Philip Gilbert Hamerton | Page 8

with some tenderness and pity for her sake, so
I felt vaguely that there had been a great loss, though unable to estimate
the extent of it. Later, when I understood better what pains and perils
Nature inflicts on women in order that children may come into the
world, it seemed that the days I lived had been bought for me by the
sacrifice of days that my mother ought to have lived. She was but
twenty-four when she passed away, so that now I have lived more than
twice her span.
The effect of the loss upon my father was utterly disastrous. His new
and good projects were all shattered, and a cloud fell over his existence
that was never lifted. He did not marry again, and he lost his interest in
his profession. My mother left him all her property absolutely, so he
felt no spur of necessity and became indolent or indifferent; yet those
who were capable of judging had a good opinion of his abilities as a
lawyer. Just before his wife's death, my father had rather distinguished
himself in an important case, and received a testimonial from his client
with the following inscription:--
_Presented to Mr. Hammerton, Solr, by his obliged client Mr. Waring,
as a token of Esteem for his active services in the cause tried against
Stopherd at Lancaster, in the arrangement of the argument arising
thereon at Westminster, and his successful defence to the Equity Suit
instituted by the Deft_. 1834.
My father's practice at that time was beginning to be lucrative, and
would no doubt have become much more so in a few years; but the
blow to his happiness that occurred in the September of 1834 produced
such discouragement that he sought relief from his depression in the
society of lively companions. Most unfortunately for him, there was no
lively masculine society in the place where he lived that was not at the
same time a constant incitement to drinking. There were a few places in
the Lancashire of those days where convivial habits were carried to

such a degree that they destroyed what ought to have been the flower of
the male population. The strong and hearty men who believed that they
could be imprudent with impunity, the lively, intelligent, and sociable
men who wanted the wittiest and brightest talk that was to be had in the
neighborhood, the bachelor whose hearth was lonely, and the widower
whose house had been made desolate, all these were tempted to join
meetings of merry companions who set no limits to the strength or the
quantity of their potations. My poor father was a man of great physical
endowments, and he came at last to have a mistaken pride in being able
to drink deeply without betraying any evil effects; but a few years of
such an existence undermined one of the finest constitutions ever given
to mortal man. A quarryman once told me that my father had appeared
at the quarry at six o'clock in the morning looking quite fresh and
hearty, when, taking up the heaviest sledge-hammer he could find, he
gayly challenged the men to try who could throw it farthest. None of
them came near him, on which he turned and said with a laugh of
satisfaction, --"Not bad that, for a man who drank thirty glasses of
brandy the day before!" Whether he had ever approached such a
formidable number I will not venture to say, but the incident exactly
paints my father in his northern pride of strength, the fatal pride that
believes itself able to resist poison because it has the muscles of an
athlete.
It was always said by those who knew the family that my father was the
cleverest member of it, but his ability must have expended itself in
witty conversation and in his professional work, as I do not remember
the smallest evidence of what are called intellectual tastes. My mother
had a few books that had belonged to her family, and to these my father
added scarcely anything. I can remember his books quite clearly, even
at this distance of time. One was a biography of William IV., another a
set of sketches of Reform Ministers, a third was Baines's "History of
Lancashire," a fourth a Geographical Dictionary. These were, I believe,
almost all the books (not concerned with the legal profession) that my
father ever purchased. His bookcase did not contain a single volume by
the most popular English poets of his own time, nor even so much as a
novel by Sir Walter Scott. I have no recollection of ever having seen
him read a book, but he took in the "Times" newspaper, and I clearly

remember that he read the leading articles, which it was the fashion at
that