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Fron The People's Magazine. AN EVENING WITH MRS. SOMERVILLE.

SCATTERED recollections, contributed by various people, make perhaps the best materials for a biography; and any one who has a vivid personal memory of a distinguished character, however small the facts it relates to, does good service by making it known. This is the excuse for putting forward these few reminiscences of the famous Mary Somerville, who has lately passed away.

It was the same in the other subjects which we discussed; Italy and the Italian character, the latest changes at Oxford, and what not.

But of course she was most interesting when she came to talk of herself. “I do not apologize for talking of myself," she said; "for it is always good for the young to hear that old age is not so terrible as they fear. My life is a very placid one. I have my coffee early; from eight to twelve I read or write in bed; then I rise and

I was fortunate enough to have an in-paint in my studio for an hour-that is troduction to her family when I visited all I can manage now! The afternoon is Naples in the winter of 1870. They were my time for rest; then comes dinner-time, living in the top story of a great palazzo and after that I sit here and am glad to on the Riviera di Chiaja; a suite of spa- see any kind friends who may like to visit cious rooms, facing the bay, and ap- me." Then she would explain what was proached by a great staircase that seemed, the reading and writing she was engaged as is always the case in Italy, to get upon. She was correcting and adding to cleaner and more sumptuous the higher the first edition of Molecular and Microyou ascended. You passed through two scopic Science: "only putting it in order or three anterooms, gathering as you went for my daughter to publish when a second a truly Italian impression of marble and edition is called for after my death. Oh, space, and then found yourself at the door they are quite competent to do it," she of the great drawing-room. It was only would say, with a smile; "I took care they in the evening that Mrs. Somerville re- should be much better educated than I ceived, and it is an evening impression was. And I am reading a good deal now that the room has left; great dim distan- reading Herodotus. I took him down ces, a few lights at the farther end, barely from my shelves the other day—it was distinguishing the plates of Raffaelle Majo- the first time I had tried Greek for fifty lica on the walls and the antique bronzes years - to see if I had forgotten the charon the marble tables; and in the far cor-acter. To my delight, I found I could ner two ladies working, and a third lady, old and small, sitting watchful and dignified in her low arm-chair.

read him and understand him quite easily. What a charming writer Herodotus is!" All this was without the slightest pedantry; the utterance of a perfectly natural, simple mind, that dwelt upon, subjects which interested it when it saw that they interested its neighbour.

This was Mrs. Somerville; it was her ninetieth birth-day when I saw her first. She put down the English newspaper as I approached, and, after her kind greeting, settled down for a gossip. Her ninety The impression which Mrs. Somerville years seemed to have withered her frame; left upon one from this evening, and sevbut it was wiry and firm still, her eyes eral like it spent in her company, was that were keen, her voice clear, only her hear- of a thoroughly harmonious character, ing was impaired. Still it was quite pos- widely sympathetic and intensely individsible to talk with her if you raised your ual. She had developed those two sides voice; and it was easy to make her talk of her nature in the most complete way, more than listen. Of course the war was and the result was a perfectly calm oll our first subject; she had foreseen it fifty age. The extraordinary power of abstracyears before, at the Restoration. She was tion which enabled her to work out a military and commiserating, critic and mathematical problem amid the buzz of woman, by turns; now shaking her head conversation was typical of her whole over the dead and dying, now speculating mind. She was great, because she was so about the fall of Paris. You had but to perfectly self-contained. Yet her sympaclose your eyes and to fancy a clever mod-thies, as has been said, were wide and ern English woman talking; the words and warm. Such balance of character is a rare thoughts were as fresh and current as spectacle at any time; is perhaps rarest in those of the clever young wife of a clever extreme old age; and is precious in proyoung member in a parliament of to-day.'portion to its rarity.

MRS. BROWNING'S DOG "FLUSH." of him. His sensibility on the matter of vanity IF Mr. Darwin's dogs are in the habit strikes me most amusingly. To be dressed up of turning aside their blushing faces, on in necklaces and a turban is an excessive pleabeing plied with titbits, they must be sin-gure to him; and to have the glory of eating gular samples of their race. My own ex- indeed. Because I offered him cream-cheese on everything that he sees me eat, is to be glorious perience of dog-demeanour at table, like a bit of toast, and forgot the salt, he refused at that of Filma, is of a contrary character. once. It was Bedreddin and the unsalted I have the warmest affection and respect cheesecake over again. And this, although he for dogs, and am even not far from endors- hates salt, and is conscious of his hatred of ing the Frenchman's dictum, that "Ce salt; - but his honour was in the salt, accordqu'il y a de mieux dans l'homme, c'est ing to his view of the question, and he insisted le chien." But backwardness in "asking on its being properly administered. Now tell me for more" is not a virtue I should attrib- if Flush's notion of honour, and the modern ute to them generically. That they some- world's, are not much on a par. In fact, he times display a capricious delicacy of appe- thought I intended, by my omission, to place tite is undeniable, but would not be worth him below the salt. dwelling on here, if it did not enable me to revive the memory of a dog famous in song. I allude to Mrs. Browning's dog, Flush. It was my privilege to keep up a correspondence with that lady during a period of many years, and Flush's name found frequent mention in her letters. On one occasion she had expressed her regret at his growing plumpness, and I suppose I must have been cruel enough to suggest starvation as a remedy, for her next letter opens with an indignant protest:

"Starve Flush! Starve Flush! My dear Mr. Westwood, what are you thinking of? And besides, if the crime were lawful and possible, I deny the necessity. He is fat, certainly but he has been fatter; as I say, sometimes, with a sigh of sentiment - he has been fatter, and he may therefore become thinner. And then he does not eat after the manner of dogs. I never saw a dog with such a ladylike appetite, nor knew of one by tradition. To eat two small biscuits in succession is generally more than he is inclined to do. When he has meat it is only once a day, and it must be so particularly well cut up and offered to him on a fork, and he is so subtly discriminative as to differences between boiled mutton and roast mutton, and roast chicken and boiled chicken, that often he walks away in disdain, and will have none of it.' He makes a point, indeed, of taking his share of my muffin and of my coffee, and a whole queen's cake when he can get it; but it is a peculiar royalty of his to pretend to be indifferent even to these; to refuse them when offered to him to refuse them once, twice, and thrice - only to keep his eye on them that they should not vanish from the room, by any means, as it is his intention to have them at last. My father is quite vexed with me sometimes, and given to declare that I have instructed Flush in the art of giving himself airs,' and otherwise that no dog in the world could be, of his own accord and instinct, so like a woman. But I never did so instruct him. The airs' came, as the wind blows. He surprises me, just as he surprises other people—and more, because I see more

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My nearest approach to starving Flush (to come to an end of the subject) is to give general dinner, not to press him to eat.' instructions to the servant who helps him to his I know he ought not to be fat-I know it too well and his father being, according to Miss Mitford's account, square,' at this moment, there is an hereditary reason for fear. So he is not to be pressed and, in the meantime, with all the incipient fatness, he is as light at a jump, and as quick of spirits as ever, and quite well. "April, 1845."

1

In a later letter she says:

"May I tell you I have lost and won' poor Flush again, and that I had to compound with the thieves and pay six guineas, in order to recover him, much as I did last yearthe tears, the tears!

besides

And when he came home

he began to cry. His heart was full, like my
own. Nobody knows, except you and me, and
those who have experienced the like affections,
what it is to love a dog and lose it. Grant the
love, and the loss is imaginable; but I complain
of the fact that people, who will not, or cannot
grant the love, set about wondering how one
is not ashamed to make such a fuss for a dog!
As if love (whether of dogs or man) must not
have the same quick sense of sorrow! For my
part, my eyelids have swelled and reddened both
for the sake of lost dogs and birds and I do
For Flush,
not feel particularly ashamed of it.
who loves me to the height and depth of the ca-
pacity of his own nature, if I did not love him,
I could love nothing. Besides, Flush has a soul
to love. Do you not believe that dogs have souls?
I am thinking of writing a treatise on the sub-
ject, after the manner of Plato's famous one."
And again :-

"The only time, almost, that Flush and I quarrel seriously, is when I have, as happens sometimes, a parcel of new books to undo and look at. He likes the undoing of the parcel, being abundantly curious; but to see me absorbed in what he takes to be admiration for the new books is a different matter, and makes him superlatively jealous. I have two long ears flapping into my face immediately from the pillow

over my head, in serious appeal. Poor Flushie! The point of this fact is, that when I read old books, he does not care."

I cannot refrain from giving the conclusion of this letter, though it is apart from the subject:

"I am thinking-lifting up my pen what I can write which is likely to be interesting to you. After all, I come to chaos and silence, and even old night, it is growing so dark. I live in London, to be sure, and except for the glory of it, I might live in a desert so profound is my solitude, and so complete my isolation from things and persons without. I lie all day, and day after day, on this sofa, and my windows do not even look into the street. To abuse myself with a vain deceit of rural life, I have had ivy planted in a box- and it has flourished and spread over one window, and strikes against the glass, with a little stroke from the thicker leaves, when the wind blows at all briskly. Then I think of forests and groves it is my

triumph, when the leaves strike the windowpane. And this is not to sound like a lament. Books and thoughts and dreams (too consciously dreamed, however, for me- the illusion of them has almost passed) and domestic tenderness can and ought to leave nobody lamenting. Also God's wisdom, deeply steeped in His love, as far as we can stretch out our

is

hands.'

Our chief King Poet still reigns, in spite of disloyalty, but our chief Queen Poet, from the beginning of years, was taken from us when that tender, noble, heroic life beat its last beat.

One farewell word to Flush. His early life was a sequestered one, but he saw much of men and things, after his mistress's marriage went to Paris, Rome, and Florence, wagged his tail in "Casa Guidi Windows," had one or two perilous adventures lost his coat, and became a dreadful guy in the warm climate; but lived to an advanced old age, and was beloved and honoured to the end. Here is his epitaph, written in his youth:

"Of thee it shall be said,

This dog watched beside a bed

Day and night unweary
Watched within a curtained room,
Where no sunshine brake the gloom,
Round the sick and dreary.

Roses, gathered for a vase,
In that chamber died apace,
Beam and breeze resigning -

This dog only, waited on,

Knowing that, when light is gone,
Love remains for shining.

Other dogs in thymy dew,

Tracked the hares and followed through

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From Chambers' Journal PARTY COLOURS.

THE abstract is never popular, because it cannot be grasped by common minds, and we therefore find that the masses like their principles made tangible to the eye. This accounts for the variety of party badges, for which the greatest enthusiasm is often felt. In many districts the different parties are never described as Liberal and Conservative, but are referred to by the names of their respective colours.

Election colours vary all over the coun try, and they are sometimes (especially in the various counties) taken from the livery of the candidate or of some local magnate.

Blue is a very favourite colour, and considering its long association with truth, we need not be surprised that each party has attempted to "mark it for its own." Chaucer refers to blue's characteristic in the Squiere's Tale, as follows:

And by hire bedde's hed she made a mew,
And covered it with velouettes blew,
In signe of trouthe that is in woman sene.
And again, in the Court of Love:

Lo, yondir folke (quod she) that knele in blew,
They were the colour aye, and ever shal,
The signe they were, and ever will be true
Withouten change.

The Earl of Surrey, in his Complaint of a Dying Lover, associates truth with blue in the same manner:

By him I made his tomb, in token he was true, And, as to him belonged well, I covered it with blue.

True blue is now chiefly associated with

the Tory party, but it was not always so, for Hudibras was "Presbyterian true blue." The Whigs continued the use of blue; and in some satirical Jines published after Bishop Burnet's death, the devil is represented as asking after Dr. Hoadley, and Burnet as answering:

Oh, perfectly well:

A truer blue Whig you have not in hell. During the Gordon Riots of 1780, blue ribbons were worn by all the rioters. Lord George Gordon on one occasion appeared in the House of Commons with a blue cockade in his hat, when Colonel Herbert sprang up and said he would not sit in the House, while a member wore the badge of sedition in his hat. After this, Lord George put his cockade into his pocket.

Blue, when associated with Buff, has long been connected with the party of progress; and the use of yellow appears to date back to the time of the Great Rebellion. The soldiers of the parliament wore orange tawny scarfs, and in Whitelock's Memorials we learn the cause of the adoption of this colour. Under the date of August 22, 1642, we read: "The Earl of Essex's colour was a deep yellow, others setting up another colour were held malignants, and ill affected to the Parliament's cause." The Scotch troops in the service of Gustavus Adolphus are said to have worn blue and buff. These colours were at the height of their popularity in the time of Charles James Fox. That statesman was always dressed in a blue coat with gilt buttons, and buff waistcoat, and all his followers of both sexes wore the same colours. At one of the political entertainments at Carlton House, the Prince of Wales proposed the health of the famous wit and beauty, Mrs. Crewe, of whom Fox felicitously wrote:

Where the loveliest expression to feature is joined,
By Nature's most delicate pencil designed;
Where blushes unbidden, and smiles without art,
Speak the sweetness and feeling that dwell in the

heart.

Ere the next Review

Soars on its wings of saffron and of blue. Burns writes:

It's guid to be merry and wise; It's guid to be honest and true; It's guid to support Caledonia's cause, And bide by the Buff and the Blue. Orange and blue were William III's colours, and they are still borne by the Orange lodges of Ireland, by which means they have become strongly associated with an anti-catholic spirit. The late Lord Macaulay, when speaking on the state of Ireland in the House of Commons. (February 19, 1844), said he was struck on his election for Leeds by observing the orange-coloured finery used by his adherents, who were zealous for Catholic emancipation. Orange ribbons and cockades were seen everywhere, and he was told that the friends of the Catholics had always rallied under the Orange banner, as the sign of toleration.

In Cumberland and Westmoreland, Blue and Yellow are the local colours, but not associated, for the first is Liberal, and the last Conservative. Here the 'respective parties are known as Blues and Yellows, not as Liberals and Conservatives. Different shades of blue have occasionally been used in these counties, as when Sir James Graham and William Blamire were chaired, one in a dark-blue, and the other in a light-blue chair. Other colours have been Orange and Purple, and White and Blue. Pink or Crimson has been used by a Conservative county candidate, and a Chartist has "sported" red or green banners.

Blue has long been the Whig or Liberal colour in Lincolnshire. Sir William Talmash, afterwards Lord Huntingtower, an eccentric possessing much property in Grantham and its neighbourhood about the beginning of the present century, added the word Blue to the signs of all the public-houses he possessed, which accounts for the large number of Blue Lions, Blue Boars, &c., there to be found. True Blue

The health was given in the following is and has been for many years the Tory

form:

Buff and Blue,

And Mrs. Crewe.

The lady promptly responded:

Buff and Blue,

And all of you.

These famous colours still exist on the cover of the Edinburgh Review, as they did when Byron wrote in his English Bards and Scotch Reviewers:

colour at Exeter, as Yellow is the Whig; and in Suffolk, the Tories fight under the Blue flag, one of their poets singing:

True Blue will never stain;

Yellow will with a drop of rain.

The Rev. John Eagles, author of the Sketcher, wrote some lines on True Blue, beginning:

There are fifty fine colours that flaunt and flare,
All pleasant and gay to see;

But of all the fine colours that dance in the air,
True Blue's the colour for me.

At Norwich, Blue and White are the Whig colours, and Orange and Purple the Tory; but, euriously enough, the colours for the county of Norfolk are not only not the same, but vary greatly. At one election, the Whigs were distinguished by Orange and Blue, at another by Orange and White; the Tories being Pink and Purple. At an election for one seat only the Whigs bore Green and the Tories Purple colours. At Preston, dark Blue was the Tory colour, and the Whigs bore the Stanley colour, Orange, the Independent Liberal being Green. When Hunt was a candidate, he adopted Red; but now the regular Liberal colour is Green, and lately the chairman of a large political meeting called on the thousands present to rally round the Green flag of Liberalism, the colour which meant vitality. Unfortunately, Green also means inconstancy, and it is not, therefore, a popular hue.

China. The history of the Kotow squabbles is not less curious than the fact of

their existence. Although Kotow is not to be found in the second volume of Latham's large English dictionary (1870), the word is, as everybody knows, thoroughly acclimatized - belonging to us by adop tion rather than by grace. The expressions, he would or would not Kotow to such a one, are so common as to be household words. But the performance of the Kotow itself before that high and most mighty potentate, Son of the Moon, and the near relative of all stars of any respectable magnitude, his Imperial Majesty, Tungchi, of China, &c., &c., supreme. is The ambassador quite another thing. from the Court of St. James's at Pekin has, from the first institution of an embassy in China, in 1793, to the present day, more or less angrily resented the proposal made by the Chinese that he should approach the Imperial Majesty of China on his hands and knees, in gait and manner like an OriOne of the oddest exemplifications of ental slave, rather than a Minister Plenidevotion to a party colour is the desire potentiary, and a freeborn Briton to boot. expressed at various times by different So the Kotow question remains where it people to be buried in that one to which was nearly a century ago; and it is not they had adhered through life. An old likely that the advisers of the young Emwoman of Ipswich, by the directions of peror will allow him to give way in the her will, was laid in a blue-lined coffin. matter, and receive from Europeans the She was a Tory. But a Liberal Blue in same form of homage they pay to their another part of the country was buried in sovereigns at home. The cry of Chinese the same way, and followed to the grave ministers dealing with "barbarian ambasby mourners clad in Blue. A Cumber-sadors " in the Imperial presence is for the land patriot once denoted his political opinions by invariably wearing an enormous blue hat; at length, on the occasion of an election, he was disappointed at not receiving the usual honorarium, and thoroughly disgusted, he refused to vote either Yellow or Blue, and at the dead of night he solemnly buried his blue hat.

Such are a few of the vagaries of human nature; outbreaks of popular feeling which the philosopher in his study may call madness, but which influences himself like other men when he goes out into the world. Election displays have of late years been much shorn of their grandeur, but it will probably be many a day before party colours are counted among things of the past.

KOTOW.

From Once a Week.

Ir is curious that the form of making a bow should for years have stood in the way of our amicable diplomatic relations with

Kotow, the whole Kotow, and nothing but
the Kotow. In 1859 the American minis-
ter tried his best to cut the knot, but with-
out success. He said he "felt the same re-
spect for the Emperor of China as for his
own President." The effect of this on the
Court of Pekin, however, was not to throw
oil on the troubled waters. "This lan-
guage of the American barbarian just
places China on a par with the barbarians
of the South and East, an arrogation of
greatness which is simply ridiculous." In
the reign of George III., Lord Macartney
offered to perform the Kotow before Kien-
lung (then Emperor), if the Chinese would
undertake, whenever they visited England,
to perform precisely similar homage before
our Sovereign. This they refused to do.
But his Majesty Kien-lung gave way, and
received King George's autograph letter
in the European fashion from Lord Ma-
cartney, on bended knee only. Kea-king,
the next Emperor, behaved with less sense;
and in 1816, Lord Amherst, our second
ambassador, was incessantly worried, ca-
joled, and bored by the Chinese Commis-
'sioners on the subject of the Kotow. But

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