The Press.
London, England, 1855-04-28 00:00:00

practice to exist for a single day, is really as much a matter
of reproach as it is of wonder; but so it was. And the
great Government of England most disgracefully pur-
chased the exemption of its merchant vessels from liability
to such atrocious treatment, by paying an annual subsidy
to these lawless Moorish robbers.

Yet how could the practice be put down, ex-
cept by an exercise of the force which, ac-
cording to Mr. Buckingham's principles, ought
never to be employed? The bombardment of
Algiers—an Exmouth •would be worth some-
thing now—is one of the most desperate
conflicts on record. How shall we reconcile
condemnation of that engagement with
unsparing censure of the Government which
submitted to the practice it for ever abolished?
Mr. Buckingham is often illogical in this way,
when facts or necessities come in conflict
with his prejudices. He was much troubled
in conscience after his slaughter of the pirates,
but found some comfort in the reflection that.,
even if willing to sacrifice his own life (about
the lawfulness of which he had reasonably
some doubt), he was at all events bound to do
his utmost to protect the lives of his crew,
and his wife and child, and to protect the pro-
perty of his employers.
His autobiography is best described in his
own words, as the " Story of His Life." It
might, from the specimen of these two volumes,
have been vastly compressed with advantage,
but for the incidents alone it will reward
perusal. The worst feature of the narrative so
far, is the vanity which leads Mr. Buckingham
to print scraps of verse which a schoolboy
might be ashamed of, and generally to obtrude
himself in propriti persona on the reader.
Egotism to be sure is natural to autobio-
graphy, and a thorough egotist may be a most
delightful companion ; but then the egotism
must be intellectual, as Byron's was, or so
thoroughly characteristic and unconscious (as
in the case of Pepys) as to present us with a
perfect portrait. The egotism of Mr. Buck-
ingham is the mere display of a vain man—
too rational to amuse, and too dull to excite,
the reader. The first verse of his song to the
tune of "The anchor's weighed" will be
enough for a specimen of his poetical
powers :
The ship's unmoored, fresh breezes fill
The sails, to waft me, love, away;
And hark ! the boatswain's whistle shrill,
Pipes to the bustling crew—" Belay !"

But oh ! wliile mirth their laughing temples crown,
As in the sparkling bowl their cares they drown,
l pensive sit, and sing in sighs to thee,—
The anchor's weighed!—Farewell! Remember me.
The " laughing-temples " and " sparkling
bowl " style of verse is not likely to gain much
favour in the present day, and it is a pity that
the author should have introduced these
songs into his narrative. The one he com-
posed in a fit of unconsciousness—(see i., p.
228)—is, perhaps naturally, the best of his
efforts in this way. But we turn to the more
pleasing task of giving some account of his
adventures.

- ----- ---
He was born in 1786 in a village near
Falmouth, and early contracted a love for
the sea. He lost his father while he was a
child, and seems, perhaps from the absence of
parental control, to have been a remarkably
precocious child. When he was eight years
old he fell desperately in love with a little
girl :
It happened that the young lady was taken ill, and when
the intelligence was communicated to me I was anxious to
be permitted to visit her; but this being forbidden by the
medical attendant, as likely to produce an excitement
which might aggravate the fever under which she suffered,
I became distracted, locked myself up in my bedroom,
overcome with the most profound grief, refused all suste-
nance, was deprived of all sleep, and in a few days was re-
duced to the brink of danger myself.
- - -

When her death was announced to him he
became comforted from the conviction that
" her spirit had passed into the regions of
" bliss as an angel of light." He attended the
funeral, and being subsequently missed,

was found in a state of torpor amounting almost to in-
sensibility, stretched along upon the grave of the departed,
and clinging to the earth of her new made grave, as if to
realise the scriptural expression, " they were lovely and
pleasant in their lives; and in their deaths they were not
divided."
This episode of his childhood is headed
" Early Victim of Love—Romantic Display of
the Passion;" and he relates that,
The earliest developed of all my tendencies were the
enterprising, the devotional, the sympathising, and the
amatory.