in the Pulpit. — Questionable Equality. — A terrible Silence. — The Beginning of the End. — Tit-Bits. — "Down with Everything! " — Wonderful Nerve. — A Ghastly Monument. — " I'm no Traitor ! " — A Correspondent Assassinated. — Martyrs. — A True Patriot - ----- CONTENTS. XI PAGE Chapter VI. Shot like Dogs. — Sick unto Death. — The Fosse Commune. — Caged Hyænas. — Cayenne or Eternity. — An instrument of Providence. — Darby and Joan. — An Enormous Drain. — Stirring Events. — In the Strand. — Au Revoir 1H1 THE SPANISH WAR.

Chapter I. Picturesque Spain. — A Providential Escape. — My Shattered Leg. — An Atrocious Criminal. — A Brigand Boy. — A Carlist Outpost. — Friends at the Front. — Fighting in a Fog. — Dummy Soldiers. — Fueyo! Fuetjo! — A Sad Love Story. — A Monster Shield. — Baked Alive. — A Golden River. — A Fool's Paradise. — A Delightful Hell 205 Chapter II. Draughts of Human Blood. — Nearly Blown to Atoms. — Nearly Assassinated. — A Unique Ambition. — Hacked to Pieces. — A Bandit Priest. — An Indescribable Monstrosity. — The Siege of Irun. — The Spirit of Romance. — Courting Death. — A Latter-day Lucifer. — The Gunpowder Fever. — Parole d'Honneur. — Shattered Hopes. — Alpha and Omega ----- 237 Chapter III. The Light Guitar. — A Thorough Philosopher. — A Cool Scot. — A Gay Deceiver. — San Sebastian. — Spanish Hospitality. — The Haunted Tower. — The Swamp Demon. — Cupid. — Inez!

Pedro! — The Iron Duke. — Attacking the Mail. — A Curious Menu. — 'Twixt Fire and Water. — O'Donovan's Dilemma. — Adventurous Women. — Dead - - CONTENTS. XII PAGE 329 Chapter IV. O'Donovan Again. — Battered Britishers. — Well Won. — Sang froid. — Oriamendi. — Pictures of the Past. — Incidents by the Way. — A Terrible Explosion. — A Rapid Retreat. — Shot by my side. — The Ancient Mariner. — An Interesting Invalid. — O'Donovan's Letter ----------- 299- THE SERVIAN WAR. Chapter I. Ancient Slavic Tribes. — Belgrade. — Servian Shops. — The Tale of a Shirt. — A doomed Pope. — The British Ambulance. — Snakes in the Grass. — General Maceroni. — The Serpent Gate. — Cruel Curiosity. — A Night in Semendria. — Mrs. White. — Weary Warriors. — A Terrific Combat. — Bulgarian Atrocities. — A Notable Free Lance. — Infuriated Nepeks. — A Gipsy Joan of Arc. — Au revoir --.----.. fist of Illustrations.

PAGE THAT LUCKLESS ARROW ! 5 THE WOODEN SWORD 7 A SORT OF ANIMATED DOOR-MAT 19 A VERT SHADY CHARACTER INDEED 25 A LEARNED-LOOKING PEDAGOGUE 30 WAVED ME LONG ADIEUX 50 I SHALL FIND HIM YET- MT AIM'S AS GOOD AS EVER 59 OVER-WEIGHTED, FOOT-SORE, AND WEARY 70 A SORT OF DRAIN DEMON 87 GENERAL MOQUARD. — CAPTAIN COROT 105 A QUEER CHARACTER 133 'TOINETTE 145 THE DELICACLES OP THE SEASON 165 CAUGHT RED-HANDED 186 OLD CHARON 213 STRATAGEMS OF WAR 222 BARLEY TO THE FRONT 229 THE INBORN SPIRIT OF ROMANCE .. 253 " OU EST LA CLEF, FANCHETTE?" 261 TUM TE TUM TUM — TUM TUM ! 267 O'DONOVAN ON THE LIGHT FANTASTIC 301 A SNUG CORNER 306 A MULETEER 311 LEAVES FROM MY SKETCH-

BOOK 312 FORTY WINKS BY THE WAY

355 SAVOURY DREAMS List of Plates. To face yagt PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR Frontispiece. "oh, don't! I'll never do it again" 6 i was interrogated by two officers 46 FOLLOWING IN MY FOOTSTEPS WERE A HOWLING MOB 52 BAD NEWS FROM THE FRONT 72 A NEST OF INFAMY 84 TENDER-HEARTED SISTERS AND INDEFATIGABLE DOCTORS 96 A LUXURIOUS BIVOUAC 116 A MILITARY ENGAGEMENT IN THE INTERIOR 118 GLORIOUS WAS 124 A PALACE INTERIOR .. 144 A COMMUNIST CLUB 156 A BARRICADE 162 DOWN WITH EVERYTHING 164 UTTER WRACK AND RUIN 172 PRISONERS IN THE ORANGERIE 188 THE LOVELIEST RUIN I HAD THEN SEEN 192 FROM CELLAR TO ATTIC 194 BEHOBIE 220 MY OWN GHOST 224 SAVED 226 WE REALISED OUR DANGER AND TOOK TO OUR HEELS 242 BLACK MANTILLAS AND WHITE 250 THE MARKET-PLACE OF IRUN 254 CARLISTS AND CONTRABANDISTA 270 IN THE ALAMEDA 274 RUNNING THE GAUNTLET 286 ARTILLERY RETREATING FROM OKIAMENDEZ 316 SOME SERVIAN SHOPS 334 A SERVIAN ARMOURER 336 1.

FINGERS AGAIN. 2. THE BRITISH RED CROSS GOING TO THE FRONT. 3. BRINGING UP THE WOUNDED. 4. A PRETTY CAPTIVE. 5. TURKISH PRISONERS ■■• 340 BLESSING THE TROOPS 342 THE SNAKE WOOD 346 THE PHAROAH NEPEKS

Introduction

. =— -g=~c=»^f«a<^r^> Childhood. — Bloodless Battles. — The Unfortunate Goose. — The Wooden Sword. — Bob Landells. — Early Influences — School-days. — Caught red handed. — A Lesson. — Student Life. — Prince Consort. — Cutting through Gold. — Heatherly's Life School. — Alone in the Metropolitan Desert. — Parentage. — Family Mystery. — A well-earned Three-and-Ninepence. — An Animated Door-mat. — Mangling done here. — Warm Hearts under Three Hats.—Cockerell's Coals. — Early Struggles.— The Expanding Bun. — Queer Quarters.— George Augustus Sala. — Sign-painting. — Scholastic. — My Friend the Lunatic. — The World Blown to Bits.— My Mother. — Meditations on Friendship. — The Catacombs. —Sad Memories— Rossall— War 1— Off to the Front. Wanderings of a VVAiV-Airh^T, LTHOUGH I have my nurse's authority that I was not the most docile of infants, I am not in a position to chronicle any particular incidents in my earliest childhood which are likely to bear directly on my after life ; indeed, the first of the seven ages, €ven of tbe most exalted career, can hardly be of so much interest to the general public as to the mother of the illustrious one ; so surely it is wise to dispense with any allusion to that period of my existence, unless, in deed, it is to say that my first plaything was a drum, and that my earliest ambition was to gain family noto riety by the dismemberment of a battalion of wooden 1 * ■1 EARLY LIFE. soldiers, whose well-glued limbs and pedestals gave way before repeated onslaughts.

Yet perhaps I should not pass over my earliest experience of ignominious defeat, since, serving to point a moral, it may also adorn a tale. I was staying with an uncle in the country. Quar tered in the farm buildings attached to his house was a goose of huge proportions, whose fate would probably have come about, in the common course of events, the following Michaelmas, but whom I, imbued with the spirit of mischief, brought to an untimely end with a newly-purchased bow and arrow. He had waddled to the window of the loft in which he was being fattened, apart from kith and kin, and was looking complacently round the domain, of which he was Major Domo, when that luckless arrow en tered his breast, and hastened his departure for that bourne whence no traveller or goose has yet been known to return.

He must indeed have passed in stantly to those happy hunting-grounds, where the aroma of sage and onions is unknown, for no sooner had the fatal point penetrated than with a frightful flutter, which terrified me beyond all description, and a horrible gurgle, he fell to the ground just where a whole flock of his own kith and kin were discussing what scant pickings the farmyard afforded, and who, could their thoughts have been read, had doubtless till now envied that corpulent victim. From my point of view the enormity of my guilt was terrible indeed, and I fled helter-skelter with fear- THE UNFORTUNATE GOOSE. 5 ful velocity, horror-struck, from the scene of my crime — for to me it was one of the deepest dye. Then came retribution fast and furious, following me up in the shape of that flock, which, however much in life they had hated him, had now united — at least so I thought— to avenge the death of thenfellow.

THAT LUCKLESS ARROW ! Tarn O'Shanter, when chased by the witches, could not have presented a more pitiable spectacle than I did, when, close pressed by my infuriated feathered foe, I clambered up the nearest five-barred gate. Here, though escaping for the moment the persecutions of the geese, I had yet to come to conclusions with a EARLY LIFE. jackdaw (a great domestic favourite), who, noting my cowardice, hopped on the rail to which, shrieking lustily the while, I clung, and commenced so vigorously to attack my calves with his sharp beak that I was nearly in convulsions. Fortunately my screams attracted old Tom, the stableman, and I was soon carried ignominiously in doors, strongly convinced that dangerous weapons should be used with discretion, and that wanton mis chief brings all too soon its own punishment from most unexpected quarters ; for not only was I fearfully scared by the avengers and terribly pecked by their ally the jackdaw, but when that goose was stuffed, cooked, and served up redolent of all that to a hungry juvenile could promise to be delicious, I had the mor tification of seeing everyone served save myself, and had to sit during that long-drawn-out repast dinner less, a hungry spectator, watching with eager eyes the evident enjoyment of those who had thus been pro vided by me with a dainty dish which I was not permitted to share.

Treating, however, these earlier memoirs only in passing, I will come to that turning-point in my youth when I first became acquainted with Bob. "Did Bob wear a wooden sword when he was a little boy ? " This has been handed down as a question I used to put, when a child of eight, with reference to a fine strapping fellow of some fifteen summers, known then, as in after life, by the diminutive of Bob. I speak of "oh, don't! i'll never do it again!" EARLY INFLUENCES. 7 the late Robert Landells, who played for many years an important part in the journalistic world, who was, indeed, one of our earliest war-artists. And when it became an ascertained fact that Bob, at my age, had girt about him a wooden sword, I was at once satisfied as to the necessity for doing so myself forthwith. THE WOODEN SWORD, The influence of a boy in his teens on a child with whom he is apt often to come in contact cannot be over-estimated.

The moral precepts of the nursery, the gravest paternal advice, go for little under such circumstances ; and if many a Vice-admiral indirectly owes his distinction to an early acquaintance with Mr. Midshipman Easy, or General to an intimacy with Frank Hilton, or Tom Burke of Ours, then, surely, many a fag has imbibed his first strong im pressions and inclinations from the particular sixth form boy in authority over him, just as I did in those days from Bob. Bob bought a pistol — I purchased a pop-gun. Nature herself seemed to aid me. Bob emerged into manhood, I into boyhood, following closely in his track. I, in short, took up the example which he left behind, till suddenly there came a blank, a gulf, which seemed boundless, between myself and my exemplar. Bob became a " war-artist," and was ordered off to the front by the Illustrated London News.

I distinctly remember my father explaining to me what " the front " meant, and the craving which came over me to go there too. I felt at that moment, in my childish heart, as if I could fight army corps of the heaviest dragoons if need be, and pictured Bob in top-boots and spurs riding round the lines making graphic sketches in a very hot-bed of shot and shell. How dear to me was every scrap of Crimean news, small as I was, when I felt that he was playing his part with our armies in the field. Thus it was that my earliest inclinations for the war-path were fostered, and that I first began to look on art as a means to an end, by which, as a war artist, I might one day wander at will round about the redoubt, or on the tented field, while slowly, yet surely CAUGHT RED-HANDED. 9 rising on the Eastern horizon was my bright particular star Bob, whose vivid pictures of Crimean incident in the Illustrated London Neivs filled me with amiable envy.

Then followed those school-days, so dear to memory, when, imbibing the war-like spirit of the times, we devoted every half-holiday to mimic battle ; we had fortifications and earthworks whicli would — to say the least of it — have astonished the military engineers of those days, or any subsequent times ; yet whatever our tactics may have been, I think the contingencies which sometimes arose, and the expedients we had re course to, may not have been without their influence on some of us in after life. Next to Bob Landells, whom I still looked on as a bright though distant luminary, came Tom Beresford, the captain of our eleven, one anecdote concerning whom must not be forgotten, as having special reference to that subtle modeller of human clay, our dear old head master. Ten fellows were absent; they had gone out of bounds —to " Bradley's " farm — and, to make a long story short, were caught red-handed in the possession of illicit stores by " the Doctor " ; but it is the way in which their capture was effected that points the moral.

Seven were intercepted at the cross roads, laden with supplies; they were interrogated as to the names of the remaining three, and, with a sneaking hope of lightening their own punishments, at once gave them up. Alas and alack ! those other three who, all unconscious of their comrades' fate, still remained at the farm were Tom Beresford, Watkins (" Nipper Wat kins," not "Long Watkins"), and your humble servant, better known in those days as "Peg Montagu." Then came the query to the trembling three, "Who were the other seven ? " We, fondly hoping they had escaped, looked first at each other, then at the Doctor ; no one spoke. Threats followed, but with no result. Crestfallen but resolute, we stood to our guns, and returned to the school still in custody. The great bell was rung at an unwonted hour ; terrible was the suspense and excitement ; why, such a thing had not happened since Bully Evans was expelled for robbing the hen-roost.

The silence was positively painful as the portentous step of the Doctor was heard approaching. Mounting his rostrum, he took his seat ; you might have heard the proverbial pin drop. The awful moment had come. "Beresford, Watkins, Montagu, stand out!" And there, disobedient, woe-begone wretches that we felt ourselves to be, we stood, while with eyes and mouths dilated to the utmost limit, sat the whole school awaiting with nervous impatience the issue of events. " Do you still refuse to give up the names of those boys who were with you out of bounds ? " A pause. " Yes, Sir," in a sort of loud whisper. "Very well, I give you five minutes to decide." And A LESSON. 11 then came the most fearful five minutes we, any of us, in our lives had experienced ; at the termination of which the Doctor, in a slow and impressive voice, as if he had been one of "The Council of Ten," continued: " And now, boys, what have you to say ?

Will you give up those names " (an awful pause), " or do you absolutely refuse to do so." An age seemed to elapse ; we felt as if about to place a fusee at a given moment to a barrel of gunpowder, as we replied : " We refuse to give them up, Sir." " Very well," said the Doctor, in a voice of thunder. " since that is the case there is only one course to follow; come up here each of you, and let me " (another awful pause) " shake you by the hands, and congratulate you on having held on as you have done, in spite of prospective penalties, as a matter of schoolboy honour. I congratulate you, I say, on having refused to give up the names of those other fellows, who, to save themselves, were only too ready to give up yours." How those rafters rang again, as the dear old Doctor gave us that never-to-be-forgotten lesson.

When the excitement had somewhat subsided, he concluded by addressing the remaining seven : " I have no punishment to give you, except it be by expressing a hope that you may not be so ready on a future occasion to screen yourselves at the expense of others." When after the ups and downs of many school terms I left, I shall not easily forget the Doctor's last words, as the coach drew up, and I prepared to mount the box. " Good-bye,— God bless you," said he. "When a fellow leaves here for the big world beyond, I feel like one who is sending out another soldier to whom I have taught the arts of war. Remember in the fight you have before you to defend the right, and ' never give in while you can stand or see.' Think, too, sometimes of your old school, and remember wherever you are, whatever you do, to be a credit to us ; so that if you win laurels we may enjoy their reflected light, that those who have known you here may some day be proud of saying, ' We were at school together, he was a Blenheim boy.' Again good-bye — God bless you."

Long years have elapsed since then ; but I have not forgotten the sentiment of that farewell. It was over ; the coach had come and gone ; the boys, having cheered their loudest, were back at their Horace and Virgil, while a lonely schoolboy, bereft at one blow of all his early friends, was — well, the truth must be told — crying his eyes out, by old Griffith's (the coachman) side. With this venerable Jehu I was always a welcome passenger at vacation time — " one of the young gentle^ men known for little tips," as he used to put it — so with him I felt that I could unburden my sorrows without fear of ridicule. " Never mind, Master Peg," said he, in his kindly old fashioned way, " never mind. Of course we shall all miss yer for a bit, we allus does them that's been at the Doctor's any time ; but then you know you 're a-goin* CUTTING THROUGH GOLD. 13 up to Lunun town, you are, and ha' got all the world afore yer — wish as I 'ad— that 's all, I wouldn't be a driven of this 'ere old coach now — no, not me."

Having left school at the early age of fourteen, I continued studying with my father. My career in London commenced unostentatiously enough. Impossible Apollos, fantastic fauns, and very shady satyrs occupied for some time my attention at the British Museum, from which I migrated to Marl borough House (then "The Vernon Gallery"), to cover innumerable canvasses with most questionable copies of great originals. Here, by the way, His Royal Highness Prince Albert was often graciously pleased to come, incog., to give some word of kindly encouragement to those who were students at that time. It was a quaint interesting old place was Marl borough House in those days, where in idle moments we wandered fancy free through cob-webbed cellars and dusty lumber-rooms. On one occasion several of us were strolling through its deserted passages, when I, being of an inquisitive turn of mind, penetrated into what appeared to me to be a dark capacious cupboard.

Those with me being amused at my curiosity, and seeing their opportunity, shut the door (which they were quite unaware fastened with a spring), and, expecting me to turn up presently, ran off to continue their work in the galleries. Thus "cribbed, cabined, and confined," I remained patient enough at first, hoping it would be but a short lived jest. However, nearly half-an-hour having elapsed, my temper and patience began to diminish and the situation to pall upon me — in vain did I try to make myself heard — so I set about to find some means of exit. I commenced by slowly feeling and pushing against the walls round about me. Now, strangely enough, and much to my relief, the back part of my prison house was as flexible as if the paper of the adjoining room were only strained on canvas across it.

An idea struck me — nothing could be easier than to take my penknife and cut a slit sufficiently long for me to step through into the next apartment, the door of which most probably would be unfastened. With this prospect of escape, I was just on the point of making a rent in the canvas, when I heard footsteps, and a cheery voice without, exclaiming — " Oh ! I say, old fellow, you there still ! we 'd forgotten all about you till a moment ago. This is almost too much of a joke ! You might have been there all night." Seeing the knife in my hand, his next hiquiry was, if I had contemplated suicide during my solitude. " Certainly not ; only I wasn't going to be shut up hi such a place when I found I could cut through that partition." " Partition ! what ? that canvas at the back"? " His look of horror startled me.

" Yes ; and why not? " said I interrogatively. " Good heavens ! why you were on the point of HEATHERLTS LIFE SCHOOL. 15 walking through ' Childe Harold's Pilgrimage ' — getting through £6,000 at one step, to say the least of it." It was true enough, too, as I afterwards discovered ; it was Turner's masterpiece which stopped the way, and not, as I had supposed, a canvas wall. One moment more, and I might have gained a sudden notoriety in the art world which few would have envied me. I next studied at "Heatherly's Life School." Hea therly, gaunt, pale, kindly, ghostly Heatherly, who has won for himself any number of such complimentary titles, as " the Saint," " the Shadow of Art," &c, still glides silently from room to room. There was a dusty, quaint, indescribable something about Heatherly's in my time — a grim antiquity which seemed to win one over ; but Time's picture changes, for, when - 1 passed there a little while since, orthodox house-painters were brightening up the front, a trim servant was polishing the brass knobs on the hall door, and the windows of my old art master's Sanctum Sanc torum were being cleaned by an ex-model — aye ! and the blinds drawn up — and then I sighed, as we are all wont to sigh for that which was, and may never be again ; so I hastened on, and turned down that little court which leads to Upper Bathbone Place, and got away into the busy haunts of men, trying to forget that new-fangled, polished, painted sprite which stepped be tween myself and memory — for it was there, and under clever genial Tom Nicholson the artist (a worthy con temporary of Sir John Gilbert), that I derived the only personal instruction in art that I ever had.

In those early days, however, I never lost any op portunity I could get for practice, sitting often late into the night, by the light of candle-ends accumulated and secreted for the purpose, working hard at the few old plaster casts I possessed, till, having exhausted every conceivable position as far as they were concerned, I fell back on the crockery, wash-hand stand, chest of drawers, and other still life within the narrow scope of my little bedroom. How vain are the expectations of youth — how bril liant the pictures which fancy paints — -how glorious the goal which lures one on ! Alas ! how soon may all our anticipations fall through, and the idol we have wor shipped lie shattered at our feet. An only child, in the full enjoyment of my parents' love and guidance, surrounded by every home comfort, I was yet, all too soon, to find myself alone — a waif and stray in the great Sahara.

My mother, owing to illness, was ordered by our doctor to reside, if not permanently at least for a considerable time, in the country, where my father, a hard-working and most prolific literary man (some time editor of the Court Journal, Lady's Newspaper, &c.) was unable to join her. Hence it was that she went for a prolonged stay with a relation in Gloucestershire, while my father and I lived en garcon in town. I may say here that concerning his early life there had always been a curious mystery, which to this day has not been cleared up— the loss, after he left FAMILY MYSTERY. 17 Cambridge and emerged into the professional world, of large estates, and a title remaining unfathomed. On this point he was always reticent, though on every other the loving confidence in which my parents lived was exceptional.