The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-04-16 00:00:00

THE STOURBRIDGE OBSERVER

believe, that the best defence we can have against the
evils of foreign tariffs is to have no tariff of our own. You
speak of France. The French Senate is in favour of
more protection. The Chamber of Deputies is dis-
posed to free trade and a more liberal policy. The
Free Trade party in France is more powerful than in
past times, and it is not certain that the proposed
treaty will be less favourable to trade between the two
countries. As to America, how will you compel its
Government to reduce their tariff? By placing duties
on American exports to England? If so, on what
exports? On cotton for the mills of Lancashire, or on
corn for the food of all our people? The American
protective tariff makes it difficult or impossible for
Americans to become great exporters of manufactures.
If you fight them at the Custom-houses, you can
only assail them by duties on cotton or on corn,
and this surely will not benefit Lancashire or the
West Riding. When the debt of the United States
is much reduced, when their revenue is in excess
of their wants, then their -tariff will be reformed
and their import duties will be reduced. If you doubt
what free trade has done for England, go back to
your histories and reitd what was the condition of our
working men and their families for the first forty
years of this century, when evz,rything was supposed
to be protected, and compare it with what it is now.
For some years past manufacturers and farmers have
suffered greatly, and worknien have suffered much,
but they have not seen one-tenth part of the distress
which afflicted them during the forty years of high
duties from 1800 to 1840. The country suffers now,
not from our purified tariff, and not wholly, or in
ehief part, from foreign tariffs. It suffers from want
of sunshine—from the short harvests of several years;
and till we have again good harvests we must suffer
and endure. Parliament cannot give sun and heat
for our fields, it will be no coMpensation to reimpose
import duties and to deny us the right to purchase
freely what we need from foreign nations.—l am,
*very respectfully yours, JOHN BRIGHT."

THE WILL OF THE LATE THOMAS
CARLYLE.

The Times has obtained a copy of Mr. Carlyle's will,
which, like the document relating to the grant to the
University of Edinburgh, is written by the great
author himself. The following extracts will show the
character of the whole. As he cannot be placed in the
grave at Haddington, where his wife was buried, he
directs that his body "shall be placed besides my
father and mother in the churchyard 'of Ecelefechan."
He appoints his brother Dr. it A. Carlyle and Mr.
Forster his executors and trustees, and in case of their
deaths his brother Mr. James Carlyle and Mr. J. A.
Froude.

The will then proceeds follows —"I: give to my
dear and ever helpful brother John A. Carlyle my
leasehold messuage in Great Cheyne-row, in which I
reside, subject to the rent and covenants under which I
hold the same, and all such of my furniture, plate,
linen, china, books, prints, pictures, and other effects
therein, as are not hereinafter bequeathed specifically.
My brother John has no need of my money or help,
and, therefore' in addition to this small remembrance,
I bequeath to him only the charge of being executor of
my will and of seeing everything peacefully fulfilled.
If he survives me, as is natural, he will not refuse.
My poor, and indeed almost pathetic collection of
books (with the exception of those hereinafter specifi-
cally given) I request him to accept as a Moment() of
me while he stay behind."
"I give my watch to my nephew Thomas, the son
of my brother Alexander, 'Alick's Tom,' as a memo-
rial of the affection I have for him and of my thankful
(and also hopeful) approval of all that I ever got to
know or surmise about him. He can understand that
of all my outward possessions, this watch is become
the dearest to me. It was given me on my wedding.
day by one who was herself invaluable to me; it had
been her father's made to her father's order; and had
measured out into still more perfect punctuality his
noble years of well-spent time • and now it has
measured out (always punctually) nearly 47 years of
mine, and still measures, as with an everloving solem-
nity, till time quite end with me; and may the new
Thomas Carlyle fare not worse with it than his two
predecessors have done.
"To Maggie Welsh, my dear cousin (and hers);
£lOO. To my house servant, Mrs. Warren, if in my
service at the time of my decease, g5O.
" lia,Ving with good reason, etrei since my first ap-
pearance in literature; a variety of kind feelings,
obligations, and regards towards New England, and
indeed long before that a hearty good will, real and
steady, which still continues, to America at large,
and recognising with gratitude how much of friend-
liness, of actually credible human love, I have had
from that country, and what immensities of worth
and capability I believe and partly know to be lodged,
especially in the silent classes there, I have now
after due consultation as to the feasibilities, the ex-
cusabilities of it, decided to fulfil a fond notion that
has been hovering in my mind these many years;
and I do, therefore, henby bequeath the books
(whatever of them I could not borrow, but had to buy
and gather, that is, in general whatever, of them are
still here) which I used in writing on Cromwell and
Friedrich, and which shall be accurately searched for,
and parted from my other books, to the President and
Fellows of Harvard College, City of Cambridge,
State of Massachusetts as a poor testimony of my
respect for that Alma Mater of so many of my Trans-
atlantic friends, and a token of the feelings above in-
dicated towards the great country of which.- Harvard
is the chief school—in which sense I have reason to be
confident that the Harvard authorities will please to
accept this, my little bequest, and deal with it, and
order and use it, as to their own good judgment and
kind fidelity shall seem fittest. A. certain symbolical
value the bequest may have, but of intrinsic value as
a collection of old .books it can pretend to very
little." _ _

After referring to certain MS., he says, "express
biography Of me I had really rather that there should
be none." Then the will proceeds :

"The imperfect copy of the said manuscript [auto-
biographic records] which is among my papers with
the original letters, I give to my niece, Mary Carlyle
Aitken, to whom also, dear little soul, I bequeath
£5OO for the loving care and unwearied patience and
helpfulness she has shown th me in these my last
solitary and infirm years. To her also I give at her
choice whatever memorials of my dear departed one
she has seen me silently preserving here, especially
the table in the drawing-room at which I now write,
and the little child's chair (in the china closet), which
latter to my eyes has always a brightness as of Time's
morning and a sadness as of death and eternity when
I look on it, and which, with the other dear article, I
have the weak wish to preserve in loving hands yet
awhile when I am gone."
Amongst the M. S. he left was a sketch of his father
"and his life, hastily thrown off in the nights between
his death and burial, full of earnest affection and
veracity, most likely unfit for printing ; butr wish it
to be taken charge of by my brother John and pre-
served in the family. Since, I think, the very night
of my father's funeral (far away from London and
me) I have never seen a word of that poor bit of
writing."
The testator then gives certain directions respecting
his copyrights, &c. ; and the will states that the
residue of his personal estate upon realisatioli wat to
be divided into fifths, and given to his brother
Alexander and James, and his married sisters Mary,
Jean, and Janet.
Finally the will says—" To my dear friends John
Forster and Anthony Froude (Masson, too, I should
remember in this monient and perhaps some others) I
have nothing to leave that could be in the least worthy
of them, but if they, or any of 4.etri, could find
among my reliques a memorial they-would like who
of men could deserve it better? No man at this lime.
If no such choice be made by themselves I leave to
Forster Faithorne's print of Cromwell between the
Pillars, now in the drawing-room here, and to Fronde
Pesne's portrait of Wilhelmina with the Fontanage on
her brow, now in the same room."

There is a codicil attached to the will dated Nov. 8,
1878, in which, Mr. John Forster being dead, be ap-
points his brother, John Aitken Carlyle, Jas. A.
Froude, and Sir James Fitzjames Stephen to be his
executors and trustees. By the7codicil he revokes the
the former gift of the writing table, and bestows it
upon Sir James F. J. Stephen in the following terms:
—" I know he will accept it as a distinguished mark
of my esteem. He knows that it belonged to my
honoured father-in-law and his daughter. And that
I have written all my books upon it except only
Schiller, and that for the fifty years and upwards that
are now passed I have considered it among the most
precious of my possessions.
"I give and bequeath the screen which stands in
the drawing-room at No. 24, Cheyne-row, aforesaid,
to my dear niece Mary Carlyle Aitken, who best
knows the value I have always put upon it, and will
best take care of it to the end of her life when I am
gone. She knows by whom it was made, and I wish
her to accept it as a testimony of the trust I repose in
her as a mark of my esteem for her honourable,
veracious, and faithful character, and a memorial of
all the kind and ever-faithful service she has done me.
"The Faithorne portrait of Oliver Cromwell, which I
had intended for my loving and ever faithful friend,
John Forster—the only-bequest he would accept of
from me—l now give and bequeath to his widow, Mrs.
Forster, and I beg her to accept it in memory of him
and of me.
"I give and bequeath to my dear friend David
Masson my photographically printed folio copy of
Shakespeare's works, in memory of me.
"The two pictures of Luther's fatber and mcther,
which were a gift to me from Mr. Robert Tait, of
Queen Anne•street. Cavendish-square, in the said
county of Middlesex, I give back to him.
"The large oil-painting which hangs in the drawing.
room at No. 24, Cheyne-row aforesaid, and which has
been engraved under the title of ' The Little
Drummer,' II give and bequeath to Louisa Caroline
the Dowager Lady Ashburton for her life, and after
her death to her daughter, the Hon. Mary Florence
Baring, absolutely."
The deceased also made a change in the disposition
of is messuage and furniture, which he directs shall
go to his brother for his life only; and after his death
to his niece, Mary Carlyle Aitken.

The will was proved on the 7th of April, and the
personalty sworn under £35,000.

THE LAND BILL AND THE ROUSE
OF LORDS.

The Daily News (in a leader on Tuesday) has no
doubt of the Land Bill passing through the House of
Commons, but asks what its fate will be when it goes
up to the House of Lords. Will the Lords have the
wisdom to accept it, or the rashness to throw it out,
or the misjudging and dangerous craft to mutilate
it so as to render it what some of them would
consider harmless? And in the event of their
rejecting the Bill or spoiling it, what course
are her Majesty's Pitinistets tikely
.to take ? Mr.
Gladstone told the House of Oorntruitis on Thursday
-
that there is nothing which could legitimately be done
by a Government which he and his Cabinet are not
prepared to do in order to procure the passing of n
effective measure for the reform of the Irish land
system. These emphatic words, spoken to the Cora-
mons, were naturally Understood by,most persons to be
spoken at the Lords. The Daily News sincerely trusts
that the Lords may be wise enough to take the warn-
ing in a right sense, and spare the country the chalice
of a political convulsion, which if it were brought on by
them could hardly tend to their advantage in the end.