The Press. — London, England, 1854-12-30 00:00:00

DECEMBER 30, 1854. According to his kind, this Ape possess'd • The faculty of imitation strongly (A faculty that's dangerous at the best, For apes are apt, like men, to use it wrongly), And being bound apprentice—by &chitin — 'Onto a juggler, had contrived to gain • A smattering of a triek or two, whidh Made • The crestam us inordinately vain • . As if he were an adept in the trade, And competent, iu wise of,need--if age Of sickness laid his master on the shelf— To take his place at once ripen the stage, And carry on the business by himself. So one day, when the Juggler chanced to be From home, he dieted the opportunity To get up a performanue of his own ; And, summoning his friends by best of dram, Invited all the neighbouring beasts to come, And see how gloat a conjurer he bau grown. They eat he--and first the mimic Ape essay'd The pert of harlequin, In which he play'd - Such strikitig &lake with his elastic wand, Such sudden transformations, that he made The shaggy hair of the Spectators stand On end iu wonder, and their eyes expand. . A figurante next, with nodding plume, Upon a rope that stneteh'd acme* the room, He danced, unto the music of it pair Of castanets, along its slenderlerigth, Then h eadl ong cast, himself with all his strength, And swung suspended by his tail in air— A sight at which his friends were so much awed, They hardly had the tonnage to applaud. In short, as juggler, mountebank, or mime, • II is style of acting was pronounced sublime; And even when he made, by sleight of hand, The cards to come and vanish at command, You would have sworn, if you had seen the trick, That be had dealt directly with Old Nick. Anength the Ape, ambitious to nomplcte His triumph, undertook the crowning feat — His master's masterpiece—which so surpass'd The others, that the Juggler, es . e. treat, On all occasions kept it till the hat. A sheet was hung betiteen his friends and him, The lights ettinguish'd and the room made dim ; When, after a contlised preamble, which Awoke attention to the highest pith, He took a magic lantern from its case, And, drawing through the groove each pictured glass, With an exceeding gravity of face Announced the dilfbrent figures that should pass. " !hie comes a king," he cried, "and there a queen," But inotAglimpse of either could be seen ; " Now stately towers," " now shins upon the main," 13ut.etill * keenest optics stared in ra in. NO mystic ring' expanded in the glooni,' No spectral image glided through thel room ; But all was darkness—king, queen, towers, and ships, All hidden, like the sun in an eclipse. The crowd became impatient, and the Ape Hid well nigh got into a serious scrape; For, seeing not the sights of which lie spoke, • And thinking the deception past a joke, • His friends, unable to suppress their rage, At length began to hoot him from the stage. lint, iu the very thickest of the din, The Juggler unexpectedly came in, And, instantly detecting the omission That caused the failure of the exhibition, Rebuked his pupil 'with a smile, and cried : "No wonder that the,andience are benighted, And all thy boasted visions uudescried ! The lamp within the lantern is not lighted ; And thou, Podi prig, aft piciverty requited." • Thus, might I dipp into an author's ear A. piece &counsel, I would say " Be stire, WhMte'er you *rite, to keep your mending clear; • For dulness only ever is obscure..", Here the fable suggests a Much wider appli cation than the moral points. in all literary imitation the light in the interior of the lan tern 'wanting, arid the glib descriptive a,peeeh of the operator is made to do duty for the reality it pretends to show. Without, for the reason we have assigned, pretending to give any opin ion on the 'Merits of Mr. llockliff's version as compared With the original, we Way say that he has shbvid great elevenieris in hit; varied versification, and that t h e fables read with the spirit it4l4 ease of • parely Engli sh compositions. Bat in the ease of so eminent an author as Yriarte, and of a stork so *ell worth enduring popularity,, we should hare preferred ah assurance that the translation was as Close as the genius of the two languages would perrnit, to the hint afforded us by Mr. Rbekliff, 'that his version may he "censured as too paraphrastic," and that, in some instances, he may hate carried his freedom of interpretation to a faulty excess. dnti•Slavery Recollections. By Sir George Stephen. London : Hatehard. IN a series of simple and unassuming letters, addressed to Mrs. Stowe, designed for publica tion in America, Sir George Stephen has given TH .'R 7 F , P t NO •t . _ a complete sketch of the anti-slavery agitation in England. The letters, including a few notices of some of the leading abolitionists, profess only to give an explanation of the reli gious principle of the great controversy, but in doing so they present materials fur a complete history of Negro Emancipation. Sir George Ste phen, however, does not date his "Recollections" earlier than 1807, but the anti-slavery agitation had then beeagrowing and waxing in strepgth that Wilberforce for the first time iu the House of Commons proposed the abolition of the slave trade r and, after three years' struggle and labour to produce evidence before it clftn mittee of the house in support of his 6Wn assertions and in refutation of those of the slave-traders, he was defeated by an immense majority. By this defeat the abolition veheme received at blew front which it did not retiol'er for twenty yours. Every plan that was brought forward wee thrown out by large majorities ; the house not only rejecting the main proposal, \IA.; the total 'abolition 'of the trade, but also a iteefralary mofien,restricting the importation of eil 44V944, r;olpriies,, *el l as another motion,.proh l;4 ibitiag the employment of British capital in. slave braffitu Still the abolitionists Went on hoping against hope, and at every opportunity renewed their attack in spite of certain defeat, until their NitinficittivaS in mut rewarded in 1794 by , the C9lOlOllB passing a 'hill abolishing the ,Xiade,' which, however, the Lords threw out. Wilberforce, next session, brought up his bill and' was upon the point of passing it thrOugh The • Commons with a large majority, when, to his surprise and indignation, he found that, most of his supporters had that night gone out . to hear a new opera, and the bill was lost through this singular indifference of his party. In the sessions 'of 1797-8.9 the anti-slavery motions were upon all and every point defeated, and the abolitionists almost despaired of success. Fortunately, the war of 1802 broke out, and, taking advantage of the popular feeling in favour of liberty and in hatred of oppression, the abolitionists once more brought the bill before the house, and this time passed it through with a triumphant majority. Thrown out again by the Lords, again Wilberforce, in 1805, brought it before the Continens, which, however, with that reinarka.ble inconsistency sometimes characteristic of public bodies, rejected the bill vith an equally overwhelming majority, and revoked their opinion so lately ex pr essed in its favour. Soon after this the death of Pitt occurred ; Fox came in, and Lord Grenville proposed and carried in the Lords two anti-slavery mea sures, the one abolishing the trade with foreign countries, and the other forbidding the employment of British shipping in the trade; while at the same time the Commons declared that " the slave trade was contrary to " all principles of justice, humanity, and sound " policy, and that they would proceed to " abolish it with all practicable expedition." This was the first blow to the slave trade ,Lfor in 1807 the trade was abolished by act of Par liament, and it is at this period that Sir George Stephen's " Recollections " commence. The trade had been abolished, " but buying " was cheaper than breeding," and a vast smuggling trade in slaves sprung up and flourished as a natural consequence of Ineffi cient measures. The Society of the African Institution was at this period formed for the purpose of proinoting civilisation in Africa; but it was soon found of more advantage to the end in view to endeavour to suppress the illicit slave trade that was carried on between the West Indies and Africa than to attempt to ino -eve the Africans. Ships at that period were daily fitted out, under foreign flags, in the Thames and Mersey, for the express purpose of carrying slaves; but the difficulty of obtaining legal evidence of the facts offered the greatest obstacles to the seizure of the vessels, though ono at length was siezed at Gravesend and condemned, and the aboli tionists, taking advantage of the case to expose the facilities for smuggling which the act of 1807 offered, obtained in 1810 from the house " a strong expression of its indignation " at the open violation of the Abolition Act," and a resolution to prevent such practices fur the future. The result of this declaration was 1240 ibe passing of 13iiingEites bill in IM I, making the trade " felony," and such was the effect of this bill, Sir George Stephen tells us, " such was the terror it excite.i, that only one " proSeention had occurred under it, and that " thirty-three years afterwards." Still this 'Stringent bill allowed, if not a coach and four, yet a coach and pair, to be driven through it; for au inter-colonial trade from one island to another spraug up, which completely evaded the provisions of the felony bill, and success ft:illy answered the wants of the traders. To prevent this, the ever-active abolitionists pro posed and carried the Registration Act, the principle of which bill was the identification of every stave upon an estate .by responsible Le ?Alio 'bilkers, so that additions to the num re of slaves upon an estate through a contra nd trade was seriously checked, though nut entirely prevented. Little was done after this for' some years for the amelioration of the slave:— On the one hand, in the absence of strong evidence that the treatment of the elates was systematically cruel, the interference of Parliament in a matter so strictly within the province of site local legislature would have been dewed unwarrantable ; and on the other hand there was a reasonable and fair presumption that, when the foreign supply of labour was effeetually cut off by the Regis tration Act, the planters would find it their interest to take proper care of their slaves, so es to promote longevity and :secure a natural increase in the slave population. lin But in the meantime public feeling was Wrs,dually corning round in favour of the dhoti- Aionists, and, the work going on efficiently, the Freemasons'-hall meetings were better eittended, the proceedings were noticed in the papers, and good men attended and spoke at the hall. Ali this prepared the way for the rk pose'. of slave emancipation, which was first made by Sir Thomas (then Mr.) Buxton in May; Ift3, and rejected after a long de bate:— It cannot be doubted that Mr. Buxton's agitation of the question was still premature, and I have reason to believe that most of the leaders gave only a reluctant assent to it. The country was not prepared for such a decided course ; an unreformed Parliament was not to be coerced into it, even had popular opinion been ripe to goad them on. Many feared, and my father was among the number, that in the then state of the slave population, a partial ad mission to their undoubted rights might lead to an insur gent movement to compel a full concession of them. It is true that Mr. Ruiton only put his resolution forward as a feeler, but the pulse of Parliament might have been u nused without feeling it, and Canning's resolutions baulked the trial. Canning's resolutions were regarded by the abolitionists as fatal to their Call:40 ; " and " many a time since," says Sir George, " have " I heard Mr. Buxton anathematise them in " a tone which used to make me challenge his " Quaker descent." After these resolutions were adopted, little was done for the next few years ; the antislavery members of the house were always at their post, watching their opportunity, and never neglecting to bring before the public eases of flagrant abuse or infraction of the law. At length, in 1826, the fatuous Mauritius in quiry took place, and the disclosures which were then made of the frightful barbarity which ter eight years had gone on in spite of the law, undetected and unreproved, gave such an impetus to abolition principles as insured the success of thorough emancipation. Trage dies were proved to have occurred upon slave estates in the Mauritius almost beyond belief. Slaves were murdered piecemeal, reacted alive in ovens, dismembered, flogged, starved, blinded by red-hot needles being thrust into the eye and subjected to every cruelty and horror which barbarity is capable of inflicting. These lamentable disclosures proved to the public that the arguments of the slave-holders, that motives of self-interest would always prove suffieieutly strong in the mind of the master to induce hint to protect his slaves from cruel or excessive punishment, were wholly fallacious. It was proved then in the Mauritius, as it can be now in America, that as long as men have unrestrained powers, they wilt at times exercise their privilege, and commit tyranny and injustice from the mere sense of an un controlled will. This famous inquiry produced a great change in the public mind, and the abolitionists were not slow to take advantage of the rising change. Meeting after meeting was held, and at one great assembly in Exeter-ball the proposal was made and carried amidst shouts of applause that henceforth " every slave should bo free: - lIIMMEMmonm