BOOKS.

PAPERS OF THE TWINING FAMILY.*

THE pleasurable anticipations aroused by the announcement of the publication of a further instalment of the Twining Papers, have not been disappointed by a perusal of this charming volume. Although dealing less with the public events of the period (1778-1844) which they cover, these family records are full of interesting matter, and, as the editor justly remarks, bring out more conspicuously " that propensity for travels, at home and abroad, which has been banded down in our family through several generations." As to the mode of progression adopted, he adds :- " On his earlier home-journeys, my grandfather was wont to travel on horseback with a groom, saddle-bags, itc.; later on, when accom- panied by my grandmother or any of their children, in a low phaeton, with a pair of ponies and so, in that leisurely, enjoyable fashion, they traversed the country, from John O'Clroat's House to the Land's End. Each age, as it passes, may be said to have its own par. Healer advantages, and certainly among those of the eighteenth century may be reckoned the moderate pace of life as compared with that of the present day."

Apart from the interest attaching to these papers as the faithful record of the impressions made upon cultivated and observant minds by contact with novel surroundings, they give a charming picture of the terms of affectionate intercourse on which the two brothers—Thomas the clergyman, and Richard the merchant— lived, and the deep interest which each took in the other's interests and studies. The greater part of these papers was written a hundred years ago ; but they have lost none of their freshness, and beyond an occasional formality in the diction, there is wonderfully little in them that could be called old- fashioned in style or sentiment. In the earlier volume, the country clergyman was the central figure ; in this, the chief con- tributor is his brother, Richard Twining, who, though he left Eton young, in order to undertake the management of his father's business on the latter's death, had yet been long enough there to acquire those literary tastes which he never lost throughout his life. The correspondence between these two brothers, though it breathes a spirit of genuine attachment, was by no means regular, and owes not a little of its charm to this intermittent character. For, as Thomas Twining says :—

" I hold that no correspondence can be comfortable without perfect liberty. I have often been deterred from writing a letter by the obligation I have felt myself fettered with to fill a certain quantity of paper. Give me liberty to write three lines or three pages, I sit down with alacrity, and it almost always torus out that I write three pages ; for to write a long letter is nothing: all the pain is in the intention, or rather in the obligation."

The first of the numerous excursions chronicled in these pages is that made by Richard Twining to Flanders in 1781, and the description of the sea-passage on this, as on other occasions, is such as to awaken the sympathies of all bad sailors. In this respect, at least, we have the advantage of the eighteenth century. The most entertaining part of this journal—which shows at every turn to what good purpose the writer had read Cesar, Tacitus, and Pliny—is the sketch of life in Spa. "The English," he remarks, "have the character of being excellent

• Selections of Papers of the Twining Family, a Sequel to • The Recreations and Studies of a Country Clergyman of the Eighteenth Century," the Rev. Thom. Twining, sometime Rector of St. Mares, Colchester. Edited by Richard Trebling. London: John hfurray. friends to Spa, and the reason which is alleged for their being so entertains me. It is asserted, que les Anglais boivent ces eaux pour se di5salitirer, quand ils ont ba beaucoup de via."' Gambling and dancing appear to have been the staple amuse- ments of the fashionable cosmopolitan society which frequented this gay resort. " Gaming appears to have attained its summit of perfection, or rather of imperfection, at Spa. There is scarcely an hour in the day in which tables for hazard, pharaoh, trente- et-quarante, and biraby may not be found holding out their temptations to the unwary." His excursion to the Cascade of Coo was marked by the following carious incident:— "The small lints of this wild place had poured forth their numerous inmates to receive us, and we were soon so completely surrounded by women, children, and dogs, as scarcely to be able to stir. It was easy enough to discover what the women and children wanted ; but the dogs puzzled me. We were, however, speedily told that these miserable animals were intended for our entertainment by being thrown into the cascade."

Mr. Twining arranged that the dogs might be spared on this occasion, but in the end,—

"The poor people would not forego the customary episode with the dogs, some of them being thrown into the current, -which in a moment sucked them to the bottom. Our reverend guide, however, assured us that the animals were so used to it as scarcely toregard it, a view of the operation which one could only hope they might be willing to confirm ! The King of Sweden, having visited the water- fall during his sojourn at Spa, was treated—or rather, it is said, treated himself—to a cow, which, poor thing ! being less expert at the business, perished in the fall."

The lady-visitors at Spa, which was then called "the Coffee- House of Enrope," surprised Mr. Twining by the amazing way in which they painted themselves, as well as by the method there adopted by them of " riding on horseback in male fashion." Spa reckoned amongst its many notabilities a Papal Nuncio, whom Mr. Twining expected to find a reverend ecclesiastic, but whowas in fact the loudest laugher and the moat inveterate whist- player in the place; and a Strasburg nobleman, the Baron de Haindel, whose magnificence and folly were about on a par. "This remarkable man usually appeared at the rooms in a sort of linen coat, white waistcoat, and white breeches, the waistcoat adorned with a double row of buttons, composed entirely of diamonds and amethysts, and on his hat he had a diamond button and loop." Paochierotti, the famous " musico," was also at Spa, and Mr. Twining, who became, as he says, quite "thick" with him, confirms the opinion expressed by Lord Monnt-Edgcumbe, in his Musical Reminiscences, of the modesty and amiability of that great singer. In September of the same year, Mr. Twining was at Frankfort, and at a ball at the " Mahon rouge," he witnessed a spectacle which had best be described in his own words. He was engaged in looking at a number of fine people,— "When a gentleman and lady came whirling by and bad almost overwhelmed me. I could not imagine what they were about. I had scarcely extricated myself from the danger with which they threatened me, when another and another couple came twisting by in like manner. I found on inquiry that this was a favourite German dance called a waltz, and is performed in the following manner. The lady and gentleman stand face to face. The gentleman pots his arm round the lady's waist, and with the other hand he gets firm hold of her arm. You would at first think they are going to wrestle. Thus prepared, and the gentleman having got so good a purchase upon the lady, they begin to spin round and round with a velocity which would have made me giddy in half a minute. Whilst they turn in this manner, they make the circuit of the room, resembling si pares first composers magna, the double revolution of the planet on which they danced. So attractive an example did not fail to find imitators, and

seven or eight couples noon joined in the whirl Now and then the roundabout motion ceased for a minute, but then the dancers kept in action, just as chairmen [i.e., sedan-chairmen] do when they are stopped at a crossing."

The sending of this journal provoked some pleasant letters from the clergyman-brother. In one of these occurs a characteristic passage. After some whimsical remarks, he continues :-

"Whether well or ill, I can brook nonsense; therefore never curb your fancy. I thank God this disorder is nothing like that dispiriting one that persecuted me last summer, and held death oontinually before the eyes of my imagination. It was the very slough of despond.' My appetite is good, and generally my spirits; and (to keep to Spenser)—

' A11 the night in silver stoop I spend,

And all the day to what I list attend.'

(' Oh! he has been reading Spenser, I see I') It looks like it, but it is not so. They are two lines that long ago pleased me (all but sitter, which is rather queer), and stock in my memory. (Here's parenthesis with parenthesis, a thing I delight in.) Upon my word, I have made, I fear, a pleasant blunder above ! As wire as I am alive, the slough of despond is not in Spenser, but in John Banyan ! I would not give a farthing for myself if I did not blunder now and them"

A. trip in North Wales, in the summer of 1785, is described in some very bright letters from Richard Twining to his brother. Crossing to Anglesea, he encountered a couple of "genuine Irishmen," who entertained him prodigiously, " by telling won- derful stories of a Mr. McDermot, a famous sportsman who leaped stone walls of six feet in height, with his head towards the horse's tail." In Anglesea, he paid a visit to the copper- mines at Paris Mountain, where,—

" The black smoke and the red dust which are perpetually flying about convert its inhabitants into the queerest kind of blackamoors you ever saw. A female so disguised works here, dressed in man's apparel, and she protects herself most manfully, not fearing to attack, in the way of good sound boxing, any mortal upon the ground."

At Bala, he and his companion sent for a barber, " and in came a tidy Welshwoman. Hughes, who was the most eager to be shaved, was afraid. I, who am much more stubborn, beard and all, than he is, sat down ; and she shaved me most dexterously." Mr. Twining defines his attitude as a traveller very clearly in a letter from Gottingen to his brother in the year 1788 :- "There are travellers who think all things, except very great things, beneath their notice, and who, when they get to an inn, will be contented to rest peaceably in it, and to write and read, and to seem as indifferent to all things as if they were actually at home. I am not a traveller of this description. Nay, I run into the very opposite extreme ; and I feel as if everything that I had not seen was really worth seeing."

The chief interest in his visit to Gottingen centred in the person of Heyne, of whom he gives a very graphic account, including an amusing story of his servant

"He is a fine, steady old boy, who has lived with him this long while ; and he fashions in wax and sells small heads of his master. I am told that be sometimes hits them off tolerably well. I would have bought one, but that which I saw—and he had no other—was utterly unlike. We are very busy, Sir, with oar Virgil ;" I believe enr Virgil will be out in a month.' Such is the language of Heyne's

trusty servant."

The latter portion of the volume contains ample extracts from the journal kept in the year 1794 by Thomas, son of Richard Twining, who had gone out to Calcutta as a servant of the East India Company, and which show remarkable intelligence and observation in a boy of eighteen. His visit to the Court of the -Grand Mogul, the clever ruse by which he escaped from a band of marauders in the desert by muffling himself up and passing himself off as a lady of the imperial seraglio, the strange cir- cumstance of his visit to the indigo manufactory at Jellowlee and its English owner,—are all told with vivid minuteness of detail. His account of a dinner-party at the house of Sir William Jones contains the following pleasant anecdote i- " While sitting after dinner, he suddenly called out with a loud voice, ' Othello, Othello !' Waiting a minute or two, and ' Othello' not coming, he repeated his summons, ' Othello, Othello ! ' His particularly fine voice, his white Indian dress surmounted by a small black wig, his cheerfulness and celebrity, rendered this Beene ex- tremely interesting. I was surprised that no one—Masai:Liman or Hindoo—answered his call. At last I saws black turtle of very large size, crawling slowly towards us from an adjoining room. It made its way to the side of Sir William's chair, where it remained, be giving it something it seemed to like."

Amongst other interesting papers, the appendix to this volume contains an excessively clever character in imitation of Theo- phrastus, written by Sir William Jones, and sent by him to his friend Dr. Parr, some of whose eccentricities it evidently bits off. This witty tour de force does not appear in the collected edition of Sir William Jones's works, nor is any allusion made to it in Lord Teignmonth'e memoir. It ie not stated whether it is now published for the first time ; but, in any case, it forma an excellent pendant to the entertaining account given by Richard Twining, senior, of a visit paid by him, in company with his eon, to Dr. Parr in the year 1789. We have only to add that the explanatory notes added by various members of the family are succinct and helpful, and that the venerable editor has performed his work in a sympathetic and judicious manner.