"Humpf!" Humpfed a voice! "For almost two days you've run wild and insisted on chatting with persons who've never existed. Such carryings-on in our peaceable jungle! We've had quite enough of you bellowing bungle! And I'm here to state," snapped the big kangaroo, "That your silly nonsensical game is all through!" And the young kangaroo in her pouch said, "Me, too!" "With the help of the Wickersham Brothers and dozens of Wickersham
You're going to be roped! And you're going to be caged! And, as for your dust
speck... Hah! That we shall boil in a hot steaming kettle of Beezle-Nut oil!"
-- Dr. Seuss "Horton Hears a Who"
It is necessary for the welfare of society that genius should be privileged to utter sedition, to blaspheme, to outrage good taste, to corrupt the youthful mind, and generally to scandalize one's uncles. -- George Bernard Shaw
"Oh, he is not doing so well as his mama could wish. He went to college, and he got--plucked, I think they call it: and then his uncles wanted him to be a barrister, and study the law: but he is such a dissipated young man, they will never make much of him, I think."
"If I get away I sha'n't be here," I says, "to prove these rapscallions ain't your uncles, and I couldn't do it if I _was_ here. I could swear they was beats and bummers, that's all, though that's worth something. Well, there's others can do that better than what I can, and they're people that ain't going to be doubted as quick as I'd be. I'll tell you how to find them. Gimme a pencil and a piece of paper. There'Royal Nonesuch, Bricksville.' Put it away, and don't lose it. When the court wants to find out something about these two, let them send up to Bricksville and say they've got the men that played the Royal Nonesuch, and ask for some witnesseswhy, you'll have that entire town down here before you can hardly wink, Miss Mary. And they'll come a-biling, too."
When we got to the house the street in front of it was packed, and the three girls was standing in the door. Mary Jane _was_ red-headed, but that don't make no difference, she was most awful beautiful, and her face and her eyes was all lit up like glory, she was so glad her uncles was come. The king he spread his arms, and Mary Jane she jumped for them, and the hare-lip jumped for the duke, and there they had it! Everybody most, leastways women, cried for joy to see them meet again at last and have such good times.
"The heirs sought everywhere, admired the breviary, laid hands on the furniture, and were greatly astonished that Spada, the rich man, was really the most miserable of uncles--no treasures--unless they were those of science, contained in the library and laboratories. That was all. Caesar and his father searched, examined, scrutinized, but found nothing, or at least very little; not exceeding a few thousand crowns in plate, and about the same in ready money; but the nephew had time to say to his wife before he expired: 'Look well among my uncle's papers; there is a will.'
"Don't you holler. Just set still and take it like a man. I got to tell the truth, and you want to brace up, Miss Mary, because it's a bad kind, and going to be hard to take, but there ain't no help for it. These uncles of yourn ain't no uncles at all; they're a couple of fraudsregular dead-beats. There, now we're over the worst of it, you can stand the rest middling easy."
"You with a uncle too! Why, I know'd you at Gargery's when you was so small a wolf that I could have took your weazen betwixt this finger and thumb and chucked you away dead (as I'd thoughts o' doing, odd times, when I see you loitering amongst the pollards on a Sunday), and you hadn't found no uncles then. No, not you! But when Old Orlick come for to hear that your uncle Provis had most like wore the leg-iron wot Old Orlick had picked up, filed asunder, on these meshes ever so many year ago, and wot he kep by him till he dropped your sister with it, like a bullock, as he means to drop you--hey?--when he come for to hear that--hey?"
"Well," resumed Mr. Rochester, "if you disown parents, you must have some sort of kinsfolk: uncles and aunts?"
"Yes; never mind about them. They've got to stand it yet a while. They might suspicion something if all of you was to go. I don't want you to see them, nor your sisters, nor nobody in this town; if a neighbor was to ask how is your uncles this morning your face would tell something. No, you go right along, Miss Mary Jane, and I'll fix it with all of them. I'll tell Miss Susan to give your love to your uncles and say you've went away for a few hours for to get a little rest and change, or to see a friend, and you'll be back to-night or early in the morning."
"Why, it's because you ain't one of these leather-face people. I don't want no better book than what your face is. A body can set down and read it off like coarse print. Do you reckon you can go and face your uncles when they come to kiss you good-morning, and never"
27:11. But if he have no uncles by the father, the inheritance shall be given to them that are the next akin. And this shall be to the children of Israel sacred by a perpetual law, as the Lord hath commanded Moses.
"Friends all, my poor brother that lays yonder has done generous by them that's left behind in the vale of sorrers. He has done generous by these yer poor little lambs that he loved and sheltered, and that's left fatherless and motherless. Yes, and we that knowed him knows that he would a done _more_ generous by 'em if he hadn't ben afeard o' woundin' his dear William and me. Now, _wouldn't_ he? Ther' ain't no question 'bout it in _my_ mind. Well, then, what kind o' brothers would it be that 'd stand in his way at sech a time? And what kind o' uncles would it be that 'd robyes, _rob_sech poor sweet lambs as these 'at he loved so at sech a time? If I know Williamand I _think_ I dohewell, I'll jest ask him." He turns around and begins to make a lot of signs to the duke with his hands, and the duke he looks at him stupid and leather-headed a while; then all of a sudden he seems to catch his meaning, and jumps for the king, goo-gooing with all his might for joy, and hugs him about fifteen times before he lets up. Then the king says, "I knowed it; I reckon _that 'll_ convince anybody the way _he_ feels about it. Here, Mary Jane, Susan, Joanner, take the moneytake it _all_. It's the gift of him that lays yonder, cold but joyful."
"Not so hasty, if you please. I have by no means done. To all the objections I have already urged, I have still another to add. I am no stranger to the particulars of your youngest sister's infamous elopement. I know it all; that the young man's marrying her was a patched-up business, at the expence of your father and uncles. And is such a girl to be my nephew's sister? Is her husband, is the son of his late father's steward, to be his brother? Heaven and earth!--of what are you thinking? Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?"
"If they had uncles enough to fill _all_ Cheapside," cried Bingley, "it would not make them one jot less agreeable."
"Just look at it a minute, and maybe you can see. Hain't your uncles obleegd to get along home to England as fast as they can? And do you reckon they'd be mean enough to go off and leave you to go all that journey by yourselves? _you_ know they'll wait for you. So fur, so good. Your uncle Harvey's a preacher, ain't he? Very well, then; is a _preacher_ going to deceive a steamboat clerk? is he going to deceive a _ship clerk?_so as to get them to let Miss Mary Jane go aboard? Now _you_ know he ain't. What _will_ he do, then? Why, he'll say, 'It's a great pity, but my church matters has got to get along the best way they can; for my niece has been exposed to the dreadful pluribus-unum mumps, and so it's my bounden duty to set down here and wait the three months it takes to show on her if she's got it.' But never mind, if you think it's best to tell your uncle Harvey"
"True. You _are_ a gentleman's daughter. But who was your mother? Who are your uncles and aunts? Do not imagine me ignorant of their condition."
"All right," they said, and cleared out to lay for their uncles, and give them the love and the kisses, and tell them the message.
King Richard, though he had shown such courage and ready resources at Smithfield, was still only a lad of fourteen. For three years more he was under the control of tutors and governors appointed by his council. Their rule was incompetent, but the chief danger to the realm had passed away when both Charles V. of France and his great captain Du Guesclin died in 1380. The new king at Paris was a young boy, whose councils were swayed by a knot of quarrelsome and selfish uncles; the vigour of the attack on England began to slacken. Nevertheless there was no change in the fortune of war, which continued to be disastrous, if on a smaller scale than before. The chief domestic event of the time was the attack of the clerical party on Wycliffe and his followers. The reformer had begun to develop dogmatic views, in addition to his old theories about the relations of Church and State. When he proceeded to deny the doctrine of transubstantiation, to assert the all-sufficiency of the Scriptures as a rule of life, to denounce saint-worship, pilgrimages, and indulgences, and to declare the pope to be Antichrist, he frightened his old supporter John of Gaunt and the politicians of the anti-clerical clique. They ceased to support him, and his followers became a sect rather than a political party. He and his disciples were expelled from Oxford, and ere long the bishops began to arrest and try them for heresy. Wycliffe himself, strange to say, was not molested. He survived to publish his translation of the Bible and to die in peace in December 1383. But his followers were being hunted, and imprisoned or forced to recant, all through the later years of Richard II. Yet they continued to multiply, and exercised at times considerable influence; though they had few supporters among the baronage, yet among the lesser gentry and still more among the burgher class and in the universities they were strong. It was not till the next reign, when the bishops succeeded in calling in the crown to their aid, and passed the statute _De heretico comburendo_, that Lollardy ceased to flourish. Entry: IV
In 1385 Charles VI. married Elizabeth, daughter of Stephen II., duke of Bavaria, her name being gallicized as Isabeau. Three years later, with the help of his brother, Louis of Orleans, duke of Touraine, he threw off the tutelage of his uncles, whom he replaced by Bureau de la Rivière and others among his father's counsellors, nicknamed by the royal princes the _marmousets_ because of their humble origin. Two years later he deprived the duke of Berry of the government of Languedoc. The opening years of Charles VI.'s effective rule promised well, but excess in gaiety of all kinds undermined his constitution, and in 1392 he had an attack of madness at Le Mans, when on his way to Brittany to force from John V. the surrender of his cousin Pierre de Craon, who had tried to assassinate the constable Olivier de Clisson in the streets of Paris. Other attacks followed, and it became evident that Charles was unable permanently to sustain the royal authority. Clisson, Bureau de la Rivière, Jean de Mercier, and the other _marmousets_ were driven from office, and the royal dukes regained their power. The rivalries between the most powerful of these--the duke of Burgundy, who during the king's attacks of madness practically ruled the country, and the duke of Orleans--were a constant menace to peace. In 1306 peace with England seemed assured by the marriage of Richard II. with Charles VI.'s daughter Isabella, but the Lancastrian revolution of 1399 destroyed the diplomatic advantages gained by this union. In France the country was disturbed by the papal schism. At an assembly of the clergy held in Paris in 1398 it was resolved to refuse to recognize the authority of Benedict XIII., who succeeded Clement VII. as schismatic pope at Avignon. The question became a party one; Benedict was supported by Louis of Orleans, while Philip the Bold and the university of Paris opposed him. Obedience to Benedict's authority was resumed in 1403, only to be withdrawn again in 1408, when the king declared himself the guardian and protector of the French church, which was indeed for a time self-governing. Edicts further extending the royal power in ecclesiastical affairs were even issued in 1418, after the schism was at an end. Entry: CHARLES
CHALMERS, GEORGE (1742-1825), Scottish antiquarian and political writer, was born at Fochabers, a village in the county of Moray, in 1742. His father, James Chalmers, was a grandson of George Chalmers of Pittensear, a small estate in the parish of Lhanbryde, now St Andrews-Lhanbryde, in the same county, possessed by the main line of the family from about the beginning of the 17th to the middle of the 18th century. After completing the usual course at King's College, Aberdeen, young Chalmers studied law in Edinburgh for several years. Two uncles on the father's side having settled in America, he visited Maryland in 1763, with the view, it is said, of assisting to recover a tract of land of some extent about which a dispute had arisen, and was in this way induced to commence practice as a lawyer at Baltimore, where for a time he met with much success. Having, however, espoused the cause of the Royalist party on the breaking out of the American War of Independence, he found it expedient to abandon his professional prospects in the New World, and return to his native country. For the losses he had sustained as a colonist he received no compensation, and several years elapsed before he obtained an appointment that placed him in a state of comfort and independence. Entry: CHALMERS
Meanwhile the prophet's father, Suddh[=o]dana, who had anxiously watched his son's career, heard that he had given up his asceticism, and had appeared as a Wanderer, an itinerant preacher and teacher. He sent therefore to him, urging him to come home, that he might see him once more before he died. The Buddha accordingly started for Kapilavastu, and stopped according to his custom in a grove outside the town. His father and uncles and others came to see him there, but the latter were angry, and would pay him no reverence. It was the custom to invite such teachers and their disciples for the next day's meal, but they all left without doing so. The next day, therefore, Gotama set out at the usual hour, carrying his bowl to beg for a meal. As he entered the city, he hesitated whether he should not go straight to his father's house, but determined to adhere to his custom. It soon reached his father's ears that his son was walking through the streets begging. Startled at such news he rose up, seizing the end of his outer robe, and hastened to the place where Gotama was, exclaiming, "Illustrious Buddha, why do you expose us all to such shame? Is it necessary to go from door to door begging your food? Do you imagine that I am not able to supply the wants of so many mendicants?" "My noble father," was the reply, "this is the custom of all our race." "How so?" said his father. "Are you not descended from an illustrious line? no single person of our race has ever acted so indecorously." "My noble father," said Gotama, "you and your family may claim the privileges of Kshatriya descent; my descent is from the prophets (Buddhas) of old, and they have always acted so; the customs of the law (Dharma) are good both for this world and the world that is to come. But, my father, when a man has found a treasure, it is his duty to offer the most precious of the jewels to his father first. Do not delay, let me share with you the treasure I have found." Suddh[=o]dana, abashed, took his son's bowl and led him to his house. Entry: BUDDHA
FREDERICK I. (1369-1428), surnamed "the Warlike," elector and duke of Saxony, was the eldest son of Frederick "the Stern," count of Osterland, and Catherine, daughter and heiress of Henry VIII., count of Coburg. He was born at Altenburg on the 29th of March 1369, and was a member of the family of Wettin. When his father died in 1381 some trouble arose over the family possessions, and in the following year an arrangement was made by which Frederick and his brothers shared Meissen and Thuringia with their uncles Balthasar and William. Frederick's brother George died in 1402, and his uncle William in 1407. A further dispute then arose, but in 1410 a treaty was made at Naumburg, when Frederick and his brother William added the northern part of Meissen to their lands; and in 1425 the death of William left Frederick sole ruler. In the German town war of 1388 he assisted Frederick V. of Hohenzollern, burgrave of Nuremberg, and in 1391 did the same for the Teutonic Order against Ladislaus V., king of Poland and prince of Lithuania. He supported Rupert III., elector palatine of the Rhine, in his struggle with King Wenceslaus for the German throne, probably because Wenceslaus refused to fulfil a promise to give him his sister Anna in marriage. The danger to Germany from the Hussites induced Frederick to ally himself with the German and Bohemian king Sigismund; and he took a leading part in the war against them, during the earlier years of which he met with considerable success. In the prosecution of this enterprise Frederick spent large sums of money, for which he received various places in Bohemia and elsewhere in pledge from Sigismund, who further rewarded him in January 1423 with the vacant electoral duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg; and Frederick's formal investiture followed at Ofen on the 1st of August 1425. Thus spurred to renewed efforts against the Hussites, the elector was endeavouring to rouse the German princes to aid him in prosecuting this war when the Saxon army was almost annihilated at Aussig on the 16th of August 1426. Returning to Saxony, Frederick died at Altenburg on the 4th of January 1428, and was buried in the cathedral at Meissen. In 1402 he married Catherine of Brunswick, by whom he left four sons and two daughters. In 1409, in conjunction with his brother William, he founded the university of Leipzig, for the benefit of German students who had just left the university of Prague. Frederick's importance as an historical figure arises from his having obtained the electorate of Saxe-Wittenberg for the house of Wettin, and transformed the margraviate of Meissen into the territory which afterwards became the kingdom of Saxony. In addition to the king of Saxony, the sovereigns of England and of the Belgians are his direct descendants. Entry: FREDERICK
FREDERICK AUGUSTUS II. (1797-1854), king of Saxony, eldest son of Prince Maximilian and of Caroline Maria Theresa of Parma, was born on the 18th of May 1797. The unsettled times in which his youth was passed necessitated his frequent change of residence, but care was nevertheless taken that his education should not be interrupted, and he also acquired, through his journeys in foreign states (Switzerland 1818, Montenegro 1838, England and Scotland 1844) and his intercourse with men of eminence, a special taste for art and for natural science. He was himself a good landscape-painter and had a fine collection of engravings on copper. He was twice married--in 1819 (October 7) to the duchess Caroline, fourth daughter of the emperor Francis I. of Austria (d. May 22, 1832), and in 1833 (April 4) to Maria, daughter of Maximilian I. of Bavaria. There were no children of either marriage. During the government of his uncles (Frederick Augustus I. and Anthony) he took no part in the administration of the country, though he was the sole heir to the crown. In 1830 a rising in Dresden led to his being named joint regent of the kingdom along with King Anthony on the 13th of September; and in this position his popularity and his wise and liberal reforms (for instance, in arranging public audiences) speedily quelled all discontent. On the 6th of June 1836 he succeeded his uncle. Though he administered the affairs of his kingdom with enlightened liberality Saxony did not escape the political storms which broke upon Germany in 1848. He elected Liberal ministers, and he was at first in favour of the programme of German unity put forward at Frankfort, but he refused to acknowledge the democratic constitution of the German parliament. This attitude led to the insurrection at Dresden in May 1849, which was suppressed by the help of Prussian troops. From that time onward his reign was tranquil and prosperous. Later Count Beust, leader of the Austrian and feudal party in Saxony, became his principal minister and guided his policy on most occasions. His death occurred accidentally through the upsetting of his carriage near Brennbühel, between Imst and Wenns in Tirol (August 9, 1854). Frederick Augustus devoted his leisure hours chiefly to the study of botany. He made botanical excursions into different countries, and _Flora Marienbadensis, oder Pflanzen und Gebirgsarten, gesammelt und beschrieben_, written by him, was published at Prague by Kedler, 1837. Entry: FREDERICK
Philip Augustus, who was to be the bitterest enemy of Henry II. and the Angevins, was barely twenty before he revealed the full measure of his cold energy and unscrupulous ambition. In five years (1180-1186) he rid himself of the overshadowing power of Philip of Alsace, count of Flanders, and his own uncles, the counts of Champagne; while the treaty of May 20th, 1186, was his first rough lesson to the feudal leagues, which he had reduced to powerlessness, and to the subjugated duke of Burgundy and count of Flanders. Northern and eastern France recognized the suzerainty of the Capet, and Philip Augustus was now bold enough to attack Henry II., the master of the west, whose friendly neutrality (assured by the treaty of Gisors) had made possible the successive defeats of the great French barons. Like his father, Philip understood how to make capital out of the quarrels of the aged and ailing Henry II. with his sons, especially with Richard, who claimed his French heritage in his father's lifetime, and raised up enemies for the disunited Angevins even in Germany. After two years of constant defeat, Henry's capitulation at Azai proved once more that fortune is never with the old. The English king had to submit himself to "the advice and desire of the king of France," doing him homage for all continental fiefs (1187-1189). Entry: FRANCE
ELKINGTON, GEORGE RICHARDS (1801-1865), founder of the electroplating industry in England, was born in Birmingham on the 17th of October 1801, the son of a spectacle manufacturer. Apprenticed to his uncles, silver platers in Birmingham, he became, on their death, sole proprietor of the business, but subsequently took his cousin, Henry Elkington, into partnership. The science of electrometallurgy was then in its infancy, but the Elkingtons were quick to recognize its possibilities. They had already taken out certain patents for the application of electricity to metals when, in 1840, John Wright, a Birmingham surgeon, discovered the valuable properties of a solution of cyanide of silver in cyanide of potassium for electroplating purposes. The Elkingtons purchased and patented Wright's process, subsequently acquiring the rights of other processes and improvements. Large new works for electroplating and electrogilding were opened in Birmingham in 1841, and in the following year Josiah Mason became a partner in the firm. George Richards Elkington died on the 22nd of September 1865, and Henry Elkington on the 26th of October 1852. Entry: ELKINGTON
COCKBURN, SIR ALEXANDER JAMES EDMUND, 10th Bart. (1802-1880), lord chief justice of England, was born on the 24th of December 1802, of ancient Scottish stock. He was the son of Alexander, fourth son of Sir James Cockburn, 6th baronet, his three uncles, who had successively held the title, dying without heirs. His father was British envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to the state of Columbia, and married Yolande, daughter of the vicomte de Vignier. Young Alexander was at one time intended for the diplomatic service, and frequently during the legal career which he ultimately adopted he was able to make considerable use of the knowledge of foreign languages, especially French, with which birth and early education had equipped him. He was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, of which he was elected a fellow, and afterwards an honorary fellow. He entered at the Middle Temple in 1825, and was called to the bar in 1829. He joined the western circuit, and for some time such practice as he was able to obtain lay at the Devon sessions, quarter sessions at that time affording an opening and a school of advocacy to young counsel not to be found anywhere fifty years later. In London he had so little to do that only the persuasion of friends induced him to keep his London chambers open. Three years after his call to the bar, however, the Reform Bill was passed, and the petitions which followed the ensuing general election gave rise to a large number of new questions for the decision of election committees, and afforded an opening of which he promptly availed himself. The decisions of the committees had not been reported since 1821, and with M. C. Rowe, another member of the western circuit, Cockburn undertook a new series of reports. They only published one volume, but the work was well done, and in 1833 Cockburn had his first parliamentary brief. Entry: COCKBURN