The Sun.
London, England, 1849-02-15 00:00:00

THURSDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 15, 1849.

LAMARTINE'S NEW WORK.

which, as the sap rose and throbbed, fell at the foot of
the tree, to make room for the new and tender foliage."
Other incidental " touches" of the pen will remind
the reader of the " History cf the Girondins," of
the jewels of thought which are there set in the silver
broidery of language. It is thus when Lamartine
calls Macchiavel (p. 204) " the sublime practitioner
of the diseases of empires ;" when he terms Plato
(ibid.) " the word of antiquity made man ;" when
he designates Thucydides (p. 205) " the Demosthenes
of history ;" and says of,,Tacitus ( ibid.) that he was
" a compendium of mankind." Of the latter immor-
tal author he declares (p. 206)—" I owe to his writ-
ings more than the fibres of the flesh, I owe all the
metallic fibres of my being." Alluding to the great
Lord Chatham, he asserts in a congenial mood of
homage (ibid.) that "his inspired and lyrical elo-
quence seems more like a cry than like a voice."
And Cicero he typifies (p. 2C4) as " a stratum of
divine philosophy and serenity, through which all
waters seem to be filtrated and clarified, and through
which his great mind flows in torrents of eloquence,
wisdom, piety, and harmony." In one magnificent
paragraph he lays the colossus of Infidelity in the
dust, where he speaks of a disciple of Voltaire's
bold but barren philosophy thus (p. 225)—" Nothing
existed for him that was not palpable ; what could
not be calculated contained no element of certitude in
his eyes; matter and figures composed his universe ;
numbers were 11i3 god ; the phenomena. of
nature where his revelations; Nature herself
his bible and his gospel ; his virtue was
instinct—not seeing that numbers, phenomena, na-
ture, and virtue, are but hieroglyphs inscribed on the
veil of the temple, whore unanimous meaning is—
Deity." In this noble sentence the poet of Christen-
dom has repeated with greater emphasis that adoring
reverie which he had already recounted in his har-
monious and meditative verses :
" La Nature a deux chants, de bonheur, de tristesse,
Qu'elle rend tour tour ainsi que notre ccenr;
De l'une l'autre note elle passe sans cease :
Homme ! l'une est to joie, et l'autre ta, douleur!
L'une sort du matin et chante avec l'aurore,
L'autre gemit le soir un triste et long adieu;
Au premier, au second, le ciel i Ciond: Adore !
Et de l'hymne eternel le met unique est Dieu!"
Upon lowlier themes the writer discourses in equally
oratoric and epigrammatic tones; as, for example, where
he observes of Madame de IVarens and her renowned
worshipper (p. 150), "The amours of this woman
and Rousseau appear like a leaf torn from the loves of
Daphnis and Chloe, and found soiled and defiled on
the bed of a courtezan." It is not, however, for
these brilliant sayings alone that " Raphael" is re-
markable ; it is especially remarkable and inestimably
precious as the revelations of the first love of the
obscure youth of a great poet, given to the world by
the ripened manhood of a great statesman. It is as
the voice of a buried affection sounding over the dis-
tance of more than thirty years, and rising in plain-
tive accents above the turmoils of a recent revolu-
tion. As such this volume must ever be regarded as a
phenomenon of constancy, of genius, and of abstraction.
It is the transfiguration of Elvira by the glory of
Lamartine.

RAPHAEL ; or Pages of the Book of Life at
Twenty. By Alphonse de Lamartine.

Lamartine's "Raphael" will henceforth be num-
bered amongst those little volumes which are our
most precious favourites : it will be treasured up on
the same shelf with Goethe's " Werther," with
Chateaubriand's " Atala," with St. Pierre's " Paul
and Virginia," with Beckford's " Vathek," with
Dickens's " Christmas Carol," with Defoe's "Robin-
son Crusoe," with Cottin's " Elizabeth," with Gold-
smith's " Vicar of Wakefield," with Johnson's " Ras-
selas," with Voltaire's " Zadig," with Rousseau's
e Novelle Heloise." It is—to borrow its own exqui-
site phraseology (p. 182)—" a hymn of the martyr-
dom of love." Although the narrative is penned
under the fictitious name of another character, it is
impossible not to see at once that its eloquence is not
more the emanation from the intellect of the poet of
" Jocelyn," and of the historian of the " Girondins,"
than its passion, its sentiment, its sadness, its en-
thusiasm, and its unblaspherning idolatry of the
dead are the revelations of that first love which
crossed the path of his youth like a voluptuous
shadow, and evoked his genius from the abysses of
an eternal melancholy. The whole story has about
it the impress of actuality, and the A ivid
colouring of recollection. It constitutes the final and
complete record of that affection which has been
hinted at by Timon, that affection which possessed the
heart of the young De Prat when he was wandering
among the landscapes of Italy, and which he conse-
crated to immortality with the first intonations of his
lyre. The Julie of Raphael is identical with the
Elvira of Lamartine; and those names will for ever
be linked together like the names of Beatrice and
Dante, of Laura and Petrarch, of Mary and Burns, of
Sacharissa and Wailer, of Eleanore and Tasso, of
Madame de Warens and Rousseau, of Heloise and
Abelard. They will be mingled together in the re-
membrance of the world as inextricably as light with
the diamond, or as perfume with those blossoms which
are (p. 102) " as the letters of the fragrant alphabet of
nature," of that Nature which is (p. 57) "the high
priest, the noblest decorator, the holiest poet, and
most inspired musician of God !" And the love of
Genius and Beauty, of Julie and Raphael, or, as we
would call them more truthfully, of Elvira and
Lamartine, will for ever float like a beam of glory
over the rocks of Chatillon, 'and the ruins of
Haute Combe, and the avenues of Aix, and the
lake of Savoy—like the fame of Theocritus
over Sicily, of Heloise over Paraclet, of Rousseau
over Chambery, of Petrarch over Vaucluse, of Rene
over Brittany, and of Tasso over Sorrento. Even if
the golden sentences which are comprised in this
volume did not ring like the coinage of reality, rather
than like that of imagination, there are incidental
passages which disclose the features of the author
under the disguise of his creation. As when, speak.
ing in the person of Raphttl, he says (p. 123), " the
music of Julie's heart was in mine, but I could never
give it forth to the world ; and the verses she was one
day to inspire were destined to sound only on her
grave. She never knew before she died who she had
loved. In her eyes I was her brother, and it would
have matter' d little to her that I had been a poet to the
rest of the world." There is in this the inarticulate
murmur of a regret that the poet has perhaps never
yet acknowledged to himself—a regret that Elvira had
not lived to witness the renown of that unknown
stripling who was after her demise to be beloved as a
bard, obeyed as an orator, admired as an historian,
and respected as a statesman. "She never knew before
she died who she had loved!" With the same secret re-
pining he exclaims elsewhere in the voice of Raphael
(p. 200), " then I had vague dreams of shining exploits,
of a stirring destiny, which Julie would watch from afar,
and rejoice to see me struggling with men, rising in
strength, in greatness and in power; I thought she
might one day glory secretly in having appreciated inn
before the crowd, and in having loved me before pos-
terity." Again, under the same pseudonym he writes
of his self-education thus (p. 206)--" 1 was also a
passionate admirer of orators. 1 studied them with
the presentiment of a man who would one day have to
speak to the deaf multitude and who would strike the
chords of human azulitoriew." In the obscure and pre-
maturely closed existence of Raphael there is nothing
whatever to justify such reflections ; and the whole
portraiture possesses anomalies and incongruities
only to be reconciled by regarding Raphael as a
picturesque masquerade assumed for the moment by
Lamartine. The book is, therefore, we are satisfied,
only an extension of those earlier verses addressed by
the poet to the manes of his adored Elvira, those
verses which he himself has designated :(p. 126)
" the feeble strophes of the perpetual hymn of his
heart." In reverting thus to the recollections
of his youthful tenderness and calamity he
has found reason to cry out in a paroxysm
of anguish (p. 221). —" 0 ! Memory, art
thou a gift from Heaven ! or pain of Hell !" A bitter
thought which has frequently recurred to us all ; and
returned without an answer. A thought, the bitter-
ness of which is only enhanced to those who remember
with earnest devotion, for to them (p. 145) " there is
neither to-day nor yesterday in the powerful echoes
of memory; there is only always."—" Raphael" is a
prolonged hymn of adoration to the shade of the de-
parted Elvira : it is a burning ode of Love the sen-
tences of which are lambent like flames of fire. In
producing this song of passion Lamartine has strung
his lyre with his heart-strings. He has opened to
our gaze not only the gorgeous coffers of his intellect,
but the innermost recesses of his susceptibility. He
has torn some leaves, bedewed with his tears, from
the Book of his Life : and the price of that offering is,
to us, the more wholly inestimable from the remem-
brance of those touching lines in his " Harmonies :"
" 1.4 e livre de la vie est le livre suptime
Qu'on ne peut ni termer ni rouvrir I son choix ;
Le passage attachant ne s'y lit pas deux fois,
Alois Ic feuillet fatal se tourne de lui-mime:
On voudrait revenir i is page ou l'on aime,
Et le page ou l'on meurt est (.4ja sous nos doigts!"
We know no volume which is more purely a Love
Story than " Raphael." Its vitality is the Master
Passion. It breathes throughout a strain of tender-
ness indescribably bewitching; and over the whole is
diffused a sadness that elevates the incidents into an
atmosphere of celestial pathos. The plot—if the book
may be said to contain any such mechanism as is im-
plied in the word—has the characteristic of perfect
simplicity and infinite naturalness. Several passages
are conceived in a tone so rapturous and impassioned
as to tremble upon the verge of the voluptuous; and
yet these casual episodes of ecstacy do not mar in
the faintest degree the chaste and serene dignity of
the fiction. Conspicuous among all those outbursts
of enthusiasm are the descriptions of the declaration
of Julie's love for Raphael—of the interview between
them, when at midnight Julie half opens the door of
her chamber—and of the time when the lovers are
about to destroy themselves by a double suicide in a
trance of sublime happiness. Sometimes they gaze
into each other's eyes until their affection becomes,
as it were (p. 59), "an immutable thought in the
eternity of an instant." Sometimes, from their
yearning for an everlasting union in heaven, they are
fain to regard Death without emotions of terror, and to
look upon it as little else than (p. 28) 4 a voluptuous
vanishing into space." Raphael has loved before he
meets with Julie, but his boyish passion for Antonina
has been only (p. 39) " a childish ecstacy, a flower
fallen from the stem before its hour of perfume."
After a career of vagrant extravagance and licenti-
ousness the love of Julie descends upon him like a
purification ; he learns the twofold efficacy of prayer
and adoration (p. 118), " the one full of rapture, the
other of tears—both divine!" He beholds in her
etherial features the perfection of earthly beauty, and
can exclaim when depicting her loveliness (p. 54)
" The human face speaks a language to the eye, and
in youth the countenance is an instrument of which
one look of passion sweeps the keys." He shudders
lest (p. 105) their " looks and hearts should evapo-
rate amid the splendour of external nature." And in
the fervour of his almost preternatural and seraphic
joy he ejaculates (p. 107), " 0 Love 1 the base may
fear thee, and the wicked proscribe thee ! Thou art
the high priest of this world, the revealer of Im-
mortality, the fire of the Altar ! and without
thy ray, man would not even dimly compre-
hend Eternity !" Enlarging upon the charms
of his companion-heart, he cries out in a sudden inspi-
ration of eloquence (p. 122), " She was Poetry with-
out a lyre—true as the heart, simple as the untutored
thought, dreamy as night, brilliant as day, swift as
lightning, boundless as space ! No rules of harmony
could have bounded the infinite music of her mind ;
her very voice was a perpetual melody, that no cadence
of verse could have equalled. Had I lived long with
her I should never have read or written poetry. She
was the living poetry of nature and of myself; my
thoughts wore in her heart, my imagery in her eyes,
and my harmony in her voice." Of the purifying
influence of the mutual devotion of Julie and Raphael
Lamartine says, in the person of the latter (p. 233),
" The innocent nudity of our souls was chaste, though
unveiled, as light that discovers all, yet sullies no-
thing," They realise that epitome of human exist-
ence which Bulwer Lytton has expressed in a line so
felicitously epigrammatic— " They love, they suffer,
and they feel a God." Their love, their sufferings,
and their common recognition of the Unseen
Divinity, we leave to the hallowed recol-
lections of the poet. Their subtlety pro-
tects them effectually from the profanation of
criticism. As a littrary composition, " Raphael"
will rank high even among the noble productions of
its illustrious writer. It is, in the most literal accep-
tation of the word, a poem in prose; and that none
but a true poet could have penned such delineations
of nature as are scattered in profusion through the
narrative may be renclercd :411,arent by the quotation
iof one isolated, but daintily beautiful. sentence (p.
257) :—" There was no other sound than that of the
fall of some dry loves of the receding winter,

THE COMMERCIAL CRISIS, 1847 48. By

D. Morier Evans.

Mr. Evans has indeed presented us with a clear,
succinct, and faithful narrative of the strange events
that occurred during a period of great prosperity and
extraordinary depression, of commercial activity, and
complete paralysis, of bold and daring speculation,
and of wild panic, and a total prostration of credit.
These events have already formed the subjects of in-
vestigation by Committees of both Houses of Parlia-
ment, and experienced and trustworthy witnesses
have traced the causes that led to the monetary ex-
citement of 1847 and 1848, to the overthrow of many,
mercantile houses previously of the highest cha-
racter and credit, and to much suffering and distress
of the industrious classes. Mr. Evans relates the
circumstances plainly and distinctly. He furnishes
" a plain nnvarnished tale." His great object is to
be accurate in every particular, however minute ;
" studiously avoiding attempts at dissertation, and
strictly eschewing theories, he has endeavoured to
confine himself to a description of Facts and
Figures,' which while they may prove serviceable to
most parties connected with mercantile pursuits,
can be looked upon as offensive by few."
Such were the views by w hich the au-
thor was actuated, and he has fully carried them
into effect. He has not exaggerated or distorted the
real circumstances of the case, for the purpose of pro-
moting any cause, or furnishing arguments to support
any particular question. Ile gives the real state of
facts : the reader may draw his own conclusions.
Mr. Evans, however, is not a mere unimpassioned
recorder of events ; he has examined them in a keen
and philosophical spirit,' and contrasted thorn with the
parallel transactions of former periods of excitement.
Ilis arrangement is admirable, bringing forward the
various occurrences • in regular and harmonious
order, so as to exhibit their connexion with each
other, and to show how the latter naturally resulted
from the preceding events. The work is divided
into three epochs, "The Railway Mania and its
Effects," "The Food and Money Panic," and "The
French Revolution." The railway mania has, indeed,
existed during the entire period, although its form
has been materially changed from an implicit con•
fidence, that would seize on the most absurd and
ridiculous scheme, to an unreasoning timidity, that
induced shareholders to sacrifice their property
for half its real value. In the first in-
stance, an unfounded rumour, a vague surmise
sufficed to further enhance the prices of scrip in
every project, while, subsequently, a whispered in-
sinuation—" the shrug, or hum or ha, those petty
brands that calumny doth use"—would induce trem-
bling shareholders to cast stock of the best established
dividend-paying lines into the market, to be sold—
we should rather say sacrificed—for whatever it
might bring. The narrative commences at November,
1844, when " the bullion in the Bank was 14,300,0001.,
the notes in circulation 21,000,000/., the rate of inte-
rest in Threadneedle-street 2- per cent., Consols
above par, and Exchequer-bills (at I id. per diem)
60 premium." It was a period well suited for wild
and rash speculation. Money was cheap and abun-
dant, and profitable channels for its employment
were eagerly sought for. An extraordinary activity
was apparent in the share market, and new projects
were every day brought before a confiding public. In
the beginning of 1845 the Bank of England intro-
duced a change of practice with respect to its dis-
counts. It had previously charged one uniform rate
on paper of every description. Any that would be
accepted was cashed at the same price. Then, how-
ever, a minimum rate was announced, which might
be varied according to the character presented. The
stock of bullion was steadily increasing and " rail-
way securities" were looking up; in fact, it was the
fashionable investment of the day ; and legitimate
and speculative operations were carried on to an ex-
tent that could scarcely be credited. Mr. Evans thus
describes the progress of the excitement :
" Between the months of May and June the increase
of speculation was fearful. The papers teemed with ad-
vertisements, unrestricted to the limits of ordinary
announcements—columns scarcely sufficed to give the
world a knowledge of each scheme ; lists of Provisional
Committeemen, which in the beginning of the year had
seldom exceeded a dozen or twenty names, now extended
their length to twenty times that number. Earls and
Marquises struggled with London capitalists and rustic
landowners, to add attractiveness by the sanction of their
names. The needy barrister professed affection for a
seat at the councils of the boards, which seemed likely
to bring more profit than law, and was as importunate
as most persons to be ensured that position. Number-
less M.P.'s, with a few aldermen, made a traffic
on their presumed responsibility ; the plurality church-
man and the ill-provisioned curate also were not behind
in the general scramble, and the lifesome sketch of the
country being engaged in one universal game of hazard,
was without exaggeration realised. Never before were
such times or such prospects.' The fortunes made in
some few cases maddened their gainers. Their success
soon spread, rich and poor were a]ike susceptible, and
the great chance' was not neglected. It was a golden
moment for the Alley man—the jackal of the Stock
Exchange—his perceptive faculties were sharpened, and
he pushed his vocation assiduously."
The truth of the above sketch will be recognised
by every person at all conversant with the events of
the year '4s—of railway notoriety. We would
gladly follow Mr. Evans through his able narrative,
accompanying him throughout the " rise and pro-
gress of the delusion, and ultimately to the decline
and fall of the speculators, if space permitted. We
would also notice his graphic descriptions of the
" strange eventful history" of " the food and money
panic," until there was a total cessation of confidence,
and credit would scarcely be afforded to houses of the
most unquestionable solvency, and until the virtual
suspension of the Bank Charter Act by the well-
known letter of the 25th October, 1847. We
would with him examine the results of
the expulsion of the House of Orleans
and the subsequent democratic movement on the
Continent, but we must refrain. We trust that our
readers will not be contented with the brief sketch
which we have given of this able compilation, but
that they will judge for themselves of its claims. We
can assure them that they will not be disappointed,
but that they will derive much benefit from the
perusal. It-will be found a work of real practical
utility to all classes, more especially to those engaged
in mercantile pursuits. The tables showing the
prices of Government and other se g
and the prices of the leading articles enurlati d r
ne
successive month, the Bank of
produce from
s ine
teuvrensy, r
1845 to 1848, will be peculiarly u°eful, ceoffu
,while those
of the suspended firms, wr
osarrces.
W
who desire to see authentic c.olipifiesnodftthhee bs
ta
al at
enmc ee-ns
thse e
ot sf
e have
the leading houses selecttehdefr
wonlorlteruwstiwll
be
rthyreNsouded
with the success it so eminently merits.

TAUNTON. -- 'WS town is competing for the
honour of the.meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society,
in 1850,

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS,

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.

TIMES.—Our notice of the important subject of
East Indian Railways has been confined of late to the
occasional communications contained in our City cone-
, spondence, or to such brief notices as that which
appeared in our Parliamentary intelligence yesterday.
To say the truth, we were anxiously waiting till the
common and obvious interests of all parties concerned
should have suggested some final and promising ar-
rangement, for there never yet was a question started on
the leading points of which such perfect unanimity was
known to prevail. All considerations of duty, interest,
economy, and security concur in recommending the im-
mediate introduction of railways into India; all calcula-
tions show that the enterprise would be attended with
profit to the proprietors, and inestimable advantages to
the Government, and these circumstances have produced
their natural results in the formation of a company will-
ing to undertake the project upon the ordinary Sc rms
of remuneration. W e need rot recapitulate the now-
familiar arguments by which the necessary propositions
are proved. Up to this stage of the transaction
there is not, nor ineeed can there be, any differ once
of opinion. The whole case now turns upon the con-
ditions requisite to secure each party in its fair pro.
portion of the expected gains. Our readers are aware
that the shareholders of the company, whilst pro.
fussing their full belief in the essentially remunerative
character of the undertaking, have yet demanded of the
Court of Directors a guarantee of a fixed and certain re-
turn upon the money embarked, and the question which
is here instinctively suggested refers to the inconsistency
of sentiment thus apparently evinced. If the scheme is
profitable, why rr quire a guarantee ? Why sheuld the
Court of Directors be compelled to give security for a
certain return which the applicants themselves Expect to
be forthcoming from some other quarter ? Either the
undertaking will, according to the ordinary calculations
of probability, yield a profit or it will not; if it w ill, the
guarantee is superfluous, if not it may be ruinous. To
exact such security is nothing less than to apportion
all the profits of the scheme to one party, and all the
loss to another ; to leave one all the risk,
and another all the gain. Such is the view
of the matter which might, perhaps, at the first
glance be entertained. The case, however, between
the parties, has been very fairly stated, and
when impartially examined will be found to
assume a totally different aspect. It is not on account
of the distance of the locality, or the experimental cha-
racter of the project, or the insecure tenure of the pro-
perty, or any such extraordinary contingencies, that the
shareholders demand what is doubtless an extraordinary
concession. They base their requisitions on the far
more intelligible grounds of clear and palpable recipro-
city. They ask unusual indulgence in consideration of
unusual conditions imposed. If the Court of Directors
will grant the land between Calcutta and Delhi on such
terms as accompanied the purchase of the land between
London and Bristol, the East Indian Railway Company
would be as well content as the Great Western was to
commence their works without a guarantee. But the
case is widely different. When the Great Western
Company had obtained their Bill they became an inde
pendent association, free to construct their line after their
own fancies, to open it at their own pleasure, and to work
it, in all respects, at their own discretion. After the
experience of the last few years we need not say that the
interests of a railway company are tolerably certain to
be now and then opposed to the interests of other parties.
In such cases English railways consult their own con•
venience, real or presumed. They increase or diminish
the number and speed of their trains, augment or re duce
their staff of servants, raise or lower their fares, encourage
branch lines or check them, and actvirtually without any
other rule then that suggested by their own interests as
conceived by themselves. They take the management
and the risk of the speculation, and are content to abide
the chance of the result. But see how these circum-
stances are altered in the case before us. For reasons of
state policy, sound beyond all doubt in themselves, the
Court of Directors desire to control the company largely,
if not absolutely, on every ono of these points. They
claim a voice in the selection of the line, or of that
portion of it which shall be first commenced;
they dictate conditions of construction; interfere with
the rates of fares and tolls; and reserve a general
right of supervision and direction in the whole con-
duct of the traffic. That such powers are wisely
reserved, under the peculiar conditions of our Indian
empire, may be true enough; but the privileges should
be paid for, and the mode suggested by the shareholders
for balancing the account seems peculiarly adapted to the
nature of the case. They say that the requirements of
the Court altogether preclude the possibility of forming
such an estimate of the project as would suffice in ordi-
nary instances to attract the necessary capital. As the
company is not to select its own line, or to have the ab-
solute direction of its own works, it is impossible to cal-
culate the outlay; as it is not to enjoy the regula-
tion of its own traffic, or the arrangement of its own
fares, it is impossible to calculate the returns; and
in the absence of these two indispensable data it
necessarily follows that all speculations upon the
investment must be unfounded and conjectural.
They require therefore that a minimum dividend shall
be guaranteed them by those controlling authorities
through whose interference alone such a supplementary
payment can ever be necessary. Left to the ordinary
management of private enterprises, the line would pay;
if this management is to be influenced for the advantage
of other parties, and a deficiency results, it is fitting that
those who enjoy the benefit should bear the loss. The
most direct method of proceeding would be for the In •
dian Government to take the work into its own hands,
for which purpose the money could only be raised by a
five per cent. loan. To this scheme, however, there
are the obvious objections inseparable from all
public works, and which are so well illus-
trated in our national dockyards. The cost of the
undertaking would infallibly be far greater, and the
execution far worse. It is, therefore, clearly advisable to
enlist the activity and resources of private enterprise in
the prosecution of the task, and nothing can be plainer
than that if the Indian Government can secure all the
benefits of this plan together with all the advantages of
the other, at an outlay no greater than this latter would
of itself demand, it must needs be concluding a profitable
bargain. These ate the terms on which the shareholders
have tendered their agency. In return for a guarantee
not exceeding the interest payable upon the loan which
would be required by the Government, they
undertake to execute the task with all that
economy, judgment, and expedition which render
private speculations so conspicuously superior to
public works, and yet at the same time to leave the
Government in possession of all those powers of control
and interference which could only have been so dearly
purchased by a system of direct contracts and manage-
ment. With such terms the Court of Directors is, un-
happily, discontented. It is apparently desirous of se-
curing all the profit at none of the cost. It demands all
the control, and yet repudiates the risk which the cir-
cumstance of that control so necessarily enhances. In
the meantime, however, and while this unbecoming dis-
pute is pending, tho highest interests of the empire are
suffered to languish, and an undertaking fraught with
incalculable benefits to India and to Britain is deferred
in the hopes that protracted haggling may drive an un-
fortunate company to premature dissolution or an unre-
munerative bargain.