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I owned that I was by no means certain | the loss of a friend whenever a bottle left that it was really the wine it affected to the cellar. Then the question flashed into be; but that I had found it unquestiona- my mind: Why not make some bly a wine of very distinguished quality, Comet Port?" I was quite prepared to assert.

He hardly seemed satisfied with this statement; he shook his head gravely.

"It's not a thing there could be any doubt or mistake about," he said. "If you once tasted Comet Port, you'd remember it all your life. There's nothing like it in the world; there never has been there never will be. It defies description. There never was such a vintage as the comet year the Great Comet year. We were most fortunate at Cardiff; we secured a wonderful cellar of Comet Port."

He mentioned the number of pipes, but I don't feel quite confident now about the figure stated. I know that I thought it very considerable.

"But we did'nt set enough store upon it," he proceeded; "that was where we were wrong. We were really wasteful with it. We were too good-natured; we let every customer have it that asked for it; at a good price, look you -I don't say otherwise - but nothing to what we might afterwards have obtained for it. We ought to have locked it up securely, at they lock up the crown-jewels in the Tower of London. I've seen them there myself; for, as a young man, I was often in London. We ought to have slammed the cellar-doors in the face even of our best customers, and never have parted with so much as a teaspoonful. Our stock of Comet Port would now be worth a fabulous price quite a fabulous price! But" He stopped, as though he had forgotten what he was about to add, or had failed to find adequate words wherewith to express himself.

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I was rather surprised. Still, I had heard a good deal of the tricks of the wine-trade. I said that possibly the thing was feasible; and that by some means, no doubt, a passable sort of Comet Port might be manufactured.

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Yes," he cried impetuously; "but by what means? Why, in this way. To make Comet Port, we must make comets!" "Make comets!" I echoed.

"Yes. How? you'll ask. That was my secret — my discovery. The effect of the comet upon the vines was incontestable. Nor only the vines. The crops of all kinds were amazingly abundant everywhere. It was even said that there were more children born that year than were ever known to have been born before within a similar period- especially twins. There were repeated instances, indeed, of no less than four children at one birth; three at a birth were not unusual; twins were quite common. It was said, moreover, that there was not a single wasp that year, and that all the flies were quite blind. That I'm not quite prepared to believe; but certainly it was a most phenomenal season. The effects resulting from the comet were altogether of a very striking kind. Well, then, I argued, why not imitate the cause? Why not invent create a precisely identical cause? call in the aid of art and ingenuity, and stimulate nature to further developments?" He laid his hand upon my shoulder as he spoke, and lowered his voice to a hoarse, agitated whisper. I could see that he was greatly excited. "It's an astronomical question. What's a comet, but a star surrounded by a gaseous

"Do you know anything of astrono-inflammable matter, that by some chance my?" he asked suddenly.

I admitted that I was by no means well skilled in that science.

or strange agency has become ignited! You've only to survey the heavens on a clear night to perceive numberless stars After a pause, during which he eyed me circled by luminous gas by nebulous rather curiously I thought, he proceeded: matter. These would all become comets "There can be no harm in mentioning it if the gaseous air about them could only now. I'm an old man; I've given up busi- be thoroughly ignited. I've watched them ness this many a year; I can never hope night after night, hoping that by some accinow to see my plans carried out. But it dent they would clash together, or apwas a grand-a startling idea. It oc- proach each other so nearly as to set fire cured to me quite suddenly. I was busy to each other. They never did. Yet they about something else at the time, I remem- were so near to each other oftentimes, that ber. We were getting nearly to the end it seemed quite a miracle that there wasn't of our stock of the wine, though we'd raised the price of it almost exorbitantly. Every bottle was numbered, and specially sealed with blue wax, impressed with the initials of the firm. I cried as though at

a whole series of conflagrations in the heavens. Thousands of comets! How it would have affected the grapes ! what port we should have had!"

He had now raised his voice, and was

talking very violently indeed, accompany- often. It was unlucky my being out of ing his speech by very impassioned action. A certain uncomfortable feeling came over me in regard to him. I looked up, and saw Becky in the doorway, with an expression of alarm and amazement upon her face. Her hands were upraised, and her wide-open eyes were fixed upon Davy. She ejaculated some sentences in Welsh, and then hurried away. It seemed to me that I could hear her calling across the farmyard to Griff Morgan.

the way; but one of the cows was bad, and I was seeing to doctoring her at the moment. I think Davy had been to the ale-cask; I've always cautioned Becky to be watchful about his doing that; for he gets over-excited and troublesome, and hardly knows what he says, if he takes but ever so little more than he's accustomed to. We're obliged to allowance him; and he submits generally with very good-will. He's better now, but we had a "Well," Davy continued, "why not set trying night with him. He couldn't sleep, fire to the stars? That was my plan. I and his talk was worse than I've known meant to have taken out a patent for it, it for a long time. He was feverish, and but I fell ill before I could quite complete fidgety, and rambling all the night my experiments, and make sure of the through. It's made me feel anxious, and best way of carrying my notion into exe- shaken myself this morning. You'll judge, cution. I spent heaps of money on it; but sir, that Davy's a little weak in his head I did not care for that- -success was cer- now and then. But he'll not be for troubtain in the end. I sent up rockets firstling you any more. It's over now, and fired them out of cannon; but I could not you'll kindly forget it, sir, if you please. send them up high enough-they just I'll not keep you, sir; I'm walking your missed the stars by a few yards. Then I way down towards the works. There's tried fire-balloons; but the small ones allowance for to be made for Davy, sir. failed they ran before the wind without He's proud of his Cardiff days; and really mounting sufficiently. Then I determined he was doing very well there. quite a to construct a fire-balloon of colossal pro- rich I may say till his - his portions health "he shrunk from saying mind, I Davy!" said a severe warning_voice. noticed- "till his health gave way. Still, Old Griff had entered the room. He laid he likes for to talk of his old days, when his hand upon his brother's arm with a he can get any one for to listen. I check peculiar look of earnest, almost severe him always when I can, for it carries him reproach. Davy stopped speaking, trem- too far, and isn't at all good for him." bled, drew himself up, and covered his He made no further reference to what was eyes with his hand. He then suffered him- evidently his brother's monomania. He self to be led gently from the room. He had spoken all through with hesitation, as stopped in the doorway, however, and though the subject pained him, and every bowed to me with a sort of bewildered politeness. Griff had firm hold of him, I perceived, and had no intention of releasing him until he was fairly away from my presence.

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Becky eyed me indignantly and rebukingly, I thought. I was reconciled to the fact that conversation was not possible between us.

It was clear that Davy was out of his mind!

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now and then he raised his hat, and dabbed his forehead with his handkerchief. I had never seen him looking so old, and ill, and infirm as he looked that morning.

We had now approached the limits of his land. In the distance, I could see the tall, ragged, brown embankment my men were busy about, with, on its crest, a string of earth-wagons drawn along the tramway by a puffing "donkey-engine." Certainly, civilization was spoiling the prospect. It was a lovely country with distant ranges of hills, in deep blue waves, undulating along the horizon; with sudden down-plunging valleys, musical with running and falling water; and, here and there, high-climbing groves of fir trees, shedding around them a delightful, moist, fragrant shade. It was a fine landscape, "Poor Davy was not well, sir, last affluent in natural beauties of form and night," he said. "I'm sorry you should colour. And we were, so to say, marring have been troubled with his talking. It the picture by our cruel engineering cuthappens so at times with him, but not tings and slashings. Well, we were not

I saw no more of the brothers that day; but early the next morning, as I was setting forth for the railway works, I met Griff a few yards from the farm-house. I think he had been waiting for me, for usually, at that hour, he had been busy on his land at a considerable distance. He looked pale and distressed, his hands shook, and he walked feebly.

the first to bring the detriment of progress | almost. It's not the case with any other upon the place, at any rate. The restless farm in the country. Don't 'ee cross it! chatter and jangle of machinery were al- Don't 'ee venture, now, dear young man, ready to be heard echoing among the hills. for the love of Heaven! I'd never forgive The factories, the first invaders, had occu- myself, if harm were to befall you on my pied the land very completely. The ele- land!" vated ground in all directions was striped with long lines of blue-white flannel, stretched out in wooden frames, to dry and bleach in the open air. The railway had come in, as the obsequious yet indispensable servant of manufacture.

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"The bottomless pit!" he cried passionately. "The world's hollow, you know - this is a weak place in its crust -the poorest, thinnest land in the whole country. It isn't safe; it would crackle under you like thin ice. I put up a board to warn people off, but it was blown down by the wind, or carried away by some mischievous person. I know what I'm saying," he repeated wildly. "If I'm mad -and I've been called so-it's not on this point. The White Field wouldn't bear the weight of a man - no, nor of a child. I sometimes watch, for hours together, to see the birds fall through; but it bears them-it's as much as it can do. At least I never saw one go in. The rooks avoid it; they're so cunning, you see. I've watched them for hours, sometimes, hovering over it, but never alighting; and I hear them call out, warning the young birds of their peril. It's a terrible thing having the bottomless pit so near one's house-within a stone's throw of it

It was plain that Griff was as mad as Davy. The doctor was right: they were "queer folk" indeed.

I humoured the old man. I had crossed the White Field scores of times I need not say without harm coming of it. This morning, I avoided it, gaining the railway works by a less direct route. I left old Griff leaning over the stile, gazing with frightened eyes at the terrible thin land that covered so unsafely the hollow of the earth the bottomless pit.

There was not much inclination for industry on the line, I found: the election proceedings had in every way demoralized my army of navvies. There was again an early "knock off," and a hurrying away to the numberless beer-shops which always spring up, mushroom-like, on the path of a railway.

On my return to the farm, I was surprised to hear the sound of angry talking in the kitchen. The brothers were quarrelling. Becky was in vain endeavouring to pacify them. They were upbraiding and expostulating with each other. There was something of frenzy in the vehemence of their speech and action. They spoke partly in Welsh, partly in English. I could only gather from their controversy that they were engaged in mutual taunts, in which the words "Comet " and " White Field" largely figured.

"Why, what's all this about?" demanded a deep firm voice, and Dr. Jenkins, his Mackintosh flapping and rustling around him, strode into the kitchen. The noise had been so great that the clatter of his pony's hoofs on the road to the house had not been heard. The old men were silent in a moment. Their faces were still inflamed with anger, but they looked humbled and penitent, and they eyed the doctor appealingly - deprecating his reprehension.

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"Is this the way you keep your promise, Griff? Is this being true to your word, Davy? Is this how you behave before a visitor? I thought I knew you, and could trust you better. I'm quite ashamed of you both. - This, Griff, your care of poor Davy!- This, Davy, your care of poor Griff! I wouldn't have believed it of you. No, not a word. Go to each other. Never, never let me hear of such a thing happening again."

He spoke to them as a schoolmaster

The doctor motioned me to step outside the door with him.

might speak to two disobedient child-| know. They've been overtaxing themscholars. They were much moved. They selves, to do you honour-been inclined burst into tears. 66 Davy!" cried Griff. to shew off a bit, I take it, and so got into "Griff!" cried Davy. In a moment the mischief. I sometimes think with these. old men were in each other's arms. twin-born folk that there's only one sane mind between them; that they're all right so long as they keep together, a mutual support and check upon each other. But directly they split, and set up for having separate interests and intelligences, something goes wrong with them. It's a theory of mine, but I own not to having worked it out very thoroughly, even to satisfying myself in regard to it. But I'm inclined to think there is something in it. We'll go in, in another minute; depend upon it, we shall find them as quiet as lambs, very sorry for what's happened, and more than ordinarily watchful over each other. Still, it's better to run no further risk; we must manage to find some other quarters for you."

"I'm afraid I must advise you to clear out of this, and look for some other quarters. It's been too much for them I was half afraid of it all along. But they'd been so well for so long that there seemed no great harm in running the risk. I've been so busy, and the distance is so great, or I should have been round here before now, to see how they were going on. It's my fault; I ought to have managed better."

"They're both mad," I said rather superfluously.

were wonderfully courteous and cordial in bidding adieu to me. My last glimpse of them left them standing close together, waving their hats to me, Griff his wideawake, and Davy his chimney-pot, as I turned my back upon the farm. I even managed at last to conciliate Becky, in some degree-chiefly, I think, by abandoning the neighbourhood.

"Mad as March hares, both of them, and have been so for years. You've heard all about the Comet Port and the White When we re-entered the house, we Field, and all the rest of it? Ah! I was found the brothers peaceably reading afraid so. Poor old boys! the excitement aloud alternate verses from the Welsh of your coming, you see, upset them. A Testament. very little will do it, you know, in these I left Llanberig almost immediately. cases; any one would think that the Indeed, the progress of the works had quiet monotony of their usual life would rendered necessary my further movement be enough to drive a sane man mad; it down the line. I only expedited my dewould me for one, I know - supposing parture by a day or two. I was on excelI'm sane, to begin with; but it keeps these lent terms with my hosts when I quitted poor mad folk sane. I told you they the farm. There was not the slightest were rather queer, you remember. Their hint of any return of their mania. They mother died raving mad, poor soul! They were both in the county asylum for some years. There had been too much intermarrying among the family, it was said. Though, if that's true, there must be a good many stark mad people passing for sane in the principality, for we're a rare people for in-breeding. But Griff and Davy were found so quiet and harmless at the asylum, that it was thought hardly It was years afterwards when I learned worth while to keep them there any from the doctor some tidings of my twinlonger. I'm one of the visiting surgeons, hosts. They had passed away quite and I strongly advised their discharge. peacefully, untroubled by any revisitation They've gone on wonderfully well up to of their malady. Davy had first departed, now. Each was instructed and required but Griff survived him only a few days. to look after and care for the other. That One grave held them both in the tiny gave them an object in life, a duty to fui- little hill-side church-yard of Llanberig. fil; and the effect upon them has been ex- Much sympathy had attended them in the cellent altogether. Each believes himself neighbourhood, and they died affectionsane, and knows the other to be mad, and ately regretted. They sleep tranquilly a strong affection exists between them. I under the tender shade of a superb old was in hopes that we'd brought them far-reaching yew-tree. The farm is now thoroughly round, and that they'd jog on in other hands, its proprietors still boastcomfortably to the end of their days. ing the name of Morgan, however. And That wasn't to be, it seems. But they'll the White Field has been ploughed over get all right again, I think, if we leave and over again, without, as far as I could them to themselves; only, we must re- learn, anybody sinking in much above the move the exciting cause - that's you, you 'ankles.

LIVING AGE.

VOL. XXI.

942

From The Saturday Review.
UNIVERSAL KNOWLEDGE.

distinctiveness helped to promote distinctions within its pale. At Bologna and Padua students as a rule were marked off into the divisions of Jurista and Artista and the schools at Oxford were even more

THE advisableness of aiming at a cyclopædic range in knowledge has had so much said in its favour of late years, by an extreme school of thinkers, that a few re-sharply defined. marks on the subject will not be out of And so, through many centuries, espeplace. That, at quite an early stage in cially at any time of extraordinary energy civilized education, men must cease to aim and progress, the work of specialization at universality in knowledge, and must be and division of labour has moved forward, content to specialize, would seem to be al- and may be traced in the statutes of sucmost self-evident. Lord Bacon's declara- cessive periods, whether they affect the tion that he "had taken all knowledge to founding of Colleges or of Professorial be his province "was, as coming from him, Chairs, or the regulation of University exneither unmeaning or presumptuous. Yet aminations. Within quite recent memory for all intellects but that very small num- we have seen both Oxford and Cambridge ber which, like his, have an almost super-declare in favour of specialization against human width and grasp, a narrower range a remnant of traditional universality. At would be admitted, one would think, early Cambridge, so late as 1851, it became for to become an essential necessity. And the first time possible that a man should when, now and then, we see an enthusias- take a degree in classical learning singly, tic student gallantly dashing out into the limitless waters of universal knowledge, we feel pretty certain that he is spending questionable toil, and that he will by and by be carried beyond his depth,

νήπιος, οὐδ ̓ ἐνόησεν όσω πλέον ήμισυ παντός.

without the same mathematical preliminary which had been till then required. The complete emancipation of the Classical Tripos was not effected until 1857. And at Oxford until 1852, when Moderations were instituted and the Final Schools remodelled, it was still essential that a

of scholarship with logical and metaphysi cal reading, before he could display in the schools proficiency in either.

We have said that the necessity for divid-man should combine a considerable degree ing knowledge into departments and for confining the individual attention generally to one or more selected sections would appear, after a certain stage in liter- Historically, then, intellectual labour ary and scientific development, to be a has been divided and subdivided in the nearly self-evident fact. It will be inter- great schools of learning. Individuals and esting briefly to trace the recognition of schools alike have to recognize the necesthis necessity in the progress of Universi- sary law, bound as they are by the limits ties. A University, by virtue of its name of power imposed on human understanding (though that is a point on which a good and endurance. It remains to estimate deal of discussion has been spent) and of the loss and gain of this imperative tax on its prime idea, is a school of universal progress, this inevitable law of advancing knowledge, and a corporation empowered civilization. There can be no doubt that to confer degrees in all or any liberal we suffer very considerable loss by being knowledge. And in the twelfth century compelled to divide intellectual labour, and accordingly, the great era of University to confine special attention to special defoundation throughout Europe, a student at Oxford or Cambridge or Paris or Bologna, with any pretensions to eminence, would go over the sevenfold course that composed the omne scibile, the

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partments. "Universality imparts freedom," is the saying of Locke; freedom is pro tanto abandoned by the necessary subdivision of labour. We lose, comparatively, freedom in thought, freedom in judgment, freedom in conversation. We occupy a lower level intellectually, and suffer in proportion. We have less to contemplate, fewer data for great general decisions, a narrower field for developing comparison, instance, illustration, and all that enriches the communication of thought, spoken or written. In other words, the specializing process tends to give us comparative poverty in conception, narrowness and therefore bias in reasoning, barrenness and a feeble standard of wit in

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